The scene of the battle was laid off Jutland and Horn Reef, on the southern extremity of Denmark.

From the reef of Heligoland, the main German base in the North Sea, to Jutland, is about one hundred miles as the crow flies.

What man in his darkness and sinfulness has feebly been trying to utter in every nation from the beginning, that God has formulated and written down for him in the great Catholic religion of the Word made Flesh Which he may read that binds the sheaf Or builds the house, or digs the grave, And those wild eyes that watch the wave In roarings round the coral reef.

In general, the battle area extended from the Skager Rack southward to Horn Reef off the Danish coast, the center of the fighting being about 100 miles north of Helgoland, the main German naval base in the North Sea.

One night we were awakened by a tremendous shock; and, to spare you the details of a shipwreck, which have nothing to do with my story, we found ourselves when day broke fast on a coral reef, about a mile from an island of no great size, and out of sight of all other land.

After examining and puzzling myself over this strange scene for some time, my next care was to seek traces of the ship and of her crew; and before long I saw just outside the coral reef what had been her bowsprit, and presently, floating on the sea, one of her masts, with the sail attached.

There could be little doubt that the shock had extended to her, had driven her off the reef where she had been fixed into the deep water outside, where she must have sunk immediately, and had broken her spars.

The force of the wind increased, becoming unsteady, and causing a choppy sea, so that I felt impelled to lower the topsails and take a reef in the larger canvas.

"Stand by to reef topsails," I shouted.

The weather kept pleasant, but with a heavy wind blowing, compelling us to take a reef in the canvas, but the schooner was an excellent sea boat, and all alike felt the exhilaration of rapid progress.

" "Yes, sir; shall we shake out a reef in the foresail?" "Not yet, Watkins.

There is plenty to do; get those bodies overboard first, and clean up this litter; then shake out the reef in the foresail, and stand bythere is wind coming from that cloud yonder, and no time to waste.

"Shake out the reef in your mainsail, and we'll get out to sea.

"There isn't a reef in," Dan discovered.

"Going to take time for a close reef, Dave?" "There isn't time," Darrin muttered, with drops of cold perspiration on his forehead as he toiled.

Here, on the outer reef, I wrecked an excellent steamship.

He's a bad man accompanied with foul weather wherever he goes, and I know it just so long as I know the cat's paw, the white creeping mist, like a dirty thing which makes me cry out to my crew, 'All hands to reef!

All hands to reef!'"

" He hoped so; but that reef-girt shore seemed to forbid the approach of a vessel.

For fifteen years he had climbed the hill and gazed beyond the reef-girt shore at the broad sea in the vain hope of descrying a sail.

Their vessel evidently drew considerable water, for entering the gap in the reef, the tide being low, it stranded.

Wonders of the Great Barrier Reef.

The mystery of Swordfish Reef.

SEE Upfield, Arthur W. The mystery of Swordfish Reef.

That was on a reef of coral keys off the Bahamas.