The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1912-11-08
THE VAMPIRES OF THE DEEP
DANGEROUS DERELICTS THAT
ARE ON DESTRUCTION BENT.
Silent, SuIlen Travellers on the Seven
Seas Quietly, Grimly Take Their
Toll of Seamen and Ships.


Seas Quietly, Grimly Take Their
Toll of Seamen and Ships.
Y On the wall of the photographic
office in Washington there hangs a
large chart of the North Atlantic
Across the pale blue space that rep
resents water lie dark lines, the
paths between our seaports and those
of another world. Always these
paths are the same-the same lines
in the same positions. We're you
to look at this chart another day,
though, you would find that num-
Der of dots clustered along the coast
line had moved from one place to
the other On no day will you find
the dots in the same position that
! they were the day before. For these
dots indicate wrecks and derelicts-
the vampires of the deep, ever chang
ing, now lurking in the shadows of
/ the coast, now drifting out to sea
deadly, sodden hulkS whose mission
/ is to take by surprise and destroy.
Today there are about 1000 dere-
/ licts in the waters of the world
/ floating perils that go where wind
and currents bid them. Every sea
/ is made hazardous by their presence.
! They have crashed into ocean liners,
into junks of the China sea. To them
/ all vessels are alike-something to
/ be destroyed. They crash against
them in the dead of night, when inky
blackness hides their coming. Wrecks
/ themselves, they seem to strive to
drag all others to their own fate.
Like Angry Sharks.
More particularly they seem to
swarm eagerly in the Gulf stream.
! From st. Augustine, Fla, they move
north in it's warm waters, silent, sui
len travellers that creep through the
waters unpleasantly like cells. From
Cape Hatteras reaching north to the
Grand Banks of Newfoundland is the
graveyard of the Atlantic" 1t is
rolling waste where many ships
are buried. 1t is place where dere-
licts borne by the sweep of the Gulf
stream and the counter churn of the
Labrador current dart about like an
! CRY sharks, eager to fasten their
maws on the hull of some ship.
Vampires of the Deep.
OF derelicts there are two-the
kind that floats observed and the
kind that floats unobserved. Most
people imagine that shipwrecks are
ultimately driven ashore and that
vessels reported sinking at the time
of abandonment go down soon after
That is not true Abandoned ships
breed vampires of the deep. Fol-
months they float Water logged
half sunken, pitched and torn by
storm, they yet somehow seem tC
survive. They will live in gales thai
send the staunchest vessels to the
bottom. Only time can destroy then
that is, unless electricity takes {
hand.
Too heavy to rise to the surface
and yet not water soaked enough tt
sink to the bottom and remain there
they crawl along just under the rid
ing swells Their abiding place il
nowhere. From the untraveleC
tracks of the seas they may be car
ried by storm directly in the patti
OF navigation. Whittier they go NJ
word goes before them. They de
scend unobseryed, quietly, grimly
Not until they have struck is thei
presence known. Then they TAX
their toll. They destroy ship ant
from it another of their kind is made
1t is their way of multiplying ant
spreading the breed. That is VIII.
it is so important that they be de
strOyed.