The personal artifacts found on Mallory by the 1999 Mallory and Irvine Expedition held more than mere historical value.
Eric Simonson arranged to transfer control for all recovered artifacts to the American Foundation for International Mountaineering,
Exploration, and Research (AFFIMER). AFFIMER deposited the artifacts with the Washington State Historical Society in Tacoma,
Washington for safekeeping and proper curation. As a condition of storage at the Society, Mallory's pocket knife, altimeter and the
personal letters, along with other materials including abandoned oxygen canisters, were appraised by insurance underwriters,
and valued at nearly $400,000. 

From the beginning, the Society began bracing for the likelihood of lawsuits over ownership of the artifacts, and fretted about
its role. Along with the Washington State Attorney General (counsel to the Society), the Society and Simonson began strategizing
about possible responses. The Assistant Attorney General structured an agreement which positioned the Society as merely the
custodian of the artifacts, leaving to Simonson the delicate task of broaching the thorny issue of ownership.
Simonson began with Mallory's heirs. Mallory's living heirs were his two living children, Claire[1] and John, and the husband of his
now deceased third child Ruth. The heirs had been initially deeply disturbed with the 1999 Expedition, primarily over publication of
pictures of Mallory's corpse which had received widespread publicity and had appeared tabloid-style in major publications.
Simonson deftly navigated around these delicate issues, making a visit to Mallory's son John and daughter Claire. He checked out
several personal artifacts from the Society that he and his wife brought on his visit, allowing the family to touch and review their
father's possessions and his recorded private moments. Simonson left the personal letters with the family. It was undoubtedly
a powerful and emotional experience, and it led to discussions around how Mallory's artifacts might be kept together in
a permanent collection. 

The Mallory family eventually agreed to a permanent loan of the artifacts, with the initial exception of three personal letters found
in Mallory's pocket and fittingly close to his heart: one from his brother, Trafford, another from his sister, Mary, and third from an
unknown woman, Stella, on whose envelope Mallory recorded the readings of the five oxygen bottles he and Irvine carried.
Possession of the letters remained with the family. The Mallory family later reached an agreement to transfer ownership of Mallory's
letters to Magdalene College in the UK, for permanent display along with other Mallory letters.

Disposition of the remaining artifacts did not come as easy. AFFIMER discussed a transfer to RGS but insisted upon a transfer
agreement to remove any prospect of liability. RGS, however, seemed unwilling to acknowledge that AFFIMER had any ownership
rights in the artifacts, as a contrary position might establish a precedent should the camera later be found. This standstill, along
with administrative difficulties in arranging for the procurement and preservation plans, delayed the transfer. There was another
practical reason for RGS's delay; its receipt of the artifacts could impose potential significant tax consequences on RGS,
and RGS need to seek a waiver from the England's custom officials. 

During the standstill between AFFIMER and the RGS over ownership, Simonson grew tired of the delays. He sought to push
the RGS to acknowledge AFFIMER's role and possession of the artifacts. After more than a year had passed without the RGS
taking action, Simonson and WSHS decided that Simonson would reclaim the artifacts from the Society and force RGS to deal
with AFFIMEK. By then, Simonson was already in the midst of the 2001 Expedition and traveling to Everest. His wife Erin literally
backed their Subaru up to the Society's loading dock, and reclaimed a crate containing the valuable artifacts. The gambit worked.
After the tax waiver was granted, the RGS and AFFIMER finally reached an agreement to transfer the artifacts to the RGS,
with the condition that the Mallory family would retain the right to reclaim certain items should the RGS transfer ownership in the future. 

Elsewhere, relatives and heirs of other 1924 Expedition members began carefully staking their own claim, should later expeditions
recover artifacts or locate Irvine's corpse. Sandra Noel, daughter of John Noel and manager of his archive, promptly sent letters to
the 1999 Expedition leaders that quickly drew the boundaries of ownership of the camera and film. She insisted to the 1999 Expedition
members that the terms signed by 1924 Expedition members granted Noel exclusive rights to the photographs. Noel also unequivocally
asserted ownership of the camera and its film, and claimed that each member of the 1924 Expedition received its cameras and film
directly from Noel. 

