3/26/25 Report - Eye-Balling and New Mystery Find. Shiver Me Timbers and Other Phrases. Gold and Copper Prices.

Written by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

Possible Stone Scraper.

There was a nice hard but brief rain yesterday.  It is a perfect time to scout or search land sites.  The vegetation is thin from a winter season that was very dry along some coastal areas and the recent rain would expose surface items.

Just this morning in my own yard, with that all on my mind, I looked around some sandy areas where  near-surface items could have been exposed by the recent rain.  One thing I noticed is the above stone, which could have been used as a scraper.  I am not certain that it was shaped for that purpose, but if I was without tools and saw it, I would have picked it up and added it to my tool set.  

Possible Lithic Scraper or Cutting Tool.

I know very little about lithic tools and don't see what I can say for certain are worked surfaces.  Nonetheless, it fits the hand remarkably well.  For use as a scraper.  You can see the cutting edge, which is the edge that looks most like it could have possibly been shaped by human workmanship, yet due to my lack of knowledge about such things, remains, in my mind, questionable.  You can also see where downward pressure would be provided by the forefinger and the impression where my thumb fits nicely.  If it was not formed for use as a scraper, it could still be seen as a happy accident.

I won't say this is an artifact, because I don't know for sure, but it is an interesting item, and the point that I'm making today is that it is a perfect time to visually search land sites.

Here it is in hand.

Scraping Tool(?) In Hand.

It worked well when I tried it out.  Cut a nice line across hard wood.

Any thoughts or opinions on this find?

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Gold Price Chart.

Gold this morning is $3048, as I type.  That is not the absolute high, but close.

Similarly, copper prices are right up there near all-time highs.  

Maybe that will hasten the demise of the one cent coin.

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I had this post nearly finished last night when a mistaken stroke of the keys lost all I had completed.  That is always annoying, especially when I can't easily reconstruct it.  Sometimes I don't feel like trying to reconstruct what I lost, and I take the loss as a sign to start over and leave my old attempts to remain in wrack and ruin upon the digital rocks.

The phrase "wrack and ruin" evolved over the centuries.

Henry Bull moved the phrase on to ‘wrack and ruin’ in his translation of Luther’s Commentarie upon the fiftene psalmes, 1577:

“Whiles all things seeme to fall to wracke and ruine.”

Eventually it became "rack and ruin."

I'm always interested in how the waves of words and phrases move through the language and culture.

Below is the frequency chart for "rack and ruin" in printed material.

As you can see, it was most used around the 1920s but was being increasinly used in print during the later 20th century.  

Have you noticed that "Thanks" has increasingly become "Thanks so much" when used on TV.  The "so much" seems unnecessary and repetitious, but I guess is added for emphasis and flattery, especially on TV, when there are fawning contestants.

There was a while when everybody was talking about dissonance, but that has faded in more recent times.  

You watch the flow of words and ideas to watching the changing frequency of use.  The internet is a big spreader.  People adopt there ideas without having to think.  They copy a lot.  One common phrase that was used a lot as applied to education and memorizing is "regurgitate."  Thankfully, I don't hear (or read) that one so much anymore.

But back to nautical phrases, the phrase "shiver me timbers" came to mind.  That phrase is nautical slang and is a reference to the timbers, which are the wooden support frames of a sailing ship.  In heavy seas, ships would be lifted up and pounded down so hard as to "shiver" the timbers, startling the sailors. Such an exclamation was meant to convey a feeling of fear and awe, similar to, "Well, blow me down!", or "May God strike me alive and well". Since on the high seas the ship was the sailors' 'world', it may also be interpreted as an exclamation for "shake my world" as the subject being referred to could be or may be considered a potentially 'world shaking' event. (wikipedia)

I like tracking the source and adoption of words and ideas interesting.

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Sand Being Pushed Around at Fort Pierce South Jetty.

Surf Chart.
Source: Surfguru.com.

We're supposed to get a little more surf later this week.

Did I mention that Fort Pierce is talking about starting paid parking at some of their beaches.  I don't know if I got that posted before losing it.

Good hunting,

TreasureGuide@comcast.net