Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 105, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1914 — PATROLLING THE ATLANTIC [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PATROLLING THE ATLANTIC

LIFE and property require to be safeguarded on sea as much as, if not more than, on land. For this purpose the ocean patrol has come into being. On the waste of waters there’ is every danger which taxes the best of human skill, foresight and carefulness to combat it. At a certain period of the year this danger of the deep increases and, therefore, emphatic measures have been taken to escape it. This most dangerbus time of the year is that in which) the icebergs occur, when great masses break away from the parent glaciers in the north to float down in their frozen might into the lanes of travel traversed by the steamships plying between European and American ports. This period of utmost danger lasts from the beginning of March to the of July. In some years the ice drift Kegins as early as February, and by March some of the bergs are so far south as to get in the way of the northerly course of vessels entering Canadian and New England ports, says a writer in the Christian Herald.

As the season advances the floating masses get in the main track of the big liners, and it is then that the greatest danger is to be apprehended. To avoid them as much as possible the principal companies engaged in north Atlantic transportation between the ports of New York, Boston, Fastnet and Bishop’s Rock direct their captains to take the most southerly course consistent with the time allowed for the voyage, from the beginning of February to the end of August, but even this does not preclude the possibility of coming in contact with the ice mountains that at any moment may loom up on the horizon in the very path of the vessel. Region of Danger.

This southerly course, as it is termed, which is pursued during the spring and summer months, takes the vessel across the fiftieth degree of longitude (the region of danger) in latitude 41 degrees 30 minutes on the west-bound passage and in latitude 40 degrees 30 minutes on the east-bound passage. Yet icebergs of immense size are frequently encountered on this track. The ill-fated Titanic was on the southerly course when she struck the berg that sent her to the battom of the Atlantic. Many a stately bark which left the home port In high hope has come to grief in this dreaded section of the north Atlantic. The icebergs float down on the Labrador current and skirt Newfoundland, bearing south until they enter the warm waters of the gulf stream, where they gradually disappear. ’Cviiat adds tp the great danger of these frozen dreadnaughts is the fog in which they are often enveloped when off the Grand Banks. Though the sharpest lookout may be kept, it sometimes happens that bergs ahead may not be sighted until too late for the vessel to veer her course.

It was the appalling catastrophe of the Titanic that woke the nations to the fact that no ship, however stanch, is immune from accident, and that the problem of elemental danger still remained unsolved. The Titanic was thought to be practically unsinkable. Prqpdly she steamed along on her maiden trip, defying winds and waves, a floating palace full of life and light, when, lo! out of the darkness of night came the grim sea monster which sent her to her doom. The news of her fate shocked the civilized world.* The boasted science and skill of man were baffled, beaten, sunk beneath the waves by the might of the ice king.

Navy Takes a Hand. Then it was that thought was taken, not how to overcome, but how to avoid his irresistible power in the future. Our navy department, in the interest of life and property at sea, set aside two cruisers for patrol duty; that is, to scour the steamship track for icebergs and give warning of their location and approach/ This year precautions have been taken earlier In the season thap usual to safeguard transatlantic travel. The Seneca has been dispatched to the icefields, The cutter left Tompkinsville, Staten Island, New York, on February 15 for her five months’ cruise. The expeifenced Captain Johnston .Is in command. The Seneca Is -the only vessel that has been detailed for the service this year, but when the ice has moved southward so as to make a constant patrol* necessary, an addltionkl vessel will be sent out for the purpose, probably the Miami. There has been a report that some of the Ng companies were to put on patrol boats of their own to supple-

ment the government service, but as yet none of them has taken theinitiar tlve, although some of them have adopted the scheme of motor-boat scoqts to circumvent ice perils in the north Atlantic. The new Allan liners Alsatian and Calgarian are the flrst vessels to be equipped in this way. „ On their next voyage each will carry two motor boats fitted with 30-horse-power motors, add with wireless apparatus for signaling. During foggy weather these ice scouts will be sent ahead to report danger. It is sold that the Cunard company has also arranged for motor-boat scouts the new Aquitania will carry four of such craft to give warning of danger. The recent international conference for safety at sea had under consideration the whole subject of sea patrols-

U.S. CUTTER. SENECA