The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-04-17
Sc LOST AT SAMOA.

FOUR OF THOSE LOST AT SAMOA.
of the equator and therefore barely out of
the dead latitudes;" so all captains agree
that there is no knowing in what year a
cyclone may be expected. As many as five
years at time have passed without one
worthy Of notice, and then-with appalling
suddenness-comes the great whirling wind
and brings destruction.
The cyclone best known to Americans is
that which originates in the West Indies,
moves northwest to the coast and then, ap-
pearing to rebound from the land, turns to
the northeastward and whirls away till it is
disSipated somewhere in the ocean between
latitude 40 and 80 dogs. South of the equa-
tor the storms whirl in a different direc-
ton. On the eastern continent they are
called typhoons, and have usually been most
terrible in the Indian ocean. They form
along the border between the belt Of Gains"
and the southern limit of the trade winds,
and the experienced navigator can tell as
soon as one strikes him on which side of him
the center is, and his plan is to get away
from that to the outer part of the circle,
and out of it if he can. In the center there
is dead calm, the outer current of wind
moving around it in circle; but as the cy-
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real course of the wind is a great parabolic
curve, and so the ship master caught in the
center of one can never form an idea on what
tack it will strike him. On the outside of
the circle, too, the blow may come on grad
ually, the wind tending to spread; but on the
inside the border between the dead calm and
the fiercest wind may not be ten rods wide,
and so the shock is instantaneous.
Many columns like this might be filled with
a bare list of the vessels lost in cyclones in
this century. Ship after ship, in splendid
condition and well manned, freighted with
vast wealth and directed in bright hope, has
sailed from port in the finest weather and
never again been heard from. In many cases
not plank or spar has ever shown up; in
others a mere fragment was found drifting
on the ocean months and even years after
ward. The facts were plain: caught in the
deadly wind whirl, the vessel was torn to
pieces by the battle Of wind and wave. Not
long ago q large British vessel was sailing in
the South Pacific the ocean being almost as
smooth as a mill pond. Suddenly in the dark
ness of night came great billow, supposed
to be fifty feet high the highest waves known
are southwest of South America, heaving her
high in the air. She sank in the trough was
again heaved on the crest of a billow; once
more this was repeated, and soon the whole
sea was calm again. Reaching port her cap
tain learned of the great volcanic and earth
quake movement along the Andes at the very
hour of his adventure. He had met the rare
but dreaded volcanic wave" The vast
ocean bottom had heaved beneath him, or
near enough for the resulting pillows to raise
his ship.
Only few days ago the firm and well
built Conserva, which had been libeled by the
Havtian consul in New York on the ground
that she was taking supplies to Hyppoite
''the rebel" was released by the courts and
sailed for San Domingo; a week later an in
coming steamer picked up q life boat bearing
the name "Conserva." And that is all the
owners can know The fate of the crew is
left to conjecture. And this is the story of
hundreds Such room is given for the fancy
of novelists that many Of the most thrilling
descriptions in romance picture disasters at
sea. And it has always been so. Virgil
opens his "Eneid" with a description Of the
wreck Of the fugitive Trojan's feet, and
Homer puts Ulysses through an experience
of shipwreck and life on an island which has
been repeated with thousands of variations
In all subsequent literature down to Sinbad
and Enoch Arden.
No one really knows how strong the wind
blows in cyclone or how high the waves
rise above the level; in the North Atlantic
scientific measurement puts the highest wave
at thirty-seven feet but many captains are
positive they have seen waves sixty feet high
south of Cape Horn. A year ago the Ameri-
can schooner w. L. White was struck with
out an instant's warning, near the Atlantic
coast, and literally jerked to pieces, leaving
the crew barely time to get into their boats.
This was one of the unusual cases where
hurricane came from the northeast and in
cool weather. A few days later the schooner
James Ford, when off Barnegat, was struck
on the 18TH of March by hurricane which
literally buried her under the high waves.
Everything on deck was dashed loose and
swept overheard, but fortunately the matches
were closed and so the vessel did not swamp.
For two days and nights the pumps were
kept going incessantly, when they were res
cued by q passing vessel These are but
sample cases of the ruin wrought by the
storm Of March, 1855