TIGHAR
Amelia Earhart Search Forum => The Islands: Expeditions, Facts, Castaway, Finds and Environs => Topic started by: Nancy Marilyn Gould on December 31, 2010, 07:12:45 PM
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I am curious to know how the castaways would have built fires? Perhaps they had some matches or a cigarette lighter, but you'd think those would have been rapidly exhausted. I would have expected that once they got a fire going, they would have done everything in their power to keep it going, but from what I've read, I've gotten the impression that they had multiple fire sites. Just curious, thanks.
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Maybe the old-fashioned way: Sticks/Wood? That's the only one I can think of.
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But that's not easy to do, and AE and FN had no survival training.
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This is true. Forgive me, since I'm no expert.
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That's OK, neither am I. But I bet there's someone here who is!
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Yes, tons of wonderful experts here. :)
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Don't forget that there was part of an inverting eyepiece found with the castaway, that was somehow discarded in the process. Its possible that such an eyepiece could have been used to start fires, never mind just about any kind of magnifying piece of glass in the intense sun of Niku. Fred was also a smoker, and undoubtedly carried some form of fire starter with him, probably a lighter of some sort.
A. McKenna
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^I was thinking of that, too; glass.
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I didn't know about the inverting eyeglass. I guess that would work, especially if the island is as hot as everyone says it is. Thanks!
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I didn't know about the inverting eyeglass. I guess that would work, especially if the island is as hot as everyone says it is. Thanks!
I seem to remember someone raising doubt about the effectiveness of an inverting eyepiece being used to start fires; but it's hard to account for just that one piece of the sextant being in or near the sextant box unless it was somehow a useful survival tool.
The brass piece was only described to Gallagher (http://tighar.org/wiki/Inverting_eye_piece_found_on_Nikumaroro), not seen by him or sent to Fiji. It was lost or stolen by one of the natives.
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I am curious to know how the castaways would have built fires? Perhaps they had some matches or a cigarette lighter, but you'd think those would have been rapidly exhausted. I would have expected that once they got a fire going, they would have done everything in their power to keep it going, but from what I've read, I've gotten the impression that they had multiple fire sites. Just curious, thanks.
I would like to think that they kept the fire going, not just to keep away the crabs but to augment visibility (smoke is visible from a long distance) from any approaching (sea or air) rescue. They must have learned their lesson getting passed over by that July 9 Navy flier! ;D
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Marty said,
"I seem to remember someone raising doubt about the effectiveness of an inverting eyepiece being used to start fires; but it's hard to account for just that one piece of the sextant being in or near the sextant box unless it was somehow a useful survival tool."
We've done some experiments using the lens of an inverting eyepiece. It's basically a little magnifying glass. I can burn my hand with it on a sunny day right here in Delaware.
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We've done some experiments using the lens of an inverting eyepiece. It's basically a little magnifying glass. I can burn my hand with it on a sunny day right here in Delaware.
OK. That's encouraging.
Since Gallagher never saw the lens in question, it may also have been one of the other lenses in the system, too. I don't think we can put too much weight on the identification of it as "inverting eye piece."
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Gallagher's confident identification of part of an inverting eyepiece that he supposedly never saw has always bothered me. I'm more than a bit suspicious of Gallagher's claim that it was "thrown away by finder." If the "finder" was not Gallagher himself it must have been one of the Gilbertese. It's hard for me to imagine one of those guys throwing away something as cool as a little magnifying glass that makes everything look upside down. Pure speculation, but I have a hunch that Irish did see the piece and was covering for somebody who wanted a souvenir. Heck, maybe he even kept it for himself. Maybe that's why he said that the sextant was "probably painted over with black enamel."
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From what I understand it's very difficult to make a fire in humid tropical conditions using friction techniques such as rubbing sticks together. Even with a spark from the striking mechanism from a lighter it's difficult to light a fire in humid conditions. So once Noonan's lighter ran out of fluid (assuming that there even was a lighter), it seems likely that the eyepiece might have been the best means to start a fire.
Here is a related thought - It also may be another reason why a castaway would end up at the 7-site. If a person is reliant on the eyepiece for a key element of survival (starting a fire), they would probably select a campsite with a decent clearing that is not to far away and that has the necessary exposure to the sun when the sun is to the west (and maybe also when the sun is more overhead if more intensity is needed). So the Buka forest would be out for a castaway in this situation, but the 7-site would be good and it also has shade (the big Ren tree) and the other positive attributes that have been discussed.
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Gallagher's confident identification of part of an inverting eyepiece that he supposedly never saw has always bothered me. ...
