The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1893-04-13
A MOVING ISLAND.
Sable, Which Has Been Called the
Cemetery of the Ocean.


Sable Island is again reported to
have partly disappeared 1t is not
always correct to infer that Sable
Island is becoming smaller because
slice of it has been whitfield away.
1t may be found little later that
the debris has been piled up against
some other part of the coast, ex-
tending the great sandbank about as
far in one direction as it has lost
ground in another. There is no
doubt, however, that in the past two
centuries Sable Island has lost much
of its area. A good deal of the ISL
and is now scattered over the bot
tom of the Atlantic, where all ma
riners in the neighborhood of the
Grand Banks would be glad to have
what is left of it stay at rest. Sable
Island is about 100 miles nearly east
of Halifax. Sailors never know
whether last years chart is safe
guide for navigation in the adjacent
waters. Many a ship has been
wrecked upon its treacherous coast.
1t has been called the cemetery of
the ocean, and it deserves the name.
1t would have no population if the
Canadian Government did not find
it necessary to support score or so
of people there to look after the
lighthouses and care for castaways
who are thrown upon the island.
If the French maps of two centu-
ries ago told the truth Sable Island
has since that time lost more than
half it's area. Maps of the island
made at intervals since 1918 show
remarkable changes in it's form and
position. It's western end is now
about twenty miles farther out to
sea than it was century ago. The
highest sand dune, which was form
erly about 200 feet above the sea
level, is now only about 80 feet high.
The shifting sands are constantly
changing the outline of the curious
little lake in the interior just as they
do the contour of the coasts. Some
times this lake is wholly cut off from
the sea, and at other times a wide
channel joins it with the Atlantic.
Years ago two small vessels took re-
fuge in this lake from a storm, only
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able to put to sea when ready to
pursue their voyage. In single
night the Atlantic sometimes eats
up many acres of the great sand
heap, only to build it up in some
other direction. Its present form
is a crescent, with its convex side to
the south. Two of the three light
| houses built since 1890 we're under-
mined by the invading ocean, and a
while ago the third was badly dam
aged and will probably have to be
replaced.
1t is fortunate that there are not
many similar impcdiments in the
most frequented tracks of commerce.
Sable, however, is only an exagge-
rated type of moving islands in vari-
Gus parts of the world. Winds,
storms and currents are continually
changing the outlines of not few
low, sandy islands in the Pacific
Baker Island, lying under the equa-
tor north of the Phoenix Archipel-
ago, is very curious instance of
these changes. In summer the
wind blows almost steadily from the
southeast aud he axis of the big
sandbank extends directly east and
west. In winter, when the dominat-
ing atmospheric current comes from
the northeast the bank moves south,
the extreme annual oscillation in
the position of the island being
about 700 feet.--NeW York Sun.