Futility Closet

In 1900 three lighthouse keepers vanished from a remote, featureless island in Scotland's Outer Hebrides. The lighthouse was in good order and the log showed no sign of trouble, but no trace of the keepers has ever been found. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll explore the conundrum of the men's disappearance -- a classic mystery of sea lore. We'll also ponder the whereabouts of Robert Louis Stevenson's birthday, admire Esaw Wood's quest for a wood saw that would saw wood, and wonder why drinking a glass of water might necessitate a call to the auto club. Sources for our segment on the Flannan Isles lighthouse: Christopher Nicholson, Rock Lighthouses of Britain, 1983. "The Mystery of Flannan Isle," Northern Lighthouse Board, retrieved June 18, 2014. Mike Dash, "The Vanishing Lighthousemen of Eilean Mór," Fortean Studies 4 (1998). Sources for the story about Robert Louis Stevenson's bequest of his birthday: Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Graham Balfour, Works, Volume 24, 1905. Elmo Scott Watson, "Famous Writer Gave Most Unusual 'Christmas Gift' in All History," Ironwood [Mich.] Times, Dec. 23, 1938. "Inherits Birthday," Sherbrooke [Quebec] Telegram, Jan. 11, 1934. Here's the deed: Vailima, June 19, 1891. I, Robert Louis Stevenson, Advocate of the Scots Bar, author of The Master of Ballantrae and Moral Emblems, stuck civil engineer, sole owner and patentee of the Palace and Plantation known as Vailima in the island of Upolu, Samoa, a British Subject, being in sound mind, and pretty well, I thank you, in body: In consideration that Miss Annie H. Ide, daughter of H.C. Ide, in the town of Saint Johnsbury, in the county of Caledonia, in the state of Vermont, United States of America, was born, out of all reason, upon Christmas Day, and is therefore out of all justice denied the consolation and profit of a proper birthday; And considering that I, the said Robert Louis Stevenson, have attained an age when O, we never mention it, and that I have now no further use for a birthday of any description; ... And in consideration that I have met H.C. Ide, the father of the said Annie H. Ide, and found him about as white a land commissioner as I require: Have transferred, and do hereby transfer, to the said Annie H. Ide, all and whole my rights and privileges in the thirteenth day of November, formerly my birthday, now, hereby, and henceforth, the birthday of the said Annie H. Ide, to have, hold, exercise, and enjoy the same in the customary manner, by the sporting of fine raiment, eating of rich meats, and receipt of gifts, compliments, and copies of verse, according to the manner of our ancestors; And I direct the said Annie H. Ide to add to the said name of Annie H. Ide the name Louisa — at least in private; and I charge her to use my said birthday with moderation and humanity, et tamquam bona filia familia, the said birthday not being so young as it once was, and having carried me in a very satisfactory manner since I can remember; And in case the said Annie H. Ide shall neglect or contravene either of the above conditions, I hereby revoke the donation and transfer my rights in the said birthday to the President of the United States of America for the time being: In witness whereof I have hereto set my hand and seal this nineteenth day of June in the year of grace eighteen hundred and ninety-one. Robert Louis Stevenson. Witness, Lloyd Osbourne, Witness, Harold Watts. To Ide Stevenson wrote, "Herewith please find the Document, which I trust will prove sufficient in law. It seems to me very attractive in its eclecticism; Scots, English, and Roman law phrases are all indifferently introduced, and a quotation from the works of Haynes Bailey can hardly fail to attract the indulgence of the Bench." A bizarre coincidence: Just before we recorded this episode I discovered that Robert Louis Stevenson's cousin, David Alan Stevenson, designed the Flannan Isles lighthouse! I'd had no inkling of this in planning or writing the episode; the two stories are set literally a world apart. "The Story of Esaw Wood," by W.E. Southwick, from Carolyn Wells' 1918 anthology Such Nonsense!: Esaw Wood sawed wood. Esaw Wood would saw wood! All the wood Esaw Wood saw Esaw Wood would saw. In other words, all the wood Esaw saw to saw Esaw sought to saw. Oh, the wood Wood would saw! And oh, the wood-saw with which Wood would saw wood. But one day Wood's wood-saw would saw no wood, and thus the wood Wood sawed was not the wood Wood would saw if Wood's wood-saw would saw wood. Now, Wood would saw wood with a wood-saw that would saw wood, so Esaw sought a saw that would saw wood. One day Esaw saw a saw saw wood as no other wood-saw Wood saw would saw wood. In fact, of all the wood-saws Wood ever saw saw wood Wood never saw a wood-saw that would saw wood as the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood would saw wood, and I never saw a wood-saw that would saw as the wood-saw Wood saw would saw until I saw Esaw Wood saw wood with the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood. Now Wood saws wood with the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood. Oh, the wood the wood-saw Wood saw would saw! Oh, the wood Wood's woodshed would shed when Wood would saw wood with the wood-saw Wood saw saw wood! Finally, no man may ever know how much wood the wood-saw Wood saw would saw, if the wood-saw Wood saw would saw all the wood the wood-saw Wood saw would saw. You can listen using the player above, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at podcast@futilitycloset.com. Thanks for listening!