To me the term "inverting eyepiece" suggests a knowledge of a certain specialized jargon let alone that it specifically came from a sextant (I'm sure there are other instruments that use such a thing). Has anybody given any thought as to whether or not such a term would likely have even been a part of Galagher's vocabulary? And if not where would he have come by such a term?
t
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Gallagher owned a sextant himself.
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Gallagher owned a sextant himself.
OK. Here's how Gallagher might identify the missing piece without seeing it: show his sextant to the work party and ask them to point out the piece that most closely resembles the piece that went walkabout.
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That could work.
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We've done some experiments using the lens of an inverting eyepiece. It's basically a little magnifying glass. I can burn my hand with it on a sunny day right here in Delaware.
Just a thought, but didn't her inventory say she had a pair of binoculars? I know that the removable eyepiece of my Dad's Bausch and Lomb binoculars used to fry ants in a fine fashion (until Dad found out we took his binoculars apart). Although a pair have not been found by TIGHAR something like that found by someone at the 7 site I would think would be quickly snatched up and not left there to be found. Although I would suppose that a sextant eyepiece would be similar.
You would think that most people in that situation (figuring what to save from the Electra) would highly consider binoculars to be able to see ships that may be searching for you.
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You would think that most people in that situation (figuring what to save from the Electra) would highly consider binoculars to be able to see ships that may be searching for you.
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It may depend on how much of their gear AE & FN were able to unload before the plane went over the edge of the reef.
LTM,
Mona
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Just a thought, but didn't her inventory say she had a pair of binoculars?
Remember that the only inventory we have is from after the Luke Field wreck. We don't know what was aboard the plane for the Lae/Howland flight over three months later. That said, I would want to have binoculars along on a flight that relied upon spotting a small island.
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To me the term "inverting eyepiece" suggests a knowledge of a certain specialized jargon let alone that it specifically came from a sextant (I'm sure there are other instruments that use such a thing). Has anybody given any thought as to whether or not such a term would likely have even been a part of Galagher's vocabulary? And if not where would he have come by such a term?
So if Gallagher had his own Sextant as Ric has said, then it's almost a given that he would know what this term means. Even if Gallagher didn't own a sextant, I would think that he would still have been familiar with the term, because refractor telescope designs are so common (even more so back then) and inverting eyepieces are part of the design. It wouldn't surprise me if Gallagher also had a "spyglass" telescope with a collapsible/telescoping tube as those were very common back then.
It's also interesting that Gallagher knew enough about optical design to refer to it as an "inverting eyepiece" rather than an "erecting eyepiece". I'm not an optical engineer, but from what I understand, an Inverting eyepiece refers to the most common eyepiece type that is used with refractor telescopes and I think they are also used with binoculars, microscopes and possibly sextants. With refractor telescopes the image is inverted top to bottom as the norm which is where the inverting eyepiece gets it's name. It requires a specialized prism (as is the case with binoculars) or a specialized lens (such as a Barlow) to reverse the image and these are referred to as an "erecting prism", or "erecting eyepiece" and they are commonly used in combination with the inverting eyepiece. Erecting eyepieces have the potential to degrade the image so it's common practice (especially with astronomers) to use only the inverting eyepiece and thereby live with the reversed up and down orientation.
With that in mind has anyone considered the possibility that the eyepiece came from a different source from the sextant, say from binoculars? Does Gallagher specifically say that the eyepiece came from a sextant? Also does anyone know if sextants used only inverting eyepieces or did they sometimes also use erecting eyepieces as well?
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I am curious to know how the castaways would have built fires? Perhaps they had some matches or a cigarette lighter
Reread the Luke Field Inventory and one would think that some items that were prepackaged would remain the same on the second flight. Item #67 is a canvas bag of assorted items with one of those being a "waterproof match container with matches".
I also listed that she had a signal pistol but I distinctly remember reading somewhere that she had jettisoned that prior to or at Lae prior to takeoff for Howland along with a water making machine and a hand crank generator for the radio.
That is what is so frustrating it seems that some of the very important items that would have aided in survival and/or rescue were uncermoniously dumped along the route. It would make one think that she was cognizant of the importance of these items as someone had the foresight to think about the unthinkable (crashing enroute) and had purposely packed those items.
LTM,
Don
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With that in mind has anyone considered the possibility that the eyepiece came from a different source from the sextant, say from binoculars? Does Gallagher specifically say that the eyepiece came from a sextant?
You can read exactly what Gallagher (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Bones_Chronology.html) said.
Also does anyone know if sextants used only inverting eyepieces or did they sometimes also use erecting eyepieces as well?
I don't know but I do know that an inverting eyepiece is a standard sextant accessory for use in situations where you may want to move the observed celestial body up, rather than down, to the horizon.
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You can read exactly what Gallagher (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Bones_Chronology.html) said.
