Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-12-23


has not been lost, squandered or spent, land
on failure to do so the trustees are to re-
tain the unpaid share until the person
shall reach the age of thirty-ive.
PERILs OF STEAM NAVIGATION.
Loss Of Life and Property on the atlantic
During Forty Years.
In the concluding article of his series Of
papers entitled 'Notes of a History of
Steam Navigation" in the United Service
Magazine for December, Rear Admiral
George d. Preble, United States navy,
gives valuable compilation of statistics
concerning the loss of life and property in
steam vessels on the Atlantic ocean. The
period covered begins with the first trip
of the steamship Sirius, in 1888, and ends
with the close of 1S79-forty years. The
tables were compiled from records in the
archives of the Atlantic Mutual Insurance
com pany of New York, and are as
full as it is possible to make them,
some OF the earlier disasters having passed
almost passed out of mind. leav-
ing no data behind from which to Judge of
the loss of life. The whole number of
vessels lost in these forty years was ia, or
sells year. Of the number of lives lost
even an approximate estimate cannot be
made, for many of the vessels lost were
never heard of after leaving port, and the
numbers of their passengers and crews
can not be ascertained. The first steam
vessel lost on the Atlantic was the Presi-
dent, wooden ship of 1886 tons, sailing
under the British flag. She disappeared
mVSterIOuS1V aS many vasSolc boyo dana
since, and nothing was ever he ard of eth
er the ship Or her passengers. This was
in 1S41, and from that time until 1854,
thirteen years, only one life was lost by
the wreck of an Atlantic steam
vessel. In 1854, however, Sec
ond vessel mysteriously disappear
ed, and her $50 passengers and
seamen were lost, This was the City of
Glasgow. another wooden vessel of 1903
tons. This was a disastrous year for trans
Atlantic navigation, for it was in 1854 that
the Arctic was sunk, forty m1les..off Cape
Race. carrying down 562 persons. The
Arctic belonged to the Collins line, and
was an immense wooden vessel for those
days, being rated at 5000 tons. She was
sunk by collision with another steamship,
the Vesta. From 1854 to 1860 there were
enough great losses to make people timid
about venturing their lives or their prop
erty on the ocean. In August, 1854, the
British wooden steamship Her Majesty,
from England for Quebec, disappeared and
all on board were lost. The Pacific, of the
Collins line, disappeared in 1856 with
zoo souls, and LIE Lyonnais, a French ship,
was sunk by collision in the same year,
and 26O were lost; in 1853 the German ship
Austria was burned, and $50 lives were
lost,and in 1860 the British ship Hungarian
was wrecked off Cape Sable, and POS lives
were lost.
After 1860, however, there are compare
lively few entries of 'all LOST and many
more of ''all saved" The great disasters
of the forty years in which large numbers
of lives were lost (omitting those as given
as ''all lost" were the loss of the City of
Glasgow, just mentioned, with $40 lives;
the Arctic with 562 lives: the Pacific, LIE
Lyonnais and Austria, with 200, 26O and
533, respectively; the Hungarian, of the
Allan line, from Liverpool for Boston, in
1860, with POS lives, the Canadian, also
Tempest, 1857, the Rechid, 1861; the
United Kingdom, 1869; the City of Bos-
ton 1880; the Commander, 1872; the Mary
Church, 1872; the Devon, 1872; the Ismalia,
1873; the Anna, 1874; the Colombo, 1876;
the Mexican, 1877; tho Copia, 1878; the
Herman Ludwig, 1878; the Homer, 1878;
and the Zanzibar, 1879. The first thirteen
of these, down to the loss of the Colombo,
of the Wilson line, in 1876, are unclassifed
as to ownership and did not belong to any
established line.
Of the IA vessels lost, more than half
were wrecked, most of the wrecks being
close along shore; "a are classified as miss
ing, which means that they never reached
the ports for which they sailed; 10 were
burned land in the cases of fire all the pas
sengers we're invariably saved) with the not
able exceptions of the Austria, in 1853,
when the life-saving appliances were by no
means up to the present standard, and the
Sandman in 1878, which was caused by an
explosion, 8 were sunk by collisions and
stress of weather, and only are reported
sunk by ice. It is more than probable,
however, that large proportion of the "a
missing vessels met their fate in this way.
Only vessels in the forty years were
abandoned. and in every one of these
cases passengers and crews were all saved.
Of the steamship lines now in existence,
the Cunard line is charged with the loss of
2 vessels Columbia, in 1S43, and the
Tripoli, in 1872, life having been lost;
the Allan line, in 1861, with 80 lives; the
Anglo-Saxon of the same line, in 1863,
with 237 lives; the Cambria of the Anchor
line, wrecked in 1870, losing 1876 lives; the
Scanderia, of the Morgan line, which dis