The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 2, 1902, Page 15

1HE SUNDAY CALL. 15 *Watev! oGGed the Deep ~Thel HE ar does not see in an aban- halo of romance as been identified T turies. the watch- ot an floating element from indulging the lves and wel ing sunker @erelict mber g upon Gerelict tice ot ach b s’ Exchange ng of the monthly Uncle Sam sup- and reports for s of incalculable value ating dangerous derelicts, ses the descriptions given ns solve the mystery of ns know that this ave of wresting they her secrets, and the utmost describing these wrecks k and longitude when sighted ot charts show the location of all wreckage, floating buoys, trees, etc., that and skippers can figure drift considering the ailing winds. Some follow in the beaten paths and are Borrors OF That #old F SeQrets well sighted just when and where expected. T well behaved derelicts follow their route list, but for the most part the drift of a derelict is a secret the old hulk keeps to herself, for she delights in ghast- Iy surprises . The derelict Port Royal buoy is one of the most notable derelicts on record, r four years and trav- Mariners came to having cruised f eled over 2000 miles, know it well, for it is =o plamly marked with & red P. R. as to ms it easily identified. It was rey and when last sighted was abou east of the Bermudas. was to sea blown ou Lower California, was ith the in still hanging de and attached to the anchc vessel becomes a double d of one such w nd the the coast bulky bow lu off are stern ¢ of A z them i gged a lines re the to port d very Few merc! time nor do even for a short d such a dar dange derelict—t t below lerelicts are the are usually and hard on it ssels v dare to tow ) after months of w last determin 1 with the world at large by ack in the dark and from below. The Hydrographic Office contains a rec ord of ma ¢ sters caused by these unseen foe For nearly twenty yvears Uncle Sam has aimless journeys for thousands of miles. Besides the information gained from the captains the Government and naval ves- sels search the high seas continually for wreckage, etc. They hunt down the dere- licts and destroy them. If the derelict is not waterlogged it is set on fire and is not lost sight of until it entirely disap- pears. If it is waterlogged it is blown up with torpedoes made for that pur- pose. The United States steamship San Fran- cisco has made a record for herself in the successful destruction of derelicts. She met & tough proposition in a lumber laden waterlogged wreck of 248 tons. The San Francisco was bound for Key West. She tried to tow the derelict, but finding that impossible she attached three 34- pound guncotton torpedoes to the keel. The explosion damaged her, but left her still afloat. Five more torpedoes broke her frames and weakened her back. The San Francisco then backed away and coming forward with great force rammed t derelict violently ami ¥ in two and released he! sank aimost in sco is an unarmored war- eat apprehension was felt on lun:ber : The ship of the crew lest ramming the would result in destroying the bow. A shout went up when suecess crowned the venture. This was the first success- ful ramming done by an unarmored war- ip. Thousands of dollars are spent annually in guarding, as far as man can, the route of vessels bound to and from the Orfent. Although the Pacific is much clearer of floating debris than the Atlantic still it has its sea walfs, its drifting buoys and its floating lumber. Bottle papers are issued at the hydro- graphic office in a dozen languages and every effort is being made to give them a wide distribution. They are most use- ful as Indicators of ocean currents and form important data for the tracing of derelicts. Many bottle papers sent with outgoing captains have been picked up in foreign lands and in midocean and malled to.the home office. It was in this way the direc- tion of the Japan current was first ascer- tained. : The Japan current sweeping along the Aslatic coast takes right in its course the logs and drifts from the Yangtsze-kiang, Hoangho and Mekong in China and the Amoor River in the north. The current follows the great circle across and then sweeps down the American coast, taking in its wake the drifts of the Fraser and Columbia rivers. These rivers come down from big wooded countries and countless logs and trees are contributed by them to the general danger. During the last vear hundreds of trees have been sighted varying from fifty to one hundred and fifty feet in length and from three to ten feet in dlameter. One ship saw 240,000 feet of lumber that had probably been thrown over to right a vessel, An 0ld salt tells of a derelict that floated” around the Pacific for months laden with coal. She finally struck on Midway Isl- and, which is said to be about half-way across the Paclfic. Here she did duty as a coaling station for passing vessels until a company, hearing of this great quantity of coal, bought up the remaining rights to the vessel and went over there and brought the coal back. Coal at that time was very high and the company netted $40,000 by the transaction. ‘When a vessel becomes old and weak- ened from much travel across the Pacific she is put on the coast service. Some of them are tloating coffins. During the gold ient in the Klondike many an old- given a coat of paint and sent langerous northern route. The wreck of the Canada was spoken off the coast of Skagway, where she final- ly went ashore and gave up the ghost. The Helen W. Almy Is a good example of the illusive power of a drifting wreck. She started out for the gold fields with passengers and outfits. She w long overdue when a wreek was sighted,up the coast; which proved to be all that re- mained of the unfortunate ship. Her hulk floated down to the Golden Gate to lie in wait, as though, not satisfied with her own tragedy. she craved to have a hand in further horrers. She was of 485 toms and would have caused untold damage in & collision. The mournful tolling of a bell six miles out of the Golden Gate warned seafarers that danger lurked nigh. Here the rotten hulk of the Helen W. Almy swung to and fro at the mercy of wind and wave awaiting the time when the wheels of the Government should author- ts destruction. Finally the time came, and the light- house tender, officers and visitors went out to blow the waterlogged hulk to atoms, but not a sign of the wreck was to be seen. The captains of the coasting vessels lkept a lookout through the intense fog which prevailed, and a hulk was reported two miles from Point Pedro. When the fog cleared Lieutenant Beat- tle was sent out to systematically search the coast for ten miles in every direction. Every cove, reet and inlet was gone over, and in one rocky inlet tangled spars, cordage