WEBVTT - Crab Bag, Part 3: The Crab is a Lonely Hunter 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:15.320 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:15.960 is Robert. 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:19.040 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and we're back with 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:22.840 our crab Bag twenty twenty six series. This is a 0:00:23.000 --> 0:00:25.400 kind of chef salad of all things crab. 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:26.280 Now. 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:28.480 We were just out for a week in between when 0:00:28.480 --> 0:00:31.800 we recorded the last couple of crab episodes, and this 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.479 one's a rob Did anything krabby happen to you in 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:35.440 the past week. 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:38.199 Well, let's see. Put me on the spot here. I 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:41.640 spent my time in Arizona, so I didn't really see 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:44.200 any actual crabs. But I did go to the Musical 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:47.360 Instrument Museum in Phoenix, and I did see some musical 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:51.720 instruments that were shaped like crabs, which makes sense for 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:53.800 a number of reasons. The big one that we're going 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:55.600 to keep coming back to in this series. It's just 0:00:55.720 --> 0:01:00.920 that crabs are fascinating, just their basic body shape, their movements. 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:03.000 We can't get enough of them, and we want to 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:07.320 reproduce their bodies in our art and in our tools. 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:09.920 This is interesting. I didn't know this would connect to 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:13.360 a major theme of today's episode, which is ye crab 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:18.240 inspired technology. So in the previous two episodes of this 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:23.680 series we talked about, first the sixteenth century legend of 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:28.480 the miracle crab, associated with the Catholic missionary figure Saint 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:32.080 Francis Xavier. This was a crab said to have carried 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:35.560 a lost crucifix out out of the ocean, aloft in 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:39.280 its claws and back to its original owner, the Saint 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:43.040 Francis Xavior I just mentioned. We talked a bit about 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:47.480 the loose connection between that story and a real species 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:51.320 known as the crucifix crab, getting a bit into the 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:55.680 question of it's what this crab's cross shaped markings are 0:01:55.680 --> 0:02:00.280 probably four biologically speaking. This led in the second episode 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:04.200 we did into a broader discussion of object carrying behavior 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:07.960 in crabs, something that actually does happen quite a bit 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:12.200 in nature. Different forms of object carrying in different crab lineages, 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:16.600 none of them really matched what we find in the 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.720 miracle story. The crabs that carry things usually do so 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:22.960 on their backs or with their back legs, rather than 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:27.400 in their primary clause. The main exception to this generalization 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:30.399 is the boxer crab, which does carry things in its 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:34.360 main clause, but those things tend to be living anemonies, 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.720 which they use for feeding in defense, not inanimate objects. 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:41.240 We also talked about a type of burrowing crab lineage 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:45.960 known as the frog crabs. This includes the species Ranina ranina, 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:50.080 and these crabs have gone through an unusual evolutionary pattern 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:56.000 you might call decarsonization or uncrabification, becoming less like their 0:02:56.080 --> 0:03:00.600 crab cousins and a bit more like their lobster shaped ands, 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.160 with a front to back elongated body. They don't regain 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:08.720 the long, muscular lobster swimming tail, but they do have 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:11.360 a longer body and a tendency to move forward and 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:14.280 backward rather than side to side and rob correct me 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:16.200 if I'm wrong. I think the idea was this is 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:20.240 this elongation front to back of the body is probably 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:24.959 related to the frog crabs tendency to be backwards burrowing species. 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:28.480 That is the reason for it. Yeah. Yeah, It just 0:03:28.520 --> 0:03:30.720 goes to show once more, with evolution the card is 0:03:30.760 --> 0:03:31.880 always subject to change. 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:35.200 Yeah yeah, yeah. And there really is no forward or 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.720 backward in evolution. There's just all different directions. It's like space, 0:03:38.760 --> 0:03:43.240 there's no upper down. We also talked briefly about some 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:47.280 older reports of a very interesting crab shaped beast in 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:51.360 the sorcery traditions of the London people of Zambia. This 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.680 creature is known as the Nkala, which was described as 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:58.160 being a four foot wide crab with two heads, one 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:01.800 head front and one head back and some characteristics of 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:04.360 a hippopotamus. I think at least one of the heads 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.680 is said to be like that of a hippopotamus, and 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:09.720 this creature was said to attack a person by eating 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:13.880 their shadow. Very interesting. We also talked a bit about 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:17.640 the phenomenon of seeing faces in crab bodies, and of 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:20.080 course we talked about crab inspired wrestling acts. 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:21.919 Yeah, very briefly, very briefly. 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:25.080 And so we're back today to talk crabs once again. 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:27.600 So Rob, if you don't mind, I'm going to kick 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:31.479 things off today by talking about a weird connection between 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:35.400 a type of crab, not necessarily a true crab, not 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.360 a bracky urine crab, but a crab by common convention 0:04:39.600 --> 0:04:45.880 as an idea for biomimicry, a sort of steampunk crab machine. 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:48.520 Crab war machines. Right. I think this will be exciting 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.600 for a lot of our listeners because in some areas 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:57.280 areas of science fiction particularly sci fi warfare such as 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:01.160 your Warhammer forty thousands. You end up you end up 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:05.360 with a lot of crab based designs for big or 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:09.680 small stalking machines or some sort of mechs that end 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:12.359 up looking like crabs, because again, we just were so 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:16.440 fascinated with a design, and when we start imagining fantastic 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:19.440 machines of war, we think of the crab because it 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:22.440 looks like a little machine of war to optize. 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.800 It looks dangerous, it looks like it means business, and 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.880 it's yeah, something that maybe one should be afraid of. 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:33.320 Something about arthropods generally, and I would say especially crabs, 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:37.880 especially you know, decapod crustaceans. It has more of a 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:43.400 kind of mechanical joint and piston kind of feeling about 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:46.159 it than say mammals or reptiles or birds do. 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:51.919 Yeah. Yeah, the exoskeleton lends itself well to comparisons to 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:56.320 our armor technology, to our tool technology, and then much 0:05:56.360 --> 0:05:59.200 later on to our automatons in our robots. Yeah. 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:02.400 Okay, so we're gonna let slip the crabs of war 0:06:02.640 --> 0:06:05.000 and go all the way back to the year eighteen 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:09.880 sixty four and talk about an obscure crab inspired proposal 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:14.680 for this great mechanism of belligerents called the King Crab Warship. 