Sepia Saturday 222: A Question of Berthage

Last year I had some correspondence with Bill Forster relating to the Stalag XXID Prisoner of War Camp at Poznan in Poland, which I wrote about in the story of Bill Ball and Work Camp 9. Bill had another query in connection with his own research on a group of sailors who also ended up in Stalag XXID:

I have a puzzle in identifying a photograph of a (French?) port where a requisitioned LNER ferry is berthed which carried the troops of the BEF to France in 1939-40. This is in connection with the book I published about my father's wartime destroyer, HMS Venomous, which I update between editions on my web site. I have successfully identified photographs taken by the men on Venomous at Calais on 21 May 1940 and at Boulogne on 22 May 1940 and uncovered some fascinating stories of the refugees they landed at Folkestone and Dover.

HMS Archangel by Eric Pountney
Image courtesy of Bill Forster

But [I] was puzzled by [this] photograph taken by the Wireless Telegraphy Operator, Eric Pountney, until it was identified by members of the "Ships Nostalgia" Forum as the LNER ferry Archangel which was used as a troop transport in 1939-40.

HMS Archangel at northern French port, by Lt Peter Kershaw RNVR
Image courtesy of Bill Forster

I have recently found a further photograph in my own collection taken by Lt Peter Kershaw of a ship which looks very similar berthed alongside a quay with railways wagons. But where was it taken? Venomous escorted troop carriers from the Solent (Southampton/Portsmouth) to Cherbourg, Le Havre and Brest in the first few weeks of the war and I suspect it would have been taken at one of these channel ports. Where there are no letters or journals - as in the case of Eric Pountney - I rely on his photographs to tell the story.

What I've done is had a good look at all three of the ports that Bill mentioned - Cherbourg, Le Havre and Brest - using the myriad of postcard views that are available, many of them on the Delcampe postcard auction web site. European postcard publishers were prolific, and there are a wealth of sources on the net for images of scenic postcards published before, during and after the Great War, up to the mid- to late 1920s. There appear to be far fewer from the 1930s, and I suspect that this may have been due to financial pressures caused by the Depression, although I haven't found a confirmation of what is really just an assumption on my part to explain the apparent paucity of images.


Le Havre, Bassin de l'Eure, undated postcard view
From what I can tell, Le Havre was the only one of the three which had the very distinctive tower lights, one of which appears close to the edge of the quay at centre-left in Bill's Archangel photo. They are very tall, probably of steel construction with a lattice framework, and are characterised by a curious bell-shaped frame for the lamp hanging from a short at the top. The lighting towers appear in most of the postcard views of Le Havre port from the early 1900s until the late 1920s - as in the view above, undated but probably from the 1920s.


The Inner Harbor, Le Havre, by Camille Pissarro, 1903
Image courtesy of The Web Gallery of Impressionism
They are also depicted in many paintings by Impressionist artists, who appear to have congregated in Le Havre before and after the turn of the century. A typical example painted by that "father of the Impressionists," Camille Pissaro, in 1903 includes one of the characteristic tower lights.


La Nouvelle Digue - The New Dike, Le Havre, postcard view, PM 1927

Sadly, I've been unable to find any images of the port, wharves and quays which show railway carriages, or even areas clearly identifiable as railway sidings, although there were tramlines on some of the quays which serviced the ocean liners, I believe. However, I did find a 1927 (postmark) postcard depicting "La Nouvelle Digue" (or, The New Dike), which may well be where railway sidings were later built. The port was extensively damaged by bombing during the Second World War, so looking at modern photographs is probably no use at all.


Bassin des Torpilleurs, Brest, postcard view, PM 1912
None of the postcards I could find for Brest displayed such tower lights.


L'Entrée des Jetées, Cherbourg, postcard view, PM 1908
I did find a postcard view of the port at Brest with a similar tower light, but the design was sufficiently different to rule it out as a candidate for the Archangel's berth. While I can't rule out this particular quay being at some other as yet unidentified port, I think I can be fairly confident in saying that it's not either Cherbourg or Brest. If the Archangel only visited these three ports, then it was, in all likelihood, Le Havre.

