but little time when the Coast Guard is not actively occupied in duties of the highest importance-highest because it is in the interest of humanity and of the public welfare along the enormous stretch of our coast lines.

The various operations of the Coast Guard are set forth under the appropriate heads below.

ASSISTANCE TO VESSELS IN DISTRESS.

In addition to the patrols constantly maintained during the active season by the station crews along the shore and the regular cruising of the cutters offshore, the latter are charged with special watchfulness and activity during the stormy winter months on the Atlantic coast. Early in the fall of 1914 the following letter was sent to the President:

TREASURY DEPARTMENT, Washington, November 3, 1914.

THE PRESIDENT,

The White House.

SIR: I have the honor to state that section 1536 of the Revised Statutes of the United States provides as follows:

"The President may, when the necessities of the service permit it, cause any suitable number of public vessels adapted to the purpose to cruise upon the coast in the season of severe weather and to afford such aid to distressed navigators as their circumstances may require; and such public vessels shall go to sea fully prepared to render such assistance."

In accordance with the provisions of this section, the custom has been to designate such vessels of the Revenue-Cutter Service (Coast Guard) as are stationed upon the dangerous coasts of the United States to perform special winter cruising.

I therefore recommend that the following-named vessels of that service be designated to perform the duties above mentioned during the coming season: Woodbury, Androscoggin, Gresham, Acushnet, Mohawk, Onondaga, Apache, Pamlico, Seminole, Itasca, and Yamacraw.

Respectfully,

Approved :

WOODROW WILSON, (Nov. 5, 1914.)

W. G. MCADOO, Secretary.

In accordance with the above authority the cutters named were given detailed orders which established during the months of December, January, February, and March a practically continuous patrol of the Atlantic coast from Eastport, Me., to Cape Canaveral, on the coast of Florida.

The orders sent to each of these winter-cruising vessels were of the same tenor as the following:

COMMANDING OFFICER COAST GUARD CUTTER

66

TREASURY DEPARTMENT,
Washington, November 16, 1914.
GRESHAM,"
Boston, Mass.

SIR: The President having designated the Gresham to cruise under the provisions of section 1536, Revised Statutes, and to afford such aid to distressed navigators as their circumstances may require, you are directed to put your command in readiness and proceed to sea on this important duty on December 1 next. You will actively cruise your ship from this date until April 1, 1915. 2. In order that you may be able to extend relief to the crews of vessels in distress, the Gresham should be provided with provisions, water, and fuel in such quantities as can be conveniently stowed.

3. Having duly prepared your command for the work contemplated by these orders, you are directed to cover a cruising district extending from Portsmouth,

N. H., southward to Nantucket Shoals Lightship and westward to Block Island, including the waters of Nantucket and Vineyard Sounds, making a harbor when stress of weather, want of fuel, provisions, or other good reasons require, keeping at all times a vigilant lookout for vessels in need of assistance.

4. It is expected that you will cover your cruising district in the most effective manner, and extend such aid to those in need as it may be in your power to render. You will make arrangements before the beginning of winter cruising with stations along the coast for the transmission to you by telegraph or otherwise of such information regarding wrecks, vessels in distress, etc., as may enable you the more expeditiously to carry out the intent of these instructions. You will communicate the nature of these arrangements, as soon as made, to the department.

5. There will be strict compliance with the requirements of articles 146-161, inclusive, of the regulations, to which your attention is especially called.

6. From the first port entered after having rendered assistance of any kind, you will submit a report to the department upon the usual form (2015), giving such particulars as will show fully the service performed. The details shall be made clear and comprehensive.

7. You will be careful to enforce the customs and navigation laws throughout your cruising district by causing vessels fallen in with to be boarded and examined. Ample boarding lists will furnish evidence of the proper performance of this duty. You will confer with all chief officers of the customs at such ports as you may visit, with a view to the correction of infractions of law, and keep these officers informed as far as possible of your movements so that they may speedily communicate with you at all times relative to the work of your command and enable you to execute any particular duty with certainty and dispatch.

8. The movements of your command will be reported to the department in accordance with instructions set forth in article 996, Regulations, RevenueCutter Service. If a stay in port or at an anchorage is of 24 hours' duration or over, this fact will be reported at once to the department by mail at the end of each 24-hour period in port or at an anchorage, stating the reasons for such stay.

9. Should you gain information of the presence of derelicts or wrecks within your cruising district in the path of commerce, whether within or without the navigable waters of the United States, you will act in accordance with the instructions set forth in department General Order No. 24. In this connection your attention is called to article 148, paragraph 6, of the regulations.

10. You will, as far as practicable, keep in close touch with vessels of the service on adjacent stations and with available shore stations by means of radio, to the end that you may take prompt advantage of such means in the effective discharge of your duties.

11. You will inform the officers of your command that no leaves of absence will be granted during the winter cruising period except in urgent cases.

12. The successful accomplishment of the objects herein indicated will require on your part constant and energetic direction and, therefore, besides attending to the usual duties of your station you are given full latitude to respond in all cases where you may be useful in aiding distressed mariners or otherwise in the performance of your duties. It is expected that you will devote your time and best energies to the faithful discharge of your obligations as imposed by law and regulations, and that you will leave no effort untried to make for your command an enviable record. The department will regard with interest the progress of your work, and will be gratified to hear of any special or important service rendered by your command.

13. At the expiration of the winter cruising period you will submit to the department a detailed report of the work performed by your command from December 1 to April 1. This report will embrace only the performance and results of your winter cruising and should not contain recommendations as to ship or personnel.

Respectfully,

BYRON R. NEWTON,
Assistant Secretary.

