From the August 23, 2015, Washington Times "Researchers, graduate students work to preserve artifacts" by Sam Peshek.
The Texas A&M University Conservation Lab has been working on preserving artifacts from French explorer Robert de La Salle's ship, the Belle which sank in Matagorda Bay in Texas in 1686 and was excavated in 1997. Many of these artifacts are now on display at the Bullock Museum in Austin, Texas.
As this project is nearing completion, the lab now turns its attention to the artifacts from the Confederate ironclad CSS Georgia as they are being sent from the ship's wreck in the Savannah River.
Four recovered cannons are there now and undergoing electrolysis in a two-year project to remove marine growth from them so they can be displayed.
Two of them are Brookes cannons, one weighing 6,000 pounds built at a Georgia foundry. There is also a Union Dahlgren cannon and a six-pounder.
The lab is also working on the artifacts from the Civil War gunboat USS Westfield, a former New Jersey ferry, destroyed by its crew in 1963 at the Battle of Galveston to prevent capture. These items were pulled up from the Houston Ship Channel in 2009. That channel was also undergoing deepening and widening as is the situation of the CSS Georgia.
--Old B-R'er
No comments:
Post a Comment