"The classic story of the wanderings of a derelict is that of the Fannie E. Wolston. Abandoned October 15, 1891, off Cape Hatteras, she traveled northward in the Gulf Stream. When off Norfolk, Va., she changed her course and headed across the broad Atlantic toward the shores of Africa. On June 13, 1892, she was sighted half way across. Then she headed southward for more than 300 miles; then shifted her course to the northeast for another 200 miles, retraced her track for several hundred miles, turned again and went in the opposite direction, like a shuttle in the loom instead of a ship upon the sea. Then she took another tack and headed west for nearly 400 miles; then shaped her course north for 300 miles, and then headed east again for 700 miles; so that in January she was almost in the same latitude and longitude that she had been in the previous June. In the following May she was a thousand miles away from where she had been in January, on the border of Cancer and midway between Florida and Africa. Again she headed toward America for 600 miles, and repeated her shuttle-in-the-loom performance. Then followed many long months of erratic zigzags and she was sighted for the last time 250 miles off Savannah, Ga. She had remained afloat and had out-generaled the waves for two years and a half, during which time she had sailed more than 7,000 aimless miles.
"In normal times," continues Mr. Grosvenor, "the Hydrographic Office of the Navy Department keeps careful check on the derelicts. Every ship that sights one of these menaces to navigation reports its location. The names of some of them remain visible, while others are susceptible of identification by their appearance. The Hydrographic Office gives each wreck and derelict a serial number and plots its position on a map. Each report is registered with an identification number. In this way, by a system of cross checking, it is possible to identify each derelict, to determine the direction of its drift, and usually to get it so well located that the Coast Guard cutters may run it down and sink it."
On January 16, 1919, I addressed an inquiry to the Coast and Geodetic Survey, Washington, on the subject of international protection of commerce in the destruction of derelicts, ice observation, etc., to which I received the following courteous reply from Commodore Bertholf, dated February 7, 1919:
"1. Your letter of January 16, addressed to the Coast Geodetic Survey, seeking information on the subject of an arrangement between our Federal Government and the Government of Great Britain prior to the Great War for the protection of commerce in the destruction of derelicts, has reached this office by reference.
"2. In reply I beg to state that Article VI of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, which was signed by the delegates of the various countries on January 20, 1914, provided for an international service of derelict destruction, study and observation of ice conditions, and an ice patrol.
"3. Article VII of this convention invited the United States to undertake this international service, and provided that the high contracting powers which were interested in this international service contribute to the expense of maintaining this international service in certain proportions.
"4. While Article VI of the convention provided that the new international service should be established with the least possible delay, the convention, as a whole, could not come into force until July 1, 1915, and if the organization of the international service were deferred until after that date, the consequence would be that the two ice seasons of the years 1914 and 1915 would not be covered by the proposed international ice patrol, and, therefore, the British Government, acting on behalf of the other maritime powers, requested the United States to begin this international ice patrol and observation without delay and under the same conditions as provided in the convention. The President directed this to be done, and the Coast Guard undertook the work and performed the ice patrol during the seasons of 1914, 1915, and 1916. It was intended that the Coast Guard should also undertake the international service of derelict destruction at the conclusion of the ice patrol each year, but owing to the outbreak of the war in Europe in 1914, the international service of derelict destruction was never begun.
"5. As pointed out above, the international ice patrol and ice observation service was begun in 1914 and was continued during 1915 and 1916, but for obvious reasons the patrol was discontinued in 1917 and has not as yet been resumed.
"6. Of course, as you are aware, the various Coast Guard cutters recover or destroy such derelicts as may be found within a reasonable distance of our coast.