Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1894-03-02
",DERELICTS.'
ABANDONED VESSELS DRIFTING
OFF THE ATLANTIC COAST.
Dangers to NavigatIon-Strang and
Weird Stories of Their object
less Voyages-Burning
For Year.

and abandoned craft-were reported.
The worst derelicts are coal-laden and
lumber-laden ships. The latter float
the longest, while the former are
particularly dangerous because they
ire SO heavy and solid. The average
dcrclict floats thirty days.
Two years ago the Navy Depart
ment sent tho Yantic to destroy twelve
wrecks which lay along the Atlantic
const. She found them nll and blow
them into kindling wood. The usual
method is to sppronch water-logged
hulk in u steam launch, drop over the
stump of n mast hoop of iron with
torpcdoes attached and then fire the
torpedoes from safe distance by
electricity.
The North Atlantic is tho chosen
drifting ground of such floating perils.
Timber traders bound from this coast
TO Europe encounter cyclones on the
way and are deserted by dozens. The
vessels used i'll that traffic arc com
monty of an nntiquated type and SO
cottcn that only good luck keeps them
IN top of the water. Happy nro the
crews to be taken of when they meet
with disaster, before they are drowned
IL forced to cannibalism, as in the
case of the Thekla, of Philadelphia,
reported few months ago.
Now and then it happens that some
body finds derelict with n valuable
cargo and tows her into port, netting
l large sum in salvage. The most re-
mnrkable instance OF this sort was TINT
Of British ship called the Resolute,
which was one of three vessels sent to
lind Sir John Franklin. During the
winter of 1851 she was nipped in the
ice of Melville Bay--tho great sheet
Of water crossed the other day by
Poary-and was abandoned. Four
years later she WAS found by New
England whaler, frozen in foe and
practically uninjured. She was brought
to New London and Congress bought
her for 100000 from the snlvors.
After being thoroughly repaired she
was sent to England as gift and
token of amity to her Majesty. Years
later, when she WINS finally condemned
and broken mp, tho Queen had desk
made from her timbers and made it
present to the President of the United
States. Mr.. Cleveland uses it for his
work every day Mt the White House.
When ship strikes derelict the
occurrence is not reported, usually,
because no witnesses are left alive to
tell the tale. But there have been
cases where vessels have had the luck
to hit such hulks and to escnpe de-
struction. Only last year tho deserted
Fired B. Taylor" was cut squnrcly
i'll two by tho North German Lloyd
steamship "Trnve." For many months
the bow and stern of the abandoned
craft fioatcd about separately in the
track of commerce, the former pre-
senting IN extraordinary appearance
with bowsprit standing almost perpen-
dicular. Thus two derelicts were made
out of one. In April, 1889, the steamer
Cuban" of Liverpool, ran into n
water-loggcd hulk, cutting into it
thirteen feet. Happily, she escaped
with small damage.
More than three-fourths Of all dere-
licts along the Atlantic const of the
United States arc crented by storms off
Cape Hntteras, and from that neigh
borhood most of them start on their
strange and objectless voyage. Usually
they drift eastward until they get
about half way across the ocean, when
they pause and swing nimlessly about
in circles. Out in the middle of the
wide seas it is everybody's business to
destroy them, and therefore nobodys.
So they font about until they sink.
Many of them find their way into the
Sargasso Sea, which has been described
as graveyard of ships" That vast
field of growing marine plants, i'll
which many queer species of fishes and
other animals dwell, lies in a sort of
eddy made by the great revolving
ocean current. Finding their way in
to this vortex, the wrecks go round
and round until they no longer have
sufficient buoynucy to keep them on
the surface. Then they disappear.
Nobody can tell how many of the
great numbers of good ships which
have sailed away, never to be heard
from again, have been victims of dere-
licts. For several months during the
early part of this year an abandoned
hulk called the Agnes Manning lay in
the very track of the trans oceanic
flyers. She was four masted schooner
from Philadelphia carrying $40 tons
of coal. On February 25th she was
deserted with her masts standing and
sails furled. Her crew was rescued,
but the floating vessel remained q
menace to thousands of lives. There
would have been very little hope for
the strongest steamship that struck
such an object.
An extraordinary instance of the
burning of vessel was that of the
Ada Iredale, bound from Scotland to
San Francisco with cargo of coal.
She WINS abandoned in October, 1876,
nearly 1000 miles east of the Maraue-
sas Islands. Her crew took to the
boats and succeeded in reaching the
Marquesas. Meanwhile the wreck.
still burning, drifted westward in the
equatorial current to Tahiti, distance
of 1923 miles. Finally she was towed
into port and her cargo continued to
shoulder for more than year. How.