PERILS OF THE SEA
Is Peril of the Sea, Mr. Lockhart has given an account, as far as possible from the most trustworthy sources, and without padding or purple patches, of the most notorious sea disasters, from the foundering of the ' White Ship ' down to the Titanic.' To a certain extent this is journeyman work, and has been done before ; but it is useful to have these accounts set out in a reliable, but at the same time readable, form. The book would hardly be a tactful present to a friend about to start across the Atlantic !
his second book, Mysteries of the Sea, probably interested him more when he was writing it ; and is certainly more exciting for the reader. Here -Mr. Lockhart takes several of those disasters and experiences at sea which have never been explained, gives a full and careful account of all the evidence available, and examines with considerable acumen the explanations which have already bee n offered, and gener- ally offers explanations of his own. . This book is certainly a fascinating one, and by no means confined to disasters. He has a chapter on the Sea-Serpent, in which he goes into the whole question- with quite unimpeachable impartiality, and explores the evidence both for and against ; and detailed as the evidence is, one cannot quarrel with his conclusion that " the world will be convinced that the Sea-Serpent exists when one of the tribe has been caught and brought ashore, stuffed, and exhibited in a public place." Then there is an account of the hanging of Captain Green, whose execution as a pirate nearly caused war between England and Scotland as late as the reign of Queen Anne : a hanging which seems to have been a curiously double miscarriage of justice, for Captain Green did deserve hanging as a pirate (though nobody knew it), but was innocent of the actual charges brought against him, and was executed on false evidence !
There is a chapter on all the stories of pre-Columban dis- coveries of America. In short, the book is all-embracing. But probably the author is right in counting the mystery of the Mary Celeste ' one of the most baffling ; the discovery of a brig sailing in mid-Atlantic without one single human being on board, completely undamaged, and with no sign of violence, and with its life-boat still on -its davits. The dis- coverers boarded it, and found the Captain's breakfast half eaten, a frock still in his wife's sewing-machine ; and, according to his log, which ended abruptly ten days before, the vessel had travelled three hundred miles in that time on the star- board tack without human agency ! Mr. Lockhart's account of the mystery is fascinating, and his examination of the " various explanations is masterly. He has an explanation of
his own, which it would not be fair to quote here. •
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