Sandra Noel's position was not shared amongst the other parties. As the 1999 Expedition members announced their plans to return
to Everest to search for Irvine and the camera, RGS issued a statement that RGS believed the camera to come from Somervell,
with ownership of the camera belonging to Somervell's heirs. Ownership of the film, however, was claimed by RGS. Not to be left out,
the British Alpine Club released its own statement supporting the Irvine family. Similar to the RGS statement, the British Alpine Club
issued a code of conduct in how Irvine's body should be treated. The British Alpine Club repeated the Irvine heirs' clear claim of
ownership of "all personal belongings found on the body." Irvine's heirs also sent strongly worded letters to Simonson, claiming
ownership of all his possessions while also requesting his body be buried and not photographed if found. 

Aside from the value of the physical objects, the major reason for the posturing of the various parties lay in the publication rights
for any recovered photographs. Within 48 hours of finding Mallory's body in 1999, the Expedition was deluged with offers to purchase
publication rights to the photos if camera was found, when finding the camera seemed inevitable. Most of the offers came from publishers,
who rather than grapple with the copyright issues were likely to publish first and deal with claims later.  

The Expedition's photographs of Mallory's body had touched off their own minor copyright battles around the globe. Much the same
way John Noel had financed the 1924 Expedition by granting exclusive rights to various publications, Simonson contracted with leading
news publishers for exclusive publication rights for various territories. In the U.S., Newsweek had obtained the exclusive publication rights.
Not to be left out, competitor Time magazine published a photo of the cover of an Australian publication featuring the same Mallory
photographs granted to Newsweek, ostensibly claiming fair use due to the newsworthy nature of the photographs. The two later fought
it out over whether Time had infringed the exclusive rights granted to Newsweek.  

Members of the 1999 Expedition regrouped again with a singular focus on finding Irvine and the camera. In March of 2001, the 2001
Mallory and Irvine Expedition headed back to Everest, again led by Eric Simonson. The team did not locate Irvine or the camera, but
did find Mallory and Irvine's last camp and many more artifacts: tents and tent poles, food and supplies, and clothing. On the Northeast
ridge, members found a single wool mitten at 27,700 feet, which they believed came from Mallory or Irvine. The Expedition was not without
its own drama; the team witnessed a Siberian climber fall horrifically to his death, and chose to abandon their own summit bid and Irvine
search objectives in order to instead rescue climbers and guides from another team. 

The 2001 Expedition produced one fascinating outcome. After the attempt to locate Mallory, Simonson flew with Jochem Hemmleb to
Beijing to meet with Chinese climbers from the 1960 and 1975 Expeditions. One Chinese member, Xu Jing, told them a startling tale that
in 1960, he had come across the body of an old English climber at about 27,230 feet. In 1960, only Mallory and Irvine were known to be
missing at that elevation. 

The second member was Zhang Junyan, a member of the 1975 Chinese expedition. Zhang was a tent-mate with Wang Hongbao,
who had relayed to him during the 1975 Expedition that Wang had found an "old English dead" at approximately 26,575 feet.
Zhang first relayed this story to Tom Holzel in 1986[2]. Wang tragically fell to his death before his story could be described in further
detail., but he had also relayed the story to his wife, with whom the 2001 Expedition members met. An interview with Xu Jing, a climber
of the 1960 Chinese Everest Expedition described finding the body o a foreign mountaineer during his solo descent. Because Mallory was
found at approximately the same height and in the same area as Xu's observation, this led Simonson to only one conclusion: Xu Jing had
come across Irvine's body, frozen at nearly 1000 feet higher than Mallory. Perhaps they had made it to the top, and fallen during their
descent at night, as the mounting evidence supported. 

