CHAPTER XXV
OTHER GREAT MARINE DISASTERS
DEADLY DANGER OF ICEBERGS—DOZENS OF SHIPS PERISH IN
COLLISION—OTHER DISASTERS
Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters | ||
THE ARIZONA
A most remarkable case of an iceberg collision is that of the Guion Liner, Arizona, in 1879. She was then the greyhound of the Atlantic, and the largest ship afloat—5750 tons except the Great Eastern. Leaving New York in November for Liverpool, with 509 souls aboard, she was coursing across the Banks, with fair weather but dark, when, near midnight, about 250 miles east of St. John's, she rammed a monster
The welcome word was passed along that the ship, though
sorely stricken, would still float until she could make
harbor. The vast white terror had lain across her course,
THE SHAPE OF AN ICEBERG
Showing the bulk and formation under water and the consequent danger
to vessels even without actual contact with the visible part of the iceberg.
[Description:
Diagram showing the mass of an iceberg above and below the waterline.
Two "submerged plateaus" are labelled. The figure reads: "NINE-TENTHS
OF AN ICE BERG'S TOTAL MASS IS SUBMERGED".
]
She was headed for St. John's at slow speed, so as not to strain the bulkhead too much, and arrived there thirty-six hours later. That little port—the crippled ship's hospital—has seen many a strange sight come in from the sea, but never a more astounding spectacle than that which the Arizona presented the Sunday forenoon she entered there.
"Begob, captain!" said the pilot, as he swung himself over the rail. "I've heard of carrying coals to Newcastle, but this is the first time I've seen a steamer bringing a load of ice into St. John's."
They are a grim race, these sailors, and, the danger over, the captain's reply was: "We were lucky, my man, that we didn't all go to the bottom in an ice box."
CHAPTER XXV
OTHER GREAT MARINE DISASTERS
DEADLY DANGER OF ICEBERGS—DOZENS OF SHIPS PERISH IN
COLLISION—OTHER DISASTERS
Sinking of the Titanic and Great Sea Disasters | ||