Tweet
[color=#000000]Damaged, corroded device may hold clues to submarine's final minutes
BY BRIAN HICKS
Of The Post and Courier (Charleston SC)
It looks like a contraption right out of Jules Verne, more fanciful than functional. But the depth gauge found in the H. L. Hunley may prove more than useful to scientists trying to figure out what happened to the Confederate submarine in its final minutes on a cold February night in 1864.
Archaeologists say evidence suggests the sub's depth gauge was either broken on Feb. 17, 1864 - the night it sank the USS Housatonic - or a short time later.
"When we found George Dixon, literally at his feet was a pool of mercury," said Maria Jacobsen, senior archaeologist on the Hunley project.
The mercury came from the depth gauge, a device made of iron tubing and glass that allowed the Hunley crew to measure water pressure, and thus depth, outside the submarine.
Although the depth gauge was probably fragile, finding mercury below the sediment could indicate the device broke because of some trauma to the sub on the night it sank.
Mercury, which can make people sick if they come in contact with it, would not have been allowed to stand in the sub, which means in all likelihood the depth gauge was intact when the sub pulled away from Battery Marshall on its final cruise.
The depth gauge, which looks a little like a trombone, was a complex device. Connected to the hull on the top port side by a seacock, its operation was simple]
BY BRIAN HICKS
Of The Post and Courier (Charleston SC)
It looks like a contraption right out of Jules Verne, more fanciful than functional. But the depth gauge found in the H. L. Hunley may prove more than useful to scientists trying to figure out what happened to the Confederate submarine in its final minutes on a cold February night in 1864.
Archaeologists say evidence suggests the sub's depth gauge was either broken on Feb. 17, 1864 - the night it sank the USS Housatonic - or a short time later.
"When we found George Dixon, literally at his feet was a pool of mercury," said Maria Jacobsen, senior archaeologist on the Hunley project.
The mercury came from the depth gauge, a device made of iron tubing and glass that allowed the Hunley crew to measure water pressure, and thus depth, outside the submarine.
Although the depth gauge was probably fragile, finding mercury below the sediment could indicate the device broke because of some trauma to the sub on the night it sank.
Mercury, which can make people sick if they come in contact with it, would not have been allowed to stand in the sub, which means in all likelihood the depth gauge was intact when the sub pulled away from Battery Marshall on its final cruise.
The depth gauge, which looks a little like a trombone, was a complex device. Connected to the hull on the top port side by a seacock, its operation was simple]