Author Topic: What was on a ship's captain's bookshelf?  (Read 3077 times)

Offline Mart 'n' Al

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Re: What was on a ship's captain's bookshelf?
« Reply #9 on: Wednesday 06 March 19 11:09 GMT (UK) »
Annie, a good one.  I'm sure no self-respecting seaman would fail to have a copy of that.  It is still in print, and I saw a first edition for almost £500.  Reprints from a fiver.  I'm quite tempted.

Updated 12:07.  It is almost poetic. Here is an extract.

"A philosopher of the East, [13] with a richness of imagery truly Oriental, describes the atmosphere as “a spherical shell which surrounds our planet to a depth which is unknown to us, by reason of its growing tenuity, as it is released from the pressure of its own superincumbent mass. Its upper surface can not be nearer to us than fifty, and can scarcely be more remote than five hundred miles. It surrounds us on all sides, yet we see it not; it presses on us with a load of fifteen pounds on every square inch of surface of our bodies, or from seventy to one hundred tons on us in all, yet we do not so much as feel its weight. Softer than the softest down — more impalpable than the finest gossamer — it leaves the cobweb undisturbed, and scarcely stirs the lightest flower that feeds on the dew it supplies; yet it bears the fleets of nations on its wings around the world, and crushes the most refractory substances with its weight.". Physical Geography Of The Sea.

Martin

Offline Skoosh

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Re: What was on a ship's captain's bookshelf?
« Reply #10 on: Wednesday 06 March 19 13:32 GMT (UK) »
Likely additions to the bookcase!
                                                                                                                                                     Popular novelist in mid 19th century Scotland, John Galt, son of an Ayrshire sea captain, his works include Sir Andrew Wylie, The Steam Boat, The Provost & Ringan Gilhaize etc'! He was a buddy of Byron & wrote a biography. Secretary to the Canada Company & involved in emigration he founded Guelph in Ontario. Died in Greenock. Like Scott he wrote to clear his debts!

The works of Hugh Miller a Cromarty stone-mason he was involved in theological debate as editor of The Witness, organ of the Free Church of Scotland. Miller's books on geology & paleontology include The Old Red Sandstone, The Cruise of the Betsey, Scenes & Legends of the North of Scotland, The Testimony of the Rocks etc'
 A Darwinist before Darwin? his knowledge of geology clashed with his own religious beliefs & those of the same critics of Darwin.

www.uh.edu/engines/epi1049.htm

Skoosh.

Offline ThrelfallYorky

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Re: What was on a ship's captain's bookshelf?
« Reply #11 on: Wednesday 06 March 19 14:41 GMT (UK) »
A dictionary? An almanac?
Threlfall (Southport), Isherwood (lancs & Canada), Newbould + Topliss(Derby), Keating & Cummins (Ireland + lancs), Fisher, Strong& Casson (all Cumberland) & Downie & Bowie, Linlithgow area Scotland . Also interested in Leigh& Burrows,(Lancashire) Griffiths (Shropshire & lancs), Leaver (Lancs/Yorks) & Anderson(Cumberland and very elusive)

Offline Rosinish

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Re: What was on a ship's captain's bookshelf?
« Reply #12 on: Wednesday 06 March 19 20:54 GMT (UK) »
Martin, where in Scotland was your ancestor born & what was his surname?

I'm sure he must have read Shakespeare especially MacBeth.

&

A Journey over land to India by Donald Campbell

Annie

South Uist, Inverness-shire, Scotland:- Bowie, Campbell, Cumming, Currie

Ireland:- Cullen, Flannigan (Derry), Donahoe/Donaghue (variants) (Cork), McCrate (Tipperary), Mellon, Tol(l)and (Donegal & Tyrone)

Newcastle-on-Tyne/Durham (Northumberland):- Harrison, Jude, Kemp, Lunn, Mellon, Robson, Stirling

Kettering, Northampton:- MacKinnon

Canada:- Callaghan, Cumming, MacPhee

"OLD GENEALOGISTS NEVER DIE - THEY JUST LOSE THEIR CENSUS"


Offline Mart 'n' Al

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Re: What was on a ship's captain's bookshelf?
« Reply #13 on: Wednesday 06 March 19 21:41 GMT (UK) »
Annie, Captain James Laird, Aberdeen, 1821.  His ancestors were from Macduff, near Banff.

Martin

Offline Ruskie

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Re: What was on a ship's captain's bookshelf?
« Reply #14 on: Wednesday 06 March 19 23:33 GMT (UK) »
I think a ship's captain might include the odd saucy tome or two on his book shelf.

Offline Mart 'n' Al

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Re: What was on a ship's captain's bookshelf?
« Reply #15 on: Friday 19 July 19 16:21 BST (UK) »

Offline Viktoria

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Re: What was on a ship's captain's bookshelf?
« Reply #16 on: Saturday 20 July 19 00:27 BST (UK) »
What about Dr.Johnson’s tours of  Scotland with Boswell,especially the pub one!
Viktoria.

Offline Mart 'n' Al

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Re: What was on a ship's captain's bookshelf?
« Reply #17 on: Saturday 20 July 19 00:35 BST (UK) »
Viktoria, I am a big fan of Sam, and several years ago we visited Skye, and took the ferry over to Rasay. The ferry back was mid-afternoon, so we never made it to the top of the island, where Sam and Boswell danced a jig together.  In horrid weather, I balanced the camera on a rock on a cairn and danced a jig with Mrs Mart for a few moments until we started worrying about the ferry.  Half way back I fell and slithered in the mud.  I've been meaning to put the film on YouTube ever since.  Perhaps you have given me the motivation.  Maybe tomorrow, who knows?

UPDATE:  00:42 I just watched it for the first time in 12 years.  Did I really pay good money for that camera?  The video was horrendous.

Martin