Magnet fishing to retrieve submerged items, including Civl War things.

[L Verge]

(12-09-2019 06:19 AM)LincolnMan Wrote:  Yes. I was wondering what the magnet fishing laws might be here in the USA. We will keep you posted.

I received this today from a member of our gov't. agency's archaeology team:

Hi Laurie,

I have never heard of “magnetic fishing” so I contacted the MD State Assistant Underwater Archaeologist to get his take on it. He’d also never heard of it! But after some research, he stated that in most cases it would violate this part of the Maryland Code of Regulations (I’ll also attach them, if you’re interested):

Limited Collection of Artifacts.

(1) Subject to the provisions of §§B(2) and (3) and C and D of this regulation, a person, without a permit, may collect from any one site not more than five individual artifacts that:

(a) Are exposed or resting on the bottom sediments of submerged lands but are not embedded;

(b) Do not require excavation to recover; and

© Weigh cumulatively not more than a total of 25 pounds.

(2) Artifacts may not be recovered from a site unless they can be obtained by hand or through the use of screwdrivers, wrenches, or pliers, which may be not larger than 12 inches in length and have a width across the jaws of not more than 2 inches.

(3) After recovery of artifacts as prescribed in §B(1) and (2) of this regulation, a lift bag may be used solely for the purpose of transporting the artifacts to the surface.

I think if you were magnet fishing off your own dock, it might be permissible? But otherwise, you might be seriously destroying a submerged resource.

If nothing else, you added to our vocabulary for the day! So thanks for sharing.

-Stephanie

One thought that crossed my mind after touring several respectable conservation labs over the years (Maryland's and the Smithsonian's in particular) is the concern over having properly prepared waters/sediment/etc. in which to place the artifacts once they reach the surface. Maintaining an environment in which they had "survived" for hundreds of years would be all-important in preserving them for study, I would think.

If you want to learn more about the raising of Civil War ships and armaments, check out Wikipedia for articles on the raising of the USS Cairo and also the Confederate submarine Hunley. I am proud to say that a good friend, Edwin Bearss, NPS emeritus, set out with a magnetic compass to find the Cairo, did, and wrote a book about it ca. 1980s. Likewise, an anthropologist from the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum was involved in the examination of the Hunley about a dozen years ago. Douglas Owsley did some work for my history division in examining 18th-century skeletons interred in iron caskets in a burial vault on the grounds of one of the historic house museums that we administer. The history world is filled with some amazing folks.