Antarctic conservation blog

Nicola, Monday 16 November 2009

Whilst Georgina was off meeting Prince Edward at Antarctica New Zealand this week, like Cinderella I was left behind at Canterbury Museum cleaning, dusting and dreaming, if not of glass slippers, then at least glass bottles.

When presented with a box of fragments from a bottle bought back from Cape Adare (associated with the 1899 expedition led by Norwegian explorer Carsten Borchgrevink) I found myself asking if it was worth the time to painstakingly piece it back together.

Finally, after discussing it with our Programme Manager Lizzie, we decided that it was rare to find blue bottles at the historic huts and it would definitely add to the Cape Adare hut, and so I went ahead.

Glass bottle from around 1899 before treatment © Antarctic Heritage Trust

Now that it’s back together we can see that it was a chemical bottle, probably from Burroughs Wellcome.

The bottle after conservation © Antarctic Heritage Trust

For weeks now I’ve also been working on metal artefacts which are heavily corroded due to years of freezing then thawing during the summer, as well as being exposed to the salt-laden air.

Some of the objects made from thin tin-plated iron can be completely corroded through leaving no metal, just a fragile, crumbling layer of rust.

This was the case with the only film canister to survive from Herbert Ponting’s darkroom at Cape Evans. Usually the first step in conserving metals is to remove the corrosion, but by doing this half the artefact would disappear. So, you have to ask whether the rust is still part of the artefact and is it worth keeping?

Well, in this case I decided to keep as much of the object as possible given it is such a rare object. So I carefully removed the loose dust, applied a coating to the surface and then strengthened the rust by backing it with a layer of tissue paper and adhesive. It may no longer be the original metal, but it does show that the canister had a lid and what shape it was – or should that be ‘is’?

A can of film from Herbert Ponting’s darkroom at Cape Evans © Antarctic Heritage Trust

Posted in Antarctica, Conservation

One Response to “Questions questions”

1. November 17th, 2009 at 8:40 am
   Ron says:
   

   Hi:

   Is the film in the can on a nitrate base? If it is, what steps will you take to protect/preserve it?

   Ron

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