Adventure Magazine Cover — page 132: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

888 s THI escape of these four men from ©) the fate of their comrades was little short of a miracle. The life-saving reports for 1876 say of it: ‘The persons rescued were the first and second officers of the ship, the carpenter and a seaman in the employ of the wrecking company. It appears that the two first named had obtained possession of a cylin- drical piece of cork five feet long and eleven inches in diameter, fitted it with straps and beckets, and arranged between themselves to cling to it for their last chance of life. When the mast slipped into the sea these two had sprung together, as far forward as possi- ble. They were at once immersed in the raging flood, and came to the surface cling- ing to the buoy. In a moment the seaman employed by the wrecking company clutched hold of the buoy, and then the carpenter, coming up near them, was'seized and helped to a place beside them. “Their salvation now was mainly owing to the perfect coolness, judgment and reso- lution of the first officer of the ship, under whose management the escape was accom- plished. This brave and steady man under such circumstances actually schooled his comrades in the course they were to pursue, and took command of their strange craft as composedly as though he was assuming charge of the stanchest sea boat. ‘‘Under his direction the four men, side by side, locked legs with one another. This quadruple intertwining of their lower limbs bound them together and served to steady the buoy to whose ropes they clung. They were now one mass in quaternion, tossed to Adventure and fro in the immense wash of the sea. Every other instant in the thick darkness they were flooded by the surge. At these times, under their gallant captain’s word of command, they held their breaths and gripped the buoy ropes hard till their mo- mentary release from the wave. In the refluence of the surge, his order bade them relax their hold a little for rest and breath. ‘There was but a bare chance for life, but these maneuvers economized their strength and breath till, swept eastward by the current and forward by the surf, the mo- ment came which flung them into the shoal- ing breakers. Then, under his last shout of command, in the furious welter of the surf and undertow, they gave all their re- served force to the desperate plunge ahead for the beach, and in the midst of their con- vulsive struggle, half on their feet and half dragged down by the waves, the men of the life-saving service rushed in upon them and tore them from the sea.” Long Island is but a tiny speck on the vast ribbon of sea and lake coast patrolled by the Life-Saving Service and its wrecks compose a correspondingly small propor- tion of those that the life-saving crews are called upon to face each year. the most tragic struggles that the Service has won and lost have occurred along the Jersey and Massachusetts coasts, and the lives that went out on the storm-winds in these battles have not always been those of the shipwrecked. In Washington there is a long list of the watchers of the beaches who died with their hip-boots on in the performance of duty. MICLOOOK Some of :