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    Re: Transcription of Worsley's Log
    From: George Huxtable
    Date: 2009 Mar 17, 13:38 -0000

    Dear Brad,
    
    That time difference corresponds to 10 just over miles. You are doing 
    exactly the right thing.
    
    I didn't know you had collected a copy of Norie's. Was this an acquisition 
    that was triggered by our present enquiry, or have you had a longstanding 
    interest in such matters?
    
    I had wondered about suggesting to you that you might find an old copy of 
    Norie's useful, until I looked up prices in Abebooks. A few years ago, I 
    picked up a very thick copy of Norie's, both text and tables bound together, 
    in our local bookshop (who is in no way a nautical specialist) for a fiver! 
    Norie's updated them at different times, so the text (432 pages) was dated 
    1900, and the tables (590 pages) 1914. I kid myself that is identical to 
    what Worsley carried with him, without firm evidence. But it could be; the 
    date's right...
    
    I'm interested to learn whether your earlier edition gives the same method 
    of working to derive "time at place" as the bit I copied from the later 
    edition (method 1) to Navlist.
    
    The log trig tables in my edition are given to six decimal places, of which 
    I discarded the last one, rounding appropriately. Worsley may have done the 
    same, or he may have been working from 5-fig tables. Anyway, his numbers 
    agreed exactly with my own, when I took them from the tables. Working to six 
    places is relevant only to lunars (and hardly relevant to them, even). Have 
    you tried working from the tables, without your calculator?
    
    I must admit that I find those tables difficult to use, there being so many 
    options to get the answer wrong, with differently labelled columns depending 
    on whether you're working backwards through the pages (for angles over 45º), 
    and from the top of the page or the bottom. For those like you and me, just 
    dipping in, it's all very unfamiliar. On the other hand, to Worsley, working 
    with such tables every day, it would become automatic.
    
    About Elephant Island-
    I attach some pages from the expedition report (Malcolm Burley), which 
    explain a bit further about Wild camp. Surely, that was from where the 
    morning Sun was observed, for rating the chronometer, from the shingle spit 
    bridging to the little island. Unfortunately, the map I copied to you gives 
    only one marked crossing of lat and long lines, so you have to derive 
    positions from there using the scale of metres. It amused me to see how the 
    expedition had to dispute use of the territory with the local wildlife. 
    Shackleton's lot would just have clubbed them for the larder, no doubt. I 
    attach a page from Orde-Lees diary, taken from John Thomson's "Elephant 
    Island and beyond", (2003), showing some sketches of the camp. Incidentally, 
    Thomson, who lives near Wellington in New Zealand, refers to Worsley's 
    "Diaries of the Endurance Expedition", at the Alexander Turnbull library, in 
    Wellington, and also to "Endurance Diaries", of both Orde-Lees and McNeish, 
    held at the same library. I will say more about Thomson later.
    
    I have been in touch with John Peacock, an old friend who crossed South 
    Georgia, twenty years ago perhaps, on another Joint Services expedition led 
    by the same Malcolm Burley. I've been asking him about the puzzle, in 
    Shackleton's "memory map" of South Georgia, in "South", in which the 
    positions of Stromness and Husvik were castled, so that it appeared to show 
    him passing through Husvik to reach Stromness. It doesn't make sense, and 
    it's hard to imagine how Shackleton could get it so fundamentally wrong, 
    even if exhausted at the time.
    
    Worsley could have used two slightly-different points on Elephant Island for 
    location. The shingle spit at Wild camp for chronometer rating, and the Cape 
    Belsham landmark for "taking his departure" from, while it remained in view..
    
    I wonder if your Norie's gives a position for Elephant Island. Mine just 
    says -
    "Elephant I., Summit- S61º 11' 0", W 54º 50' 0".
    
    As the island has several summits, at similar heights, widely separated, 
    that wouldn't have been very helpful to Worsley. If he had a decent chart, 
    that would have been more useful. I wonder what charts he possessed, at that 
    stage?
    
    I attach a picture which is on the jacket of John Thomson's "Elephant Island 
    and beyond", which I assume to be taken from the gravel spit at Wild camp in 
    Elephant Island, though I can't find any caption to say so.
    
    =============
    
    Here's a matter which strikes me of as significant. This journey was well 
    reported, and I have on my shelves, and have (mostly) read, MANY different 
    accounts touching on that boat journey, as follows-
    
    Ernest Shackleton "South" (1919).
    Frank Worsley, "Endurance", (1931).
    Frank Worsley, "Shackleton's boat journey", (1940).
    Margery & James Fisher, "Shackleton" (1957).
    Alfred Lansing, "Shackleton's Valiant Voyage", (1963).
    Roland Huntford, "Shackleton", (1985)
    Harding Dennett, "Shackleton's Boat", (1996).
    Tim & Pauline Carr, "Atlantic Oasis" (1998). about South Georgia.
    Caroline Alexander, "The Endurance" (1998)
    John Thomson, "Shackleton's Captain", (1999).
    Huntford / Summers "The Shackleton Voyages" (date?)
    Michael Smith, "An Unsung Hero", (2001), about Crean
    John Thomson, "Elephant Island and beyond" (2003)  (about Orde-Lees).
    
    
    I give that list not (just) to impress you with the breadth of my library or 
    the depth of my reading; actually, most were collected by my wife Joan, who 
    takes a great interest in these matters. Here's the significant bit. I do 
    not recall a single mention, in all those volumes, of a Worsley manuscript 
    log held at Canterbury Museum, Christchurch. The only references I recall 
    seeing to a log are to that held at the Scott Polar Research Institute in 
    Cambridge, which we suspect, from Dennett, to be secondaryy and incomplete.
    
    So none of those authors appears to have been aware of the manuscript held 
    at Christchurch. Even Worsley, writing in 1940, didn't appear to have a copy 
    of his log , to judge by the inconsistensies in his account. So I think you 
    are on to something new (well, perhaps you and Lawrence Rudner, let's say). 
    And it  may be that only the two of us have sufficient know-how, between us, 
    to interpret it. Again, maybe Rudner knows how to do that, also.
    
    I wonder whether it would be helpful to get in touch with John Thomson? He 
    has produced two books on the subject, and lives in New Zealand, though in 
    North Island, near Wellington. Is it worth discussing with him how far we've 
    got, between us? He might be interested enough to take a trip to 
    Christchurch, which is a lot more accessible to him than to us. Unless, of 
    course, you can be persuaded to take a holiday in New Zealand yourself, or 
    can persuade Tactronics to send you there. He could be a useful ally. I have 
    asked his publisher to put him in touch with me, but will not go further 
    without your says-so.
    
    I don't think he is any sort of navigational expert himself, being an 
    ex-journalist, now retired (77).
    
    
    contact George Huxtable, at  george@hux.me.uk
    or at +44 1865 820222 (from UK, 01865 820222)
    or at 1 Sandy Lane, Southmoor, Abingdon, Oxon OX13 5HX, UK. 
    
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