Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1873-04-19
The Loss OF the Atlantic.
A Sad story OF the Loss of Six Hum
dred Lives.

The steamer Atlantic, of the White
Star Line, is a total wreck on Meagher's
Rock, off Prospect, Nova Scotia, with
the appalling loss of more than six
hundred lives. She ran ashore at two
o'clock in the morning, and out of over
nine hundred and fifty passengers and
the usual crew, but three hundred and
fifty reached the steep rocks of the
coast alive. All not brought ashore
have, undoubtedly, persisted, as the
ship became a total loss. To look alone
at this in the naked numbers of the
persisted suggests such widefelt, heart
rending sorrow, that the mind recoils
from its contemplation. The details of
a battle, with its mighty death-rou
would not so touch the general soul as
this disaster, with its helpless women
and children, sitting their cries in the
visible arms of death. When we re-
member with what freight of hope
the emigrant steps on board the ship;
when the love that is left behind and
the love that so often lures on are
thought of, we can be certain that in
scarcely any similar number of men
and women can higher and more active
emotions be centered than in the hui
man cargo of an emigrant ship. When
they awake in the dead of night with
the great ship breaking her giant frame
upon the rocks it is the extremity of
human agony that rushes in on the
heels of sleep, after few frantic mo-
ments to be followed by the pulseless
sleep of death amid the tumbling and
the raving of the waters.
Then the sorrow lifts from the bro
ken ship and scatters over two CONT
nents, where it seeks out and wrings the
hearts of those who were watching for
the faces that will not come, and those
whose prayers, love and wishes followed
them from the home land across the
sea. Such in the awful matter of human
lives is the loss of the steamer Atlantic,
a name long to be sadly remembered.
1t is little more than two months since
the ship Northfeet was sunk off Dunge-
ness, England, by collision, when four
hundred and thirty human beings per.
ished. There the cause of the fatality
was plain, and the abandonment by the
Spanish steamer that ran the Australian
emigrant ship down has been con-
demned as murder by higher authori-
ty than the law which failed to reach
the offenders. With the facts, so far as
learned, of this latest addition to the
tragedies of the sea before us, we must
proceed to judge what or how much
criminality attaches to those whose duty
it was to protect the lives and proper
ties lost.
The iron steamship Atlantic was a
long, narrow vessel, whose lines re-
sembled a pointed lead pencil. She
was three thousand seven hundred tons
register, four hundred and twenty feet
long by forty feet beam. She was not
two years old, having reached New
York from her first trip on the ODD of
June, 1871, after run of ten days and
few hours.
She possessed call the modern i'm
provements, steam steering gear, COM
pound engines, &C. but the most
vaunted feature of all was the economy
Of fuel by the use of steam at a low
pressure after it had been used at high
pressure. With this arrangement il
was calculated that she could be run al
full speed on fifty-fve tons of coal pei
day. All that could make travelling easy
and sumptuous for saloon passengers
was done. " Safety, speed and comfort
was the constant phrase of the owners
and the performances of the line il
rapid passages had raised it's vessels
suddenly into favor. Ten days il
summer time, we are aware, is not al
extraordinary passage ; but they mad,
swifter trips, and the advertisement
seemed nothing but fair statement O
fact. We are the more willing to admi
this as the sequel goes to prove on wha
light chances lives and reputation ar,
staked. The Inflated Atlantic started
from Liverpool on her last voyage OF
the Goth of last month. She put int
Queenstown for mails and passenger
on the Dist, and then proceeded on he
translantic way. The weather wa
boisterous, but she did not encounte
any severe storm, and, considering tn
time of the year, made remarkably goo(
time. After being at sea barely ten
days it was found that the supply O
coal was almost exhausted, and Captain
Williams resolved to put into Halifa7
for supply. This was apparently a
coolly and calmly done as though th,
failure of fuel after being ten days a
sea were a common occurrence.
The rest of the story is briefly told
At midnight the ship was calculated t,
be some thirty-nine miles from Cap
Sambro. At two o'clock, by mistakine
the Prospect light for Sambro light
che ro,, on Moo0b Poo1, c+,,, ,1- IL,
or four times heavily, and before scare
an effort could be made to save the pas
sengers she keeled over on her bean
ends and sank. Had there been deepe
water off the rock on which she strucl
it is doubtful that single soul woul,
be left to tell the tale. She sank s.
that, excepting her bow, the hull wa
under water Most of those who perish
ed had not left their berths below decks
The night was dark, but not thick, an,
it is curious how, i'll vicinity we
7 known as one of the most dangerou
and difficult on any sea, the Prospec
| light could so easily be mistaken fo
) the other. The captain is saved, an
| will have to answer for this blunder be
: fore the proper Court. The main an
5 unavoidable question for which owner
= and agents as well as ships officers wi
| have to answer is, How came it tha
, after bare ten days at sea the suppl
t of coal was exhausted There is n
: Sinking this point, for it is the plat
g fact above all others, and independer
c of the last blunder in seamanship, tha
g the loss of these seven or eight hundre
Y lives is upon the head of those respons
: BILE for the shortness of the COAL
THE REASON WHY.
, Captain Williams" said the repor
10 rINo4 l. l. 1,