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:17.920 So the text that I want to talk about is 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:22.200 a letter appearing in the January thirtieth, eighteen sixty four 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.839 edition of thus Scientific Americans back when it had the 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:30.800 in the Scientific American. This is the ancestor to the 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:34.640 publication still called Scientific American today, though in the nineteenth 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:38.440 century it was a somewhat different publication. It was a 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:42.080 weekly newspaper at the time that was focused less on 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:45.120 pure science and more on technology, with a lot of 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:49.680 news about recent patents and design improvements for machines. 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:50.679 Some more industry centric. 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:54.560 I guess yeah. And so this letter in Scientific American 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:58.839 comes from a correspondent called c DK, known by initials 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:04.560 CDKA in Frankfort, Pennsylvania. CDK begins this letter with a 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:08.920 long wind up about how all of the best architectural 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:13.720 and mechanical designs are actually prefigured by objects in the 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:18.119 natural world, writing quote, perfection is only to be found 0:07:18.160 --> 0:07:21.760 amongst the numerous specimens of the handiwork of the Great Creator, 0:07:22.160 --> 0:07:25.000 which he has placed so lavishly around us for our 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:27.920 use and instruction, and which we should make the proper 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.440 application of the lessons which are continually placed before us. 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:33.600 Oh so like a religious biomimicry. 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:37.560 Okay, very much the tone of this letter, and also 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:40.400 something that we'll get more into this in a few minutes, 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:42.360 but kind of seem to be in the air at 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:47.320 the time. Other examples given by the author include the 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:51.840 architectural principle of the arch and how CDK claims this 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.400 can be observed in the bones of the human skeleton. 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:58.640 Also the roots of the oak tree, which CDK says 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:00.960 show us the best way to lay the foundations of 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:06.480 lighthouses and towers. And then also fossil shells, which show 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:11.720 us how to build impenetrable fortifications. A CDK says, quote, 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:14.320 and now, when the public mind and the minds of 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:18.240 inventors are run wild over the changed system of warfare 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:22.600 inaugurated with heavy guns and shot proof vessels, let us 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.640 see what nature will do for us. She furnishes a 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.240 model of an engine of war, which, if made of 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:32.640 suitable size, could destroy any vessel now afloat, in spite 0:08:32.720 --> 0:08:36.840 of iron plates, big guns, and almost anything else. I 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:41.319 allude to the species of crab l Cyclops, the king 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:45.959 crab or horse hoof found on the coast of New Jersey. 0:08:46.840 --> 0:08:48.280 Now I look this up to make sure I was 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:50.920 getting right what kind of animal he is talking about here. 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:53.000 I think this has to be a reference to the 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:56.560 Atlantic horseshoe crab, which is now known not as l 0:08:56.640 --> 0:09:01.280 cyclops but by the scientific name Lemulus polyphemus. It was 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:05.760 previously known as Lemulus cyclops in some by some people 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.920 in the past. Of course, Polyphemus is the name of 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:12.320 the famous Cyclops from Greek mythology, appearing in the Odyssey. 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:17.199 So this is the proposal make a king crab warship 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:22.240 inspired by the flawless natural design of the Atlantic horseshoe crab. 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.080 So before we go on with the letter and the proposal, 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:28.080 I think maybe we should do a quick segment on 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:31.360 the horseshoe crab, or as CDK calls it, the horse hoof. 0:09:31.920 --> 0:09:36.079 Yeah, yeah, the horseshoe crab. To be clear, it's certainly 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:39.040 fair game for this podcast series that we're calling it 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:41.320 a crab. But we do have to stress again the 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:44.560 horseshoe crabs they're not true crabs. They're not even crustaceans. 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:50.320 Their arthropod calliserates more closely related to iraqnts, but they're 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.440 famously weird. If you've had the chance to see one 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:56.439 in the wild, you know how bizarre they are, or 0:09:56.440 --> 0:09:59.480 even if you've just seen the shell, it's phenomenal. 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:01.480 We've done whole episodes on them in the past. 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:06.000 Yeah, yeah, I think we've talked about their biomedical applications before, 0:10:06.040 --> 0:10:09.920 which we'll allude to in passing here. But yeah, they're 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:14.400 also pretty famous because they're notable living fossils, having existed 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:18.880 in the world largely unchanged for at least two hundred 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:21.000 million years and existed for something like four hundred and 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:23.480 forty five million years. I've also seen three hundred million 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:28.280 years thrown out there. Only four living species remain today 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:30.840 any way you slice it. Yeah, they've been around for 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:33.440 hundreds of millions of years, and they are like a 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:34.600 snapshot of the past. 0:10:35.440 --> 0:10:37.880 My general understanding is that they're thought to go back 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:38.760 to the Ordovisian. 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:45.120 Yeah, so, horseshoe crabs have a pretty iconic appearance. They 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:49.760 have this broad front shell, this cephalo thorax shell, so 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:54.000 it's like the head thorax commind shell with wide spaced eyes. 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:57.720 You see them on either side little dimples, and it 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:00.000 ends up kind of giving you the look and feel 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:02.160 of a helm. You know, we can't help but to 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:06.160 compare it to our technology. This portion tapers back to 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.440 the posterior portion of the shell and then to a 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:15.960 spike like tail underneath the protection of their exoskeleton. The 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:18.680 exoskeleton is going to be sand colored in juveniles and 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:23.360 then this signature brownish green and most adults. Underneath this 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:27.640 shell they boast five pairs of jointed legs. And then 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:30.040 they spend most of their time rooting around through the 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.640 sediment for worms and moths. And they can survive outside 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:36.440 of the water for extended periods of time, even if 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:39.680 their gills stay moist, and they can swim upside down 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:43.440 in the water really cool. They do have to crawl 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:46.439 up on the sandy beaches to mate and to lay eggs, 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.839 and this is where most people are going to encounter. 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:51.880 Them, and it makes sense, especially if we're talking about 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:55.600 the Atlantic horseshoe crab that CDK says, you will have 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:58.559 encountered these creatures on the shores of New Jersey. 