Old Weather Forum
Old Weather: Classic => The Dockyard => Topic started by: Craig on 03 August 2012, 11:05:29
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Add your questions and comments to this topic.
If you need help transcribing see:
Corwin -- Reference: Transcription Example and Log Description (http://forum.oldweather.org/index.php?topic=3273.0)
Guides for US logs: drawing entry boxes, transcribing and editing (http://forum.oldweather.org/index.php?topic=3078.0)
Getting Your Sea Legs (http://forum.oldweather.org/index.php?board=4.0)
The Logs and FAQ (http://forum.oldweather.org/index.php?board=7.0)
Handwriting Help (http://forum.oldweather.org/index.php?board=8.0)
Technical Support (http://forum.oldweather.org/index.php?board=14.0)
If you are interested in the names of crew members see:
Corwin -- Crew Lists (http://forum.oldweather.org/index.php?topic=3406.0)
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The
USRC Corwin was a US Revenue Cutter. Here is an interesting article on
the USRC service. The service was established to reduce smuggling and
thereby increase customs tax revenue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Revenue_Cutter_Service.
Thanks to Randi, I found and ordered a book containing the writings of John Muir. John Muir: His Life and Letters and Other Writings.
He was a dedicated conservationist and founded the Sierra Club. The
book contains a chapter entitled "the Cruise of the Corwin", which
describes Muir's voyage to Alaska in 1881. This is in the period covered
by the logs.
Beazer! 8) Let us have a few snippets won't you?! :D
Craig & Joan - Please excuse me for doubling up your posts, but I needed an empty first post.
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Haven't got the book yet but you can be sure I will give you some snippets when I do ;D
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Some is available online:
http://books.google.fr/books?id=v5gBcjZkQ5IC&printsec=frontcover&dq=john+muir&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jwQHUMW4Kcag0QX7zeHCDQ&ved=0CFoQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=corwin&f=false
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Well just blow me down...I had a quick peak and there was a mention of the Corwin AND the Rodgers on page 718. ;D
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We are an amazing fount of wisdom!!
We continue to amaze!! :D
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The Corwin log keeper is using "h" to record haze rather than hail
in the weather codes. This is confirmed on the remarks page, 4-8AM:
"clear with haze on the horizon"
http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ow3/USS%20Corwin/Corwin_1881/pics2%20285_1.jpg
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Here is an extreme example of a crooke page. Anyone recognize those fingers ;D
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Janet, if you haven't already could you pass a message to the people
doing the scanning to try to keep the pages as straight as possible?
When they are slanted, like in the image above, I see less than 1/2 of
the line at once and it is very easy to make a mistake. In the above
example the capture window spans 3 hours and I sometimes I forget which
line I am working on, especially with the ditto marks and the capture
window obscuring the previous lines after noon.
Another option
would be to allow the capture window to be slanted to conform to the
angle of the page, but this probably wouldn't be easy. We could have a
line-bearing such as N30E ;D
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I'll try to tell them, but I have no direct contact and there is a
whole passel of problems at that end, including the fragility of the
binding on these old logs. They've said it is already very
difficult and time consuming. Which is, I believe, the reason they
are committed to this project - now is the time to scan and save these
books.
As far as losing track of your lines, I truly get
that. It's exactly why I asked for the hour to be added. I
can actually go to the right-sidebar and look where I am. (A
reason to keep that sidebar, however wonky it is!) I hope that
helps.
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I am sure that it's not easy, Janet, but here is another screen
capture from the same log book a couple of pages further on. It is
perfectly straight because the person is holding the pages in the corner
so that they are even. They weren't doing this in the image I posted
previously. I don't like to complain but they probably don't even know
the difficulties it causes when the images are crooked and perhaps it
wouldn't be more difficult for them once they got into the habit of
holding them straight.
I don't want to appear ungrateful for the good work they are doing, though, and I'm sure it's a very boring job.
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;D
...
Making
narrow window frames for each hour is nice in theory but when the page
is crooked (which it almost always is with the Corwin) you can't see the
whole line at once and have to move the weather window around.
This increases the risk of creating a phantom window.
...
Rodgers also has slightly crooked pages, but it hasn't really been a problem.
Perhaps if the people doing the images are told that it really helps us to have the weather data horizontal...
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I couldn't have said it better myself, Randi. ;)
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I wonder how the science team will deal with crooked log pages?
Often, a weather observation window spans 3 hours. I centre them around
the air pressure of the hour I am transcribing.
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Thanks guys (& girls) looks like I've got some fun to look forward to. :o
Only at May 1881.
Now for a serious comment.
