So far as these islands are concerned, considerable progress has been made during the past five years in regard to its adoption. Extended use has not been confined to the handling of metal in our steel-works, but for the reclamation of iron and steel cargoes which were lost as a result of the German submarine activity. Its employment in the salvage field was suggested as the result of the sinking of a barge carrying ingots of very special steel sunk at the entrance to a port on the East Coast. Although the wreck lay in relatively shallow water, it was speedily discovered that salvage by the orthodox methods would prove somewhat uncertain, owing to the awkward position of the sunken barge and the difficult tidal and other conditions. The possibility of retrieving the valuable steel by magnet was broached to Mr. F. N. Pickett, the inventor of the British lifting-magnet, to which I have referred. A certain doubt upon the point existed in official circles from the knowledge that the German appliance could not be employed in such duty, owing to the coil not being impervious to water, which of course nullifies the utilization of the electric current. But the British magnet, being built upon different lines, is watertight, and so the designer expressed complete confidence in his apparatus being suited to the task. The magnet was secured, and divers went down to blow open the side of the barge to permit the magnet to reach the cargo. The magnet was lowered and was found to work with as much ease and simplicity as under conventional conditions in the steel-works. It was plunged into the hold of the invisible craft, and subsequently the sea-bed on either side was swept therewith. So successfully and completely did it fulfil its unusual task that every ingot was retrieved, and that within a very short time. The sinking of the barge occasioned little damage beyond a slight delay in the delivery of the material, which was valued at £150--$750--per ton. True, the barge was lost, but that was an insignificant disaster, and but poor recompense for the expenditure by the enemy of a torpedo costing possibly £1,000--$5,000.