ng raised is excluded. The largest
ships nowadays have a draft of less than ten meters, and as the
vessels sunk lie at far greater depths they are no source of danger to
shipping in time of peace. Of the remaining twenty per cent of sunken
ships half of them are unreclaimable, either owing to their position,
or owing to the high cost of salvage, or because it is not even known
where they lie. The other half or last ten per cent have probably for
the greater part been sunk in channels where the currents are so swift
that they are covered with sand, and diving enterprises are out of the
question. In time of war such work cannot be thought of; after the war
the ships will long since have been completely buried by the sand.

Maybe off the east coast of England one or two ships may be raised,
for they lie at a lesser depth and are exposed to slighter currents
than on the south coast of England, but in that district only the
smaller and more insignificant vessels have been sunk, and it would
hardly pay to raise them, especially as they are so damaged by
torpedoes and mines that they would probably fall apart on being
raised to the surface.

Therefore hardly a single ship will be salvaged, and the sea will
retain all those ships it has swallowed in the course of this war
carried on by all the nations of the earth.

THE END

The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A

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| Typographical errors corrected in text: |
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| Page 1: VAN FORSTNER replaced with VON FORSTNER |
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| Unusual words: |
| |
| Page 134: salvable (adj.) means that can be salvaged |
| or saved |
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ERRATUM

In Introduction, page xxi, line 6 from the bottom, for "1915" read
"1916."

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End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Journal of Submarine Commander von
Forstner, by Georg-Guen