Inside Door of Ice Cave by light of Blubber Lamps

Photograph, looking towards the ice cave entrance, showing inside the Northern Party's ice cave by the light of blubber lamps. Dr. Raymond Priestley recalled that to construct this entrance they "fixed up a neat door of biscuit boxes and snow-blocks. Two biscuit-boxes were erected on end, one on either side of the entrance, the third was laid across the top, and then the rest of the entrance was filled in with snow-blocks". While in the ice cave, the Party used both seal and penguin blubber for oil in their reading-lamps. They found that penguin blubber burnt much better than the seal blubber they had been using previously. This discovery was only made when they deemed the oil from penguin blubber unpalatable and decided to pour their mugs of it into the lamps instead.

A number '111' is in a white dot on the slide and 'NA7' on the bottom right.

Object Details

ID: LS41
Type: Lantern slide
Display location: Not on display
Creator: Levick, George Murray
Date made: 1912
Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Measurements: Overall: 82 mm x 82 mm