April 13, 1867

On April 13, 1867, the Cunard liner Scotia, one of the finest steamers of the renowned company, was struck by an unknown underwater object in the North Atlantic. This collision, occurring at 4:17 p.m. in latitude 45° 37' north and longitude 15° 12' west, was scarcely noticeable to the passengers gathered for high tea in the main lounge, but it proved to be a pivotal event in the escalating mystery of the sea. The Scotia, traveling at 13.43 knots under the thrust of its 1,000-horsepower engines and displacing 6,624 cubic meters, had been fouled by a cutting or perforating instrument rather than a blunt one. The damage was discovered when crewmen in the hold raised the alarm, shouting "We're sinking!" Captain Anderson, however, reassured the passengers, as the ship was divided into seven watertight compartments. An inspection revealed a hole two meters in width on the steamer's underside, a leak that could not be patched. The Scotia limped to Liverpool, arriving after a three-day delay that filled the city with acute anxiety. When engineers examined the ship in dry dock, they found a perfectly symmetrical gash in the shape of an isosceles triangle, two and a half meters below the waterline. The breach in the sheet iron was so cleanly formed that no punch could have done a better job, and the tool that had pierced four centimeters of steel had then withdrawn itself with a backward motion that seemed inexplicable. This incident, following the earlier collision of the Moravian on March 5, 1867, aroused public passions all over again. The Scotia was a ship of the Cunard line, a company that in twenty-six years had made 2,000 Atlantic crossings without a single voyage canceled, a delay recorded, or a man or letter lost. The damage to such a vessel was an immense uproar. From this moment on, any maritime casualty without an established cause was charged to the monster's account, and the public demanded that the seas be purged of this fearsome cetacean. The event directly led to the fitting out of the frigate Abraham Lincoln under Commander Farragut, an expedition that Professor Pierre Aronnax would join, setting the entire narrative of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in motion. The Scotia's wound was undeniable proof that something dangerous and powerful lurked beneath the waves, transforming the debate from a scientific puzzle into a matter of urgent public safety.