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.
