The Mystery of the Mary CelesteDIRECTIONS: Read the passage. Then answer the questions. Citeevidence from the text to support your answers.The Mary Celeste was found floating and abandoned about 400 miles east of the Azores onDecember 5, 1872. It had left New York City eight days prior, and never arrived at its intendeddestination. Investigation of the ship revealed that the ship's charts had been thrown about,the crewmen's things were still in their cabin. The lifeboat was gone, and several of the ship'spumps had been taken apart. There were several feet of water in its hull. Its cargo wasuntouched, as was the six-month supply of food and water that had been brought along for its10 passengers and crew.What happened to those ten people is still one of nautical history's most compellingmysteries. Over the years people have speculated about mutiny, pirates, sea monsters andkiller waterspouts. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the famous Sherlock Holmes mysteries,wrote a story about the Mary Celeste in 1884, which was made into a movie in 1935, in whichhe posited that the passengers and crew were killed by a crazed sailor. It is only recently thatmodern technology has been able to offer up some clues as to what really happened.The Mary Celeste got underway on November 7, 1872, headed for Italy. She carried sevencrewmen and Capt. Benjamin Spooner Briggs, his wife, Sarah, and their daughter Sophia, twoyears old. Its last ship's log entry was recorded at 5 a.m. on November 25. Anne MacGregor, adocumentarian best known for The Hindenburg Disaster: Probable Cause (2001) decided tobring modern forensic science to bear on the mystery. She began by asking what didn't happen,quickly ruling out sea monsters and pirates, given the ship's good condition and accounted-forcargo. She conducted interviews with the crewmen's descendants and ruled out mutiny. Shealso disproved a theory that alcohol vapors from the ship's cargo (industrial alcohol) hadexpanded in the heat and blown off the main hatch, causing the crew and passengers to expectan explosion and abandon ship. But the crew of another ship that had found the Mary Celestefloating without any sign of human life had reported that the main hatch had been secured andthere had been no mention of having smelled fumes. Some of the barrels of alcohol had beenempty, but they had been made of red oak, rather than white oak, like the others, and beingmore porous could have leaked over time. Neither did she find any evidence for Conan Doyle'shomicidal sailor theory.She then began to consider what may have happened. The Mary Celeste was stillseaworthy, so what would prompt her captain and crew to abandon it? MacGregor interviewedthe Briggs' descendants; they had left their 7-year-old son behind in New York to go to school.From them she learned that Briggs had been an experienced captain with a good reputation,and it was unlikely that he would have acted irrationally.Searching for a rational reason for Briggs to abandon his ship, she set out to recreate hisjourney, studying water temperatures, wind speeds and wind directions from the time, whichshe found in the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS), a database that stores global marine information from 1784 to 2007 and is used to study climatechange. They discovered that it was possible that the Mary Celeste could have drifted from thelocation last entered on its log on November 25 to where she was eventually found onDecember 5, even without anyone on board. From there, MacGregor hypothesized that Briggsmay have given the order to abandon ship in sight of land, which was still within sight of theship on November 25".Notes from the official investigation after the Mary Celeste was found, during which the lastfive days of the ship's log were studied, indicate that Briggs was about 120 miles west of wherehe thought he was, and had probably had an inaccurate chronometer; he should have sightedland three days sooner than he actually did. These notes also showed that Briggs had changedcourse and headed north, presumably to look for haven. On a previous voyage the Mary Celestehad carried coal, and MacGregor speculates that coal dust and debris from having beenrecently refitted may explain why the pump was taken apart, if it had gotten clogged. Withoutthe pump Briggs couldn't have known the extent of seawater in the ship's hull, because it wastoo full of cargo for him to determine a water level simply by looking. MacGregor postulatesthat it was the cumulative effect of all of these things and, sighting land and uncertain whetheror not his ship was going to sink, which may have caused Briggs to give the order to abandonship, with the ultimate result that they his family and crew were lost at sea.Explain why what happened to the crew and passengers of the Mary Celeste is amystery.

