The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-20
ISLAND SWALLOWED UP BY SEA
Ship Sailing for Layson in the Pacific Ocean Finds It Has
 Disappeared
.om the Wide World Magazine.

From the Wide World Magazine. We were four days out from Hono- lulu, with stores for Layson island, con-
 signed to the order of the Laysan Sugar
 Planting Company Limited. It was my
 watch on deck. The skipper was asleep in the little poop-cabin abaft the main- mast. Our Gilbert island cook and the I two Kanakas who formed the crew were comfortably slowed away in the coolest and suggest spots.
 l My rating on board was that of mate.
 Six months previously, trade being dull
 south of the line, we had brought the Olsen north from Samoa. It was for
 tunate move, for Captain Warner had
 been lucky enough to secure a charter
 from the Laysan company to make
 monthly trips with stores to the island plantation, returning with a cargo of | cane for the refining works at Hawaii. | For four years the skipper and had l sailed the old hooker up and down the l Milky Way of the Pacific, touching at 1 this one or that of the thousand islands. l 1 had almost come, of late, to reckon
 myself one among the army of old she'll
 backs that ply about the waters.
 l It was five bells In the middle watch. Above, the great dome of the sky glowed purple, shot with dazzling points of fire, such stars as are never seen outside the | tropics. The wind that yesterday had
 blown light from the southwest had now dropped, scarce suffcing to keep the sails
 from slatting against the masts. The
 wide level of the sea, purple like the sky, l and motonless but for the long, oily l heave of it, reflected the zenith above. Our keel slipped through the water with l out a ripple.
 l I had kept a lookout on the western | horizon, in order to pick up the first loom of the island, which should now be with l in about 20 miles of our position, bearing west a quarter south. That l failed to make it out did not surprise me. In the | half-light of a moonless night, where sea and sky mingle at the horozon into one
 vast, saucer-lke rim, it is difficult to
 pick small objects from the void. When
 the mirage lifted at dawn the blue peaks of Laysan would appear, cutting the 1 skyline to the westward, and we might expect to make an anchorage about mid | day.
 l This was our first direct run to the | island under the new charter, but on a
 previous occasion I had sailed round 1t and knew it well. Like all volcanic l islands in these seas, 1t was wondrously
 beautiful. Palm-fr fringed, low cliffs and
 white beaches sang to the music of the | surf. Beyound, the land sweled in green I uplands toward the thickly wooded cen l tral mountain, with it's cleft summit. A l few buildings stood on the slope around | a wide bay-whitewashed barracks for | the coolies, a shed or two, and, on 8 | I,,,o oho la1 fbo uybit ita
 house of the manager. Below, in the blue | of a white-fringed cove, his yacht rode at anchor.
 | The whole place was about 15 miles In length, with a circumference of 35-just
 a chunk clipped from a corner of Para l disc, dropped into the ocean below; l green gem set in a sapphire sea. At seven bells the east flushed rose and
 orange to the dawn. I swung round and 1 looked for the twin peaks l knew so we'll The horizon lay clear, sharp. steel | gray in the light of the dawn. But where
 was the island? Snatching at the night | glass; I swept the field of vision. Not
 dot, not vestige, not the least shadow | of irregularity broke the clear line of
 the water edge that heaved slowly,
 sharply defined. against a dome of sky l What was 1t? Were we out of our l course? Had sudden current, setting | in in the night. swept us to the south-
 ward? Impossible. Without waking my
 chief I verified the position on the chart. No. the vessel had held a true course since the previous reckoning.
 l Coming on deck again. I swept the sea- scape with the glass. Laysan should be | there There half a point on our lee- | bow, distant 15 miles. But 1t was gone. | Not blot not a speck: no sail of passing vessel or smoke of distant steamer broke the dead level of the shining plain of | waters.
 l Alongside, the water was white; we seemed to be sailing through a sea of milk All. this time we had been slipping along before a five-knot breeze. Sud denly the vessel lost her way. slowing almost to a standstill. The sea that, under the wind should nave crisped into white-topped nipples lay dead and flat tened by an oily scum. There was kind of grating sensation, slight but omi- | nous beneath our keel, as though we were sailing through loose oil. Running forward I sprang into the bows and looked down at our stem. Half submerged beneath the surface floated a | sort of pavement of broken fragments Of | pumice that, thrust aside by the stem- swung clear of the vessel forged ahead, or over-ridden. scraped noisily against | the copper of her sheathlng as they ! passed beneath us.
 Cant find the island?" said the skip l per, as I reused him. Water like milk? Nonsense, man, You must ha bin struck | color blind"
 Three minutes later while all hands stared in amazement at the vacant hori- | zon. Captain Warner snapped his glasses. What do you make of 1t, MT. Watson? | Looks to me like another Straits O Sunda business-as if the whole caboodle had blown sky-high in an earthquake | That milky water is from volcanic ash. For an hour or two we held our course, hndered by masses of floating pumice. l At noon, as the captain called the read | ings of the sextant, I pricked our posi- | tion on the chart. Latitude P degrees, | 20 minutes, north. Longitude 175 degrees, | 50 minutes, west.
 Laysan had vanished In a clear sea
 we sailed to and fro. up and down over the exact meridian of the island. Gone!
 Purple peaks, waving palm groves, and | white-fringed beaches, Laysan - it's | freight of human lives, their works, am 1 hjtions. and hopes-had disappeared as
 utterly as if gripped by giant hand,
 if had been dragged to the depths be- l meath. | finder easy sail we took many sound l ines and found no bottom for the lead | at hundred fathoms. For SIX days we continued our unavailing search, circllng |