I'm grateful to Bill Forster for permission to include the contents of his email and the the HMS Archangel photographs in this article. I have primarily aimed at demonstrating how the huge database of scenic images, in particular of old postcards, now available in various locations on the internet can be used to research and identify our own family photographs. Apart from the postcards for sale on various auction sites such as Delcampe and eBay, there are many web sites created by postcard enthusiasts. A little inventive searching will find the one with a particular focus that you're looking for.

If you haven't yet had your fill of reading about old photographs and postcards, the remainder of this week's Saturday sepians will no doubt have plenty more.

Sepia Saturday 180: A Life on the Ocean Wave

The Sepia Saturday image prompt this week reminded me of maritime uniforms, even though it was taken in quite a different setting, and I'll take the opportunity to use some images relating to this theme from my own family collection. You're welcome to start the music below to get you in the mood with an appropriate soundtrack, and then read on.




Willem Hendrik Schipper (1882-1932)
Photo button (12.4mm diameter) by unidentified photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
We all have those relatives who appear in family albums, but about whom we know very little, and my great-uncle Willem Hendrik Schipper is one of those. Surviving genealogical records are mainly centred around an individual's birth, marriage and death. Census enumerations, which add to the basics in generating a basic framework of family history research in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, have not been kept in the the Netherlands. As a result, all I have to anchor the dates of a biographical history for Willem, since never married or had any children, are his birth in 1882 at The Hague and his death at sea in 1932, somewhere between Sierra Leone and Amsterdam.


There are a few documents and items of ephemera which fill in some of the gaps, such as a "Testimonial of Attendance" for Willem at the Ambachtschoool te 's-Gravenhage, dated 1 July 1899, and a funeral notice in the form of a newspaper clipping. However, what we do have are plenty of photographs, both loose and in a loose-leaved album compiled by his younger sister (my great-aunt Gien) in the 1920s and 1930s. Using these, I have been able to piece together more of a story.


Hendrik (Harry) Jan & Willem Hendrik Schipper, c.1901-1905
Cabinet card by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of H.A.W. Payne
My grandmother and her three older siblings grew up in The Hague, where their father Jan Schipper (1857-1921) worked as secretary to the Director of Queen Wilhelmina's Cabinet at The Binnenhof. According to my mother (who presumably learned it from her mother, since Willem died when she was only eighteen months old), Jan Schipper became very embittered after a disagreement with his new boss, perhaps also from being passed over for promotion, which reflected on his behaviour at home and made life very unpleasant for his wife and children. Willem and his younger brother Harry both 'escaped' from this odious atmosphere by joining the merchant navy at a fairly young age.


Willem Schipper, c.1909-1912
Silver gelatin print by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of H.A.W. Payne

Willem Schipper joined Koninklijke Hollandsche Lloyd as an engineer in 1909, where his "zeal and devotion to duty earned him quick promotion." He appears to have spent most of his early service in the Dutch East Indies at a time when the Empire was reaching its maximum extent. The photograph above shows him in front of a lifeboat on an unknown ship, with what I believe is the rank of 2nd Engineer.

Willem Schipper (at right) and friends, Weltevreden, Batavia, c.1910-1915
Studio portrait, silver gelatin print (96 x 61mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Life in the tropics was not all work and no play, as is amply demonstrated by this studio portrait of Willem relaxing with two friends or colleagues in Weltevreden, the suburb of Batavia (then capital of the Dutch East Indies, now Jakarta) which housed the Dutch administrative headquarters. The cigarette in his right hand is indicative of what would becopme a life-long habit - rarely does Willem appear in photographs without a cigarette or pipe.


Batavia, 1910-1915, courtesy of YouTube
This series of silent film clips which I found on YouTube were probably taken from a moving motor vehicle, which must have been one of the few in Batavia at that time. It gives a very good feel fpor the ambience of the colonial suburbs and busy merchant quarters, complete with wagons, carriages, rickshaws and trams. Another YouTube film of 1920s life in Java includes a clip showing the arrival of a ship at the wharf, together with crowds of colonial men in their whites and solar topees.


