I revealed a document in Octopus and the Military of the late WW1 (the war to end all wars...) of the Aircraft Cruiser Miskatonic, and sent it out to many of my old alma mater friends...just last night (would have posted sooner, but we had a party to go to) I recieved an image via the internet from a friend in Boston.
Vince has just moved into a new and larger house, with a three car garage, and in the storage bins, underneath a very nice set of antique chisels he found a manila envelope with this in it:


These ironclads were falling out of favour as patrol vessels at this time (late 1800's) and were dropped from "state" status to "city" status...but pay close attention to the stamp on the lower right ! What a find!

cool......Clem will be impressed!!!!

J

Very cool. I love this kind of stuff.

One question though. How do aircraft come into this?

The ironclad was a new find...prior to that we had found the initial draftwater illustration that was of the small aircraft cruiser BA-7 Miskatonic from 1918, it was basically a large hulled destroyer, but did have a seaplane, so was commissioned as a aircraft cruiser...found a fairly good photo of it taken from the rear mast of the USS Texas as the fleet began steaming to Scapa Flow to accept the surrender of the Kriegsmarine. The Miskatonic remained near port and performed antisubmarine patrols until being decommissioned and hulked in 1927...parts of the hull were supposedly used to build the main bridge over the Arkham River...
[http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=3602/img]

Man, I'd really love a sweatshirt or hoody with the Miskatonic U seal -- the real one is much cooler than the fake one I've seen online somewhere...

Blink Blink... :talker:

Well done once again Greg


:thumbsup:

There has been some talk of reproducing the designs in a commercial sense...will keep you posted!
Thanks!!!
greg

Greg,

I'm impressed.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I recall reading that the Monitor-class Miskatonic proved to be of limited utility in combat, owing to the amount of superstructure rising above the level of the guns, and that the Arkham yard's dusky safety engineer advised the gunners to simply blow off anything in their way. Is that true?

Clem

Well, Clem, from the draftwater template, it would indeed appear that the foremasts and some rigging are in shot sight, but the turret in the Passaic class of monitors had two 15" Dahlgren Smoothbores, so even firing straight ahead, would miss the rigging. One must remember, though, that at this time most ship battles were still fought as they were with masted frigates, that is, hull to hull (sideways)...so the guns were never in danger of hitting anything important to the ship.
The engineer you mention, (from what we can tell so far) a certain Mr. Adele Feester, did indeed file a complaint, regarding the lack of deck armour behind the fo'castle. It seems that after lodging the complaint, he was called away for a family emergency in his hometown of Innsmouth, and never returned to work, so the whole thing was quashed...
As far as the advice of Mr. Feester to just blow away the offending spars, that wouldn't be suprising...other documents seem to point to him as having a rather "admiral nelson" sort of attitude towards the ships he helped design and build...it is too bad he didn't pursue further ship designs...can you imagine the dreadnoughts????

For those of you who did not see the original document that we came across...that of the aircraft capable cruiser from 1916...here it is again:
http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=3604

Just found an interesting photo of one of the sister ships to the ironclad Miskatonic...the USS Ozark. The keel was laid at Arkham, but the rest of the framing was completed in Topeka, then shipped via rail to the main ironclad naval yard near Peoria. The commencement ceromonies were somewhat marred by the appearance of bulbous eyed protesters, who did not seem to appreciate the fouling of the water by these large iron ships.
http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=3608

Greg,

I showed your Miskatonic drawings of the cruiser to my mom, and she got this funny look on her face.

"I've seen that school symbol before -- your great-grandmother Constance went to Miskatonic in the twenties. She dated some mathematics grad student who died suddenly there -- she was heartbroken, and left the school. His name was Gilman or something like that."

"Anyway, I have some of her school papers, and I remember something about the U.S.S. Miskatonic in there."

Mom pulled a Tupperware bin out from under her bed and soon located the
papers, Among them was the attached drawing, a really nice pencil drawing of a coat of arms for the Miskatonic.

"Your great-grandmother was a talented artist -- there was a contest at the university in '24 to design the coat of arms for a new battleship or something that would have the school's name, and this was her entry."

My great-grandmother had written a description on the back:

"A Shield, black and gold, with a green octopus rampant, facing dexter, holding aloft a black trident, is surmounted with a diving helmet whose crest is a gold nautilus. Scarves pendant from helmet are seaweed.

The flanking figures are, on left, a fish-maiden from the island of Ponape bearing a bone spear and right, a warrior maiden from Atlantis, bearing a trident."

We don't know much else about this, or if she won the contest. Pretty cool huh?

Small world!

~T~

:notworth:

OP, would it be ok if I used that bit of info for the page I am putting together???? Awesome drawing!!!!

OctopussyAZ,

The nautilus on top of the diving helmet is an especially sweet detail.

