Salvaging Wrecked

Cargoes in N. Caledonia

MR. JOHN JOHNSTONE, salvage ex pert, of Melbourne, returned to Australia in September by the “Pierre Loti” from Noumea. For 14 weeks he had worked with oxy-hydrogen apparatus in 15 fathoms on the sunken steamer “Joliette” at Thio, New Caledonia. In that time 2,400 feet of the ship’s side was cut away, and a total of 92 tons of cobalt, worth £lO a ton, was salvaged.

The ship was wrecked in a cyclone in 1909, with a cargo of 3,000 tons of nickel ore and 250 tons of cobalt. After 92 tons of cobalt had been recovered, Mr. John stone said, the bulkhead collapsed, and further salvage work was impossible.

After a holiday in Sydney and Mel bourne, Mr. Johnstone said that he might apply for permission from the French authorities to undertake salvage work on the wreck of the “Rounoke”, which was burnt to the waterline, and sank in the Bay of Nehoue in 1905 with 3,500 tons of chromium.