Iron Whale, part 2. 1892

Pursuit above and below the ice.

14th April 1892

From: Archibald Jenkins, Bristol.

To: Lord Uriah Chetworth, Cornwall.

Uriah

We have proposed a means to track the minke to observe the creature’s highways and habits in the open seas. We have yet to consider how we resolve the wager that provoked your two worthy but drink weary guests to fund our adventures. We must follow our quarry to the edge of the southern ice and then follow these wanderers as they dive beneath this floating shelf. I fear that once we reach the border between the open sea and the ice, to plunge our observation platform beneath the frozen waters as might a diving bell may be detrimental to the occupants. Slung aloft into the winds of the southern pole will most definitely be somewhat arduous. Plunged beneath the ice will freeze us solid.

We must therefore find some means to follow the minke beneath the ice, whilst we remain above. I set my mind to this task, and it took me some considerable time to arrive at some strategy that would suffice. It is clear that little will pass through the ice above the whale without passage eased by the drilling of a hole. Not even would our illumination be seen beneath the ice unless this frozen cover has become extremely thin. This left me with few options to communicate from beneath the ice and, as a result, a solution is forced upon me that must employ magnetism to achieve our ends[15]. A magnetic field will pass through the ice shelf, and should the distance be sufficiently small, and the field be sufficiently large, may be detected on the other side of the obstruction.

If such a magnetic influence could be delivered from our whale, the detection device I propose consists of an induction coil the core of which is an open magnetic circuit. The terminals of the coil being connected with a source of alternating or interrupted current, and suitable indicating devices. A source of interrupted or alternating current constantly flows through the induction coil. A suitable current measuring instrument is adapted to give a warning whenever a variation in the current occurs. Such a device situated in the course of iron or steel that passes near to the open magnetic circuit of the coil will increase the self-induction of the coil and less current will flow through the circuit. The indicating device will denote such decrease in current and indicate the presence of a metallic mass.

Unfortunately, our prey is not composed of a large metallic mass. As a result, this proposal would better detect the iron mass of a passing ship, but not the soft flesh of a marine mammal. So, we must transform our prey to adopt an iron appearance to our detection device. I sketched for a time possible saddles, harnesses and devices that might apply iron materials to the surface of a whale. I even took the liberty to copy the mechanism that you proposed that may fix a device to the whale’s skin using a vacuum and operated by the passing flow of sea water.

A meal with my parents at my family home once more provided me an opportunity to enquire with my parents, for the carriage works is well experienced in the attachment of harness to horse. My mother, as ever, showed interest in her son’s efforts, and as ever a wry smile creased her face once she had examined my papers and illustrations. Obviously to saddle a great beast with a vast hull of iron or numerous metallic pots is a foolish proposal. The great mass of iron required to stimulate our sensitive but experimental detector of iron is unlikely to offer the intense influence upon our device required to detect our prey beneath meters of ice. Should saddling a whale with a mass necessary to provoke our detector, my mother added, the poor beast would most assuredly sink to the bottom of the ocean. With the whale thus sunk one of our fellows from the institute of cetaceous research will most definitely be well proved in his position, she added, on the very edge of mirth.

With her even manner once more collected, my mother offered a more measured observation. We have already attached to our whale a mechanism that might be provoked into the generation of a strong electromagnetic field.

Archie

Figure 9: Jenkins considers magnetism to detect objects beneath the ice shelf.

Figure 10: Jenkins sketched a number of options before his mother noted the obvious.

[15] Standard Solution 4.4.1 Create a measurement system by using a suitable detectable substance, such as ferromagnetism.

22nd May 1892

From: Lord Uriah Chetworth, Cornwall.

To: Archibald Jenkins, Bristol.

Archie,

How easy it is to focus so very hard upon a known quality, that the inertia of such knowledge can fix us upon a solution with such power that alternatives will be ignored. When we find ourselves too close to a problem, the most obvious solution will become those blinkers we would harness upon a horse to obscure distractions from both left and from right. From my vantage, reading your correspondence and dislocated from the problem as was your remarkable mother, the solution to which you refer was apparent before I had finished reading.