Stewardess Violet Jessop was both cursed and blessed -- during the 1910s she met disaster on all three of the White Star Line's Olympic class of gigantic ocean liners, but she managed to escape each time. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll accompany Violet on her three ill-fated voyages, including the famous sinkings of the Titanic and the Britannic, and learn the importance of toothbrushes in ocean disasters. We'll also play with the International Date Line and puzzle over the identity of Salvador Dalí's brother. Show notes: University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt discusses his coin-flipping experiment about halfway through this BBC podcast. The associated website is here. We first wrote about Violet Jessop on March 11, 2009. Maritime historian John Maxtone-Graham interviewed her in 1970 for The Only Way to Cross, his 1978 book about the era of ocean liners. When Violet died in 1971 she left a manuscript to her daughters, which, edited by Maxtone-Graham, came to light in 1997 as Titanic Survivor: The Newly Discovered Memoirs of Violet Jessop, Who Survived Both the Titanic and Britannic Disasters. A poetic note from Maxtone-Graham in that book: "One particular service commemorates the 1500 lost on the Titanic: Every 14th of April, a United States Coast Guard cutter comes to pay the homage of the Ice Patrol, which owes its inception to the disaster. With engines stilled and church pennant at the masthead, officers and men line the deck in full dress, while the commander reads the burial service. Three volleys of rifle fire can be heard, then the cutter passes on, leaving a lone wreath on the waves above the broken hull." Lewis Carroll underscored the need for an international date line with this conundrum, which he presented among the mathematical puzzle stories he wrote for the Monthly Packet in the 1880s: The day changes only at midnight. Suppose it's midnight in Chelsea; Wednesday has concluded and Thursday is about to begin. It's still Wednesday in Ireland and America, and it's already Thursday in Germany and Russia. That's fine. But continue in both directions. If it's Wednesday in America, is it Wednesday in Hawaii? If it's Thursday in Russia, is it Thursday in Japan? Mustn't the two days 'meet' on the farther side of the globe? "It isn’t midnight anywhere else; so it can't be changing from one day to another anywhere else. And yet, if Ireland and America and so on call it Wednesday, and Germany and Russia and so on call it Thursday, there must be some place, not Chelsea, that has different days on the two sides of it. And the worst of it is, the people there get their days in the wrong order: they’ve got Wednesday east of them, and Thursday west -- just as if their day had changed from Thursday to Wednesday!" Carroll normally presented the solution to each problem in the following month’s number. In this case he postponed the solution, "partly because I am myself so entirely puzzled by it," and then discontinued the column without resolving the problem. Further curiosities regarding the International Date Line: Why couldn't one orbit the world and advance the calendar indefinitely? Edgar Allan Poe, "Three Sundays in a Week" A time-traveling swimmer Softball at the North Pole Paul Sloane and Des MacHale have written a whole series of books of lateral thinking puzzles. This week's puzzle on Salvador Dalí's brother comes from their Ingenious Lateral Thinking Puzzles (1998). Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at podcast@futilitycloset.com. Thanks for listening!

