Salvage Operations

The remains of the historic Hesper and Luther Little schooners are heaped high in a landfill--out of sight, out of mind, awaiting their final fates. Their unfitting predicament is a far cry from when they were the most visible ships in the state, their presence as a Maine landmark rivaling that of the L.L. Bean store 15 miles away in Freeport.

A diver has discovered the treasure of a lifetime--a 40.2-carat emerald embedded in a conch shell--while diving at the site of a Spanish galleon wrecked in a Florida Keys hurricane 380 years ago. The part-time wreck diver, who teaches elementary school in northern Florida but does not want to reveal his name, discovered the giant raw emerald while washing shells in a classroom laboratory. "Out popped a 40.

Shipwreck hunter Robert Ballard said Wednesday that he has found the World War II patrol boat commanded by John F. Kennedy in the Pacific Ocean off the Solomon Islands. The remains of the wooden boat, PT-109, were lying on the seabed in the Blanket Strait near Gizo in the New Georgia group of islands, Ballard told Solomon Islands Broadcasting Corp. radio. Gizo is 235 miles northwest of Honiara, the Solomons' capital.

For the first time since the 1850 wreck of the Frolic was discovered on the rugged Mendocino County coast south of here, archeologists are seeking help from private divers who over the years have collected artifacts from the cargo-laden vessel.

A week-long federal survey to determine if ocean depth was a factor in the American Trader oil spill got off to a slow start Tuesday, in part because of electronic interference from a boat that was taking measurements for the owner of the mooring where the accident occurred.

The captain and mooring master of the American Trader, which spilled 394,000 gallons of oil into Orange County coastal waters on Feb. 7, were foolish to depend on 15-year-old charts for the area and bear most of the responsibility for the spill even if the charts they were using prove to be flawed, lawyers and shipping experts said Thursday.

International jewel thieves they are not. But a pesky band of burglars has caused a heap of trouble for a string of remote desert towns this summer, stealing miles of the copper telephone wires that link the outposts with the rest of the world. Lured by the high price of copper, thieves have stolen about 55 miles of the multistrand bare wire in San Bernardino County and another 80 miles of wire in Riverside County.

The Harbor Patrol recovered a floating landing gear assembly that broke off a Yuma, Ariz.-based military jet aircraft while it was apparently operating over the Pacific Ocean, the Sheriff's Department said Saturday. The wheel assembly, the center of the intricate landing gear of an AV-8 Harrier jet fighter, was found floating in the ocean about 1 1/4 miles southwest of Newport Harbor, said Sgt. John K. Holani of the Sheriff's Department Harbor Patrol.

Frustrated. That's how Ernest Schaeffer feels about the Hubble Space Telescope, as do many Americans who are disappointed that the spacecraft has been plagued by problems almost from the instant it was launched 19 months ago. Except that Schaeffer has more at stake. His small firm, Schaeffer Magnetics Inc. in Chatsworth, made the 57 motors and actuators that control the mirrors, door latches, antennas and other equipment on the $2-billion spacecraft.

Three hundred miles offshore, the wrecked bow of the New Carissa finally sank Thursday after a Navy destroyer fired 70 shells into the oil-laden hulk and a submarine drilled it with a torpedo. First, remote-controlled explosive charges blew holes in the hull of the wreck, which has plagued the Oregon coast for more than a month, fouling miles of beaches. When that failed to sink the ship, the destroyer David R.