The Great Storm of March 11-U, 1888. 57 



northward and eastward, but not without having her deck swept 

 by a heavy sea. It moderated and cleared up the next day, and 

 after five hours of hard work the vessel was cleared of ice, and 

 sail set for home. She had been driven 100 miles before the 

 storm, fighting every inch of the way, her crew without a chance 

 to sleep, frost-bitten, clothes drenched and no dry ones to put on, 

 food and fuel giving out, but they brought her into port without 

 the loss of a spar or a sail, and she took her station on the bar 

 as usual. 



Do the pages of history contain the record of a more gallant 

 fight ! Nothing could show more graphically than this brief 

 report, the violence and long duration of the storm. No wonder 

 that this terrific northwest gale drove the ocean itself before it, 

 so that the very tides did not resume their normal heights for 

 nearly a week at certain ports along the coast, and the Gulf 

 Stream itself Avas far south of its usual limits. The damage and 

 destruction wrought ashore are too fresh in mind to be referred 

 to here, and losses along the coast can only be mentioned briefly. 

 Below Hatteras there was little damage done to shipping. In 

 Chesapeake Bay, 2 barks, 77 schooners, and 17 sloops were blown 

 ashore, sunk, or damaged; in Delaware Bay, 37 vessels; along 

 the New Jersey coast and in the Horse-shoe at Sandy Hook, 13; 

 in New York harbor and along the Long Island coast, 20; and 

 along the New England coast, 9. The names of six vessels that 

 were abandoned at sea have been reported, and there are at least 

 nine others missing, among them the lamented New York pilot 

 boats " Phantom " and " Enchantress," and the yacht " Cythera." 

 Several of these abandoned vessels have taken their places 

 amongst the derelicts whose positions and erratic tracks are 

 plotted each month on the Pilot Chart, that other vessels may be 

 warned of the danger of collision; the sch. "W. L. White," for 

 instance, started off to the eastward in the Gulf Stream, and 

 will soon become a source of anxiety to the captains of steam- 

 ships along the transatlantic route, and furnish a brief sensation 

 to the passengers when she is sighted. There is thus an in- 

 tensely human side to the history of a great ocean storm, and to 

 one who reads these brief records 'of facts and at the same time 

 gives some little play to his imagination, there is a very pathetic 

 side to the picture. In the words of Longfellow, — 



