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

the south, and many strong engined
craft. has been riven by the white-crown-
ed combers that whirl and writhe in
ceaseiess labor. even on soft summer days
when the sails of coasters along hun
dred miles of shore hang limp, without
watt of air to fill them.
Almost forever do the fogs wreathe
Nantucket Shoals. Whirling, dancing,
drifting, crawling, they wander like
misty ghosts over the sucking tide-ripS
of these maZes of shoals and deep waters.
On Nantucket Shoals ships do not merely
meet their ends by running ashore; they
kill each other in the blind fogs. Ship
plumbers into ship each year. and every
season adds to the smashed vessels that
make grisly submarine scenery there.
Queer Wrecks of the Caribbean.
The West Indies probably have greater
share of maritime disasters than any
other part of the tropics-more even than
the waters of China and Japan with their
terrible but infrequent typhoons, which
will send a hundred ships to the bottom
in an hour. A Caribbean hurricane will
do the same-and has done it over and
over again.
Few harbors afford protection against
those awful storms. Even at Kingston,
Jamaica, which is reputed to be the
fourth best harbor in the world, three
steamers and over a dozen sailing YES
sells dragged their anchors in the hurri-
cane of 1882 and went ashore on tidal
wave that swept far up into the city. One
of these ships was left high and dry in
the middle of business street quarter
of mile from the waters edge, and had
to be broken up there.
Some queer shipwrecks happen in the
West Indies The maze of currents in
the Caribbean perplexes seamen who
have sailed that for a lifetime.
skipper often finds himself miles out of
his course for no apparent reason, and
as likely as not he discovers the fact by
bJlmDing a
may not be charted.
This happened about three years ago to
the skipper of the Norwegian tramp Fri.
which taking cargo of cattle from
Carthagena, Colombia, to Santiago de Cuba.
The vessel struck on reef which she
should have passed more than a hundred
miles to windward. and the skipper could
never account for it. After staying by the
ship a number of days the officers and
crew left in the boats as heavy sea got
up. They reached Jamaica in safely. and
wrecking steamer Immediately sailed for
the reef The vessel was pulled off, and
then an interesting legal point arose to
salvage. The underwriters claimed that
although every man Jack of the crew had
left the ship was not deserted and derelict.
because the cattle were still aboard taking
care of her for them. The admiralty court
of Jamaica overruled this specious plea. and
the wreckers got very tidy sum for SAL
wage.
Other Danger Spots.
Off Cape Horn the seas are said by old
sailors to run higher than anywhere else in
the world. and many cases are on record
of vessels having been actually rolled over
and engulfed by giant combers-a kind of
shipwreck that happens very seldom, IL
ever, elsewhere The Malay seas are noted
for their bewiIdering currents and changing
reefs and shoals, the latter caused by vol
canic and seismic disturbances. British
warships constantly surveying and re-
charting these waters.
Everybody knows, of course, of the dang
ers of the Newfoundland Banks. Every
winter adds to their terrible death roll by
fog, collision. iceberg and sunken rock
The coast of Venezuela is particularly
feared by mariners, because there is not a
single light along its entire length. The
government evidently cares nothing for its
obligations in this regard. The great mari
time nations ought to combine to light this
coast as they have the coasts of Morocco
and other semi-civiliZed countries.
Several of the less advanced Latin-Amer-
lean countries are almost as backward as
Venezuela in this respect, but Venzuela Is
probably the only professedy civilized ma
ton possessing a seaboard which does not
hang out a single beacon to mariners.