A RED SEA ROCK.
A fourth, and happily a successful, search by Her Majesty's ships has just been made for a reported rock towards the southern end of the Red Sea, on which two steamships, the Avocet and Teddington, are supposed to have struck during the year 1887, both ships afterwards foundering.
Owing to a considerable error in the position given by the former vessel, the first search was mainly over ground too far to the westward, and operations were suspended until more accurate information could be obtained. The loss of the second ship, in a position given five miles north-east of the first, caused a second and careful search to be made on a more extended area, still with no indication. A surveying vessel was then sent two thousand miles in order to institute a rigorous examination; but six weeks' close search—though under great difficulties of strong wind and heavy sea—bore no fruit, and various theories were started to account for the loss of the two steamships.
The fourth ship, Her Majesty's surveying ship Stork, has been more successful. Guided by some slight indication afforded by an insignificant rise in the sea bottom, the rock has been at last found. It is a small coral patch, only fifteen feet under the surface of the sea, and stands in twenty-eight fathoms of water, in latitude 14 deg. 22 min. 8 sec. N., longitude 42 deg. 41 min. 32 sec. E. It lies midway between the two best positions that critical cross-examination had finally settled as most probable for the respective vessels that were lost. Though it is between five and six miles from the direct straight line of track, the existence at times of strong currents transverse to the axis of the Red Sea, causes the danger presented by it to be by no means insignificant, though it is a matter for marvel that it has never been struck before.
The difficulty of finding such a small rock may be appreciated from the fact that one of the searching ships was at anchor within four hundred yards of it, with her boats sounding round her, without its being perceived, though she was driven from her anchorage by a gale before the spot was passed over by the boats.
Seeing the enormous British trade, valuable both in lives and property, that passes down the Red Sea, it is a matter of general congratulation that the Admiralty refused to discontinue the search until the last hope of finding a rock was dispelled, and that the efforts to discover it have at length been crowned by success.