Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-21

II
telephone, can be located approximately.
In a fog on the surface of the water the
sound would be lost in few fathoms.
Skill of Veteran Shippers.
This new contrivance is a great improve
ment over the method now used by sea
captains to find their way through fogs,
and is quite as ingenious. A Yankee skip
per can usually creep along in any weather
by tasting the bottom or smelling the
rocks he says. I was coming down
from 'Grindstone Point to Bar Harbor on
the ferry boat some years ago when the fog
was so thick that one could scarcely see the
end of his nose, but the pilot coOlly swung
the wheel around from time to time and
guided the frail little boat among the
frowning rocks with most casual indiffer-
ence.
l asked.
Smell it," he answered laconically
Cant we smell the rocks?" he said. Every
derned one of 'em smells different: and
when ye git used to EN-, We kin run a boat
by smellin on 'em. just the same as you
kin run by the loOkin' at EN-" o..
Tasting the bottom is another method
Of navigation which is quite as remarkable.
! once saw an exhibition of it that was
almost Incredible Coming from Japan we
were in a dense fog. so thick that you
couldn't see from one end of the deck to
the other, during the last ten days, and yet
mont brought us right into the mouth of
the strait of Juan de Fuca, the entrance to
Puget sound, just as accurately as If 1t
had been clear sailing all the way. For
and he knew where he was only by dead
reckoning; that is, by measuring the dis
lance the boat had travelled and making
corrections on account Of the currents the
which cause a boat to drift. If he had
been 100 miles out of his course at the end
of ten days sailing. it would have been
perfectly natural but he sailed that great
1O,OOO-ton ship through that fog just as If
he were blindfolded, guided only by the
instinct and sagacity of a sailor, and ar
rived precisely at his destination, narrow
throat of water only thirteen miles wide.
If he had been out of his reckoning five or
ten miles in either direction, the fremont
would have gone on the rocks as the Va
lencia did under similar circumstances
shortly after.
of the strait Capt. Garlick, an old-fash-
Toned skipper from down in Maine, began
to taste his way in through the narrow
channel. He kept the sailors dropping the
lead. which had a coating of tallow on
the bottom, and every time it struck the
bottom Of the sea 1t brought up little
film of earth. Capt. Garlick would look
at the dirt that chung to the tallow and
compare 1t with the notes printed on the
chart Then he knew where he was.
Here the charts said there was blue
l.
gravel with yellow and black sand" and
he found that Then broken Shells" and
finally fine gray sand with yellow and
black snecks," ana he knew that he was
in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and kept on
until he came to the Canadian port of Vic
toria.
To a landlubber this was wonderful
display of seamanship, but the old-fash-
toned Shell-back sailors consider 1t easy.
There is venerable story of the cap
tain of coasting sloop from Nantucket
who was able to tell where he was by
tasting" the dirt at the bottom Of the
water One time he was caught in a
horrible fog for four or five days. and
tried in vain to find the island. The sail
ings every few minutes, but it tasted
strange and he was bewildered He
couldn't identify his location. Finally
they got tired heaving the lead and
dropped it in the pot Of a geranium plant
that the captain had brought from home
to brighten up his cabin. AS he tasted it
the old shell-back shouted:
Where in heaven did you get this
dirt?"
Come IN on the lead" was the au-
dacious reply.
mo wonder We couldn't find Nantucket
The infarnal island is sunk to the bot
tom of the sea and we're sailing right
over Aunt Jemima's garden
Result of Scientific Study.
DIR. Charles Moore. who for many years
was clerk of the Senate committee for the
District of Columbia and secretary to Sen.
ator Mcmillan has charge of the interests
Of the Submarine Signal Company. He
transferred his light from Detroit to New
England several years ago, and has since
been illuminating the intellectual fog OF
Boston. He comes to Washington every
now and then 20 confer with the light
house board and the officers of the navy
concerning the introduction of the system
and when 1 caught him the other day
and asked for an explanation he said:
For nearly a century it has beer
known that sound travels through water
four times more rapidly than through air
but 1t was not until 1880 that Lucien
Blake, a graduate OF Amherst and doc.
tor of philosophy of Berlin University
first realized the Importance Of utilizing
water as medium for sending fog sig
nails. AS opportunity offered Prof Blake
pursued his Investigations while professor
of electrical engineering at the Rose Poly
technic and the University of Kansas, and
he spent his vacations with A. B. johnson
CHIEF clerk of the lighthouse board, In
experimental work on the transmission OF