In the British navy, beginning shortly after 1702, rather than bringing the lantern into the powder-room at all, it was usually placed in an adjacent "light room," and the light from the lantern would shine through a glass window into the powder room (in the bow). Sometimes the light room was above the powder room and the window in the floor (thus providing overhead lighting). Other times it was a triangular room that protruded into the powder room and had windows on the two entrant sides. In this case, it might be built around the foremast. The light room and the powder room had to be accessed from separate hatches in the orlop deck. In 1805, copper wire guards were added to the magazine light window. In eighteenth-century French and Dutch practice, a light well with a lantern for nighttime use was used to illuminate both the passage to the magazine on one side and (through a thick window reinforced by a brass grating) the magazine on the other (Lavery 146-9; Quinn 80-1).
The alternative to the separate light room (or well) was to use a specialized powder-room lantern. In the British and Dutch examples, the light source was positioned over a lead container filled with water (Id.).
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The Color of Instrument, Bridge, and Deck Lighting
We are probably all familiar with submarine movies in which we see the crew garishly lit by red lights. The red (>620 nm) light doesn't bleach the dyes in the rods and therefore doesn't destroy dark adaptation. Hence, we may see electric compass lights equipped with red glass filters.
In medieval stained glass, red was obtained by adding colloidal cuprous (Cu+) oxide. Preferably, to increase transmission of light, the glass was "flashed," i.e., white glass dipped into a pot of red glass and then blown, so there was just a surface layer of red. There are problems with copper red, but the alternatives (gold, uranium) have their own objections.
While red lighting helps preserve dark adaptation, if the light in question could be visible to an enemy ship, there's a case for using blue lights instead. The atmosphere scatters blue light more than red light, hence, at a distance, the luminance of a red light will be higher than that of a blue light of equal intensity. On the other hand, the dark-adapted eyes of enemy lookouts would be more sensitive to blue light than red light (Pearce). Blue glass may be obtained by doping with cobalt oxide or cupric oxide.
Another problem with the red lighting was eyestrain, and in 1981 the American submarine command ordered that sonar room lighting be converted to blue. However, there was the problem that the blue light was deleterious to dark adaptation. Ultimately, in 1991, the submarine force switched over to low-level white lighting (achieved by placing neutral density filters over the lights) (Elliott).
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Fire Hazards
In Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, the protagonist muses that while the "the lee shore, the gale, and the wave" were "constant enemies of the seaman," yet "none of them [was] as feared in wooden ships as fire" (Forester, 76). The fire hazard could be attributable to the burning of combustibles to generate heat (especially for cooking), light, or (after the introduction of steam) propulsive power, to enemy use of heated shot or incendiary shells, or to lightning strikes. If the ship were in port, then a fire could spread from a dockside building or from another docked ship. Also, some nineteenth century shipboard fires were the result of arson committed by owners seeking to collect on insurance.
According to Port of New York data (1614-1900), out of 602 distressed vessels, 61 reported fires caused by carelessness with flames, and 23 caused by blown steam engines or lightning. Of course, a fire could quickly consume an entire ship, perhaps leaving no one to make a distressed vessel report. The 130-ton Tijger was lost to fire within minutes in 1614 (south of the present Times Square), and the Sovereign of the Seas, built in 1634 and then armed with 102 guns, perished in 1697, its burning popularly ascribed to an overturned candle. In 1793-1815, ten British warships (including eight ships-of-the-line) were lost to fire (Lavery 185).
In the case of a steamship, electric lighting is obviously preferable to generating light by combustion. It's true that the boiler and furnace present an explosion and fire hazard, but that is a "sunk cost" attributable to propulsion, and it is confined to the engine room which can be equipped with safeguards. We do of course have to have well-insulated wiring to avoid electrocution hazards and electrical fires.
Bear in mind that early steamships had relatively inefficient boilers and consequently used steam power sparingly, relying on their sails for most of the voyage. That is likely to be true of ocean-crossing steamships in NTL 1636, too. Hence, even a steamship can't rely just on its steam engine to power its lighting.
Donkey steam engines present a new fire risk for sailing ships, but there is a tradeoff in terms of relegating candles and lanterns to emergency use when the steam engine is inoperative.
Of course, if the electric lighting is wind- or water-powered, the power source doesn't present a fire hazard at all.
Fire Prevention
The best defense against fire was rigid control of any open flame illumination. In 1595, Drake's general orders included "to avoid the danger of fire, you must not bear about any candle or light in the ship, unless in a lantern…you must take the greatest care with the fire in the galley" (Maynarde 64). On Spanish galleons, dinner was served before sunset (Perez-Mallaina 143), and after it was completed, an officer would make sure that the cooking fires were extinguished. Also before nightfall, the rigging would be inspected by an officer to make sure that it was properly laid out and the "guardian" checked that the pages had put candles into the lanterns designated for night use. Before going to bed, he would make sure that the apprentice stationed at the binnacle was properly maintaining the compass light.
