SWORDFISH AND WRECKS.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 852, 22 August 1871, Page 3

SWORDFISH AND WRECKS.

A correspondent of tbe " Town and Country Journal" writes:— Sib, —Is it not possible that some of the many vessels that disappear from the face of the ocean, and are never afterwards heard of, owe their destruction to that remarkable marine monster the swordfish? Scores of vessels are annually lost, of which not the slightest traces are discovered, and it is therefore only reasonable to believe that they must have been overtaken by some fatal calamity in midocean, and have sunk in deep water. What more likely cause than the attacks of the swordfish for such a calamity ? lam induced to ask these questions from reading the following account in the papers by the last mail: —

" The ship Marian Moore, of Dundee, which arrived at Gravesend on October 24th, from Bombay, was, on Decemeber 10th, undergoing repair in the dry dock at Shields. On examining the bottom of the vessel, the workmen discovered a portion of the spear of a swordfish sticking in the planking. So firmly was the sword point fixed in the wood that in order to extract it a portion of the planking had to be cut out. It was then discovered that the horn had gone completely through the four and a halfmch elm plank, and had penetrated two inches into the solid oak timbers behind. Infuriated, doubtless, by the loss of its nasal weapon, the monster had made a second butt against the vessel, for between the seams in another part of the planking an inch and a half more of the sword was found embedded."

It is not long since a most interesting trial took place in London, in which the owners of the ship Dreadnought sued the underwriters for the amount of damage to that ship in consequence, as alleged, of her having been struck and her bottom pierced, by a swordfish in the Indian Ocean. She had to return to port in a sinking state, to save the lives of the crew. A small section of her hull, in which was the hole said to have been made by the swordfish, was cut out, sent to England, and produced on the trial. The defendants contended that the hole was designedly made by an augur, or some other instrument from the inside, and not by a swordfish, for although the fish could drive its sword through the bottom of a ship, it was contended that the fish could not afterwards withdraw it therefrom, and consequently that it would break it off in efforts to extract it, and so leave the sword as a plug in the hole. Much contradictory evidence was given by naturalists and scientific men —Professor Owen, Mr Frank Buckland, and others having been examined at great length. The result was that, the plaintiffs not being able to prove conclusively that the hole was made by a swordfish, a verdict passed for the defendants.

In 1854, the steamship GovernorGeneral, of Sydney, was struck by a swordfish, and on being examined at George Town, Tasmania, by Mr Korff, the weapon was found imbedded in one of her planks and timbers, about four feet from the keel. The wood, with the sword through it, was cut out, and is now in the Sydney Museum. The fish which did this mischief was the Australian swordfish (Tetrapturus Australis), a specimen of which was captured about the same time in Broken Bay. The sword in this case was two and a half feet in length, and as hard as the hardest ivory. It is clear, therefore, that this formidable fish can drive its weapon through the bottom of any ordinary ship; whether, having done so, it can withdraw it again is a matter which I shall not attempt to decide.