Hello Mackaydon and Treasurediver
Thank you again for your very interesting replies, they have been very very helpful. I cannot thank you enough.
Treasurediver: Your point about the Roman numerals
On boxes and chests of cargo, very often there were roman numerals and letters. These seem to be numbers corresponding to the registry in the cargo manifest. Is a very good point. Have you ever seen a photograph in your travels or research of what these cargo crates could look like, size wise? I mean was these shipping crates in a standard size or made to order for each voyage depending on the cargo?
Mackaydon: In answer to your question about seeing a photograph of the letters and Roman numeral unfortunately there is no photo that I know of in existence. The Story of wreckage with the following Numerals in my first posting was written in handwritten letter with an account of how the items were found at the turn of last century. Unfortunately for us we do not know in what context the Letters or numerals represent?
It was from this document and and another letter from another independent source. Lead to the later discovery of wreckage such as cooking items such as four pronged fork, Anthracite coal, Copper sheeting and nails from the hull and small timber samples.
The timber was examined by a dendrologist, The cutlery had manufacturers mark and copper sample showed it was an certain copper alloy experimented with in the early 19th century. Plus some of the sheeting had the manufacturers stamp on it. Copper thickness was developed into 3 sizes in the Early 19th century because the rate of ware or deterioration is different on different parts of the ships hull. From the curvature of the sheets we can calculate the approximate size of the vessel. Thus giving an approximate idea of the tonnage.
All evidence pointed to a British Built vessel with imported teak and Iron composite construction and a very close date to what we were searching for. We obtained from a 19th Century Marine Specialist that came to a similar conclusion. And at this stage we are consulting another Marine archeologist just to confirm as much as possible our findings.
Our preliminary findings have discovered the possible impact zone and the extent of the debris field. However like always the research is always ongoing.
Regards Crow
