CHAPTER 1

A Runaway Reef

THE YEAR 1866 was marked by a bizarre development, an unexplained and

downright inexplicable phenomenon that surely no one has

forgotten. Without getting into those rumors that upset civilians in

the seaports and deranged the public mind even far inland, it must be

said that professional seamen were especially alarmed. Traders,

shipowners, captains of vessels, skippers, and master mariners from

Europe and America, naval officers from every country, and at their

heels the various national governments on these two continents, were

all extremely disturbed by the business.

In essence, over a period of time several ships had encountered “an

enormous thing” at sea, a long spindle-shaped object, sometimes giving

off a phosphorescent glow, infinitely bigger and faster than any

whale.

The relevant data on this apparition, as recorded in various logbooks,

agreed pretty closely as to the structure of the object or creature in

question, its unprecedented speed of movement, its startling

locomotive power, and the unique vitality with which it seemed to be

gifted. If it was a cetacean, it exceeded in bulk any whale previously

classified by science. No naturalist, neither Cuvier nor Lacépède,

neither Professor Dumeril nor Professor de Quatrefages, would have

accepted the existence of such a monster sight unseen—specifically,

unseen by their own scientific eyes.

Striking an average of observations taken at different times—rejecting

those timid estimates that gave the object a length of 200 feet, and

ignoring those exaggerated views that saw it as a mile wide and three

long—you could still assert that this phenomenal creature greatly

exceeded the dimensions of anything then known to ichthyologists, if

it existed at all.

Now then, it did exist, this was an undeniable fact; and since the

human mind dotes on objects of wonder, you can understand the

worldwide excitement caused by this unearthly apparition. As for

relegating it to the realm of fiction, that charge had to be dropped.

In essence, on July 20, 1866, the steamer Governor Higginson, from the

Calcutta & Burnach Steam Navigation Co., encountered this moving mass

five miles off the eastern shores of Australia.

Captain Baker at first thought he was in the presence of an unknown

reef; he was even about to fix its exact position when two waterspouts

shot out of this inexplicable object and sprang hissing into the air

some 150 feet. So, unless this reef was subject to the intermittent

eruptions of a geyser, the Governor Higginson had fair and honest

dealings with some aquatic mammal, until then unknown, that could

spurt from its blowholes waterspouts mixed with air and steam.

Similar events were likewise observed in Pacific seas, on July 23 of

the same year, by the Christopher Columbus from the West India &

Pacific Steam Navigation Co. Consequently, this extraordinary cetacean

could transfer itself from one locality to another with startling

swiftness, since within an interval of just three days, the Governor

Higginson and the Christopher Columbus had observed it at two

positions on the charts separated by a distance of more than 700

nautical leagues.

Fifteen days later and 2,000 leagues farther, the Helvetia from the

Compagnie Nationale and the Shannon from the Royal Mail line, running

on opposite tacks in that part of the Atlantic lying between the

United States and Europe, respectively signaled each other that the

monster had been sighted in latitude 42 degrees 15′ north and

longitude 60 degrees 35′ west of the meridian of Greenwich. From their

simultaneous observations, they were able to estimate the mammal’s

minimum length at more than 350 English feet;* this was because both

the Shannon and the Helvetia were of smaller dimensions, although each

measured 100 meters stem to stern. Now then, the biggest whales, those

rorqual whales that frequent the waterways of the Aleutian Islands,

have never exceeded a length of 56 meters—if they reach even that.

*Author’s Note: About 106 meters. An English foot is only 30.4

centimeters.

One after another, reports arrived that would profoundly affect public

opinion: new observations taken by the transatlantic liner Pereire,

the Inman line’s Etna running afoul of the monster, an official report

drawn up by officers on the French frigate Normandy, dead-earnest

reckonings obtained by the general staff of Commodore Fitz-James

aboard the Lord Clyde. In lighthearted countries, people joked about

this phenomenon, but such serious, practical countries as England,

America, and Germany were deeply concerned.