Suikerfabriek (Sugar factory), Soemberhardjo, Java, c.1912-1915
Silver gelatin print mosaic (161 x 98mm) by unidentified photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Willem must also have found time for some leisure travel, as demonstrated by this mosaic of a sugar factory at Soemberhardjo in central Java pasted into his sister's album. The factory was built in 1912, thus providing an earliest date for the photograph, and is apparently still operating, complete with geriatric steam locomotives used for hauling the sugar cane.


2nd Engr. Willem Schipper and friends on board S.S. Gelria, c.1913-1916
Silver gelatin print by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
There are several photographs in the album taken on board the SS Gelria, a passenger steamer in service with KHL from May 1913 to March 1916 and again from 1919 to 1931, and it seems likely that Willem served on this ship during the earlier period. The Netherlands retained neutrality during the Great War and their ships continued to operate. The image above shows Willem (seated at left) apparently being congratulated on his promotion to Senior 2nd Engineer by Kapitein Brunt, Junior 2nd Engineer Visser and 1st Marconist (wireless operator) Vuyck.


Willem Schipper and friends on board S.S. Gelria, c.1913-1916
Silver gelatin print by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Another group portrait on the Gelria shows him with junior officers, each with only one stripe on their epaulettes, seated on and standing around cane and wicker furniture in a more formal arrangement.


Willem Schipper and friends, off Calabar, West Africa, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (71 x 102mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
En route from Amsterdam to the East Indies the ships often paused off the coast of West Africa. Willem and his colleagues took advantage of the opportunity to barter for curios with the locals who paddled out to the ship at anchor in the port of Calabar in Nigeria.


Willem Schipper and friends, SS Prins der Nederlanden, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (85 x 111mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
The steamship Prins der Nederlanden was a passenger ship of the SMN line (Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland/Netherlands Steamship Co.) which operated between 1914 and 1935, so I must presume that Willem was a guest on board when this group photo was taken.


Willem Schipper on board the S.S. Zeelandia, c.1915-1920
Silver gelatin print by unknown photographer
Image © and courtesy of H.A.W. Payne
After some years in the East Indies, illness forced a return to the Netherlands, but he was quickly offered a position on the Royal Dutch Lloyd ship SS Gaasterland. On this and other ships, perhaps including the SS Zeelandia (above), he spent at least a decade plying the trade routes of the North and South Atlantic, calling in at ports on the coasts of several continents.


Unidentified ship, possibly at a South American port, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (87 x 58mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
I found several crew lists from the SS Gaasterland arriving in New York in 1920 and 1921 but, juding from number of photographs from South America in the album, supplemented by a postcard sent to his recently widowed mother from Buenos Aires in July 1921, most of his trips headed further south. The print above shows timber and other goods being loaded from a wharf onto a cargo ship (or possibly unloaded) which unfortunately has part of its name clipped, leaving only "...LAND ...ERDAM" visible at the stern.


Unidentified ship, Patagonische Kanalen (Patagonian Channels), c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (87 x 116mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
Some of his journeys ventured a little further afield almost into the Pacific, visiting the western coast of Chile via the Patagonian Channels. This ship also appears to be carrying a cargo of timber on the deck.


Willem Schipper (at right) and colleagues at work, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (78 x 91mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
In a rare shot, Willem appears in his working clothes with two colleagues, apparently engaged in some real work (or at least supervising it), the now ever present pipe clasped firmly in his right hand. Another shows a group of people repairing a winch aboard the SS Rijnland.


Willem Schipper and friend, Funchal, Madeira, c.1920s
Silver gelatin print (67 x 109mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne

Criss-crossing the Atlantic regularly allowed them to stop off periodically in Funchal, the capital town of the Portuguese island of Madeira, where they stayed at the Grand Hotel Belmonte, strolled through the municipal gardens, wandered the narrow cobbled alleys, and caught a ride from Monte down the steep streets on mountain basket sledges, which still catch the unwary tourist today.

