THE PERICLES WRECK

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 79, 5 April 1910, Page 71

THE PERICLES WRECK

• SHIP'S PAPERS SAVED. TUG'S EXPERIENCE. CARGO STREWN ABOUT. By Telegraph.— Pre»i Association.— Copyright. (Received April 5, 10.20 a.m.) PERTH, This Day. The ship's paperh, the official log-book, and the chart in use at the timo of tho disaster, were saved from the Pericles. The chief steward also saved all the valuables that had been entrusted to him by the passengers for the voyage. The tug Vigilant, after the disaster, experienced terrible weather. Sho was under water half tho time. She saw a large quantity of apples and other cargo from the wreck strewn about. Cape Leouwin, near which the Aberdeen White Star liner Pcricleu has foundered, is notorious nmong master mariners for heuvy gales and lough seas. Exposed a& it is to tho wide sweep of the Southern Ocean, the spot is often the scene of soin© of the heuvicKt storms that descend on the Australian coast. The charts of the vicinity show that the oouH is fringed with reefs for some hundred mile* to tho northward and south-wcnlward of the cape itself. Geographic Reef stands about five miles off tho mainland, while rocks extend south ol Cape Loeuwiu to a distance of eight or nine mile*. Reefs and bhallows abound closer inshore. There is a coral shoal to the south-westward of Cape Lecuwin, and it in probable that the Pericles encountered one of these in the first instance, us she would approach the cape from on E.S.E. direction. On Cape Iveeuwin there is a hignul station 'and a lighthouse, the light flashing at intervals of five seconds, and being visible over a radius of 20 mik's.