Georgia slaves Ellen and William Craft made a daring bid for freedom in 1848: Ellen dressed as a white man and, attended by William as her servant, undertook a perilous 1,000-mile journey by carriage, train, and steamship to the free state of Pennsylvania in the North. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the couple's harrowing five-day adventure through the slave-owning South. We'll also discover the best place in the United States to commit a crime and sample the aphoristic poetry of Danish mathematician Piet Hein. Our post on Ellen and Willliam Craft appeared on July 19, 2012. Here are the two as they normally appeared: And here's Ellen dressed as a rheumatism-ridden white man: In order to show her likeness clearly, this image omits the poultice that she wore on her chin. Their book Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom appeared in 1860. Here's an excerpt explaining what awaited them if they were confronted at any point on their 1,000-mile journey: If [a] coloured person refuses to answer questions put to him, he may be beaten, and his defending himself against this attack makes him an outlaw, and if he be killed on the spot, the murderer will be exempted from all blame; but after the coloured person has answered the questions put to him, in a most humble and pointed manner, he may then be taken to prison; and should it turn out, after further examination, that he was caught where he had no permission or legal right to be, and that he has not given what they term a satisfactory account of himself, the master will have to pay a fine. On his refusing to do this, the poor slave may be legally and severely flogged by public officers. Should the prisoner prove to be a free man, he is most likely to be both whipped and fined. At several points whites upbraided Ellen for treating William decently. On the steamer to Charleston, a Southern military officer told her: You will excuse me, Sir, for saying I think you are very likely to spoil your boy by saying 'thank you' to him. I assure you, sir, nothing spoils a slave so soon as saying 'thank you' and 'if you please' to him. The only way to make a nigger toe the mark, and to keep him in his place, is to storm at him like thunder, and keep him trembling like a leaf. Don't you see, when I speak to my Ned, he darts like lightning; and if he didn't I'd skin him. Our post about the Woodrow Wilson Bridge appeared on June 4, 2014, and we wrote originally about the Yellowstone loophole on Feb. 3, 2012. Michigan State law professor Brian Kalt's paper about the loophole is titled "The Perfect Crime." He points out that civil actions and lesser criminal charges await anyone who commits a felony in Yellowstone; nonetheless he calls the current state of affairs "a constitutional rusty nail." We've published Piet Hein's poetry previously on Futility Closet, in 2012 and 2013. Wikiquote has the fullest online collection I know of. You can listen using the player above, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. You can support Futility Closet by taking a 5-minute survey. Your answers will help match our show with advertisers that best fit our listeners, like you, and allow us to keep making these podcasts. Listeners who complete the survey will be entered in an ongoing monthly raffle to win a $100 Amazon Gift Card. We promise not to share or sell your email address, and we won't send you email unless you win.Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode.If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at podcast@futilitycloset.com. Thanks for listening!

The New York Times proposed an outrageous undertaking in 1908: An automobile race westward from New York to Paris, a journey of 22,000 miles across all of North America and Asia in an era when the motorcar was "the most fragile and capricious thing on earth." In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the six teams who took up the challenge and attempted "the most perilous trip ever undertaken by man."We'll also see how a tomahawk linked Alec Guinness and Grace Kelly for 25 years and hear poet Louis Phillips lament his wife's handwriting.

Irish practical joker Horace de Vere Cole orchestrated his masterpiece in 1910: He dressed four friends as Abyssinian princes and inveigled a tour of a British battleship. One of the friends, improbably, was Virginia Woolf disguised in a false beard and turban. We'll describe how the prank was inspired and follow the six through their tension-filled visit to the HMS Dreadnought.We'll also examine the value of whistles to Benjamin Franklin and present the next Futility Closet Challenge.

When Albert Marr joined the South African army in 1915, he received permission to bring along his pet baboon, Jackie. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow Jackie's adventures in England, Egypt, and Belgium, his work for the Red Cross after the war, and his triumphant return to Pretoria in 1919. We'll also meet a Rhode Island lighthouse keeper's daughter who saved the lives of 18 people over a period of 48 years, and present the next Futility Closet Challenge.

After losing his feet in an accident in the 1880s, South Africa railway worker James "Jumper" Wide found an unlikely friend in a baboon named Jack. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll learn how Jumper taught Jack to work as a signalman on the railway line, where he won the trust of both authorities and passengers.We'll also meet an Englishman who dreamed the winners of horse races, ponder the strange case of the Stringfellow Acid Pits, and present the next Futility Closet Challenge.

In 1888 a mixed-breed terrier appointed himself mascot of America's railway postal service, accompanying mailbags throughout the U.S. and eventually traveling around the world. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll recount Owney's postal adventures and the wave of human affection that followed him.We'll also look at an Air Force pilot who dropped candy on parachutes to besieged German children in 1948, learn the link between drug lord Pablo Escobar and feral hippos in Colombia, and present the next Futility Closet Challenge.

Two weeks before Charles Lindbergh's famous flight, a pair of French aviators attempted a similar feat. Their brave journey might have changed history -- but they disappeared en route. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the flight of the "White Bird" -- and ponder what became of it.We'll also examine a proposal to build hippo ranches in the Louisiana bayou in 1910, investigate historical outbreaks of dancing, laughing, and other strange behavior, and present the next Futility Closet challenge.

The 1850s saw a strange experiment in the American West: The U.S. Army imported 70 camels for help in managing the country's suddenly enormous hinterland. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll see how the animals acquitted themselves in an unfamiliar land under inexperienced human masters.We'll also learn a surprising theory regarding the origin of zebra stripes; follow the further adventures of self-mailing ex-slave Henry "Box" Brown; ask whether a well-wrought piano can survive duty as a beehive, chicken incubator, and meat safe; and present the next Futility Closet Challenge.