Question

The Mystery of the Mary CelesteDIRECTIONS: Read the passage. Then answer the questions. Citeevidence from the text to support your answers.The Mary Celeste was found floating and abandoned about 400 miles east of the Azores onDecember 5, 1872. It had left New York City eight days prior, and never arrived at its intendeddestination. Investigation of the ship revealed that the ship's charts had been thrown about,the crewmen's things were still in their cabin. The lifeboat was gone, and several of the ship'spumps had been taken apart. There were several feet of water in its hull. Its cargo wasuntouched, as was the six-month supply of food and water that had been brought along for its10 passengers and crew.What happened to those ten people is still one of nautical history's most compellingmysteries. Over the years people have speculated about mutiny, pirates, sea monsters andkiller waterspouts. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the famous Sherlock Holmes mysteries,wrote a story about the Mary Celeste in 1884, which was made into a movie in 1935, in whichhe posited that the passengers and crew were killed by a crazed sailor. It is only recently thatmodern technology has been able to offer up some clues as to what really happened.The Mary Celeste got underway on November 7, 1872, headed for Italy. She carried sevencrewmen and Capt. Benjamin Spooner Briggs, his wife, Sarah, and their daughter Sophia, twoyears old. Its last ship's log entry was recorded at 5 a.m. on November 25. Anne MacGregor, adocumentarian best known for The Hindenburg Disaster: Probable Cause (2001) decided tobring modern forensic science to bear on the mystery. She began by asking what didn't happen,quickly ruling out sea monsters and pirates, given the ship's good condition and accounted-forcargo. She conducted interviews with the crewmen's descendants and ruled out mutiny. Shealso disproved a theory that alcohol vapors from the ship's cargo (industrial alcohol) hadexpanded in the heat and blown off the main hatch, causing the crew and passengers to expectan explosion and abandon ship. But the crew of another ship that had found the Mary Celestefloating without any sign of human life had reported that the main hatch had been secured andthere had been no mention of having smelled fumes. Some of the barrels of alcohol had beenempty, but they had been made of red oak, rather than white oak, like the others, and beingmore porous could have leaked over time. Neither did she find any evidence for Conan Doyle'shomicidal sailor theory.She then began to consider what may have happened. The Mary Celeste was stillseaworthy, so what would prompt her captain and crew to abandon it? MacGregor interviewedthe Briggs' descendants; they had left their 7-year-old son behind in New York to go to school.From them she learned that Briggs had been an experienced captain with a good reputation,and it was unlikely that he would have acted irrationally.Searching for a rational reason for Briggs to abandon his ship, she set out to recreate hisjourney, studying water temperatures, wind speeds and wind directions from the time, whichshe found in the International Comprehensive Ocean-Atmosphere Data Set (ICOADS), a database that stores global marine information from 1784 to 2007 and is used to study climatechange. They discovered that it was possible that the Mary Celeste could have drifted from thelocation last entered on its log on November 25 to where she was eventually found onDecember 5, even without anyone on board. From there, MacGregor hypothesized that Briggsmay have given the order to abandon ship in sight of land, which was still within sight of theship on November 25&#34;.Notes from the official investigation after the Mary Celeste was found, during which the lastfive days of the ship's log were studied, indicate that Briggs was about 120 miles west of wherehe thought he was, and had probably had an inaccurate chronometer; he should have sightedland three days sooner than he actually did. These notes also showed that Briggs had changedcourse and headed north, presumably to look for haven. On a previous voyage the Mary Celestehad carried coal, and MacGregor speculates that coal dust and debris from having beenrecently refitted may explain why the pump was taken apart, if it had gotten clogged. Withoutthe pump Briggs couldn't have known the extent of seawater in the ship's hull, because it wastoo full of cargo for him to determine a water level simply by looking. MacGregor postulatesthat it was the cumulative effect of all of these things and, sighting land and uncertain whetheror not his ship was going to sink, which may have caused Briggs to give the order to abandonship, with the ultimate result that they his family and crew were lost at sea.Explain why what happened to the crew and passengers of the Mary Celeste is amystery.

Accepted Answer

The Mary Celeste mystery is one of the most talked about abandoned ship that was discovered four…

Explain why what happened to the crew and passengers of the Mary Celeste is a mystery.