The Winslow mail., 1915-04-10

ES%A denly there a terrific shock.
- The vessels bow rose in air. So
&mn@@ sudden her check that men
were thrown fiat on her decks. In fifteen minutes
she mad gone down, taking 81 humans and a cargo
worth $3OO,O00 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
1ornla reached Washington it added energy to
movement which Secretary Redfield 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
the work of 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
Confederate gunboat during the war She had
one-cyllnder engine. She is capable of eight
knots in still weather, six knots against breeze
ana nothing at all in a blow.
The other two were not Confederate eunhoats
but in other respects they are fully as antuuated
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 $50 600 600
worth OF cargo and ships.
And the government records show that the 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 sea floor to within 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. 10 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
Ihe coast survey ships drag this device along
nd oof rofoo
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 ever goes up 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 43 900 persons traversed it in
ships last year. Have those 43, ,OO0 citizens not
right to protection? asks the photographic office
President Wilson realizes what inefficiency in
charting the Alaskan coast means For on that
subject he wrote:
There Is another matter of which | must make
special mention, if / am to discharge my con-
science, lest it should escape your attention It
may seem very small thing. 1t affects only
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 oceans 1t is
Immediately pressing and exgent 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 great Alaskan domain ships
will not ply thither, if those 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
were supposed to be weknown main channels
We have not provided adequate vessels or ade
quate machinery for the survey and charting We
have used old vessels that 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 a
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 the sailors who
ply it, Charles T. Mortz, mate of the steamship
Spokane writes:
Since am going to make the business of
plotting vessels through the waters of south
eastern Alaska my life's work 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 shipoad of passen-
gers to discover some hidden danger? Others
have done so and until we know just where all
the dangers located 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