More Copyright Conundrums 

With several conflicting claims of ownership, the Mallory and Irvine Expedition faced a series of nagging legal issues each time it regrouped.
It was one thing to search and possibly find the film, but quite another to determine the legal rights to exploit its reproduction. Who did own the
camera, its film, and the valuable reproduction rights? Did any copyright in the film still exist? If not, how could anyone then control the
valuable reproduction rights once the photographs had been initially published? Simonson shared his own frustrations with reporters in 2001,
claiming that “an intellectual property lawyer would have a field day with this because he could possibly bill for the next 20 years researching it.” 

In truth, the legal issues were less daunting than uncovering the facts. As Mallory, Irvine, Somervell, and Noel were English citizens,
and RGS, the MEC, and the Alpine Club were English entities, the answer to the copyright question would likely start and ultimately end
with English law. Moreover, the contracts signed by Expedition members covering the 1924 Expedition photo rights were between English
citizens and English companies, and executed in England. While the photographs were created outside of England, the contracts between
Noel and the news publications had reserved exclusive rights for London newspapers. Therefore, the laws of England would be relevant
in determining initial ownership of copyright and related rights.[3]

Prior to the 1911 Copyright Act, when a work was created, it lingered in a perpetual state of common law copyright until it was
published. Once published, the common law copyright in a work vanished[4] and works were then protected by the term of copyright
provided in the statue. The 1911 Copyright Act eliminated the publication requirement, and protected works upon their creation for
the life of the author plus fifty years. 

Photographs, however, were protected for a much shorter term of fifty years from their making. While photography had been practiced
since at least 1839, courts and legislatures had been loathe to grant photographs the same protection as other artistic works.
Early critics argued that photographers did not contribute artistic expression: Photography "copies everything and explains nothing,
it is blind to the realm of the spirit."[5] Not until 1948 would the Berne Convention mandate protection for photographs; even then,
many countries granted greater protection only for "artistic" (as opposed to "ordinary' photographs. This prejudice against photography
would continue to be reflected in English copyright law until 1988. 

By 1988 the British government had again overhauled its copyright law.. The 1988 Act finally changed the duration of existing
copyrights in photography to life of the author plus fifty years (later extended to life plus seventy years), and more pertinent,
indisputably classified photographs as "artistic works".[6] This meant that that the previous statutory prejudice against photographs
was now eliminated, and the law now treated photographers as owners of the copyright in photographs they created, unless they
were specifically employed to photograph or had assigned away their copyright ownerships by written contract. 

However, copyright protection in Mallory or Irvine's photographs had already expired in 1974 (fifty years after their making),
and the photographs would now have fallen into the public domain. The changes in 1988 did nothing to restore expired copyrights
in photographs created before 1988. Nor did they alter the analysis of ownership, though the issue was now moot as copyright
had expired. Copyright ownership now seemed irrelevant. That was, until the British legislature again tinkered with its copyright
laws in 1995, recognizing, for the first time, a "publication right." 

The publication right was not an extension of copyright. In fact it wasn't a copyright at all. Rather, it was a new right, applied
to works that had remained unpublished, and it included photographs and films. The new law "revived" many of the protections
afforded to copyright owners, and it worked like this: If a copyright in an unpublished work had expired, but the work was later
published for the first time, the publisher obtained a twenty five year "publication right". To qualify for this right, the publisher
needed to be a citizen of a European Economic Area and the photographs had to be published first in the EEA. Yet again, the
publication right was not necessarily owned by the author of the photograph, but by the owner of the film. 

The passage of this legislation had raised an interesting dilemma for the 1999 and 2001 Expeditions. Under prior laws, the finder
of the camera would not have to worry about copyright ownership claims, as the copyrights had expired. This also meant that
Expedition members could not control later reproduction of the found photographs, making it difficult to guarantee any exclusive
licensing or prevent subsequent copying. But if the finder made sure the photographs were published by an EEA publisher in
an EEA state, they could potentially enjoy twenty five years of controlling the use and licensing of the photographs, reaping
the economic benefits. The solution seemed simple: contract with an EEA publisher and publish first in the EEA. 

