Vickers, the great armament firm, have their own patent system of raising wrecks by means of canvas containers. An American concern has a submarine machine, something like an army tank in appearance, for drilling holes in the hull of a sunken ship. These holes are drilled in line and large hooks are inserted, to which are attached strong, air-tight containers, one to each hook. The intention is to drill holes along each side of the hull of a wreck, attach the air bags, blow them up and lift the craft. Whether the plates composing the hull of a ship are strong enough to support the entire weight of a ship in this way, or whether they would collapse under the strain of raising the ship from the bottom remains to be seen. It must be borne in mind that the backbone of a ship is the keel, that the whole ship is built up from the keel, which is its strongest part, the foundation of the ship. The inventors of this new system propose to lift the dead weight of the ship from the seabed, but hitherto salvors who have accomplished these feats have always swept their cables under the keel of the vessel to avoid the risk of pulling her to pieces. Before the War there existed at least one special lifting craft, consisting of two steamers linked together by strong girders. These twin craft were brought into position so that the wreck lay between them, cables were fixed under the wreck, and the lifting craft picked up the sunken ship as the tide rose, steamed away with it until it grounded again, when the operation would be repeated next tide. The salvors have several ingenious ways of getting cables into position. Sometimes two tugs towing cables between them sweep them under the wreck. At other times the end is let down to a diver who digs or scrapes a hole under the keel and forces the cable through; another rope is then let down from above, the diver attaches it to the end of the cable, which is drawn to the surface and attached to the lifting craft. A quicker method of forcing a hole under the keel is to use a powerful pump which, directed by the diver, rapidly drives a way under the wreck for the lifting cable. It was while using a pump for this purpose on the wreck of the _Intrepid_ on the Belgian seaboard that a most amazing adventure befell a diver of the Salvage Section. The wreck was buried 20 feet in clay and mud, and the diver by skilful use of the pump dug his way down to the keel. He was standing at the bottom of this pit when it caved in on top of him. He was buried alive, held as in a vice under a dozen feet of mud and clay, the weight of which doubled him up.