tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post4244451787417216721..comments2024-03-18T18:05:25.821-07:00Comments on VISIONS OF THE NORTH: The Library of the Erebus and TerrorRussell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-26334987667140169172016-03-01T09:37:36.974-08:002016-03-01T09:37:36.974-08:00The cold helped to preserve the paper in the Titan...The cold helped to preserve the paper in the Titanic, but it was never cold enough to freeze it. Because the hold of Erebus had the equivalent of buoyancy tanks, even if it took on water after being abandoned, it might have floated for a long time. Summer was short. When autumn came, and the dry upper areas of the ship where documents were stored cooled below the temperature of the water in the lower part of the ship, condensation and then frost would have formed on anything cold, including paper. The damp paper would have frozen when winter came. We can see what this did to the Victory Pt document, where wet spots stained and weakened the paper. Randall Osczevskihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09858473343619938440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-41677386607318465032009-04-29T11:30:00.000-07:002009-04-29T11:30:00.000-07:00Thanks. As a young midshipman Franklin served unde...Thanks. As a young midshipman Franklin served under, and was shipwrecked with, Mathew Flinders who had been a midshipman on William Bligh's successful second breadfruit voyage. So each of the three had unique material on the subject for the after dinner conversation.<br />I heartily agree it would be great to see more of that unpublished material brought to light.<br /><br />Cheers<br />PeterPeter Carneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11460641723782699540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-87903028809676631372009-04-28T12:46:00.000-07:002009-04-28T12:46:00.000-07:00Hi Russell,
Fairholme's letters have never been p...Hi Russell,<br /><br />Fairholme's letters have never been published, which is a shame. I imagine there were several copies of Barrow's history of the mutiny on the Bounty on board - Osmer had visited Pitcairn Island too. There must have been a copy too of Barrow's history of Arctic voyages, which I have not read, as Fitzjames was indignant when he found it was missing from the 'Library'.<br /><br />William.William Battersbyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00452863778733148002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-68574394083745692732009-04-28T10:55:00.000-07:002009-04-28T10:55:00.000-07:00p.s. apologies for the confusion about the Back an...p.s. apologies for the confusion about the Back anecdote -- my browser was acting up, and inbetween restarts, I saw the bottom paragraph of your new comment and thought it was Peter's ...Russell Potterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-11928946718494956062009-04-28T10:29:00.000-07:002009-04-28T10:29:00.000-07:00William, just saw your comment as I was writing m...William, just saw your comment as I was writing my earlier reply -- I'd also heard of these Admiralty lists, but so far as I've been able to search, they don't seem to have been preserved. There is also an anecdote, in Cyriax as I recall, of a great quantity of donated books, mostly religious tracts, prayerbooks, etc. which had to be turned away.<br /><br />But best of all is your Fairholme reference, of which I hadn't known. Where were his letters published, or is this from manuscript? One of my back-burner projects over the years has been to publish a volume of all the surviving letters posted from Greenland; it would take some doing, but I wouldn't be surprised if other references to particular volumes were to turn up!<br /><br />Thanks for a fabulous follow-up ...Russell Potterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-25112156020535068422009-04-28T10:08:00.000-07:002009-04-28T10:08:00.000-07:00Peter, thanks so very much for your insightful com...Peter, thanks so very much for your insightful comments, and the additional Google Books links! I'm delighted to see that the right edition of the Vicar of Wakefield is available after all. The edition of Christian Melodies, alas, seems to me a different one from Graham Gore's; if you go to the NMM archive site you'll see it has a pictorial frontispiece.<br /><br />I would not be at all surprised to see Barrow's account of the HMS Bounty aboard either ship -- Fitzjames was close to Barrow's son, and Crozier had in fact once visited Pitcairn Island as a young man, and met with some of the descendants of the mutineers.<br /><br />And lastly, many thanks for the anecdote about Back's having kept Graham Gore's book -- it's most touching! I wonder where that volume is now?Russell Potterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-87789135413146118962009-04-28T10:02:00.000-07:002009-04-28T10:02:00.000-07:00Yet another fascinating post, Russell.
Just a cou...Yet another fascinating post, Russell.<br /><br />Just a couple of items which might be interesting.<br /><br />The Admiralty records show that each ship had a ‘Library’. There are Admiralty references on 15th April, 1845 to ‘Seaman’s Library Special Books’ and on 29th April, 1845 to a ‘List of Books to be Supplied’. As you say they took a lot of earlier explorers’ books, presumably for the officers rather than ‘seamen’, and of course officers would have taken their own books. I’ll check, but I don’t think either list referred to has survived in the Admiralty’s records. It would be great if it had. It’s mildly amusing that it was only later, on 1st May, 1845, that Franklin asked for book-cases to fitted to the ships, presumably after the ‘Library’ was delivered and they found out they’d nowhere to put all the books!<br /><br />Fairholme referred to the same catalogue of books as Fitzjames when he wrote, on 1st July, “I've here got a catalogue made out of all the books, public and private there are on board (and the Terror is doing the same) and we find there is scarcely a book that we can think of as being required that is not in the list. We shall supply each other with these lists, and thus, when a book is wanted, the Librarian (Goodsir) will at once know which ship and what cabin it is in”. Fairholme was an inveterate reader and on the early stages of the voyage he was reading ‘Indications of the Creator’, by William Whewell, ‘Physical description of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land’ by Count de Strzelecki and ‘Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation’ by Rev. George B. Cheever. Fitzjames (presumably out of duty) read Franklin’s book about the injustices he claimed to have suffered in Van Diemen’s Land - possibly in proof. There are several indications that officers had read about the Ross and Crozier voyage to the Antarctic, too.<br /><br />Leslie Neatby in his book ‘In Quest Of The North West Passage’ (1958), says that the book “A Manual of Private Devotion”, which was found by McClintock at the ‘boat place’, was inscribed by Sir George Back to Graham Gore and was returned to Back, who ‘kept it in his drawing-room under glass to the day of his death’.William Battersbyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00452863778733148002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-74101778814052021192009-04-28T08:56:00.000-07:002009-04-28T08:56:00.000-07:00Fascinating stuff - the Student's Manual real...Fascinating stuff - the Student's Manual really gives a glimpse into the ethos of the day.<br />Your link to that book has earlier versions in the "other editions" column.<br /><br />Google Books is a fantastic resource and gets better daily as more books are added. Sometimes the bibliographic data is wrong and sometimes searches don't work because the OCR produces nonsense so finding what you're looking for can be time consuming and sometimes a matter of luck.<br /><br />These two may be of interest:<br /><br />The Vicar of Wakefield, Van Voorst 1842<br />http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bvkDAAAAQAAJ<br /><br />Christian Melodies, Thomas Ward & Co, 1837<br />http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=Q_ISAAAAIAAJ<br /><br />For several reasons, one book which I would expect to have been on board would be Barrow's "The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of H.M.S. Bounty" <br />http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=IgUPAAAAYAAJ which ironically includes an appendix on the Whaleship Essex - one of the few occurences of cannibalism which Dickens forgot to mention in his refutation of Rae's report.<br /><br />Regards<br /><br />Peter<br />16:52 GMTPeter Carneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11460641723782699540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-39260381397554020022009-04-27T00:30:00.000-07:002009-04-27T00:30:00.000-07:00Absolutely fascinating, Russell.Absolutely fascinating, Russell.Marilyn Hamiltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06904352656219793849noreply@blogger.com