Morning journal and courier., 1882-12-22

ing into Collision With Abandoned ed Vex-
 sels-sen Monsters zrs the Business.
 From the New York Times.l
 Abandoned vessels or other floating obsta cles are the cause of many disasters at sea These obstacles especially dangerous be- cause they give no warnings of their presence until too late to avoid 8 collision Besides the abandoned wrecks, which are apt to be- come water-1ogged and sink just below the surface, there are other floating obstacles which are liable to prove dangerous to the vessels which run into them. Ships have been crippled and even sunk owing to their having come into forcible contact with DOT tions of wreckage, logs, pieces of timber, whales or other sea monsters, icsbergs and drifting ice fields Doubtless some of the vessels which left port in apparently sea- worthy condition but were never afterward heard from went down with all on board after coming into collision with water logged wrecks which had not been observed by the men on lookout. Such obstacles are not as apt to sink large iron steamship, but with small craft it proves very different. A large iron steamship is now built with double bottom, and with at least one collision bulk head forward. This would enable her to go over almost any floating obstacle without sinking afterward. Although her bows might be stovo in and her outer bottom bad ly torn, the bulkhead and the inner botto would yet save the ship. Two years ago new steamship of the Monarch Line left Lon. don for this port on her first trip Soon after passing the English Channel she struck a submerged wreck and passed completely over it. Her propeller broken off, but she did not leak badly. She put back to the nearest English port for repairs, but owing to her great strength it was found that her bottom had not been badly injured Some years before smaller steamship ran into submerged hulk in the same neighborhood and went to the bottom, but passengers and crew were saved. Icebergs and ice. fields have disabled and sunk many fine vessels But although great source of danger the mariner IS usually warned of their presence in the neighborhood by a lowering of the temperature of the atmosphere or the water Besides this captains know, as a rule the time of year and the localities in which they are likely to fall in with ice. But there are no rules by which the most careful mariner can discover the fact that @ submerged ob- stacle lies in the path of his vessel And in many cases the most watchful lookout cannot discover any indications of the presence of such an object even in the day time until he is knocked from his feet by the force of the collision.
 'The water-logged wreck is the most dan gerous of these floating obstacles,' said an old captain. Many vessel has been lost owing to those abandoned hulks. And the worst of it seems to be that it is almost impossible to get rid of them They are mostly the wrecks of timber-Iaden vessels
 
 when she became full of water. The longer such wreck drifts about the more danger ous it becomes, for it gradually sinks below | the surface, but remains just high enough to knock hole in the bottom of the first ship | that comes along. great many sailors are altogether too apt to give up a ship before there is any real reason for such course And then they leave 8 dangerous obstacle floating about which may sink half a dozen other vessels before it goes to the bottom | T ofo Sl,, | ed 1umber-laden schooner named Louisa Blrdsall which was abandoned about five years ago. Her crew were taken off the wreck by passing vessel and were landed at some port along the coast. The abandoned vessel drifted about off Hatteras, where once passed close to her and where she WAS sighted by number of vessels. You couldn't pick up paper printed in any large Ameri | can, British Continental port witho out reading that some ship which had just ar rived had passed the wreck of tho Louisa Birdsall. Quite a number of craft ran foul of sr and were more less crippled in con- sequence. For over year that water logged hulk drifted about in the track of shipping, Scarcely dark night passed without some vessel running iAto her. It got so that when ever ship would be lowed into ono of the l ports along the coast with her bows well stove in the captains in that harbor would l say Well, that Louisa Birdsall has been 1 prowling about off Hatteras again At last, after long watching and waiting, the insur- ance underwriters received cable dispatch from Bermuda by way of Halifax which ali nounced that the Louisa Birdsall had at last drifted into shallow water and had sunk, leaving her masts sticking out of water. The whole maritime world rejoced at this intelligence. good many captains made il a rule to set fire to every water logged wreck which they came across, but even then the chances are that the hulk will merely burn tc the waters edge. It is now almost os dan gerous an obstacle to run against as it was before, but as long as it is burning there if little danger that it will be run into. No one can say positively how the i'll fated City ot Boston, with her hundreds of lives, was los some years ago. But the disaster was prob ably caused by some floating obstacle. Il may have been that she into an icebert or that she ran over some hulk which val floating just beneata the surface ter.
 8sS When timbe.