OCR Text |
Show Mysteries of the Deep Well Guarded by Neptune A . and trading vessels. Eskimos have salvaged most of her cargo, and twice she has been boarded by parties of white men from passing ships. But always al-ways she eludes capture, drifting onward on-ward with the Ice pack into northern mists. "Some ten years ago Atlantic shipping ship-ping was for months endangered by the erratic behavior of the Governor Parr, a disabled British shooner, abandoned by her crew In mid-ocean. Superstition sailors credited her with supernatural control over storms. She carried In her hold a fortune In Canadian Cana-dian lumber. Twice steamers put off from Nova Scotia to tow her ashore and salvage her cargo, but each time after they had hoarded her a sudden storm forced them to abandon the attempt. at-tempt. Months later she appeared off the Azores, where again efforts at salvage sal-vage met with the same defeat. Her final fate, like that of the others, remains re-mains a mystery. Mary Celeste Mystery. "Perhaps the most famous mystery of all, a puzzle that has defied solution for over sixty years, is the question of what happened one day In December, 1872, on board the Mary Celeste. Countless ingenious theories have been advanced, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fashioned from his explanation a romantic ro-mantic novel, but no one will ever know the true story. Ou November 7, 1872, the brig Mary Celeste put out of Now York harbor for Genoa, her hold filled with barrels of alcohol. On hoard was the captain, Benjamin S. Hriggs, his wife, their small daughter, and a crew of seven men. "Five weeks later the British ship Del Gratia found the Mary Celeste 300 miles west of Gibraltar. Her sails were set on a starboard tack and she was plowing steadily eastward, but their signals to her met with no reply. Worried Wor-ried by this they sailed along side and boarded uer. finding to their astonishment astonish-ment that she was completely deserted. desert-ed. The decks were absolutely In order, or-der, no sign of struggle, mutiny, robbery, rob-bery, or murder. In the ship's cabin were the captain's watch, money, and compasses. They found Mrs. Briggs' sewing machine with a garment half-stitched. half-stitched. In the forecastle were the seamen's chests, their money, and even the remnants of a meal. The ship's log was lying open, the last entry dated dat-ed eight days previous. Chronometer and sextant were missing, and the ship's only boat an open yawl was gone. "Obviously the Mary Celeste had been abandoned in great haste but why? Possibly those aboard feared an explosion ex-plosion in her hold, put off hurriedly with no provisions, then awaited a disaster dis-aster which failed to occur. Too late they may have tried to overtake her, only to find her sailing steadily farther farth-er out of reach." Mf.ny Legends Inspired by Crewless Ghostly Ships. ashlngton. The greatest sea mys tery of the decade may be near solution solu-tion If It can be proven beyond doubt that wreckage recently washed up on the const of Australia Is from the lost Kobenhavn. The sea guards well her itCTS tt, and the world has waited five years for news of the Danish training blp which sailed out of Montevldo In December, 1&28, bound for an Austra linn port. "The Kobenhavn." says a bulletin bOW fhe National Geographic society, "was a new, five -masted, steel bark, the largest sailing vessel In the world, tqalpped with auxiliary engines and a powerful radio. On December 21 she reported all well. She was then 400 miles out, well started on her course through the South Atlantic, the lone-l!ent lone-l!ent waters In the world. That was tlie last word that was ever heard from btf, "One month later the settlers on Trittan da Cunha, an Isolated rock hallway between Brazil and Good Hope, were greatly excited by the approach ap-proach of n sailing vessel. She seemed to he steering aimlessly, with a light sail let, before a gale which was driving driv-ing her straight for the Island's jagged reel's. Just as disaster seemed inevitable inevit-able she veered aside and drifted safe ly past, not 400 yards offshore. "There was no sign of life on board, and she was riding far down at the tern, Indicating some damage. Otherwise Oth-erwise all was In good order, and there could be no doubt of her Identity. She was the lost Kobenhavn. By the next day when It was calm enough to put out in boats she hnd vanished for-eve, for-eve, Whatever the fate that overtook her crew, It must have been disastrously disastrous-ly sudden to have prevented even a wireless message. Scarcely less strange is It that her wreckage should turn up halfway around the world, and on the Australian coast. Stranger Than Fiction. "Many are the legends, songs, and stories Inspired by ghostly, crewless ships, wandering on year after year, 'alone on a wide, wide, sea.' "Even stranger than ghost ships of fiction are the ships of wood and steel, ships of fact, which in modern times have sailed our seas unmanned. One of these, the Hudson's bay steamer Baychimo, has haunted Arctic waters for the past three years. Loaded with a valuable cargo of furs she was caught in the ice off Wainwright, Alaska. Alas-ka. Her captain and crew went ashore, resolved to wait until the spring break-up to work her free. One night a terrific storm broke her loose from her moorings and set her on her wandering course. At intervuls she is reported by the captains of whalers given only after he is satisfied the members of the party are properly equipped and physically qualified to make the climb. The scaling of the 17,000 foot Mount Foraker, as far as is known, has never been accomplished. Mount McKinley, 3,300 feet higher, however, has been successfully climbed several times, the latest ascent being that of the Lind-ley-Liek expedition, In the spring of 1E32. This party, according to the report, re-port, was the first ever to reach the summits of both the north and south peaks of that mountain. |