A LONELY CABLE STATION.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 12014, 15 October 1904, Page 9

A LONELY CABLE STATION.

t*. ■ ». W' t DESCRffIION OF MIDWAY ISLAND. ! AMERICA'S S-NL\LLEST POSSESSION. *■ Rtadcrs of that fascinating romance, '"The Wrecker," will well ranember Mid 1 w y Inland, tliat nmall ielund in thy Pacific, which Carthbw and ibo others (if the crew of the Currency Lass reoch«l in their boat, and wliicli was the scene of the tragedy of the Flying Scud. It* history end an interesting ck*ecription of it is given jn the Now York "Outlook," as follows , — f L Fw* , ° iufc rom Honolulu wo caught, P» »igh* °' tno fnna "» reef encircled siand-duno * which is known, on account of its geo"craphiOLl pomtion, as " Midway " —the gmaUeKt bit of land, perhaps, over wihirh tha Stars and Strips float, and oortainly the rmnt dreary and desolate place hki habited by man in all tJio broad Pacific. ' Before the acquisition of tho Philippines not one American, in ten thousand, probably, waa aware of the fact that the i United States owned territory in the uu&lle of the Pacific ooean, nearly 3500 milea west of San Frajicisco; and yot the little atoll then known ac "IJrooka's Island" had belonged to us for nearly 40 yeoM. It had no inhabitants, and therefore required no colonial administration, bat it wae, nevertheless, the Srat, colonial possession that wo acquired in the ' Pacific, away from the mainland, and for many years it wae our remotest outpost in the direction of the; orient. Gipttun V. Q. Brooks, of th© American ship Gambia, ducovfred it in 1859, and although it wn« a mere sand-heap lesu tlwn two mil«e «croBS, end seemed to be absolutely worth\om, ho prudently annexed it in.tlio nan ; e of ti»e United States, and took such formal tbope as were necessary to establish a national claim to it. For the next 30 years it remained unfflh*brU.d and almost unrieiU-d. But in 1867 it. was examined by Captain Rny* nolds, of tlio United States cruiser Lackawanna, and in 1888, if I remember rightly, a Norwegian chip wae wrecked on it, and hep eurvivora lived there, for a period of about two years, gaining- a scanty jaibBStence by collecting birds' eggs anrl catching fish. They were finally «ccn and token off by the crow of a< Japanese merchant •vowel who were cruising about In (hot part of tho Pacific in search of gun no deposits. Before tlieir rescue they \v\d t drawn up and buried in a> bottle a hv'ift record of their experience, with s for obtaining brackish but drmkablo water, arid tho names of three or four castaways i irf» had already perished from hardship * and exposure. This record was written, doabtlee, at a time when they had no rx*i pectataou of ever being found. It Avaa .Uscovered, long afterwords, by the officers of one of our naval vessels, who wero engaged in making a survey of the little RtoU and running a line of soundings around £' ltf barrier reef. V Shortly before the anTMotatbn of the fi Hiniiiian group the Pacific Mail Steamship Company caused an examination, to be mado ot the island, witih a view to its t possible utilisation ne a coaling statibn, but thw Idea was finally abandoned on account of ihe difficulty of taking lighters in and '*' out through, the naxrow, rock-obfirtructcrl dtann«l which breaks the circle of tho reef en tho western .side, and nffordsi the only means of wcees to tlve sliallow water of ' the lagoon. When the Trans-Pacific cable mc projected, however, this insignificant / bit of United States territory in the vast r watery solitude of the western ocean suddenly acquired importance and value, and , " jn 1903—more than 40 years after ite di«- ---' _ covory—it was roa'de a cable repeating sta. * tjoti, and for the first time, an i:i----1 r habrt-ed place, it now has a population of ten or twelve men—neerly all cable operator*—and one solitary woman. As eeen from a dietancw of. three or four ■* tnQeß, Midway Island looke like alow, unH. dulating drift of marble dust, diversified {}~' ."■ with rounded, bush-cov«rcd hillocks, and p, encirrkd by a barrier reef of jagged coral Sy r rook, t*n or twelve milee in circuinfexence, p , owr -ehieli the huge Pacific rollers. breik iw inoccsajitly in clouda of spiny and mist. « Betweei the reef and the Uland there is a shallow, lagoon half•α-mile to a mile across, Hfv,, whow tranquil water varies in colour from |tj> pea-green to 'brilliant peacoek-emcnild, %fl Mid' contrasts fitrangely with the dark $&* ttltraxnarine blue of. the outer ocean. m , Tβ low island whicli lies within sri* tl»s» oonocntrio circles of green water HS,- end flaeliing surf is composed wholly / of dieintegratod coral, ami if it were not Wi tot the blackish, bush-covered hillocke f.\. t whfeh wJieve, to ; eome cartent, jte glaring it would eoggeet a long, un- \* ■*■ dnlating drift of Siberian snow tranepoTted £•■ f «oine miracrilous way to the tropics, >S ' and set afloat, in a smooth, green, reef*l encircled lagoon under the burning run of " r 1 1 the enustor. The highest part of the island i> only 43 feet above tho level of the ccean, and if it' were not enclosed and pro'tacted by the rocky circle of the baarier reef, the great eeos raised by tempectte in this part of the Pacific would go entirely ' , x w«r if ■■ -i '■ ■ ; '■Tbe Iffe oi the cable operators on this * TtmAe, vespt!urel«e sand-dune in mulputa » perhaps moro Sonely and dreary Una that of any other telegraphers in the *wM. They aro off the' regular routes ot both,steamers and sailing vessels; they are rislted by Qovermn«nt transposes or itofply ships only at long and uncertain interms, and, for many montki at a< time H ih*j sea nothing but eand and water, and X I Reer nothing but tlie criea of eea birds ami - ' tho eternal crashing of the surf on tho ", ;| "grtat circle of the barrier reef. They are «* almost fis completely "isolated from the * . tror)d '•« if they Were so many ship- ■>* «nwk«d'Oa!ioe9 f and vet all the news of , tbe world passes daily through their hands.