The Savannah morning news., 1903-01-13
FROM WATER FRONT
CAPT. CRossLEY OF STEAMSHIP
PHDNA FOUGHT FIRE.
VESSEL IN PERIL AWHILE.
AT BALTIMORE SHE HAD A MAR
ROW ESCAPE.

Her Crew Remained Aboard and
Fought VnIinntIy, While Capt.
CrossIey Took the Bridge and Com
mnnded Them-Of Interest to Mari
ners.
The British steamship Pydna, Capt.
Crossley, is berthed at the Seaboard
Air Line terminals. loading general
cargo for Liverpool.
Capt. Crossley was seen aboard his
vessel yesterday, and gave an account
of the narrow escape of his ship by fire
recently at Baltimore. He said the
Pydna arrived at Baltimore few days
before New Years with a full cargo
of Manganese ore from Rio Janiero and
was discharging it at the Canton ele-
vator. Besides the Pydna there were
five other steamers discharging various
cargoes at the same place. On the
night of Dec. 81. about 10 o'clock, fire
broke out at this elevator and in
few minutes the heat was so intense
that the Pydna's plates soon blistered
and considera BILE woodwork about he
vessel was scorched.
When the fire started the Pydna' s
crew were all asleep, but when they
were called TO quarters, the captain
says. they worked hard. Capt. Cross
ley himself took the bridge and di-
rected the men with the hose in
mastery manner in extinguishing the
fire, while the crews of other vessels
near by jumped overheard and desert
ed
The Pydna, although hailing from
Liverpool, is owned in st. Johns, y.
B., by Thomson & Co. The fleet is
known as the Battle Line. The fifteen
vessels in the fleet are all named for
various Greek battles. The steamers
Pandosia and Trebia of the same line
loaded in Savannah this season.
The chief officer of the Pydna Is Mr..
Brickley and the second officer, Mr..
Mosher: her chief engineer is Mr..
James Martin. and assistants. Messrs.
Thomson and Pendergast
The Rhine is less than 900 miles long,
and the Danube less than 1000. The
length of the longest river in India is
1900 miles, and the longest in Asia is
1920. The Nile is 1862; it affords.
however. only $50 miles of continuous
navigation from its mouth. You may
take steamboat from the mouth of
the Mississippi and pass up 1900 miles
from the Gulf-as far as from New
YORK across the Atlantic TO the Strait
of Gibraltar across the Mediterranean
and the Aegean Sea to Asia Minor, and
up the Dardanelles to Constinople,
and then you will have to disembark
and walk 400 miles If you wish to equal
the distance that would have to be
travelled to reach the head waters of
the river.
What If this Father of Waters" like
the Nile, had flowed north instead of
south, and like the Red River of the
North, had emptied into the Arctic
ocean instead of the Gulf? asks Josiah
Strong, in Success. Commercially
speaking, it would have cut off this
great river system from the world,
would have made the isthmian canal
useless to the Mississippi valley. and
would have spread annual devastation
throughout fits course, because the
floods of spring from the southern por-
ton of the river would have poured
down upon the northern while the lat
ter was still ice bound. fitting the
basin of the Mississippi only a few
hundred feet would have made all this
vast difference.
The British bark Earl Derby has al
ready taken in her stiffening at The
Central Railroad wharf, and the prob
abilities are that she will take no more
cargo at present. The Earl Derby has
considerable nitrate of soda loose in
her holds, which has to be sacked and
discharged. The vessel is loading for
RnanOC