Zurich Herald, 1927-12-15, Page 6SEVEN DAYS IN OPEN BOAT
IS ADVENTURE UP-TO.DATE;
Thrilling Tale of Nine Men Afloat on Atlantic With Food
and Water Gone
A CONRAD TALE
A romance of the Pea rich with the ter her length, She wee registered out
salty tang of a forecastle yarn by1o Roston at 846 tons.
Joseph Conrad •or Clark Russell was
brought to light on October 34, when
•the Voleudam, of the Holland-AnserIce
Line, , carrying a number of bankers
on a holiday junket, picked up in the
dangerous waters off Bermuda an
open boat containing eight ashite men
We now have a glimpse of Captain
Potter, safe and sound in hie cabin:be
the Volendam, reading from the log
of the Foss, carefully preserved hy
him through all these perilous daye,
the story of the heavy gales that at
last forced him to leave hie sinking
and a Jamaica negro.These men, vessel, He then takes up bis tale
shipwrecked coven days before, were once more by word of mouth.
almost epent with battling against Tho day before abandoing ship Pot -
wind and wave, and, to snake matters ter, Who believed in being before
-
'Worse! their provisions and water'had •hand, had looked the situation over
come to an end. Their tale ,as they and decided the ship's launch hardly
told it, when warmed and fed aboard would take hie' .whole crew, with the
the hospitable liner, was- as old as weight of the gasoline engine M it:
the race of men "that go down to. the So he had ordered the engine shipped.
sea in ships," as timeles 'sae the gray Now, when the time came to get away
waters that had tossed their cockle- he was in fair shape. Bill came sweat -
shell of a boat to and fro so many ing from the galley with a case of
weary hours. In essence it has beau beef, a case of tomatoes, some old
told a thousand times in song and 'cans of salmon, and a few biscuits.
story, but the thrill of it is still "as A. water beaker holding about
new as the new -cut tooth." There its twenty gallons was stowed athwart.
something about the sea and man's Another five -gallon tin of water was
eternal' struggle to tame its tremend- added. Then the boat was slung out
ous forces to his will that has the from the davits. The fallswereuse-
power to stir us all to the very depths, less. So the boat was slung from a
a call of the primitive that finds an rough tackle and two blows from an
answer in every heart. Here is the axe dropped it flat into the running
tale of these nine men and their boat sea.
as recorded for us in the coluntns of Dawn was just breaking, the wind
the New, York World: • was screaming, the FOSS was sinking
"It wasn't no picnic," said Chief low into the water, her bows half un -
Mate Gene Bradell. der, and the nine men were 400 miles
"Next time I'll take more fruit and north of Berimida.
less beef," said William D. Potter, the "I thought rd counted noses," said
thirty-year-old *baptain of the founder. Potter, "But after we were away, I
ed schooner, with a tired grin. found we'd only eight altogether.
Then I looked back and saw Olsen
"Fodder God done it," said the big
Jamaica negro, who was cook. Joseph hanging onto the painter. We got
him in. We didn't dare get too close
Notice is his name, but everybody on
tho lost schooner called him Bill?'
to the ship for fear of getting a stove
"
Why, they didn't know; they just call. boat. When we'd got a safe distance.
ed him Bill, and so Bill he was. away, I remembered then that we had
"When Bill shipped on," said the no compass. I knew we had to get
young captain, his face cit deep with the ship's compass, somehow—a ten_
lines of weariness, "the first thing hee
inch compass it was.
asked for was a bottle of rum and a "We pulled back the boat until we
got about twenty feet off. I'd striped
It happened that they didn't have a off my clothes, Then I jumped in
13:ble on the Horatio Foss, the old tub and swam to th'e ship."
A a four -masted schooner, which now The captain broke the compass out
dee somewhere in a thousand fathoms of the foundering schooner's bin-
nf Atlantic. They.had a prayer -book. nacle.. Then he grabbed a handline
Yesterday "Bill" still had that prayer- and threw. one end to the boat and
book, and he had probably thumbed it made the other fast to the compass
more during those seven days in the And while his crew dragged the in -
open boat, between spells of bailing
and pulling at an oar, than most
Prayer -books ever are thumbed in
their 'whole existence.
