Search Abandoned.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 36, 4 June 1914, Page 5

Search Abandoned.

LOSS OF THE TERRA-NOVA.

WITH 17,000 SEALS.

[By Elioteto Tj?LEORAPH—COPT eight' [United Peebh Association.! London, May 27.

Messages from Newfoundland state that all hope for the safety of the sealer Southern Cross, with 175 men aboard, has practically been abandoned. Several ships have made fruitless searches.

What happened probably in the three-days’ gale which raged at the beginning of the month is explained by a veteran mariner“ Her cargo of seal fat and pelts would be like a lot of loose molasses in a storm, and nothing could bo worse, because it would be shifting with every lurch, which would almost certainly open the ship’s seams, and in that case she would sink like lead.” ,The victims in most cases were the veritable brawn and sinew of the colony, mostly between twenty and forty years old. These men look upon sealing, not only as a chance of earning £4O or £SO per head for a trip which sometimes does not exceed three weeks, but as a great adventure.

The crew of (the Newfoundland were from a dozen different fishing hamlets, but that of the Southern Cross practically all came from one place, Brigus, in Conception Bay, the home ■of the Bartlett family, many members of which have ‘achieved fame in Arctic navigation. On hoard the latter vessel were 17,000 seals, and she was so deeply laden that she had to stow 7 her provisions and part of her bunker coal on deck, thus enabling every available space ’ below decks to be filled with seals. The Southern Cross was formerly known as the Terra Nova, a name rendered famous by her association w r ith the Antarctic expeditions of Captain Scott and Sir E. Shackleton. Bulit at Dundee in 1884, she was a wooden screw 7 barque of 764 tons gross, and was 187 ft long.