Project Gutenberg's Harper's Round Table, September 17, 1895, by Various

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Title: Harper's Round Table, September 17, 1895

Author: Various

Release Date: July 11, 2010 [EBook #33136]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S ROUND TABLE ***

Produced by Annie McGuire

[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE]

Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.

* * * * *

PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1895. FIVE CENTS A
COPY.

VOL. XVI.--NO. 829. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

A CARGO OF BURNING COAL.

BY AN OLD SHIPMASTER.

The reader may think that while coal must be a dirty cargo it is in
other respects an innocent one; but there is no shipmaster who does not
dread a long voyage with this kind of freight, for many a fine vessel
has been lost owing to the coal taking fire through spontaneous
combustion; therefore the greatest care is exercised in carrying it, and
whenever the weather will permit, the hatches are opened in order to
give the gases in the hold an opportunity to escape. The regular
coal-carriers are fitted with ventilators set in different parts of the
deck, and the holds of the vessels are kept pure and wholesome by
turning the gaping mouths of a number of the huge funnels so that the
wind will pour into and down them to the interior of the ship, and keep
up a circulation by escaping through other ventilators that are turned
in a contrary direction.

A good many years back, when I was an able young sea-man on board the
bark _Raleigh_, I had an experience that was both exciting and strange.
Our vessel was loaded with coal, and bound from Philadelphia to
Australia. The run down to the equator had been a slow but pleasant one,
owing not only to the mild, beautiful weather that we had held right
along since sailing, but because the _Raleigh_ had what was something of
a novelty in those days, in the way of an excellent and kindly set of
officers. We were what is called a "happy ship."

After reaching about the parallel of twenty degrees south