The newspaper plane, with Monk and Ham on board, is approaching Magna Island. You may remember that the island looked something like a frog from the air. The Gold Firm spokesman is pointing out the gold extraction plant's location.
"Benjamin Giltstein pointed at the crotch where the legs, had the island been a frog, would have joined."
This just happens to be the particular spot where the gold extracting plant is located. It is a big joke. This little green frog is "excreting" gold bars.
One other thing came to my attention while trying to find if the inventor's name, Wehman Mills had any particular meaning or significance. A web search came up with this: Wehman's Book On Gymnastic Exercises For the Development of Muscle and Stature (1910).
This brings up the question as to whether Dent was familiar with this book. It is certainly on a topic Dent emphasized in the novels. The reader wonders if Dent took the inventor's name from this book. That is practically impossible to answer unless someone was to produce a copy that had been in Dent's personal library. But you have to wonder about the coincidence.
Western Historic Manuscript Collection: There are some differences in the manuscript. Early in the story we learn that Johnny is irked because he is sometimes addressed as Sir William Harper Littlejohn. He was knighted for exceptional achievements in his studies. This was cut from the printed edition.
Another cut scene occurs immediately after Elaine Mills and Henry Trump have been tied up and dumped overboard from the French vessel, La Colombe. They discuss swimming to shore. Elaine comments that she is no "Gertrude Ederle."
Gertrude Ederle was an American swimmer who became the first woman to swim the English Channel. She set this record in 1926 and it was regarded as a tremendous feat. She was nineteen years old at the time. Upon returning to New York she was honored with a ticker tape parade. A reported two million people attended.
There are three different versions of the manuscript’s last page whereby the next story is introduced.
1. The first is titled "Veil of Silence" (Red Snow).
2. The next version references “The Annihilist.”
3. The third version cites “The Mystic Mullah” as the next adventure.
In actuality the published order was The Annihilist, The Mystic Mullah, and then Red Snow.
In his article Writing Python Isle from Pulp Vault #10, Will Murray explains Dent had contracted with Richard B. Sale to ghost The Mystic Mullah. Sale quit after only two chapters leaving Dent to finish the job. But at the time Dent was writing The Sea Magician it wasn't clear which story would be finished first and hence published next.
One more piece cut from the story has Doc telling Monk to leave his pet pig in London.
Another change from the manuscript occurs at the point where Henry Trump and Elaine Mills are captured on board the La Colombe. In the book, one of the gang masquerades as a deck hand scrubbing the deck. As they appear on deck, he pulls a pistol from the water-filled bucket and takes them prisoner. In the manuscript, Henry Trump knocks the gun from Elaine Mill's hand after returning to the cabin. Paquis and Smith are holding guns at Trump's back.
Colombe is French for dove.
The June 1934 issue of Popular Mechanics Magazine had an article, Gold from the Sea? featuring a mining operation that was extracting gold from sea water.
The main idea of a lost treasure in The Wash is based on historical facts.
November 12, 1934 – Movies: The Laurel and Hardy film Babes in Toyland debuts.
November 12, 1934 – The Reichsmarine commissions the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer.
November 21, 1934 – The first report on the Business Plot is reported by the Philadelphia Record.
November 27, 1934 – FBI agents shoot and kill notorious bank robber “Baby Face” Nelson.
