We know something else: this coral was different from all others, of an inferior quality, so writes in his report to the Minister, Commander Accini of the frigate ‘L’Esploratore’ who had “directed traffic” around the bank in 1875 and Commander La Via, who sent the Minister a detailed report on the fishing around the bank discovered in 1878. Commander La Via also writes of the quality of the coral, saying:
“The coral harvested on this bank is a common red coral and of a rather inferior quality, both because of the thinness of the branches and that fact that it is blackened in various points, what the fishermen call burnt, attributing the fact to the vicinity of volcanic soil. However, the inferior quality is compensated by the quantity, which greatly exceeds the amount harvested along the coast of Africa and elsewhere.”
There are other important elements: the quality was inferior to the coral fished elsewhere, the coral was blackened because it was near volcanic areas, the quantity harvested was much greater than a boat could normally succeed in finding off the coasts of Africa or elsewhere. So what coral was this?
Prof. Giovanni Canestrini comes to our aid. On 16 August 1882 he sends this report to the Minister “On the researches carried out around the coral banks in the seas off Sciacca.”
Concerning the first bank, the one discovered by Alberto Maniscalco in May 1875, Canestrini says that “it is covered in mud and not very extensive, as it is only 200 meters long and even less in width.” He adds another interesting note for our purposes:
“The coral fished in this site, along with other sea life and a great amount of mud, all lack a ‘sarcosoma’ (a sort of a second skin), indicating that it was dead and thus unable to repopulate the bank.”
to be Continued...
[text taken with license from the author Giuseppe Rajola from the book Sciacca Mystery]
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