lifeasdaddy

Q & A: Those shelves are how long?

The Library of Congress has lots of books.  It's the world's largest library.  How long do you think the shelves need to be to hold  all of those books?

Answer here. 

The Unknown Sailor of Christmas Island. Part Five.

Part One was here.

Part Two was here.

Part Three was here.

Part Four was here.

Yesterday's page 8 story in the Sydney Morning Herald brings an update on the quest to identify the remains of the Unknown Sailor of Christmas Island.  He is thought to have died as a result of the action between the German raider Kormoran and the HMAS Sydney (II) in World War Two, which saw the Australian ship sunk with no survivors.  See online here.

The Royal Australian Navy's Commander Matt Blenkin has revealed that out of the list of 13 possible crew of the HMAS Sydney (II) whom he believes may be the unknown sailor of Christmas Island, DNA testing has now excluded nine  Now leaving four possibles; Lieutenant Robert Ridout, Sub-Lieutenant James Clifton, Salvatore Zammitt and Lieutenant Commander Michael Singer (RN).

You may recall that after analysis at the Australian War Memorial of cloth worn by the corpse, fibres found inside press studs were found to be white, leading the investigation in the direction of persons who may have been wearing white coveralls.  This would have been officers, and Mr. Zammitt was included since he worked in the ship's canteen and canteen workers were also believed to have been wearing white coveralls.

"Although little clothing remained on the skeleton, investigators found the remains of button eyelets from what appeared to be World War II overalls. Tiny shreds of cloth were in the eyelets and were sent to the Australian War Memorial, where the overalls were found to have been white, the colour officers wore.

For Commander Blenkin, it was a breakthrough.

Investigators had been able to use dental records and the bone structure to narrow down the list of possible candidates to just over 200 out of the ship's crew of 645, but of those barely more than a dozen would have worn white overalls.

"That was when we were really able to narrow it down and draw up a practical list, so that we would be able to track down families and start collecting DNA," Commander Blenkin said."  (From SMH article)

My belief however, based upon analysis of eyewitness accounts of the corpse arriving at Christmas Island upon a Carley float was that the unknown sailor was wearing blue coveralls, from the engineering division of the ship.

( Captain Jim Parsons, team leader for the Christmas Island Project, hands over artifacts found at the grave site of the unknown sailor to the Australian War Memorial's Assistant Registrar, Georgia Cunningham. Photo from Department of Defence) Note that the Glad Bag in the foreground of the picture is labeled " 6/10/06 C206 ?pressstud {illegible} of R. scapula"

(Sailors hauling up an anchor on HMAS Australia, 1945.  From the National Archives of Australia, citation NAA: A1200, L2875 )

Although this photograph depicts sailors on HMAS Australia (II), and not HMAS Sydney (II), it does show the type of overall worn by sailors in the engineering branch, and the fact that their front closure was a press stud type. Due to the way this blog presents the uploaded photograph, you may need to click on the image to see the two press studs visible in the coveralls' front placket worn by the silor at right.

I know, I know, the fibre analysis conducted in 2007 indicates the fibres were white.  But firstly, World War II era RAN sailors in the engineering division were known to have used bleach to soften their stiff indigo blue denim overalls.  Secondly, I doubt if the synthetic dye chemistry of the early 1940s was of sufficient stability to give a correct indication under chemical analysis of the fabric colour 60 years later, and I doubt if the Australian War Memorial has a valid comparison of World War II RAN issue indigo blue denim which has been buried for 60 years in a high rainfall area to serve as a comparison sample.  Or even World War II RAN issue white coverall material which has likewise suffered such weathering for the purpose of comparison.

Now, what artifacts exactly were examined?

( The Australian War Memorial's Assistant Registrar, Georgia Cunningham photographs the artifacts found in the grave site of the Unknown Sailor.
Department  of Defence photo )

Zooming in on the writing on the brown paper bag we see it is labeled " C706 7/10/06 eyelets foot of coffin "

These eyelets probably came from canvas in which the corpse was wrapped prior to burial.  Although the journalist, John Dart, who wrote yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald article refers to an eyelet, I think he actually means a press stud.  Previous mentions of the analysis inferring the sailor wore white have always referred to a press stud.

Is there some knowledge falling off the back of the Google truck?

As Doc Searls has noted, bloggers searching for old blog entries on their own blogs are failing to find them via Google search.

Here's how it works.  I'm writing a blog post, and want to incorporate a link to something I previously wrote on my blog on the same topic, but can't remember where or precisely when I wrote it.  I used to be able to find it via a Google search, but not for the past few months.  Doc got around the problem by using Yahoo search.

As Doc says:

The fact that Google fails to find pages that have been sitting in plain sight of its crawlers for long periods of time, while Yahoo finds those same pages, is rather interesting data.

Wanna see a Gutenberg Bible? Or three? Get thee to The Morgan

Once, several years ago, I was able to visit The Morgan Library and Museum.  I remember thinking about the fact that although there is not one single copy of a Gutenberg Bible in Australia, The Morgan has three.

