"The Ships’ Graveyard.”

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 44, 13 June 1914, Page 5

"The Ships’ Graveyard.”

DANGEROUS St. LAWRENCE ICE, FLOES AND FOGS. “The Gulf of St. Lawrence and the coast of Newfoundland are known as ‘The Ships’ Graveyard,’” said Captain Trask, of the Sonoma, when discussing the wreck of the Empress of Ireland with a Sydney Daily Telegraph representative. “I was born there,” he continued, “and I have sailed on the river for years. At this time of the year from Cape Race to Father Point the St. Lawrence is one of the most dangeroiL. rivers in the world to navigate. The river is fiiled with drift ice, and mariners have to contend with dens© fogs, which at times last for weeks. These fogs extend right up the river nearly to Quebec, and as there is a great deal of shipping there, navigation is rendered superlatively difficult. I have been for as long as ten days hard and fast in the ice. Another source of danger is the river current.”

Captain Trask stated that th© explanation of the explosion on th© Empress of Ireland was simple. “No hot boilers could stand coming in contact with ice cold waters of th© St. Lawrence without going ‘right up’ ” he said, “and especially if you consider that a contributory cause may have been the listing of the ship, and a consequent draining of her boilers. The disaster’s terrible character brings home to us th© fact that man with all his ingenuity has not yet been able to build an unsinkable ship.”

HOW THE NEWS TRAVELLED. TO SYDNEY IN THREE HOURS FORTY-EIGHT MINUTES. AFTER MUCH REPETITION. From the moinent the Storstad rammed the Empress of Ireland to the time the first intimation of the disaster reached Sydney, just 3 hours 48 minutes elapsed.

The collision occurred near Rimouski, • at 2.30 on Friday morning. In Sydney it was then 5.12 in the afternoon, and tho first cable message arrived in Sydney at 9 p.m. During that time news of the catastrophe had been telegraphed from Rimouski to Quebec, repeated to Montreal, then placed on the Pacific Cable Company’s line and sent on to Vancouver. From there it dived into the Pacific Ocean, emerged at Fanning Island; an operator repeated it to Fiji; it was passed on to Norfolk Island, and automatically sent from J'fegJLT to, Auckland, whence it made the final stage of the journey into the office of the cable company at Sydney. From Vancouver to Sydney—a distance of over 6000 miles—the message travelled at the rate of 200 miles a minute. It took 36 minutes in transmission, leaving Vancouver at 2.10 a.m. (8.24 p.m. on same day in Sydney), and arrived in Sydney at 9 p.m. London correspondents seized on tho news as soon as it was received via the Atlantic, • and sent it out by tho route which passes from London to Gibraltar—Malta—Alexandria—Suez—. Aden—Colombo—Singapore Banjoewangie—Port Darwin Adelaide— Sydney. At each of these stations it is repeated, though at Malta and Colombo the repetition is automatic, and not a moment is lost. When the collision occurred London time was 7.15 a.m. The message left London at 10.15 a.m. (8.15 p.m. in Sydney), and reached Sydney at 10.25 p.m., taking 2 hours 10 minutes in transit.

Some smart work was done by the journalists in Canada and the telegraph and cable officers in getting the news to London. When an accident occurs some time must elapse before the newspaper staffs can get to the scene and collect their information. From Rimouski the messages would probably go to Quebec, thence to a station on the Atlantic coast, thence to Queensland, Ireland, and fro there to Valentia, and on to London. But it passed through all these stations and was despatched again from London in thre hours, and reached Sydney again only 1 hour 25 minutes after the message that came over the more direct American-Pacific route.

s.o.s. Might I ask some expert in wirelesg telegraphy, queries a correspondent to a contemporary, t» explain how so cumbersome a call as S.O.S. came to be adopted as the appeal for assistance from ships in distress? To those with only a superficial knowledge of the system, a- more arrestiv© and alarming cry of urgency would appear to be a call of either the letter E ( —) 01 ‘ the letter (I ), made continuously until answered, I am aware that the use of E was adopted by warships in the Russo-Japanese campaign, for the purpose of intercepting signals by the enemy, a process known as “chattering, ’ hut it would certainly appear as if a more urgent call than that in use would he of extreme value. I have heard many explanations of the meaning of the signal 5.0.5., and a code book tranlatiou would be of interest and instructive. One journal recently explained it as “Save our souls,” but this can hardly he the correct interpretation.