The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1900-04-01
ARM SABLE ISLAND.
nus WRECK sTREWN SAND BAR ls
DOOMED BY THE SEA.


q 145 miles from Halifax and So miles
.ast OF Cape Canso," writes Gustav
rohhe in Ainsiee's. ut is n treeless.
.h-ubless waste, scanned by wind and
,ave and of ever changing aspect A
a,,e shaped hill near the east end.
once mere undulation of sand, is now
ovsr 100 feet high and Is still growing.
other hillocks are gradually being
r,owed away by storms. The hillocks
40 liable to be undermined so swiftly
and swept out of existence that they
are carefully watched from the various
! stations on the island, there being
M certainty how far an inroad of the
sea will extend after each successful
.+tack Even the coarse erasSuof the
island grows in a different manner
trom that of the mainland. 1t does not
boar seed. but shoots up from roots
-rhicb run along under the sand. Dur
ING the winter the sand is blown over
the grass and buries 1t sometimes three
or four feet deep, but the hardy blades
grow up next season, as il the island
sands had protected them from the
cold of winter in order to make them
all the stronger
.0rbe island itself is fighting for self
reservation. 1t seems as if it drew
shns into its fatal embrace as rallying
noints for its loose and shifting sand,
Tins TO protect itself by bulwark of
wrecks against annihilation by the sea.
Tradition says that when Sable island
was discovered by Cabot in 1447 it was
81 miles long and 10 miles wide. In
1902. when rescue station was estab-
1shed there, it was only 40 miles long.
Since then it has shrunk to but little
more than % miles in length, and in
width It is only n mile at its widest
Within 2S years the western end lost
seven miles. Shoals over which the
ocean now surges are pointed out as
former sites of lighthouses. One of
these was so swiftly undermined by
tbe sea that it had to be abandoned
with the greatest precipitation. The
spot where once stood the superintend-
ent's house is now under two fathoms
of water.
'sThe island. rapidly diminishing at
fits western end, is slightly gaining at
its eastern. Slowly, like 4 ship drag
glUE ltS duCHOls II 10 AlIO III CslSIn III u
Will It ever reach the edge of the
shoals, stand tottering on the brink of
the abyss till it receives its coup de
grace and plunge over the submarine
bank forever into the depths? UnfOr
tunately its end will probably be less
dramatic. There is good ground for
believing that this gray sand bar will
slowly wear away until it becomes an
other submerged shoal added to an am
buscade already some 90 miles in
length, for line of breakers extends
16 miles from one end of the island and
Is miles from the other.
"In the space of a single year Sable
island claimed more than 200 lives. In
fact so many wrecks line the shoals
Of this ocean graveyard that the new
pile up on the old, like bodies heaped
In one ditch The Crofton Hall. an iron
sailing ship wrecked few years ago
on the northeast bar. broke in two
about amidships. The pieces have
drifted together again. and the island
ers suppose that she struck crosswise
upon an old submerged wreck and is
settling over it, which accounts for the
two parts coming together. Nor Is the
island satisfied with the awful tribute
which it exacts from the living. The
same informant who writes me about
the Crofton Hall adds that the bark
John Mcleod. which was wrecked of
DEVILS island at the entrance to Hall
fax harbor. drifted ashore on Sable is
land bottom up. wreck of a wreck!
'One Of the grimmest legends of Sa-
Bile island dates from the wreck of the
Amelia, and there is enough evidence
of truth connected with it to show
what bloody deeds were added on that
occasion TO the terrors of shipwreck
Captain Torrens. who commanded the
gunboat which was dispatched to Sable
island after the wreck Of the Amelia
was one of the survivors of the SECOND
disaster. A passenger on-the lost trans
port was Lady Copeland, on her way
to join her husband. The captain oi
the gunboat had been told shat she
wore on her forcfnger ring of pecul
lar artifce
The story has it that Captain Tor
rens, wandering over the island one
night in search OF possible survivors
/. was attracted by the piteous whining
4 OF his dog in front of q small, opeI
shelter known TO have existed at tha
time. but long since toppled to pieces
approaching the shelter, he was star
TIED to see the figure of 4 woman all il
Fhite and holding toward him th'
bleeding stump Of forefinger. Whil'
ne was gazing at the apparition it rose
silently glided past him and diyed int'
the sea. But time and again thereafte
the white woman with bleeding fore
nhger was seen wandering over tn
sand hills.
1T is probably only part of the weir'
legend that Captain Torrens, feelin
sure that shocking crime had beel
committed, tracked the guilty pirat
until be discovered his family on tn
coast Of Labrador and learned that tn