The Most Thrilling Race of All
A striking snapshot of men and
Hawthorn Hill, England,
ing, hungry waves., closing in on the Scientists Use Radio to. Check
them. The sea ahead was all.foam-
the
OVER THE WATER JUMP .
raining of the Staines' Handicap at
horses poised in midair during the ru
•
nine men like a pack of gray wolves. 1
One night the friendly dolphin flip -1
ped his tail and vanisher and never
sence of a dark shadow gathering overTime With Radio Signals ately with manure will, when cut
;Astronomers Take Observations on Stars Passing Meridian,
came back. Perhaps he felt the pre -1
e Then Compa,re Local down and well worked together, make
cheerful at first became morose. The From World's Master Clocks the best hot -bed soil. If fiats or' shals
that boat. Voices which had been !
exhausted bailers growled when they low boxes to grow the plants in are
Drift of Continents and Isles
aweidahle-stnall errors present in all
ehysical anesteuree.
le rather Interesting to nate
that scientifio workers have adopted
the radio In thelr„treaearelt operations
so soon after the radio time signala.
ware, braaacaSt• AS a matter of fact,
etudents of the earth have always fol-
lowed very closely -the -application a
OCIentifle di4coVerie0 bY the physicist
and the engineer. The study of the
earth going onto -day is due to instru-
Mentsancl methods attributable to re-
sults...of the Work of physiciss."
A Timely Topic
PUTTING. ASIDE SOIL FOR
HOT -BEDS
When spring approaches thought is
turned toward the hothed for,starting
-vegetables and flowering plants, but ib
very often happens that soil for Ats
hot -bed has not been set aside and le
not available, and as a result nothing
is, done. leis wise,lherefore, to pre-
pare for the spring now, and to make
up a cone-shaped pile of suitable sots
in a convenient'place, so that it will
be reasonably dry and ready far
spring work, Or it may be put
Under cover in an outbuilding In bar.,
rels, Any good friable loam is suit-
able for starting plants in. It is wise
to epee a soil that does not bake, or
one containing eonsiderable sand and
decayed vegetable matter or humus.'
The surface soil from a garden that
has previously been well raanured ser-
ves the purpose admirably. Or, It
the soil le poor, well. rotted manure
should be added and mixed well with
the soil, using about fifteen to twenty
per cent. of inanure. Sods gathered
during the summer and piled altern-
changed watch. • Everybody was con-
ing? Are we afloat in 140,000,000 land; Shanghai, China; San Diego,
Are the continents. and islands drift-Iservations made at Greenwich, Eng- available it is not necessary to put
aside much soil, and usually two bar -
1 square miles of water, since the , Cal., and Washington, D.C. The Ho cels will, suffice to meet' the require-
stantly wet with the rasping salt I
bodies, chafed by salt -stiff clothing, meas.. ments for an ordinary garden. If on
water and their hands bled and their
1 earth's land surface is only 57,000,0001 degrees around the earth was,
square miles? These and other vital the other hand the soil Is- to be put
broke out -with sores. The climax 1
came on the seventh day. There were ' questions were discussed at the third
general congress- of the Geodetic and twelve -hundredths of a second of itrc,
the water -beaker swished about three! Plants may also be started early int
seven biscuits left in the tin. In
Geophysical Union recently held at or, in the latitude ot New York, about!
gallons of stale stuff. They sighted i Prague, Czechoslovakia.
ured by this longithde work, and , the
closing error of the circuit is only
into the hot -bed. direct, twice as much
will be necessary.
fen feet. As we measure this dos -
land a cold -frame. The frame is set in
- i The United States Coast and Geo' ing error in time, it was only elght- andinches of good, ricb,
ahead—Bermuda. place now six
friable soil is placed in it. Over this
That land was only to tantalize detic Survey would answer these thousandths of a second. leaves, straw, strawy manure, or lit.
them. Between them and the rising questions in the negative, basing its "In this longitude work the best in- ter not containing weed seeds is put
harbor bask of Bermuda was'a gale of assumptions or results, of the world-
struments and most skilled observers to keep out the frost. In the early
wind that pushed them slowly back- widejradio longitude campaign COn-
were employed by the United States. spring this little is removed and the
ward the way they had come. ! ducted in October and November,
The Naval Observatory operated sta.'. sashes put on, and it will be found
That was last Friday. At 3.30 1)311.11926, by thirty countries. These were
tions M Washington and San Diego, that in a short time tae ground will
1 "Volendam" weighed anchor! approximately thirty-five astronomic .
