lagan or ligan

[Mark Kohut]

Maritime law, mentioned in IV, is perhaps the oldest, most convoluted, most deeply intertwined with the past, since the oceans were there before
the lands were 'nationalized', so to speak. 

So, lawyers and paralegal friends have told me...

--- On Wed, 8/12/09, Robert Mahnke <rpmahnke at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Robert Mahnke <rpmahnke at gmail.com>
> Subject: lagan or ligan
> To: "P-list" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Wednesday, August 12, 2009, 10:10 AM
> It even took several centuries before
> the law could make up its mind
> about exactly what constituted wreck.  The legal
> historian Lord Coke,
> writing in 1817, defined it thus:
> 
> "Flotsam is when a ship is sunk or otherwise perished, and
> the goods
> float upon the sea.  Jetsam is when the ship is in
> danger of being
> sunk and, to lighten the ship, the goods are cast into the
> sea, and
> afterwards notwithstanding the ship perish.  Lagan or
> ligan is when
> the goods are so cast into the sea, and afterwards the ship
> perishes,
> and the goods are so heavy that they sink to the bottom;
> and the
> mariners to the intent to have them again, tie to them a
> buoy, or
> cork, or such other  thing that will not sink, so that
> they may find
> them again."
> 
> Bella Bathurst, The Wreckers 9-10 (Houghton Mifflin,
> 2005).
>