With
regard to the side bar, my personal choice would be just lines which
are a copy of your date entered. ( more of what is there now). Forget
the picture, make the char's smaller and fit them all in.
This would
help with the ditto's. If I get distracted I have to move the window to
see the char's dittoed and I do find that annoying.
I think it would also help with the crooked pages enabling you to work out if you have got all the data from the same line.
I would also like the magnifier to stay ON TOP, so you may be able to see the previous line.
I will now shut up (for a few minutes anyway) ;D
Hi Craig.
Just taking a break from the Manning and also looking at what the other forum comments have been about.
Will stick with the Corwin for a while, give the others a chance to catch up on the Manning.
That is unless the team would like one full draft of the manning done first, in which case I will go back to the Manning??
Look out for your Captaincy (lieutenancy) I'm on my way ;D ;D
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You've finished the Manning already, Stuart?. I see it's only 27% complete and in theory you should be able to to go to 33%.
The
Corwin is not so bad once you get used to it but you have to be very
careful with the slanted logs. I find I have to move windows around and I
miss stuff and when I go back to edit I sometimes get rogue windows.
Once they fix that problem and fix the window so you can see what you
have done in the PM section it will be almost clear sailing. I have
entred most of the place and ship names in the DB up to mid July 1881 so
you don't have to do that. I left the people's names for you to
do. ;D
Check out the book referenced at the beginning of
this thread. John Muir, the famous American conservationist and founder
of the Sierra Club, wrote a book about his voyage on the Corwin. I have
ordered it and am looking forward to reading it. There is an online
version too, but I don't think it's complete.
Craig
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Hi Craig.
Places & ships into which DB. OW or Soda? (or both)
So far I have no places or people.
%^)
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I think Craig posted this somewhere but just in case.
Instructions as to where to be found.
http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ow3/USS%20Corwin/Corwin_1881/pics2%20243_1.jpg
(http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ow3/USS%20Corwin/Corwin_1881/pics2%20243_1.jpg)
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It's an interesting statement of how the mail system works when your
out in the wild frontiers - there are people, but they are not well
connected with civilization-US-European-style.
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Hi Craig.
Places & ships into which DB. OW or Soda? (or both)
So far I have no places or people.
%^)
Both.
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There is a surface coal vein near Cape Lisburne on the North coast
of Alaska. The crew is not only loading the coal onto the ship, they are
mining it.
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I think that's neat, but I suspect the crew had it's own opinions ;)
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It might be a welcome change from painting the ship, although mining
and loading 20 tons of coal in 2 days can't be a lot of fun. They
usually hire natives to load the coal but there was no mention of them
this time. At least the US Treasury saved a few dollars.
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31 July, 1881
Exploring party returned on board, having made a
thorough examination of the Island and found no evidence to indicate
that the place had been visited by the crews of the Exploring Steamer
"Jeannette" or the whalers "Mt. Wallaston" and "Vigilant". The exploring
parties built on the north end of the Island, a cairn in which was
placed a sealed bottle containing a record of the "Corwin's" visit and a
copy of the New York Herald, of April 22, 1881. From the point where
the cairn was built , an excellent view of the Wrangel's Land was had;
it presented a bold, rugged shore of moderate height with several
snow-clad mountains in the background. While at the Island secured a good specimen of the polar Bear.
Saw a great number of the birds and a few blue foxes. At 3 cast off
from the ice and steamed to the E'd through the drift ice, working
vessel to bell.
http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ow3/USS%20Corwin/Corwin_1881/pics2%20323_1.jpg
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USCR Corwin claims Wrangel Island in the name of the government of the United States of America. August 12, 1881
http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ow3/USS%20Corwin/Corwin_1881/pics2%20335_1.jpg
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It didn't last, but your visit is listed in Wiki. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrangel_Island#Outside_discovery
First
recorded landing on Wrangel Island took place on August 12, 1881, by a
party from the USRC Corwin, who claimed the island for the United States
and named it "New Columbia."[19] The expedition, under the command of
Calvin L. Hooper, was seeking the Jeannette and two missing whalers in
addition to conducting general exploration. It included naturalist John
Muir, who published the first description of Wrangel Island. The USS
Rodgers, also searching for the Jeannette, landed a party on Wrangel
Island, also in 1881 but after the Corwin party. They stayed about two
weeks and conducted an extensive survey and search.
In 1911, the
Russian Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition on icebreakers Vaygach and
Taymyr under Boris Vilkitsky, landed on the island.[20] In 1916 the
Tsarist government declared that the island belonged to the Russian
empire.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/Page_253_cruiseofcorwin.jpg/600px-Page_253_cruiseofcorwin.jpg
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Indeed. The US has still not officially renounced its claim, according to the Wiki article.