Your dynamo towed by our great beasts will generate a prodigious current should the creatures swim at a great speed. Whales are powerful creatures, and to tap some small part of that vitality could supply energy to a powerful electromagnet. If your magnetic detection device is found to be sufficiently sensitive, and assuming that the minke feed at the margins of the shelf where the ice is thinnest, then the wager could be resolved as each whale could be detected and followed as they vanish beneath the ice shelf.

I was musing thus when I realised that I too may suffer from an inertia of my own. After all, those worthy gentlemen of the Royal Society have wagered that the minke whale may dive beneath the ice shelf for sustenance, or may dart just below the surface in search of food. Hence could the beast itself tell us of its journey[16], simply through correlation of depth below the ice and the time thus submerged? This would require only the inclusion into our beacon of a simple clock and a hydrostatic pressure measurement as might be found upon a diving bell. Together, and recorded onto paper, the journey below could be replayed. I contacted our sponsors for clarification of the evidence they demand but alas, after much debate during yet another prodigious bout of alcoholic indulgence at my club, both parties will be satisfied with nought but a measurement of position and time to derive speed in association with a measured depth. These gents enthusiastically encouraged me to include a means to record the depths to which the creatures dive. However, assured me that simply because a whale may plumb the depths, does not mean it does not seek the shallows for a meal[17]. I fear that in my enquiry I have only increased the complexity of the device and the difficulty of the task, not simplified it as I desired[18].

Hence, I returned to your magnetic detector to determine the motion of whales below the ice to demonstrate that these creatures dart with speed just below the frozen shelf to feed. If we can detect no magnetic signature at all, then these creatures must surely lunge to the depths to find their meal, to be recorded by our pressure measurement. In this, a problem remains. The magnetic influence with which you propose to penetrate the ice shelf is extremely localised and our whale might be found anywhere under this vast frozen plate. As we do not know where the whale might make southern landfall our detector must cover as large an area as possible, but must also become concentrated upon a specific point. How do we place your device for the detection of magnetic fields directly above the suspected location of our prey? How do we cover the vast expanse of ice in search of these signals? How might we use this detector to determine the speed of each beast?

We might resolve this problem by scattering your detector as sentinel across the entire expanse of the ice shelf[19]. A costly and impractical strategy indeed. Hence, as have no practical means to follow the minke below, once the chase is afoot follow it above we must. The ice shelf is barrier to our ship.  Once found, how do we keep pace with these agile beasts and pursue them across the ice once we must disembark from our vessel?

Uriah.

[16] Altshuller’s 25th Separation principle of Self-Service. Allow an object to offer a benefit or remove a harm from itself. Employ waste energy or material.

[17] Without customer discovery, innovation is impossible.

[18] Beware offering new functions to a customer. They may demand them for free. Requirement creep is a curse.

[19] Altshuller’s 26th Separation principle of Copying. Employ a simple or low-cost copy.

4th June 1892

From: Archibald Jenkins, Bristol.

To: Lord Uriah Chetworth, Cornwall.

Uriah

The conundrum that you pose in your previous correspondence does not particularly vex, as the scale at which we need to travel far over the sea and our need to travel at speed over the ice differ quite markedly. A seagoing vessel must be large and cavernous to accommodate many crew and sustain them with supplies for many months. A vehicle that might travel for some short time over the ice in pursuit of prey may only demand a pair of crewmates that require little sustenance during their brief but swift foray. The two vehicles are of such different size that it seems unlikely that the operation of one will interfere significantly with the other. The icebound vehicle is likely too small to consume much storage space upon our ship, and the large scale of the seagoing marine vessel is unlikely to impede the provision of necessary functions upon the icebound vehicle.

The problem arises in the transition from one to the other. Once the beasts are pursued to the ice shelf, upon their dive beneath we will have no means to track their course, for the illumination they tow will be obscured by the great mass of ice. Hence we must transition from sea to land immediately, to avoid losing the faint signal produced by the electromagnetic fields we propose, to be received by the sensitive detector we must employ.

This transition is by no means smooth, for the transformation from sea to ice may not be clear. As we approach the frozen shelf, sea may give way to ice gradually, to demand that our vessel navigate frozen obstructions of increasing size. Our detector must be mounted upon a vehicle that can navigate this intermediate interface replete with open stretches of water punctuated by sheets of treacherous ice. This vessel must offer both boat and carriage, able to traverse each medium with ease.

