The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1915-03-20

E The vessels bow rose in air. So
60 sudden was her check that men
were thrown fat on her decks. In fifteen minutes
she had gone down, taking 81 humans and a cargo
worth $SOO,O0O 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
forn1a reached Washington it added energy to
a movement which Secretary Redfeld of the de-
partment of commerce and labor had been agitat-
ing Tor some time. This movement was to prevail
upon congress to increase the appropriation for
1ne work or the department of geodetic and coast
survey, the department that has charge of blazing
the ocean trails.
At the present time there are three vessels en-
ployed in coast survey work in Alaska. One was
a Confederate gunboat during the war. She had
a onecyllnder engine. She is capable of eight
knots in still weather, six knots against a breeze,
and nothing at all in a blow.
The other two were not Confederate gunboats,
but in other respects they are fully as Anticipated
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 1880 passengers who travelled
Alaskan waters last year, in addition to $50, 600, 900
worth of cargo and ships.
And the government records show that the State
of California is but one of many wrecks that occur
on uncharted rocks along the Alaskan coast
yearly. The peculiar ormation of the region is
responsible for narrow spires of rock that rise out
OF the sea floor to within a few feet of the surface
IN localities where all around them the water is
navigable. 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 an 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 a time, the rock
spurs being detected when the wire catches on
| tharo TI4 49, A. III
by dynamite.
Alaska" the man in the East is apt to say,
"why, who ever goes up on the Alaska coast ex.
cept gold hunters and explorers? What's the use
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 $4,000 persons traversed it in
ships last year. Have those 4 5000 citizens not a
right to protection? asks the photographic office.
President Wilson realizes what ineficiency in
charting the Alaskan coast means. For on that
subject he wrote:
There is another matter of which | must make
special mention, if l am to discharge my con-
science, lest 1t should escape your attention. 1t
may seem a 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 aud ~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
will not ply thither, if those coasts and their many
hidden dangers are not thoroughly surveyed and
charted.
THE work is incomplete at almost every point.
Ships and lives have been lost in threading what
we're 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
or 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 a
matter which, as l 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 l am going to make the business of
plotting vessels through the waters of south.
eastern Alaska my life's work l take more than
an ordinary interest in locating hidden dangers.
THE men who have gone before me have
pointed out all the dangers on 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 l lose the lives of a shipload of passen-
gers to discover some hidden danger? Others
have done so, and until we know just where all
the dangers are located more will do the same.
THAT such dangers exist, and that there is. a
very easy means of locating them, | hope to show
by the Notice to Mariners, issued by the United
,. A-Ua 70 AE tnInlrIatA a HE 1xyn n