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I have trouble seeing how a high arctic completely uninhabited
island is worth fighting about. Russia would ignore that American
paper claim, and the US would save tax money by never paying anyone to
keep paperwork on it. ;D
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In 1911, the Russian Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition on
icebreakers Vaygach and Taymyr under Boris Vilkitsky, landed on the
island.[20] In 1916 the Tsarist government declared that the island
belonged to the Russian empire.
Don't worry the Manning is in that area in 1916. We will sort them out for you. :D
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I'll trust you on that. ;D
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I finished the USRC Corwin logs, at least, until more become
available. The logs for the last month or so have been scanned fairly
well so the transcribing is relatively pleasant as long as you avoid
rogue windows. After claiming Wrangel Island for the U.S. the trip was
fairly uneventful. The last log page is for September 10, 1881.
I
have transcribed all the ship and place names but not those of people. I
will now finish entering the ship and place names into the Soda DB. By
the way, I am using the USGS lat/longs in Soda rather than the noon
lat/longs reported in the logs.
Stuart, your only chance of
displacing me as unofficial captain is to avoid saving an incomplete log
page, like I did in the beginning when I got a rogue window as I was
just about finished the page. ;D
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Thanks for the heads up Craig. :'(
I went back to the Manning to finish it of. It should finish soon as it is at 38% and I have done most of it.
Then, I hope it's an interesting voyage back on the Corwin.
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I am thoroughly enjoying John Muir's account of his voyage on the
Corwin (see reference at the beginning of this thread). I came across
this observation by Muir made when they were near St Michael Island,
which may be of some importance in interpreting sea temperatures:
The
average temperature for most of the month commencing May twentieth
[1881] has been but little above the freezing point, the maximum about
45 degrees F. Today the temperature in the shade at noon is 65 degrees,
the highest since leaving San Francisco. The temperature of the water in
Bearing Sea and Strait, and as far as we have gone in the Arctic, has
been about from 29 degrees to 35 degrees. But as soon as we approached
within fifty miles of the mouths of the Yukon [River], the temperature
changed suddenly to 42 degrees.
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At this very moment BBC 4 is showing a prog about John Muir...
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I wish I could get BBC 4. The French CBC often carries BBC science programs.
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If it is "John Muir in the New World" (PBS which often shares
programs with BBC), you can watch it online (90 minutes) at
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/john-muir-in-the-new-world/watch-the-full-documentary-film/1823/
If it is a different show, it is still an extremely good substitute. :)
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Any comments on this from the perspective of how the science team
would intepret a jump is sea temperatures caused by river water,
especially since we only have one lat/long reading per day and
they might not place the boat where it really is?
I
am thoroughly enjoying John Muir's account of his voyage on the Corwin
(see reference at the beginning of this thread). I came across this
observation by Muir made when they were near St Michael Island, which
may be of some importance in interpreting sea temperatures:
The
average temperature for most of the month commencing May twentieth
[1881] has been but little above the freezing point, the maximum about
45 degrees F. Today the temperature in the shade at noon is 65 degrees,
the highest since leaving San Francisco. The temperature of the water in
Bearing Sea and Strait, and as far as we have gone in the Arctic, has
been about from 29 degrees to 35 degrees. But as soon as we approached
within fifty miles of the mouths of the Yukon [River], the temperature
changed suddenly to 42 degrees.
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Temperatures near the coast often have interesting complications.
You can see these nicely in modern satellite analyses - I like the OSTIA
images at
http://ghrsst-pp.metoffice.com/pages/latest_analysis/ostia.html
(http://ghrsst-pp.metoffice.com/pages/latest_analysis/ostia.html). It's a
little harder to get a picture of what was going on in May/June, but if
you play with the visualiser at
http://ghrsst-pp.metoffice.com/pages/latest_analysis/ostia.html you can
show the sea temperature in the Bering strait in May 2012 and I think
this shows something intriguingly similar to the Corwin's observations, a
warmer blob just off the mouth of the Yukon. (See rather bad attached
image).
As you say, we can't get this sort of resolution from our
records - we don't have precise enough positions, or frequent enough
observations, or enough ships, to make that sort of detailed map. But we
can learn a lot from the regional averages we can make: From the Corwin
and her like we can estimate the average temperature in the region of
the straits for example, and the average scatter in the measured
temperatures. If the Yukon were to change it's flow, say, so it didn't
have a warming effect at that time of year, we wouldn't be able to map
the temperature change, but the change would also make the regional
temperatures less variable, and we might well be able to detect the
reduction in scatter between measurements in the region.
