The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-06-19

8REST. France, June 1S.--Reports
are slowly being obtained of the loss
Of the Castle liner Drummond Castle,
bound from Cape Town to London, with
IA passengers and 1O3 officers and
men. The steamer was going full
speed shortly before midnight on Tues
day, June is, heading around Fins
ter1'e from the Bay OF Biscay, and
making for the British channel OF
the Finisterre island Ushunte, about
thirty-six miles northwest OF here, in
q group of thirty islands the Drum
mond Castle was lost. Her safe course
should have been away outside
Jshunte. upon which island is a light
house and a signal station. But for
some reason not satisfactorily eX-
planned the steamship headed inside
Ushunte. Between that point and the
main land, France, is a line of islands,
including Molene and Leconquett,
connected by ridges of rock with
each other. At differnt places there
are ridges betw cen which vessels can
pass with safety, but between Ushunte
and Molene, the latter island being
about half way TO the main land, is a.
sunken reef of rocks with deep water
on both sides of it and covered in parts
even at the lowest tides. 1t was ON
this ridge that the Drummond Castle
struck while going at full speed. The
steamer must have struck so as to tear
a big rent in the bottom from stem to
stern. thus filling the warer-tight COM
paITments almost Immediately and
sending her to the bottom on the other
side of the reef in about three minutes.
Two boats were loaded after the Castle
liner struck. One capsized and only
three men were saved out of PAT people
on board.
The British second-class cruiser
Sybeile, which was of Ushunte at the
time of the disaster. heard the signals
of distress and sent boats to rescue,
but without avail. OF the saved. two
men were picked UP floating on the
wreckage, by a fisherman from the
main land. A man named Marquardt
reached the Molene island. About
ten bodies have already been re-
DrumOnG Castle struck the reef
a high west wind was blowing and it
was raining and foggy, about the worst
conditions possible for approaching
thar part Marquardt says Captain
Pierce had just gone to the cabin for a
brief rest when a terrible shock caused
the Drummond Castle to CULVER as if
SudkEn ny d uS GAlJlOSlCll- HIS
was followed by a horrible grating,
rasping sound, like the noise of inrush-
ing water and the cries of the passen-
gers
The commanding officers ordered. all
hands to clear away the boats for low
ering. But the rents in the steamer
were so wide and deep thar but few
passengers had time to scramble upon
deck before she gave two or three
heavy rolls. then an awful lurch ac-
companied by some interior explosions.
and sank. Marquar0t, contrary to the
reports of the other two seamen res
cued, said the steamship went down 50
suddenly that there was no time even
TO launch one boat, much less two, and
even had the boats been launched, the
seas were running so high and in such
rapid succession peculiar seas on
that part of the French c0asD that she
would have been promptly swamped.
Some passengers, however. succeeded
in fastening line belts around them
selves. the bodies washed ashore being
so provided. The tug just returned
from Molene island reports that the
bodies of twenty-five victims of the
wreck have been washed ashore there.