Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of treasurebeachesreport.blogspot.com.
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| Passing It On. |
I received a great email from one reader that made me think about how we keep track of the years and decades. He brought up a great point concerning that.
The way I look at things, and I remember telling a psychology class the same thing back in the 1970s, "You can only be accurate to the extent you are willing to accept inaccuracy." What I mean by that is you can not be totally precise because there is always another level of precision to be achieved. You might say your weight is some round number, but if you want to be more precise and can measure much more accurately, you'll find that your weight is constantly changing. As another example, a table might be said to be flat, but if you look at it much more closely, perhaps with a microscope, you'll most likely see that it is not completely flat. Then taking it to another level and looking even more and more closely, the surface will dissolve into molecules, atoms, etc. and it will look like there is nothing solid or stable about it at all. Only in a very general sense is it flat.
If I asked you how many days are in a year, most people would probably say 365, but a solar year is closer to 365.2422 days, which is why we have a leap year to partly correct for that.
But it gets more interesting than that. Adam didn't start cutting notches in some tree where man has been keeping track of the days ever since. In fact the Gregorian calendar, which has become something of an international standard, was instituted in 1582, long after the discovery of the New World. The Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar, but was adopted in different places at different times.
The Roman calendar started the New Year with January 1st being in the Spring, but the Gregorian calendar put January 1 as we have it now, in the winter.
Both the Julian and Gregorian calendars are inaccurate as compared to the actual solar year I briefly referred to that above.
I'm going back to the seemingly contradictory statement I once made in a post last year, "The more I learn, the less I know." The discussion above might make that statement a little clearer. You find out that your "facts" weren't as accurate as you thought, and you delve deeper into the unknown.
We generally don't delve deeply into things. We can function and are happy with a generally acceptable level of approximation. That is sufficient for daily activities, but but when you try to be as precise as possible, you'll find yourself getting into greater and greater depth and complexity. You can chase precision, but you can't catch it. There is always another step. To me there seems no end to it. It is infinite and amazing.
So Happy New Year!
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DJ sent this photo of Turtle Trail as it looked yesterday.
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Turtle Trail 12/31
Photo by DJ
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DJ described his finds as "paltry" and included the following report and photo below that.
The most notable for me is the “almost looks like an arrow head. “ thing.
And the middle black round item. Hoping it’s a button. It’s magnetic and rang as iron.
The round silver item is what I think is a corroded button battery. Very light.
Tossed out about four stainless deck screws and two hair clips.
TurtleTrail has more dips and scallops but hardly any targets. Just found sea glass . Seagrape seemed less eroded but it is where I found most of the stuff.
The penny and the silver and gold thing was found in a line but nothing else around it or in line with it. I think I was too early still a good day, lots of walking
D Justice
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| Things DJ Picked Up. |
Nice bunch of shells to look through.
DJ also sent me a link to a study of the Nieves wreck site that was authored by Carl Clausen and published in 1965. I think most of you beach hunters will find it very informative.
For example, you'll find this diagram of the wreck site.
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Nieves Wreck Site Diagram
Source: See FloridaMuseum link below.
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Of course there is much more to see in the report. Many of the artifacts are described and illustrated.
Take a look, but remember, much more has been found on the site since 1965.
Take a look, but remember, much more has been found on the site since 1965.
Here is the link.
Thanks DJ.
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Sharon says she'll let us know what she learns about her "Roman" coin after she takes it somewhere.
You might find the history of calendars enjoyable if you want to look into that some more.
On the Treasure Coast the weather is very nice. There is some coolness in the air.
The surf is small though, and conditions aren't great.
From the photos, there does appear to be some places where you might have some luck looking through shells. DJ found some sea glass, for example.
Happy New Year,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net