Thanks Ric. I'm not seeing mention of an eyepiece in the Gallagher exchange though. I do see the exchange here though:
http://tighar.org/wiki/Inverting_eye_piece_found_on_Nikumaroro
Also does anyone know if sextants used only inverting eyepieces or did they sometimes also use erecting eyepieces as well?
I don't know but I do know that an inverting eyepiece is a standard sextant accessory for use in situations where you may want to move the observed celestial body up, rather than down, to the horizon.
I think we've been using the term incorrectly. I know nothing about Sextants, but from my knowledge of the terminology in astronomy, the term is somewhat of a misnomer. With a refracting optical design the objective lens (the lens at the front of the telescope) inverts the image. The basic eyepiece used with a refracting telescope does not correct this inversion but is unfortunately given the name "inverting eyepiece". If a person wants to correct the inverted image an accessory eyepiece or prism is needed, but this eyepiece is called an erecting eyepiece. So saying that it's an inverting eyepiece is equivalent to saying that it's a standard eyepiece rather than an accessory.
From the link above what Ross Devitt is describing is actually an erecting eyepiece rather than a standard inverting eyepiece.
"An inverting eyepiece would be at least an inch or so of metal & glass. The eyepiece is used to flip the sextant image so it is more 'natural' to look at (a sextant as you know will show the image upside down). An experienced navigator probably wouldn't bother using it" (Ross Devitt, December 14, 1999 Forum).
I think Ross has the terms mixed up, but he is right that an experienced navigator probably wouldn't bother using an erecting eyepiece because it's well know that erecting eyepieces use more optical elements and degrade the image. So what Gallagher probably found was the standard eyepiece that came with the sextant.
This probably has little relevance with the FN/AE disappearance, but it is good to know the differences between the eyepiece and what it is that Gallagher actually found.
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I also listed that she had a signal pistol but I distinctly remember reading somewhere that she had jettisoned that prior to or at Lae prior to takeoff for Howland along with a water making machine and a hand crank generator for the radio.
See the Survival Equipment category for details. (http://tighar.org/wiki/Category:Survival_equipment)
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Gallagher owned a sextant himself.
I've forgotten whether it's mentioned in the inventory of Gallaghers' effects, did he have his sextant with him on the island?
Possibly, for whatever reason, he himself snagged this one for use on his own sextant?
Merely an idle SWAG of a thought.
....TB
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I've forgotten whether it's mentioned in the inventory of Gallaghers' effects, did he have his sextant with him on the island?
Yes
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See the Survival Equipment category for details.
Thank you very much sir, I have digested so much information on AE and FN that I have a hard time remembering from twixt it came.
LTM,
Don
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For what it's worth, I dug into Sextant optical designs and found out that a Brandis sextant (presumably what FN used) uses a small Galilean optical telescope (http://sextantbook.com/2009/05/30/a-byrd-sextant-restored/). Galilean telescopes are notable because they use a second optical element in the telescope tube in addition to the main objective lens. This second optical element magnifies the image and also presents an erect (right-side up) image in much the same way that a Barlow lens does the same thing with a standard refracting telescope. So I think that Ross is probably mistaken that the image orientation is reversed with a sextant, at least for the Brandis sextant in the link above. It also implies that there is no use for an erecting eyepiece with a Brandis sextant (also contradicting what Ross has said). Why? Because it's highly unlikely that someone would want to take a right side up image and reverse it knowing that the image would also be degraded in the process.
Despite the fact that a Galilean telescope does not reverse the image, it doesn't mean that it can't still be used with an inverting eyepiece. Inverting eyepieces are often used with erecting lenses such as a Barlow lens and I suspect that the eyepiece used with this Brandis would belong to the class of eyepieces known as an "inverting eyepiece" (even though the image is not inverted - dang talk about a poorly chosen name). Since Gallagher didn't find a Sextant he had no way of knowing the optical design of the sextant, but his term "inverting eyepiece" seems consistent with how astronomers use the term. Because of historical reasons this terminology is also consistent with other optical fields such as microscopy.
Btw, there is a comprehensive list of inverting eyepiece designs that can be found in the link below. Most of these eyepiece designs are very familiar to astronomers and are considered to be a standard eyepiece type as opposed to erecting lenses which reverse but degrade the image (there is the confusing terminology again).
http://www.brayebrookobservatory.org/BrayObsWebSite/BOOKS/EVOLUTIONofEYEPIECES.pdf
Now that I think about it, knowing the type of eyepiece that Gallagher found could have implications in the FN/AE disappearance. If we assume for a second that Gallagher had no understanding of telescope designs and used the term "inverting eyepiece" based on seeing a reversed image (note, I think he would need the full optical tube to see the reversal but lets run with this thought), it would imply that he found an erecting lens and therefore that the sextant wasn't a Brandis (again assuming that I'm correct that a reversing (ie erecting) eyepiece is not needed and wouldn't have been offered as an accessory with a Brandis).