In every big city the monster was the latest rage; they sang about it

in the coffee houses, they ridiculed it in the newspapers, they

dramatized it in the theaters. The tabloids found it a fine

opportunity for hatching all sorts of hoaxes. In those newspapers

short of copy, you saw the reappearance of every gigantic imaginary

creature, from “Moby Dick,” that dreadful white whale from the High

Arctic regions, to the stupendous kraken whose tentacles could entwine

a 500-ton craft and drag it into the ocean depths. They even reprinted

reports from ancient times: the views of Aristotle and Pliny accepting

the existence of such monsters, then the Norwegian stories of Bishop

Pontoppidan, the narratives of Paul Egede, and finally the reports of

Captain Harrington—whose good faith is above suspicion—in which he

claims he saw, while aboard the Castilian in 1857, one of those

enormous serpents that, until then, had frequented only the seas of

France’s old extremist newspaper, The Constitutionalist.

An interminable debate then broke out between believers and skeptics

in the scholarly societies and scientific journals. The “monster

question” inflamed all minds. During this memorable campaign,

journalists making a profession of science battled with those making a

profession of wit, spilling waves of ink and some of them even two or

three drops of blood, since they went from sea serpents to the most

offensive personal remarks.

For six months the war seesawed. With inexhaustible zest, the popular

press took potshots at feature articles from the Geographic Institute

of Brazil, the Royal Academy of Science in Berlin, the British

Association, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., at

discussions in The Indian Archipelago, in Cosmos published by Father

Moigno, in Petermann’s Mittheilungen,* and at scientific chronicles in

the great French and foreign newspapers. When the monster’s detractors

cited a saying by the botanist Linnaeus that “nature doesn’t make

leaps,” witty writers in the popular periodicals parodied it,

maintaining in essence that “nature doesn’t make lunatics,” and

ordering their contemporaries never to give the lie to nature by

believing in krakens, sea serpents, “Moby Dicks,” and other all-out

efforts from drunken seamen. Finally, in a much-feared satirical

journal, an article by its most popular columnist finished off the

monster for good, spurning it in the style of Hippolytus repulsing the

amorous advances of his stepmother Phaedra, and giving the creature

its quietus amid a universal burst of laughter. Wit had defeated

science.

*German: “Bulletin.” Ed.

During the first months of the year 1867, the question seemed to be

buried, and it didn’t seem due for resurrection, when new facts were

brought to the public’s attention. But now it was no longer an issue

of a scientific problem to be solved, but a quite real and serious

danger to be avoided. The question took an entirely new turn. The

monster again became an islet, rock, or reef, but a runaway reef,

unfixed and elusive.

On March 5, 1867, the Moravian from the Montreal Ocean Co., lying

during the night in latitude 27 degrees 30′ and longitude 72 degrees

15′, ran its starboard quarter afoul of a rock marked on no charts of

these waterways. Under the combined efforts of wind and 400-horsepower

steam, it was traveling at a speed of thirteen knots. Without the high

quality of its hull, the Moravian would surely have split open from

this collision and gone down together with those 237 passengers it was

bringing back from Canada.

This accident happened around five o’clock in the morning, just as day

was beginning to break. The officers on watch rushed to the craft’s

stern. They examined the ocean with the most scrupulous care. They saw

nothing except a strong eddy breaking three cable lengths out, as if

those sheets of water had been violently churned. The site’s exact

bearings were taken, and the Moravian continued on course apparently

undamaged. Had it run afoul of an underwater rock or the wreckage of

some enormous derelict ship? They were unable to say. But when they

examined its undersides in the service yard, they discovered that part

of its keel had been smashed.

This occurrence, extremely serious in itself, might perhaps have been

forgotten like so many others, if three weeks later it hadn’t been

reenacted under identical conditions. Only, thanks to the nationality

of the ship victimized by this new ramming, and thanks to the

reputation of the company to which this ship belonged, the event

caused an immense uproar.

