The coastland times. [volume] (Mnateo [i.e. Manteo], N.C.) 1947-1959, 1954-11-05
MUCH COMMENT
ABOUT STRANGE
FUMES AT WAVES
Several Theories AS To Cause
OF Paint Turning Gray on
Houses on Banks

Gilbert Loves Notebook,
column in the Pittsburg (Pa.)
Press carried the following item
recently:
at almost seems that Dare
County, North Carolina (Popula-
ton (5405), has more unusual
happenings than Allegh eny
County, Pennsylvania (popula-
ton 1,515,237."
The column continued: Last
week, for example, 15-foot
pilot whale ran aground in shall
low water on the beach near
Kitty Hawk. The crew at "Navy
Duck" an aircraft target range,
tried to push it out to sea. Fail
ing they got a bulldozer, lassoed
the tail of the whale and drag
ged it across the sand dunes to
Currituck Sound =. They sue
ceeded in launching it there, but
| it was somewhat the worse for
wear and soon turned up its
flippers."
Another item in the Notebook
column reported: "a couple of
treasure hunters have been dig
ging in the woods near Cape
Hatteras in the hope of finding
some of Blackbeard's pirate
hoard. They found a strange
looking coin with Arabic engrav-
ing and the numerals 1887"
Interesting Dare
This reminded me of the time
one of the upstate editors pub
lished an item that went some
thing like this: North Cardinals
most interesting newspapers are
the Coastland Times, published
in Manteo by Victor Meekins and
The Beaufort News, edited by
Aycock Brown"
Victor had the answer in an
editorial the following week. He
wrote, at is not hard job to
have an interesting newspaper
here on the coast. That is be-
cause this coastland is an inter
esting place to live and run a
newspaper.
Mystery at Waves
On October 2, this year, the
peope of Waves, most easterly
postoffice community in North
Carolina, went to bed as usual in
their neatly painted homes. Just
before daybreak on October 8,
those awaking early began in
haling fumes that smelled of sui
phur. A Mrs. Gray even went
farther in her description of the
strange Righteousness.
1T Smelled just like a gunshell
after it has been fired" she said.
There were various explana-
tons of what happened while the
village was enveloped in the
strange odor-the fact that most
of the neatly painted white
houses turned grey.
Newcomb Midget an old timer
at Waves said the odorous fumes
came from rotting eel grass that
had been pushed into the shall
low waters of the sound adjacent
to the village following westerly
winds in the wake of Hurricanes
Carol and Edna He had never
known the odor or fumes from
eel grass being strong enough to
change the color of paint over
night, but for the past $50 years
or longer" he had on occasions
known the air to be filled with
sulfuric fumes that he knew was
created by the rotting grasses.
Publisher Victor Meekins had
a theory about the mystery
and so did Allyn Hanks, who re-
Gently moved to Dare County to
become superintendent of the
Cape Hatteras National Sea-
shore.
Meekins said the odor might
have drifted across the wood
lands and then the sounds from
the pulp mill in Plymouth. He
had heard of the fumes from the
plant there being so strong on
occasions that it would change
the color of white houses to grey.
Hanks stated that the same
thing had appeared down in the
Everglades National Park of
Florida. Fumes in the atmos-
phere, or something, caused
houses painted with lead paints
to change color" he said.
Little Goes Long Way
Gilbert Love of Pittsburg
Press under the caption Little