Blowing up a Shark With Gunpowder.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 59, 19 July 1884, Page 5

Blowing up a Shark With Gunpowder.

While the good ship Amphitrito was creeping along, a man in the maintop noticed an enormous shark gliding steadily in her wake. This may seem a small incident, yet it ran through the ship like wildfire, and caused more or less uneasiness in three hundred stout hearts : so near is every soaman to death, and so strong the persuasion in their superstitious minds, that a shark does not follow a ship pertinaciously without a prophetic instinct of calamity. Unfortunately, the quartermaster conveyed this idea to Lord Tadcaster, and confirmed it by numerous examples, to prove that there was always death at hand when a shark followed the ship. Thereupon Tadcaster took into his head that he was under a relapse, and the shark was waiting for his dead body ; he got quite low-spirited. Dr. Staines told Lieutenant Fitzroy. Fitzroy said, " Shark be blowed ! I'll have him on deck in half -an hour." He got leave from the captain ; a hook was baited with a large piece of pork, and towed astern by a stout line, experienced old hands attending it by turns. The shark came up leisurely, surveyod the bait, and, I apprehend, ascertained the position of the hook. At all events, he turned quietly on his back, sucked the bait oif, and retired to enjoy it. Every officer in the ship tried him in turn, but without success ; for if they got ready for him, and the moment he took the bait, jerked the rope hard, in that case he opened his enormous mouth so wide that the bait and hook came out clear. But, sooner or later, he always got the bait and left his captors the hook. This went on for days, and his huge dorsal fins always in the ship's wake. Then Tadcaster, who had watched the experiments with hope, lost his spirit and appetite. Staines reasoned with him, but in vain. Somebody was to die ; and although there were three hundred and more in the ship, he must be the one. At la&t he actually made his will, and threw himself into Staines's arms, and gave him messages to his mother and Lady Cicely ; and ended by frightening himself into a fit. This roused Staines's pity, and also put him on his mettle. What, science be beaten by a shark ! He pondered tho matter with all his might ; and at last an idea came to him. He asked the captain's permission to try hia hand. This was accorded immediately, and the ship's stores placed at his disposal very politely, but with a sly, comical grin. Dr. Staines got from the carpenter some sheets of zinc and spare copper, and some flannel ; these he cut into three-inch squares, and soaked the flannel in acidulated water. He then procured a quantity of bellwire; the greater part he insulated by wrapping it round with hot gutta-percha. So eager was he that he did not turn in all | night. In the morning he prepared what he called an electric fuse. He filled a sodawater bottle with gunpowder, attaching some cork to make it buoyant, put in the fuse and bung, made ifc watertight, connected and insulated his main wires, enveloped the bottle in pork, tied a line to it, and let the bottle overboard. The captain and officers shook their heads mysteriously. The tars peeped and grinned from every rope to see a doctor try to catch a shark with a soda water bottle ; but somehow the doctor seemed to know what he was about, as they hovered around, and awaited the result, mystified, but curious, and showing their teeth from ear to ear. "The only thing I fear," said Staines, " is that the moment he takes the bait he will cut the wire before I can complete the circuit, and fire the fuse." ' Nevertheless, there was another objection ■ to the success of the experiment. The shark had disappeared. " Well," said the captain, " at all events you have frightened him away." "No," said little Tadcaster, white as a ghost ; "he is only under water, I know ; waiting— waiting. " " There he is," cried one in the ratlines. There was a rush to the taffrail— great excitement. " Keep clear of me," said Staines, quietly but firmly ; "it can only be done at the moment before he cuts the wire." The old shark swam slowly round the bait. He saw it was something new. He swam round and round it. " He won't take it," said one. 44 He suspects something." "Oh yes, he will take the meat somehow, and leave the pepper, aly old fox." "He has eaten many a poor Jack, that one." The shark turned slowly on his back, and, instead of grabbing at the bait, seemed to draw it by gentle suction into that capacious throat, ready to blow it out in a moment if it was not all right. The moment the bait waa drawn out of sight, Stainea completed the oircuitjand

the bottle exploded with a fury that surprised him and everybody who saw it ; a ton of water flew into the air, and came down in spray, and a goiy carcase floated, visibly staining the blue water. There was a roar of amazement and applause. The carcase wad towed alongside, at Tadcaster's urgent request, and then the power of the explosion was seen. Confined, first by the bottle, then by the meat, then by the fish, and lastly by the water, it had exploded with tenfold power, had blown the brute's head into a million of atoms, and had even torn a great furrow in its carcase, exposing three feet of the backbone. Taddy gloated on his enemy, and began to pick up again from that hour.