Amador ledger., 1905-09-15
& AN OCEAN MYSTERY.
The Fate Of the Mary Celeste Has for
Thirty Years Excited the In
&srest Of Sailors.


OF all the unexplained happenings
none seems so mysterious as do those
OF the sea, for the waves keep their Sc
crets. Among the many nautical mys-
teries which have been the talk of sea-
faring folk that of the Mary Celeste has
for 80 years taken the lead All sorts
of explanations have been attempted,
and the incidents have been used as the
basis of a well-known sea novel, yet no
satisfactory solution has been offered
A writer in the New York Evening Post
has recently summed up the facts of the
case, and strange ones they are. The
Mary Celeste was unlucky from the first.
She was launched in 1869. Bad for
tune attended her very start in the
world, for being built of green timber,
she stuck on the ways, and was floated
only at great expense. Her voyages
were improbable, and after few years
her captain, discouraged by continual
loss, took his life.
On December 4, 1878, the Mary Celeste,
bound for Genoa, was found by the Brit
ish vessel Del Gratia about midway be-
tween the Azores and Lisbon, adrift and
abandoned. She was running under sail,
her long boat was gone, and the chro-
pometer and ships papers were missing.
1t was evident she had been deserted in
haste. By the log book it was judged
she had been cruising without crew
for eight or nine days.
The vessel was searched carefully,
but the mystery only deepened. A
naked, dark-stained cutlas which was
found on the cabin floor for time
caused suspicion of mutiny, but later
examination showed the stains to be
only rust. There were no traces of
strife. On the cabin table lay cloth,
needle, scissors and thimble-evidence
OF woman suddenly interrupted sew
ing. The pumps were dry, the cargo in
tact, and nothing wrong with the spars
or rigging.
The brig was taken to Gibraltar and
Investigations begun. There was an at
tempt to prove that the captain intended
to lose his ship on one of the reefs of the
Azores, but the case fell through OBJ
vious objections to this theory were the
captains wife and child on board and
the risking of all lives in the long boat,
so far away from land
The most plausible solution is offered
by the writer in the Post. He believes
that the key is to be found in the nature
of the cargo, in the quality of wood in
which it was cased, and the position of
the fore hatch.
When the Mary Celeste was boarded,
her sails gave evidence that she was
abandoned while running before a
strong breeze, and had been rounded to
in order to launch the life boat. Her
fore hatch was lying bottom side up on
the deck. Her cargo was alcohol stored
in red oak barrels. Red oak is very por-
GUS, and permits the escape of fumes
under the pressure of high temperature
These alcoholic fumes mixing with the
foul air of the hold may have generated
gas which blew off the fore hatch. Vol
umes of vapor pouring out would have
caused the captain to believe the ship
was on fire. Accordingly he lost no time
in taking to the boat, intending to be out
at safe distance. There was no fire,
but the vessel, caught by the wind,
sprang away. and left the long boat to
make a tantalizing and hopeless stern
chase, and finally, no doubt, to sink be-
meath the waves. No one will ever
know, but this is what may have hap
pened.
The later adventures of the Mary
Celeste were quite in keeping with her
ill-starred early promise. She was sold
for debt, and proved bad bargain.
Then she was wrecked off Hayti, and her
officers were arrested for Intentional de-
struction of the brig. The case in barra-
try was dropped, but the suspicion still
fingers that the owners and the captain
had an understanding that the vessel
should never reach port,