It could also have implications from a fire starting perspective. An inverting eyepiece focuses light from one side of the eyepiece to a specific spot on the other side of the eyepiece (based on the focal length of the eyepiece) in much the same way as a magnifying glass. If the aperture is large enough, it can easily have enough intensity to start a fire (particularly in the tropics). I'm not as sure that erecting eyepieces share this trait. I'll check a Barlow that I have at home but I don't think that it focuses light in the same way.
Anyway, please take all of this with a grain of salt as I'm not a sextant expert. But as an amateur astronomer, I am familiar with inverting eyepieces :)
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Getting back to the task at hand, building fires without matches or lighter - yes, it can be done, IF you are 1) patient, 2) patient, 3) patient, 4) patient ... see a pattern here? Oh, and a little training and experience is basically a must.
"Rubbing two sticks together" so beloved of the movies is, ummm, a bear of a way to start fires. The castaways would have had to have located a very dry piece of wood to use as the base board to create an ember, and then all the other parts (spindle, etc.), and it takes a lot of time if you don't know what you're doing, like maybe all day. And they had a lot of other things to do too.
Using a magnifying glass, binocular lens, inverting eyepiece, etc., can work fine, again, IF you have the presence of mind to get the right kind of fine, dry tinder material to focus the sunbeam on. The inside of coconut husks works well, dunno about ren trees or scaevola. It has to be very finely divided and absolutely dry.
Sparks are good (the old flint and steel from pioneer movies) if you think of sparking two wires from a storage battery together over some bone-dry tinder, or if you're really smart, and prepared, using a fine steel wool pad and a couple of flashlight batteries works great. If you have been trained to know to do that. I do not think you could get a good spark from a knife blade on coral rock.
Once you finally get a fire going, of course, the easiest way to start a new one is to Never, Ever let the old one go out! Which could account for all of the fires at the 7 site, in addition to keeping crabs at bay, it may be a reflaction of just moving the fire site around to take advantage of fuel sources or something like that. If you are already wek from heat exhaustion, not enough water, etc., dragging in firewood from all over is a pain. It's easier to just take some of the old fire to a new source of fuel.
My 2 cents as a former Boy Scout and ex-pyromaniac.
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Things might be simpler if an old match box or one of those water proof match tubes had been found, but given the thoroughness of TIGHAR's archeology on the ground, that possibility is essentially exhausted ...
So far as I know, our lead archaeologist, Dr. Tom King, (http://tighar.org/wiki/User:Tfking106) has not finished writing his final report on "Rolling Thunder." My impression is that he would not say that there is nothing left to be found from the castaway, only that the artifacts to be found by current techniques have found what is findable in the area that was covered in Niku VI (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/NikuVI/Niku6dailies.html). I'm moderately confident that he would like to expand the search area, if time, funds, and diggers were available to do so. Even then, the argument about how much confidence to place in the final results of such a thorough search would still depend on assumptions that are essentially untestable at this late date. IF TIGHAR has located the area where the bones were found, and IF the Rolling Thunder technique is applied to the whole area used by the castaway, then the odds are very high that all relevant artifacts will have come to light.
It always did strike me as odd that an 'inverting eye piece' (some sort of lens) was found in a campsite - the context suggesting that someone was probably trying to do exactly what has been suggested here.
I sometimes worry about where the rest of the sextant went. Did someone discard it on the plane while packing a survival kit? Was it abandoned at the first campsite? Is it on land or in the water now?
Of course we also now know there were fires started by some means - and have no reason, given the absence of the little creatures, that the castaway(s) had planned to toast ants... ; )
We probably should not attribute all of the fire features to the castaway. IF the Seven Site is where the bones were found and the skull buried, some of the fire features probably come from the castaway. Others may have come from the workers who cleared and searched the area; others from honeymooning lovers or turtle hunters; still others, possibly, from Coast Guard personnel; etc.
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We probably should not attribute all of the fire features to the castaway. IF the Seven Site is where the bones were found and the skull buried, some of the fire features probably come from the castaway. Others may have come from the workers who cleared and searched the area; others from honeymooning lovers or turtle hunters; still others, possibly, from Coast Guard personnel; etc.
Because of the remoteness of the location of the 7-site and the island itself, I would guess that the number of fires lit by someone other than the castaway would be small. I could see some of the workers/colonists possibly creating a fire and maybe someone from the Coast Guard, but not many others. This seems like a key question to ask during the upcoming interviews with former colonists. It's also a worthwhile question for any of the surviving Coasties. If both groups say that they never heard of anyone creating fires on that part of the island then it raises the probability that most if not all of the fires were set by the castaway.