No one is unaware of the name of that famous English shipowner,

Cunard. In 1840 this shrewd industrialist founded a postal service

between Liverpool and Halifax, featuring three wooden ships with

400-horsepower paddle wheels and a burden of 1,162 metric tons. Eight

years later, the company’s assets were increased by four

650-horsepower ships at 1,820 metric tons, and in two more years, by

two other vessels of still greater power and tonnage. In 1853 the

Cunard Co., whose mail-carrying charter had just been renewed,

successively added to its assets the Arabia, the Persia, the China,

the Scotia, the Java, and the Russia, all ships of top speed and,

after the Great Eastern, the biggest ever to plow the seas. So in 1867

this company owned twelve ships, eight with paddle wheels and four

with propellers.

If I give these highly condensed details, it is so everyone can fully

understand the importance of this maritime transportation company,

known the world over for its shrewd management. No transoceanic

navigational undertaking has been conducted with more ability, no

business dealings have been crowned with greater success. In

twenty-six years Cunard ships have made 2,000 Atlantic crossings

without so much as a voyage canceled, a delay recorded, a man, a

craft, or even a letter lost. Accordingly, despite strong competition

from France, passengers still choose the Cunard line in preference to

all others, as can be seen in a recent survey of official

documents. Given this, no one will be astonished at the uproar

provoked by this accident involving one of its finest steamers.

On April 13, 1867, with a smooth sea and a moderate breeze, the Scotia

lay in longitude 15 degrees 12′ and latitude 45 degrees 37′. It was

traveling at a speed of 13.43 knots under the thrust of its

1,000-horsepower engines. Its paddle wheels were churning the sea with

perfect steadiness. It was then drawing 6.7 meters of water and

displacing 6,624 cubic meters.

At 4:17 in the afternoon, during a high tea for passengers gathered in

the main lounge, a collision occurred, scarcely noticeable on the

whole, affecting the Scotia’s hull in that quarter a little astern of

its port paddle wheel.

The Scotia hadn’t run afoul of something, it had been fouled, and by a

cutting or perforating instrument rather than a blunt one. This

encounter seemed so minor that nobody on board would have been

disturbed by it, had it not been for the shouts of crewmen in the

hold, who climbed on deck yelling:

“We’re sinking! We’re sinking!”

At first the passengers were quite frightened, but Captain Anderson

hastened to reassure them. In fact, there could be no immediate

danger. Divided into seven compartments by watertight bulkheads, the

Scotia could brave any leak with impunity.

Captain Anderson immediately made his way into the hold. He discovered

that the fifth compartment had been invaded by the sea, and the speed

of this invasion proved that the leak was considerable. Fortunately

this compartment didn’t contain the boilers, because their furnaces

would have been abruptly extinguished.

Captain Anderson called an immediate halt, and one of his sailors

dived down to assess the damage. Within moments they had located a

hole two meters in width on the steamer’s underside. Such a leak could

not be patched, and with its paddle wheels half swamped, the Scotia

had no choice but to continue its voyage. By then it lay 300 miles

from Cape Clear, and after three days of delay that filled Liverpool

with acute anxiety, it entered the company docks.

The engineers then proceeded to inspect the Scotia, which had been put

in dry dock. They couldn’t believe their eyes. Two and a half meters

below its waterline, there gaped a symmetrical gash in the shape of an

isosceles triangle. This breach in the sheet iron was so perfectly

formed, no punch could have done a cleaner job of it. Consequently, it

must have been produced by a perforating tool of uncommon

toughness—plus, after being launched with prodigious power and then

piercing four centimeters of sheet iron, this tool had needed to

withdraw itself by a backward motion truly inexplicable.

This was the last straw, and it resulted in arousing public passions

all over again. Indeed, from this moment on, any maritime casualty

without an established cause was charged to the monster’s

account. This outrageous animal had to shoulder responsibility for all

derelict vessels, whose numbers are unfortunately considerable, since

out of those 3,000 ships whose losses are recorded annually at the

marine insurance bureau, the figure for steam or sailing ships

supposedly lost with all hands, in the absence of any news, amounts to

at least 200!

Now then, justly or unjustly, it was the “monster” who stood accused

of their disappearance; and since, thanks to it, travel between the

various continents had become more and more dangerous, the public

spoke up and demanded straight out that, at all cost, the seas be

purged of this fearsome cetacean.