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Thursday, August 11, 2011

Digging for gold at the Library: Cramp's Shipyard


(by Gina Bardi, Reference Librarian)

The other day I was walking through the stacks and I caught a glint of gold. Now, I am neither a bird nor a rat nor a raccoon nor Gollum, but when I see something shiny, I must investigate further.

What caught my eye was a 1920 book entitled Cramp's Shipyard. In the picture below it is difficult to see how nice the cover is. It's more gold than yellow.

Cover of book

"Shiny!"

The book is a brief history of the William Cramp and Sons Ship and Engine Building Company, the I.P. Morris Company, and the Kensington Shipyard Co. Most of the slim volume is photos of their various ships which is nice, but we've seen images like those a million times. The thing that knocked my socks clean off (I'm still looking for them...if you see a pair of rainbow toe socks anywhere, they're mine) are the beautiful photographs of the equipment and machinery. Some of these things don't look like they belong of this temporal world. Rather, they look as if they should be in a Dr. Seuss book or in the movie Metropolis. I submit for your approval:

Hydraulic turbine

Where do those tubes go, I wonder? Willy Wonka's Shipbuilding Factory?

Piston rods

Anyone up for a game of pool?

Marine machinery

Marine machinery

It's reminiscent of Dr. Doolittle's snail, no?

Marine machinery with men

Hooooooonk! It calls to mind an ungainly instrument.

Marine machinery with men

I wish this was my playhouse.

Come by the library anytime to check out Cramp's Shipyard and drool over the wonderous machines.


Mirrored from Full Fathom Five, due to its lack of rss feed & functioning commenting.

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