The Sun.
London, England, 1861-07-24 00:00:00

A MESSAGE FROM. THE SEA.

Our readers may have observed recently among
our maritime extracts the copy of the contents of a,
slip of paper found in a bottle some weeks ago on
the western coast of Uist, in the Hebrides, and for-
warded to us by our agent at Stornoway, The
paper in question, apparently the leaf of a pocket-
book, used in the hurry of the moment, was covered
on both sides with pencil marks, from which the
following was with difficulty deciphered :—" On
board the Pacific, from L'pool to N. York. Ship
going down. (Great) confusion on board. Icebergs
around us on every side. I know I cannot escape. I
write the cause of our loss that friends may not live
in suspense. The finder of this will please get it
published.—Wm. Graham." If we are right in
our conjecture, the ship here named is the Pacific,
one of the Collins line of steamers, which vessel left
Liverpool on January 22, 1856, three days before
the Persia, and has not since been heard of; and
this slip of paper, three inches by two, is probably
the only record of the fate of that missing ship, We
have n. t come to this conclusion hastily. On re-
ceiving the frail record from Stornoway we at once
published it, as the best and most expeditious mode
of placing it before those whe might possibly be in-
terested in the fate of the vessel named. The Pacific
is by no means an uncommon appellation, more espe-
cially among the shipping of the United States,
and we did not despair that some light would be
thrown upon the " message from the sea" which
had so singularly been preserved and placed in our
hands. After waiting for some time we received a
communication from Messrs. Zerega, of New York,
stating that their ship Pacific being in port at the
time, of course the record had no reference thereto,
but they much feared it might, notwithstanding the
difference in the names, apply to the Baltic, which
had left Liverpool in January last, and has not since
been heard of; and we were requested at the same
time to communicate with Messrs. Zerega's agents
in Liverpool. This we have been careful to do, and
at the same time we directed a search to be made
among the lists of passengers and crews, both of
the Baltic and of the Pacific of the Collins line.
We have ascertained that no person named Graham
was on board the Baltic when that vessel left Liver-
pool last on her passage to New York, but it appears
that a man of that name did ship as helmsman in
the Pacific in January, 1856. It is true he shipped
by the name of Robert Graham, whereas the slip
of paper is signed " Wm. Graham." This, however,
is a discrepancy which will not count for much
with those who are acquainted with the careless
manner in which seafaring people frequently give
their names, and the facility for such a mistake pre-
sented by the ordinary mode of entering the names
of a ship's company. From the facts elicited so far,
we come to the conclusion that the vessel lost, and
to which the frail memorandum before us refers,
was a ship named the Pacific, The writer was
evidently some
.person accustomed to the perils of
the sea, for it is difficult to understand how any
person whose nerves had not been hardened by
the presence of frequent and appalling dangers
could have written with such manifest coolness in
the immediate presence of death. This self-posses-
sion at once negatives the idea that the person who
could exhibit it in a moment of such supreme peril
could possibly have mistaken the name of the vessel
whose loss he has recorded. Then, again, we find
from the records of the lost Pacific that a person
named Graham sailed in her from Liverpool on her
ill-fated voyage, and, in all human probability, was
on board at the time she was lost with all hands.
This is the strongest point in the entire chain of
evidence, for it connects the writer of the memo-
randum directly with the lost ship, and the ship
with the writer. Lastly, since the memorandum
has been given to the world—now some weeks—
we have had no intimation that any ship named
the Pacific, sailing from Liverpool recently, has
been lost, or is even missing. The ship in
question must have left that port so long ago that
all hope of her recovery has been abandoned. Some
interest might possibly, even at this distance of
time, have been felt in the fate of the Pacific, but
the company to which that steamer belonged no
longer exists. The remaining ships of the Collins
line have been some time since disposed of, and are
employed, we believe, or were recently employed,
on the line from New York to Panama. To aura
up, we have the fact that a man of the same sur-
name as he who. signed the slip of paper found in a
bottle on the shore of the Hebrides shipped as
steersman in the Pacific in January, 1856, and the
presumption is every way strong against his hav-
ing mistaken the name of the ship in which he
sailed, and was apparently lost. We also know_e
that the Persia, which sailed three days the
the after
the Pacific, narrowly escaped destruction
t from
ice-
bergs on her passage out. The announ ceraents rn tof
the finding of the memorandum and its contents
now been some weeks in our columns, but, with
response, which is
any.
on:he:es:a
fact
tn
thather ftahtee.
red to, it has produced no
the supposition
the exception of the communication already refer.-
utterly unaccountable, except on
Pacific
either that no vessel named the
to parties has
been lost, or that she belonged. who
memorandum is the Pacificl'e 'sl'sheel
have ceased to have
first hypothesis is contrary to the fact ; the second
is quite reconcilable with
thete Collins line, and neother.
rianham's memorandum to the considera-
tionla
svh6, like Captain Maury We
steamer, referred
ot
fGo
the
leave the extraordinary voyage of the bottle which
containedfthose
and others,
made the phenomena of ; have winds and currents in
the ocean their peculiar study, When this bottle
o
was thrown overboard from the Pacific,
c that vessel
was surrounded by mountains •
of ice. This tiny
receptacle of the only record of
shi
a magnificent p
escaped the crash h svhic• obliterated all trace of the
vessel from which it was thrown, was carried in all
probability thousands
of miles on the ice, and was
only released when the ice melted in the tropical
sun. Thence —the
e presumption is not a violent one
—this fragile messenger was swept by the Gulf
stream, and carried along
the course nearly to the
extreme verge to which, as we are told, the Gulf
stream is propagated. The bottle was found on the
Western shore of the Hebrides, where it arrived
under the mysterious guidance of those influences
which have of late years so earnestly engrossed the
attention of scientific geographers.-- Shipping and
Mercantile Gazette.

FATAL ACCIDENT ON THE LANCASHIRE AND
YORKSHIRE RAILWAY.—At about eight o'clock yester-
day morning, a goods train which was proceeding up the
line to Liverpool, on its arrival at Maghull suddenly left
the line and dashed against the stone bridge. The guard
was literally smashed to atoms ; the engine-driver and
stoker wero much injured, and the rails were torn up for
above 100 yards, The traffic en, the line is temporarily
ggopeucled,