A Battered Coal Ship and a Ghostly White Boat Off Cape Flattery

San Francisco, Dec. 31.—The overdue coal ship J. B. Brown, twenty-eight days out from Nanaimo, came into port this morning. The bark Dominion, in ballast, and now twenty-six days out from San Francisco for Puget Sound, is the only one of the overdue sailing vessels remaining to be heard from. A piece of wreckage, supposed to have belonged to the missing steamer Keweenaw or Montserrat, was discovered by the master of the schooner Spokane, which arrived yesterday morning from Fort Canby. On December 19, when thirty-five miles off Cape Flattery, the schooner passed a large ship's boat filled with water. An attempt was made to discover traces of a name on the little craft's bow or stern, but the Spokane's skipper could make out no marks that looked like letters. The Spokane was beating south against a pretty high sea, and her men feared to bring her about for the sake of the swamped cutter. They say that the sea was too high to launch a boat. The cutter is described as painted white, about 25 feet long and five feet beam. It was sunk almost to the gunwales and did not appear to have anything in it but water.

The J. B. Brown was in all of the recent storms, and as she lies at anchor off Harrison Street wharf it is evident that her conflict with the elements was severe. Off the Columbia she encountered the most trying experiences. A succession of big seas swept the vessel from stem to stern, breaking in the bulwarks, carrying away one of the boats, and damaging another so seriously as to render it unfit for service. The worst weather was encountered between the 4th and 12th. At one time it was thought unlikely that the ship would ever reach port. The steering gear was disabled early in the storm, the rudder post being split. After a time the crew succeeded in rigging a jury rudder. After the storm, progress was of necessity slow, and the crew would have suffered for lack of food had they not fallen in with the Sparrow.