The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1900-07-15

like craft that carried the writer among
her crew ON her first Yoyage-with a rec
ord of twenty-one months and a track of
$500 miles to her credit, and after her the
schooner w. B. White, abandoned off
Cape Hatteras in the blizzard of March
Is, 1888, to wallow her way seaward, and
impelled by the middle of the three gulf
streams divisions, lay her water-soaked
bows upon one of the Hebride5 ten
! months later. AS a further instance of
| the tenacity with which the derelicts may
cling to existence may be quoted the
| case of the ship Fred B. Taylor, cut in
two by the steamship Trave, about eighty
miles southeast of Nantucket, in June,
1892 The after end went north, ground
ing at Wells Beach. on the coast of
Maine, seven weeks later, and the bow,
caught by the southerly shore current,
| drifted south and was seen off the Del
| aware capes on September 6, two and a
half months from the time of collision.
How many more vulnerable crafts these
floating reefs sent to the bottom during
their wandertngs can only be conjectured.
7 FRANKS OF PASSING sQUALL.
Of all the perils of the sea, none Is so
frequently met with in low ATTITUDES as
the atmospheric disturbance known as
the squall-a combination of wind, rain,
thunder and lightning, presenting, how
ever, two or three Of these aspects often
er than all four. Air currents maintain
their hornogenity and identity much as
before, becoming diffused and lost in sur
rounding water. An area of warm,
moist air at the surface may be over
lain and closed by colder, dryer, COM
pressing air. There is contraction and
consequent Increase of heat until, for
some cause, a break ncellrs in the walls
at one side and towards this break the
hot humid air ruShes, expanding and
cooling condensing its moisture as 1t
goes, condensfng it's electrfcity-posftive
or negative-on the smaller aggregate
surface of charging rain-drops, and dis
charging this rain and electricity until
we have all the familiar phenomena OF
the thunder storm or squaTl As an in
closed body of warm, dry air, subject to
the above conditions, will possibly mani
fest itself as a white squall-an Invisible
| fury that strikes without warning.
A schooner with a sheet aft, struck by
| a squaL, if not relieved by dismast1ng,
may capsize, fill through open matches
or cabin windows and sink before the
pressure is raised. A becalmed ship, with
no steerageway, and yards square, or
! nearly so, receiving this sudden pressure
! on the forward side of her canvas
! (''struck-aback'O provided. of course,
| that the masts do not fall, may settle
| her stern, bury her cabin, windows ana
| doors, and founder helplessly before she
| can gather sternway or be boxed around.
| But this does not always happen.
| sduau may pass harmlessly overhead or
| a quarter Of a mile to one side and again
| may strike the ship with no more mani
7 festatton of force than could be aroused
| hy a fan. No man may gauge the
| amount of wind in a coming squaH.
CHASE OF THE WHIRLING TERROR.
O.
! Consider that the incIosed area of
warm, moist air finds no escape In lat
| ersI direction and is pressed down by
| the heavier cold air until 1t breaks
| through above at one or more points at
| least neutrality-suspicious. holes for II
| self to ascend Toward the ascending
/ columns the surrounding air PUSHES with
I a force varying with the distance from
| other columns, assumes a whirling mo-
| tion-right or left-condenses as 1t rises,
/ at the upper part first, then the lower
! drags upward a spinning, eone-shaped
/ turmoil of water from the sea that almost
I meets the inverted cone of condensed va
/ por above, and here we nave the water
/ spout-a tornado born at sea, with a pos
sibla vacuum center which, large
/ enough. may surround a small craft and
/ explode her hull from the sudden eXpan-
sion of air in the hold as easily as rarn-
t houses and barns are demolished IN the
/ West But this is theoretical, as water
! shouts are unruly subjects for study, pre-
senting little opportunity for induct1vf
| reasoning and scientific data are rare
| IT Is known, however, that the furious
| velocity of the w1irling air-currents Is
sufficient of itself to tear the masts ou'
of the strongest of ships The American
| bark Reindeer, Capt. Strandt, for in
stance. had all three masts cut off below
the lower mastheads by WATERPROOF
/ that struck her while running up TIT
e1Ilf stream in February of 1888. TIT
| hull was not injured and the crippled
| vessel reached Bermuda.
But IL is also known that modern
| steamship need not fear an ordinary wa
terspout. More than one of them ha
been shattered to a harmless fall of raIl
| by the twenty foot nose of a liner
| Ever present in the mind of a ship cap
tain is the peril of Storm with its con
cemitant heavy sea. And here 1t is wei
to saw that It is not the wind that Il
| dreaded it is the waves. A ship will
claw away from a lee shore in smooth
water against any wind that Will per
NIT her to show patch of slanting can
vas The heave of the sea Is what an
nuls the law of physics and throws he
on the rocks, and with sea room to lee
ward it is the tossing, straintng, pound
ing of the waves that forces oakum from
seams, wrenches plank-ends from fasten
ings, and causes the leaks that sinks her
SMELL A BLOW IN THE AIR.
Certain indictions of gale speak t.
the ship captain. He notes falling bar
ometer, The peculiar sensational com