The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-06-18
wANDERERs or THE SEA.

l its navy. great or small. and the 1 oceans are free to all. The exigencies of trade, the lust for exploration and discovery. the promptings of ambition and adventure. all unite in causing what we are wont to consider 6 con- stant going hither and thfther, a con- stant crossing and recrossing of paths. and a constant rubbing together as 1t were of the ever passing travellers of | the sea-
 Notwithstanding this apparently never ceasing traverse of old ocean's bosom, we are yet continually reading stories of islands which have escaped the touch of human restiessness. Many of these are Actions. of course. but not all are such. There are we'll authen- ticated accounts of islands which have been seen and approximately located, but which have since disappeared as completely as if they had sunk into the depths of the ocean. as 1t is not impos- sibie that some of them have acctualiy done In addition to these perplexfns mysteries 1t occasionally happens that vessel. willingly or unavoidably. dis covers an island of which no previous knowledge was known to exist. This, also, seems strange, still bearing in mind the immense number of vessels and their varied destinations.
 But there is yet another of old oecan's mysteries which sets all our preconceived notions at fault. We aliude to the abandoned vessels known as derelicts, and sometimes alluded to as ghosts of the ocean," It not in- frequently happens that vessel. from some cause or other. is abandoned by It's crew and left to its fate. Some fatal disease may have obtained foot hold on it and the crew fly in terror from it's deathiy timbers. A storm may have overtaken 1t and crew and passengers, under the impression that it will soon sink. take to the boats and leave 1t to so it's own way. Or 1t may be that a mutiny occurs. and in the end all hands leave the ship forever.
 Whatever may be the cause of the abandonment, it sometimes--not infre- quently. in fact happens that the ves- sel fails to sink. It may be that the damage was not so serious as officers and crew supposed. It may be that the timbers were much stronger. or the cargo more buoyant than they believed. or some other cause may have, kept the hulk afioat. Whatever be the cause that prevents sinkage the result is the same. The abandoned vessel becomes what Is known to nayigators and others as a derelict, a floating, aimless wanderer, and a serious menace to navigation. It becomes marine ghost.
 For such wanderers are a constant source of danger. They go at the l mercy of the winds and the waves. fol- l lowing no continued course, forever changing direction. They cannot be charted like an iisland so that ves- sells can find them or avoid them, be- cause they refuse to remain in one place. The fact that one sea captain has sighted one, and has taken and preserved it's exact latitude and longi- tude Is no evidence that another will find 1t there, for It may be many miles away when next seen.
 But in truth the captains are not anxious to see them. for they are | dangerous. Sometimes a hull is loaded with timber which win buoy 1t up and keep it afioat until 1t rots. A vessel in the night or in fog running against derelict of this kind might almost as well run full tilt against a rock. and there are other cargoes equally danger ous. Even if there is nothing Jut the hulk itself. it Is a menace.
 Would 1t be supposed that an object of this kind could keep ahoat for months, or even years? And would 1t be supposed that a helpless vessel with human beings on It could be lost to all human knowledge for many months? Yet we find in an exchange this almost incredible account:
 The latest narrative of the latter class concerns the ship Minerva, which | sailed out of New York March 31, 1903, | and was never again heard of until 1t drifted into Laban, Borneo, several l up as lost and it's fate catalogued in the strange chronicle of mysterious ocean mishaps. But when 1t foated into Lapan the captain was alive, though dying, half the crew had died of the plague, and the only man on board who was able to give an account of the tragedy was Filipino servant. The Minerva was a mass of wreckage and had drifted and been buffeteG upon
 the seas for more than two years with
 out having met single vessel.
 This. we repeat. is almost incredible,
 yet we have no reason to doubt 1t. If
 1t had appeared ine Mayne Reid or
 Jules Verne story, with all the ghastly
 happenings set out in de.ail, we should
 have regarded it as a clever romance
 but 1t Is a true story. The account
 does not, and cannot, state when or
 where the crew became incapable of
 managing the ship and thus left 1t to
 the mercy of winds and waves, nor can
 any one tell how long or over what
 route it drifted. It is only necessary
 to take a look at the map of the world
 however, in order to see what a tortu-
 ous course the dereiict must have pur.
 sued in order to reach Borneo, which
 lies between Java and the Philippines
 In all this cratic voyage of over
 two years, traversing waters which are almost alive with the shipping of tht
 world. 1t seems to be a fact that tho
 wanderer was not sighted by any other
 .,oc.a1 nar did ifs crew sec another