Chief Engineer Willem Schipper and colleagues, c.1930
Silver gelatin print (64 x 98mm) by unknown photographer
Image © and collection of Brett Payne
In late 1931, while on a voyage of the coast of West Africa, Willem became very ill and he wrote to his sister and brother-in-law just before Christmas that he had seen doctors in Grand Bassam (Cote D'Ivoire) and Freetown (Sierra Leone), who diagnosed heart problems. He rested for a short while at the Grand Hotel in Freetown, but died on board ship somewhere between Sierra Leone and Amsterdam on 12 February 1932. A letter to his mother from an Evangelical Lutheran Missionary who travelled with him off the West African coast makes it clear that he "felt that he would not live long."


Silver ashtray, possibly from East Indies
Collection of Brett Payne
I inherited this rather battered and well used silver ashtray from my Dutch grandparents some years ago, and even used it for a while until I gave up smoking. I always thought that the engraving had a somewhat oriental look to it, but it wasn't until recently, when I started examining the photographs in Aunt Gien's album in greater detail, that I realised that it may well have been picked up by Willem in Dutch colonial Batavia. The maker's marks on the base don't mean much to me, but perhaps a knowledgeable reader will recognise them and enlighten me. I'm not sure that I feel quite the same way about it, now that I know it may have been so closely associated with Willem's heart disease, and therefore his death.

Sepia Saturday 167: In Search of Mammoths - Journey to the Coldest Place on Earth

A few months ago Diana Burns sent me some scans of photographs in an album that she had just purchased. Taken during the northern hemisphere summer of 1914, the 22 snapshots appear to depict a trip down the River Lena in a remote part of Siberia. Although I did some research at the time Diana sent me the images, my work at the time precluded anything more than a cursory hunt on the net. This week's Sepia Saturday photo prompt includes a steam-powered river boat, which stimulated me into some further exploration, resulting in a breakthrough which I'd like to share with readers.

The twenty two photographic prints are housed in a red bound album with a gilt art nouveau title and black pages, a style that became very popular in the first couple of decades of the 20th century, as amateur photography took off with great gusto. The prints measure roughly 3½" x 5", which probably equates to the 122 film used by a No. 3A Folding Pocket Kodak camera.

Taken on the Buriatric Steppe, on the road from Yakutsk to Irkutsk (#2)
Paper print (roughly 95 x 126mm/3½" x 5") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)
Right from the start it is made clear by the compiler of the album that the journey documented in these pages is no ordinary one. The first image is at the very least bizarre, showing four dead sheep or goats mounted on the tops of some spindly trees, perhaps poplars or a similar species [silver birch family, thank you Mike].

A caption handwritten in pencil on the back of the print specifies the location - "on the Buriatric Steppe, on the road from Yakutsk to Irkutsk" - but leaves the interpetation of the subject matter completely up to the viewer. Although the term "Buriatric" does not seem to have entered common usage, the Buryats are the largest indigenous ethnic group in Siberia, living in the region surrounding Lake Baikal.

11 am 24 June Oost Eelgeenskaya, View of posting boats, River Lena (#3)
Paper print (roughly 95 x 126mm/3½" x 5") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)
The next two photos in the album quickly move on to the means by which this remote and inhospitable region was accessed, the Lena River. This view of "posting boats" is followed by a blurry shot in which a man standing on top of a boat is identified as "Digby," with the added information that it was taken at 3.15pm on 24 June 1914.

View of Paddle S/S "Yakut" off Oostkootsk. 30th June (#8)
Paper print (roughly 95 x 126mm/3½" x 5") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)
By 30th June, they had transferred to a paddle steamboat the Yakutsk, which took them all the way downstream to the town of Yakutsk, in a region often described as the coldest place on earth. For a westerner to make a journey into the Siberian heartland in 1914 seemed to me rather unusual. Large deposits of gold and other minerals were discovered in Siberia in the 1880s and 1890s, resulting in the development of Yakutsk as a significant centre, but westerners were still the exception, even by 1914.