and timber showed that here the mystery of the Helen W. Almy had at last pounded itself to atoms safe from the prying eyes of man. The mythical history of the sealing schooner Pioneer outrivals the tale of the “Ancient Mariner.” The Ploneer, long on the overdue list, was seen and identified in derelict form by Captain John Hahn of the Canadian schooner Victorla. He reported that he passed within ten yards of it September 28, 1898, near Port Townsend. It had turned turtle and lay In the direct track of vessels coming from Bering Sea. In November, 1898, the Indians of the north heard, through reports of their tribe, that the crew of the schooner Pio- neer had been in a Russian prison for four years and that they would be home in another year. They began preparations for a “hyas’—a celebration of the return of the long lost. Tales of Ocean Travelers That Bear in Their Wake Dire Disasier But another report put preparations to an end. This report stated that the Pio- neer was sighted drifting off the shore with skeletons lashed to the rigging of the craft. In December, 1897, the Nomad left China bound for this coast. In June, 189, the hulk of the Nomad drifted ashore bottom up on the Hawailan coast and solved the pitiful fate of the missing schooner. The captain of the Eliza Miller sighted a derelict off Coos Bay in June, 1593, and from the description given the builders were satisfled that it was the Nomad. It is thought that while making the run to the Sound from Shanghai, Captain McAllop of the Nomad followed the great circle, which brought him off the coast of Alaska, where he encountered the storms of January and February, which were doing so much damage to shipping. The wreck in all probability followed the course of a buoy which went adrift at Coos Bay and is now used In the harbor of Honolulu. This buoy was carried south by the current and went ashore very close to where the Nomad derelict was washed up. It took two years, item by item, for the history of this derelict to be traced back and the mystery of the missing Nomad was thus in a measure solved. The mysterious loss of the Pelican, which sailed for Taku, China, from Pu- get Sound October 12, 1897, was traced by a memorandum in a bottle picked up on the beach at Portage Bay by the master of the sealing schooner Herman. The information contained in this message helped in the identification of what re- mained of the Pelican. The memoran- dum read: Sealing schooner Pelican, latitude 50 north, longitude 175 west—The ship is sinking. W are leaving her in frail boats. Please report us. M. T. PATTERSON, Chief Officer. This bottle was much traveled. After be- ing thrown overboard it took a northwest course and, after covering 420 miles of latitude and 1235 miles of longitude, land- ed on the beach in Portage Bay, where it was picked up by the master of the schooner Herman and sent to. the Mer- chants’ Exchange. In March, 1598, the British- ship Falkirk reached Tacoma from SBhanghal and Captain Helmes re- ported passing a waterlogged life boat off the Aleutian Islands, empposed to have belonged to the Pelican. A strange plece of wreckage was found in the northern seas; & huge mass of spars and tangled cordage incased a medicine chest. This chest on Investiga- tion was proved to have belonged to the Montserrat, a colller that left Nanaimo in December, 184, for San Franctsco. The Montserrat and the Keweenaw left together and up to this time there was no trace of them. The northern coast was thoroughly searched and on Queen Charlottes Island in an Indian hut the name boards of the colller Montserrat were found, nailed to the walls of the hut. These strange inklings wers all the sea gave up, but they served to seal the fate of these ill-starred colllers. A wreck sighted on Race Rocks oft Vancouver Island floated off at high tide and for weeks wmandered almlessly about the Straits of Fuca in a dense fog. When the fog lifted several small tugs were sent out to search for her. They found her, but had great difficulty in towing her in. She finally sank just as they got into shallow water. She was identified as the steamship Idaho that had been engaged in smuggling optum be- tween British Columbia and American ports. A harmless old historic derelict of the North Pacific was the steamer Beaver. She ran on the rocks off Vancouver Isiand, and then siid off into deep water. She floated around the rocks and was finally rescued and now her anclent tim- bers are made into mementoes and sold dealers. She was one of the first v els on the coast. She was orig- inally built on the Thames and launched hing was witnessed by were the early on and the launch- am navig: an event. old bark Southern Chief was a that floated in the until finally The waterlogged wreck line of coasting steamers towed in near Cape Flattery, never to go out again. For every vessel that is lald aside in a ripe old age in the ship “boneyard,” one hundred others have traglc ends. Fa- miliarity with the sea tends to undervalue these dangers. In old days when a ship went to the bottom it stayed there. Now the wreckers ralse vessels that have sunk and right vessels that have turned tur- tle and send them to continue their course of usefulness. One shipbuilder says that every vessel should be bullt with the idea that one day she will sink. She should be fitted out with appliances for attaching the wreckers' machinery when the wreckers are anchored over the sunken craft. The ‘wrecking companies” are in reality “saving companies.” They have finely equipped tugs, pontoons and derricks lighted by electricity and able to weather heavy storms. The light can be let down so the divers can Inspect the sunken ves- sel and report from time to time. The wreckers were just about to ralse a vessel when a storm came up In the North Pacific and another boat sunk in the same spot and lcdged across her stern. This boat was pumped and raised first and then they went to work on fhe original one. They had just got her to the surface when the chains broke and down she went again. The North Pacific knows every form of derelict from an overturned waterlogged fisherman’s boat to an up to date marine steamship wreck. The people of the northern coast are constantly being sur- prised by strange pleces of wreckage, large and small, which excite inquiry as to probable disasters, for from the fa- bled days when Ulysses went down to the sea in a ship until the present time there is a natural desire implanted In every heart to know the fate of our fellow crea- tures even when traceable only through a silent wreck. ISABEL FRASER. Important amber finds have been made at Nordergrunde, near Altenbruch, in Ger- many. The amber was discovered in the crab catchers’ nets, and is sald to be of very good quality.