Discovery Icing Ship

Photograph, black and white, showing the Discovery icing ship, during the Discovery Oceanographic Expedition 1925 1927 near Port Lockroy, a natural port on Goudier Island in the Antarctic Peninsula. This was the process of getting fresh water to replenish the supply on board. Dated March 1927, the photograph shows the collecting of ice from the shore and small icebergs which had fallen from the glacier. The ice was collected to fill the special ice melting tanks standing along the deck at either side of the engine room casting. They had steam pipes along their bottom and the ice was fed into them through large square lids at the top, allowing many tons of water to be collected in a relatively short time.