AN OCEAN MYSTERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 17889, 17 September 1921, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN OCEAN MYSTERY .

CREWLESS VESSEL APPEARS, MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE. There is no end! to the thrilling mysteries of the sea. Some few. months ago a five-masted sailing ship, the Caroll A- Deering, was : seen, with sails "■•' trimly set, but with not a man visible upon her, sailing on, as mysterious as the Flying Dutchman, | through a tranquil sea. Now she has ; beached herself on the Diamond Shoals, ; off the New Jersey coast, with no? on* on board. , When the ship came ashore there was. au unfinished meal spread on the table in the cabin the vessel was in excellent condition; nothing was missing from her save the crew and the boats* There was no trace of the men, but attention has been given afresh to the contents of a bottle which was picked op from the sea. The bottle . contained a message, purporting to be written by either the captain or the mate of the Caroll A. Bearing, saying : " Oil-burning tanker or submarine has boarded us and placed our crew in irons. Get word to the headquarters of the company at once." Did that message come from the Caroll A. Deering. and did it tell the truth, or was it a fake message?

The editor of Lloyd's List, the official organ of the. shipping world, believes it was a hoax. Experience has proved, he says, that such messages are' almost invariably frivolous. The explanation regarded as most likely by shipping circles is that the Caroll A. Dearrag was abandoned by her officers and crew who supposed her to be foundering, that they were picked up by a; steamer, the* Hewitt, that is known to nave been in the neighbourhood, and that later this .vessel, now missing, was lost with all- on board. Id, America come people are inclined to 'believe that the Caroll A. Deering was the victim of a submarine pirate, bet of this there is no evidence. The memory of everybody who knows the story gons back to the profoundest of all such problems, the loss of the crew of the Marie Celeste, which, bound from New York to Genoa, was found abandoaeft at sea and towed to Gibraltar nearly 50 years ago. The ship was in perfect trim, the sails were set, the* boats were slung, a meal was spread, the ship's log was fully entered up to within ten days of the discovery, 'and nothing was missing bat the compass and the ship's papers. But the captain, bis wife and their little child and all the crew were gone, and they have naver been (heard of from'; that day to this. i