A boat-shaped hull is essential, should we find ourselves in open water. Allied with the skis of a sleigh, perhaps a vessel could traverse both? Should sufficient velocity be achieved, those skis designed to traverse snow and ice might offer sufficient lift to skip across the water’s surface.

If this arrangement offers a suitable chassis to continue the chase from sea to land and through the intermediate condition, then some thought is required on how motive power must be delivered to this device. We might imagine some heat engine powered by steam raised from the combustion of petroleum or coal. We may also imagine motion raised from electric forces. In this, we must also consider the weakness of the magnetic signal that we seek and the sensitivity of our detector. We can be thankful that other ferrous influences are absent in the vast and empty expanse of snow through which we will make chase. However, as ever, with one solution proposed a new harm is introduced. The reciprocating iron parts of a heat engine or the electric components of a battery-operated vehicle will introduce complex and moving fields of magnetic influence into our local environment. Much as the compass of a marine vessel may be influenced by the iron hull of the vessel it commands our detector may be overwhelmed by the vehicle in which it is carried, with little opportunity to account for this influence as a ship's compass might be corrected by Kelvin’s iron balls upon the binnacle.

Hence our vehicle has no means of propulsion, for all means available will disrupt the very signal that we seek. We must find a vehicle and means of propulsion to which our detector is inert[20]. A vehicle of wooden construction entire is demanded, with no metallic parts, not any iron trinkets carried onto the craft by the crew. Our sleigh may be pulled by horse or dog, but these beasts will find no traction as we pass over water. Hence, the only option that remains is to propel our auxiliary vessel just as its parent, with the wind. I propose a lightweight vehicle as illustrated in the enclosed papers, pulled to prodigious speeds by a spinnaker. Armed with such a vehicle, and able to measure both the location of our prey and its speed through the turn of additional wheels, the presence and behaviour of the minke beneath the ice is observed.

Archie

Figure 11: A wooden, wind powered sleigh will carry the pursuit onto the ice.

Figure 12: Electromagnetic disturbance will reveal the minke below the ice.

Figure 13: With the ice shelf barring further ship borne progress, Chetworth must transfer to a sleigh.

[20] Altshuller’s 39th Separation principle of Inert Environment. Surround components with an inert environment.

17th June 1892

From: Lord Uriah Chetworth, Cornwall.

To: Archibald Jenkins, Bristol.

Archie,

It does indeed seem that once the ice shelf is reached, we must transfer our pursuit from a seagoing vessel to some novel means to traverse the frozen wastes. Once arrived, if we consider the speed at which the minke may vanish beneath the ice, I fear that settling our vessel against this barrier and the deployment of our vehicle via a ramp or pulley as we might launch a boat may provoke a delay in which our prey will become lost. I propose that the moment the forward motion of our parent vessel is impeded by fragments of ice, we should immediately launch our secondary craft to continue the pursuit. This will not only create a greater demand upon a hybrid nature for this small vessel but may demand that we once more provoke the wind to haul ourselves from the deck of our vessel as we proposed to save our souls in your lifeboat design of 1884.

The vessel you illustrate adopts this hybrid nature, to present a boat hull and skis and indeed wheels to traverse sea, ice and land respectively. However, my great experience in naval design is disconcerted by your device, for these three means to support our vehicle upon this variety of material all compete for their place. The boat hull dominates the device to support the vessel whilst at sea, and yet those skis will drag beneath this hull in preparation for an icebound venture, as will those wheels that await a yet firmer footing. The function that each adopts may be similar, to support the craft, and yet they each occlude the others as they compete to fulfill their role.

Might elegance result not from a similarly in role, but the delivery of each function with a similarity of structure? I propose in the enclosed papers a modification of your device, in which waterborne and ice borne motion are offered by structures of a similar form. Upon the water, the volume of three pontoons offer support through buoyancy and yet upon the ice the slender apex of these buoyant hulls offer the function of a ski. Hence two devices that offer two functions become a single object[21].

