THIS TERRIFIC OIL FIRE, STARTED BY A LIGHTNING FLASH, DID A HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS’ WORTH OF DAMAGE.
From a Photograph.
The accompanying photograph depicts a terrific oil fire, which occurred on the night of June 23rd, 1908, at Warren, Pennsylvania. The conflagration started through a tank being struck by lightning, and in a very short time twenty-five oil-holders, large and small, together with the wax-house, were destroyed. The fire burned for nearly twenty-four hours, and its fierceness is almost impossible to conceive. The total loss incurred was something like one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
The extraordinary-looking dwelling seen in the next picture was built to exactly resemble a steamship’s bridge, with chart-room and other appurtenances all complete. This curious erection is situated at Algorta, near Bilbao, in the North of Spain, and is called “Casa-Barco,” or “house-boat.” It was probably built by a retired sea-captain, who felt like a fish out of water until he had provided for himself the same environment to which he had been used during his active career at sea. One can imagine the old gentleman taking his evening walk to and fro along the lofty bridge, scanning the surrounding country with a sailor’s eye, and half inclined now and then to ring for “more speed,” or to send an order down the tube to the steersman.
A HOUSE BUILT TO RESEMBLE A STEAMSHIP’S BRIDGE.
From a Photograph.
The cat seen in the next photograph was the pet of the crew of the ill-fated whaler Windward, which was wrecked in Baffin’s Bay last season. After the disaster pussy had a long, cold voyage in the open boats in which the ship-wrecked men pulled—amidst ice-bergs, snow, and tossing seas—for over five hundred miles, encountering dangers and adventures galore, till after three weeks of fearful exposure and hardship they were picked up by the whaler Morning, in which the correspondent who sent us the picture was a passenger. “Pussy then made up for her sufferings by making her home in my bunk,” he writes. “During the cold nights of the Arctic autumn I found her a very good substitute for a hot-water bottle.”
A CAT WHICH MADE A FIVE-HUNDRED-MILE VOYAGE IN AN OPEN BOAT IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN.
From a Photograph.
