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Depression Spurs Lost Gold Treasure Hunts

by BENNETT LINCOLN

Treasure long lost under ocean waters is the golden loot which is luring half a dozen expeditions to recover it, spurred on by the urgent need for gold developing out of the present economic conditions. Charles Courtney, master locksmith who battled death to recover $60,000 from a sunken treasure ship, tells his story of high adventure in this fascinating article.

GOLD, down through the ages a symbol of wealth, has now become so doubly priceless that we in this country may not even legally possess it! Beyond a doubt that is one reason why so many expeditions are at work today recovering the gold of other ages—gold which went down weeks or years or centuries ago, and since that time has been resting uselessly in the mud-filled hulks of ancient galleons.
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Wine Keg Boat to Cross Channel
A SEA-GOING adventurer from Holland who last year crossed the English Channel on a water bicycle is attempting to add to his laurels by making the passage in a wine cask. The barrel-craft carries a tiny sail and is equipped with a miniature radio set.

Iron Whale Swims Ocean Bottom Like Fish

Denizens in the ocean depths may soon find prowling among their haunts a huge iron monster swimming with fishlike motions and bearing a close resemblance to themselves. This strange monster is to be built from plans devised by Herr Schiff, a German engineer, who has already constructed a workable model for his astounding brainchild, which is shown in accompanying photos. The curious undersea craft is equipped with two fins and a tail which operate in the same manner as do these elements of a live fish. Intended chiefly for the exploration of the ocean bottom, the ship is said to be capable of maneuvering with all the flexibility of its fleshy prototype. Two electric eyes placed in the head for observation purposes make the resemblance to a sea serpent more complete. The craft was designed and constructed after an extensive study of the swimming motions of many types of fish, particularly the larger sharks and whales.

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Learn to Dive Like an Expert

SIMPLE RULES, OUTLINED BY A CHAMPION, WILL HELP YOU TO BE A BETTER DIVER

By ALF PHILLIPS
FAMOUS OLYMPIC DIVER AND STAR IN BILLY ROSE’S AQUACADE

GLIDING along the springboard in easy strides, you bounce down onto the tip and feel the springy plank catapult you skyward. High over the water, your body under perfect control, you suddenly whirl in mid-air and knife down into the blue water below. Knowing you’ve made a perfect dive, you bob to the surface, your ears ringing to the applause of the crowd. That’s the thrill of diving.

But if your experience is limited to occasional bellyflops from the rim of a pool or swimming hole, you probably feel that springboard diving is a difficult sport to learn. Well, it is— and it isn’t. I’ve been at the game for sixteen years, and I know I still have plenty to learn. But picking up the fundamentals of basic dives such as the swan or the graceful back dive, is far from an impossible task even for a rank beginner. And once you’ve mastered the simpler dives, the more complicated ones are only a matter of determination and practice.
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Around the World on the New Airways of the Seas

By Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker

This noted flier predicts that business men will fly from New York to Canton, China, in a week, a trip that now takes a month. He foresees dirigibles flying around the world for weeks without stopping to land. Read this exclusive, revealing story.

IN MY opinion trans-Atlantic service via Bermuda and the Azores will be in existence within three years with heavier-than-air planes and without stop by dirigibles. Trans-Pacific service is also feasible today with Douglas airplanes.
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Is there a Sea Serpent?

RECENT startling events have revived the ocean’s greatest unsolved mystery—Is there a sea serpent? Startling apparitions have evoked an amazed reply of “Yes!”, which downright fakes have turned to a wisecracking “No!” But best scientific opinion refuses to deny flatly, that somewhere, in the deepest depths of the ocean, there may be such a thing, a species unknown to modern science.

This possibility appears amazingly real in the light of the sensational tales of the last nine months that have made the sea serpent come alive again, after years of quiescence. For almost all these tales are told not by one person, but by hundreds. All vow they have seen marine monsters like nothing known, and in several different places. Nearly two hundred canny Scots have seen something that undoubtedly inhabits Loch Ness, inland lake in northern Scotland. In the Pacific ocean, near Vancouver, three score testify to having seen a sea monster. High officers of the liner, “Mauretania,” wrote in the log book recently that they saw one in the Atlantic.
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Home-Built Boat Is Semi-Submersible
POWERED by a converted 1929 auto engine, a boat constructed by Wylie Harris, of Chicago, Ill., has a sheet-steel cabin and can be operated semi-submerged. The pipes at bow and stern serve as air ventilators. Water ballast is stored in ten two-gallon cans.

I find this rather hard to believe. It doesn’t seem practical, nor does it seem that 40 people would be neccessary to man 3 torpedo tubes.

Sunken Pillboxes Guarded Jap Coast
Japan’s anti-invasion line went out under water at Tokyo Bay. Pillboxes were built into the hulls of sunken ships and equipped with three torpedo tubes and a sound detector. Each pillbox held 40 to 50
men who were relieved every 10 days. Food was canned; oxygen, bottled.

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Self-Propelled Surfboard

SKIMBOATING—newest fad at Cypress Gardens, Florida—is rapidly outgrowing that novelty classification. It provides you with all the thrills of aquaplaning without making you lug a boat along. Also, you can break down this self-propelled surfboard into three small sections.

Developed by Emil Hansen of Bryn Mawr, Pa., the craft has a 7-1/2-hp outboard engine housed in a watertight aluminum hull. It’s 90 inches long, 24 inches wide and weighs 120 pounds. Top speed is about 30 mph and you steer it with a rudder aft and by shifting your body.
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A Diving Helmet from a Water Heater

THEY go down to the sea in old water heaters along the Atlantic coast these days, now that some young man with a leaning toward aquatic sports has proved how easy it is to make an excellent diving helmet from a metal water heater which will enable its wearer to walk comfortably on the sea floor 35 feet and more below the surface. A few feet of garden hose, two pairs of bellows, a couple of valve boxes and a cylindrical metal boiler of the type used in most homes for heating water, are the essentials for building one of these helmets.
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Have Fun in a Boat But DON’T DROWN

SWIMMIN’ time again, with a world of fun—and some serious hazards, too. As usual there’ll be tipped boats and other horseplay. G. E. Tatum, safety engineer for a public utility, offers common-sense advice on how to have fun and stay alive. In case your boat tips you overboard, Tatum says, rock it to slosh out as much water as possible, then crawl over the stern
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Seems like that would be a pretty slow rescue…

U.S. Navy Blimps Learn New Role for Sea Rescues
With the aid of new airship inventions, U. S. Navy blimps can now “anchor” ” 100 feet above the sea, and pick up ill sailors or victims of shipwreck. A circular disk called a “drogue,” dropped into the sea at the end of a cable, keeps the craft’s nose pointed steadily into the wind. Read the rest of this entry »