336 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [48] 
is, right alongside’ The fish was then about 10 feet from the boat, and 
swimming in the same direction, but when he got where he could see 
the splash of water around the bow he turned and struck the boat about 
2 feet from the stern and just below the water-line. The sword went 
through the planking, which was of cedar an inch and three-quarters 
thick, into a lot of loose iron ballast, breaking off short at the fish’s head. 
A aber of boats, large and sacle have been ‘ stove’ by Sword-fish on 
our coast, but always after the fish had been struck.” 
A nemeleas writer in Harper’s Weekly, October 25, 1879, narrates 
these instances, for which I am unable te give the original authority : 
‘In a calm day in the summer of 1832, on the coast of Massachusetts, 
a pilot was rowing his little skiff leisurely along, when he was suddenly 
roused from his seat by a thrust from below by a Sword-fish, who drove 
his sharp instrument more than three feet up through the bottom. 
With rare presence of mind, with the butt of an ore he broke it off level 
with the floor before the fish had time to withdrawit. Fortunately, the 
thrust was not directly upward. Had it been so, the frail boat would 
have been destroyed. 
‘‘A Boston ship hauled up on the ways for repair, a few years since, 
presented the shank of a Sword-fish’s dagger, which had been driven 
considerably far into the solid oak plank. A more curious affair was 
brought to lightin 1725 in overhauling His Majesty’s ship ‘ Leopard’, from 
the coast of Africa. The sword of this marine spearsman had pierced 
the sheathing one inch, next it went through a three-inch plank, and 
beyond that three inches and a half into the firm timber. It was the 
opinion of the mechanics that it would have required nine strokes of a 
hammer weighing twenty-five pounds to drive an iron bolt of the same 
dimensions to the same depth in the hull. Yet the fish drove it at a 
single thrust. 
“On the return of the whale-ship ‘Fortune’ to Plymouth, Mass., in 
1827, the stump of a sword-blade of this fish was noticed projecting like a 
cog outside, which, on being traced, had been driven through the copper 
sheathing, an inch-board undersheathing, a three-inch plank of hard 
wood, the solid white-oak timber twelve inches thick, then through 
Aifotiier two-and-a-half-inch hard-oak ceiling, and lastly penetrated the 
head of an oil-cask, where it stuck, not a drop of the oil having escaped.” 
Such instances could be found by the score, if one had the time and 
patience to search. The thing happens many times a year, and nearly 
as often affords a text for some paragrapher or local editor. 
Captain Beechy, in the narrative of the voyage of H. M.S. “Blossom”, 
mentions the following incident which occurred in the Pacicific, near 
Easter Island: “As the line was hauling in, a large Sword-fish bit at 
the tin case which contained our thermometer, but fortunately failed in 
carrying it off.” 