Johann Gutenberg and Johann Fust, ‘Biblia Latina’ (1455).
(Morgan Library & Museum)

 

At the moment, for the first time in more than a decade, The Morgan is displaying all three of the Gutenberg Bibles in one exhibition.

 

You have until 26 September.

 

For the Biblically inclined, I remember shelf upon shelf of bibles  in the library.

 

 

Mr. Morgan's Library

( Morgan Library & Museum )

 

 

 

 

  Unsurprising  considering its importance in the history of printing.

 

GOOD BACKGROUNDER:

 

If you want to know more about Gutenberg's Bibles and why they are important, then check out the online information from the British Library here, which they have put together to accompany their mere two copies.

100 years ago today - The American Fleet arrived in Sydney Harbour

The American Fleet comprised 16 battleships and various support ships of the U.S. Navy, and circumnavigated the globe during 1907, 1908 and 1909 as part of a goodwill trip and to demonstrate naval might at the instigation of President Teddy Roosevelt.  Because the ships' hulls were painted white, it later became known as the Great White Fleet.

Australian Prime Minister Alfred Deakin hoped it would enable him to enlist public support in the formation of our own navy, which begat the Royal Australian Navy in 1911.

My friend Mackenzie Gregory has written a great blog entry about the Great White Fleet here.

[Photograph above from State Records NSW on Flickr, used with kind permission.

Digital ID: 18526 a024 000014  See the State Records Authority of NSW's gallery of ephemera relating to this visit here. ]

The Zionists @ Gallipoli - Who knew?

Not me.  I just stumbled across this in the New York Times archive;  the fact that there was a Zion Mule Corps at Gallipoli.  Part of the Royal Fusiliers.

This from wikipedia.

This from diggerhistory2.

ADDED 1:

I perused Les Carlyon's excellent and best selling popular history of Gallipoli and found a very brief mention of the Zion Mule Corps on pages 246 - 247. (Paperback edition)

ADDED 2: 

Eminent military historian Brett Holman has mentioned in the comments section below that Rachel J. K. Grace has a now-inactive blog about theJewish Legion of WWI here;

and that her 2006 M.A. Thesis at the Florida State  University  The Obligation of Service: The Jewish Chronicle and the Formation of the Jewish Legion During World War I is available at Google Cache here.

Getty Images' Moodstream: pictures, video and music as you like it.

I was interested to see what some of the world's best photographers caught from the Olympics opening ceremony last night, and day One of competition today so I stopped by at Getty Images to check on their stable's pics.  And I discovered something new and interesting.

They've set up this thing called Moodstream which provides an automated slideshow of photographs, video clips set to music mined from their enormous back catalogue and you can use sliders to choose the stuff displayed according to your mood.  Or the mood you want to create.  There's slidebars to adjust for Happy/Sad, Calm/Lively, Humorous/Serious, Nostalgic/Contemporary, Warm/Cool.

There's a button to select any one of the scenes shown to your own preset mood board - and of course, all images and video area vailable for instant purchase under rights managed provision.

Coolness factor is off the chart.

And the Olympics?  Well, for the latest stuff check out the Getty Images Sports blog here.  And the Getty Images Editorial Sports Events Feed here.

And the Getty Images standard Sports page here.

ADDED:

And from The Big Picture blog, the best of the best of pics about the Opening Ceremony.  Plenty of symmetry.  Perhaps the most charming is the last pic in the series, not even taken near the stadium.

Is this the best artificial arm we can make?

Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, has invented a new prosthetic arm.

The U.S. Government asked him to do it due to the number of amputations experienced by troops.

See the video here - after talking about the amazing arm, keep watching for his take on acceptance of new technology.

[ tip from ARFBM ]

Then and Now: On the wallaby track & The Grannies

On the wallaby track, originally uploaded by Powerhouse Museum Collection.

This photograph is one of my favourites from the Powerhouse Museum's Tyrrell photographic collection which is viewable not only at the Musuem's website, but also on flickr. (follow the links above).

Here we see some swaggies "On the wallaby track" which means there were itinerants searching for work as they walked from place to place on Australia's country tracks. The pic is probably taken in the 1890's and is from the studio of Charles Kerry.

A swaggie was considered an honest worker, and often worked in excahnge for meals from the farmhouse or cookhouse. A swaggie should not be confused with a sundowner, which was a man who turned up at a farm around sundown when work ceases asking for a meal, but who would leave before sunup the next day and therefore could not be asked to make good on the meal with some work on the property.

As I was driving along this afternoon I saw these five ladies walking along, each with backpacks, walking staffs and drink bottles.

Modern day swaggies?

They kindly consented to having their photograph taken - and I told them they could see it on this blog by this afternoon. If one of them would care to contact me and give me their names I shall more accurately caption the 2008 photograph. At the time, it didn't seem right to ask each of them to spell out their names for me.

They did a bit of chiacking about getting their pic taken to compare to the swaggies, and suggested I should title the pic as The Grannies!

The queens Room, Old Parliament House

The queens Room, Old Parliament House, originally uploaded by Old Parliament House.

A room fit for the Queen.