Tuscarora (1875): links, questions, comments, coordination, ...

[Michael]

Maybe that's why everyone is deserting. They want to be there for the big event. After all, who wouldn't!!!

Anyway, better to sit in Apia than spend your month doing this:

[pommystuart]

Looks like they were moving target practice for the batteries.

[Michael]

Looks like they were moving target practice for the batteries.

They were very careful to stay just out of range. That changes on Christmas when they get much closer to bombard the batteries and then land troops on the beaches. They had to take them off a day or so later. However, they try again in January 1865, I think it was, when they successfully take control of the forts. I can't remember the dates of the second battle for the forts. I think it's in January, but it could be a month or so later. It's been a while since it was 1865 for me. This is the fifth time for me I've done 1864. I think I get to do it again twice more. Groundhog day in extremis!!!

[pommystuart]

Which ship were you on?

[Michael]

Kearsarge
Sacramento
Shenandoah
Yantic

Now Tuscarora

Soon, I will be processing Lackawanna 1863, which has been blockading Mobile (Randi's transcribing it right now)
When I've done transcribing and processing Tuscarora 1865, 1866 and 1867, then I'll be on Ticonderoga, 1863-1867.

Lucky me, I'll get logs like this. The good news is that for this batch, the log-writer uses the columns.



And yes, the science team very much want these ships from the early 1860s. Not as much fun as the early 1960s!!!

[pommystuart]

3rd June 1875, Apia Samoa to Hololulu.
First entry like this I have seen.

By order of Comdg Officer the allowance of water was reduced to 1-1/3 Gale for each man.

4th June
Bread ration was reduced by half due to long journey.

(They left Apia 30th May after turning back to get more coal.)

[Randi]

I haven't seen that before either.

[Michael]

I think I've seen it somewhere else. It was a very long voyage and they had to dump a lot of spoiled food, and I think they had a couple of water casts that were leaking and a couple that had salt water in them. However, I am not confident enough in my memory to swear that in a court of law.

[pommystuart]

Water rations further reduced to 1 Gal / day from the 12th June.
They are distilling.

[pommystuart]

The navigator loves his course changes.

nxw1/2w
n1/2w
n1/4w
n1/2w
nxw1/2w
nnw1/2w
nnw1/2w
nwxn
nwxn
nxw
nwxn
nw1/2n
nnw3/4w
nnw1/2w
nnw3/4w
nnw1/2w
nnw3/4w
nnw1/2w
nwxn
nwxn
nxw3/4w
nxw3/4w
nnw
nnw1/4w

[Michael]

I know! I 'm processing 1874, and he was doing the same thing.

W1/4N
W1/2N
ExN
WxS,NW1/2W
NWxW,ExS
ESE
ESE,NWxW1/2W
ExS,NWxW1/4W,WSW
WSW,WSW1/4W,NE
N1/2E
NW
NW3/4N
N3/4W
N
N
N,NE
NE
NE
NE
NE
NExE1/2E
NExE1/2E,ENE
ENE,E1/4S
ENE1/2E

[pommystuart]

Mid day main mast was condemmed and we are now under power.
The course should not change that much till we reach Hololulu.
525 mile to go.

[Michael]

If he has water temperatures at depth, the science team would like them. Don't worry if you haven't bothered up to now, but if you see any in the rest of the log, please add them. This is from Gil Compo. I sent him the data for Tuscarora 1874, and pointed his attention to the water temps at depth.

This is Very interesting. I had no idea.
We will have to find a way to get this readings into the World Ocean Database.

These were a couple from the 1874 voyage...