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:01.520 That's right. We'll get back to their range in just 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:05.320 a second. But but yeah, that is, that is, that 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:08.880 is where you will find them. My wife's grandmother had 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:11.599 a story about encountering horseshoe crebs on the beaches of 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:15.640 the Great Outer Banks where according to this tale, and 0:12:15.679 --> 0:12:17.400 I don't know to what extent this might have been 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:20.640 embellished a little bit over the years, as family stories 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:25.120 tend to, but she came across these horseshoe crabs on 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:27.040 the beach and she thought that they were stuck, that 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:29.920 they'd been like washed up, and so she tried to 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:31.679 help them out by throwing them all back in the water, 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:35.360 and then found out much later on that she'd unwittingly 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:42.079 disturbed their mating loops. Yep, but that spike like tail 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.360 I think is definitely part. Again, the front portion of 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:47.719 the horseshoe crab looks like an armored helm, and then 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:49.880 we have this what looks like a vicious looking spike 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:54.400 in the back. Yeah, this is the the telson, and 0:12:54.679 --> 0:12:58.400 the telson takes different forms in different arthropods. If you've 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:01.720 ever shelled shrimp before, you've encountered a much shorter telson 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:05.800 spike amid the fantails. The stinger of a scorpion is 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:11.000 technically a telson. Now, the horseshoe crab does have a 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.680 fearsome looking telson, but this is not a weapon. It 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:16.880 is not something it uses to stab self defensively at 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:20.800 things messing with it and so forth. It is most 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:23.800 The most observable function of this for humans is that 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:26.640 it is a self riding tool. If they are flipped 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.800 on their backs on the beach, you know, exposing their 0:13:29.960 --> 0:13:32.440 unprotected side, they can use it to flip back over 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:35.080 the way they want to be. They will get flipped 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.280 over in the surf as they're coming out or going 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:40.240 back in. It is also useful as a rudder for 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:44.240 swimming when in the water. And since the telson, like 0:13:44.280 --> 0:13:47.679 other parts of their bodies, have photoreceptors on them, it 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:49.960 also wouldn't be out of line to think of this 0:13:50.000 --> 0:13:51.360 as a sensory appendage. 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:56.079 Okay, but yeah, that is interesting because CDK, I think 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:58.800 is going to allude to the idea that the telson 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:01.800 is a weapon. I don't know we can It's kind 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:04.120 of hard to tell exactly what he's saying in some 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:06.280 parts of this, but I think he thinks it might 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:09.320 be a weapon. But yeah, interesting to think that it is. 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:13.520 Actually it is a lever primarily for riding the body, 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.640 and I think also maybe used for steering when swimming 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:17.120 in the water. 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:19.680 Correct, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like a rudder for swimming 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:23.200 in the water. Yeah. Now, one thing that it's coming 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:25.520 back to the range. It is interesting to note that 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:29.680 the four species of horseshoe crabs in the world today, 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:33.120 they do enjoy a wide range, but that range does 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:37.360 not include the Mediterranean. It's found along the North American 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:40.320 Atlantic coast and in Asia. So if you look at 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:43.400 ancient ridings, you won't find anything about them. And say, 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:47.400 plenty of the elder or related European and Mediterranean sources 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:51.720 out of antiquity Plenty, for instance, does discuss a horse 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:54.320 crab that is said to be quite fast, as fast 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:56.800 as a horse, But this is not a horseshoe crab. 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:00.760 I think sometimes people assume that it's the horseshoe crab, 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.720 but it's not. Obviously, horseshoe crabs were known to the 0:15:03.720 --> 0:15:08.240 peoples of ancient Asia and the Americas, and they certainly 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:10.680 did observe them and had their own names for them. 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:15.080 So the Algonquin people of North America knew them as sikinox. 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:20.680 The Japanese referred to them as kabutagani or helmet crabs. 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:24.400 Coming back to that, you know, and there seemed to 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:28.680 be some Chinese traditions linking the horseshoe crabs or the 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:33.720 I think they're called the whole to marital fidelity, apparently 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:36.840 based on sightings of them mating, if I'm to understanding correctly, 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:38.640 there's this idea that it's like you would always see 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:42.360 them together. They're two together, and they're together always, which 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:44.040 of course isn't actually the case, but you know, it's 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:47.680 based on observations that people had, and therefore it becomes 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:50.680 the symbol of sticking together for the long term. 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:53.440 Like nice to imagine that you're seeing the same ones 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:54.480 together over and over. 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:57.720 Yeah, yeah, you know, and it's you know, it's it's 0:15:58.000 --> 0:15:59.720 essentially a made up story for us, but you know, 0:15:59.840 --> 0:16:04.960 it's based on observations of the horseshoe crab. I also 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:07.520 found it kind of interesting to note that despite the 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:11.600 horseshoe crab being quite important in modern medicine for biomedical testing, 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:16.400 their blood contains an important clotting agent that reactsively to biotoxins. 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:18.920 I think this is something we talked about in an 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:22.400 old episode. But despite this, they apparently have little to 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:26.000 no presence in traditional Chinese medicine, So I found that 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.160 kind of kind of interesting. But yeah, coming back to 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:32.040 their design, you can if you look up pictures of 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:35.840 the horseshoe crab, they do look like weird little biotanks. 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.040 So I think it makes sense that someone might look 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.320 to nature and say, okay, who has the best battle armor? 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.880 What is the best sort of armored shell that could 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.480 exist over some sort of mechanism, And it makes sense 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:51.560 that you might consider the horseshoe crab an option. 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:55.040 Yeah, And I think this highlights something interesting, which is 0:16:55.080 --> 0:17:01.240 that biomimicry is a real principle in engineering and design, 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:07.439 but there's kind of sophisticated biomemicry and then superficial biomemicry. 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.440 And there is a tendency often to just go by 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:14.760 what like, something that looks fearsome would therefore be a 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:18.200 good war machine. But that's not always the case, because 0:17:18.240 --> 0:17:21.119 something that is useful, say at a certain scale with 0:17:21.200 --> 0:17:24.480 the chemistry and you know, the ecology of a small 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:28.320 animal might be very effective at that scale for that animal, 0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:30.920 but does not scale up or you know, doesn't work 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.280 with the kinds of materials we would use to make 0:17:33.320 --> 0:17:37.080 a warship or you know, or conflicts with ways that 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:39.800 we would need to control a vehicle or something. 0:17:40.160 --> 0:17:43.439 Yeah. Another area to highlight would be flight, where a 0:17:43.480 --> 0:17:45.280 lot of you know, there are a lot of things 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:50.160 to learn about flight from looking at evolved biological methods 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:52.960 of flight in different animals, but there are also a 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:55.600 lot of just rough missteps and like, well, okay, these 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:58.399 look like wings, these feel like wings. Let's have a 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.720 run off the top of this barn and see. 