So today I was assigned to follow up on this story in the Times of London:
American Civil War submarine found
A BRITISH explorer has found an early submarine that he believes was the inspiration for Nautilus, Captain Nemo’s vessel in Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea.Colonel John Blashford-Snell discovered the half-submerged, cast-iron wreck off the coast of Panama while searching for ancient ruins. …
When Colonel Blashford-Snell and his team dived to examine the wreck they discovered that it was much older than previously thought.
The U.K. Guardian has a similar story here. Alas … well, it just isn’t true.
The Sub Marine Explorer, a Union sub built in New York, was identified last year by James Delgado, Richard Wills and Mark Ragan. (A lot of people had known about the semi-submerged wreck, but had mistaken it for a Japanese mini-sub. Delgado realized it was much older than that; archivists Wills and Ragan later ID’ed it as the Explorer). Delgado, the director of the Vancouver Maritime Museum, knew Blashford-Snell’s expedition was going to be in the area and asked him to take some measurements of the wreck.
I guess it’s a “discovery” in the same sense that I might “discover” a cute little restaurant in the West Village a friend told me about…
Okay — maybe Blashford-Snell gave those reporters a bum steer. But how much research did they do? Here’s an AP story from last November that says Delgado had identified the wreck as the Explorer. (It’s based on an excellent story by Brian Hicks of the Charleston Post and Courier that I can’t find online, but is easily available through Nexis).
Delgado says that National Geographic International also ran a special on his identification of the sub that aired in dozens of countries … Yeesh.
Derek,
Both articles used the present perfect in the lead paragraph: have found; have discovered.
What is interesting about the present perfect in English is that we use it to indicate that something happened but not exactly WHEN. This is one of the semantic meanings of the “perfect” aspect in English.
For example, suppose a friend says to you, “I’ve seen The Graduate.” They are telling you they had the experience, but it could have been back in the 60s when it came out or only a week ago. The present perfect offers to temporal guidance in that situation. It simply states that at some point from the day you were born until now the experience was undergone.
So part of the vagueness, I believe, comes from the use of present perfect. To complicate matters a little more, the present perfect is also used for recently ended actions, often with the adverb “just.” E.g., “I’ve just talked to Jack about the party on Saturday.”
Sometimes in news articles there is a subtle slippage between these two distinct meanings of the present perfect.
*
But if you’ve followed directions to get to a wreck, can it really be accurately said you’ve “discovered” it? I guess in a sense, but it’s certainly misleading, and thus bad reporting.
The Times of London story included this quote from Blashford-Snell: “[R]ecently I was on an exploration in the area looking for ancient ruins and forts. I was contacted by a maritime museum in Canada [Delgado’s museum] who knew we were in the area and asked if we could examine the vessel.”
So it should have been clear to the reporter that someone had already discovered the wreck and it wasn’t Blashford-Snell’s to “discover” in any real sense.
Delgado was told about the sub while in the area in 2001 … people had thought it was a Japanese mini-sub, but he realized it was older, and eventually two submarine historians ID’ed it as the Explorer last year.
I just got another email from Delgado, he said Blashford-Snell has apologized for the British press misrepresenting him. We’ll see if any of those papers issue a correction! (Gosh, I sound just like some of the blogospheric media critics … but jeez, louise…)
Well actually the local Panamanians found the sub when it washed up on Isla San Telmo. But at least fifty newspapers that I checked today trusted The British Times article and they ran with it. I think it was the mention of Jules Verne and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea that really got them going. Most of the articles were almost word for word so hopefully the Times will issue a correction stating that the Panamanians found it, Delgardo identified it, and that Blashford-Snell got all the headlines. It is very similar to what happened in Charleston, S.C. E. Lee Spence discovered the Hunley in 1970 and twenty-five years later Clive Cussler got all the headlines.
George W. Penington Editor of the Hunley.com newsletter
I do my best to set the record straight in today’s paper, here.
No one ever lost the sub, what happened is that any idea as to what it was or why it was there was lost. Panamanians have known about the sub for generations, but over time it became known as a “Japanese submarine,” apparently inspired by a local sense that the Japanese pearl diving industry had used it to commit skullduggery and kill off competing oyster beds in the early 20th century – later then transposed into an WWII attack mission.
I was one of many people told about the sub, but I guess was the only one to take the time to really investigate it (Col. Blashford-Snell has just emailed to say that the Japanese ambassador to Panama, taken to the wreck, identified it as a “boiler.” I was also lucky in having worked on other Civil War sites and in having colleagues who could dig through archives. Rich Wills, who did his PhD on another CW sub, suggested Explorer based on a 1902 article, which he emailed. My measurements of the sub at San Telmo matched, and so Mark Ragan (author of the book on CW subs) went into the National Archives, found the original plans, and more details. It was very clear then that Julius Kroehl’s sub ended up in Panama.
In March 2004, I returned with the “Sea Hunters” team from National Geographic, Ragan, the US National Park Service and the 3d laser scanning team who worked on CSS H.L. Hunley, Pacific Survey and Epic Scan, who mapped many details, and learned most of the submarine’s operational details and secrets. The team also determined – the most important thing missed in the UK stories – that the sub is dying – rust is eating it away, and well-intentioned visitors are damaging it.
Our work was carried out under permit from the Instituto Nacional de Cultural (INAC) of Panama as a detailed archaeological project. It was also filmed and released early this year as a “Sea Hunters” episode. The Colonel assured me his group was in the neighbourhood with the blessing of Panama and asked if he could help. I asked for measurements of the corrosion to compare with ours to see what a year’s difference was. Imagine my surprise to receive emails from colleagues about the “discovery.”
I accept Col. Blashford-Snell’s assurances that he was not trying to falsely claim credit; unfortunately, the hard work of a dedicated team of scientists got swept away in a storm of publicity based on a sensational claim (Verne, if he based Nautilus on anything, used the submarines of fellow Frenchman Brutus de Villeroi, which also featured lock-out dive chambers BEFORE Kroehl built Explorer)and the real story, not of “discovery” but of identifying a significant resource with cultural significance to two nations, which is now in peril, was lost.
I will return to Explorer, I hope, if this sensationalism and attention has not hurt the submarine or chances for another expedition, with a team of more scientists to measure the corrosion, take readings, and develop options for preservation at the end of this year.
Jim Delgado