A description of the work of the cutters and stations in relieving distress forms an interesting series of marine mishaps. These are extended over all the coasts of the United States where Coast Guard

stations are located, and the various waters, local and territorial, where cutters are stationed. The entire Atlantic coast from Maine to Texas, the coast of Porto Rico, the waters of the Great Lakes, the Pacific coast, and the waters of the Hawaiian Islands and Alaska are all included in the reports herein detailed and the summaries. In the following will be found brief mention of some of the most important and interesting incidents of the year:

Steamer Sable I.-At 2.45 p. m. July 28, 1914, a radiogram was received by the Seneca, at that time off Cape Race, Newfoundland, from the British steamer Sable I stating that she was disabled 10 miles W. N. of Cape Race and requesting assistance. At 4 p. m. the Seneca came up with the disabled steamer and sent an officer aboard to ascertain conditions. Her engine was found to be totally disabled, and, as it was out of the question to make sufficient repairs to reach port, her master requested a tow to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Accordingly the Seneca's 10-inch hawser was run to the steamer's port bow and at 5 p. m. the cutter started with the Sable I in tow. The weather continued favorable and good progress was made on the 29th and 30th and the steamer was turned over to the tug Togo off Georges Island, Halifax, Nova Scotia, after being towed 486 miles. The Sable I was a new steamer, valued at $100,000, and had a $20,000 cargo aboard, consigned from Glasgow, Scotland, to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Steamer Bay State.-On August 7, 1914, the steamer Bay State, with a crew of 104 men and 250 passengers on board, went ashore in a dense fog in a very exposed position on Portland Head. The cutter Woodbury went immediately to her assistance and was the first vessel to offer aid. A 7-inch line was run to the port quarter of the disabled vessel and the Woodbury started pulling. At 8.25 a. m. the steamer floated, let go the line, and proceeded up the harbor under convoy of the cutter.

Schooner C. S. Holmes.-While cruising in the Arctic the cutter Bear found the American schooner C. S. Holmes aground on a shoal near Wainwright Inlet, Alaska. A line was run to the stranded vessel, but was parted by drift ice. The ice became so thick in the vicinity that the cutter had to withdraw until August 15, 1914, when she returned to the stranded vessel, ran out a kedge anchor, whereby the master of the Holmes was enabled to kedge his vessel off into deep water. The four passengers on board the schooner were taken off by the Bear and landed at their destination.

Schooner Emily P. Wright.-On the morning of August 27, 1914, a man appeared at the Brazos Coast Guard Station, Tex., and announced himself as one of the crew of 11 men of the schooner Emily P. Wright, which had been wrecked on the Mexican coast, 140 miles south of the station, on the 23d. It appears that he and other members of the schooner's crew, reaching shore in a small boat and upon pieces of wreckage, had struck out up the beach in the hope of finding succor. He himself, of greater endurance than the others, had gone on ahead of the shipwrecked party to find help, leaving his shipmates, weak from hunger, to follow after as best they might. The Coast Guard crew promptly launched their surfboat and set out down the coast. Seven miles below their station they picked up two of the sailors. Continuing on southward they found and took

on board other members of the schooner's crew at different places, until all hands but the master had been accounted for. All of those now in the care of the station crew were of the opinion that their captain-an old man-had perished, as he had given out, apparently, not over 40 miles from the place where the vessel was lost. The men thus far picked up were in a pitiable condition, having been five days without food. Moreover, all were ill, and some were naked. They were therefore hurried back to the station, where medicine, food, and clothing could be obtained, and the coast guardsmen continued the search for the master. They found him on the Mexican coast, 35 miles from the Brazos station. He was entirely helpless, and the rescuing party of four-part of the crew having left the boat and taken to the beach 25 miles to the northwardwere compelled to carry him nearly every foot of the distance to the place where they had come ashore. They returned to their station at 6 p. m., having been engaged upon their errand of rescue fully 16 hours. By September 3 the 11 men composing the shipwrecked crew were so far on the road to recovery that the station keeper took them to Brownsville and arranged for their transportation to Gal

veston.

Flatboat. Shortly after 11 a. m., August 29, 1914, the lookout of the Louisville, Ky., station sighted a flatboat that had swamped just below the cross dam of the falls of the Ohio. Members of the station crew covered the half mile or more to the scene of the accident in seven minutes and took three men-all that were aboard the flatfrom rocks protruding above the swift current. The boat in the case was destroyed in the turmoil of the rock-studded water. That the occupants also were not lost was due entirely to the early appearance of the Coast Guard crew on the scene of the casualty.

Steamer City of Chicago. When within 5 miles of the end of her run in the early morning of September 1, 1914, the 1,439-ton passenger steamer City of Chicago, bound from St. Joseph, Mich., to Chicago, with 94 passengers, a crew of 56, and a full cargo of fruit, was discovered by her master to be on fire amidships. To avoid panic no alarm was sounded, and the presence of the fire was kept secret on board until the master was able to lay his vessel, head-on, upon the breakwater protecting Chicago Harbor. As the steamer rested upon the barrier referred to she lay within a few feet of the old Chicago Coast Guard Station. The station lookout had observed smoke issuing from her before she struck, and keeper and crew lost no time in beginning the work of extinguishing the blaze. The women and children on board were carried down ladders set against the steamer's side. With everybody safely landed, the Coast Guard crew devoted their entire attention to subduing the fire, and succeeded, with the help of a fire tug, in putting it out after three hours' effort. The flames extinguished, the station crew spent the remainder of the day running lines, carrying the steamer's officers and owners to and fro, and in performing other service incident to the work of getting her off. At 1 a. m. of the 2d fire again broke out below deck. This the station crew put out unassisted. The vessel was finally hauled off and taken to a slip.

Three sailboats. About 9 o'clock in the morning, September 8, 1914, the keeper of the City Point, Mass., station received word that the catboat Dawdle was somewhere offshore with a man and six boys