# Another Source

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-source/170467>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [April 23, 2003, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-source/170467 "2003-04-23T00:52:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Ninjagrapefruit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ee59a6/32.png) [@Ninjagrapefruit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ninjagrapefruit)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-source/170467/1 "2003-04-23T00:52:36Z")

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On the topic [http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcannonbody.html](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.

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**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-source/170467/2 "2003-04-23T20:31:21Z")

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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:

> [@](#):
>
> All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into the water immediately after death by violence, require from six to ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to the top of the water. Even where a cannon is fired over a corpse, and it rises before at least five or six days’ immersion, it sinks again, if left alone.

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.