0800-1200: Took the following serial temperatures Viz. Surface 56.1- 10 fms 55 - 15 fms 52 - 20 fms 46 - 30 fms 41.4 - 40 fms 39.9 - 50 fms 39 - 100 fms 38.3 - 2482 fms 34.2
2000-2400: Took the following serial temperatures Viz: Surface 57.1 - 10 fms 55.2 - 15 fms 53.7 - 20 fms 43.4 - 30 fms 40.3 - 40 fms 39.7 - 50 fms 39.3 - 100 fms 38.7 - 2419 fms 33.6
0800-1200: Took the following serial temperatures Viz. 10 fms 55.6 - 20 fms 46.9 - 30 fms 41.8 - 50 fms 39.1 - 100 fms 38.8 - 500 fms 37.6 - 700 fms 36.9

JokeSlayer put them in the Other Column/Ocean with the Event Wizard. You could save a bit of typing with something like this:
Ocean Temps: 10 fms 55.6 - 20 fms 46.9 etc etc.

It always makes me so very happy to give you even more work to do.

[joke_slayer]

We spent a month or so in dry dock at Mare Island towards the end of 1874 which included a Commander change after which the soundings continued but they stopped recording temperatures at different depths.

Unless they started again at some point in 1875 I think 1873 and 1874 are the only years where they recorded temperatures. They did keep recording what they found at the bottom though (rock, ooze, gravel, sand, coral etc), not sure if that information is useful.

[Michael]

Oh well, we'll have what we have. I checked a couple of ships we did earlier. They stopped at what they called Ocean Stations, and they took oceanographic data. They did not, however, record it in the logs. They must have recorded it elsewhere. If the science team is really interested, they know that the data existed at some time, and they could, maybe, do a search through the archives.

As for the data describing the bottom of the ocean, there is no need. I'm really glad you took the time to log those temperatures. If nothing else, it alerted the science team to the possibility of more data somewhere. Luckily for us, it's not our concern.

[ggordon]

Is there any interest in water density? My current ship just left port and is recording water density on the event page once per watch during most watches.

[Michael]

Is there any interest in water density? My current ship just left port and is recording water density on the event page once per watch during most watches.

Gil Compo would like those values. Just use the Event Wizard with Other/Ocean for type and sub-type. Maybe something like Water density NNNN. I didn't see any units given in the couple of pages I looked at, but the science team can sort those out.

[joke_slayer]

I've done a bit of digging and found this article that goes in quite some detail about the voyages of the Tuscarora and the development of the sounding apparatus.

https://www.hydro-international.com/con ... ng-machine

I caught this sentence in the article

Then, in the next 40 miles the lead was found to drop to the great depth of 3,440 fathoms, and the Miller Casella Thermometer came up a perfect wreck from the resultant pressure!

Which led me to the relevant wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2 ... hermometer

The thermometer, about nine inches (23 cm) in length, was enclosed in a copper case and filled with a solution of creosote in spirit.[1] A U-shaped mercury tube recorded maximum and minimum temperature as the thermometer was lowered and raised into the ocean.[2] This design assumed accurate measurements could be taken as long as the water closer to the surface of the ocean was always warmer than that below.

Scientists aboard HMS Challenger later questioned this assumption and made temperature measurements with reversing thermometers instead, which wouldn't require the coldest water to be at the ocean's bottom.[3]

So the measurements taken beyond a certain depth might not be very reliable (which makes sense as the temperatures they recorded during the deepest soundings were always 33-34F whereas water is densest at ~4C/39F).

This does suggest however that these measurements along with those made by the Challenger expedition (1873-76) are possibly the earliest measurements made of temperatures at depth.

The Challenger data for temperature measurements at depth is here (https://escholarship.org/uc/item/38p2q583), starting from page 329 of Vol1, though the scan quality isn't very good and its hard to make out.

[Michael]

Another very interesting article! I looked in the archives, but they don't have the logs for USS Alaska or USS Stewart.

[pommystuart]

As far as I can remember 1875 so far has only sounding depths. Will look more carefully Mid June on.

From 1876
Stopped for a cast.08.57 started wire out:- 09.54 reached bottom at 3540 fathoms, 09.55 started wire in:- at 10.00 wire parted.
Lost 3410 fathoms wire and one sounding cylinder.

Interesting, sounding at that depth.
Loc from Noon reading 29 13 43N, 155 52 24w