On Sunday, January 11, 2004, at 08:11 PM, John Cowan wrote:

> Ray Brown scripsit:
>
>>>> 13. Finally, at sea, can beat a drum, strike a
>>>> bell, blow a whistle, blow
>>>> a hunting horn (cor de chasse [on a boat??]),
>>>
>>> Not ideal, as a cor de chasse does not have easy
>>> access to a diatonic scale!
>>
>> But ain't the French 'cor de chasse' sort of curly
>> and rather different from the hunting horn used in
>> the anglophone world?
>
> It doesn't matter, since the horn is to be tooted on without regard to
> pitch, the same as the drum, bell, whistle, etc.  IOW, this is another
> variant of tapping.

OK - comprendo.

>> Absolutely - I would think the idea of using cannon
>> for communication carries all sorts of risks.
>
> Well, when guns are fired in salute, do they actually put payload
> (ball, shot, chain, etc.) in them?  I suspect not.

Quite right - they use blanks.

> So the absence
> of splashes coming along with the booms would signify an intent
> to communicate.

Yep - if all's calm around them - I don't think this would be such a good
idea in battle.

But the tapping system, however it's done, seems to me a rather clumsy
method, pausing between each letter.  Would these methods have been used
for transmitting Morse code?

> In fact, though, there is a perfectly workable and efficient international
> flag code, allowing one to communicate such perfectly useful messages as
> "Do you have any women on board?" and "Presence of rats suspected" with
> a mere 3-4 flags.

"England expects every man to do his duty" [Horatio Nelson]   :)

Yep, there is - and, indeed, it would be perfectly possible to have
used the Solresol flag system, I think.

Ray
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