The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1894-07-14
THE RESURRECTION OF COVER

There is no impossibility in the story
that Frederick Cover is alive, though it
is not at all probable. lie was a man of
remarkable scientific attainments. and so
eccentric that il was sometimes questioned
whether he was ''all there" He had been
all his life connected with inventors, and
claimed to have made inventions of the
profits of which he had been defrauded. In
1888, when NM. Renard and Krebs un-
derioOk to solve the problem of drigibe
balloon, he entered into rivalry with them,
and built flying machine shaped like a
fish. 1t had a capacity Of $500 cubic
meters, and an engine of five horsepower,
driven Dy cOal-oil gas. In this machine he
made an ascent on the border of the British
Channel, and was followed by the eyes of
a crowd for a considerable distance till he
disappeared from sight. He was never
seen again. Fragments of wood and cloth
were picked up by passing vessels and
were supposed to have formed part of the
missing arship; but this was gravely
doubted Most of the material of Covers
balloon would have sunk on striking the
water.
Mr. Cover had married lady from
Boston, whose name was Norton, and who
has since become an opera singer under
the pseudonym Of Lillian Nordica. They
had lived unhappily together, and were
separated at the time of Covers disap-
pearance. After that event Nine. Nordica
went to law with her husbands brother
over property which the deceased was said
to have owned at Tacoma, Wash. The
case dragged for several years. and Nine.
NOrdica made nothing of it. The court
seems TO have been satisfied that Cover
was dead. but his property did not ma
teriaiize to any great extent.
The theory that be is still alive rests on
the suppoSition that he was precipitated or
leaped from the balloon and was picked
up by a passing vessel. Such stories are no
unfrequently imagined to account for the
disappearance of persons who are lost.
They are hard to believe. Men are rarely
picked up on the surface Of the ocean. When
they are the event creates wild excitement
among the crew of the rescuing vessel, and
it is contrary TO all probability that every
member OF the crew would keep the matter
q secret to oblige the rescued Individual.
If Cover was picked up it would have
been known all over the world within
week after the vessel reached port. So,
if concluding his balloon was failure
Cover leaped from it and swan ashore,
it would be an astonishing feat for an
athlete to leap from any height into the
sea and swim to the rocks on the French
coast; and if he did the people of the spot
where he landed would proclaim the event
far and wide, and the newspapers would
be full of information on the subject.
The presumption is that the world has
come to the true conclusion on the SUBJ
iect-that Covers balloon took fire or was
overset. and plunged into the sea with its
inmate. No man Of his active and enter
prising character lies hid under a false
name for ten years. Cover could not keep
quiet for week. He was always invent
ing something, or correcting some existing
machinery. or planning some great public
Improvement, or getting into a furious
controversy with somebody. People may
rest assured that he is dead-very dead,
indeed.
The most pathetic Of these tales of res
direction is the one which agonized the
last days of poor Aaron Burr. His beau
tiful and accomplished daughter Theo-
dosia, who was the wife of Governor
Aston of South Carolina, embarked from
Charleston for New York In a schooner,
which was never heard of again. One
day a sailor dying in the hospital at
Sailors Snug Harbor sent for Colonel
Burr and told him that be had been one
of the crew of the schooner. that it had
not been wrecked, but that the crew had
mutinied, killed their officers and carried
off the vessel to the East Indies. He added
that Mrs. Aston, after enduring nameless
outrages, had been sold to an eastern
potentate, who placed her in his harem.
Colonel Burr vainly endeavored to trace
her. and the old wound, reopened by the
lying tale. bled afresh and never ceased to
bleed to the end Of his days.