The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-04-20
nERELrcrs or THE SEA.
Tragedies end Unsolved Mysteries of
 the Great Deep.

The most dangerous derelicts are those floating with decks awash, or bottom up, and not visible to an ap- preaching steamer until it is too late to avoid a collision. The records of the Photographic office show that there were about fifty such collisions in sew en years. and of these about one fourth were fatal to the colliding vessel The same records show us that in seven years 1,62S derelicts were re- ported in the North Atlantic, of which but little more than Onefourth Wero identified It is shown that there is an average of about twenty of these perils to navigation af1oat in the track of our ocean steamers, and that after q great cyclonic storm the number is sometimes as high as fifty.
 Many of these remain afloat but q few days or weeks, but someof them drift for months or even years, sweep ing in the great circle across the At lantic, down the eastern coast, into the region of the trade winds, and back again to the point of starting. So the doned off Hatteras in 1S9l drifted in great circles for three years and six days was reported in widely distant places by more than forty vessels, and finally ended her career on the New Jersey coast not very far from the point of starting, having traversed the seas for 5000 or 10000 miles.
 The story of the wooden ship Fred B. Taylor is remarkable, The steam ship Trave struck this abandoned ves- sel, cut her In twain, and instead of one derelict there were two, The after part of the Taylor drifted north and drifted ashore at Wells Beach, Me. The forward part went south and was finally destroyed off the Carolinas. The derellct is an especial peril be- hN n rto oI a or shoal, and so be avoided by careful navigation It is here to-day and miles away tomorrow, and no one can tell where it will turn up the next day. Government vessels have done some thing in the way of hunting up dere- | licts and destroying them, and last May congress authorized the building 1 of $250, 900 steamer as a derelict de- stroyer, q truly maritime D. D.
 l A derelict is always a pathetic sight, l telling often of human sufferngs car | ried to the limit of human endurance, A lumber-laden bark is caught in a | Caribbean hurricane and left in a wreck with bulwarks stove deck l houses crushed, and only splintered 1 stumps of her three masts standing tains young wife, are lashed to the ! broken masts. and when the storm abates they find no shelter in cabin of l forecastle, for the ship is full of water | MpSIOI IUelr IDOQ lS TulnGu, Jury masts are rigged, distress signals arc 1 displayed by day and night. After four weeks of slow starvation, they take to the only boat left undestroyed by the storm, and with scant supply of bread and water make their way in eleven days of intolerable suffering nearly 1,400 miles to Grenada in the i Windward islands. Such, in brief, was the story of the Florence E. Edgett in the fall of 1902. Much like 1t is the story of many of her kind
 The history of the dereliet often in- wolves an insoluble. mystery. Last winter Boston-bound steamer, the 1 Ontario, sighted an abandoned barken- tine at sea, the Jantje, and as she had i suffered only the loss of bowsprit, and had but little water in the hold, was | preparing to take possession and tow her into port, when another bark came along with the Jantje's crew, who hac abandonedtheir ship in a panic after s collision with steamship, had beer picked up and were now ready to come back and sail her into port.
 But often the crew of an abandoned ship completely disappears from his. tory. The most extraordinary story O the kind is that of the ship Mary Ce. leste. She sailed from New York fol Europe in 1887, with a crew of eleven Two weeks later she was found in mid, ocean without a soul on board. He sails were set, No trace of violenct was anywhere seen. In the forecast
 was the sailors dinner, and above i
 their wash hung out to dry. In tn cabin was a half-eaten meal on thu tble and half-sewn childs garmeu on the sewing machine. The ships log
 written down to within forty-eigh
 hours of the visit, gave nc hint of any
 thing wrong, and the cash box was un
 touched. The fate of the thirteen wht
 sailed in her has remained an insolu
 ble mystery.
 The brig Resolven, three days ou
 from a Newfoundland port, was picked
 up in August, 1884, by a British war
 ship The galley fire and sidelight
 were burning, sails were set, d ba; of gold to buy cargo of herring wa left safe in a locker butthe crew hat vanished and werene yer seen or hear,
 from The sea had given us anothe
 insoluble mystery,
 In 1881 the Ellen Austin is said tt have sighted a seaworthy derelct il midocean. She put a crew on board
 with ordersto take her to New York
 A blow separated the ships, and whel a few days later they met again, tn,
 derelict was again without a crew
 Tempting offers induced another crey fto take charge of her, but the craf
 never reached port, and In her case tn,
 sea has added mystery to mystery ISeabreeze.