# FLoating Bread Loaves of Mercury

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/floating-bread-loaves-of-mercury/170684>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [April 23, 2003, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/floating-bread-loaves-of-mercury/170684 "2003-04-23T21:00:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![schunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@schunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/schunder)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2003, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/floating-bread-loaves-of-mercury/170684/1 "2003-04-23T21:00:46Z")

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[http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcannonbody.html](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcannonbody.html)

The floating bread techinique could work if a corpse is floating down a river, and gets stuck in an eddy, then over time sinks there. It would stand to reason that a loaf of bread that is weighted down by mercury could also get stuck in the same eddy. Or if the current were to cause the corpse to get lodged on a pile of stick on a bridge abutment - the loaf would also get lodged there. It isn’t the most accurate way to find something: but it is a way to start. I would use stick rather than a wasting food or dumping a heavy metal into the environment.

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**Author:** ![Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)\
**Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/floating-bread-loaves-of-mercury/170684/2 "2003-04-26T21:57:30Z")

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I don’t have a copy of the book, and I read it long ago, but it is mentioned in the original question that Huck eats the bread with the mercury in it. Is this true?

I never thought about mercury poisoning, I just used to wonder what kind of bread would still be edible after floating in a river for any length of time. Seems to me it would get soggy pretty quickly.

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**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2003, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/floating-bread-loaves-of-mercury/170684/3 "2003-04-27T00:32:07Z")

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Sounds like one of Isaac Asimov’s early novels: “Lucky Starr and the Floating Bread Loaves of Mercury.”

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**Author:** ![Joao-B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Joao-B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joao-B)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2003, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/floating-bread-loaves-of-mercury/170684/4 "2003-04-27T11:24:19Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Laughing Lagomorph \*  
> \*\*I don’t have a copy of the book, and I read it long ago, but it is mentioned in the original question that Huck eats the bread with the mercury in it. Is this true?
> 
> I never thought about mercury poisoning, I just used to wonder what kind of bread would still be edible after floating in a river for any length of time. Seems to me it would get soggy pretty quickly. \*\*

“A big double loaf come along, and I most got it with a  
long stick, but my foot slipped and she floated out further. Of course I was where the current set in the closest to the shore–I knowed enough for that. But by and by along comes another one, and this time I won. I took out the plug and shook out the little dab of quicksilver, and set my teeth in. It was “baker’s Bread”–what the quality eat; none of your low-down corn-pone.”

by the way, you can get a copy of the book from Project Guttemberg 😉 [http://tinyurl.com/af3w](http://tinyurl.com/af3w)