The diver who raised the tugboat Bronx from the East River found the fireman sitting in a chair in the fire-room, staring into a wave-quenched furnace, with the weird, lifelike expression often seen in the wide-open eyes of the drowned, and which those who have encountered it declare never fails to strain the nerves of the strongest man. Other divers relate even more grewsome experiences. When the diver, employed to locate and examine the steamship City of Chester, entered the steerage, the first object that met his gaze was the figure of a man standing upright, entangled in a pile of ropes. The face was terribly distorted and the tongue, protruding, hung from the mouth, while the body was swollen to twice its natural size. Going a little further aft he found another victim of the wreck, who had fallen on his knees and grasped a third man around the waist. The spectacle so affected him that he signaled to be hauled to the surface, where he reported what he had seen, and refused to again go below until accompanied by another diver.
Captain Abram Onderdonk, already referred to, once brought up a dozen bodies from the wreck of the steamer Albatross, sunk in the Caribbean Sea. Some of these were in their staterooms, and the last corpse was that of a young woman. He found her in the bed lying on her side, her eyes wide open and staring straight ahead. One of her arms was thrust through the bed slats, with the hand clutching the berth frame. As he loosened her grasp the body turned, then floated to an almost erect position, and leaned over toward him with a repelling look. The expression of the face and eyes, as well as the attitude, almost unmanned him, but in a moment he regained his nerve, clasped her about the waist and brought her to the surface. The same diver was employed to bring the dead from the wrecked Sound steamer Stonington. Groping about one of the staterooms, for he had to feel his way in the darkness, his hand came in contact with a corpse, which he took and carried to the surface. It proved to be a woman, and clasped to her bosom so firmly that no effort could separate them, was a beautiful babe. Perfect peace and rest were on their faces, and they had evidently died in sleep. Mother and child were buried as they were found—together.
CHAPTER VIII THE LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER
Heroes, also, are the men who build and tend our lighthouses, and there are few finer stories than that which tells of the erection of Tillamook Rock lighthouse, probably the most exposed structure in the world. Tillamook is a basaltic rock, rising abruptly from the deep waters of the Pacific a mile off the Oregon coast, and eighteen miles south of the mouth of the Columbia River. Projecting to seaward, it receives the full force of the stormiest waves of the Pacific, which often break with appalling violence on its summit, ninety feet above the level of the sea, boats being able to reach it only when the sea is calm.
Four workmen in October, 1879, were landed on the rock with their tools, fuel, provisions, a stove, and canvas for a tent. They were in a few days joined by five others, who brought with them a small derrick. The foreman of the party lost his life in attempting to land, and the lot of the survivors was one of great discomfort and constant danger. To prevent being blown or washed away, they tied the canvas to ring-bolts driven into holes drilled in the rocks, and then quarried out a nook in which they built a shanty, which they also bolted to the rocks. Next a flight of steps was quarried up the steep side of the cliff, and the work of cutting down and leveling the summit began.
The weather often compelled a suspension of work for days at a time, and in January came a tornado which lasted for nearly a week. During this storm the shanty of the workmen was repeatedly flooded with water and their supplies were swept into the sea. They were able at the end of a fortnight to make those on the mainland acquainted with their condition, and fresh supplies were passed to them over a line cast from the rocks to the deck of a schooner, which had come as near as safety would permit.
When May, 1880, came, the dome of the rock had been cut down to a height of eighty-eight feet from the surface of the sea, and a spot leveled for the lighthouse. A small engine and more derricks were now landed, and with them came three masons, who in June laid the corner-stone of the lighthouse. The stones were made ready for laying on the mainland, and a fresh supply conveyed to the rock whenever the weather would permit. First, a square, one-story house for the keepers was built, and above this was raised a tower forty-eight feet high, raising the light 136 feet above the sea level. Sixteen months after work was begun the lamp was lighted for the first time, and has since prevented scores of wrecks. Over the beacon raised amid such difficulties, three keepers stand sentinel, and their lot is an exciting as well as a lonely one. A few winters ago a terrific storm broke upon the rock, and the water poured in torrents through the holes cut in the dome of the lighthouse to give ventilation to the lamps. Stout wire screen shutters protected the lantern and broke the force of the water hurled against the glass. But for this it would have been battered in, and the heavy plates might have killed the man attending the lamps.
Tillamook is known in the service and to mariners as a light of the first class, since lighthouses are roughly divided into three classes: First, those on outlying headlands and deep-sea rocks, the distinguishing features of a country's coastline, and the first to give the mariner warning of his nearness to land. The second grade of lights show him his way through the secondary shoals and rocks, and the third grade, or harbor lights, take him safely into port. There are fifty-two first-class lights on the coasts of the United States. New Jersey and Massachusetts have each a double light; and Florida, by reason of the treacherous reefs which girt its coast, has as many first-class lights as any other two States put together.