Along the same lines, one thing that I always found troubling is that all of the glass found at the 7-site was broken. I doubt that the castaway would break the compact mirror and various other bottles that have been found. So if not the castaway who else would break them? The colonists seemed to want to reuse everything that they found and some nice bottles would have been more useful than senselessly breaking glass and leaving it on the ground. I could see the Coasties finding bottles from a Castaway and then using them for target practice, so perhaps they were the ones. Another good question to ask if another opportunity comes up to interview one or more of them.
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If the coasties were finding bottles from 1937 and doing target practice then would they not have gathered them up and made some sort of range? I don't think the bottles are all in one place.
Excellent point, and one we hadn't thought of.
Also the bottles would show evidence of bullet strikes? (here in the UK we don't have general access to guns so i could be well off the mark)
A bottle struck by a bullet shatters. I've never seen a mark on a shattered bottle that could be defined as the point where the bullet struck.
Do Tighar clean up the bottles, removing sootmarks and the such? I should imagine that glassware when put in a fire will only have a finite life before heat stress causes it to shatter.
No, we don't clean up anything, even our language.
A thought! could fragile fire burned glassware have been trampled on and broken?
Hmmm...I don't know if heat makes glass more fragile.
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The Freckle Cream jar does not look to me like it was shot. More like dropped. A shot glass container usually breaks into many small and widely scattered pieces.
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Interesting. The bottoms of both bottle were quite melted, suggesting that they didn't break immediately. Some experimentation may be in order.
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From looking at the associated pics, the Freckle Cream jar (Artifact 2-9-S-1) seems a bit thicker than your average jar of the time. Perhaps therefore they took longer to fail...allowing time for their bottoms to melt.
Possibly the Castaway even got more than one usage cycle prior to failure?
.....TB
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Wouldn't the freckle cream jar have been awfully small to use to boil water in? That's the one thing that I've been wondering about. All the bottles described sound like they were small. Considering how much water you'd need in a day, it sounds like a lot of work for a very small amount of water.
Why wouldn't rainwater have been clean enough?
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I sometimes worry about where the rest of the sextant went. Did someone discard it on the plane while packing a survival kit? Was it abandoned at the first campsite? Is it on land or in the water now?
Imagine (as many people did already) that Noonan died first. Navigation was his profession, and for that reason I cannot imagine that he would have abandoned his sextant. Having understood that, I imagine that if AE could give him a decent burial, maybe she did not want to take the sextant, which was of no further use for her (except for the eyepiece ...), away from his owner. So she kept the box, which was definitely useful to store the few items that could make her survival kit, and gently put the sextant into Fred's hands before closing the grave. This is the answer I would offer to your question : the sextant has been in Noonan's grave. May be a much too romantic hypothesis, but it is not inconceivable that we finally know ...
Unfortunately I cannot tell you whether this is on land or in water now.
Christophe Blondel
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Remember TIGHAR has found traces of residue in some of the broken jars.
Ted Campbell
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What were the dimensions/weight of the box? Why I ask is that if it is heavy and cumbersome then it is a possible indicator of a staged move to the Seven Site from the landing location. It would appear from the Luke field inventory that there were more light weight and carriable holders than a wooden box.
The British didn't record the dimensions of the box they found.
None of the [url-http://tighar.org/wiki/Sextant]sextant photos on the wiki[/url] show a scale.
I'd rate the boxes as extremely awkward to carry.
One advantage might be that it would be the best preserver for a diary of all of the containers available on the aircraft.
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I checked the wiki and found http://tighar.org/wiki/File:Three_sextants.jpg that had three Brandis sextant boxes with a ruler beside them. A rough dimension would be 10 inches length and width. Depth unknown. One box slightly larger. Further searching of extant eBay links in the wiki to Brandis sextants found one description mentioning a box at 10 inches square. The boxes do have a metal carrying handle. The above is useful if the box found on Niku was a Brandis - which we don't know.
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The Brandis Box I have is approx 10" x 10" by 5" deep, similar to the two sextants on the right in the link you found (mine is not pictured). It does have a handle for carrying. We don't know that the box found on Niku was a Brandis box, but we do know that the vast majority of pre war boxes with two numbers on them that we've been able to locate are Brandis boxes. And, they match pretty well with Gallagher's description of the box - dovetail corners, black enamel paint from the sextant, two numbers, for example.
