Only the quick action of Capt. Samuel B. Norton, the skill and equipment of the Edgartown Fire Department, the aid of the sprinkler system just installed and not ready to function automatically, and one or two elements of chance such as a lack of wind and the time at which smoke and flames appeared over and through the building, prevented the destruction of the Harbor View Ho­tel in what was so nearly a disas­trous conflagration late Wednesday afternoon.

Prompt action and unexcelled presence of mind on the part of Frank Bodfish and Capt. Hartson Bodfish averted what might have been a serious fire in the Barnacle Club at Vineyard Haven yesterday forenoon. Very few members frequent the club during the morning hours and it was by the merest chance that Frank Bodfish entered the room about 10:30 and found it filled with a dense, suffocating smoke.

Friday, May 12^th, was a day of excitement over the eastern half of Martha's Vineyard when men from the towns of Edgartown, Oak Bluffs, Tisbury and West Tisbury, and the country roundabout, in all to the number of several hundred persons, labored from 7 a. m. until nightfall, handicapped by a heavy wind, at times approaching a gale, in their efforts to control one of the most extensive woods and brush fires which has occurred on the island in years, if ever before. The property loss runs into the thousands.