Image © Brett Payne & Google Maps
The diary transcript of an expedition by intrepid Australian ornithologists Robert Hall and Ernie Trebilcock down the River Lena a decade earlier (Robin & Sirina, nd) shows that they must have taken the same route, probably because it was the easiest way to get into Siberia at the time. Given the fragmentary record of Diana's Yakutsk album, I've taken the liberty of including extracts from the diary and some additional photographs taken by them. Transport technology is unlikely to have changed much in the intervening years, so the length of the journey (14 days) was probably similar, and the added detail will help to illustrate the 1914 journey. The full transcript of Trebilcock's diary, for those who are interested, may be found here.

I've also read Sokolnikov's account of a journey to Siberia in 1899 for further background material. My task was was complicated by the multitude of spellings of place names:

• Vercholensk = Verkholensk
• Gigalowa = Zhigalov = Zhigalovo
• Oostkootsk = Oustkoutsk = Ust-Kut
• Olekminsk = Olyokminsk
• Jarkutsk = Yakutsk

Horse and wagon transport Siberia, 1903
Glass plate negative by Hall & Trebilcock
Image © State Library of Victoria and courtesy of Robin & Sirina
The travellers would have started their journey on the Trans-Siberian Railway, which reached Irkutsk in 1898. The first stage of the journey from Irkutsk by post horses, shown in the image above, took about three days:

Left Irkutsk early in morning by post horses – two conveyances ea having three horses. Bells – two small bells suspended from the top of the arch over the middle horse. Carriage slung on poles, no springs! Each stage is about 20 to 35 versts long. At the end of each there is a real house where a supply of fresh horses is always ready, & where the traveller can get a samovar, or if necessary free shelter for 24 hours. The horses travel very quickly, their drivers often urging them into a gallop, much to the discomfort of the traveller if he is not well provided with pillows & cushions ... Bells on arch above horse have to be tied up while in towns to prevent their ringing.

3.15pm 24 June 1914, View of Boat, Digby standing on top of boat (#4)
Paper print (roughly 95 x 126mm/3½" x 5") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)
From somewhere in the vicinity of Zhigalovo - I wasn't able to find the place referred to as "Eelgeenskaya" - they would have transferred to a long, thin, shallow bottomed boat (Sokolnikov refers to them as pauzki):

This distance (335 versts) we did in a boat, mainly by drifting with the current, in four days & three nights. Our boat, which was one of the usual kind used on the Lena for such purposes was about 40 ft. long, & had a deck house wh. though not high was large enough to shelter us & our luggage at night.

11.30am 25 June. P S/S Alexandra & barge in tow, River Lena (#7)
Paper print (roughly 95 x 126mm/3½" x 5") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)
Our intrepid explorers passed the paddle steamer Alexandra towing a barge upstream, similar to those described by Trebilcock:

Passed a number of merchants barges drifting down stream. These are veritable floating warehouses, doing both a wholesale & a retail biz at an enormous profit, giving credit & charging for it.

Music aboard the Lena River barge 1903
Glass plate negative by Hall & Trebilcock
Image © State Library of Victoria and courtesy of Robin & Sirina
When they reached Oost Kootsk (Ust-Kut) the Lena became considerably wider and they were able to board the more spacious and comfortable paddle steamer Yakut for the remainder of the journey downstream. In 1903 the company included a couple of women, a samovar was on the boil, and even musical entertainment was provided.

Very comfortable considering locality – very little diffce betn 1st & 2nd class except in price. But third class! Meals not supplied for the fare – meal tariff very high. Boat travels very fast. Russians cross themselves on starting their journey ... Had a very pleasant evening of a social nature. French was the language. Got on very well with two young Russian ladies.

One hopes the later travellers enjoyed similarly salubrious company.

12.00pm 5th July. Olekminsk. View of the church (#13)
Paper print (roughly 126 x 95mm/5" x 3½") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)

Спасский собор, Olyokminsk
Image © 2008 voluntas_tua and courtesy of Panoramio
During the 1914 journey a brief stop was made on Sunday 5th July at the riverside settlement of Olekminsk (Olyokminsk), perhaps to attend a church service. This snapshot produced in 1914 shows a church that has changed remarkably little in the century since.

