Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1892 — Far Out Upon the Waters. [ARTICLE]

Far Out Upon the Waters.

The New South Shoal lightship is farther off shore than any light in the world, being twenty-six miles from the nearest land. It is the last stationary human habitation seen by passengers on Transatlantic steamers bound outward from New York, and is sought by those vessels as the first mark to steer by on their return. Not far from the shoal which it guards are the dreaded “Banks"

which Have Deen a vemaDte graveyard for ships, having a record of 500 known disasters. Tho vessel that runs upon them is beyond human help. There, like the phantom ship of fabled story,“Lightship No. 1, New South Shoal,” sails a voyage without an end, being anchored with an iron cable, and is buffeted by •continual storms. Twenty-three times she has broken from her moorings, frequently on such occasions drifting out into thp middle of the ocean, because she is built for riding out gales and goes to lseward like a crab. Acoideuts of this sort are apt to happen to lightships. The ouo at Cross Rip, iu Nantucket Sound, was once lost for more then a month, fetohing up in the Gulf of Mexico,, and being towed in finally to New Orleans with all hands safe aboard. By using her propeller, it is believed that the proposed steam lightship for the New South Shoal will be able to ease the strain on her chain and so avoid breaking away.