BS: Old time sailing ships cargo - taltal???

Subject: BS: Old time sailing ships cargo - taltal???
From: GUEST,Jacqued
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 03:58 PM

I have been referred to taltal (or Tal Tal) as a cargo carried by sailing vessels of the last century. But cannot find any other reference to what it might have been.   Help!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Old time sailing ships cargo - taltal???
From: MMario
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 04:04 PM

I suspect it was chilian nitrate and/or guano

Subject: RE: BS: Old time sailing ships cargo - taltal???
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 04:15 PM

These folks might be of some help, too: Click here.

Subject: RE: BS: Old time sailing ships cargo - taltal???
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 04:49 PM

Talqual was an unsorted cargo of fish. Possibility?

Subject: RE: BS: Old time sailing ships cargo - taltal???
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 04:52 PM

According to the OED, also written as tal qual, or all qual. (1987 supplement)

Subject: RE: BS: Old time sailing ships cargo - taltal???
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 05:05 PM

Using that as a clue, I found the following from the Dictionary of Newfoundland English

   [c1894] PANL P4/14, p. 196 Tal qual, sometimes called all qualls, fish bought without culling is clearly the Latin talis qualis, 'such as it is.' 1896 J A Folklore ix, 31 In the prices current in the newspapers one may see fish distinguished as tol squolls or tal squals and quoted at certain figures. [1911] 1930 COAKER 30 Fish would not have advanced beyond $5.30 talqual this season if the FPU did not exist. [1913] 1954 INNIS 462 It may truthfully be said that there is no cull of fish to be standardized, all fish being bought tal qual. 1928 FPU (Twillingate) Minutes 5 Oct [He] said that tal qual fish was $8.20 and Spanish $9 and cullage $5 in Port Union today. 1933 Nfld Royal Commission Report 105 During the War years, quantity rather than quality became the ruling consideration; the 'cull' was therefore dispensed with and fish were bought on what is known as the 'tal qual' system, viz., an average price was fixed for the whole of a fisherman's catch without any exact regard to the varying qualities of the fish comprising the catch. 1937 DEVINE 51 ~ As to qualities of fish, it means taking the good and middling at the same price. P 127-73 He bought thirty quintals of tal qual. P 209-73 ~ Good and bad fish together.

as well as this:

tal qual av phr O Sup2 ~ Nfld (1732-).
   [1732 in Calendar State Papers, Amer. & W. Indies (1939) 282 And by carrying a mixt cargoe which is all sold at markett for marchantable fish, when it's only (what in the stile of the fishermen is called Tal Qual) to the shoarmen. O Sup2.] P 245-87 'The Chairman of the Canadian Saltfish Corporation said that he didn't like it but that they had to buy tal qual [this year] because of the competition [for cod] from the large fish plants.' 1987 MCDONALD 8 An additional factor that prejudiced good quality was the growing practice of 'tal qual' purchasing, whereby merchants bought all qualities of fish at a flat rate.

Subject: RE: BS: Old time sailing ships cargo - taltal???
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 05:23 PM

According to the OED, the word appeared in print in the 18th century, so the sailing ship era is pretty well covered.

Subject: RE: BS: Old time sailing ships cargo - taltal???
From: nutty
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 06:32 PM

According to this site - Taltal is a port in Chile where nitrate was loaded

Taltal

Subject: RE: BS: Old time sailing ships cargo - taltal???
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 07:17 PM

Interesting stuff. I had found a few sites which had it, but they were in Portuguese which I don't know.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Old time sailing ships cargo - taltal???
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 07:25 PM

I doubt that Taltal would be used as the name of a cargo, although it is a port in Chile. Even so, qual tal would be the likely cargo in many areas.
Guest Jacqued did not give a full reference to where he found the term used, so which definition is needed is uncertain.

Subject: RE: BS: Old time sailing ships cargo - taltal???
From: nutty
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 04:23 AM

Guest Q .....I'm afraid I disagree

It would have been very possible for a cargo to take on the name of the port where it was loaded.....particularly if there were other similar points of loading in the area.
Or if the product could be obtained from other places.

Subject: RE: BS: Old time sailing ships cargo - taltal???
From: nutty
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 04:43 AM

a translation of one of the site gleaned this information

TALTAL And The RAILROAD

                                 The locality of Taltal has its origin in the discovery of the salitrero corner
                                 of Taltal, that it carried out the pioneer Jose Brown Antonio by the decade
                                 of 1850. The town grew on the base of the mining facilities and to the port
                                 that Colored person per 1858 built, to operate and to export the mineral.
                                 By virtue of the treaty of limits of 1866 between Chile and Bolivia, Taltal
                                 became the most northern locality of Chile. By virtue of the strategic
                                 importance of Taltal, and to foment the industry of nitrate, the Chilean
                                 government had in 1877 the layout and the poblamiento the city, the one
                                 that was growing and being developed in the middle of the anything,
                                 White thanks to the immense wealth of the near corners, Taltal and
                                 Aguas.

                                 Taltal was, as Iquique and Pisagua, a great salitrero port. The Salitrero
                                 Railroad was constructed by The Taltal Railway Co, English company
                                 with seat in London. The work was made as of 1882, quickly, efficiency
                                 and quality. In 1889 the line arrived at the terminal station: Cachinal, to
                                 149 kilometers of Taltal. The railroad had branches to all the offices of
                                 the region. Jointly with the railway network, the company constructed
                                 harbor infrastructure in an area of 15 hectares. The facilities
                                 included/understood five wharves, warehouses, coal bunkers, arsenal,
                                 platform, house of machines, and a stock of transport means that got to
                                 consist of 560 cars and 22 locomotives. It still on remains the Nº2 Wharf,
                                 that is the last one of the seven loading platforms that had Taltal. It has a
                                 length of 120 meters and a wide one of 12, and rests on 33 stocks of 4
                                 piles each one. Envigado of wood is of cross-sectional and longitudinal
                                 metallic structure with; the piles are of steel. The structure was made in
                                 mounted England and in situ. It could support two locomotives with his
                                 loaded cars of saltpeter, and embark the product by his two bands,
                                 through mailboxes that still are possible to distinguish. On the cover of
                                 the wharf they are left the ruins of two cranes to steam that operated in
                                 the load and unloads.

Subject: RE: BS: Old time sailing ships cargo - taltal???
From: GUEST,Jacqued
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 02:15 PM

Hi Guest Q

A friend of ours came across the term taltal? when reading a general reference to sailing ships'cargoes.   She is something of a obscure term freak - another of her jollies was Beaumont's Egg!!!!!

Now that could start a paper chase!

Subject: RE: BS: Old time sailing ships cargo - taltal???
From: greg stephens
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 05:39 PM

Beaumont's egg: stuff shoved in holes in the Tay Bridge compnents castings, to disguise shoddy workmanship. Led to the disaster. How's that? I speak from memory, may be wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Old time sailing ships cargo - taltal???
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 05:48 PM

Greg is right. The phrase probably comes from beau montage (see OED), a method of filling holes with plaster.
It seems, from the inquiry into the collapse, that the structure lacked support against lateral winds and that that was the true cause. An article in google on this.