Andrew
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Which takes me a bit (more) off topic, perhaps, but just why do so many feel FN may not have made it as far as AE? As I recall, messages suggested injury, for one. Known skelatal remains now suggest 'a woman', too - so 'where did Fred go' seems fair game. I've wondered if he lies buried somewhere up on the north end, left there by an AE who went trekking on to some place like the 7 site to make fires and hope for the best.
LTM -
Would AE have taken the trouble to bury FN? That would be a tremendous amount of work, especially #1) without the right tools, and #2) without much water and risk of being dehydrated.
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Would AE have taken the trouble to bury FN? That would be a tremendous amount of work, especially #1) without the right tools, and #2) without much water and risk of being dehydrated.
Now it makes perfect sense why she would want to move to the other end of the island! Too get away from the stench of FN's rotting body. ???
LTM
Don
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Remember the "knob" artifact. Look at the cap on the top of this lighter fluid can from the 1930's.
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I don't think the can was definitively identified down to the product it contained. Only that the closure was of that type. So there might have only been one can, with an unknown product. Could have been lighter fluid ... could have been oil for cleaning rifle bores ... whatever.
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I'm afraid I'm with Bruce on this one. That can was popular with a number of manufacturers. Indeed I can remember an identical can as that one kicking about my own home during the entire time I was growing up. Only, in our case the can was a Three-In-One Oil can.
....TB
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Maybe they could have used any remaining fuel from the plane to start a fire? If they had time to be in the plane to send radio calls for hours, i guess they would have plenty of time to drain some fuel from the tanks as well. A rag or a piece of clothing soaked in gas would be very easy to ignite compared to other things discussed in this thread.
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The only ID of 2-6-S-45 was the patent (US 1891826) under which it was manufactured. This was for a cap with an integral spout similar to what is still used today for stuff that you don't want to risk leaking out (inflammables) or expose to air (glue). There is no mention of prior art on the application, so if this is the original patent for the style of packaging where you have to remove the cap, cut the tip off, dispense and then reseal if there's any left, the guy had a pretty good idea that lives on to this day.
The inventor (Edward McGinniss) worked for and assigned the patent to the Consolidated Fruit Jar Company, one of the early manufacturers of Mason jars. They were in the business of selling packaging, not contents, so it would have been one of their customers (we don't know which) or their packager who put the cap on a particular product. This means that we do not know what was in the container that 2-6-S-45 was placed on. It is supportive of the hypothesis that the cap had something to do with starting fires that the patent application described the invention as "especially adapted for use on containers in which highly volatile or dangerous liquids and gases are contained...", but it is not conclusive.
Concerning the shape variations noted in The Knob that Wasn't, the final form of 2-6-S-45 would also have been determined by the content manufacturer or bottler as opposed to CFJ. The McGinniss patent covers multiple methods of attaching the cap to the container and two of them, threading and "clamping" are illustrated. According to http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/38_SecretsKnob/knob1.html, 2-6-S-45 does not exhibit evidence of threading. The clamping method (what I would call crimping, swaging or rolling the cap on) would have the cap start with a fairly smooth, straight, cylindrical ID as the mating surface and a straight or more likely curved OD of the container spout. The container is filled, the cap placed on the spout (probably with a seal between them) and a tool or machine would compress the cap around the spout, providing mechanical closure and fluid integrity to the package.
I don't know what kind of device was used to install this particular cap; a product in high volume production would probably have had automated equipment on the packaging line, but specialty items might have been done manually with a hand tool. Either way is going to deform the soft metal of the cap, but the strike marks would vary with the type of machine, from tool to tool, line to line, time to time as jaws wear, operator to operator on a manual line or by simple process variation. You can see these marks in the pictures of other products with the same type of cap. It seems that the knurling that originally contributed to the knoblike appearance may be a result of the closure process, rather than the cap manufacturing itself. The Permatex can shows the knurling well below the shoulder of the cap, while on 2-6-S-45 you can see them in the view looking down from above the spout. You might be able to match the final shape of 2-6-S-45 up with some antique, but it's not going to tell you anything other than two old caps ended up looking the same. At most this would be supportive that they were closed by the same method, extremely doubtful that any conclusions regarding content could be reached. Remember that you have to eliminate all of the impossibles for the improbable to be a known truth.
So much for research, now some speculation. Start with the type of cap chosen by the product manufacturer. He had a choice: threaded or crimped. Setting aside cost and other considerations, let's focus just on product utility and safety for a moment. The main difference between these methods is that the end user can remove and replace a threaded cap, but not a crimped one. If you have a product where you might want to use a little bit at a time (a drop of oil for a squeaky hinge) or a lot in a hurry (pour some oil into a lube reservoir on a piece of machinery), the threaded cap makes sense. Take the small cap off for just a squirt or unscrew the whole thing if you're in a hurry, sort of a two-speed dispensing device. If, on the other hand, you have a product that is expected to be used only in small amounts or where you don't expect anyone to want to get it all out at once (any suggestions class?) or perhaps are worried about the lid accidentally coming loose because of a danger associated with the contents (anyone, anyone?), then a crimped cap would be a better choice, allowing small amounts to be dispensed until the container was empty, and then disposed of. Kind of like you would want for a can of ligh...
