Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-09-25
OIL ON WATER.
a Plan Suggested to Protect the Seaside
Resorts from Angry Waves
Boston Transcript

A Plan Suggested to Protect the Seaside
Resorts from Angry Waves.
Boston Transcript.
The storm which has for the greater
part of the past week ragged along the
Atlantic coast has been particularly de-
structive to seaside resorts. Hotels,
dwellings, piers, roads and sidewalks
have been washed away, and beaches
upon which the prosperity of the seaside
places depended have been ruined. It is
impossible to estimate the total amount
Of damage that has been done, but It I'M
dOubtedly reaches up into the millions.
AT Atlantic City, n j., alone-a place
which has q permanent population of
5000, and a summer population so large
that it has been said, no doubt correctly
enough, that it is Coney Island, Nan
tasket and Old Orchard rolled into one
the scene has been one of great destruc-
ton and of peril to human life. Twenty
thousand people at Atlantic City were
shut out from the world by the plungng
waters Of the ocean for forty eight
hours, unable TO escape, without fresh
meat, without milk, without veg
etables, and for the most part
without drinking water. The great waves
dashed around the hotels and boarding
houses; the public lights of every sort
were eXtingulsbed at night, and panic
and distress prevailed. At Long Branch
damage TO the extent of $40 900 was
wrought; at Manhattan Beach and all
along the southern shore of Long Island
extensive improvements which have
cost many thousands of dollars have
been swept away. The New England
shore resorts have perhaps suffered
in less measure, but the story of the
damage done at the Vineyard, Nam
tucket and at many places along the
shore is yet to be told. In the aggregate
it has certainly been very large.
Nor has the storm been altogether an
exception. 1t has been unusually severe,
undoubtedly, but September gaIes''
are to be expected along this coast, and
winter storms not infrequentIy
do serious damage to seaside re-
sorts. With the immense increase of
the summer resort business, due to the
great growth of the population and the
practice, which is happily gaining with
all classes of society, of taking a summer
vacation, the liability of seaside places
to destruction from storms will become
more and more serious question, and any
means of protecting them, either COM
pletely or in large measure, from these
storm ravages should be welcome to
owners of seaside properties.
Has any such means OF protection been
tried? Possibly, but none except costly
breakwaters, which go far toward de-
strOying the attractiyeness Of the re-
sorts. When people go to the seaside,
they like to be upon the beach, and not
either inside a bulkhead or under its
shadow. But there is another means of
no of
which, though modern science has
proved its efficacy at sea, has never,
we believe, been employed in shore
protection. We refer to the use
Of oil upon the water. Let us
suppose that there is, as in the case of
Nantasket beach, q mile or more of
shore line to be protected. Let a tank
be erected upon as high ground as posi-
bic on shore in safe and out-O the
way position, and kept filled with fish
oil. Then let iron pipes be run from this
tank some five thousand feet out to sea,
along the bottom of the water, buried,
as to their shore ends, beneath the sand.
As the sea end these pipes could be pro-
vided with valves opening outward upon
pressure. Let these pipes be placed
some five hundred feet apart, and upon
the advent of a storm which should
threaten property upon the shore, the
oil could be forced through the pipes,
either by the power of gravitation or by
means of q very simple pumping ma
chinery. Rising to the surface at the
extremity of the pipes, it would I'M
doubtedlv have the effect to calm the
waves, at least in sufficient measure to
prevent in a great degree their destroy
ing force.
The use of oil to calm sea waves has
passed quite beyond the experimental
stage Extremely few frst-class sea-
going vessels, either steam or sail, ever
go to sea nowadays without tanks of fish
oil on board, carried for the express pur-
pose of sitting sea waves, and this oil is
frequently made very good use of. So
universal has the practice become
that it is quite likely that the
carrying of oil will eventually be made
a condition precedent TO the issue of ma
rine insurance policies. The oil en-
pIoyed Is always the cheapest that can be
had, for this serves the purpose quite as
effectively as any more expensive
product. The experiment would
certainly appear TO be well worth
trying, for the expense, if the process
were found practicable, must be very
slight in comparison with the continual
cost of rebuilding piers, roads, walks,
hotels and cottages. The summer resort
which should first introduce this method
probably would not only be helped by the
advertisement which the public interest
in the experiment would arouse, but it
might also be saved thousands of dollars
in such another emergency as the pres
eHt
els your new employer a Christian,
Fred?''