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:03.840 Or actually, I think a great comparison here is a 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:07.919 lot of inventors assuming that technological flight would involve the 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:11.080 flapping of wings like we see in basic basically every 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:14.440 flying organism in birds and insects and stuff. But then 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:17.560 we learned that actually flapping is not a very efficient 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.600 way to you know, degenerate thrust and to for a 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:23.280 machine to fly. It's better to have other methods of 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:25.520 generating forward thrust and having fixed wings. 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:28.320 Yeah. A lot of the best examples of biomimicry that 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:30.840 we've discussed on the show before they come down to 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:35.879 subtle interactions, things that are happening at like a material level, 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:41.160 or things that are happening, you know, specific aerodynamic problems 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:44.960 that occur and so forth, as opposed to like bigger 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.439 situations like all right, if you're if you're gonna be 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:50.920 tough in the animal world, let's translate that into being 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:52.040 tough on the battle. 0:18:51.720 --> 0:19:03.720 Thing, all right. So to come back to this letter, 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:08.040 CDK here says that an engine of war modeled on 0:19:08.080 --> 0:19:12.360 the Horseshoe Crab could quote destroy any vessel now afloat. 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:16.160 How do they claim this is going to happen? Well, 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.560 the letter reads, quote this creature is provided with almost 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:23.960 everything requisite for a first class RAM ship. And to 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:26.480 this I would invite the attention of scientific men and 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:30.400 naval constructors. I will not enter into a scientific description 0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:32.840 of the animal in detail, but I will simply state 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:37.199 its most prominent features for the purpose specified. And this 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:39.880 part did have me wondering for a second. Are they 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:43.240 saying that they won't give a detailed description for the 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.400 sake of brevity, or because like the enemy might be reading. 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:49.199 You know, if certain Crab facts reach the enemy, they 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:53.360 could make the King Crab warship. First, I think it's 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:57.160 the former, but I was tempted to think the latter. 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:01.840 Okay, well, I'm excited to find out how something shaped 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:03.960 like a large horseshoe crab is going to ram things. 0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:07.920 Well, let's read the rest of the letter. CDK goes 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:11.880 on quote in shape, it is like a turtle, covered 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:14.679 with a thick shell or armor, and armed with a 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:19.520 sharp stylet or prow. Now that's a little confusing because 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:22.800 maybe I don't know my naval terminology right, but I 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:25.679 would think prow usually goes at the front of a ship. 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:29.199 And the style it I think would be referring to 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:30.919 the telson, right, which is the tail. 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:34.040 Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the sharp part of the 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:38.040 horseshoe crab. It's hard, and you know, I can't imagine 0:20:38.080 --> 0:20:42.160 it ramming anything by going backwards. And I also can't 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:46.080 imagine it really being a ramming vessel if it's moving forward. 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:50.600 Maybe we're not understanding something about this. Maybe something is 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:54.320 getting lost in the description here. But CDK goes on quote, 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:57.400 the back of it is brought down wedge shape, which 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:00.560 will enable it to have considerable speed through the wall. 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:04.160 Its propelling power is placed underneath so that its feet 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:07.800 or paddles are hid and are not liable to be injured. 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:11.479 It has apparatus to lower and raise itself in the 0:21:11.480 --> 0:21:14.480 water around the bow, and it is armed with a 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:17.240 row of smaller spikes which would be sure to strike 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:20.720 anything met in its path through the water. A vessel 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:24.679 constructed to contain in itself the above mentioned principles, with 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:28.080 the addition of a telescopic smoke stack and pilot house, 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:32.800 and perhaps a revolving prow, would be really formidable. Manned 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:36.000 with a pilot engineer and fireman, it could attack any 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:40.119 vessel with impunity, being submerged when in action and showing 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:43.040 nothing but the smoke stack. It could approach a vessel 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:46.399 without being seen. With its great speed and weight. It 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:49.080 could strike a blow with the force of a dozen 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:53.040 swamp angels. A swamp angel here referring to a type 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:56.640 of heavy artillery that was used in the bombardment of Charleston. 0:21:56.880 --> 0:22:01.480 Okay, I was imagining something entirely different, but yeah, thing, yeah, yeah, 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:04.439 we're kind of like, yeah, some swamp angels are just 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:07.720 like literal angels from the swamp covered and some sort 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:09.200 of Spanish moss. 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:13.920 Mermaids or sirens of the swamp with some algae. Anyway, 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:17.879 CDK says, thus utterly demolishing its opponent. If attacked and 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:21.520 surrounded by boats, it could rise to the surface, spin around, 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:25.680 and scatter its assailants like chips. In fact, under almost 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:29.240 any circumstances, I can see in a monster king crab 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:33.800 admirable means for protection and defense. Signed CDK. 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:38.360 Frankford, Pa, Wow, Well, I love the kaiju sized day 0:22:38.440 --> 0:22:42.000 dreaming involved in this scenario, and I don't know some 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:45.040 of it, I can, I can get. I mean, certainly 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:47.120 you can admit that if all of these things were 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:50.760 possible on a machine level, it could be effective. And 0:22:51.359 --> 0:22:54.000 it is you know, he observes that. Okay, you know, 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:58.400 essentially the legs and underbelly the mechanisms propelling the horseshoe 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:00.760 crab are protected by the shell. True, And so I 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:04.879 guess you could you could make some sort of an 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:07.639 argument for some sort of a big shell like that 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:11.320 covering the machinery that propels a ship through the water. 0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:11.800 I don't know. 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:15.680 Well, it kind of makes me wonder if CDK had 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:19.560 been reading a lot about ancient Mediterranean combat with the 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:22.800 try rems, which did function, and there were still ramming 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:25.240 attacks in naval tactics at the time of the Civil War. 0:23:25.280 --> 0:23:28.320 We can talk about that in it. But you know, 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:30.560 the age of the Tryrem, you would have very much 0:23:30.640 --> 0:23:34.240 a ramming focused naval combat where you know, a ship 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:37.080 is trying to build up speed to ram an opponent 0:23:37.200 --> 0:23:41.199 ship broadside. But then another type of attack that you 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:44.040 would get with the Tryrem would be these ships trying 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:46.880 to come up against another ship and shear off its 0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:49.919 ores to you know, make it to prevent it from moving. 0:23:51.320 --> 0:23:53.960 So so yeah, maybe that makes me think maybe he's 0:23:54.000 --> 0:23:55.960 got similar things in mind, like you got to protect 0:23:56.080 --> 0:23:59.040 the oars or the legs he specifies can be either one. 0:24:00.160 --> 0:24:02.800 The ship could have oars or legs. What how would 0:24:02.800 --> 0:24:05.920 it have legs? I'm a little a little confused confused there, 0:24:05.960 --> 0:24:09.440 maybe like you know, many poles sticking out the bottom 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:11.119 like a pole barge that goes along. 