Wooden building, gateway and courtyard in unidentified location (#15)
Paper print (roughly 126 x 95mm/5" x 3½") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)
A few days later, they reached the town of Yakutsk. There are no photographs in the album that are captioned with the town's name, although there is a view (shown above) which includes a substantial wooden building with very ornate window frames, a courtyard with what might be stacks of firewood, just visible through a large signposted gateway, flanked by street lamps, and adjacent to an unpaved road. It is almost certainly the premises where the next four images were taken.

Displaying a collection of fossil bones (#18-21)
Paper prints (roughly 4" x 5") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)
Among the last few photographs in the album are four slightly larger images (roughly 4" x 5", used by a variety of roll film formats) which have less of a sepia tint. In fact, their quality is so much better than the others, in terms of focus, composition, exposure, even processing, that I find it difficult to believe they were taken with the same camera, even by the same photographer. They depict a man (in one photo he is accompanied by three others) with a trilby hat and pipe displaying a number of fossil bones; using my rudimentary knowledge of palaeontology I have been able to identify tusks and jaw bone of the woolly mammoth, as well as a woolly rhinoceros skull and horn.

Russian newspapers or broadsheets (#22)
Paper print (roughly 126 x 95mm/5" x 3½") by unidentified photographer
Image © and courtesy of Diana Burns (Yakutsk Album)
The final image in the album is perhaps merely a curiosity. It depicts a couple of pages from a Russian newspaper or broadsheet pinned up on boards, leaning against the wooden boards of a wall. It is not well focussed and my understanding of Russian is slim to non-existent, but I think I can make out the following (what it really means, I haven't a clue):

YAKUTSK CIRCUIT ... RENTING BICYCLES

Apart from the mention of "Digby" and "D." in the captions to three of the photographs, there are no clues as to the identity of the subjects, or to the owner of the album. Nor is there any real indication as to the purpose of the trip. Given that Europe was on the cusp of war, it would have been a tricky time to be travelling abroad. Prior to doing further research my own impression was that the tusk/horn/fossil photos, despite being at the end of the album, actually provided a focus point and could have formed the primary reason for the expedition.

Bassett Digby, correspondent for the Chicago Daily News, 1918
Glass plate negative (4" x 5") of paper print tacked on board
Chicago Daily News neg. coll., DN-0003451, courtesy of Chicago History Museum & American Memory from the Library of Congress
I won't relate the full story here, but using the words Digby, mammoth and Yakutsk in a Google search yielded the first clues: a book written in 1913 recounting a trip through Siberia by R.L. Wright and Bassett Digby, a paper on "the provenance of Bassett Digby's contributions to the Natural History Museum, London, and the British Museum" written by his grand-daughter, and a book written in 1926 by Bassett Digby himself, "The Mammoth and Mammoth-Hunting in North-East Siberia."

Woolly mammoth model at the Royal British Columbia Museum
Image © 2011 Flying Puffin & courtesy of Flickr
Bassett Digby was a journalist who followed in the footsteps of Mark Twain and others by funding his adventures with travel writing. After the publication of Through Siberia: an Empire in the Making in 1913, Digby returned to Siberia the following year. It is not clear what the primary purpose of the trip was but, as is clear from his book and research carried out recently by Susan Digby (2004 & 2008), mammoths featured prominently. Apart from the scientific interest, there was also a significant commercial trade:

In the early twentieth century there was an active market for mammoth ivory, and Yakutsk was the location of tusk yards maintained by middlemen who bought ivory and other fossil finds from native peoples for sale to southern traders. Good quality mammoth ivory was used as an alternative to elephant tusks for such things as piano keys, combs, jewellery, chess sets and billiard balls.

Although Digby provided the "first written comprehensive English-language information on [the mammoth]," Susan notes:

Digby’s involvement in this financial side of mammoth ivory collection is unknown ... [his] journey to Yakutsk was definitely enmeshed with the story of trade and potential riches. His acknowledgement read: "I wish to make my acknowledgements to a certain genial and enterprising gentleman who took a sporting chance on my being able to find a big hoard of mammoth-ivory for him." This acknowledgement, together with a collection of photographs in an album, suggests that he funded his travel and collecting interests by locating ivory for an ivory trader.