while the Coast and Geodetic Survey nicely warm up, so that seers of the
strument through the heaving dark and stood out from Hamilton. Potter ; stations where observations 'were
had stations at Hquolulu and Manila, hardier vegetables and flowers may
--water, Potter warn back and was had seen that a dozen red flares had made each clear night on the stars
Many of the private observatories of I be planted.—W. S. Blair, Superinten-
been stowed in his boat before he asthey passed the meridian. These
the country took advantage of the op -1 dent, Experimental Station, Kentville,
N.B.
13111 had almost prayed the other
eight men in that twenty -two -foot
open boat into craziness. Captain
Potter wouldn't talk much about that.
"I like Bill," he said. Nevertheless,
the story had gone about on board the
Volendam of how, half insane from
Bill'a incessant ejaculations to Deity,
the rest of the crew had wanted to
throw him overboard, and how Potter
prevailed against this to the bitter
end.
Capt. Jacobus de Konin of the Vol-
emlam was almost as noncommittal
es the nine men from the sea.
"I hauled to and made a lee just
Dff the reef at Bermuda," he said, "and
then we let down a ladder over the
stern to them. The last,man up pull-
ed the plug and sank their boat."
A, red flare flaming up over the
aarkening waters had been sighted, so
we are told, from the bridgeeof the
Volendam as she headed away from
Bermuda for New York. That flare
was the last despextate effort of the
exhausted men in their drifting boat
to get once more in touch with the life
that was so' rapidly leaving them.
Says the World story:
Potter and 13111 and his crew had
pulled and sailed into a gale 400
miles, just up to the gate of Bermuda.
Then slowly the wind pushed' them
back. Their blankets and sheets, rine
ged up on oars and a harpoon haft for
ealls whipped futilely in the gale.
They slipped back. They had been
within a mile of the reef, not more
than eleven or twelve miles from
Bermuda.
pulled in over the gun'l.
"We rigged a sea anchor and lay to
all day there," he said. "At five
an hour after abandoning, my ship
went down. She sank by the head.
We rowed over to the spot, but all
that floated up was a life -preserver.
Well, we rigged up three sails. We
had two sheets, a blanket and a small
'abandoned ship. Now he took out observations enabled the ts servers, to
portunity to locate -their places in
one of these and got it lighted. In determine their local time. The clocks
longitude while the campaign was be -
the twilight' that red signal °eaglet; at the various stations were compar-
ing made.
the eye of the Dutch captain, de Kon- ed by means of radio signals sent by 4,
ing, on the "Volendam's" bridge, and one of a dozen of the most powerful "All of the computations have not
within half an hour the nine men, who radio stations of the world. been deduced by the large net, but it
had been beaten back toward 'death Major William A. Bawl% who re- is hoped in the near future to be able
by the gale, found the "Volendam's" presented the United States at the to furnish the exact longitude of
piece of canvas. For spars, we used ladderdangling over their sagging Prague meeting, expressed the follow- every station involved in the cam -
two oars and a harpoon haft. Be_ heads, While the island had receded ing views: paign. it will be possible, when these
l
sides this we kept pulling on the oars. from them, this floating steel island "The campaign was a great success results are available, to compare the I
"Two men had to be bailing all the came out and picked them up.
in every way. We now know, or soon longitude determined by radio signals
time. The boat had so knocked Friendly hands caught them. There shall know, after computations of all with the longitudes of the same points
1 1 and hot le ye been made
drink. A collection was taken up by the exact longitude determined by signals, sent over wires
against the ship some, and she was
leaking pretty bad. But we found she
rode very well if we kept her headed.
right. We headed for Bermuda by
the compass"
That was the beginning of the long
week, the longest week those mine
men. ever will live. Two hands had
to be bailing with biscuit tinssell the
while. Others were at the oars. Pot-
ter sat up in front and managed
things. For seven days he never lay
down to sleep. In the first place,
there wasn't room to Ile 'down. In the
second place he didn't dare.
"All you could do was catnap now
and then when you had the chance,"
he said. wearily. "Once I curled up
on top the biscuit tin, but couldn't
sleep."
