Montour American. (Danville, Pa.) 1866-1920, 1908-11-05
TRAPS FOR MARINERS
Some Points of Peril That Are
Dreaded by Seamen.
MERCILESS KENTISH KNOCK.
This Real Davy Jones' Locker Is
Vast Cemetery For All Ships That
Are Gripped by Its Relentless Sands.
Sable Islands Fingers of Death.


Vast Cemetery For All Ships That
Are Gripped by Its Relentless Sands.
Sable Islands Fingers of Death.
The exact location of Davy Jones'
locker is not shown on any ocean chart
extant, principally because 1t is a state
and not a place, but if any one ocean
death trap deserves the title it is the
Thames estuary. The British naval
department has a chart upon which
1t marks the position of wrecks with
a black dot. On this chart the Thames
mouth tract is a solid black spot. So
numerous have been the wrecks that
the dots run together. The point
where the black dots actually pile one
on top of another is the Kentish Knock,
and this is the place among all of the
oceans danger spots that deserves the
title of Davy Jones' locker.
At the Kentish Knock it is not keel
shattering rocks of piercing points of
coral that wreck the ocean travellers
1t Is sand, treacherous, clinging sand
that grasps the doomed ship with a
grip of steel and holds 1t firmly while
the angry sea beats it TO fragments
Many n vessel posted at Lloyds as
missing would be duly accounted for
If the Knock sand would give up it's
booty. There is no hope for ship or
man when Father Neptune asks toll at
the Kentish Knock. for the nearest
land is twenty miles away and the
nearest lifeboat at Margate. thirty
miles away.
The sands of the ocean are far more
dangerous than the rocks. The sand
banks extend over more space, there
fore offer 4ore points of contact than
the rocks, which usually rise In one
them in smooth waves, and there are
no warning breakers.
Next to the Thames mouth tract in
point of danger Is the Hugh, the salt
water river on which Calcutta stands.
The most trying part of large vessels
voyage from New York to Calcutta is
the last few miles of this calm river.
In this strange river In windless wealth
er and fat, calm water vessels have
been lost, dashed to pieces on the ever
shifting sand banks by the force of
the tides. The sands grasp the keel of
| the marked vessel, and she stops, but
! the tide moves on with relentless force
and the helpless ship is carried over
! on her beam ends. She careens over
and founders with all on board. One
of the worst shoals In the Hugh bears
| the name James and Mary. 1t was
the name of great Indian merchant
shipwrecked on the sunken sand banks
! Another danger point dreaded by the
/ master mariner has neither sand nor
/ rocks, but great submarine waterfall
/ In the English channel there is a point
| Just beyond the Shambles banks where
there is a sudden drop in the sea bot.
tom. The channel tides sweep over
I the banks and down this sudden drop
creating rapids equal in fury to those
| of Niagara. The American ship Georgian
! foundered in Portland race, the name
by which this danger point is known,
and all hands went down with her.
! Ships bound to New York from Eu.
rope pass quite near a deadly hidden
shoal which runs out from Sable is
land, lying off Sable cape, in Nova
| Scotia. The shoal runs out for miles In
five directions like the fingers Of Il
great hand reaching out for what II
can destroy. When the gales blow,
heavy seas boom upon the shoals with
sufficient force to shatter the stanchest
vessel afioat and when the wind ceases
the beaches are strewn with wreckag
and the bodies of those who have per
lshed. The distance from the shore is
too great and the surf too heavy for
the life savers to reach n struggling
vessel, and few lives are saved at this
point Ten vessels have been wrecked
in this trap in n single day.
The rocky danger points in the ocean
have nearly all been tagged. and light
houses have been erected on the most
dangerous-all except one. There is no
lighthouse on the Virgin rock, and
there never Will be. Out in the mid-At
lantic giant pinnacle rears its head
up from the ocean floor and endeavors
vainly to reach the surface of the sea
1t is too short. by about eighteen feet
There 1t stands with its sharp point
hidden by the ocean waves, waiting to
pierce the bottom of some unsuspecting
vessel and send it down to join the pile
of ships ribs and dead mems bones
that litter the floor around its base.
The waves seem TO be in league with
the rock, for If vessel of light draft
tries to pass over its head the waves
shoot 1t down into a trough at the bot
tom of which the point of the rock is
waiting to rip out her keel.
These danger spots, however, are but
annexes to the real Davy Jones locker
the Kentish Knock, that cemetery OF
ships and men where dripping ghost,
of master mariners and their men fit
over the ruins of their vessels.--B. Il
Winslow In Los Angeles Times.