Morning journal and courier., 1891-09-11
NEW ENGLAND SHORES.

NEW ENGLAND SHORES.
scenes OF the Remote Maine
Coast.
From Little river light to West Quoddy
Head light we steam near a rather straight |
reach of coast on our left, not indented
with deep bays or inlets of the sea as is
much of the coast already passed. I find |
my good map of Maine in Bradley's great /
atlas of the world SO represents it. Any
map Of Maine ought to show the readers
of these papers very much indented
coast line along most of it, with very many
islands of varying size interlying or out |
lying. Why the sea has not made much |
inroads here nor torn the granite masses
into the endless ragged forms hith-
erto observed is matter of con-
lecture. Not for lack of wave force,
for Grand Menan is still too much beyond
to shelter these rocky shores when the
waters of the great deep approach the Bay
of Fundy, where the tides run high and |
the ocean pillows have a grand career or
ever they sweep here along. What then?
Probably something in the original cast
and nature of this granite, less fractured
in the long ago, less pliable still, more CO.
hesive, more tenacious, somehow or some
why of its own place and self-possession
in the elemental contest of ages. As said,
it pretty we'll. The lights were not
dense, and we could see much beyond
the coast line. A massive rock wall con-
fronts the sea at it's edge. It is of many
shapes and contours and of various and
even curious colors. For the same watch
it as we pass with continuous interest.
Like the rest of coast I saw on this trip
the prevailing height near the water is
thirty or forty feet, more or less, not by
any means abrupt cliffs here, save at places.
Great smoothly woven masses of granite
character, grooved and furrowed, straight
or curved, perpendicular or slanting, but
in general such as few persons could scale
without ropes and ladders, and with high
seas running. A boat dashed against this
great natural rampant would not need to
strike it twice to be shattered. Neither
could a strong vessel endure the shock of
many waves right here, for fifteen miles
or so along. Mariners shipwrecked here
would for aught can see find their best
hope, humanity speaking, of escape in be-
ing flung bodily by the boisterous waves
far up and out of their own further reach.
But if SO flung, the great force of it
would drown them. And if not, then
what wild lonely region it is for them to
lie in; perhaps to die in, for want of help.
So 1 think it good coast to keep well
away from here in storm. On the re-
ceding and ever higher and higher rocky
slopes until their horizon line is reached a
rather wild, desolate and lonely picture
extends far along. No dwellings observed.
Old dead spruces stand, or lie thereon, and
many living ones scattered about.
jumpers and lesser growth relieve the
otherwise barren prospect. Lonely stats
of the United States coast survey more
frequent than heretofore observed still re-
main standing, and by that same fire.
quency, and variance of near or far loca-
ton show how thoroughly that triangular
ing work was done by the engineers who
plodded in rough outgoing and incoming
of camp life here. I hope they shot
| deer now and then, and brought plenty of
good cheer of varied kinds to sustain them
while about it. That coast survey was
great thing, grand thing. When the
| photographic survey of our vast coast wa
tiers is also completed and the charts made
| accordingly, very great and double aid
| remains to coastwise and even river navi-
cation. 1t was only last summer 1880
| saw they were re-surveying the Connecti-
| cut river. The channels coastwise in
places are varied by shifting sands-not
less in rivers. The coast survey thorough
| ly done lasts for long. The photographic
| needs resounding as the years go on and
| re-maping. From Little river eastward
| viewing scenes of character just narrated,
at about II a. m. we approach West Quod-
| dy head, near which are pointed out to me
a q on, riryht
between them, and the coast line a few
| hundred yards to our left. Strong cur
rent likely here in running tide or seas, but
plenty of sea way even for sail vessels, GER
tainly for steam, if the pilots know where
| they are here, and would certainly know,
| if not for fogs, which shut in everything
at times, and just now do 80 to US not a
little.
| These sail rocks are the ones on which
the steam yacht Ideal was caught and
wrecked some weeks or months before our
narrative begins-a loss to her owner it is
| said, of about $50, 900. Almost nothing
of her furnishings saved, SO it is said.
| Also, that the "pilot went off to get help
and got drunk THAT the rather costly
| yacht might have been warped to shore by
ropes and boats coming to aid betimes
Whereas, the aid expected did not come.
The rising tide hoated her off with hole
in her bottom and she sank to rise no
more. Sorry for the owner? Yes Sorry
his fine yacht. But time and tide wait for
no man. Sic transit Gloria mundi'
These sail rocks present Jagged or
peaked appearance in outline as of three
or four-master with sails all up. The
shore rocks to left are good deal like
them for jaggedness and are probably
metamorphic all of them, but, having
passed them all and being nearly opposite
the lighthouse, got sketch of the whole
| scene like this.
The sail rocks are now as look on my
left and the shore rocks on my right. I'm
der the high rock wall, on which the light
house stands, lies large schooner heavily
loaded with lumber, caught by her bow on
the lower rocks projecting at the water
line from base of cliff aforesaid, which got
on about o'clock this same morning in a
dense fog then prevailing, and still much
Obscuring what | am now so intent to
make drawing of. l can hardly more
than make an outline of things. But fortu-
nately the sunlight breaking trought the
mists repeat my sketch, working very rap
idly to get things as they are-that is
enough-and not as they might be. Now
of strong reverberations may not be enough
to keep vessel from running into the base
border of the lighthouse and under the
very mouth, as it were, of the great fog
trumpet. Dense fogs! You see moth
ing beyond your vessel; hear the
great siren every few minutes, and
yet drift right into perils, where the loud
steam siren, with tones to be heard far
around, often renews the warning, "Keep
away from here!" Mr.. Homer's old song
about Ulysses voyage, that brave warrior
and Inflated navigator, safely passes the
home of the sirens by stufing his sailors
ears with wax and having himself securely
tied to a mast, for he had been forwarne6
This siren seems most signally to have
failed of its different purpose, and what
the ears of the Mary AIS sailors had in
them we cannot even surmise, except a
dense fog and great uncertainty just
where said siren was. Yet conjecture as
we may after all it does seem curious, to
be sure. We do not know all about the
effects of dense fogs and strong currents
along these coasts, but the scene somewhat
illustrates them. And 80 get picture,
a novelty in my Iris collection. As said,
the sail rocks, dark and jagged, those just
opposite on the mainland similar. Then
rising as slanting cliff this side
toward and near us is very PERCEPTIONS,
perhaps fifty feet high. Dark seams run