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cc:
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Subject: FW: oyster canz
Joe Dent <[log in to unmask]>
04/02/2003 06:45 PM PST
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From: Joe Dent <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2003 18:24:03 -0800
To: HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: oyster canz
on 4/2/03 11:08 AM, William G. White at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Bunny:
>
> The tome to which you refer is Mark Twain's "Roughing It" in which he
> discusses his personal adventures as a miner in Aurora as well as his
better
> known life as a journalist in Virginia City, Nevada. Great reading.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bunny" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 9:56 AM
> Subject: Re: oyster canz
>
>
>> I don't remember in which of Mark Twain's tomes it appeared, but I
recall
>> his writing from a Nevada mining town that he used to collect either
> oyster
>> tins or oyster shells (like those we dug up at Johnny Ward's Ranch) from
> the
>> trash piles of wealthier inhabitants and toss them on his own trash pile
>> hoping to fool others into believing we was a successful journalist.
>> B. Fontana
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Carl Barna" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: <[log in to unmask]>
>> Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 8:50 AM
>> Subject: Re: oyster canz
>>
>>
>>> Howdy --
>>>
>>> Were there cans for oysters that are unique to the product and easily
>>> recognizable at 19th century mining camp archaeological sites?
>>>
>>> Perhaps someone could post pictures of such cans?
>>>
>>> Carl Barna
>>> Regional Historian
>>> BLM Colorado State Office
List Folks:
I have nothing to add to the thread on oyster tins, but serious students
of that creature should be aware of another "oyster" passage from Mark
Twain. It weaves together the arts of literature, humor, and archaeology
in
consideration of the humble (and delicious) oyster. In that regard:
"The ascent of the hill of the citadel is very steep, and we proceeded
rather slowly. But there were matters of interest about us. In one place,
five hundred feet above the sea, the perpendicular bank on the upper side
of the road was ten or fifteen feet high, and the cut exposed three veins
of
oyster-shellsS<caron>. The veins were about eighteen inches thick and two
or three
feet part, and they slanted along downward for a distance of thirty or more
feet, and then disappeared where the cut joined the roadS<caron>. They were
clean,
nice oyster-shells. They were thickly massed together, and none were
scattered or below the veins. Each one was a well defined lead by
itselfS<caron>.
They were such perfectly natural-looking leads that I could hardly keep
from
?taking them up.1 Among the oyster-shells were mixed many fragments of
ancient, broken crockeryware. Now how did those masses of oyster-shells
get
there? I cannot determine. Broken crockery and oyster-shells are
suggestive
of restaurants - but then they could have had no such places away up there
on the mountainside in our time, because nobody has lived up there. A
restaurant would not pay in such a stony, forbidding, desolate place. And
besides, there are no champagne corks among the shellsS<caron>. I could
believe in
one restaurant there, on those terms; but how about the three? Did they
have restaurants there at three different periods of the world? - because
there are two or three feet of solid earth between the oyster leads.
Evidently the restaurant solution was not the answer.
The hill might have been the bottom of the sea, once, and been lifted up,
with the oyster-beds, by an earthquake - but, then, how about the crockery?
And, moreover, how about three oyster-beds, one above another, and thick
strata of good earth in between.
That theory will not do. It is just as possible that this hill is Mount
Ararat, and that Noah1s Ark rested here, and he ate the oysters and threw
the shells overboard. But that will not do, either. There are three layers
again and the solid earth between - and, besides, there were only eight in
Noah1s family, and they could not have eaten all these oysters in the two
or
three months they stayed on top of that mountain. The beasts - however, it
is simply absurd to suppose he did not know anymore than to feed the beasts
on oyster suppers.
It is painful - it is even humiliating - but I am reduced at last to one
slender theory: that the oysters climbed up there of their own accord. But
what object could that have had in view? -- what did they want up there?
What could any oyster want to climb a hill for? To climb a hill must
necessarily be fatiguing and annoying exercise for an oyster. The most
natural conclusion would be that the oysters climbed up there to look at
the
scenery. Yet when one comes to reflect upon the nature of an oyster, it
seems plain that he does not care for scenery. An oyster has no taste for
such things; he cares nothing for the beautiful. An oyster is of a
retiring
disposition, and not lively - above all, an oyster does not take any
interest in scenery - he scorns it. What have I arrived at now? Simply at
the point I started from, namely, those oyster shells are there, in regular
layers, five hundred feet above sea level, and no man knows how they got
thereS<caron>. They are there, but how they got there is a mystery"
(From "The Innocents Abroad Vol. II," pages 239-240 in "The Unabridged
Mark
Twain of everyone's undergraduate American Lit. course)
Joe Dent
American University
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