Furthermore, I fear that once the ice shelf itself is reached, you may have ill-considered the transition from sea to solid ground. This ice shelf, floating as it does upon the water, may be raised by some feet from the surface of the sea. Hence, propelled by our kite, our craft must be sufficiently lightweight to permit a short leap to be made from one to the other, as Lilienthal did only one year ago from his artificial mounds.

Finally, the journey through an intermediate landscape of open water and floating ice platforms will provoke such jarring impacts that some mechanism to protect the crew from this severe agitation is demanded. All of these considerations drive our needs away from the sturdy security of beloved boat hulls that have transported me across the globe, to a lightweight, insubstantial and highly flexible chassis.

Subsequent to my springtime correspondence, dear Harriet’s competitive fervour abated for but a few weeks. I fear her occasional visits to Chetworth do bore her so compared to the excitement to be found in her nursing duties. The opportunity to demonstrate her supremacy with firearms became exhausted, for Harriet ultimately expended all of the ammunition in the house in her efforts. Quiet descended upon the grounds and we were all ultimately blessed with salvation from her daily reports. A month’s peace was eventually broken as Harriet resorted to bow and arrow, retrieved from our dear mother’s belongings, to continue our competition. Such a challenge I could not refuse, and so a great competition with these primitive devices commenced.

This ongoing contest was well timed, for the flexible action of bow against string did offer the most excellent example of how a strong but lightweight structure might smooth our passage over water, snow and ice.

Uriah

Figure 14: Chetworth proposes similar structures to offer multiple functions.

[21] Trimming structures from a device and merging functions within the remaining mechanism can result in an elegant outcome.

2nd July 1892

From: Archibald Jenkins, Bristol.

To: Lord Uriah Chetworth, Cornwall.

Uriah

I fear that Miss Chetworth will continue her sport until she returns to a field tent filled with bandages, bedpans and those in need of her tender care. In the eight years of our friendship, and my acquaintance with Ms Chetworth, I have not known her to remain at Chetworth House much longer than a month or so. I predict that her boredom will grow to a prodigious pressure and once more her restless soul will take flight to foreign parts. In fact, in recent correspondence Harriet did make some mention of a need for her particular talents in southern Africa, so no doubt her duties will soon draw her from your company and keep her well occupied.

Regarding our high speed, wind-powered vessel, once willow has met leather we cannot always predict if our shot will make it to the boundary until we expose our ideas to the rigours of debate[22].  It seems that I have struck a nothing shot and not a single run with my proposal. Now that I have my eye in, and you offer me good length, let’s take another swing at this design.

To offer disparate functions with similar structures is a fine proposal. Too often we may be led to believe that elegance is discovered from similar functions, and yet it is the similarity in solution regardless of function that will present a pleasing outcome. Find enclosed my interpretation of your illustration. A lightweight and flexible chassis is bound together with non-ferrous fixings and supported by pontoons with not only the volume to float but also feel little friction upon the ice. As we thunder over the ice, pulled by our kite, that bow-like frame will flex to accommodate sudden changes in surface texture that may, unmoderated at such speeds, rattle the teeth from our very heads.

I discard the wheeled support, of which we will have little use in the frozen wastes. However, I  leave a single wheel to freely trail behind as tire or water wheel, the rotation of which in either medium will provide is some measure of speed. As a consequence of trimming of our structure so, a lightweight vessel results and the ejection of this device from our deck at great speed is assured, to continue the pursuit over sea, ice and a mixture of the two.  

The operator of the detection equipment will direct the captain of our ship, as a river pilot will direct a vessel through well-learned waters. I previously placed this pilot behind the captain, to not obscure the view of one who must steer the ship with precision. However, as the wind may roar past our ears, and with the rumble of the ice surface rattling through our bones, with the ship’s pilot seated forward of the captain he can better direct the captain for his hand signals will be better observed.

With these two pontoons spread left and right before the vessel, it occurs that an improvement in our detection method could be realised. With a single detector mounted upon our vessel, we must determine the trajectory of the target via the detection of consecutive successive changes. We would measure the strength of signal received from our prey, then make some progress and determine how this signal changes, to then make some decision on whether we are moving towards or away from our target[23]. I would expect that such a method to determine the direction to pursue our prey might result in a careen left to right as we monitor this change in signal.