The night was divided into three watches, and the officer of the watch (who would be the pilot, the master, and either the captain or the master's assistant) had to police the crew to make sure that no unnecessary fires were lit. If a lantern were needed, it had to be signed out from the dispenser, an assistant officer, who also was the only person allowed to carry a light into the storeroom (Philipps 135-6). Indeed, on some ships the rule may have been even more stringent; Perez-Mallaina (180) says that the only lights allowed at night were the compass-light and one lantern shared by the deck guard.
Similar rules were followed in the eighteenth-century British navy, except that there it was a lesser officer (midshipman or master-at-arms) that was on "unnecessary light patrol," and more exceptions were made. First, officers and elite passengers were permitted to use uncovered candles. Second, the crew had a horn-lantern for each mess-group and there were a few large horn-lanterns for lighting the gun deck (where the crew hung their hammocks) during the early evening. Finally, the navigator and the gunners had their own dark-lanterns and the boatswain and carpenter had small horn-lanterns (Quinn 50-1).
Dana (author of Two Years Before the Mast) served on the merchant brig Pilgrim in its voyage of 1834-36. The captain banned any light in a storeroom (many flammable items!) and hence also in the adjoining steerage. A single swinging lamp was permitted in the forecastle, but it had to be extinguished at 8 PM.
If a fire did start, despite precautions, each sailor had his firefighting station and would help with buckets or pumps (see part 2 of this series) to put it out.
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Conclusion
Electric lighting is plainly superior to combustion-based lighting, and all of the ingredients needed (bulbs, generators, power sources, wiring) are available in NTL 1635. The only issue is whether the installation and operating costs will be low enough so that they displace shipboard lanterns. My guess is that they will first be used for the powder rooms and store rooms of warships, if need be relying on battery power. They will also be used on ships with steam power, whether for propulsion or deck work. And a few pure sailing ships may be given fireless power sources to drive electric lights.
Where electric lighting is refused, we will probably see replacement of the period lantern with an Argand lamp burning kerosene.
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In part 4, we will look at running lights, and pyrotechnics and lamps for both signaling and external illumination.
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Notes from The Buffer Zone: Women of Futures Past by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
I don't often do a full-on commercial when I write non-fiction. I'm not the modest sort, but I'm a bit reticent at times to toot my own horn. However, I've convinced myself that what I'm doing today is not about my horn, it's about everyone else's.
As I've mentioned in previous columns, I edited what I initially called "the women in science fiction project." I started the project when more and more people kept telling me that women were excluded from science fiction.
Me. A woman. With a long career in (ahem) science fiction.
I nearly lost it altogether when a young woman told me that women never got published in sf, "present company excluded, of course." I thought she was delusional—I really did—and then I decided to use mostly women's sf to teach a science fiction course.
And I found that almost all classic short sf by female writers had gone out of print, even if the stories were award-winners.
So I decided to remedy that. I went to Toni Weisskopf at Baen, another woman with a long career in science fiction, found out that she's as angry about this misperception as I am, and we decided on what's become The Women of Futures Past, which releases on September 6.
To say I'm proud of this volume is an understatement. Toni insisted on a ten thousand-word essay in the front of the volume, detailing the history of women in the field, which turned out to be not nearly enough. I also added some notes about the history in the introductions to the stories. But I do feel this is just the beginning.
As the announcements for this project went out, a number of publications trumpeted the volume in their upcoming books sections. Some even featured the fact that it was coming in reviews of other books. The Los Angeles Review of Books mentioned it favorably in its review of Mike Ashley's The Feminine Future, saying, "Editors like Ashley and Rusch do a great service to readers looking to expand their sense of sci-fi's forgotten, and often inaccessible, past. Equally, the materials they bring together can help us to understand the roots of some of the most inventive sci-fi of the past half-century."
Exactly. That's what I wanted to do, and what I hope will come out of the project.
Then the very first review hit, from Publishers Weekly, which has given the book a boxed, starred review, its highest honor. PW says:
Veteran editor Rusch assembles a wholly engaging and varied anthology of speculative tales covering the depth of the genre and spanning its history.…The tales themselves are the true stars: smart, beautiful, gracefully aged, and still challenging, each builds on the others in the collection.…This anthology is modern and fresh enough to be valued by readers with contemporary tastes, and wealthy in the charm and tropes that draw fans of the classics.
The review thrilled me. Usually I tell my writer students to ignore reviews, but I eagerly awaited the first one for this anthology. I wanted to see if I got my message across—if others enjoyed the short stories in the volume as much as I did.
And they did, which was a great relief.
I know you folks love science fiction in all its forms. Many of you helped with this volume as I put it together, by giving me suggestions, sending me books, reminding me of authors I had forgotten.
This book is for you, with thanks.
Links:
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/spectacular-designs/#!
http://www.publishersweekly.com/9781476781617
This Issue’s Cover – 67 by Garrett W. Vance
This Issue’s Cover – 67
Terry Howard's hilarious story Overflow supplies the inspiration this issue. How could I resist flying sauerkraut?
Duck! -Garrett
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Grantville Gazette, Volume 67 Page 19
