The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1904-01-30
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~ W ~ ~ 80
Another ocean horror has recently
been. enacted on Sable Island, the
graveyard of the: Atlantic" The The
French fishing schooner Topaze OF ST ~s
Pierre, Miquelon, was dashed to pieces
there, and every soul persisted. Nine
bodies were washed ashore and were
torn into fragments by the surf and
the rocks before the coast guards TO-
Gated there could secure them. The
dismembered frames we're, however,
gathered UP, and inferred in one COM
mon grave.
No marine area enjoys such an evil
repute as Sable Island, whose very
name is a terror to navigators. The
island, a crescent shaped mound OF
sand, rising from the midst Of the wild
Atlantic surges, lies one hundred
miles off the coast of Nova Scotia and
Newfoundland, right by the fairWay
of transoceanic travel and in a sec
ton where contending tides lure
scores of vessels to destruction. Four
days after the loss of the Topaze, just
mentioned, a big steamer struck on
sand bar off the island, but aoated
clear again, and twenty-four hours
later a bark touched there and re-
NAMED hard and fast for two hours,
when squat struck here. and drove
her free. But it is rarely that escape
comes to a craft striking this tiny in
let of shelving sand dunes. Its record
is more than two hundred shipWrecks
the last century, besides scores of 9TH
ers which we're not noted because OF
the victims being engulfed at once.
Long Roster Of Wrecks.
Last spring some fishermen trawl-
ing there fouled their: nets in the hull
of a big steamer, Of the existence Of
which nobody was aware, it lying in
twelve feet of water, having doubtless
sunk with all hands in some blizzard
during the winter by striking on
sand bar which may have been raised
in "a nigh BY some swirl of the cur
rents. '.'*-'=4 - =. - 1T 3 8 -
The history of Sable Island is one
long roster of wrecks. 1t was sighted
by the early Biscayan voyagers, and
here fogs, gales and currents worked
havoc among their clumsy barks.
Then it was a substantial island, two
hundred miles long by thirty wide, but
the ceaseless warfare of the waves
has torn it away fragment after frag-
ment, until now it is only twenty
miles long and one mile wide, and an
other quarter of a century will see it
totally submerged. From it's sloping
shore, terraced by the everlasting
hidden and unstable sand reefs ex-
tending over an area fifty miles in
length and representing the real men
ace of the place, for it is on these
reefs that liners, freighters and fish
ers come to grief, getting begged as
in a mud hole and being beaten to
pieces by the terrible waves which
the fierce storms there provoke.
The region is one of constant ele-
mental commotiOn. The cold north
currents meet the gull stream and the
winds are ever at war. the meteOrOlO
gical reports showing frequent dense
fogs. incessant "blows" of more than
twenty miles an hour and an average
Of ten gales month when the wind
was over sixty miles an hour. The
fifty mile line of reefs and bars is al
most always a mad smother of broken
water, and there is no safety for a.
visiting ship nearer than forty miles
from the eerie isle. Usually vessels
that have gone ashore there had laid
a course to clear it by twenty leagues,
but getting into the fatal grip of the
currents were hurried onward to de-
struction, knowing nothing until the
sands of this desert island: grated
against their 'keels and those on board
were compelled to make a desperate
and in many instances hopeless fight
for their lives. 81 = Il. -.
: The troop ship Hermes , went
ashore there in 1880, bound for New
York with soldiers for the Revolution
airy war. She had seven hundred hui
mans aboard, and the only way those
who escaped succeeded in doing so
was to float line ashore attached to
an empty barrel. By means of this
daring seaman swan after, and, get
ting a hawser ashore, fastened it to
the ribs of a previous wreck. Three
hundred and eighty people were saved.
In 1887 the Princess Amelia, from Lon
don, was wrecked there, twenty-five
only out of one hundred and ten per-
sons escaping. X '.
After these disasters the admiralty
established life saving station there,
and it is maintained, to this day. The
American government offered to con.
tribute to its upkeep, from motives of
but the offer was refused,
as the bitterness Of the war had not
died out. So sincere was American
interest in it, however, that in the
War OF 1872 United States vessels of
war were instructed not to molest
ships conveying stores to. or cast
aways from, Sable Island, and In 1856
the cities OF Boston. New York and
Philadelphia presented q lifeboat each
for the use Of the station there.
Sable Island counts q score OF ocean
steamers among its victims. The
stranded there Ia 4 fog in
1860 and 2s7 lives were lost. The
Georgia followed in 1868; but her