Valuation of mammoth jaws and tusks, Ivory trade in Yakutsk, July 1914
Series of paper prints (3" x 2") mounted on black card album page
Image courtesy of Susan Ann Digby, Adsbol family album
The following extract from Digby's 1926 book describes his discovery of a hoard of mammoth ivory in the trader's store room, later arrayed, photographed and valued in the yard outide, as depicted in images #15, #18-#21 from Diana's Yakutsk album. A further series of photographs of the hoard was discovered by Susan and her brother, in an album originally owned by Martinus Adsbol, who had accompanied Digby on the journey to Yakutsk.

Our luck was in. One morning we located a really big hoard. A key was turned in a massive padlock. With a muffled clang the sheet-iron door was flung open. We stepped out of the blinding July sunshine into pitchdarkness ... and, dimly at first, then more and more clearly, this great heap of Arctic loot appeared, like the slow developing of a photographic plate. Huge horns that curled this way and that ... No, not horns; but tusks, mammoth tusks by the dozen, by the score – hundreds and hundreds of them, cairn upon cairn, stack upon stack. Tons and tons of prehistoric ivory.

The snapshots in the Adsbol album are smaller, measuring approx. 3" x 2" although they are roughly trimmed. This may correspond to the 129 film format developed by Kodak for the Houghton Ensignette No 2 and Deluxe cameras first produced in 1912-1913.

Woolly rhinoceros depicted in rock art at Chauvet Cave, southern France
Image © 2006 Inocybe and courtesy of Wikipedia Commons
Susan has worked with Natural History Museum staff in London to successfully identify several specimens and artefacts in the museum's collection as being those which her grandfather provided upon his return from his second Siberian trip. The woolly rhinoceros horn in particular was an especially rare find.

Mammoth-hunting in Siberia, by Bassett Digby
Published in The Graphic, 6 March 1915
Whilst the identity of the photographer of the majority of the photographs in the Yakutsk album remains unknown, if there is any doubt whatsoever that they were taken on the same trip, this is dispelled by another find on the net. An article written by Bassett Digby and published by The Graphic in 1915 includes two of the photographs which appear in Diana's album.

Like the Adsbol family photos discovered by Susan Digby, Diana Burns' Yakutsk album plays an important role in piecing together the history of the early 20th Century exploration of Siberia. We can be fairly sure that there were three separate cameras recording the trip, and probably three men participating in the expedition - the search to identify the "third man" continues.

If you've survived this far, then have a quick look at the remaining photos in Diana's Yakutsk Album before adventuring further afield in search of more Sepian discoveries.

Yakutsk Album

Acknowledgements

Diana Burns has very kindly shared many of her "photofinds" with me, and I'm grateful for permission to use scans of the photographs in her private collection here on Photo-Sleuth. It's not very different from the crowdsourcing collaboration between various archival institutions and members of the public through Flickr's "The Commons" project.

Staff of the State Library of Victoria responded most promptly to my request for further information regarding Hall & Trebilcock's glass plate negatives.

I am also indebted to Susan Digby for giving me access to her engaging Ph.D. dissertation about her "ordinary" grandfather's extraordinary life and travels, as well as excerpts from articles that he wrote about the trip to Siberia, and for pointing me to other resources relating to Bassett Digby.

References

Buryats, River Lena, Trans-Siberian Railway, Yakutsk, Woolly mammoth and Woolly rhinoceros, from Wikipedia.

No. 3A Folding Pocket Kodak, from Historic Camera

The Ensignette Camera, from Early Photography

Roll film, from Camerapedia

Photograph of Chicago Daily News correspondent Bassett Digby, DN-0069953, Chicago Daily News negatives collection, Chicago History Museum, from American Memory (The Library of Congress Archive)

Letter to the Times - #2, from Gimcrack Hospital

The Ninety-Foot Plum Tree, Filling Some Gaps, by Mammoth Tales

Digby, Bassett (1915) Mammoth Hunting in Siberia, The Graphic, 6 March 1915, p.312.

Digby, Bassett (1916a) Along a great Siberian river, Travel 25 (June): 18–21, 46, 47.

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