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DERELICT STEAMER BRISCOE BEACHED IN HARBOR OF ST. JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND.

causing her to run short of coal. The weather continuing most foul, the Maryland, which took her in tow, received serious damage while so engaged; and had to slip her cable. The helpless freighter now drifted north towards the Hebrides; and as the food was scanty and none knew how long they might be immured on board her, the crew signaled a traveler, were transferred to that craft, and left their own to her fate. She drifted about for many weeks and eventually drove south again. Fishing boats reported her movements, and she proved an eyesore to salvage companies till the seagoing wrecking-tug William Golliffe, of Liverpool, secured her, 180 miles off Innistrahull, and towed her into Belfast not much the worse for her curious experience, the tug earning thereby $39,800.

Her case exemplifies one of the weak points, so to speak, in modern sailorly training. There is probably not a mariner on the ocean now but in his daydreams speculates upon some fortunate chance putting a derelict in his way when he becomes a captain, thus enabling him to lay by the nest-egg for a fortune, from his share of the salvage for getting her safely into some haven of refuge. But many a dream like this would prove a reality, were really practical methods employed in preparing for towage. The average shipmaster thinks that the only requisite is to pass a rope from one craft

to the other, fasten it to the bollards, and then get under easy steam. The wiser ones know, however, that when storms arise the not-over-strong hold fasts may be torn clear, or that tow-ropes may part, and that a loose end, coiling around the towing ship's propeller, may cripple her effectually. Such was the mishap that befell the Maryland in the above case and compelled her to abandon the task; for it proved a herculean job to free the fan again, and meanwhile stormy weather had created seas which played havoc with her decks and hull and sent her limping home.

Another case in recent years where poor judgment lost a big salvage coup, was that of the Hibernian, which came upon the big freighter Marmion, with a broken propeller, drifting about the Grand Banks for nearly two weeks, and took her in tow, heading for St. John's. The voyage continued uneventful for three days, and they were almost in sight of land, when a gale arose; and that night, as the tempest raged, the Hibernian plunged into an unusually heavy sea and gave a stronger tug at the tow-rope than previously. Unsuspicious of ill-fortune, however, she kept doggedly on all night, but next morning there was no sign of the Marmion; and on hauling in the hawser, there was found attached to it the "bitts," stanchions, and part of the forecastle deck of the latter, which had

been uprooted bodily when she took the

wave.

Prudent skippers, when they fall in with derelicts, take the precaution to reinforce their mooring apparatus on both ships by carrying chains from the hawser ends to the nearest mast and to ringbolts in the decks at different points, thus distributing the strain in such a way as to make a fiasco like the foregoing impossible. In that case the Marmion drifted southeast nearly 2,000 miles, and many weeks later was towed into the Azores. But often, when a derelict breaks away, she is overwhelmed by the waves and never seen again.

Not the least of the difficulties in the way of working up a successful hunting business, must be the fertility of resource needed to overcome the many peculiar and trying conditions which will have to be faced in securing different classes of hulks under varying circumstances. In the case of the Dunmore, it was proposed to put men aboard her, with powerful salvage pumps, by means of which to free her from water and thus diminish the risk of her foundering as well as increase the ease of towage. She might also, it was thought, be restored to an even keel as the water left her, though

the cargo had probably canted over. To tow a hulk on her beam-end 600 to 800 miles, is no easy task and might overtax the resources of the ship that found her.

Another derelict might be a waterlogged lumber-carrier, on which no men could stay, and which would have to be towed to port, or rent apart in the endeavor to do so. A third might be a crippled ocean vagabond with her crew aboard but her machinery disabled; and a fourth might be a broken-down liner with an army of passengers on her decks.

Each would require different treatment, but all would yield substantial salvage. In March, 1898, the French liner La Gascogne was anchored on the Grand Banks, 120 miles off Cape Race, for a week, with a broken shaft, vainly waiting for some passing craft to carry the news to land. Were wireless telegraphy effective then, she could have been in St. John's twenty-four hours after the misfortune befell her; whereas, as it was, she remained there until the ice-floes carried her bodily south, and she eventually made her way to New York, though it was an occurrence which would have meant a small fortune for a derelicthunter.

A case which would have yielded a

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the value of the hull and lading and vaguely counting upon getting the ship to land somewhere and enriching themselves for life. They were forcibly removed, and the vessel left to her fate-which was, without doubt, to vanish amid the seas, for, though two steamers were dispatched from St. John's to seek for her as soon as the news was known, they found no trace of her, nor has anything ever been heard of her since. Had wireless telegraphy been in vogue then, the intelligence of her plight could have been at once communicated, and ships from St. John's could easily have secured her and achieved one of the most profitable jobs on record.

