Summary

For twenty-three years, Clive Cussler's NUMA®-the National Underwater & Marine Agency-has scoured the rivers and seas in search of lost ships of historic significance. His teams have been inundated by tidal waves, and beset by the vagaries of man and nature, but the results-and the stories behind them-have often been dramatic: The 2000 raising of the Confederate submarine Hunley made national headlines. Here, then, are more true tales of sea- and land-going adventures, as Cussler and his crews set out to track down history. The famous ghost ship Mary Celeste, found floating off the Azores in 1872 with no one on board; the Carpathia, the ship that rescued the Titanic survivors and was itself lost to U-boats six years later; L'Oiseau Blanc, the airplane that almost beat The Spirit of St. Louisacross the Atlantic before disappearing in the Maine woods-all these, plus steamboats, ironclads, a seventeenth-century flagship, a certain famous PT boat, and even a dirigible, prove tantalizing targets as Cussler demonstrates again that truth can be "at least as fun, and sometimes stranger, than fiction" (Men's Journal).

Author Biography

Clive Cussler is the author or coauthor of twenty-one previous books, most recently the Dirk Pitt(r) adventures Valhalla Rising and Atlantis Found, and the Kurt Austin novel Fire Ice.

Craig Dirgo has been special projects director on many NUMA® expeditions since 1987 and now serves as a trustee. He also cowrote The Sea Hunters.

NUMA Advisory Board of Trustees	p. xvii
Introduction	p. 1
L'Aimable
The Father of Waters--1684-1685	p. 17
Out of Reach--1998-1999	p. 33
The Steamboat New Orleans
Penelore--1811-1814	p. 45
Where Did It Go?--1986, 1995	p. 71
The Ironclads Manassas and Louisiana
Civil War Turtle--1861-1862	p. 83
They Don't Come Cheaper Than This--1981, 1996	p. 104
U.S.S. Mississippi
A Magnificent End--1863	p. 117
Nothing Stays the Same--1989	p. 129
The Siege of Charleston: Keokuk, Weehawken, and Patapsco
Cradle of Secession--1863-1865	p. 137
Three for the Price of One--1981, 2001	p. 155
The Cannon of San Jacinto
The Twin Sisters--1835, 1865, 1905	p. 167
Dr. Graves, What Have You Done?--1987-1997	p. 181
Mary Celeste
Mystery Ship--1872	p. 197
Paradise Gone--2001	p. 219
The Steamboat General Slocum
Never Again--1904	p. 237
Coke Isn't Necessarily a Soft Drink--1994, 2000	p. 254
S.S. Waratah
Disappearing Act--1909	p. 261
Is It Here or Is It There?--1987-2001	p. 276
R.M.S. Carpathia
Savior of the Seas--1912, 1918	p. 285
It's Never Easy--2000	p. 305
L'Oiseau Blanc
The White Bird--1927	p. 319
Rain, Black Flies, and Bogs--1984, 1997, 1998	p. 339
U.S.S. Akron
Lighter Than Air--1931-1933	p. 351
No Surfing in New Jersey--1986	p. 372
PT--109
PT-109--1943	p. 381
I Have a Special Room in My Mind for You--2001	p. 411
America's Leonardo da Vinci	p. 425
Postscript from the Author	p. 433
Current List of NUMA Search Surveys and Discoveries	p. 435
Additional Historic Sites and Artifacts	p. 445
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

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Excerpts

PART ONE L'Aimable I The Father of Waters 1684-1685 "THE FOOL!" RENE-ROBERT CAVELIER DE LA SALLE SHOUTED as he stood helpless on the desolate shore and watched his flagship, L'Aimable, veer out of the buoyed channel toward what he knew was certain destruction. Earlier, over the protests of L'Aimable'scaptain, Rene Aigron, La Salle had ordered the 300-ton French ship loaded with stores for a new colony to sail across the bar of Cavallo Pass into Matagorda Bay-a body of water that would become part of the state of Texas 157 years later. Aigron stared menacingly, demanded La Salle draw up a document absolving him of any responsibility, and insisted the explorer sign it. La Salle, still recovering from an illness, was too weary to argue the point and reluctantly agreed to the terms. Fearing the worst, Aigron then transferred his personal possessions to a smaller ship, Joly, which had already crossed the bar and was safely anchored inside. Now, with the sails unfurled and billowing from a following breeze, L'Aimable, to the horror of La Salle, was sailing into oblivion. THE MAN who would claim the new world for France was born in Rouen, France, on November 22, 1643. After an unsuccessful attempt to become a Jesuit priest, he left France seeking a new life in New France, now known as Canada, then a French colony. After a few false starts, La Salle established a thriving fur-trading business, an endeavor that allowed him to develop his budding passion for exploration. When Louis de Buade Comte de Frontenac became the new governor of Canada, La Salle nurtured a friendship with him. In time, the Canadian governor introduced La Salle to King Louis XIV, who granted the explorer a patent, or royal license, to explore the western regions of New France. In effect, La Salle now became France's approved explorer in the New World. La Salle, in debt, wasted little time before exploiting the honor. Expanding his fur trade to the west and into Lake Michigan, La Salle set out to change the way the business was conducted. Most fur trappers headed into the wilds until they had secured sufficient pelts to load a birch-bark canoe, then they set off on a long journey to a major town where they could sell their bounty. La Salle saw that the Great Lakes needed larger vessels, so he built one. In August 1679, he launched Le Griffon, a rigged vessel of sixty tons mounting seven guns, into Lake Erie. Griffonamazed the Indians in the area, who had never seen a large ship. Unfortunately, the vessel was not long for this world. In defiance of Louis XIV's order not to trade with the Indian tribes in the western regions, La Salle set out to do just that. After transporting people to Fort Michilimackinac, near where Lake Huron and Lake Michigan meet, Griffonwas sent across Lake Michigan to Green Bay. There the ship was loaded with furs and goods for the trip back to Fort Niagara at the eastern end of Lake Erie. With no explanation, Griffondisappeared into the mists of history. The loss of Griffon, and another ship loaded with supplies in the Saint Lawrence River, brought La Salle to the edge of financial ruin. To complicate matters, in 1680, just after the loss of the ships, the men assigned to La Salle's Fort Crevecoeur at the mouth of the Illinois River mutined and destroyed the outpost. Never lucky, La Salle saw his world collapsing. Rather than admit defeat, he pressed on with his plans to discover the mouth of the Mississippi River. In February 1682, La Salle started down the upper waters of the Mississippi in an expedition consisting of twenty elm-bark canoes. By March, the expedition had reached present-day Arkansas and established contact with the Indians, who welcomed the French explorers. With the weather improving, the expedition pressed sout