Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-03-27
CHAPTER I.
On the "Cryptic."

On the forenoon of q day in February,
1899. the White Star 8. s. Cryptic forced
her way from pier No. 4S out into the
Hudson river through a mass of floating
ice. which made a moving carpet over
the whole river from Poughkeepsie to
Sandy Hook. 1t was little wonder that
the hearts Of the outward-bound passen-
gers were cheered with hope; outside on
the wide ocean there must be somewhere
clear skies and blue water. and perchance
here and there a slant of sunshine. Come
what might, however. it must be better
than what they were leaving behind them
in New York. For three whole weeks
the great city had been beleaguered by
cold; held besieged in the icy grip of a
blizzard which, moving from northwest
to south. had begun on the last day of
January to devastate the central North
American states. In one place. Brecken-
ridge, in Colorado, there fell in five days
and this on the top of an accumulation
Of six feet of snOw-an addition of forty
five inches. In the track swept by the
cold wave, a thousand miles wide. rec
ord below temperatures were affected,
ranging from ID below zero in Indiana
to 81 below at White river on the north
ern shore of Lake Superior.
In New York city the temperature had
sunk to 60 below zero. the lowest ever re-
cOrQeQ, and an extraordinary temperature
for city almost entirely surrounded by
tidal currents. The city itself was in a
helpless condition, paralyZed and impo-
tent. The snow fell so fast that even
the great snow plOughs. driven by the
electric current on the tram lines, could
not keep the avenues clear. And the cold
was so great that the STRENGTHENING OPP
eratiOns-in which 5000 men with 1000
carts dumping some 10000 tons of snow
daily into the river were concerned-had
to be suspended. Neither men nor horses
could endure the work The dead boat.
which takes periodically the city's I'M
claimed cOrpses to pOtters field on Hart s
Island was twice beaten back and nearly
wrecked; it carried on the later voyage
161 corpses. Before its CHASTITY traffic
could be resumed there were in the city
nortuaries over a thousand bodies wait
ing sepulture. The scientific editor or
one of the great New York dailies COM
puted that the blanket Of snow which lay
on the twenty-five square miles of Man
haitian Island would form a solid wall a
thousand feet high up the whole sixty
feet width of Broadway In the two and d
half miles between the Battery and Union
Square. weighing some two and half
million tons. Needless to say, the streets
were almost impossible. In the chief
heaped high with piled-up snow now
nearly compact to ice. In places where
the falling snow had drifted it reached
to the level of. and sometimes above. the
uTSl-HOOr WluuOWS
AS the Cryptic forced her way through
the rustling masses of drifting ice the
little company of passengers stood on
deck watching at first the ferry boats
pounding and hammering their strenuous
way into the docks formed by the floating
guands or screens by whose aid they
shouldered themselves to their landing
stages; and later on, when the great ship
following the wide circle of the steering
buOys, opened up the entrance of Sandy
Hook, the great circle around them OF
arctic desOlation. Away beyond the sweep
of the river and ocean currents the sea
pet of pure snow whose luminous dreari-
ness not even the pail of faint chill mist
could subdue. Here and there. to north
and south. were many vessels frozen in,
spar and rope beng roughly outlined with
clinging snow. The hills of Long Island
and Staten Island and the distant ranges
of New Jersey stood out white and stark
into the sky of steel.
All was grimly. deathly silent SO that
the thrOb Of the engines. the rustic and
clatter of the drifting Ice pack. as the
great vessel. getting faster way as the
current became more open. or the hard
scrunch as she cut through some solid
floating ice field, sounded like something
unnatural-Some sound of the living amid
q world of the dead
When the Narrows had been reached
and passed and the flag of smoke from
the great chimney of the Standard Oil
board quarter: when Fire Island was drop
ping down on the western horizon. all be-
came changed as though the wand of
some beneficent fairy had obliterated all
that was ugly or noXious in its benefcent
sweep. Sky and wave were blue; the sun