So your whole family has the ceph fascination - have you isolated the gene for it?

Melissa

Melissa,

I think our ceph fascination does run deep... we do trace seafaring ancestors to Innsmouth.

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Hmmm.

AZ, eh?

I wonder.

Must be some sort of underground stream...very, very, underground...!!!

Clem,

Now now-- We left Innsmouth for good reason: some sort of ugliness with a government raid, and dynamiting Devil's Reef, and arresting the elders of our church... that is, the ones they took alive....

=O=
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Here is the patch Tom found for the DDG:
http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=3628

The art work is fantastic. Good work guys on the research. BTW: who is funding the research or is that information top secret?

I have been contracted by a private investor to do a whole study on the ship lines under the names of the Arkham Shipyard...perhaps a book in the works...can't tell yet.
OP is a new link for me, and seems to have quite a lot of relevant information...we have been trading emails, and may work on some stuff together...its a fun process, because every day, new information comes to light...I have a ton of pics now, and will post some more soon...as well as an oil painting of the first Miskatonic that is being framed as I write (well, that may be an overstatement...its 8 o clock here)
Glad you find it as interesting as I do !
greg

The drawings are well done and the stamp designs are wonderful.

What is the possibility of “digging up” drawings of military submarines or any underwater apparatus?

the only information I have been able to dredge in regards to early submersibles is of the ill fated Whipporwill, a hand cranked machine that sank with all hands on its maiden voyage after being struck by a bit of reef near the coast...some research does hint at a post civil war design, and of course there was the infamous Tindalos, a Gato class submarine from world war two, responsible for sinking over 7 enemy subs and 13 tankers on its first patrol ! I will talk to OP and see if any info can be had...thanks again for the interest !
greg

Well, well. found more stuff from Mom... It seems my grammy (Constance) worked at the Arkham Asylum after leaving school. An inmate there named Danforth -- who was one of the only survivors of the ill-fated Antarctic expedition backed by Miskatonic University -- took a fancy to her, and gave her some drawings. This was one that he claimed was an accurate portrait of the original rulers of Earth. Like I said, he was in the Asylum...

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(Sorry, double-posted)

Hmmm...cool illo ! I dug up a photograph from that expedition a number of years ago, had to go back to my old pc to find it:
Dr. Peabody is on the lower left, helping to outfit the Dornier trimotors with cold weather gear prior to the onset of the cold...there is still some snow on the ground already...
Cool how Lovecraft wove fiction with reality!!
g
http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=3673

We had this piece of parchment for years. I was told that one of our relatives, Maria, was a cleaning person who worked for an unknown mental hospital, she found this picture in a metal trash bin. It looks like someone was trying to destroy this parchment by fire. Any comments?

It really is too bad all of the script near the bottom was burned or torn away...it looks like a print that I glimpsed when I was attending college in the early 1980's !
Obviously, the illustrator who penned the original must have gone crazy trying to draw so many strange angles and beings,it seems to be a fate shared by all who do too much research in this somewhat arcane arena...
Is there any writing on the back ?
greg

Would fire destroy :cthulhu: ?

This thread grows more fascinating by the day.

Melissa

Regarding the query involving submarine vessels:
A friend of mine in the navy sent me this pic this morning, taken from a Walrus seaplane of the Tindalos surfaced for supplies and fuel, near an odd monolith connected to some sort of underwater construction that looks like it is massive ! He doesn't know exactly where the pic was taken, but it does appear to be on the last patrol of the sub, as it was stuffed in a folder from 1941, the year the Tindalos was lost, presumably to enemy action.
Hopefully, more info will be forthcoming !
greg
http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=3679

Found a very nice set of etchings, somewhat faded, of the original Miskatonic in 1842, along with her sister ships, the frigates United States, Chesapeake, and Constellation... from what I have found out so far, it seems that the ship Miskatonic was decommissioned in 1871 and used by several universities as a supply and protection barque...this is obviously why Lovecraft writes of it accompanying the Arkham expediton in 1930 to the outer rim of the Antartic circle.
Along with the etchings was a fairly good photo of some of the officers on landfall, as they take on supplies on one of the Shetland Islands !
greg
http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=3680
http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/download.php?id=3681

StudioDino:

That is wild -- I found a similar drawing among Grammy's stuff!

What hospital do you think Maria got it from -- has to be Arkham?

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For weeks I have been struggling within myself whether to post the back of this piece of paper as requested. From the day this script was found I been restless in spirit. At first, I was not sure if it was the results of my nagging wife or stress at work, but my guess is there is something unsettlingly afoot here. What is it I’m not sure. There is something about this diagram that silently speaks of blasphemy. Perhaps I’m being too dramatic about the whole thing. Thoughts? :goofysca:

OctoPussyAZ: I'm not sure the name of the hospital that my relative used to work for-- but the name sounds familiar.