Then it was necessary to find something ashore that would withstand the pull of the ship when the tug-of-war started, something that would be absolutely immovable while nearly 2000 tons was dragging on the ends of the hawsers. The salvage expert tackled this difficulty by getting four old boilers, sinking them into pits dug down to the rock, and filling them and the space about them with concrete, thus making them as solid as the rock on which they stood. These boilers were in this way turned into four bollards, each capable of resisting a pull of 200 tons. Then a propeller shaft, 12 inches in diameter, was cut into suitable lengths and from it eighteen more bollards were made and set hard in concrete, each bollard being capable of withstanding a pull of 100 tons. These were placed at various intervals on the shore opposite the wreck, and by the time they were ready the salvors began to juggle with some 10 miles of steel cable, from 6 inches up to 8½ inches in circumference, that had been specially made by Bullivant, whose cables have dragged many a ship back into her element while making a snug sum for the salvors. If there is any special work to be done, any heavy weight to be lifted, the salvage expert the world over knows he is safe with Bullivant’s cable, that it will not break at the psychological moment and let him down. Some of these cables made of twisted strands of steel wire are 12 inches round--as thick as a man’s leg at the calf--and they will support without breaking a weight of 320 tons: 320 tons could dangle from this cable in the air and a man could stand under it in perfect safety. The largest hempen ropes made for salvage work are up to 24 inches round, even 25 inches on occasion, so it can be imagined how difficult they are to handle. If 1 foot of a 25-inch rope were cut off, it would be more than most men could lift, for it would weigh 146 lb. A short length of 15 feet would weigh practically a ton. A rope of this size will withstand a pull of 125 tons, against the 320 tons of a 12-inch steel rope. It might be thought that a rope half the size would support half the weight, but a peculiarity about hempen ropes is that, while a rope of 4 inches will support 4 tons, if you treble the size of the rope to 12 inches you increase the breaking strain by more than sevenfold to 29 tons; double the size of the rope again to 24 inches and it will support just four times the weight of the 12-inch rope, or 115 tons. Similarly, the bigger the wire rope, the bigger the load it will take in proportion. Whereas a 4-inch steel cable will support 35 tons, an 8-inch cable will carry 150 tons, or nearly five times as much, while a 12-inch cable will support 320 tons, or nearly four times as much as the 6-inch cable, which takes 88 tons. [Illustration: _By courtesy of H. Ensor & Sons_ THE SILURUS RAISED, WITH THE PONTOONS, WHICH PROVED OF THE UTMOST ASSISTANCE, FLOATING NEAR BY]