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Thanks for your reply, Philip. It is good to know what kind of
resolution you expect from the log data. Your answer suggests to me that
we needn't be too fastidious about entering all the place names (often 4
in the Manning, including the one at the top of the log page, but often
no lat/longs), or do you use all the place names we capture?
I
tried the OSTIA visualizer for June 1st sea water potential temperature
in the North Pacific but it just seemed to be loading all the time and
never showed anything.
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A description a Chukchi hut from John Muir's, The Cruise of the Corwin - East Siberia, July 1, 1881:
During
the winter the huts are entered by a low tunnel, so as to exclude the
cold air as much as possible. The floor is simply the natural dirt mixed
into a dark hairy past, with much that is not at all natural. Fires are
made occasionally in the middle of the floor to cook the small portion
of their food that is not eaten raw. Ivory-headed spears, arrows, seal
nets, bags of oil, rags of seal or walrus meat, and strips of whale
blubber and skin, lie on shelves or hang confusedly from the roof, while
puppies and nursing mother-dogs and children may be seen scattered here
and there, or curled snugly in the pots and eating-troughs, after they
have licked them clean, making a kind of squalor that is picturesque and
daring beyond conception.
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Chukchi hut, continued ...
In all of the huts, however, there
are from one to three or four luxurious bedrooms. The walls, ceiling,
and floor are of soft reindeer skins, and [each polog has] a trough
filled with oil for heat and light. After hunting all day on the ice,
making long, rough, stormy journeys, the Chukchi hunter, muffled and
hungry, comes into his burrow, eats his fill of oil and seal or walrus
meat, then strips himself naked and lies down in his closed fur nest,
his polog, in glorious ease, to smoke and sleep.
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Welcome aboard Lollia Paolina.
Try and leave some entries for us to do. ;D
I am amazed at your data entry speed.
Stuart.
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4 to 8 watch.
http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ow3/USS%20Corwin/Corwin_1881/pics2%20288_1.jpg
(http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ow3/USS%20Corwin/Corwin_1881/pics2%20288_1.jpg)
Cannot read every word but it looks like they are they nicking coal from the Ruskies?
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Definitely yes - and bribed the natives into aiding and abetting their crime. ;D
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Welcome aboard Lollia Paolina.
Try and leave some entries for us to do. ;D
I am amazed at your data entry speed.
Stuart.
Hi Stuart,
thank you for your welcome.
Hello to our Captain and crew.
I will leave some entries for you, of course :)
Fair winds and following seas,
Silvia
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I came across this book and I want to share it with you:
http://ia700400.us.archive.org/5/items/occasionalpapers24cali/occasionalpapers24cali.pdf
account of the discovery of Wrangler Island by Samuel L. Hooper, Captain Calvin L. Hooper's son.
Link to other file formats:
http://archive.org/details/occasionalpapers24cali
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Thanks for this lollia. This is the account of the 1881 Corwin
voyage by the son of the Captain, Hooper. This trip was very well
documented!
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Interesting reading on the capture/taking/naming? of Wrangel's Land by the Yanks (sorry I mean the Americans). ;D
It also refers to the "Jeannette"
http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ow3/USS%20Corwin/Corwin_1881/pics2%20335_1.jpg
(http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ow3/USS%20Corwin/Corwin_1881/pics2%20335_1.jpg)
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I wonder what became of the sealed bottle they left behind containing a copy of the New York Herald of March 22 1881.
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There is now what looks like a town in the center of the island, i
guess they found it. But it would be interesting to really find out.
When did the "Jeannette" disappear, before or after the bottle placement?
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She was crushed in the ice in June 1881 but the last communication
from her was in August 1879.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Jeannette_(1878)
The Jeannette did not land parties on Herald or Wrangell Islands. There was a small number of survivors.
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Thanks Craig.
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This is the story of the Jeanette, with pictures at the end, as told by the US Naval History and Heritage Command (http://www.history.navy.mil/index.html):
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/ev-1880s/jeannett.htm
She
spent the end of 1879, all of 1880 and the first half of 1881 locked in
the same ice and floating where it would. The crew didn't get in
trouble until the ship was first released by melting and then reentered
ice where they thought they had clear passage. That's when the
hull was crushed and the ship sank. If the Corwin had had any real
idea where she was, they might have gotten up there in time to rescue
the crew. But no one had heard from them for almost 2 years.
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:(
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Well done Captain Craig.
