Smithsonian_03_2020

March 2020 | SMITHSONIAN 43

Anna Funke, a

conservator,

prepares to use

a salt-removing

solution on the

Hunley at the

Warren Lasch

Conservation

Center in North

Charleston.

Reconstructions

of the Hunley

crew at a press

conference in

April 2004. Their

actual remains

were buried the

following day

in a Charleston

cemetery.

Brain tissue can also be aff ected by a shock wave,

which can cause traumatic injury without ever dam-

aging the skull. Critically, the brain remains intact

after a primary blast injury, and the only potential

sign of trauma is a faint inkblot of blood that may be

spread across its surface.

Fatalities from a primary blast occur at lower pres-

sures than the pressure levels required to translate

a human body. To rephrase that in plain English:

A person will die, choked with blood, from a shock

wave that was far too weak to move him.

I NEEDED TO GO BEYOND MY THEORY and actually

test my blast idea, which meant I needed a model

submarine and a body of water. My labmates and

I conducted preliminary experiments at Duke’s

Chilled Water Plant 2, which hosts a picturesque
reclaimed water pond. The results were encour-
aging, but we needed to scale up and also conduct
the experiment with black powder. Duke’s facilities
were not an option; Dale and I knew without even
asking that the safety offi ce would never allow live
explosives on campus. My boyfriend, Nick, helped
fi nd a test site: an isolated, expansive tobacco, cot-
ton and sweet potato farm with an artifi cial pond.
The owner, Bert Pitt, asked me to drive out to talk
before he agreed to the project. Understandably, he
had some questions.
Sitting on barstools at his white kitchen counter,
Bert and I looked at pictures of the Hunley on my lap-
top as I explained the project. I was using a scale mod-
TH el, I said, not a full-sized

E^ P

OS

T^ A

ND

C
OU

RIE

R^

CONTINUED ON PAGE 72