The San Francisco call., 1904-04-15

will meet Grand Duke Cyril. probably
at Baikal
The exact number of Vice Admiral
Makaroffs staff on board the Petro-
pavlOvsk when she sank is unknown,
but 1t is thought by the Admiralty to
be probably fifteen or sixteen. The
exact number Of the crew lost also is
! unknown. The PetropavloVsk had a
complement of about $50, of which fif-
I ty-two We're saved, at last accounts.
Nassali Verestchagin, the Russian
/ painter, was Vice Admiral Makaroff' 5
! guest on the Petropavlovsk. IT is ru-
mored that he was lost with the ship.
Nicholas Kravtchko, the well known
Russian literary man, who was acting
/ as correspondent for the Associated
! Press at Port Arthur, went down with
4 the PetropavlOvsk, il is believed. Tele-
! grams to him remain unanswered.
THEME FOR CONTROVERSY
There is a disposition to raise a con-
/ trOVersy as to whether the explosion
occurred inside or outside the Petro-
pavlovsk, similar to the controversy
I which followed the destruction of the
United States battleship Maine in Ha-
vana harbor. The fact that many of
! the wounded. including Grand Duke
] Cyril, were badly burned, seemed to
support the theory of an internal ex-
! plosion.
The first dispatch received from Rear
Admiral GrigorOvitch, commandant at
/ Port Arthur. distinctly stated that the
i ship struck a mine, but Rear Admiral
/ Prince Ouktomsky's telegram to-day
refers only to an explosion.
I Grand Duke Boris, who witnessed the
! disaster from Golden Hill, in a tele-
gram TO his father. Grand Duke Vladi-
/ mir describes how the shin lifted 1t
/ 81 he hair IN fov "a
and smoke. and then turned turtle and
sank in two and a half minutes. The
awful horror of the catastrophe can
| mentally be reconstructed from the
brief description contained in this tele-
gram.
The appearance of smoke or steam
and fire was explained by a member
Of the general staff, who said:
The ship may have touched a mine
forward, under her Whitehead torpedo
magazine, resulting in a second explo-
sion; or. if she touched the mine amid
| ships, her boilers may have exploded.
| Either hypothesis would account for
the appearance of fire, smoke or steam.
1 consider it certain that the Petro-
pavlovsk, as well as the Pcbieda, struck
a mine laid to prote,~ the entrance to
the channel 1t is difficult to imagine
how the mines drifted, as they were
heavily weighted The entrance to the
! channel is narrow, but ii was known
TO the commanders by the bearings.
1t is possible the ships may have been
carried by a strong tide into the mine
fields.
When the attention of this member
OF the general staff was called to the
| japanese claim that mines had been
laid by their torpedo boats, he remark
ed laconically:
II do not believe it,
ADDS TO RUSSIAN GLOOM.
The official bulletin this afternoon,
conveying the intelligence of the loss
of another torpedo boat destroyer and
the accidental Gripping of another bat
tleship. was almost as severe a blow
as the loss of the Petropavlovsk yes
terday and plunged the whole town
anew into grief
The Russian word in the text of the
official dispatch describing the accident
to the Pobieda means either mime
or torpedo" but the qualifying word
indicates something moving toward the
ship. This dispatch puts an end to
the idea prevailing here that there had
| been an engagement following the dis
aster to the Petropavlovsk.
IT is considered remarkable here
that the Japanese did not take ad-
vantage of this terrible accident to at
tack Port Arthur.
The Novoe Vremya to-day repro-
duces a lecture delivered by Admiral
| Makaroff in 1894 on the subject of the
Victoria and Camperdown catastro-
phe, in which he pointed out the in
herent weakness of battleships and
their liability to turn turtle, ever