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Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912)
Details
Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912)
Autograph manuscript, 'Remarks on Salinity of sea ice', n.p. [Discovery, McMurdo Sound], n.d. [1902], on paper with printed heading of 'Discovery Antarctic Expedition 1901', 2 pages, 8vo, on a bifolium.
PROVENANCE:
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922), and thence by descent.
Scott instructs Shackleton's scientific work on the Discovery expedition. Scott proposes four enquiries as to the salinity of sea ice: 'Q1 Brine is forced to the surface of young ice & appears in the form of crystal. How long does this process go on?'; 'Q2 Does the percentage of brine vary (i) With the thickness of the ice (ii) With its age[?]'; 'Q3 Is brine excluded below the ice?'; 'Q4 When ice is formed on water is the salinity of the layer of water immediately under the ice affected?'. Scott suggests experiments corresponding to each question, with directions for the conclusions that might be reached.
Shackleton was placed in charge of sea-water analysis from his enrolment in the Discovery expedition, a responsibility for which no previous scientific training qualified him. He was given instruction during the early stages of the voyage by the oceanographer and meteorologist Dr Hugh Robert Mill (Shackleton's first biographer), who noted that Shackleton 'found the minute accuracy required rather irksome ... But his inexhaustible good humour made correction easy'. Scott too commended Shackleton's scientific work: 'He is always anxious lest he has been unmindful of some little precaution or made some error in calculation'. The present manuscript demonstrates how closely involved Scott's celebrated scientific interest could be, and may hint at the degree of supervision in such detailed work required by Shackleton's more mercurial temperament.
Autograph manuscript, 'Remarks on Salinity of sea ice', n.p. [Discovery, McMurdo Sound], n.d. [1902], on paper with printed heading of 'Discovery Antarctic Expedition 1901', 2 pages, 8vo, on a bifolium.
PROVENANCE:
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922), and thence by descent.
Scott instructs Shackleton's scientific work on the Discovery expedition. Scott proposes four enquiries as to the salinity of sea ice: 'Q1 Brine is forced to the surface of young ice & appears in the form of crystal. How long does this process go on?'; 'Q2 Does the percentage of brine vary (i) With the thickness of the ice (ii) With its age[?]'; 'Q3 Is brine excluded below the ice?'; 'Q4 When ice is formed on water is the salinity of the layer of water immediately under the ice affected?'. Scott suggests experiments corresponding to each question, with directions for the conclusions that might be reached.
Shackleton was placed in charge of sea-water analysis from his enrolment in the Discovery expedition, a responsibility for which no previous scientific training qualified him. He was given instruction during the early stages of the voyage by the oceanographer and meteorologist Dr Hugh Robert Mill (Shackleton's first biographer), who noted that Shackleton 'found the minute accuracy required rather irksome ... But his inexhaustible good humour made correction easy'. Scott too commended Shackleton's scientific work: 'He is always anxious lest he has been unmindful of some little precaution or made some error in calculation'. The present manuscript demonstrates how closely involved Scott's celebrated scientific interest could be, and may hint at the degree of supervision in such detailed work required by Shackleton's more mercurial temperament.
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