Alternatively, if we make use of those pontoons to permit two iron detection devices to be carried, we might make two simultaneous detections. The difference between these signals could offer some indication of the direction in which our prey flees, much as our two ears detect not only sound but also the direction of such noise[24].

I intend to arrive at Chetworth House this following month in preparation for our journey southwards. Do please pass Harriet my regards should she depart before I make my arrival.

Archie

Figure 15: Jenkins interprets the pontoon and ski concept.

Figure 16: Two detectors are used to determine direction.

[22] You cannot innovate alone. Good ideas appear in the spaces between people. Test ideas with others.

[23] Alshullers Standard Solution 4.1.3, transform the problem into detection of consecutive successive changes.

[24] Altshuller’s Standard Solution 4.5.1, use more than one measurement system to get a more accurate result

Historical context

This chapter in Chetworth’s adventures was provoked by the puzzle of detecting something from a distance before radio transmission was available, which became a reality only a few years after the events described above. Archibald Jenkins didn’t invent the metal detector. The device described in this chapter was patented in the same year that Marconi patented his radio, in 1896, by Francis B. Badt of Chicago under US571739. As these were patented simultaneously I could just have easily drawn Marconi’s invention into existence a few years earlier, as I have Badt’s. However, as Badt’s invention is specifically designed to operate submerged in seawater, I felt Jenkin’s choice of metal detector a more plausible device to operate in the depths of the Antarctic ocean. 

Badt describes his device as an Electromagnetic Sentinel, as follows. My invention relates to an electromagnetic- sentinel for detecting the approach of a mass of magnetic material, and more particularly armor-clad war-ships. The special object of my invention is to provide a device readily stationed in commanding positions that will automatically give warning of the presence of battle-ships in that vicinity, and thereby enable a submerged mine or torpedo to be exploded by a switch operated either by hand or automatic means at the moment the hostile vessel is above such explosive.

The particular value offered by Badt’s sentinel is in its automatic nature. Contemporary means to achieve the same end channel the opposition over the explosive whilst two observers determine the position of the target and operate the charge.

The best method heretofore employed for coast protection by means of explosive mines has been to sink them in the waterway desired to be protected, but preferably in a narrow channel, and from two observatories upon shore connected by telephone and telegraph by means of range-finders the officers on duty follow the movements of any hostile vessel. When the instruments indicate the said vessel is directly above the hidden mine by means of a switch operated either automatically or by hand, controlling a source of powerful electric current, the mine is exploded. This method, however, is subject to the objection of the high cost of such protection, as two observatories and sets of instruments and two or more operators of such instruments are necessitated. The apparatus above described is also somewhat unreliable, as it is quite easily disordered and thereby liable to be rendered inoperative and can be used to follow the movements of but one vessel at a time. At night or during the prevalence of fog, storms, or any other condition tending to obstruct the vision its usefulness is greatly limited or altogether impaired.

Badt’s device required no such observers, potentially operating entirely automatically. Badt suggests that such a device could be used to detonate the warhead of a sea mine lying in wait, or detonate a self-propelled torpedo.

On the contrary, the device of my present application is automatic in its action and gives its warnings by night as well as by day. It is simple and direct in its operation and requires but a single observatory, set of instruments, and attendant, or it may be so constructed as to automatically explode the mine…

….A slight modification of the device…is easily applicable to the self-propelled type of torpedo, being so constructed as to explode the same when within effective distance of any hostile ironclad, and thereby doing away with the necessity of actual contact of the torpedo with the vessel’s hull, which would serve to render the torpedo more effective.

As I have few specialist skills in electrical circuits, I rely upon Badt’s own description of the operation of his metal detection device, lifting his words in their entirety for Jenkin’s correspondence. A schematic of the device is offered in Figure 17.  If those more skilled in electrical engineering see errors in the practical effectiveness of this device I refer you to Badt himself to make enquiries.

Figure 17: Badt’s schematic of his iron detection device.

I would be surprised if the electromagnetic field generated by a device towed by a minke whale could indeed be detected by a 19th-century metal detector. However, innovative concepts should not be treated as solutions to problems but should be collated as questions for the laboratory to answer. Hence, I leave it to the experts to make the necessary calculations to determine what further invention Jenkins must offer for this concept to function as described.