up by the pressure on the bottom of it, by means of shores, in the same
manner as the iron deck had been served before. Shores were, therefore,
connecting the three decks--the upper deck, lower deck, and wooden
deck--this being done to equalize the pressure on the _extemporé_ deck
and the two permanent decks, and thus gain additional strength.

No deck was built in either of the after compartments, inasmuch as No. 3
hold was kept clear of water as before by its pump, and in No. 4 the
deck was not necessary. To have built one there, as in the two foremost
ones, although it would have given a little more reserve of buoyancy to
the ship, would have raised the stern higher than the bows, and so would
have increased the upward pressure on the wooden deck, and thus have
increased the liability to burst up. For the same reason, when raising
the ship off the rocks, no compressed air was used in the after hold to
lift the ship. The anchors and cables were in both cases transferred
aft, for the same purpose, namely, to diminish the upward pressure
forward. In the case of the wooden deck leaking, 200 of the same casks
were placed between it and the lower deck in the foremost hold to retain
some of the buoyancy of the forepart, which would otherwise be lost. No
decks were built in the compartment before the collision bulkhead, as
very little buoyancy was lost by that space being full of water, and all
that was there was confined to that compartment by the bulkhead and the
iron lower deck.

While all these foregoing arrangements were being made for the exclusion
of water from the inside of the ship, the engineers and firemen were
employed clearing the engine room of some fifty tons of coal which had
been washed from the open bunkers into the machinery by the sea, when
the engine room was full and the ship on the reef. The greatest
difficulty was experienced in digging out and excavating the engines