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Unicorns

The official animal of Scotland is the Unicorn.

The unicorn has been a Scottish heraldic symbol since the 12th century, when it was used on an early form of the Scottish coat of arms by William I., an unusual choice, perhaps, but not for a country famed for its love for and long history of of legends.

Unicorns were worshipped by the ancient Babylonians, and written descriptions of them appear in texts from the ancient Persians, the Romans, the Greeks and ancient Jewish scholars, all describing a horse-like creature whose single horn had magical properties and could heal disease.

In Celtic mythology, the Unicorn of Scotland symbolized innocence and purity, healing powers, joy and even life itself, and was also seen as a symbol of masculinity and power.

Greek travelers told tales of unicorns living in far-off lands. As the accounts spread around the Western world, few people questioned that unicorns actually existed. Indeed, in about 300 BC, scholars translating the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek concluded that the Hebrew term re'em referred to a unicorn. Early naturalists considered the unicorn to be a living animal.

Both the pearly white unicorn of European lore and the benevolent Asian unicorn avoid contact with humans, preferring to remain unseen. When humans do encounter unicorns, the creatures cause them no harm, a favor that is not always returned. Indeed, countless stories tell of humans hunting European unicorns and luring them into traps.

During the reign of King James III (1466 - 1488), gold coins were introduced that featured a Unicorn, and at the time of King James VI of Scotland’s succeeding of Elizabeth I of England, and the resulting effective union of the two countries, the Scottish Royal Arms featured two unicorns as shield supporters. In a gesture of unity, King James replaced the one on the left with the English lion.

The symbolism was potent, for the lion and the unicorn had long been painted as enemies, vying for the crown of king of beasts, with the unicorn ruling through harmony and the lion by might.

Today, the Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland still has the English lion on the left and the Scottish unicorn on the right, and the Royal Coat of Arms for use in Scotland has them the other way round.

January 4, 1901, Amador Ledger, Jackson, California, U.S.A.

The Unique Horn of the Unicorn.

The horn of a unicorn was shown at Windsor castle and In 1598 was valued at over £10,000. Lewis Vertomannus, a gentleman of Rome, saw with his own eyes two unicorns presented to the sultan of Mecca by a king of Ethiopia. They were in a park of the temple of Mecca and were not much unlike a colt of 30 months of age. This was In 1503. The animal became extinct about the end of the seventeenth century.

The unicorn is represented in the ruins at Persepolis, and It was adopted by the Persians as the emblem of speed and strength. In the middle ages it was the symbol of purity. The unicorn hated the elephant, and it used to whet its horn on a stone before it struck the foe In the abdomen.

No family, by the way, should be without one of these horns, the average length of which is four feet. They defend from witchcraft

Thus Torquemada had one always on his table.

Furthermore, a drinking cup made from one will be a safeguard against poison, as will the ground powder put in drink, and Indeed the wells of the palace of St. Mark could not be poisoned in the good old days of adventure because these - beneficent horns - had been thrown Into them. Unicorn's horn was formerly sold by apothecaries at $120 an ounce. — Boston Journal

The Inquisition played a role in unicorns: To doubt the powers of the horn meant doubting the existence of the unicorn itself, animal of God mentioned in a translation of the Bible. Skeptics risked being burned at the stake.

Torquemada never ate unless the horn of a unicorn and the tongue of a scorpion were place beside his plate as charms against poison.

April 7, 1907, Los Angeles Herald, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.

Dolphins and Unicorns

...What the unicorn does with his horn is not very clear. Some travelers tell us that he uses it as a fork to skewer up the flat-fish from the bottom of the sea; never, however, does he seem to have been caught in the act. Others relate how it is used as a gimlet for boring blow-holes in the ice, but this statement is not made from personal observation. Others describe it as a weapon of offense and defense, confined to the males, and used much as the sword was in the duels of the past by rival combatants, and aver that unicorns are occasionally seen engaged in friendly fencing matches— which may or may not be true.

Its end is always worn and polished, so that the tooth must be in constant use; and another thing about it is certain, and that is that several ships, on being dry-docked, have been found pierced, and had the broken horn taken out of their timbers. As among both the cetaceans and the fishes we have dolphins, so have we unicorns, and the swordfish gives us another odd subject, whose upper jaw has been left in the timbers of many a ship.

In the Dreadnought trial in 1804 — an action brought against underwriters for damages said to have been caused by a swordfish — many instances of this were given in evidence by Professor Owen and the late Mr. Frank Buckland. It appeared that a swordfish had been caught by the crew and had broken away again, and that the same evening the ship sprung a leak, which leak the owners asserted was caused by a revengeful thrust from the angry fish.

