distress from some unfortunate coaster, or steamer, or full 

 rigged ship, as the case may be. To-day I have walked 

 for miles along the beach, threading my way over and 

 among a cargo of Southern hard pine lumber of over two 

 hundred thousand feet, which is piled high and dry on 

 the sand from the wreck of the Altamaha, a Scotch 

 vessel, built forty-five years ago. This lumber was sold 

 a few days since for $2.75 and $2.25 per thousand feet, as 

 it lies, and men are now at work removing the coverlet 

 of sand from it, and measuring and marking it. Then 

 the purchaser will have his hands full in getting it to the 

 Boston market and to solve the question, not how much 

 profit he will reap, but, how much will he lose on the 

 purchase. 



Close by the island lies the wreck of Mr. Vanderbilt's 

 famous vacht, Alva, whose walnut fixtures and trimminirs 

 are even yet coming daily to shore. A contractor is now, 

 and has been for some time, at work endeavoring to blow 

 her to pieces and removing the obstruction, the Govern- 

 ment having awarded him the contract for about $9000, 

 (only half the amount the next lowest bidder asked for 

 doing the same work.) The contractor brought a little 

 steamer down from Brooklyn, (.she is .so slow, even under 

 full steam as I saw her this morning, that I mistook her 

 for a stationary light ship), and when the tide is at its 

 lowest ebb he is able to get about half an hour's work on 

 the wreck each day, as it then lies in fourteen feet of 

 water. It is thought he will not make a fortune out of 

 the job. 



The owners of the valuable steamer Cottage City, 

 which came ashore here, the vessel and cargo valued at 



