THE PERICLES.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 81, 7 April 1910, Page 7

THE PERICLES.

RELIEF FUND. SYNDICATE FORMED TO PURCHASE THE WRECK. By Telegraph.— Preis Association.— Copyright. PERTH, 6th April. The sum of £266 has bern subscribed to the Mayor's, fund for the relief of the Pericles' castaways, and £253 at Fremantlo. A local syndicate is being formed to purchase the wreck and to undertake salvage. Says the Sydney Telegraph of 2nd April ; — A group of coastal steamship ollioers- were closely examining a chart of the course opposite Cape Leeuwin, and fixing the position and probable course of <the Peru-le*, yesterday afternoon, when a Daily Telegraph representative happened amongst them. They willingly exhibited the chart and oxplained the markings. For some considerable distance out from the cape a thirk cluster of reefs and many rocka are shown, with varying depths of water, making the aotual approach to the headland, or passage past it within a good distance, practically impossible for, a vessel of deep-sea draught. The safety course for inter-Stato stwuners in tho fairest weatl-er is marked' oiglilt miles off the coast. The arc of tho Cape Leeuwin lights extends some 25 or 30 miles out, but attached to tlxs chart are instructions to navigators that in thick weather a more reliable, dangersignal is the Geographic Rock, over which the sea aJways breaks. "We always «ivo Cape Leeuwin a wide berth," remarked a coastal master, "always ! In "thick weather we do not venture within 40 miles of it. ft is m> situated geographically that a most perplexing mixture of cross currents swirl about it ; you have the water down from the Indian Ocean, the northward flow from the Southern Ocean, and an easterly drift from the Bight. When a storm occurs, any regularity that may exist in ordinary weather goes "to the* winds. I consider it a more dangerous point to weather than even the Cznv of Good Hope, for there you are close in to land before you aro'in danger. Alt Cape Leeuwin a vesuel would not pet within mx or cipht miles of land without smashing upon rocks and reel*."