20 On the Myth of the Ship-holder. 



lie had confirmed by the inhabitants of Messina and likewise 

 by a personal experience in those waters. Next lie argues 

 that similar detentions have been known in similar regions, 

 but that, unlike the ones more or less regularly occurring, 

 though at different hours, in the Sicilian Straits, they occur 

 irregularly and at intervals only — in short, were temporary 

 and due to temporary and unusual causes. These causes, 

 he thinks, were earthquakes or submarine disturbances of 

 some kind which produce large and conflicting waves, this 

 being in accordance with Kircher's experience when he was 

 once returning from Melita to Rome. 



Lastly, Schott comes to the conclusion that the retardation 

 is due to the little fish rightly called remora, but that it does 

 not do this by virtue of any occult quality, since when taken 

 into the vessel the latter is no longer necessarily stopped in 

 her course — witness the vessels of Caligula and the Cardinal 

 of Tours (see pages 276 and 284 of previous paper). When 

 it lays hold of a vessel and opposes its propulsion it acts in 

 the same way that a man does when he prevents gravity 

 from drawing a body downward. 



Both Kircher and Schott had a glimmering idea of the 

 truth, each wanted to break away from ancient tradition and 

 give a rational explanation ; but the axiom that action and 

 reaction are equal not having been established in their day, 

 they apparently took refuge in Jesuitical fashion in a 

 flood of words. However, it is true that, in their conflicting 

 currents or boilings in the sea, they approximated the true 

 explanation as set forth by Ekman * in 1904. For this see 

 my larger article. 



The last author to be quoted in this paper is a compatriot 

 of Ekman's, the famous Bishop Pontoppidan f of Norway. 

 He quotes Schott, that "Among other reasons that are 

 given for a ship's being stopt in her course in the middle of 

 the sea, tho' under full sail with a good wind, which is an 

 undeniable fact, he reckons, the conflux of rivers from several 

 places struggling together, to be one cause." This translation 

 I am unable to get from Schott's Latin ; but doubting my 

 own rendition, I had a translation made by an expert in 

 Romanic languages. This agreed with mine very closely, 

 but not with the good Bishop's. 



Possibly this translation represents an embryonic idea in 



* Ekman, V. Walfrid. * On Dead- Water.' Vol. V. Scientific Results 

 Norwegian North Polar Expedition, 1893-1896. Obristiania, 1804. 



t Pontoppidan, Erich. ' The Natural History of Norway.' London, 

 1755, pp. 216-217. 



