Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-07-27
THE PORT OF MISSING SHIPS
Was Once Thought to the Sargaso Sea- But Now We Know
Better-Famous Wrecks That Preceded the Overttrn
of the Eastland at Her Pier.
BY A. WELLESLEY BAouP

stopped at Madeira because her engines ana
rudder needed attention. The waiting friends
took heart Of hope and were cheerful FOR
a while. Then an Irish packet arrived. re-.
porting that a large steamer was waiting
outside for high water to come in to the
Liverpool docks. Every one was sure that
this was the President and crowds gatberod
by the riverside, flags were hoisted and prem.
arations were made to welcome the lost shin
But It was not the President.
The letter from Madeira was discovered
to be fraudulent and for years the mystery
remained. Finally some one picked nm 4
bottle in the sea containing note purpor,.
ing to be written by Tyrone Power. a dls-
tlnguished comedian OF his time, who bad
been a passenger on the vessel, announcips
that as he wrote the boat was sinking Tb.
note has been accepted as genuine but that
too, may have been hoax.
When New York Mourned
The sinking of the Arctic off Cape Raca
on october %, 1854, has been explained. in
spite of the dense fog and snowstorm IN
which she received her death blow. She was
in collision with the French steamer
Vesta. The captain of the Arctic thought
the other vessel was seriously damaged and
that his own ship was unhurt and he mt
OIL WITH some OF MS crew IN litebOatg to offer
assistance only TO discover soon after thai,
his own ship was sinking. Some of the pasg
sengers were saved, but 489 lives were lost
AS most of the dead had lived in New York
that city was deeply moved by the tragedy.
The preachers took 1t as a text for their
sermons and the school readers of a gem
Grafton or two ago contained extracts from
one of the most famous of these sermons
in which the horror of the wreck was de-
scribed with all the skill of a modern news
paper writer.
The City of Boston, however, which left
New York on January 25 1S7O stopped al
Halifax three days later and then went out
into the unknown, while all it's nearly 200
passengers took that great voyage under
taken by those who go to the bottom of the
sea. Another passenger ship that met the
same fate was the Colombo, that sailed from
Boston seven years later and vanished as
completely as though 1t had never existed.
To pass from passenger to freight steam
ers the case of the Naronlc, of the White
Star Line, is one of the most Interesting
This ship was one of the biggest of her
class was almost new and was in the best
condition. She was so stanch that it was
thought she could weather the worst storm
that ever ragged over the restless waves
NN SAiS hSNSA ItttCHtu UHe port OF living
ships, and the only trace of, her that was
ever found was one of her boats picked up
in midocean some weeks after she sailed
This silent, inanimate survivor of the wreck
contained not trace of evidence which
world explain what had become of the great
freighter. 1t may have been blown up by
boiler explosion, or it may have been cap
sized by shifting cargo, or any one of the
thousand and one causes which bring dis
aster on the deep may have been responsible
for its disappearance. 1t has doubtless rusted
away in the bottom of the sea- for the mod
ern steel vessel is so built that it can no
longer be said that its bones are bleaching
on the sands of the oceans bed. And they
never did bleach there anyway.
The science of navigation has not prohted
by the lesson of the missing ships, for no
one has ever come back to read that lesson
to the marine constructors. The skilled ship
builders have thereby escaped much amateur
advice, such as was lavished by an out
ragged and indignant public at the time of
the Titanic disaster. when every man who
could use pen was telling the rest of us
how to prevent a repetition of similar dis
asters. The lesson of the Eastland, however,
Is apparently so clear that 1t teaches itself.