If only the 1996 Regulations were so simple. In order to qualify for the publication right, the Regulations required that the first
publication be "authorized". The Regulations implied that only the legal owner of the physical material in which the work was
embodied could legally authorize publication of the work. If the owner did not authorize the publication, the law would ignore
the unauthorized publication, and presumably permit the legal owner to retain the publication right if the work was eventually
published with authorization. 

The new law only seemed to further taunt the Expedition members: who actually owned the film? Was ownership linked to
the person who had originally supplied the film? If so, how could anyone prove who the supplier was? Was it Mallory, Irvine,
Somervell, Noel or the RGS? Additionally, if Noel was the supplier, did he alone own the film rights? What about the investors
of Noel's defunct company? Once again, the details behind the 1924 Expedition made the legal outcome uncertain. 

Deciphering the 1911 Copyright Act, it would appear that the MEC's agreement with expedition members vested MEC with
at least the copyright in the photographs they took, regardless of whether the MEC supplied the film. The MEC then granted
those rights to Noel. Now that copyrights had expired, the publication rights were arguably no longer governed by the
1911 Copyright Act, but by the 1996 Regulations. The Regulations awarded the publication right to the owner of the film.
The 1923 agreement between Noel and the MEC did not grant Noel ownership of the copyrights in the expedition member's
photographs. Rather, the agreement was structured to provide the MEC with copyright ownership. The MEC in turn licensed Noel
"the sole rights for the production and exploitation throughout the world of photographs and kinematographic films of the
Expedition to Mt. Everest." The MEC reserved for itself certain rights to use the films in internal lectures and publications. 

To enforce Noel's exclusivity, expedition members were required to sign a written agreement which contained the following terms: 

All photographic collections or observations that I may make shall be deemed to belong to and to have been taken or made by
me as agent for the Committee. 

I further bind myself not to hold any communication with the press or with any press agency or publisher or deliver any public
lecture or allow any photographs taken by me to be published within the period of two years from the date of return of the
Expedition to Darjeeling except by arrangement with Captain J.B.L. Noel.

Perhaps a court could find that the written contracts with the MEC turned the photographs into commissioned works. If so,
the MEC's agreements may have assigned more than just copyright to the MEC. By characterizing the work as done "as agent
for the Committee," the agreement may have assigned all rights, including rights of publication. Under the 1911 Act, copyright
in commissioned works would be owned by the MEC, but their publication rights were exclusively licensed to Noel. Would a
court construe these two agreements as granting Noel ownership of the publication, or MEC? Would Noel's agreement with MEC
cover the publication rights created seventy two years later? 

Certainly adding to the confusion on the legal analysis was the two year embargo on publication placed upon expedition members,
who afterwards appeared free to publish the photographs without restriction. The two year embargo expired in June of 1926,
two years after the surviving members returned to Darjeeling. This might imply that the MEC's rights were more limited, and thus
Noel's exclusive license may be limited as well. 

Certainly the scope of the earlier 1922 agreements with Finch had been hotly contested. Recall that Finch alleged that he had
supplied his own film and equipment without reimbursement. If true, this may have vested Finch with ownership of the publication
rights to any unpublished film under the 1996 Regulations. Could heirs of the 1924 expedition member make the same
arguments as Finch? If Mallory or Irvine's heirs or perhaps Graham Hoyland could persuade fact finders that the film had
not been provided by Noel or the RGS, surely the answer of who owned the British publication rights would become more
complicated than ever. 

The Copyright That Almost Was 

In the United States, where the found film would likely be developed and where the publication rights would be particularly
valuable, the possible existence of a U.S. copyright was relevant. A U.S. court might consider English law in determining who
owned a copyright, but they would still apply United States law to determine whether a copyright still existed. As with British
copyright law, the legal analysis was no less complicated. 

Under current U.S. law, copyright begins immediately upon the creation of the work, or more precisely, the moment the
expression becomes defined in a tangible medium. Applied to photography, this meant that copyright exists once image is
exposed on the film negative. Once fixed, copyright then exists for the life of the author plus 70 years. 

