%images;]> lchtml-001103 Curiosity. ...: a machine readable transcription. Lewis Carroll Scrapbook, Library of Congress Selected and converted. American Memory, Library of Congress.

Washington, DC, 2003.

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 Rare Book & Special Collections Division, Library of Congress. Public Domain

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 2004/05/17
0001

A Curiosity.—In the month of September, 1853, while the ship Lord Riversdale, Captain Hague, was on her passage from California to Valparaiso, the vessel sprang a leak, which kept the crew busy at her pumps. On getting to Valparaiso the vessel was thrown over the purpose of examining the leak, when, to the surprise of the carpenter, it was found that the narwaal, or sea unicorn, had forced its pointed horn through the garboard streak, the next plank to the keel, and left two feet of the formidable weapon, if we may so term it, in the plank. The plank is of American elm, four inches thick, and the horn had passed through the wood to the extent of six inches on the other side. It was no wonder, therefore, that the vessel leaked, and perhaps the fate of many an unlucky ship may be justly attributed to a cause, which in this case, from the peculiar place where the blow was struck, did not do any very serious damage. The plank and horn will be exhibited at the Exchange Newsroom for a few days for the inspection of the curious. —Liverpool Mercury.