The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-10-11
THE ARKs SUCCESSORS.

Ships, Longevity Rivals Men's-List of | the Worlds Oldest SeaWorthy Craft | Includes Centenarians.
 The Kieler Zeitung mentions the ar l rival at Kiel of the Danish sailing ves-
 sel De Ire Sostere, hailing from | Aeroeskjobing. with a cargo of linseed
 cakes, and 1t says that she was built in l 1772 at Rudkjobing, but is stil quite | seaWorthy, does not leak in the least,
 and is easily navigated
 This old ship of 127 years ago, went
 through that great up-to-date engi- l neering and strategical triumph, the | North Sea and Baltic Canal. But, al
 though it is difficult to match this Ves- l sel, there are many more old sailing ships still thrashing around the world than one would believe. Take Lloyds Book, which was started great many yeas ago, as private register or ships and owners kept by and Tor the use of the underwriters frequenting l Lloyd's Coffee House, in order that they might have confidential informa- ton as to the risks. they would take if they underWrote certain lines The book afterward became printed docu-
  and grew into a separate thing from the room, which confined itself to un- derwriting, while the Registry, now settled in White Lion Court, Cornhill, took upon itself not only registration, but also examination, inspection, and classification. The Registry, more re- | gently, began to include, as the Regis | ter Book says, ''as far as possible, the names, dimensions etc, of all other
 merchant vessels of the world of 100
 tons and upward, some of which, all
 though not classed by the society, are
 classed elsewhere" Therefore, Lloyd 5
 Register is the Supreme Court for par-
 ticulars of ships, and as the De Ire
 Sostere does not appear in the book,
 she-or should say they?-must either | be under 100 tons or imaginary.
 1 There are many ships of which the
 dates of building are unknown, but
 the oldest dated is given in the book as | the Hannah, a barkentine, built in 1T94
 at Yarmouth by an unrecorded builder,
 She is 97 tons net register and 10S gross
 register, owned by Messrs. Bessey X Palmer, Limited, and registered at
 Yarmouth This firm may be looked on
 as the fathers of old sailors; for, out
 of fifteen ships, they have Hannah.
 Willemina, built no one knows where or when; Mary, built in 1926; William.
 built in 1928; Bertha, built in 1S3S, and l William Crow, built in 1Sf1.
 l "H'' Is a good Initial for the old vessels, for one of the next eldest is | Hvalflsken, a brig built in 1901 by J,
 Ekebom at Calmar, and owned by Den Kongelige Gronlandske Handel of Copenhagen She is 195 tons net regis | ter Among the fleet of nine, this company also has Lucinde, built in 1S42, and Peru, built in 1S46.
 With the Hvalfisken tie the Europa, built by H. Taraldsen at Kragero in 1901, bark afterward rebuilt in 1867, belonging to 0, P. Olsen, Laurvig, and the bark Rousseau, built by an un- known builder in Philadelphia in 1901, and rebuilt in 1s45, belonging to F. Swift, New Bedford, Mass. Thera are only nine vessels built in or before 1s1o, and of these "H'' has two, which is a good proportion, Built in or be- fore 1920, there are 25 in or before 1880. A. in or before 1S40, 153; in or be- fore 1850, 566
 Of the 566, only 37 are over 300 tons net register. Of course, the average size of the old ships was far less than the average of the present-day ves- sells. Another fatt to be remembered Is that the small vessels in the coasting trade are not exposed to many of the dangers which beset an an-going vessel, and are always handler to port of refuge. So their chances of lasting are greater.
 The Norwegian owners easily take first place in the race for number of ships built in or before 1850 They have Ill. There is bounty system and an absence of grandmotherly leg islation in Norway and Sweden which encourage the owner. And another point is, that 1t is far easier to get a ship chased in the Norske Veritas than in Lloyds Book One hundred and seventy-four all told are classed, but very few of them in our book.
 We come second with 131 Sweden third with 66, the United States fourth with 59, Spain fifth with 30, Denmark sixth with 25, Russia, Italy, and Germany tie for seventh with IT each. Holland Is tenth with 12. France eleventh with g. Turkey twelfth with 4, Brazil thirteenth with 3, Peru and Portugal tie for fourteenth with ?. and Greece, Chile, Egypt, Columbia, and the Argentine Republic have one each. These old ships run strangely on simi lar alphabetical lines; for example,, the the brig Albert was built in 1850, the brig AlbertinaB Amelia in 1850, the schooner Ana Luisa was built in 1749 the schooner Ann in 1885 and rebuilt in 1871, the brigantine Anna Helena is Maddelena in 1850, the brig Anne Marie in 1S3S the brig Anne Margrethe
 in 1S4S and the brigantine Anne and Sophia in 1S45.
 There are one August, three Angus tas, and one Auguste. And this rule holds good with some very out-of-the- way names for Ayah Nicola was built
 in 1S42, and yet another of the same strange name in 1S46. There are two Caledohias, two Californias, and two Carls, as we'll as one Carl Emil. There are three Ceres. There are three Chris tines, a Christina Carlotta, and a Christiane. These are ordinary names; but there are two ships built--one in 1906 and the other in 1S4S-both called De fire Soskende," and no one knows who built either, One can understand two Garibaldis, though neither was built or owned in Italy, both belonging to Norway, one built in Camden, United States and ono in A AlblasSeTdan