A court would need to examine the 1909 Copyright Act, the law applicable in the U.S. at the time the Mallory and Irvine
photographs were created. Photographs did not receive copyright protection in the United States until the Act of March 3, 1865,
following the seminal case of Burrow-Giles Lithographic Co. v. Saxony. [7]The U.S. did not join the Berne Convention until 1989;
therefore under the 1909 U.S. Copyright Act, copyright did not arise until a work was either published with a correct
copyright notice or, if unpublished, registered with the Copyright Office. Once published correctly or registered, copyright in
such works lasted for 28 years, and if renewed by filing a notice of renewal for the copyright, would last another 28 years
for a total term of 56 years. 

As with English law prior to 1911, the requirements of publication or registration under the 1906 Copyright Act created an odd
purgatory for works that had been created, but were never published or registered. They were not denied copyright, as
either proper publication or registration would produce a protected copyright. However, they were not protected by U.S.
federal law until such acts occurred. Their only protection was under state or common law copyright law, if at all. This is
precisely the condition the unpublished Mallory/Irvine photographs remained until 1978, when the amended U.S. Copyright
Act (the 1976 Act) took effect. The 1976 Copyright Act abolished common law copyright in the U.S.[8], conferring copyright
protection upon creation of a work. To confront the matter of existing unpublished works, however, the U.S. Congress
abolished state based common-law copyright and gave such unpublished works protection under federal copyright law.[9]
Photographs under the 1976 Act were protected for the life of the author plus 50 years. Any copyrights in photographs
existing on January 1, 1978, however, would have their terms extended. But since copyright in unpublished works did not
technically exist until publication, this created a dilemma for the U.S. Congress. 

The U.S. Congress resolved the issue by providing additional copyright protection for unpublished works until the end of 2002.
As an additional incentive to authors to publish these works, the 1976 Copyright Act also extended copyright in such works
until 2047 if the authors published the works before the end of 2002. 

The 1999 and 2001 Mallory and Irvine Expeditions therefore faced a Hobson's choice had they had located the film:
If they waited until January 1, 2003, copyright in Mallory's or Irvine's photographs would be extinguished in the U.S. and
the Expedition would be free of claims from the MEC or the heirs of Mallory, Irvine Somervell, or Noel. However, no copyright
would protect the photographs from being copied, and no exclusive publishing contracts could be enforced in the U.S. 

If instead the photographs were released before the end of 2002, the photographs would be protected until 2047,
but the copyright might not belong to the 1999 or 2001 Expedition. Instead, Somervell, Noel, Mallory or Irvine's heirs
would be left to fight it out. This Catch-22 failed to materialize as the 2001 Expeditions did not locate the camera before
the end of 2002, effectively putting an end to a copyright that almost was. 

Unless, of course, the unpublished photographs were determined by a court to be works made for hire. Like the
British 1911 Act, the U.S. 1909 Act also had a bias against photographers as owners of their copyright. Under the 1909
Act, employers and commissioning parties owned the copyrights created by their photographers[10], but the 1909 Act
did not define "employer" or "work-for-hire". Courts looked to the general common law of agency and at least ten relevant
"agency" factors to determine whether a photographer was an employee or an independent contractor, to determine
whether a party was commissioned to produce a work.[11] 

Because Mallory and Irvine had considerable freedom and discretion over if, what, when, and how they were supposed
to photograph works, it is highly unlikely a U.S. court would find them to be employees, and even so, would they be employees
of John Noel, or employees of the Expedition? No, a court awarding copyright to Noel or the MEC would more likely be willing
to find the photographs to be "commissioned works" (if at all) under either U.S. or British law"[12], and the contract Mallory
and Irvine signed indicated that the Expedition was the commissioning party, with the publication rights exclusively
licensed to Noel. 

As the MEC had assigned those rights exclusively to Noel, the distinction as to the commissioning party was largely without
a difference. Unpublished photographs determined to be works made for hire under the 1909 U.S. Copyright Act are protected
from 120 years from creation.[13] Therefore, it is entirely possible that if a court found the photographs to be commissioned
works, at least in the U.S., copyright in the Mallory or Irvine photographs continues to exist until 2044. If so, Noel's heirs may
be the party that controls any remaining copyrights to the photographs at least within the U.S. 