OBJECTION!, he's leading the witnesses! SUSTAINED!
OK, that's enough fun. My apologies to the court. Now how about some questions?
1. What happened to the container?
I originally wrote this as "Where is the container", but that wording supposes that it still exists and I don't know that it does. I/we need to discipline my/our thinking to stay true to the scientific method so I redid the question to fit what we know and not include anything that is supposition. Well, OK, I quess it's supposition that the cap was on a container when it reached the island and not carried by someone as a bird whistle or other stand-alone use. How many possible answers to this question can the forum come up with? I've got a couple, but will refrain so as not to influence the unspoiled thinking of others.
2. What was in it? Volatility of contents would impact whether anything was left to analyze, either on the cap or if a compatible container is found. If someone in survival mode carried it from the NW side of the island, it probably had a place in their plan. Supposition, I know, but without some degree of rational person on the island, how would a fire ever have been started?
3. Why was it broke? Lots of room for speculation here!
4. Where is the rest of it? The spout and the small cap might still be out there.
5. What could it contribute to our understanding of AE/FN? Probably just that it fits with the general Niku hypothesis. You could find a receipt for a can of 3 in 1 Oil from a New Guinea drugstore with Amelia's signature on it or film of Fred getting into the plane at Lae with a can of lighter fluid in his hand and still not be able to prove that 2-6-S-45 wasn't from a can of Coast Guard gun oil.
Threads spawned:
Consolidated Fruit Jar Company. Do they still exist, are there any pre-1937 customer records available? Any known fluid sponsors of the flight, Lockheed or P&W manufacturers recommendations for lubes, known product preferences of AE/FN or other principals? Any ties from this type of info to products known to have used this packaging? Has anyone found a threaded cap with this patent number?
Has any thin gauge steel similar to what a small can would have been made from dating from the same period been found on Niku? Corrosion of untreated ferrous metals in hot humid climates with high chloride levels is usually pretty aggressive (surf is vicious stuff, look what's left of SS Norwich City after 80 years). But the steel tank with Tarawa police marking is from the same time frame, no? Maybe something still to find at the Seven Site?
Smoking habits? Don't know if AE smoked, but lots of people are particular about what, when and how they smoke. Was Fred a Lucky Strikes (green label before WWII) guy? Always have a Zippo with him? Wasn't there a lighter found by the small inlet? Does lighter fluid take nail polish off? Prevent freckles? Probably not on that last one, but I only know what I know, and for all I know, it might.
Anyway, this is fun stuff and my thanks to those that brought the discussion this far along.
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Smoking habits?
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Well, at least there's one question in your post that's easy to answer. FN was a smoker. AE was not.
LTM,
Mona
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1. What happened to the container?
Do you know what material the container was made from?
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The container was made from 28 gauge (about 0.015 inch thick) mild steel with a 1-2 mil layer of tin electroplating on both sides. It was an oval can, 2 1/8" wide by 3 2/3" high and held 3 US fluid oz. Made by either the American Can Company of Chicago or Crown Cork and Seal of Batavia, IL. Not sure what it held, but the can was painted with a red, yellow and white label.
I know this because I found an old can with the same cap on eBay. Plus it came to me in a dream. Good enough for the benzene ring, good enough for me!
Seriously, the answer is no, I don't know what material the container was made of. None of us know and we won't know unless we find it, which will be difficult if it doesn't exist anymore. But we can ponder it a little and see where our thoughts take us.
To me, the curious question of the cap is:
How did the container vanish without the cap being severely distorted in the process?
Start with the container material. Two candidates are steel and glass. Let's take glass first.
Glass is plentiful, cheap and was in wide use for packaging at the time. It’s also brittle and dense, so it gets heavy by the time it’s thick enough to have any strength. One thing it’s got in common with lead is chemical stability, so if you want to bring some sulfuric acid on your flight around the world, a glass bottle with a lead cap would be a good candidate. I don’t like the geometry of this, though. If the OD of the cap is about 5/8 “, and the bottle neck thickness was enough to have some strength and impact resistance, there isn’t a lot of diameter left for a hole through which to pour.