I missed out by 27 entries and I remember the blank pages going by. :(
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Sylvia will probably pass both of us, Stuart. I remember missing a page or two at the beginning. Fame is fleeting.
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There are 3 kinds of ships:
- ships Silvia is captain of
- ships Silvia will be captain of
- ships Silvia joined too late to become captain of
;) ;D
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;D ;D ;D
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There are 3 kinds of ships:
- ships Silvia is captain of
- ships Silvia will be captain of
- ships Silvia joined too late to become captain of
;) ;D
And therefore four types of captains.
Captains of ships that were completed before Sylvia started.
Captains of ships that Sylvia hasnt started yet.
Captains of ships that Sylvia has started.
Sylvia
Note that types two and three are both only temporary captains.
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;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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;D
Be careful, if we give her to much of a hard time she may pick up her typewriter and go home.
She is really fast though (100WPM+ I guess)
(My two middle fingers are now shorter then the rest)
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She's just a consumate professional at the keyboard, so stop twitting her! She is just plain good at this ;D
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I hope Silvia does not think we are 'twitting' her.
She is as you say "just plain good at this" and I think we just envy her ability. ;)
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Envy - now that is truth! ;D
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I hope Silvia does not think we are 'twitting' her.
She is as you say "just plain good at this" and I think we just envy her ability. ;)
So
agree Stuart - I'm always envious of someone who can command the
keyboard as Silvia can -like you , a few of my fingers are paying the
price!
Silvia - you're awesome!
Mind you - there's a few others who can tickle the keys pretty fast too...keep inspiring us guys/gals ;D ;D
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She's just a consumate professional at the keyboard, so stop twitting her! She is just plain good at this ;D
She's a miracle at the keyboard! And we are envious! ;D
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USRC Corwin is 100%
but I do not know if she came to port or if there are a few pages left to transcribe. :)
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My best guess - and it is a guess! - is that none of the 6 beta-test
ships was set to retire, just in case they were easy enough to finish
all off before the launch of our new fleet. So if it says "100%"
then you are the 4th or 5th transcriber doing those pages. Good
practice, I guess.
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On reply #42 on the Corwin taking Russian coal. I couldn't read much
of the logbook but here is the historical situation: The Russian Empire
was entremely undergoverned and communications were poor. The
Trans-Siberian railroad construction hadn't even begun at this time
1881. So if some Russian official shows up and finds the coal missing
and sends a report to St petersburg it will probably take a year to get
there. Since the Corwin is exploring and US Russian relations were
fairly good at the time i don't think they would get to upset over this.
From what i understand there was some trade that went on in the artic
between the locals on both sides in this part of the world until the
Communists showed up in the 1920s and put a stop to it.
I have
read a couple of urban legends that sometime in the 1920s or 1930s there
where a couple of incidents in the boundry waters up there. In one
occation a US fishing boat was captured by a Soviet patrol boat but the
crew was able to get away because the russians got drunk. The other was
the US fishing boat got captured and the crew disapeared in the Gulag.
just thought you'd like to know.
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The vast majority of residents were natives who were raised in a
barter culture. They probably paid when a Russian fishing point
took some American coal from somewhere. ;D
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Thanks for your replies re the Russian Coal.
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My
best guess - and it is a guess! - is that none of the 6 beta-test ships
was set to retire, just in case they were easy enough to finish all off
before the launch of our new fleet. So if it says "100%" then you
are the 4th or 5th transcriber doing those pages. Good practice, I
guess.
I
suspect that you are right. I haven't had time to transcribe for a week
or two, and I still get my next page. I'm not the leading transcriber,
so I would not expect that to happen.
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I don't think there are many people transcribing if I judge by the
Manning. I am now in second place behind Stuart but the others in the
list don't seem to be advancing.
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Craig. Don't you dear demote me, after all, I let (well missed a few pages) you be captain of the Corwin..%^)
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;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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I will be gracious and not pass you on the Manning, Stuart, although Sylvia could still beat us both ;D
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All of the remaining Corwin logs in the collection have been imaged and are in the q at OWHQ. Goes up to 1900 or so as I recall.
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An interesting find:
13th August 1886 - http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ow3/final/USRC%20Bear/vol065/vol065_108_1.jpg
Sent an officer to the station and brought off Ensign Howard and one man of the Stoney Expedition.
While
checking to confirm the names I found an acticle
(http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_33/July_1888/Arctic_Alaska#top)
written by Ensign Howard about the expedition. The Rodgers (as Lieut.
Stoney was one of her officers), Jeannette and Corwin also get a mention
but not the Bear which is a bit mean if they are giving him a lift
home!