Finders Keepers? 

Even if the heirs of the 1924 Expedition members could resolve the ownership dispute as between them, there would remain
the matter of rights held by the finder of the camera. The ultimate conclusion of who rightfully owned the camera and the
film could determine who owned the publication rights under British copyright law. On this issue, there would be no absence
of applicable law, only the thorny question of which country's law to apply. 

"Finder's Keepers", one of the most repeated yet misinterpreted phrases applied to found property, was originally developed
in feudal times to determine the rightful owner of buried Roman treasure. The rule has been significantly altered by courts
throughout the centuries, and the laws around found property are largely based on English common law. Generally, ownership
of found property depends upon whether the property was lost, mislaid, abandoned, or embedded. Property is "lost" if the
owner parts with it involuntarily and unintentionally, through neglect, carelessness, or inadvertence and does not know the
whereabouts. [14]"Mislaid property" is that which the owner has intentionally set down in a place where he can retrieve it,
but then forgets where he put it. "Abandoned property" is where the owner has discarded or voluntarily forsaken the property
with the intention of terminating his ownership, but without vesting ownership in any other person. Finally, embedded property
is personal property which has become a part of the natural earth (like pottery or a sunken wreck, buried or partially buried in
the ground). Only lost property necessarily involves the element of involuntariness; the other four categories require that the
true owner voluntary and intentionally place the property where someone eventually finds it. 

The distinction between the various types of found property determines the rights of the owner versus the finder. Finders
of lost property usually prevail against all but the rightful owner, regardless of where the property is found. Finders of mislaid
property may be required to turn it over to the owner of the premises who prevails against all but the rightful owner. Finders
of abandoned property prevail against all others, including the original owner, regardless of where the property is found.
Finally, finders of embedded property lose out to the owner of the premises on which the property is found. While a jury
decides the facts of a dispute, the characterization of the found property is decided by a court. [15] 

Certainly, the oxygen bottles discarded by Mallory and Irvine would fall into the "abandoned" category, as oxygen canisters
were routinely tossed aside when empty. It is highly unlikely, however, that Mallory or Irvine intended to part with the camera,
and therefore it would fall either into the category of lost or mislaid property. Unless the camera was found on Irvine's body,
determining ownership as between Mallory's and Irvine's heirs would prove difficult, because it may not be clear which of the
two climbers lost his camera. And if Somervell's story to his nephew is believed, Graham Hoyland may be the rightful owner
of the camera. 

The owner of the camera may not necessarily own the valuable film inside. While all signs point to Noel as the likely provider
of all film for the expedition, such was not the case in 1922 where Finch and others had brought their own camera and film.
Certainly Mallory was known to have brought his own camera and perhaps his own film. 

Nepal introduced an additional complication into the question of property ownership: after the widespread publicity surrounding
the found Mallory artifacts, climbers seeking access to Everest from the south are required to obtain a climbing permit from Nepal,
and Nepal officials revised the permit and rules following the 1999 Expedition in order to seek control over artifacts found on
Everest. However, Irvine's body and the camera are actually be located within Tibet, now under Chinese control, raising the possibility
that the Nepalese permit may not control property found on Tibetan soil, but may attempt to assert control if the
artifacts are brought into Nepal, as may be necessary for explorers who depart from Kathmandu. 

Little had Eric Simonson known in 2001 that the challenge in determining ownership had little to do with the applicable law,
and everything to do with the cloudy facts of the original 1924 Expedition. 

The Search for the Camera Continues 

Despite more than three additional known attempts to locate Irvine's body, it remains today lost somewhere on Everest.
Graham Hoyland, who has never doubted his uncle's story, now thinks that the camera probably lies buried under tons of snow
and ice at the bottom of the Rongbuk glacier. He recently made a summit attempt to Everest wearing an exact replica of
the climbing outfit worn by Mallory, in an effort to prove that Mallory could have made it to the summit and survived to climb
back down. His experiences demonstrated the effectiveness of the materials worn by Mallory, and again added further
support to the premise that Mallory reached the top of Everest.[16][17]

To avoid the added complication of the Nepalese permits, newer expeditions seeking the camera have been very low key.
With tons of equipment to inspect, Nepalese officials would be hard pressed to identify any specific artifacts, unless expedition
leaders had called media attention to their search.