Regardless of how good a container a glass bottle with this cap on it would be, we are now at the interesting question. What happened to the bottle? If it was empty and someone wanted to use the bottle as a container, the issue is removing the cap without damaging the bottle. Lead is nice and malleable; it wouldn’t take much of a tool to pry the skirt of rolled-over crimp material up and remove the cap, if you have a tool. If you don’t have a tool, you become the tool. Fingernails or teeth would probably get the cap off, but with a lot of deformation (teethprints anyone?, dental records, photogrammetry of publicity-shot smiles?). This way is, by definition, going to deform the cap and 2-6-S-45 doesn’t show evidence of this kind of mechanical trauma. You might try pulling on the spout to get the whole cap off. That might work, but it might just break the spout off. Lead also has a low melting point, so you could heat it up and hope that you don’t lose the bottle in the process. Place your bets and take your chances.
Conversely, if you wanted the cap and didn’t care about the bottle, break it and shake it. No tools needed and you’ve got a lovely little lead funnel/shot glass/ fishing weight/??? along with some glass shards.
How about a hybrid of the above? You want a nice sharp piece of glass for something. Break and shake, then throw the cap away and hope you ended up with a piece of glass that suits your purpose.
Got a gun? Shoot the glass out from under the cap! William Tell’s evil twin!
Whatever the motivation or course of events, both the lead and the glass would be durable enough to survive 70 years of atmospheric exposure, which is unavoidable. Less certain is whether an intact bottle would remain in place or be scavenged by a colonist, used as a target or float away during a high water event. I didn’t see any details about the circumstances the artifact was found under, but it seems like there was some glass located at the site. Any chance of a match?
Now to the steel possibility. Most of the contemporaneous items these caps are found on are steel, probably tinplate, cans holding a few ounces of refined liquids. Oil, white gas or lighter fluid and the type of specialty products envisioned by the caps inventor seem to be most common product. More pedestrian products wouldn’t rate such a specialized cap. I have a can of gun oil, probably from the 1940s or 50s in a steel can with a similar style but different manufacture cap. No signs of corrosion, but it hasn’t been in the same environment.
I went back and reread the first bulletin on 2-6-S-45 and the NDT work done at the Naval Academy reported a steel ring inside the “knob”, along with corrosion products on the outside that helped to obscure the markings. The presence of a steel ring didn’t seem too weird if the item was a knob for adjusting something, but to find a steel ring inside an item that was designed to be deformed during the crimping process is puzzling if not downright counterintuitive.
If you wanted to get a lead cap off of a steel can so you could use the can, you’ve got pretty much the same situation as with the glass bottle and the tools, except that a steel can could take more abuse and still function. Removing the cap without damaging it, however, is a bit of a challenge, unless you have a lot of time and some chemistry available.
So where are we now? We have a lead cap with a steel ring inside it, but no indication of the container it once sealed. A cap made of a very stable metal with corrosion products on it with no obvious driving force for the corrosion. Or do we have something a little different?
Rather than a lead cap that was cast around a steel ring or had one pressed into it, perhaps we have a lead cap with a ring of steel still inside it. The remains of a steel can? I’d be curious to see some details of the steel to see if it appears to be the rim of a spout. If the lower edges of the steel indicate failure by rust penetration, then it seems like we have a steel can that has oxidized itself into oblivion, or at least oxidized itself into separation from its cap.
Lead forms an oxide layer very quickly when exposed to air, much like aluminum. It is this layer that then protects the base metal. I am not enough of a chemist to know whether lead in contact with iron would form corrosion products without any real electrolyte other than salt spray, but perhaps someone else could comment on this.
Curiously, the leading contenders for the contents of the can would likely have opposite effects on its post-consumer lifespan. Some sort of oil or lubricant would act as a preservative, while a naptha-based lighter fluid would volatilize rapidly and leave the surface free of petroleum or other oils that might protect it.
In my mind, the most likely scenario is that a can of lighter fluid comes to the island, is used up and someone tries to take the cap off by prying/pulling on the spout, which breaks off and is lost or discarded. The can is discarded, the cap rusts off with a ring of can spout material still embedded inside and the rest of the can either rusts, floats or is carried away. The cap survives to be found 64 years later, and people all over the world relax in the evenings by pondering things that aren’t real important, but offer a chance to exercise the brain. Beats Sudoku any day.
Regardless of the container material, you end up with a couple of known knowns , and a big pile of known unknowns. Life is like that, but if you’re careful to put things in the right pile to start with, they tend to migrate to the smaller pile as you keep thinking about them. Just make sure to keep the unknowns from sneaking in to the known pile.
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To your great post about the different purposes of the caps and the spout caps: One could speculate that the cap was removed from the can of flamable liquid as it ran out. This is a natural action, to take of the cap exposing the larger hole to be sure you get the last drop.....building your last fire....at least with this starter.