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DERELICT BARK "CUBANA" AT THE SHETLAND ISLANDS.

still richer harvest was that of the Westmeath, in November, 1899. The Westmeath was one of the finest freighters of that day, herself valued at $400,000, and her cargo at as much more, being made up largely of wines and liquors. On a voyage from Hamburg to Montreal, in the height of a tempest off Belle Isle Strait, she jerked her propeller off the shaft-end, and jammed the rudder firmly. Thus helpless, though otherwise undamaged, she wallowed amid the seas for two days until the Allan liner Norwegian hove in sight and essayed to tow her to St. John's. But as the Westmeath was not steerable, she could make but little headway with her, and, after an adequate trial, and as no other steamer showed up to help in the towing and share the salvage, the Norwegian decided to give up the attempt. The Westmeath's people thereupon resolved to abandon her, as winter had begun in these latitudes and she might drift north towards Greenland or be flung ashore on the pitiless coast of Labrador. Accordingly, they boarded the Norwegian, finding themselves, on mustering there, three men short. A boat was sent back, and three stokers located, who had remained behind knowing

In 1896 the Linlithgow, with grain from California for Liverpool, broke her shaft in the South Atlantic, drifted about for sixty days, and was then left derelict, being sighted at intervals for many weeks afterwards, making from ten to sixty miles a day, till she apparently foundered, as all reports of her ceased. The Coquette, in December, 1898, was abandoned under similar conditions off the Irish coast, and, after an aimless.

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BARK CUBANA" REFITTED AT TILT COVE MINES, NEWFOUNDLAND,

cruise of many weeks, went ashore on one of the Orkney Islands and became a total wreck. The Briscoe, in January, 1894, left Queenstown for New York, met hurricane weather, had her bow stove by ice, ran short of coal, and was obliged to burn her woodwork. She was towed for two days by the steamer Ulunda, and then parted her hawser and drifted clear. At last, after being 66 days out, the crew left her one morning, 60 miles south of Cape Race, to row to land, when soon they saw a steamer's smoke and rowed back and signaled her, being then towed safely to to St. John's, where the salvage was fixed at $8,000.

But not all the prizes are steamers. In November, 1899, the big iron bark Cubana, with a cargo of copper ore from Tilt Cove, N. F., for Swansea, Wales, was

beset by a tempest near the Irish coast and broke her rudder. The crew abandoned her, and she drifted about in those waters all that winter and well into the next summer, when she drove north to the Shetland Islands, where some of the coast folks boarded her, found her comparatively uninjured, and took her into port, getting $10,000 in salvage, for her cargo was valuable.

A noteworthy case of sailship-salving, was the picking up by the steamer Exeter City of the derelict American schooner Agnes Manning, that had been adrift for several months. She had a bad record, having sunk the steamer Manhattan off the Jersey coast with a loss of nineteen lives, and was suspected of destroying two Yankee fishing vessels off Cape Cod. She was found an utter derelict, with twelve feet of water in her hold, 470 miles east of Sandy Hook, and to get her-for she was a big ship-into port, proved an exceedingly stiff job. The court awarded the Exeter City $850 for actual expenses, and 50 per cent of the property saved, which amounted to $35,000, a substantial reward, but none

too great considering the risks that had been incurred.

A multitude of "small-fry" derelicts there are also, which it does not pay passenger or freight steamships to attempt to tow, but which would yield a goodly profit to a regular derelict-hunter. These are the wooden lumber-carriers, which neither fire nor water seems able to de

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BOARDING A DERELICT YACHT.

stroy, for the waves quench the flames. and the natural buoyancy of the cargo prevents the hull sinking. One of the most remarkable of these was the W. G. Sargent, which was destroyed by an American gunboat on March 31, 1891, after having in 615 days drifted more than 5,500 miles, and during this twoyear cruise, piloted only by the breezes. and currents, was reported thirty-four times.

er

Another celebrated derelict was the American schooner W. H. White, whose career ended on June 23, 1899, off the Hebrides. She was known to mariners as the "White Ghost," and was adrift for over twenty months, traveling nearly 5,000 miles and making most ratic zig-zag courses across the Atlantic, she being sighted thirty-seven times during all her wanderings. For many months at the outset she appeared like a well-masted and well-manned vessel; and only on near approach could it be seen that she was tenantless. Off the Hebrides, at length, she was sighted by a coasting steamer, which sent a boat's crew aboard, hoping to tow her in; but

she had evidently struck on some reef, making water fast, and, before the steamer was standing off again, she sank, with all sails set.

The most famous of all derelicts, however, and the one that yielded the largest salvage, was the British ship Resolute, one of the vessels sent out in 1851 with an expedition for the relief of Sir John Franklin and his arctic explorers. She was frozen fast in Melville Bay, and abandoned; and four years later drifted out with an ice-floe and was found off Cumberland Gulf, Baffin Bay, by a New England whaler, which put a prize crew aboard her and navigated her to St. John's, N. F., and from there to New Bedford, Mass. The United States Congress, as an act of international courtesy,

voted $200,000 to buy her from the whalemen, and sent her to England as a gift to the late Queen Victoria, who, when the Resolute was broken up in 1877, had a desk made from her timbers and presented it to President Hayes.

Such chances, of course, are not at all likely to come in the way of those who would embark in derelict-hunting as a commercial speculation; but, because of the enormous and ever-increasing number of ships that meet mishap in the North Atlantic, it is clearly manifest that, with the utilization of wireless telegraphy on its prospective scale, the day is not far distant when the derelict-hunter will be a recognized adjunct to modern. marine enterprise. That his field will be profitable, is already demonstrated.

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