TERRIBLE ADVENTURE ON THE

Otago Witness, Issue 1230, 17 July 1875, Page 11

TERRIBLE ADVENTURE ON THE

A thrilling account of the sufferings of thirty-four men from Newfoundland, who were cast away on floating ice, of the death of thirteen from cold and exposure, and of the rescue of the remainder in a nearly exhausted condition, is given by a New York paper. The men are all Irish, or of Irish descent, and comprise nearly the entire able-bodied male popu» lation of the little town of St. Mary's. Andrew Mooney, a survivor, gives an account of the disaster which befel the party. He says :— The ice had been firm all winter, and the villagers had gone out upon it frequently to hunt sea birds. On the 2nd of March a brig was discovered two and a half miles from the shore, fast in the ice. The party of thirty-four was gathered, and started out on the ice to her, aud started homeward, but had not proceeded far when the fact was presented to them that the ice had parted between them and the shore, and the opening was increa-iim* every moment. When the brink of the ice was reached, the space of water between, them and the shore was half a mile wide, the ice having broken one mile out from the land, and the immense field upon, which they stood was floating steadily farther out to sea. It was now quite dark. The party were exhausted, and only- half clad, and unprepared for the terrible cold which soon set in. At firjfc it rained until they were all wet to the skin. The rain then turned to sleet and snow. The wind veered to the northward and the cold became intense. Then came the struggle f<>rlife, the men stamping their feec and running madly about, the more sturdy encouraging the weak and faltering. At midnight the cold and exhaustion began to tell upon the doomed ones. First one and then another would lie down, saying he could go no further. The others would pick them up and try to keep them on their feet, but, after reeling for a short distance like drunken men, they would fall senseless on the ice and die without a struggle. When morning dawned seven corpse* were discovered at intervals upon the ice, A piece of ice twenty feet square floated near the brink of the ice in open water, upon which nine of them got, hoping that it would float towai ds the shore ice. and they could then save themselves. When it had floated 300 yards it grounded, and the unfortunates remained upon it for three days and three nights, during which time six of them died, the otherthree being picked up by the schooner George S. Fogg. All the food they had in all that time was a small white fiah which was frozen in the ice. This they divided between them. The eighteen men remaining, after the nine floated on the smaller ice-field, made their way back to the abandoned brig, which moved with the ice for a week in sight of land, and the fishermen were on her ten days before they were rescued.

On Monday last, writes our Arrowtown correspondent, one of the very earliest iesidents in that place was laid uiiiler the turf in the cemetery there. The deceased was p*>or old "Bob Turner," a rather eccentric individual, and well-known throughout most vi the mining districts of this Province. Mr Turner came to the Arrow with the first rush of miners, when he opened a small general store. He afterwards went to the West Coast, but being unfortunate, returned. He then started business as a packer and carter, in which employment he continued uncil broken down by age and tbe effect of free living, he became an inmate of the Wakatip Hospital. His constitution was so shattered that all the skill of Dr Douglas, and the visiting "surgeon, Dr Scott, could only succeed in prolonging his life for a week. Mr Turner waa 65 years of age when he died ; he waa an immensely powerful man, with a constitution sufficient to last out a hundred years if he had taken care of it. The body was brought from Frankton purposely for interment at the Arrow A very large number of person*, despite the piercing cold, attended the funeral. The service was very impressively read by Mr Warden Stratford, and listened to attentively ; many old residents could not refrain from shedding a tear when the dull sound of the earth was heard falling upon the coffin, at the utterance of that sentence of portentous meaning — Earth to earth, Ac. Poor old Bob will be missed by a good many, especially the youngsters, with whom he was a universal favourite.