Silver Isle & Hanging Gardens Rules Questions

["arealgamenut" <lightwriter4x5@...>]

I have just discovered the wealth of games available for the 
piecepack and have several questions about the rules of 2 games. The 
following questions concern Silver Isle:

1. If a port successfully attacks a ship, or a ship successfully 
attacks a port or another ship, does the victor obtain all silver on 
the defeated ship or port?
2. The rules state that ports and ships may attack crews, but may 
crews initiate attacks against ports and ships?
3. If a crew wins an attack against a ship, what happens to the 
silver in excess of the one that can be carried?
4. A mine's value is determined "by counting the smallest number of 
moves a crew would need to move on foot from the mine's space to the 
port of matching color." Does this refer to the port whose color 
matches the color of the crew or the color of the owner of the mine?
5. I assume that if a crew wins an attack against another crew, and 
both carry silver, the silver that the defeated crew carries is left 
behind in the same space as the defeated crew and can be later 
claimed as unprotected silver. Is this correct?
6. The rules state that up to 24 tokens are needed to represent 
silver, but since up to 4 can play, and the maximum a mine can 
produce on a die of 0-5 is 5, shouldn't the maximum amount required 
be 20, or am I misunderstanding the game's mining process?

The following question concerns Hanging Gardens:
1. The rules state "for purposes of symmetry, blank spaces are 
equivalent to empty table (where no terrace exists)." Does this mean 
there is no distintion between them? Thus, for example, a row of 
blue, blank space, empty table the size of 1 blank space, another 
area of empty table the size of 1 blank space, and blue, would be 
considered symmetrical, with the first blank table space lying on 
the point of reflection, scoring 1 for color plus 2 for symmetry?

Thanks in advance for all your help.

Mike