A ship's log suddenly surfaced when a diver in Casco Bay lifted what he thought was a piece of ceramic cookware. The ship's log was in surprisingly good condition as it was not inscribed on the traditional paper used during the early nineteenth century.
Rumor had it that the ship's captain, of Gunboat #9, had misplaced the ship's log when he couldn't find the mail that his brother-in-law brought him during a visit aboard. He had turned his cabin practically upside down looking for the "blasted thing".
It turns out that the ship's log was inscribed on a piece of shell, because he had run out of paper due to a prolonged bout of the runs, and he had put the piece of shell with the ship's "goings on" inside the cookware for "safekeeping". But after he left the ship for the final time, he had forgotten to liberate that one section and it sat in the cookware, got cooked on, boiled, and otherwise processed through several soups, with the cooks unaware that the piece was not a part of the pot.
Historians deciphered the writings and determined it was indeed the missing ship's log when they cleaned the surface of the object and then rubbed ink in the scratches. They were astonished when they found that the entire ship's log included the captain's name, the position of the vessel, the name of the vessel, and a grocery list.