On the topic http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcannonbody.html , it reminded me of the short story by Edgar Allen Poe “THe Myster of Marie Roget”, a sequel to the “Murders in the Rue Morgue”. Its a really cool read, especially if you all liked this post.
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board, Ninja, glad to have you with us. And thanks for pointing this out, I’ll try to add a comment to the Staff Report.
Poe is supposedly quoting from L’Etoile, a French newspaper reporting the case, the body of Marie Rogêt having been pulled from the river:
Poe’s 1842 story is based upon true events, the death of Mary Rogers in New York in 1841, whose body was found floating in the Hudson River. The lenghty quote that Poe attributes to the French paper L’Etoile (which includes the sentence about the cannon) is, in fact, almost verbatim from a New York newspaper called Brother Jonathan, reporting on the Mary Rogers case.
Poe’s detective, Dupin, goes on at considerable length to discuss bodies floating or sinking, based on their “specific gravity”, and denies the assertion of L’Etoile about the floating or sinking of bodies.