The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1915-03-20

GMzzziz1HA1 SUDDEN was her check that men
were thrown fat on her decks. In fifteen minutes
she mad gone down, taking 81 humans and a cargo
worth 100000 with her She had struck right in
the customary steamship course, an uncharted
pinnacle of rock
When word of the fate of the State of Cali
fornia reached Washington it added energy to
a movement which Secretary RedfeId of the de-
partment OF commerce and labor had been agitat-
Ing for some time. This movement was to prevail
upon congress to increase the appropriation for
the work of the department of geodetic and coast
survey the department that has charge of blazing
the trails.
At the present time there are three vessels en-
Pioyed IN coast survey work in Alaska One was
a confederate gunboat during the She had
onecyinder engine She is capable of eight
knots in still weather six knots against a breeze
and nothing at all in blow
The other two not Confederate gunboats
but in other respects they fully as antiquated
as the first Secretary Redfeld has termed them
unseaworthy, dangerous inefficient old tubs And
to these craft alone is allotted the job of guard
ing the safety of 43,339 passengers who travelled
Alaskan waters last year. in addition to $40 600 COG
worth of cargo and ships
And the government records show that tbe State
OF California is but of many wrecks that occur
on uncharted rocks along the Alaskan coast
yearly. The peculiar formation of the region is
responsible for spires of rock that rise out
of the floor to within a few feet of the surface
in localities where all around them the water is
naV1gable Soundings of the ordinary sort seldom
reveal these instruments of death in the way of
ships. To locate them properly the coast survey
has designed apparatus known as a wire
drag" This is a wire sunk below the surface
save at both ends, where it is buoyed with floats
The coast survey ships drag this device along
and cover great sweeps of sea at time the rock
spurs being detected when the wire catches on
them. They are then either buoyed or DESTROYED
by dynamite
Alaska the in the East is apt to say,
why, who goes up on the Alaska coast ex-
coDt gold hunters and Ubof,S
of spending money up there?"
There is but one answer to this. The Alaskan
coast is equal in extent to the distance between
Charleston on the Atlantic coast and San Diego
on the Pacific coast. And then as mentioned be-
fore, more than 43, 900 persons traversed it in
ships last year Have those 4, 900 citizens not
right to protection? asks the photographic office
President Wilson realizes what ineficiency in
chartlng the Alaskan coast means. For on that
subject he wrote:
There is another matter of which must make
special mention, if 1 to discharge my con-
science, lest it should escape your attention It
may seem very small thing. 1t affects only a
single item of appropriation. But many human
lives and many great enterprises hang upon it.
1T is the matter of making adequate provision
for the survey and charting of our oceans 1t is
Immediately pressing and exigent in connection
with the immense coast line of Alaska a coast
line greater than that of the United States them
selves, though it is also very important indeed,
with regard to the older coasts of the continent
We cannot use our great Alaskan domain ships
win not My thither if those and their many
hidden dangers not thoroughly surveyed and
charted.
The work is incomplete at almost every point
Ships and lives have been lost in threading what
were supposed to be well-known main channels
We have not provided adequate vessels or ade-
quate machinery for the survey and charting We
have used old vessels that were not big enough
strong enough and which were SO nearly unsea-
worthy that our inspectors would not have allowed
private owners to send them to sea- This is
matter which, as have said, seems small but is
in reality very great Its Importance has only
to be looked into to be appreciated"
Perhaps those best qualified to know the perils
of this great extent of coast are the sailors who
ply it. Charles T. Moritz mate of the steamship
Spokane writes:
Since / going to make the business of
plotting vessels through the waters of south
eastern Alaska my hfe's work I take more than
an ordinary interest in locating hidden dangers
THE who have gone before me have
pointed out all the dangers the surface and
many that are beneath; the cost of locating some
of the latter has been many human lives and many
good ships.
Must / lose the lives of a shipload of passen-
gers to discover some hidden danger? Others
have done So and until know just where all
the dangers located more will do the same.
That such dangers exist, and that there is
very easy means of locating them, hope to show
by the Notice to Mariners, issued by the United