The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 130, January, 1909Various
History
The Wide World Magazine, Vol. 22, No. 130, January, 1909
Various
Adventure stories -- Periodicals; English periodicals; History, Modern -- 20th century -- Periodicals; Voyages and travels -- Periodicals
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.
[Illustration: 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.”
[Illustration: A CAT WHICH MADE A FIVE-HUNDRED-MILE VOYAGE IN AN OPEN
BOAT IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN.
_From a Photograph._]
[Illustration: ANOTHER REMARKABLE ROCK--IT IS AN ALMOST PERFECT GLOBE,
AND THOUGH IT PROBABLY WEIGHS TWENTY TONS FOUR STRONG MEN CAN SET IT
SPINNING ON ITS BASE.
_From a Photograph._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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