The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1898-08-19
THEY POINT TO VICTORY.

Figureheuds Prominent Feature ON the
Warships.
Sad to relate our modern mariners
give very little thought to figureheads.
| A war ship feels any number of times
securer with few torpedoes up her
sleeve than she possibly could with the
most aesthetic or formidable fgurehead
on her stem. In fact, look about any
harbor and note how few ships boast
anything In the shape Of this sort Of a
mascot. Yet, time was when ves-
sci would as soon have thought about
starting out with leak as without
a figurehead, and the further back we
60 the more was this fact. The earl
lest discovered model of a figurehead
belonged to a pleasure boat Of one Of
ancient Egypt's dark eyed queens. be-
ing in the form of lotus, and SO very
much to her mind and heart that she
had 1t buried with her, but warships
with animals carved upon the prows
are known to have existed in Egypt
before the day Of this queen, In fact,
as early as 1000 B. C. The subject
usually correspondent to the name Of
the ship. This was before the intro
duction Of rams. A few fgureheads. as
well as anchors and rams, found in the
ruins Of the locks at Athens serve to
give notion Of the dimensions of an
cient Grecian warships. The niche oc-
cupied on the Flying Dutchman by the
human skeleton was the niche that In
the Middle Ages was occupied by a
saint, and this in turn was an outcome
Of way they had in the days Of the /
Roman consuls Of taking their Iares
or tutelary gods to sea in the after
part Of the ship.
Apparently each particular nation
had a favorite emblem. The owl was
as conspicuous on the Athenian ships
as was the cock, that emblem of vigil
lance, on the prows Of the Phoeni-
clans. The shining blade of St. The
odore, the patron saint Of the Vene-
tians, was their favored figurehead.
while the British lion became so uni
versally the figurehead Of English ships
that other nations who followed closely
the naval architecture of this first ma
ton on the sea" adopted also the lion,
as much to conceal their Identity as be-
cause they were built after English
models. So common was this that in
France the curve Of the bow was
known as the sweep of the lion."
OF the few fgureheads preserved at
our Naval Academy that of the Della
ware, which was launched at Norfolk
in 1920, attracts most attention. This
image, called by some Tecumseh, by
others Powhatan, or even King Philip,
is not believed to be portrait, but
rather to represent great sachem or
a powhatan, title having among the
Indians significance quite like that Of
Pharaoh among the Egyptians. At any
rate, here he is, with his tomahawk,
his arrows and his stern brow, as much
a part of the scheme as the cadets
After the civil war the fgurehead Of
the Columbus, which Commodore Mac
auley burned and sunk at Norfolk in
1861 in order that the Confederates
might not gain possession, was fished
up and brought to the academy. The !
figurehead of the Macedonian, which
was for four years used as practice l
cruiser, Is there, too. The Macedonian, s
French ship, was cap 6
.ured from the French by the English. @
In 1872. after short, fierce fight, she I
became an American ship. A wooden
igurehead In the shape Of lion did e
luty as a mascot on her quarter deck Y
It the time Of her capture. Other of c
'ur historic figureheads are the bust of n
from the line-of-battle Il
hip by that name, the figure of st. c
4ouis on receiving ship and the gid c.
ID eagle which once belonged to the
Niagara.
Though the origin Of the f1gurehead 2
re lost in obscurity, let us hope and be- n
leve that the fgureheads of our war; t,
hips will lead them to a thrilling vic II
Dry. This is surely presaged by the d
gurehead on the Massachusetts of Ii
Schley's feet, which surely is
lands for Samothrace. "