Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-02-04

WlIflln less imam ndlI a mile.
Vary in Their Danger.
1t is a common saying that. at the lowest
computation, more ships and men have
been swallowed up by the Goodwins than
compose the British mercantile marine to-
day. The sands vary greatly in their
danger Sometimes a ship will run aground
and remain there for days. and even weeks,
before she Is engulfed. In the mea ntime.
of course. the crew are rescued; occasion
ally--very rarely-the vessel Is towed Off.
At other times during the midwinter gales.
five minutes will see the end of the stouteSt
ship that ever f1oated.
In summer the sands are often high and
dry at low tide. The old salts who act as
1feboatmen In the winter then take out
London excursionists in pleasure yachts
to play cricket matches on them. The
irony of 1t! In winter the grave of hum
dreds of seamen--in summer the pleasure
ground of city clerks. And the same tough
old sea dogs, who have seen their COM
rades perish there trying to save others,
placidly umpire the game.
But the GoodwinS only one of a hum
dred perilous spots around the coast of
Britain. An old skipper who had sailed
deep water ever since he was a boy said
once that he never worried except when
he was near home He had weathered
storms In every part of the world, and had
only been wrecked twice-both times within
ten miles of England's shore once off
Cornwal-a most dangerous coast-and
once OH scarborough.
A terrible number of wrecks occur every
winter in the North sea. especially among
the thousands of small vessels belonging
to the fishing fleets of Hull, Leith, Grims-
by. Yarmouth. Lowestoft Ramsgate, Os-
tend, Boulogne, Calais and other ports.
In 1882 over seven hundred smacks were
lost in one day and night during a terrific
gale. Each of those smacks had an aver
age of six men aboard. 1t was the greatest
disaster in the history of Englands fish
cries. A national fund was raised for the
support of the widows and children. and
thousands are still pensioners of that fund
in all the principal fishing ports.
Danger Spots of Our Coast.
Along the north Atlantic coast of the
United States there are two true Davy
Jones lockers of places, and three four
other lesser ones that are still so deadly
to sailors and ships that they have earned
a somber fame all around the world.
Farthest north lies Cape Sable, reaching
out into a wild and dismal sea in just the
right direction to catch every ship that
loses her exact course while laundering
through the steam mists of the Grand
Bank. A trap baited with fog, it seizeS at
least a dozen good vessels by the heel and
destroys them each year. so that the title
of The Graveyard of the North Atlantic"
has been given to it by common consent,
and is used even in official documents.
Diamond Shoals, off Cape Hatteras, is
second in dismal fame. These shoals often
lie covered with fog. and then take ships
even in quiet weather; but the speciality
of Diamond shoals is to take steam and
sail in open fight when the storm of the
ever clustering cape drives the best of
them in helpless wreck on the spouting
sands God forbid that we should ever
get a glimpse of Diamond shoals is the
prayer of the American coastwise sailor.
Near New York.
Fire Island beach, lying along the Long
Island coast not fifty miles from the en-
trance to the port of New York, is a sand
beach pounded by a mighty surf. Let
ship be few miles out of its reckoning
and approach New York in thick weather,
and the chances are good that the Fire
Island rollers will be laughing over its
bones before morning. Rising suddenly
from deep water, the sands have hold of
ships keel almost before the master of
the ship knows that he is ION soundinSs.
South of the entrance to the great har-
Dor of the metropolis, off the New Jer-
sey coast, are the Brigantine Shoals, al
most as greedy ship-eaters as the 9TH
ers. They capture the ships bound from