0:24:11.440 --> 0:24:14.520 Yeah. Now it is interesting to think though that if 0:24:14.520 --> 0:24:19.280 he is invoking, you know, the ideas of the Trireem 0:24:19.280 --> 0:24:22.560 and so forth, he would be reproducing a pattern we 0:24:22.600 --> 0:24:26.119 see quite a lot in human thought, and that is 0:24:26.480 --> 0:24:30.320 when we try to imagine the future of warfare, we 0:24:30.400 --> 0:24:34.800 often extrapolate things off of the past warfare and not 0:24:34.880 --> 0:24:39.640 really on the present nature of warfare. So he would 0:24:39.680 --> 0:24:40.800 not be alone in making that air. 0:24:41.400 --> 0:24:44.040 So we'll come back to the specific naval details. But 0:24:44.560 --> 0:24:46.359 I do want to, of course mention that despite the 0:24:46.359 --> 0:24:49.800 compelling pitch, this was never built. The King Crab Warship 0:24:50.080 --> 0:24:53.240 was never realized. I went looking to see if I 0:24:53.280 --> 0:24:56.800 could find anything else about this letter, like any you know, 0:24:56.960 --> 0:24:59.879 notice from historians or attempts to put it in context. 0:25:00.200 --> 0:25:03.560 But I really couldn't find anything like that. So I 0:25:03.600 --> 0:25:08.720 think the King Crab proposal remains a just weird, barely noticed, 0:25:08.760 --> 0:25:12.399 obscure little curiosity. It's just a strange little letter hanging 0:25:12.400 --> 0:25:15.280 out there in history that never really went anywhere. 0:25:15.480 --> 0:25:17.600 Oh it's kind of a shame because you can really 0:25:17.920 --> 0:25:21.760 catch cdk's excitement here, and you know, I would have 0:25:21.760 --> 0:25:23.640 hoped he would at least found one other human out 0:25:23.680 --> 0:25:26.360 there in the world that he could share this with. 0:25:26.760 --> 0:25:30.840 I really suspect CDK was talking about this a lot. Yeah, 0:25:30.880 --> 0:25:32.919 I think it came up. I think it came up 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:34.560 at dinner. I think it came up at work. 0:25:34.880 --> 0:25:35.080 Yeah. 0:25:35.119 --> 0:25:36.480 I think there was a lot of this talk. 0:25:36.520 --> 0:25:38.520 Yeah, there was probably a significant other that was like, 0:25:38.560 --> 0:25:41.760 you know, you should write to Scientific American about this 0:25:41.880 --> 0:25:44.680 insteads just continuing to tell me about it. I think 0:25:44.720 --> 0:25:46.520 someone there might be excited to hear from you. 0:25:46.920 --> 0:25:49.879 But this actually leads me to the broader context I 0:25:49.920 --> 0:25:52.679 wanted to put this in. So I was reading, I 0:25:52.720 --> 0:25:54.520 was trying to find context for this letter, and like 0:25:54.520 --> 0:25:57.639 I said, didn't really find anything. But I did, through 0:25:57.720 --> 0:26:01.600 that quest, end up reading about an interesting phenomenon taking 0:26:01.640 --> 0:26:04.679 place during the Civil War, of which this seems to 0:26:04.720 --> 0:26:09.360 be one example, which was a kind of frenzied period 0:26:09.640 --> 0:26:14.200 of amateur inventors scrambling to talk to anyone who would 0:26:14.200 --> 0:26:17.920 listen about their designs for stupendous machines that would win 0:26:17.960 --> 0:26:22.080 the war. So one source that was really useful here 0:26:22.240 --> 0:26:24.719 is a history book that I found online. You can 0:26:24.760 --> 0:26:27.640 read the full text online called Lincoln and the Tools 0:26:27.680 --> 0:26:31.400 of War, originally published in nineteen fifty six by University 0:26:31.440 --> 0:26:35.040 of Illinois Press by the Pulitzer Prize winning American historian 0:26:35.240 --> 0:26:38.640 Robert V. Bruce. Now I haven't read the whole book, 0:26:38.640 --> 0:26:41.159 but I read a couple of chapters that discussed the 0:26:41.320 --> 0:26:45.879 sort of patent fever that accompanied Lincoln's presidency and the 0:26:45.920 --> 0:26:50.840 outbreak of the US Civil War, where many aspiring amateur 0:26:50.880 --> 0:26:55.320 inventors did not seem to be aware of the proper 0:26:55.440 --> 0:26:59.040 channels to get their designs noticed, such as contacting the 0:26:59.520 --> 0:27:03.280 Army depart Department of Ordinance. So they would just try 0:27:03.320 --> 0:27:06.840 to get in touch directly with the President. And the 0:27:06.960 --> 0:27:10.680 strange thing is, in a lot of cases, Lincoln would 0:27:10.720 --> 0:27:15.440 hear them out. Bruce writes, quote, scarcely had parade torches 0:27:15.480 --> 0:27:19.280 gutted out, campaign songs died away, and votes been counted 0:27:19.320 --> 0:27:22.240 in the election which made Abraham Lincoln sixteenth President of 0:27:22.320 --> 0:27:26.680 the United States. When inventors began writing the successful candidate, 0:27:27.640 --> 0:27:31.920 and he gives an example of one such early letter, quote, 0:27:32.200 --> 0:27:34.920 it looks like war. I have invented a machine which 0:27:34.920 --> 0:27:38.720 will fire five hundred bullets simultaneously. Write me if you 0:27:38.760 --> 0:27:41.600 wish me to explain it to you. And then Bruce 0:27:41.640 --> 0:27:45.040 adds that Lincoln jotted a note for his secretary, John 0:27:45.080 --> 0:27:47.400 Nikolay across the top of this letter which just said, 0:27:47.520 --> 0:27:52.280 need not answer this. But Bruce has a whole chapter 0:27:52.359 --> 0:27:55.600 in this book called Patent Nonsense, which is focused on 0:27:55.640 --> 0:28:00.960 the sheer volume of invention proposals, on what Bruce calls 0:28:01.040 --> 0:28:06.040 cranks and dreamers that Lincoln waded through during and before 0:28:06.080 --> 0:28:09.520 the war. I'll just mention a few examples. There was 0:28:09.600 --> 0:28:13.399 a general craze at this time from multiple sources and 0:28:13.440 --> 0:28:18.000 with different designs for steam powered guns as opposed to 0:28:18.160 --> 0:28:22.199 gunpowder powdered guns. Sounds like an interesting idea, but the 0:28:22.240 --> 0:28:25.679 problem was that they were usually not an improvement on 0:28:25.760 --> 0:28:29.159 existing technology. I think it was a case of a 0:28:29.160 --> 0:28:32.439 solution in search of a problem here, where like you know, 0:28:32.480 --> 0:28:35.520 you had all this like great new innovations in steam 0:28:35.520 --> 0:28:38.760 powered machinery, and people are thinking, we can make this 0:28:38.920 --> 0:28:42.360 make a better gun. But from what I was reading, 0:28:42.520 --> 0:28:45.920 the models that were actually built and tested were unreliable 0:28:46.080 --> 0:28:50.200 and produced less muzzle velocity than gunpowder. So actually gunpowder 0:28:50.240 --> 0:28:52.960 was already better. It was just people trying to, I think, 0:28:53.160 --> 0:28:55.600 take one thing they knew and combine it with a 0:28:55.720 --> 0:28:57.520 use case where it didn't actually work. 0:28:57.880 --> 0:29:01.440 Yeah, like we're real steampunk inner here though, Well, yes's 0:29:01.440 --> 0:29:02.800 the supply steam to everything. 0:29:03.560 --> 0:29:07.280 Another thing that inventors were going wild for at the 0:29:07.320 --> 0:29:10.200 time of the Civil War was the double cannon or 0:29:10.240 --> 0:29:13.240 the fork This what Bruce calls it is the quote 0:29:13.640 --> 0:29:16.080 forked cannon firing chain shot. 0:29:17.080 --> 0:29:17.280 Rob. 0:29:17.320 --> 0:29:19.400 I think this has somehow come up on the show before, 0:29:19.440 --> 0:29:21.320 but I don't remember what episode that was. 0:29:22.200 --> 0:29:24.680 Well, let's keep going and maybe it'll maybe I'll remember. 0:29:25.080 --> 0:29:29.239 This was an extremely popular suggestion, with seemingly dozens of 0:29:29.240 --> 0:29:32.760 different inventors all writing to Lincoln about this fearful design, 0:29:32.920 --> 0:29:35.320 imagining that they were each the first to think of it. 0:29:36.080 --> 0:29:38.600 To summarize the basic idea, I'll read from Bruce here 0:29:38.760 --> 0:29:43.440 quote from two diverging cannon joined at the breach were 0:29:43.480 --> 0:29:47.640 to be fired two projectiles linked by a chain. As 0:29:47.680 --> 0:29:50.880 the two shots spread apart, the chain between them was 0:29:50.920 --> 0:29:54.400 supposed to snap taut and cut a terrible swathe through 0:29:54.400 --> 0:29:58.680 the rebel ranks. One guy from Connecticut wrote Lincoln not once, 0:29:58.840 --> 0:30:02.200 not twice, but five times about the double cannon idea. 0:30:02.880 --> 0:30:05.120 But this is a great example of you know, when 0:30:05.200 --> 0:30:09.720 everybody is having the same great idea and nobody's actually 0:30:09.840 --> 0:30:13.200 using it, there's usually a good reason. And the reason 0:30:13.240 --> 0:30:16.000 in this case is it had been tried multiple times 0:30:16.040 --> 0:30:19.280 in the past. It did not usually work as intended, 0:30:19.360 --> 0:30:22.400 in part because you couldn't in part because you couldn't 0:30:22.400 --> 0:30:25.800 get the two cannons to fire at exactly the same 0:30:25.880 --> 0:30:29.880 time or with the same initial velocity, so you know 0:30:29.920 --> 0:30:31.840 it would go you would go off target or you 0:30:31.840 --> 0:30:37.040 would get kind of malfunctions. The Confederates actually built one 0:30:37.080 --> 0:30:40.080 of these and tested it in Athens, Georgia, and I've 0:30:40.080 --> 0:30:43.160 read there are competing accounts of what happened here. Bruce 0:30:43.240 --> 0:30:45.840 mentions this story that when they fired it, one of 0:30:45.880 --> 0:30:48.640 the guns fired before the other one, and the chain 0:30:48.680 --> 0:30:51.600 whipped back around the unfired barrel and killed most of 0:30:51.640 --> 0:30:54.320 the artillery crew. From what I was reading that that 0:30:54.440 --> 0:30:57.600 is a I think that is now the less subscribed 0:30:57.680 --> 0:31:00.640 to account of what actually happened. A more subscribe to 0:31:00.680 --> 0:31:05.320 account that I was reading instead says that both barrels fired, 0:31:05.480 --> 0:31:09.000 but the contraption could not be aimed effectively and the 0:31:09.120 --> 0:31:12.920 chain snapped, so both balls and chain flew off target, 0:31:13.320 --> 0:31:16.200 accidentally smashing a chimney and killing a cow in a 0:31:16.240 --> 0:31:17.040 nearby field. 0:31:17.800 --> 0:31:22.240 Hmm. Wow. It's certainly a brutal idea for a weapon, 0:31:22.360 --> 0:31:25.640 and I cannot help but wonder how much of it 0:31:25.680 --> 0:31:29.640 is thinking about what the technology can do to improve 0:31:29.760 --> 0:31:32.080 the nature of warfare, and how much of it is 0:31:32.120 --> 0:31:36.719 just kind of like almost a reflection on just how 0:31:37.400 --> 0:31:40.680 nasty and brutal modern warfare had become, and just sort 0:31:40.680 --> 0:31:43.600 of like turning that back on technology and maybe in 0:31:43.640 --> 0:31:46.160 an almost subconscious way, thinking well, how could what else 0:31:46.160 --> 0:31:48.480 can we do in the spirit of how awful warfare 0:31:48.640 --> 0:31:49.680 is at this present moment. 