Considerable competition also remains amongst various climbing groups to locate Irvine's body and the camera, often
leading to unintentionally humorous results. In 2004, Hoyland and the BBC group again found themselves on Everest searching
for the camera, at the same time as two of the original 1999 Expedition members who were still searching for Mallory and Irvine
artifacts. The reason for both groups presence on the mountain was publicly disguised. Yet as the BBC realized that the other
group was actually quite high on the mountain and in the search area where Irvine's body is thought to lie, Eric Simonson
suddenly received a hurried email from BBC producers. They suggested potential collaboration between the two, including
sharing the outcome of any successful find. 

The failure to find Irvine and the camera has not diminished public interest in Mallory and Irvine's summit attempt.
Exhibition of the artifacts from the 1999 and 2001 Mallory and Irvine Expeditions enjoyed tremendous success.
The WSHS exhibit set attendance records, and a previous exhibit by the National Geographic Society at their Explorer's Hall
in Washington, DC, enjoyed equally large audiences during its brief display. Members of both the 1999 and 2001 expeditions
published numerous successful books, each detailing their experiences and providing their own analysis of Mallory and
Irvine's potential success.3 

The many surviving photographs of the 1921, 1922 and 1924 attempts are scattered across several collections.
Sandra Noel manages the collections of her father and produced a book, "Everest Pioneer: The Photographs of Captain
John Noel". She also manages the access rights to Noel's 1924 film of the failed summit attempt, "Epic of Everest" which
is now in the public domain within UK and the United States. 

George Finch's photographs are now held by the George Ingle Finch collection. Photographer Bentley Beetham,
a photographer who was not directly under Noel's control but who shot photographs for the military, provided many
photographs which are now held by RGS, who also administers Howard Somervell's photos. Edward Norton's photographs
are held and administered by the British Alpine Club. Reproductions and prints of these various photographs are found
in many libraries and collections. 

Some day, climbers may ultimately locate the body of Sandy Irvine, likely to be as well preserved as Mallory's.
As they search his body, they may locate a small Vest Pocket Kodak, holding the silver colored cartridge of
undeveloped film. Taking pains to place the film cartridge in a properly lined shielded storage box, expedition leaders
could publicly announce their find, or more likely following a well-rehearsed plan to quietly remove the film to insure
it does not fall into the hands of unfriendly custom officials who may delay its exploitation, or worse, destroy the
film's unexposed images. The Chinese in particular do not want their first ascent of Everest from the north in 1960
plucked away by a possible Mallory & Irvine first ascent. 

They will quickly transport the box to a waiting developing lab, and as the film is carefully thawed, exposed and
the negatives developed, the images may reveal one of the world's great conquests, or perhaps cast only more
doubt on whether Mallory or Irvine made it to the summit. Lawyers for various heirs and claimants will ready their
motions, and perhaps (though unlikely) the world may wait a bit longer before the first photograph is published as
the various sides argue their various positions and facts. 

But hopefully one day, a photograph will end the debate. Regardless of the legal outcome of ownership, the
photograph may provide the answer as to the success of two pioneers who had but one goal for which they gave
their lives. To make it to the top of the world. 

Authors Acknowledgement:. The author is grateful for the assistance, information, feedback and kind ears provided
by Graham Hoyland, Charlie Borst, Wade Davis, Sandra Noel, Eric and Erin Simonson, George Martin of EverestNews.com,
UK attorney Ian Craig, the staff of The Washington State Historical Society, Ian) Professor Tom Fischer, author Gary Kinder,
and of course, the encouragement of my wife Tanya who indulged my fascination with this story for several years. 

__________________________________________________________________________________

Endnotes