Than, driven back away from life
just as it seemed to be in their bleed-
ing hands, they saw the Volendara
putting out of Bermuda in the twi-
light. They Watched her come to-
ward them, then sheer off to the right.
They groaned. Peter succeeded in
lighting a wet match. The red flare
sputtered In the fading light full of
purple dimness. And all at once the
Volendam sheered out of her course,
stopped and then backed into the gale,
gathering speed.
And a little later, in the darkening
light, the excited bankers leaned
down over the high rail and watched
the small boat slide and reel into the
slick which the liner made with her
hull broadside to the wind.
They saw the cramped men, more
dead then alive, creep up the rope
ladder slowly and drop on the deck
exhausted, their bodies covered with
boils from theesletting of the salt
Water for seven clays, For that in-
etarit the comfortable passengers
glirripsed the sea.
"We left Philadelphia October 10,"
!said Potter, his face still drawn from
the strain. "We were for Martinique
with a cargo of coal for Guadeloupe.
We had 1,100 tons under our hatchea.
EVerything seemed flue when we
Stood out of the Delaware River, and
tWO days later we were in the. Gulf
)3tream„With wind picking up."
The Horatio Foss, nearly twenty
VOWS old, Id four stubby masts, 'rig-
ged fore and aft, along the 18S feet
.came Waral 00
: of each station taking part in the and cables. If the .differences are
the bankers. It was all a rosy dream! campaign. These stations, will now be very great it will be au indication
for - 13111. with his prayer -book, and , bases for astronomic work, charts,1 that there has been a shifting of the
Peterson the bos'n, and Tom Del Rae,
: maps or surveys of various countries , continents and islands of the earth's
the donkeyman, and all the others—, and groups of islande. I surface.
Norskies, Swedes, Itallane, and Anieri- "While longitudeeshad been deter -
cense -Literary Digest, i mined at many points on the earth's.
*
"One of the principal objects of con-
...... -.-40--- isN'face, they were less exact thane ducting the longitude campaign was
,
A leader in. the automotive industry , the radio longitude campaign. The to begin a world-wide study of the
,
says there is room for many more comparison of the clocks at two wide-
hypothesis that North and South !
merica are drifting away from Europe ;
automobiles in this country. Doesn't ly separated points was made by •sig -1 -
,and Africa and the other land masses,!
he mean in "the" country? • nals sent over land wires or sub-
Australia, and wandering on the
I like
marine cables, and there were many'earth's surface. This hypothesis does
Beside the iron fence that skirted relays in the land wires whoih inter-
s
the grass in the park sat an artist. He fered with the telegraph signals. In.not appeal to officialof the Coast and
'
!
was making a sketch of the trees op- the radio longitude survey the time Geodetic Survey as being possible,
posite, whose leaves were glorious in of transmission did vary from night ' but scientific workers must have open
s
their autumn tints. • Presently two to night, dependent upon the adjust-1min" and test any hypothesithat
little urchins drew near, then came
ment of relays with „the radio signal. are Seri°1litlY adhered to by other
and stood behind him, watching with
Very little apparatus, however, was ' scientific workers.
intense interest every brush stroke he
made. They saw him mix color with
used, lend the transmission time 1 "Professor Alfred Wegener of Atts-
. b. Oa atmos,phere is that of the trig formulated a hypothesis which
color, till gradually the sketch took
shape, spreading Itself over the paper
until there was hardly any vhite to
be seen. Quite suddenly one of the
boys broke the silence. "Just fancy,
Fred," he said, "a little while ago that
was a lovely' piece of *white paper!"
------
Always when the two bailing men
were spelled by their comrades they
dropt over against a thwart and went
to sleep. They dared to sleep, and
had to, in order to have strength for
more hailing in the next wa.tch, And
Bill the cook prayed. If Bill had been
devout before, he was pious now. He
prayer, he doxologized, lie
halleuilah-
ed. The salt water came slatting
over in sheets every time the launch
smacked down into a wave, but Bill
kept his prayer -book dry. When the
gale slackened away a bit and things
faired up, 13111 would shout:
"See what Fodder sent us!"
When flange got worse again and
the wind howled' hungrily all around
them, 13111 would shout still louder:
"Mulder ain't ready for us yet!"
