The Oasis Patsy Wells In Siverston Oil Field Have Been Fracked -- September 20, 2018

A reader alerted me to this. Thank you very much.

The Patsy wells in the Siverston oil field are tracked here.

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The Book Page

My book of consequence this week: Sea of Dangers: Captain Cook and His Rivals in the South Pacific, Geoffrey Blainey, c. 2009.

I'm in my ocean-going phase, I guess. This must be the third or fourth book along this line.

I really don't know much about "Captain Cook." I actually feel "much more comfortable with Ferdinand Magellan. Even more so than Christopher Columbus, of all things.

Paging through the book quickly, I think the references to England, and specifically, Yorkshire or northern England was what caught my interest in the book and convinced me to check it out at the library. I don't care for the cover, but I love the gravitas of the book, the pitch, font, etc.

So, we'll see.

An example:

James Cook was born on October 27, 1728, -- so this is slightly more than a hundred years after William Shakespeare, and half a century before the US Revolutionary War -- in the Yorkshire village of Marton-in-Cleveland, about fifteen miles from the North Sea. His mother was from Yorkshire, his father from Scotland. To be born in Scotland was an advantage, for the Scots were probably the most literate people in the world at that time, it is almost certain that Cook's father could read and write.

Let me digress for a moment.

If that intrigued you -- that the "Scots were probably the most literate people in the world at that time," you will be enjoy reading a most compelling book on the subject, How The Scots Invented The Modern World, The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It, Arthur Herman, c. 2002. I've read it twice and parts of it many more times than that: the takeaway: the church, the law, the university.

Back to the book.

Cook's first voyage from Whitby (a most wonderful city on the cost, northern Yorkshire) was in the Freelove, a brand-new collier, or coal ship, buit at Great Yarmouth and carrying a crew of nineteen, of whom ten were apprentices or "servants."

I haven't yet decided whether to take notes while reading the book like I usually do, or to simply enjoy the book.

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By the age of 17,  James Cook was living and working in the small fishing port of Staithes, about fifteen miles from his birthplace. Staithes is to the north of Whitby. While in England many years ago, I hiked the coast from Robin Hood's Bay to Whitby. Had we taken the inland route, the highway, it would have been about a two-hour walk, 5.5 miles. But along the very difficult and jagged coast, it took us six or seven hours, I think. I don't recall. But it was a very, very long hike, and very, very challenging. It would have been a tough hike for teenagers, and the two of us were each about 50 years old (both of us born in 1951 an this must have been in 2003).

I note that because in the book, the author describes Whitby which I recall vividly:

On a river estuary, at the foot of high cliffs, the cramped streets were bustling in daytime, and their little cottages housed families from which at least one person typically went to sea.

The river was the River Esk. The author fails to mention the great Whitby church. From wiki:

The Church of Saint Mary is an Anglican parish church serving the town of Whitby in North Yorkshire England.

It was founded around 1110, although its interior dates chiefly from the late 18th century. The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 23 February 1954.

It is situated on the town's east cliff, overlooking the mouth of the River Esk overlooking the town, close to the ruins of Whitby Abbey. Church Steps, a flight of 199 steps lead up the hill to the church from the streets below. The church graveyard is used as a setting in Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula. 

I remain a bit peeved with myself. I do not recall how much I knew of the Dracula connection when  I first visited Whitby. Suffice it to say, I would give almost anything to re-live that entire day.

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I have read that the origin of "Dixie" is unknown -- the Dixie in "I Wish I Was In Dixie." I'm sure many will disagree with that, that the origin of the word is unknown. Be that as it may.

From the book, in the 18th century, a seaman could easily calculate latitude but longitude was a different story. It was nearly impossible. Captain Cook trained himself and "slowly learned to compute longitude with more accuracy, using a reflecting telescope, than most captains in the Royal Navy."

In London in 1768, the Admiralty were searching for a mariner capable of carrying out an unusual mission in the Pacific Ocean .... to track the transit of Venus. Multiple observations of the transit of Venus across the diameter of the sun from scattered parts of the world would provide the data necessary to calculate the exact distance of the sun from earth, a measurement that would prove vital for navigation and many other activities, according to Edmond Halley (of Halley's Comet fame). 

Seven years earlier:

Two ships left England in ample time to view the transit expected on June 6, 1761. On one of the two ships were two astronomers, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon. They observed the transit of Venus from an observatory in Cape Town. Later they made a reputation in British North America by surveying the state boundary known as the Mason-Dixon line. Today the evocative musical word "Dixieland" commemorates the astronomer Dixon. 

But the measurements in 1761 were not as good as hoped for. The next transit of Venus would occur on June 3, 1769, but then after that, it would another 105 years before it happened again. Thus, the observations and measurements in 1769 had to be accurate; no failures accepted this time.

Captain Cook had already been chosen when Captain Samuel Wallis returned to England from his exploration in the South Pacific in the Dolphin late in May, 1768. Captain Wallis reported that he had found the ideal island in which to set up an observatory. It was King George III Island, now known as Tahiti. There, Captain Wallis confidently advised, the skies would be clear on the vital day, and moreover the native inhabitants, he explained with not quite the same confidence, were likely to be friendly. In June, the Royal Society accepted his advice.

Cook's timetable required him to be in Matavai Bay in Tahiti a couple of months before the transit of Venus occurred. After the transit, Captain Cook was to open his secret instructions. While the voyage to Tahiti was public knowledge, Cook's subsequent search for the missing continent was intended to be a secret. The competitive game of colonial expansion called for secrecy.