We have not yet lost that sense of terror before the vast power and wrath of the waters that wrought strange gods and monsters from the fancy of our ancestors. It is this fright and helplessness in us that gives disappearances at sea their special quality. In spite of all progress, all inventiveness, all the power of man’s engines, every putting forth to sea is still an adventure. The same fate that overcomes the little catboat caught in a squall may overtake the greatest liner--the Titanic to note a trite example. As a matter of fact, never a year passes without the loss of some ship somewhere in the wild expanse of the world’s waters. Boats go down, leaving usually at least some indirect evidence of their fate. Now and again, as in the case of the Archduke Johann Salvator’s _Santa Margarita_ and Roger Tichborne’s schooner _Bella_, not a survivor lives to tell the tale nor is any bit of wreckage found to give indication. Here we have the genuine marine mystery. The marvel lies in the number of such completely vanished ships. A most casual survey of the records turns up this generous list, from the American naval records alone: The brig _Reprisal_, 1777; the _General Gates_, 1777; the _Saratoga_, 1781; the _Insurgent_, 1800; the _Pickering_, 1800; the _Hamilton_, 1813; the _Wasp III_, 1814; the _Epervier_, 1815; the _Lynx_, 1821; the _Wildcat_, 1829; the _Hornet_, 1829; the _Sylph II_ and the _Seagull_, both in 1839; the _Grampus_, in 1843; the _Jefferson_, 1850; the _Albany_, with two hundred and ten men, in 1854; and _Levant II_, with exactly the same number aboard, in 1860. In 1910 the tug _Nina_ steamed out of Norfolk and was never again heard from, and in 1921 the seagoing tug _Conestoga_ put out from Mare Island, Cal., bound for Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, with four officers and fifty-two men aboard, and was never again reported. These are not mere marine disasters[13] but complete mysteries. No one knows precisely what happened to any of these ships and their people. [13] For a handy list of these see The World Almanac, 1927 Edition, pages 691-95.