The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-02-20
THE OLD lf1N Wlls LOST.


 ing Was Wrong, But He VI as III a A"'
 of Trouble for Days.
 (From the Philadelphia Times.)
 It Is often asked if sea captalns uo not sometimes get lost, and not Know where on the great ocean their shap ls' I recall a case where our "old Man" was lost within one hundred miles or his home port, and an old aeep-Water captain, too, who had guided his snip to nearly all the large seaports or the world, and had been around the Worla. And this happened just after me run from Frisco, when for one hundred days not a blimpse of land had been seen to prove his position on the track less waste. He had shaped his course to pass between two of the Azores Flores and Faya1, and after rushing | forward through dark and stormy night, daylight broke to show us the l two islands, one on either bow. TO make such an accurate landfall. after being at sea nearly three and one-half months, made it seem all the more strange to see this old master mari ner" lost on the mill pond" as deep- ] Atlantic.
 Our ship was the bib clipper ship H., homeward bound from Antwerp Philadelphia being our destination, the capes of the Delaware were the land- | fall we expected to make. We were running for Five Fathoms Bank light ship off Cape May, and, after hunting l for it all day in the mist or rain, the old man hove to at p. rn Then, going with his mate to the chart, which was spread out on the cabin table, he ran over his figures once more, and finally I heard him sum the matter up as fol- lows:
 "The observations say she is here" pointing to a spot on the chart; the dead reckoning says she is there, pointing to another spot, while the l soundings do not indicate either place, l and d. if I know where she is" And he was right. too, for excepting l the fact that the American coast Goe- tween Sandy Hook and Hatteras was somewhere beyond that western hori- zon, he was lost, and was utterly una l ble to shape a course for the breakwa- ter.
 This was the night of August 18th. l We had left Antwerp on the glorious Fourth and were eleven days beating down the English Channel When once out clear of the land we hoped for more favorable weather, but day after day I light head winds and calms delayed us. August 1st found us on the edge of the Banks of Newfoundland, and, after a very narrow escape from being sunk by an iceberg, we ran further south to l keep clear of such cold and unfriendly neighbors.
 i Here is where the trouble began. I had been keeping the ships run by dead reckoning for the mate, and up to this time all had gone well. In running south to clear the banks we had run into the Gulf Stream and although l asked the mate several times about al- lowing for the drift of the current, he said not to do so. No current was al- lowed for in my day's work, and the re- suit was a difference of at least forty miles in the longitude, my figures giv- ing our position that much further west
 than the captains chronometer called
 for This difference continued for seve-
 ral days and puzzled the mate, al-
 though I mentioned again that no cur
 rent had been allowed for. Finally, af-
 ter being told for the third time that
 my figures did not agree with the cap
 tain's observations, decided to work
 1t out on my own hook.
 Taking down the mates chart, which
 I had the use of, I clearly saw that the
 ships track had been well in the cen
 ter of the Gulf Stream. The flow was
 found to be east iby north, and judging
 the rate from figures given at regular
 distances, I figured up the days work
 and when compared with the captains
 the result of his observations, the lati-
 tude agreed and the longitude was very
 little out,and as near as could be eX- pected from simply working from courses and distances sailed.
 The difference in the figures for the
 past few days had worried the "Old
 Man" and his confidence in his chro
 nometer was only partly restored by the days work, which agreed so closely with his now that allowance had beer made for the flow or setback of thic mighty river" of the ocean.
 ; A few days later, about sunset, steamer was sighted astern, bound
 west. We ran up signals asking fol their longitude Presently the steamer changed it's course and headed for th' H.. As she approached we saw sig nals flying, but instead of the longitud' it proved to be that our signal had no
 been understood, which explained wh! : she ran down to us. She proved to b one of the big German liners and a 5 she ran under our stern and passed l close to, our captain hailed, asking fo t | the steamers longitude. The rail
 the big liner was black with passen , gers, and just as the German captail l formed trumpet of his hands am , gave his longitude, the big crowd o 7 passengers, not understanding Wha was going on, gave a long, loud shou . and swung their arms and hats. Tn I | captains reply was lost, and the sam result followed his next attempt. Gu , Old Man was furious, but ran tn , length of the ship and hailed one
 more; by this time the distance was s , great that only faint reply came t
 our ship, while the big steamer forge ahead and was soon lost in the comin ! night.
 Several on the H. were quite sur of the German captains reply, but a his figures did not agree with ours, tn
 captain became anxious and agai D doubted his chronometer. The uncer ' tainty as to the ships longitude in n creased still more when We spoke,