0:31:50.000 --> 0:31:52.320 This one does feel to me less like the steam 0:31:52.360 --> 0:31:56.960 powered gun idea. Feels like somebody is somewhat familiar with 0:31:57.040 --> 0:31:59.920 steam technology and steam mechanisms and they're just trying to 0:32:00.000 --> 0:32:02.120 apply it to a different domain. They're like, oh, now 0:32:02.160 --> 0:32:04.480 there's a need for new war technology. Can we apply 0:32:04.640 --> 0:32:09.560 steam to that? Yeah, this one, the double cannon, feels 0:32:09.640 --> 0:32:13.000 more like the way people would dream up like horror 0:32:13.040 --> 0:32:15.320 movie scripts, like you know, like you're writing, you know, 0:32:15.760 --> 0:32:19.080 saw scripts, trying to think up new grizzly ideas of 0:32:19.120 --> 0:32:20.640 things that could happen to people. 0:32:20.960 --> 0:32:22.000 Yeah. Yeah. 0:32:22.040 --> 0:32:25.720 One last example here from the dreamers category, Lincoln got 0:32:25.760 --> 0:32:29.280 a bunch of letters from a machinist named Edward Tippett 0:32:29.480 --> 0:32:32.440 who kept writing to him about designs for a mighty 0:32:32.680 --> 0:32:36.520 battle balloon, which we laugh at, but that will come 0:32:36.560 --> 0:32:39.800 back to that. That's actually not a bad idea in principle, 0:32:39.840 --> 0:32:43.280 and Lincoln did use a form of balloons. 0:32:42.800 --> 0:32:45.280 But nobody ever called them battle balloons. No. 0:32:45.800 --> 0:32:49.040 The letters from this guy also contained a lot of 0:32:49.160 --> 0:32:53.960 theological warnings and obscure references to the Bible. So just 0:32:54.000 --> 0:32:56.720 some quotes from his letters. You must have my balloon 0:32:56.800 --> 0:32:59.440 to put down all four and foes. I again warn 0:32:59.520 --> 0:33:02.680 you against secret enemies. Watch well, and you will find 0:33:02.760 --> 0:33:07.000 the golden wedge and the Achan too. Bruce thinks the 0:33:07.080 --> 0:33:09.520 Achen here is a reference to a story in Joshua 0:33:09.600 --> 0:33:13.400 chapter seven, where an Israelite named Achan is punished for 0:33:13.480 --> 0:33:16.920 stealing spoils of war after the fall of Jericho. I 0:33:16.960 --> 0:33:19.280 couldn't piece together all of the elements of this, but 0:33:19.680 --> 0:33:23.520 finally later this letter says, I say, you cannot conquer 0:33:23.560 --> 0:33:29.800 without my navigating balloon. That said. In this book, Bruce 0:33:29.840 --> 0:33:34.160 describes how Lincoln had a real appetite for hearing from inventors. 0:33:34.240 --> 0:33:37.000 Like it wasn't just like all these people are bombarding 0:33:37.040 --> 0:33:40.880 him with ideas and annoying him. Even though a lot 0:33:40.880 --> 0:33:43.680 of these ideas turned out to be useless or impractical, 0:33:43.920 --> 0:33:47.480 some of them are just outright crankery. Lincoln kept hearing 0:33:47.520 --> 0:33:50.640 inventors out, he would read their letters, he would invite 0:33:50.640 --> 0:33:53.840 them to the White House to give demonstrations, and Bruce 0:33:53.880 --> 0:33:58.040 gives several reasons for this. One is Lincoln's firm belief 0:33:58.080 --> 0:34:03.120 that technological advantage could help win the war, so he 0:34:03.200 --> 0:34:07.280 thought that new inventions would be critical for overall victory. 0:34:08.520 --> 0:34:12.880 The second thing is Lincoln's personal interest in all things mechanical. 0:34:12.960 --> 0:34:15.040 He was a bit of an engineering nerd, and in 0:34:15.080 --> 0:34:18.439 fact was the only US president to actually have taken 0:34:18.480 --> 0:34:22.960 out a patent himself. He patented a device that was 0:34:23.040 --> 0:34:26.759 used to lift riverboats over shoals and sandbars, like had 0:34:26.760 --> 0:34:29.840 these inflatable bellows on the side, so if your riverboat 0:34:29.880 --> 0:34:32.040 runs in the shallows, you can inflate the bellows and 0:34:32.040 --> 0:34:37.880 get over them. And then also there's something that kind 0:34:37.920 --> 0:34:40.160 of comes through in this chapter, which is Lincoln having 0:34:40.200 --> 0:34:44.239 a bit of a tolerance and sometimes even an affectionate 0:34:44.440 --> 0:34:47.480 amusement at pitches that turned out to be dead end 0:34:47.560 --> 0:34:51.080 fantasies I would say, like the King Crab, though there 0:34:51.120 --> 0:34:54.120 is no evidence Lincoln ever encountered or considered the King 0:34:54.200 --> 0:34:57.880 Crab warship idea. But I do want to emphasize that 0:34:58.880 --> 0:35:03.400 Lincoln's tolerance dealing with nonsense from amateur inventors was not 0:35:03.719 --> 0:35:05.960 just because he found it amusing. There's a bit of 0:35:06.000 --> 0:35:09.360 amusement you can read between the lines here, But the 0:35:09.400 --> 0:35:11.799 main thrust, at least according to Bruce, is that he 0:35:11.880 --> 0:35:14.480 was desperate to win the war as fast as possible 0:35:14.560 --> 0:35:18.319 and thought, to some degree correctly, that new inventions would 0:35:18.320 --> 0:35:21.239 bring about that end, and there are some examples where 0:35:21.239 --> 0:35:25.480 that proved correct. One commonly cited example is the Spencer 0:35:25.560 --> 0:35:28.920 repeating rifle, which is a seven shot lever action rifle 0:35:29.000 --> 0:35:32.120 that Lincoln tried out at the White House after meeting 0:35:32.160 --> 0:35:36.200 its inventor, Christopher Spencer, in eighteen sixty three. Lincoln was 0:35:36.320 --> 0:35:39.520 very impressed, and he advocated its use by the Union Army, 0:35:39.840 --> 0:35:44.360 even overruling some initial resistance from the Department of Ordnance leadership, 0:35:44.760 --> 0:35:49.000 and it is thought by some historians that this rifle 0:35:49.080 --> 0:35:52.120 made a big difference. It significantly increased the firing rate 0:35:52.160 --> 0:35:55.320 of the Union cavalry and gave them a distinct advantage 0:35:55.320 --> 0:35:58.799 on the battlefield. Another example, I told you I'd come 0:35:58.800 --> 0:36:02.480 back to balloons, despite the fact that Tippetts you cannot 0:36:02.520 --> 0:36:06.560 conquer without my balloon. Pitch went nowhere. Lincoln actually did 0:36:06.760 --> 0:36:10.080 personally push for the Union to use hot air balloons 0:36:10.160 --> 0:36:14.040 for aerial reconnaissance, and this was after he was impressed 0:36:14.080 --> 0:36:17.520 by a demonstration from an inventor and aeronaut named Thaddeus 0:36:17.640 --> 0:36:21.279 Lowe in eighteen sixty one, during at least one of 0:36:21.320 --> 0:36:23.160 these demonstrations. I don't know how many there were, There 0:36:23.239 --> 0:36:25.760 might have just been one, but at one of these demonstrations, 0:36:26.080 --> 0:36:30.560 Lowe famously sent Lincoln a telegraph via wire from hundreds 0:36:30.560 --> 0:36:33.239 of feet up in the air describing what he could 0:36:33.280 --> 0:36:35.799 see from above. You can easily imagine how that would 0:36:35.840 --> 0:36:40.080 be incredibly important in gathering intelligence at the time. 0:36:40.400 --> 0:36:44.319 Yeah, And of course airships and balloons would continue to 0:36:44.360 --> 0:36:47.800 be very important in warfare, you know, over the decades 0:36:47.840 --> 0:36:48.160 to come. 0:36:48.480 --> 0:36:51.440 Yeah. Absolutely, So how does this come back to the 0:36:51.560 --> 0:36:55.400 King Crab and naval designs? Well, As I said, the 0:36:55.560 --> 0:36:59.120 exact design of the King Crab warship was never used, 0:36:59.680 --> 0:37:04.040 but the basic idea of a submersible or semi submersible 0:37:04.080 --> 0:37:08.200 ship that would attack by ramming was actually used in 0:37:08.239 --> 0:37:10.919 the US Civil War. Maybe a lot of people don't 0:37:10.960 --> 0:37:15.240 know this, but there were several basically submarines or semi 0:37:15.239 --> 0:37:19.000 submersible ships. Several of these were used by the Confederacy. 0:37:19.080 --> 0:37:22.640 Though there ramming attack was not like the trirems of 0:37:22.680 --> 0:37:26.080 the ancient Mediterranean, which would again those would ram each 0:37:26.120 --> 0:37:28.080 other broadside with a kind with an you know, a 0:37:28.160 --> 0:37:30.960 kind of thing sticking out of the front of the 0:37:31.000 --> 0:37:35.360 ship I think usually called a ram. The ramming attacks 0:37:35.400 --> 0:37:39.359 of Civil War submersibles involved hitting enemy vessels with a 0:37:39.400 --> 0:37:42.840 mounted torpedo. So imagine it's just a big spike with 0:37:42.960 --> 0:37:45.239 explosives on the end. I think this is sometimes called 0:37:45.239 --> 0:37:46.240 a torpedo spar. 0:37:47.040 --> 0:37:49.560 Yeah. And also this is just this is the age 0:37:49.600 --> 0:37:52.920 of the ironclad ships as well, so right, yeah, you 0:37:52.920 --> 0:37:54.640 know very much. The idea of what if a ship 0:37:54.680 --> 0:37:57.200 had an exoskeleton, how effective would that be? 0:37:57.520 --> 0:38:01.440 Yeah? Very I mean again, you can imagine to what 0:38:01.600 --> 0:38:04.520 extent that was or was not inspired by crabs or 0:38:04.600 --> 0:38:07.959 Arthur buds generally, I don't know, but yeah, plating putting 0:38:08.040 --> 0:38:11.360 iron plating around a ship that that was also not 0:38:11.800 --> 0:38:15.000 just submersibles, but you know, but top floating ships. That 0:38:15.080 --> 0:38:17.680 was used in the Civil War as well. The Union 0:38:17.760 --> 0:38:22.200 Army actually did develop some submersible technology, so they developed 0:38:22.239 --> 0:38:26.759 a forty seven foot long iron submersible with an animal name. 0:38:26.840 --> 0:38:29.160 Though it was not called the King Crab, it was 0:38:29.200 --> 0:38:33.560 called the USS Alligator. Launched in eighteen sixty two, It 0:38:33.640 --> 0:38:36.280 was based on an earlier design by a French inventor 0:38:36.360 --> 0:38:40.040 named Brutus de Villeroi, and in its final form, the 0:38:40.080 --> 0:38:44.120 Alligator was powered by a small propeller at the stern, 0:38:44.200 --> 0:38:47.840 not by legs or ores like the King Crab describes. 0:38:49.080 --> 0:38:53.520 But though actually an earlier version of the USS Alligator 0:38:53.520 --> 0:38:57.000 design did have oars, it was powered by ores operated 0:38:57.000 --> 0:38:59.720 by the crew from inside. But it turns out ores 0:38:59.719 --> 0:39:03.239 don't worked very well for underwater vessels. I mean, they 0:39:03.239 --> 0:39:06.000 can kind of work, but propellers are more efficient in 0:39:06.080 --> 0:39:10.239 underwater vessels, so the propeller was added swapped out for 0:39:10.239 --> 0:39:13.600 the oars. The propeller was rotated by a hand powered 0:39:13.640 --> 0:39:17.600 crank operated by the crew inside. Air was supplied by 0:39:17.880 --> 0:39:21.400 tubes that were attached to floats that went to the surface, 0:39:21.480 --> 0:39:24.160 and there was an air pump, so these floats would 0:39:24.200 --> 0:39:26.600 follow along with the ship at the surface and allow 0:39:26.800 --> 0:39:30.360 gas exchange. Something about that feels tenuous and scary. I 0:39:30.360 --> 0:39:32.920 guess all of this does, because it, you know, eighteen 0:39:33.040 --> 0:39:37.920 sixty submersible. Apparently, light was provided by glass plates at 0:39:37.960 --> 0:39:41.000 the top of the hull, and the Alligator was put 0:39:41.040 --> 0:39:44.000 into service for a brief time, and the US Navy 0:39:44.040 --> 0:39:47.200 had various plans for it, like they talked about potentially 0:39:47.280 --> 0:39:51.120 using it to attack bridges or blockade runner ships. But 0:39:51.320 --> 0:39:53.680 before it could do very much, it was lost at 0:39:53.680 --> 0:39:56.200 sea off the coast of North Carolina during bad weather 0:39:56.640 --> 0:40:02.360 in eighteen sixty three, So exactly a King Crab in design, 0:40:02.440 --> 0:40:06.279 but sharing some characteristics with the proposal, though of course 0:40:06.320 --> 0:40:08.319 this had already been built at the time this letter 0:40:08.360 --> 0:40:09.640 came into Scientific American. 