Against this the scientific witnesses deposed that though a swordfish frequently pierces a ship's hull, he never gets his blade out again. The roughness of the underside of his jaw forbids its extraction. He has to break it off and leave it behind him, to die probably in the attempt. Professor Owen cited one instance in which the fish completely perforated the vessel's side, and poked his nose into a passenger's berth. An even more remarkable case is recorded of the driving power of the swordfish.

The English ship Leopard was once pierced by a fish through an inch of sheathing, three inches of plank and four and a half inches of solid timber — eight and a half inches of the sword being thus embedded. A record capped by the Hon. Tosiah Robbins, who relates that the ship Fortune was struck by a swordfish, which drove right through the copper, through an inch of board sheathing, three inches of hard wood plank, twelve inches of white oak, two and a half inches of hard oak ceiling plank, and, lastly, through the head of an oil-cask, where it remained immovably fixed without spilling the oil...

So far for the unicorns of the sea. Now for those of the land.

Whence came the horse with the narwhal's horn? The unicorn is older than the days of Job. Among the hieroglyphics of Egypt we get the lion and the body is that of an ass, sometimes that of a bull, sometimes that of a horse. The animal is the emblem of purity and virtue, and as such figures on the obelisks of Nimrod and the catacombs of Rome. Which is the real original unicorn-the single-homed rhinoceros, the donkey with the Frontal process of the giraffe, a mysterious antelope or the war-horse with the spiked chanfron?

We have heard of him from Herodotus and Aristotle. Ctesias derives him from India Caesar counts him among the fauna of the Hercynian forest. Of the five and twenty ancient and famous men who have written about him, no two seem to agree, except when they copy one from another. .

The horn is a puzzle. How it got there, how it stays there, none can be sure, Some make it movable, and picture the animal waggling it about like a stick. Others assert that it is so firm that its tip is always elected by its owner to fall upon when be leaps down from a cliff.

The unicorn, alive or dead, has never been seen complete by man; its horn has been occasionally discovered, sometimes preserved in museums, but, alas! the cherished horn, whenever it is examined, turns out to be a narwhal's tooth. Like the great sea-serpent, the unicorn remains a mystery, with a very much poorer chance of a satisfactory solution. It is a well-known device all over Europe. The tattered standard which Marcantonio da Monte, at Vicenza, clasped in his arms till he fell, was the flag, of the champion of the Orsinis Alviano, which, under the motto of "Venena pello"" — "I drive out poisons — showed the unicorn at a fountain stirring up the water, and surrounded by snakes and toads. This device, which figures in Duvet's famous etching, alludes to the fine old legend of the unicorn often heard in the East.

"The unicorn," so runs the modern version of this Eastern legend, "is found in Abyssinia. There the animals are undisturbed by man, and live after their own laws. The water does not flow in rivers, but lies hidden in the bosom of the soil. When the other animals wish to drink, the unicorn inserts his horn into the earth, and with it he scoops out a pool. He then satisfies his own thirst, and leaves what he does not want for the others."

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1899. World's Fleet. Boston Daily Globe

Lloyds Register of Shipping gives the entire fleet of the world as 28,180 steamers and sailing vessels, with a total tonnage of 27,673,628, of which 39 perent are British.

Great Britain	10,990 vessels, total tonnage of 10,792,714
United States	3,010 vessels, total tonnage of 2,405,887
Norway	2,528 vessels, tonnage of 1,604,230
Germany	1,676 vessels, with a tonnage of 2,453,334, in which are included her particularly large ships.
Sweden	1,408 vessels with a tonnage of 643, 527
Italy	1,150 vessels
France	1,182 vessels

For Historical Comparison
Top 10 Maritime Nations Ranked by Value (2017)

	Country	# of Vessels	Gross Tonnage (m)	Total Value (USDbn)
1	Greece	4,453	206.47	$88.0
2	Japan	4,317	150.26	$79.8
3	China	4,938	159.71	$71.7
4	USA	2,399	55.92	$46.5
5	Singapore	2,662	64.03	$41.7
6	Norway	1,668	39.68	$41.1
7	Germany	2,923	81.17	$30.3
8	UK	883	28.78	$24.3
9	Denmark	1,040	36.17	$23.4
10	South Korea	1,484	49.88	$20.1
Total		26,767	87.21	$466.9