Daily independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 188?-1915, 1913-02-03
OCEAN OERELICTS

Today, according to Popular
Electricity there are about 1000
derelicts in the waters Of the world
Floating perils that go where
wind and current bid them. Every
sea is made hazardous by their pre-
sence. They have crashed into
liners and into junk s 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 blarkness hides
their coming. Wrecks themselves,
they seem to strive to drag all
others to their own fate. = =. q SD
So they go drifting on the seven
seas. More particularly they seem
to swarm eagerly in The gulf stream.
From Cape Hatteras reaching
north to the Grand banks of New
foundland is the graveyard of the
Atlantic" 1t is rolling waste
where many ships are buried. 1t
is place where derelicts borne by
the sweep of the gulf stream and
the counterchurn of the Labrador
current dart about like angry
sharks, eager to fatten their rnaws
ON the null of some ship.
In the photographic Office at some
seaport the wireless is sounding.
A message is coming through the
void. 1t is message of peril COM
ing from steamship. 1t warns
that derelict has been sighted
squarely in the path of ocean travel.
For days the men at the station
have been waiting for word of this
derelict. Its position on the. chart
that all photographic Offices keep
has not been moved for a week.
They have lost track of it.. Its
driftlngs are as a mystery! The
station men have been unable to
wire back over the seas warning
captains Of its whereabouts. Any
moment they may hear that it. has
attacked-a and wrecked. '."
But now the derelicts has come
into the the light. The Baltic has
sighted it and sent warning
humming over the seas. Now the
men at the station are quick to act.
At word from their, chief they
relay the message to the commander
of the revenue cutter Seneca lying
by. The Seneca, has been waiting
for this waiting for the
derelict's whereabouts to he re-
vealed. And now, knowing them.
1t gets up steam and sails forth, q
purger If the seas on destruction
bent. .- -.:.-s g. -
Of derelicts there are t9o kinds
Those that float observed and
those that float unobserved. Most
people imagine that wrecked ships
are ultimately dr. iven ashore and
that vessels reported sinking at the
time Of abandonment go down soon
after. That is not true Abandon
ed ships breed vampires of the deep.
For months they float. Water
logged, half sunken. pitched and
torn by storm, they yet somehow
eem to survive. They will live
in gales that send the stanchest
vessels to the bottom. Only time
can destroy them-that is unless
electricity takes hand.
Too heavy to raise to the surface
and not yet water soaked enough
to sink to the bottom and remain
there, they crawl along just under
the riding swells. Their abiding
place is nowhere. From the uni
travelled tracks of the seas they may
be carried by storm directly in
the path of navigation. Whittier
they GO no word goes before them.
They descend unobserved, grimly
quietly. Not until they nave struck
is their presence known. Then
they take their toll. They destroy
a ship, and from it another of their
kind is made. 1t is their way of
multiplying and spreading the
l1 rt-L ..