Hidden in ice for more than 100 years, the photography notebook of a British explorer on Captain Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated expedition to Antarctica has been found.
The book belonged to George Murray Levick, a surgeon, zoologist and photographer on Scott's 1910-1913 voyage. Levick might be best remembered for his observations of Cape Adare's Adélie penguins (and his scandalized descriptions of the birds' "depraved" sex lives). The newly discovered book also shows he kept fastidious notes, scrawled in pencil, about the photographs he took at Cape Adare.
Levick's "Wellcome Photographic Exposure Record and Dairy 1910" had been left behind at Captain Scott's last expedition base at Cape Evans. Conservationists discovered the notebook outside the hut during last year's summer melt. [See Photos of the Lost Antarctic Notebook]
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"It's an exciting find," Nigel Watson, executive director of the New Zealand-based Antarctic Heritage Trust, said in a statement. "The notebook is a missing part of the official expedition record. After spending seven years conserving Scott's last expedition building and collection, we are delighted to still be finding new artifacts."
The book has notes detailing the date, subjects and exposure details from his photographs. In his notes, Levick refers to a self-portrait he took while shaving in a hut at Cape Adare and shots he took of his fellow crewmembers as they set up theodolites (instruments for surveying) and fish traps and sat in kayaks.
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Levick was one of six men in Scott's Northern Party, who summered (1911-1912) at Cape Adare and survived the winter of 1912 in a snow cave when their ship was unable to reach them. Levick was not part of the team that accompanied Scott on his doomed quest to be the first to reach the South Pole.
After an arduous two-and-a-half month trek, Scott and his crew did make it to the South Pole on Jan. 17, 1912. But they discovered that the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beat them to it. Scott and his team died on the way back to their base, faced with a blizzard and dwindling supplies.
One hundred years of damage from ice and water dissolved the notebook's binding. The pages were separated and digitized before the book was put back together again with new binding and sent back to Antarctica, where the Antarctic Heritage Trust maintains 11,000 artifacts at Cape Evans. Earlier this year, conservationists with the group developed century-old photo negatives left in Scott's base by members of Ernest Shackleton's last Antarctic Expedition.
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When the ice melted around the base at Cape Evans last summer, George Murray Levick's book was revealed.
Antarctic Heritage Trust conservators recently made a stunning discovery: a box of 22 exposed but unprocessed negatives, frozen in a block of ice for nearly one hundred years. The negatives were recovered from a corner of a supply hut that British explorer Robert Falcon Scott established to support his doomed expedition to the South Pole from 1910-1913. Scott and his men reached the South Pole but died on the trip home. The hut was next used by the Ross Sea Party of Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914-1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition after they were stranded on Ross Island when their ship, the Aurora, blew out to sea. This party is believed to have left behind the undeveloped negatives. The cellulose nitrate negatives are seen here as they were found -- frozen in ice.
The Antarctic Heritage Trust tapped conservator Mark Strange to painstakingly separate, clean (including removing mold) and consolidate the 22 layers of film.
This recovered image shows Alexander Stevens, the chief scientist and geologist of the Ross Sea Party, on the deck of the Aurora in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica.
A view of Tent Island in McMurdo Sound. There is mold damage evident around the edges of the image.
This damaged photo shows Big Razorback Island in McMurdo Sound.
Alexander Stevens again poses on board the deck of the Aurora. It was not until January 1917 that the Aurora returned to rescue the Ross Sea Party. By then three men had died, including Arnold Patrick Spencer-Smith, the team's photographer. To see more images from the recovered negatives, visit the
Antarctic Heritage Trust's website
.