70 



Sometimes unnoticed and unknown, often in sight of anxious 

 watchers impotent to help, not unfrequentlv despite the bravest ef- 

 forts for their succor, men have gone down into the jaws of death, 

 while the dashing waves have sung their requiem. In 1796 the ship 

 Industry of Boston was wrecked at Little Good Harbor Beach, and 

 all her crew met a watery grave, with none but the all-seeing eye to 

 witness their desperate struggles with the storm-king. In 1829 the 

 ship Persia was wrecked on Eastern Point, and all her crew were 

 lost, while the unconscious town slept, nor dreamed of the dark 

 tragedy enacting so near at hand. In 1839 a score of men were lost 

 in a terrible storm that swept across the harbor. And oft has the 

 despairing mariner, clinging to his insecure foothold on stranded 

 wreck, been snatched from the yawning gulf that waited to cover 

 him, by the efforts of brave men willing to risk their lives for his 

 succor. 



Of late }*ears the improvements in marine architecture and equip- 

 ment have rendered disasters less frequent, and the additional facil- 

 ities for saving life, furnished mainly by the Massachusetts Humane 

 Societ}', have greatl}' lessened the perils of mariners exposed to the 

 dangers of a lee shore. To-day coastwise navigation is compara- 

 tively free from danger, if duly heeding the warning beacons of the 

 Signal Service Corps, and it is to be hoped that our maritime ports 