0:40:09.920 --> 0:40:13.600 Yeah. Also just kind of an interesting snapshot of marine 0:40:13.600 --> 0:40:14.399 warfare to come. 0:40:14.680 --> 0:40:17.879 Yeah. So I'll say final verdict from me, the King 0:40:17.960 --> 0:40:21.400 Crab warship. Maybe not a practical design, but I admire 0:40:21.440 --> 0:40:25.880 the spirit the actual Atlantic horseshoe crab. Very good design. 0:40:26.280 --> 0:40:27.720 Thumbs up, thumbs up. Evolution. 0:40:39.120 --> 0:40:41.600 All right, Well, you know we mentioned how in one 0:40:41.600 --> 0:40:43.880 of the previous episodes we did talk about crabs and 0:40:43.960 --> 0:40:46.919 demonology to a certain extent. I want to come back 0:40:46.960 --> 0:40:50.040 to that again, at least in a limited fashion, before 0:40:50.080 --> 0:40:54.920 getting into another more prominent topic. But yeah, I was 0:40:55.480 --> 0:41:00.000 looking around and I found a source from eighteen seventies, 0:41:00.280 --> 0:41:04.000 so another older source here. This was titled The Folklore 0:41:04.080 --> 0:41:09.400 of China by Nicholas Bellfield. I'm sorry, Nicholas Bellfield Denny's, 0:41:10.040 --> 0:41:13.879 and it regarded this one little snippet, one little place 0:41:13.920 --> 0:41:18.520 in the book concerned crabs and exorcisms among the people 0:41:18.760 --> 0:41:23.240 in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujin. According to the author, 0:41:23.480 --> 0:41:27.320 shortly before a child's birth, priests would attempt to scare 0:41:27.360 --> 0:41:31.000 away demons that might harm the child during birth. So 0:41:31.040 --> 0:41:33.640 I'm just going to read a snippet from this again, 0:41:34.920 --> 0:41:37.520 again stressing that this isn't an older text, and I 0:41:37.520 --> 0:41:40.080 couldn't find much. I couldn't find anything about this. It's 0:41:40.160 --> 0:41:43.680 more contemporary. But according to this text quote, ten or 0:41:43.719 --> 0:41:46.399 twenty pieces of a kind of grass, cut up about 0:41:46.400 --> 0:41:48.959 an inch long, and several likenesses of the crab cut 0:41:49.000 --> 0:41:51.960 out of common paper are put into censor and burned, 0:41:52.360 --> 0:41:54.880 or sometimes several live crabs, after being used in this 0:41:54.960 --> 0:41:59.080 ceremony are taken and turned into the street by way 0:41:59.080 --> 0:42:03.080 of frightening or propitiating the spirits. The reason why crabs 0:42:03.120 --> 0:42:05.359 are used is that the name of one of these 0:42:05.400 --> 0:42:09.200 demons sounds like that of crab in the local dialect. 0:42:09.640 --> 0:42:12.360 Now wait a minute, I'm a little confused here. Based 0:42:12.400 --> 0:42:15.120 on the description, are the crabs the thing that are 0:42:15.280 --> 0:42:17.879 the things that are being exercised to protect the mother 0:42:17.960 --> 0:42:21.120 and the child, or are the crabs doing the protecting. 0:42:22.400 --> 0:42:25.839 If I'm understanding this correctly, I think it's the idea 0:42:25.920 --> 0:42:28.920 that there's just the idea of the crab is a 0:42:29.000 --> 0:42:33.680 counter to the demon, because the demon's name sounds like crab. Okay, well, 0:42:33.760 --> 0:42:37.560 it's almost like a mocking. I'm again I don't completely 0:42:37.600 --> 0:42:40.160 understand it, but given that it's crab based exorcism, I 0:42:40.160 --> 0:42:41.319 had to at least mention it. 0:42:41.960 --> 0:42:44.680 That's interesting. But so in one form you would burn 0:42:44.880 --> 0:42:47.040 an effigy of the crab, but in another form you 0:42:47.080 --> 0:42:50.080 would release the crabs too into the streets, swarm the 0:42:50.120 --> 0:42:52.840 street in front of your house to provide protection, or 0:42:52.880 --> 0:42:53.880 scare the spirits. 0:42:53.960 --> 0:42:56.920 Yeah, I guess again. I couldn't find much in the 0:42:56.920 --> 0:43:00.400 way of recent sources on this, outside of some some 0:43:00.520 --> 0:43:05.960 crab statues being sold online as Finchwei exorcism animals, though 0:43:06.000 --> 0:43:11.120 I believe that in general, within fin Schwei and elsewhere 0:43:11.120 --> 0:43:15.480 in Chinese culture, crabs are primarily symbols of wealth and advancement, 0:43:16.320 --> 0:43:18.880 and in fact, if you look around, they are sometimes 0:43:18.880 --> 0:43:22.960 depicted as holding aloft a coin or another treasure in 0:43:23.000 --> 0:43:25.719 a very similar fashion to what we discussed previously with 0:43:25.840 --> 0:43:28.799 the crab holding up the crucifix or some sort of 0:43:28.800 --> 0:43:30.320 a you know, a Buddhist treasure. 0:43:31.160 --> 0:43:34.200 Wow, so you've got an image in the outline here 0:43:34.640 --> 0:43:36.759 of a crab holding up a coin. This, this is 0:43:36.760 --> 0:43:41.759 a Chinese artifact here, Yes, okay, the posture is exactly 0:43:41.840 --> 0:43:46.600 the same as that a seventeenth century or maybe it 0:43:46.640 --> 0:43:49.040 was eighteenth century, I don't remember. The silver sculpture of 0:43:49.080 --> 0:43:52.680 the crab holding the crucifix. I, you know, could just 0:43:52.719 --> 0:43:55.200 be coincidence, But I wonder if one is inspired by 0:43:55.200 --> 0:43:59.000 the other. Could the Catholic crab imagery have been inspired 0:43:59.040 --> 0:44:00.800 by traditional China imagery. 0:44:01.520 --> 0:44:05.120 It seems possible or certainly that both of these images 0:44:05.120 --> 0:44:08.000 are speaking to a longer tradition of having a crab 0:44:08.320 --> 0:44:11.000 hold up some sort of a treasure. Yeah. And then 0:44:11.040 --> 0:44:15.839 also more common within Chinese iconography is the image of 0:44:15.880 --> 0:44:20.279 the crab setting upon a bed of coins, almost like 0:44:20.320 --> 0:44:23.920 a dragon in its layer. I think one thing I 0:44:23.960 --> 0:44:25.680 think we touched on this as well. But one thing 0:44:25.719 --> 0:44:27.759 to keep in mind is that when we look at 0:44:27.760 --> 0:44:31.520 a crab's there is the observation of what a crab 0:44:31.600 --> 0:44:34.680 does with its body, certainly, but there We also can't 0:44:34.680 --> 0:44:36.799 help but to imagine what would we do. What would 0:44:36.800 --> 0:44:39.040 a human do with a crab's body if we could, 0:44:39.080 --> 0:44:42.399 we would do things like hold coins, grab coins and 0:44:42.560 --> 0:44:44.719 hold them aloft, that sort of thing. 0:44:45.000 --> 0:44:50.640 Yeah, the become an arthropods symbol of your own greed yep, cliff. Yeah. 0:44:50.680 --> 0:44:53.680 So for more answers on this, I was fortunate enough 0:44:53.719 --> 0:44:57.360 to find a full paper from Frontiers and Marine Science 0:44:57.400 --> 0:45:01.040 than twenty twenty five by Yan and Zang titled the 0:45:01.040 --> 0:45:05.960 Connotation of Chinese Crab Culture a Comprehensive Review from the 0:45:06.000 --> 0:45:10.800 perspectives of Literature, Art and diet. So this paper is 0:45:11.000 --> 0:45:14.560 pretty fun. It's a great breakdown of crab culture. That's 0:45:14.600 --> 0:45:18.160 the term they use in China across numerous dynasties, so 0:45:18.280 --> 0:45:21.759 covering a huge stretch of time. And they stress that 0:45:21.920 --> 0:45:25.839 of course you can't ignore the fact that crabs are delicious, 0:45:26.560 --> 0:45:30.160 and then on top of them just being delicious, they 0:45:30.200 --> 0:45:36.560 hold not only this practical value but also significant theoretical value. Again, 0:45:36.760 --> 0:45:39.040 we can't help but look at the crab and imagine 0:45:39.080 --> 0:45:41.400 things related to the crab. What would we do if 0:45:41.440 --> 0:45:43.319 we were a crab? What does the crab say about us? 0:45:44.080 --> 0:45:49.520 And so forth. So they quote numerous bits of old 0:45:49.600 --> 0:45:52.960 Chinese poetry, and a lot of these are first and 0:45:53.000 --> 0:45:56.600 foremost talking about how delicious crab meat is, but then 0:45:56.960 --> 0:45:59.960 in doing so also talking about how novel the creature 0:46:00.120 --> 0:46:03.279 are to look at. I'm gonna read this is a 0:46:03.880 --> 0:46:06.560 This is a snippet from the paper that quote the quote. 0:46:06.560 --> 0:46:10.600 The quotes a poem as well. They say, Zoo Way, 0:46:10.719 --> 0:46:14.000 a famous writer and painter in the Ming dynasty, once 0:46:14.040 --> 0:46:17.440 wrote a poem which reads as follows. In the village 0:46:17.440 --> 0:46:20.919 alongside rivers, the crabs are plump. When the rice is ripe, 0:46:21.400 --> 0:46:24.279 the two kilipet of the crabs stand up like a 0:46:24.320 --> 0:46:27.719 halbard in the green mud of the paddy field. If 0:46:27.719 --> 0:46:30.320 you turn them over, you see a round and bulging 0:46:30.400 --> 0:46:33.920 navel like dong Zou's belly button. And that's the end 0:46:33.960 --> 0:46:36.560 of the poem. But then the authors continue while praising 0:46:36.600 --> 0:46:39.759 the fatness of crab meat. This poem also uses metaphor 0:46:39.880 --> 0:46:44.680 to satirize Dongzhou, a tyrannical trader. Naturally, this kind of 0:46:44.719 --> 0:46:48.560 direct metaphor with the appearance characteristics of crab is slightly shallow. 0:46:49.760 --> 0:46:52.080 But they go on to decite other poems as well, 0:46:52.120 --> 0:46:55.680 where there is like the main point tends to be 0:46:55.920 --> 0:46:58.560 man crab meat is so delicious, or there's more than 0:46:58.600 --> 0:47:01.080 one where it's like crab meat and wine. What a 0:47:01.120 --> 0:47:01.680 great comba. 0:47:04.080 --> 0:47:07.040 This makes me think about how the I mean this 0:47:07.120 --> 0:47:10.719 might be obvious, but about how the connotations of comparing 0:47:10.719 --> 0:47:14.120 a person to a particular animal or not culturally universal, 0:47:14.280 --> 0:47:17.080 So like comparing a person to a dog or a 0:47:17.120 --> 0:47:20.359 pig in one culture might have very different connotations than 0:47:20.400 --> 0:47:24.760 in another culture. And I have basically no cultural context 0:47:24.760 --> 0:47:27.400 for comparing a person to a crab? What does that 0:47:27.480 --> 0:47:28.000 mean at all? 0:47:29.160 --> 0:47:31.719 Yeah, I mean I have yet. This would be a 0:47:31.719 --> 0:47:34.919 great opportunity for listeners out there, but I can't think 0:47:34.960 --> 0:47:38.160 of any examples where that I've ever heard where a 0:47:38.280 --> 0:47:42.760 person is directly compared to a crab in a favorable way. Now, again, 0:47:42.840 --> 0:47:46.280 we are discussing, and we'll be discussing a prime example 0:47:46.400 --> 0:47:49.920 of a crab as a positive totem, as a as 0:47:49.960 --> 0:47:52.640 a as an icon of good luck. And that's one thing. 0:47:53.000 --> 0:47:55.200 But in terms of saying, hey, you're being a crab, 0:47:55.320 --> 0:47:56.960 or you are like a crab, or that person is 0:47:57.080 --> 0:47:59.399 like a crab, I don't know if I've ever heard 0:47:59.400 --> 0:48:02.920 it with a real with a with a strong positive 0:48:03.200 --> 0:48:03.960 framing to it. 0:48:04.880 --> 0:48:07.800 Yeah, so I don't know how to take the crab's 0:48:07.960 --> 0:48:11.840 navel is like this tyrannical trader's belly button. 