The Wahpeton times. [volume] (Wahpeton, Richland County, Dakota [N.D.]) 1879-1919, 1908-09-17
TRAPS FOR MARINERS
Some Points Of Peril That Are
Dreaded by Seamen.
MERcILEss KEMTIsH KNOCK.

This Real Davy Jones' Locker Is q
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 it 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
it 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 1t 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 it firmly while
the angry sea beats it to fragments.
Many vessel posted at Lloyd's as
missing would be duly accounted for
II 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 more points of contact than
the rocks, which usually rise in one
slender pinnacle. The waters flow over
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 MINDLESS wealth
er and fiat, calm water vessels have
been lost, dashed to pieces OH 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 carcens over
and founders with all OIL 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 a great submarine waterfall.
In the English channel there is a point
just beyond the SHAMELESS banks where
there is sudden drop in the sea bot
tom. The channel tides sweep over
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 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
great hand reaching out for what 1t
can destroy. When the gales blow.
heavy seas boom upon the shoals with
sufficient force to shatter the stanchest
vessel afloat. and when the wind ceases
the beaches are strewn with wreckagc
and the bodies of those who have per-
ished. The distance from the shore is
too great and the surf too heavy for
the life savers to reach struggling
vessel, and few lives are saved at this
point. Ten vessels have been wrecked
in this trap in 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 it stands with it's 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 trough ut the bot
tom Of which the point of the rock ia
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 ghosts
Of master mariners and their men fit
over the ruins of their vessels.-B. r.
Winslow in Los Angeles Times.