ST. JOHNS COUNTY, FLORIDA—First Coast News reports that environmental archaeologist Lee Newsom of Flagler College examined samples of a ship’s hull that washed ashore on northern Florida’s Atlantic coast in March. “I removed ultra-thin slivers of the wood and mounted them on microscope slides,” she said. “Each wood has a fingerprint when you examine the cell structure.” Newsom was surprised to learn the ship had been constructed of American beech, which grows in the eastern United States, since ships built in the mid-nineteenth century were usually made of oak. She also found that the wood had been cut in a variety of ways, probably to reduce waste. She thinks these two factors could indicate wood was in short supply. Newsom will continue to study the well-preserved sample, and may eventually be able to track down where the ship was built. “They were knowledgeable,” she said of the shipwrights. “The way the wood was split, the way the treenails are made. It doesn’t look like a novice learning how to craft.” To read about another recent discovery off the coast of Florida, go to “Afterlife Under the Waves.”