0:48:12.080 --> 0:48:14.719 Yeah, I mean it sounds like they're mocking a someone 0:48:14.719 --> 0:48:19.000 who's considered a batty in an enemy. Yeah. But they 0:48:19.080 --> 0:48:21.480 they also cite a legend. The authors here side a 0:48:21.560 --> 0:48:26.279 legend regarding the first consumption of crab. There's talk about 0:48:26.280 --> 0:48:28.279 how well crabs are fearsome, So the first people to 0:48:28.360 --> 0:48:30.040 eat the crab meat, they had to have been warriors. 0:48:30.040 --> 0:48:32.239 They had have been mighty, because who would think to 0:48:32.239 --> 0:48:34.480 do this? Who would think to rise up against the crabs? 0:48:34.800 --> 0:48:40.600 But they cited a legend regarding the originator of eating crabs, 0:48:41.200 --> 0:48:43.279 and they say that it was said to have been 0:48:43.320 --> 0:48:48.480 a flood manager named Baja working for the legendary engineer 0:48:48.480 --> 0:48:50.640 you the Great, who we've talked about on the show before, 0:48:52.120 --> 0:48:55.640 very much a cultural hero, you know, someone who steals 0:48:55.719 --> 0:49:01.759 the or acquires the supernatural soil to aid in flood management. 0:49:02.160 --> 0:49:05.120 And then one of his essentially underlings is the first 0:49:05.200 --> 0:49:08.839 to boil a crab, smell the aroma and say this 0:49:09.120 --> 0:49:11.080 just seems pretty good. And then eat it and then 0:49:11.120 --> 0:49:14.640 pass that wisdom on to people as well. So I 0:49:14.680 --> 0:49:16.560 guess maybe the idea here is that, like, you know, 0:49:17.960 --> 0:49:20.520 realizing you can eat crabs is almost kind of like 0:49:20.520 --> 0:49:23.520 a great cultural achievement on par with flood management. 0:49:23.920 --> 0:49:26.160 This just reminds me. I'm having a hazy memory of 0:49:26.200 --> 0:49:30.160 another Chinese folk character we've talked about on the show 0:49:30.160 --> 0:49:33.160 before who is famous for figuring out what foods are 0:49:33.160 --> 0:49:33.800 good to eat. 0:49:34.200 --> 0:49:38.240 Oh yeah, you're thinking of Shinong the Oh yeah, yeah. 0:49:38.520 --> 0:49:42.600 The legend goes, you know, tried every orb, basically tried 0:49:43.480 --> 0:49:46.480 all these different poisons, even in order to determine what 0:49:46.560 --> 0:49:48.320 is good and what is usable and so forth. 0:49:48.560 --> 0:49:52.399 Okay, but here we have the seafood focused version of that, 0:49:52.760 --> 0:49:54.279 or at least not trying all of them, but at 0:49:54.360 --> 0:49:55.280 least trying the crab. 0:49:55.600 --> 0:49:55.880 Yeah. 0:49:56.000 --> 0:49:58.359 It looks a little scary at first, but it is good. 0:49:58.960 --> 0:50:02.239 Yeah. Yeah. And apparently there's a there's a park in 0:50:02.360 --> 0:50:05.759 Kunshan City in China that is that is named for 0:50:05.840 --> 0:50:08.600 this figure, and it has a number of different statues 0:50:08.640 --> 0:50:10.799 of crabs. This is mentioned in the article, and they 0:50:10.840 --> 0:50:13.319 include some photographs which I reproduce for you here. Joe 0:50:13.320 --> 0:50:16.360 in our notes. Uh, and you can see there's one 0:50:16.400 --> 0:50:20.399 that has a child, either a large child or well, 0:50:20.480 --> 0:50:22.399 either a small child or a large crab. But there 0:50:22.480 --> 0:50:24.720 is a it is a large statue of a crab 0:50:24.760 --> 0:50:26.240 with a child on its back. 0:50:26.560 --> 0:50:27.200 Adorable. 0:50:27.680 --> 0:50:30.840 And then there here is another giant heap of coins 0:50:31.000 --> 0:50:34.040 and a crab is on top of that pile of coins, 0:50:34.080 --> 0:50:36.200 again like a like a Western dragon. 0:50:36.719 --> 0:50:41.800 Yeah. So uh the crab has this recurring association with 0:50:41.800 --> 0:50:43.239 with riches and abundance. 0:50:44.120 --> 0:50:46.919 Yes, yeah, And so I dug into that a little 0:50:46.960 --> 0:50:49.840 bit to term to determine like where does that come from? 0:50:51.000 --> 0:50:55.319 And uh, Basically the crab wealth connection comes down to 0:50:55.480 --> 0:50:59.480 some of the crab's symbolic characteristics and also another classic 0:50:59.600 --> 0:51:02.759 Chinese homophone, you know, words that sound the same but 0:51:02.800 --> 0:51:06.920 have unrelated meanings. So the shell of a crab is ja, 0:51:07.239 --> 0:51:10.160 which also means if it would mean if I was 0:51:10.440 --> 0:51:13.719 one hundred percent pronouncing it correctly, and I am probably not, 0:51:14.560 --> 0:51:18.680 But it means number one with or you know, top performing, 0:51:19.000 --> 0:51:24.360 but with special connotations regarding the old Imperial examination ranking system. 0:51:24.840 --> 0:51:27.480 Oh okay, number one, best of the best. 0:51:27.520 --> 0:51:31.279 Right right, So the crab shell and also you know, 0:51:31.360 --> 0:51:33.960 ranking number one in something. These ideas are closely ranked 0:51:34.400 --> 0:51:37.640 symbolically linked via language, and then you have some other 0:51:37.680 --> 0:51:40.000 things in play too. So the crab has an auspicious 0:51:40.040 --> 0:51:43.680 number of legs eight and it's there also is this 0:51:43.800 --> 0:51:49.280 idea that it's sideways walking has business success connotations concerning 0:51:49.440 --> 0:51:51.759 easy money or side fortunes. 0:51:53.880 --> 0:51:57.440 This is that like making money on the side or. 0:51:57.880 --> 0:52:00.120 Yeah, it's like hinkai, I think, And I think sometimes 0:52:00.120 --> 0:52:03.160 that has very negative connotations, like you're running a scam 0:52:03.480 --> 0:52:05.960 or it's ill gotten gains. But I think depending on 0:52:06.040 --> 0:52:09.600 how it's used, it can also mean things that are 0:52:10.360 --> 0:52:13.640 that are certainly legal and above board, but are also 0:52:13.800 --> 0:52:16.160 kind of like a matter of luck, you know, coming 0:52:16.160 --> 0:52:20.040 down to good fortune in business, things outside of your control. 0:52:21.120 --> 0:52:25.000 And I guess lateral movement. And then yeah, and then 0:52:25.080 --> 0:52:27.000 the big one too is that this comes back to 0:52:27.040 --> 0:52:30.200 what we were saying earlier. Just crab claws look like things 0:52:30.280 --> 0:52:33.600 that could hold onto coins. They could grab coins and 0:52:33.640 --> 0:52:35.920 then hold on to them. And also coming down to 0:52:36.000 --> 0:52:37.960 just the nature of the crab, knowing that you know, 0:52:38.000 --> 0:52:41.239 a crab can be a little fighty if cornered the 0:52:41.360 --> 0:52:44.560 flighty or fighty there, they can be a little intimidating. 0:52:44.600 --> 0:52:46.640 They can appear to stand their ground, so we can 0:52:46.680 --> 0:52:49.320 imagine them saying, no, that's my coin and I'm not 0:52:49.360 --> 0:52:50.000 going to let it go. 0:52:50.920 --> 0:52:53.440 Yeah, I can see all of that. And I don't know, 0:52:53.880 --> 0:52:56.680 this might have gone past me. But if we didn't clarify, 0:52:57.400 --> 0:52:59.560 why is it that, in addition to having the tequila 0:52:59.680 --> 0:53:01.759 or that the two claws, it has eight legs? Why 0:53:01.800 --> 0:53:04.600 would eight be auspicious that generally the number eight is 0:53:04.640 --> 0:53:07.200 thought of as lucky in Chinese culture? Correct? 0:53:07.280 --> 0:53:09.560 Yeah, yeah, So it's like all these things kind of 0:53:09.560 --> 0:53:12.400 coming together with the crab, and I think again also 0:53:12.520 --> 0:53:15.799 just the huge factor that crabs are amusing to look at. 0:53:16.960 --> 0:53:20.800 If the crab wasn't so entertaining in and out itself, 0:53:21.120 --> 0:53:23.520 we wouldn't heap on all of these ideas. 0:53:24.360 --> 0:53:26.839 Well, Rob, I think we need to wrap up part 0:53:26.920 --> 0:53:29.080 three of the crab Bag there, but this has been 0:53:29.160 --> 0:53:32.839 yet another enjoyable and enlightening episode. So, folks at home, 0:53:32.880 --> 0:53:35.240 I hope you will join us for crab Bag number 0:53:35.239 --> 0:53:36.280 four on Thursday. 0:53:36.560 --> 0:53:38.239 Yeah, and in the meantime, go ahead and write in. 0:53:38.920 --> 0:53:41.160 We'd love to hear. I'd love to hear from anyone 0:53:41.200 --> 0:53:45.200 out there who can speak more to the crab as 0:53:45.200 --> 0:53:50.439 a symbol of business, luck and good fortune in Chinese cultures. Yeah, 0:53:50.440 --> 0:53:53.759 if you have some personal examples or observations of that 0:53:53.920 --> 0:53:56.560 right in, send your photos. We would love to hear 0:53:56.600 --> 0:53:56.960 from you. 0:53:57.840 --> 0:54:01.280 Also, if there is some really significant way that crabs 0:54:01.280 --> 0:54:04.239 feature in your culture, something interesting about crabs where you 0:54:04.320 --> 0:54:06.560 live that we haven't talked about yet, send it on 0:54:06.600 --> 0:54:07.400 our way let us know. 0:54:07.719 --> 0:54:10.359 Yeah, and what is your favorite sci fi crab based 0:54:10.400 --> 0:54:13.080 war machine? Also fair game and I know some of 0:54:13.080 --> 0:54:15.680 you will write in about that for sure. Just a 0:54:15.719 --> 0:54:17.719 reminder to everyone out there that Stuff to Blow Your 0:54:17.719 --> 0:54:20.040 Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core 0:54:20.080 --> 0:54:23.440 episodes in Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episodes on Wednesdays 0:54:23.480 --> 0:54:25.680 and on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns to 0:54:25.719 --> 0:54:28.120 just talk about a weird film on weird House Cinema. 0:54:28.640 --> 0:54:30.399 Stuff to blil Your Mind has been around for years 0:54:30.400 --> 0:54:33.800 and years. At this point, we are new to Netflix, however, 0:54:34.520 --> 0:54:36.880 so there are only so many episodes that you'll find 0:54:37.080 --> 0:54:40.960 in a visual form on Netflix. The rest are going 0:54:41.000 --> 0:54:44.160 to be in audio form wherever you get your audio podcasts, 0:54:44.239 --> 0:54:46.840 and you can find pretty extensive archive there. 0:54:46.760 --> 0:54:49.040 That's right, and it's the same show. By the way, 0:54:49.440 --> 0:54:51.680 just in case people are wondering, the version that we're 0:54:51.680 --> 0:54:54.680 putting out on Netflix is just the video version of 0:54:54.760 --> 0:54:57.359 the audio podcast that we release at the same time 0:54:57.440 --> 0:55:00.319 in audio feed. So yeah, if you have a found 0:55:00.400 --> 0:55:03.120 us in one on one platform and you want to 0:55:03.200 --> 0:55:06.520 check us out on the other, go for it. Absolutely huge, 0:55:06.560 --> 0:55:09.960 thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. 0:55:10.520 --> 0:55:12.080 If you would like to get in touch with us 0:55:12.160 --> 0:55:14.640 with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest 0:55:14.719 --> 0:55:16.680 a topic for the future, or just to say hello, 0:55:16.800 --> 0:55:19.279 you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow 0:55:19.280 --> 0:55:27.239 your Mind dot com. 0:55:27.360 --> 0:55:30.319 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 0:55:30.400 --> 0:55:33.160 more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 0:55:33.320 --> 0:55:50.560 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.