Quote:
Originally Posted by Maggie Leung
What is the concept behind the people searching for Tom and Huck shooting off cannons in hopes of bringing up their bodies from underwater? How was that supposed to work?
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In Twain's time I'm pretty sure it was basically a common superstition.
But hey, maybe some people thought there was something scientific behind it.
I'm pretty sure it doesn't really work unless a body has filled with gases during decomposition and then the concussive blast of the cannon would actually dislodge a body in said state that had become hitched to the bottom of the river or whatnot. But this isn't overly likely.
If a body has filled with water I don't think it will usually float.
Then again, the body they are looking for in the book was thought to have been savagely killed. In that case Huck would not be able to inhale water remaining buoyant? Unless the wounds were gaping and literally led in to his trunks body cavity permitting the water to penetrate...
I'll quit now.
By the way, a passage near there is one of the most humorous in the book and has stuck in my memory 'evah sense I din red it!:
"Look sharp, now; the current sets in the closest here and maybe he's washed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water's edge. I hope so, anyway."
"I didn't hope so. They all crowded up and leaned over the rails, nearly in my face, and kept still, watching with all their might. I could see them first-rate but they couldn't see me. Then the captain sung out, "Stand away!" and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that it made me deef with the noise and pretty near blind with the smoke, and I judged I was gone.
If they'd 'a' had some bullets in, I reckon they'd 'a' got the corpse they was after."
(This text quoted from my Easton Press edition)
I laugh (copiously!) every time I read that bit.