The days that foIlovied were lived
through somehow by the forlorn little
party. Most of them had not the faith
of the negro to uphold them,and it
was hard to fight off despair. The
picture drawn for us of their unhappy
state is a poignantly moving one:
The nine men talked little. They
measured out the food and drink.
Tre wasn't a deep ()Crum in the
boat; hadn't been any on the schoon-
er. They measured out the' beef and
tome t oee and water, and Watched
their store shrink. They saw nothing
but the gale and the ocean. The sea
was as big as the sky, and the sky as
big as the sea. Everything was gray
and immense and destructive.
Potter watched his. compass and
tried to get every bit of .forward mo-
tion he could out of the contrary
wind. Though they were nine, the
ocean became lonelier and lonelier.
Now and then a Sea bird came ovale
head in the wet murk with h haunting
cry. The only other life they sal*
wag a dolphin. For three days the
61phin played alOngside and around
"The first wave disturbs the
Insults to Religion
The Indian Legislature Is considr
velocity of light, 186,245 miles per has appealed to many earth students,
, ing abill for penalizing, insults tore-
pilweially biologistis, who are* con
ligion.The proposed addition to„ the
seconEIi fronted 'with problems of accounting Indian penal code reads as follows:
RROR IS FRACTIONAL.
for'the distribution of animals over "Whoevee, by words, either spoken
"The accuracy of radio longitudeas
the earth's eurface. The samethercon-clee or written, or by signs or by *visible
determined last year is indicated by
of animal are misenton allrepresentations, or .otherwise, inten.
the closure of a circuit involving ob-
tinents, and :the question has been tionally insults or ateetipts be insult
Adding "Atmosphere” toNEaTriberra
. asked, for generations, How mild they
the religion, or 1;ntentioually outrages -
rave from one coast to another
or attempts to outrage the religious
. through oceans? Some investigators
feelings of any class bt his Majesty's
subjects, shall be punished with Jan
prlsonMent , . , for a term which may
extend to two years or with a fins
thesis would obviatethe necessity for
or with both."
land bridges, since, according to him,
all continentalareas were once a Sin -
Turkey 7 Excess
gle land mass. ,...,
"There is a slight land force acting-
Has 481 ii
say the bottoms of the oeeans were
dry and furnished 'land bridgea' from
one to another. Wegener's hypo -
of Women, Due to Many Wars
on continental masses due to the
earth'S rotation, whioh is believed to Constitntinople.—Further data from
make Continents drift toward the , the first Turkish census, taken last
equator. 004Thisr drifting would be ' month, reveals an excess of 481,137
modified by the earth's rotation, withwomen.
the resultant direction being west- Turkey's Incessant warfare in the
ward. The officials of the Coast and Balkans end the great war made
Geedetle Survey and many other stu- heavy inroads on the male population,
dents of the earth believe this force, The abolition of polygamy and the
totalliinadequate to break tentinents ; freedom of women is leading to ex -
away from their setting in the earth's i.tensiye changes in labor. Women are
crust and move them about like Chips now employed in nearly all forms of
on a milt pond, lindustrial and commercial activity.
Wegenereftwith
Y
ficia:10 is -the onlv at excess
whether is right or wrong, maies.
.91 may take us years to find out Angora, attracting GovernMent of -
but the test will come when the very
accurate longitude d.eterminatiendof
1926 are reproduced itilhe future. If,
Tor instance, the new value of the
distance of Washington and Green-
-wiych, say, ten or,, twenty yeare from
The ukulele is now an accepted mils.
ical instrument, and s.pecifications for
an° approved standard pattern have
been adopted by ari organization of
m, le 100in feet, Vie 61.1011 be jut:stifled trit ainufactnrers of musical instruments.
' ANDREW'S OAT H D RA L (Anglican) claiming that North Anierica has' is 'just as well that Such an organ -
At Sidney, Australia, Whieh it is proposed to teke down and ee-evect ett changed its relation to Europe. If, ization did net eXist in the days of
Canberra, Australia's new federal capital, this fine (and for Australia) old the distance is onbr MO or ten fest., Arnati, Stradivarius, and GuarnerIng
cathedral. vvi) would considei it was due to Uri- irt Cremona.
It
14-