Discovery of some initial sketches and notes for William Scoresby Junior’s An Account of the Arctic Regions

Abstract

A scruffy piece of paper covered in notes and dated sketches of snowflake segments has been found caught between the pages of a later book in Whitby Museum’s Scoresby archive. The paper had been cut and folded to secure it round the ship Esk’s logbook. Close examination shows pencil drawing beneath the 22 ink sketches, which can be linked to entries for May 1817 in the logbook and matched to completed snowflakes from William Scoresby Junior’s 1820 book An Account of the Arctic Regions. This is almost certainly the first indication of Scoresby’s process for drawing snowflakes at sea.

The paper also contains jottings on many topics that Scoresby was considering including in his book. Comparing these with the published work, his later fact checking was clearly meticulous.