Archive Results For: Pacific
Bligh’s Notes on Cook’s Last Voyage
The Admiralty library contains a copy of the original 1784 three volume account of Cook’s third voyage annotated by William Bligh, Master of the Resolution. All Bligh’s notes are quoted as far as they are legible despite deterioration of the pencilled entries and later re- binding with loss of some page edges. Bligh’s English and […] Read More
Filed under: James Cook | Other (Eighteenth C) | Pacific
Subjects include: Biography | Science & Exploration
Captain John Strong Privateer and Treasure Hunter
The trading and privateering voyage of Captain John Strong in the ship Welfare (or Farewell), 270 tons, 40 guns, to the South Seas in 1689-91 based on his journal and the account of Richard Simson. The chief objective was to look for the wreck of a Spanish treasure ship off point St Helena near the […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | Nine Years' War | Caribbean | Pacific
Subjects include: Pirates, Corsairs & Privateers
Early Pictures of Lateen Sails
The characteristic lateen rig of the Mediterranean and Red Sea is also found from Norfolk to Burma. This sophisticated fore-and-aft sail is descended from the simpler Roman running square-sail. The earliest pictures of Mediterranean lateen-rigged craft (with Jonah aboard) date from c880. Congruent evolution may have developed in the Pacific. Magellan, on arriving in the […] Read More
Filed under: Early Middle Ages | Mediterranean | Indian Ocean | Pacific
Subjects include: Shipbuilding & Design
Early Chinese Ships and Trade
The origin of Chinese vessels is obscure but similarities with Nile vessels suggest western influence. The first historical mention of a Chinese vessel is in 331 BC. Roman and Chinese accounts document trade between the Near East and China before AD 500. After AD 622 Chinese navigation expanded with many vessels trading throughout the Indian […] Read More
Filed under: Antiquity | Other (Early Modern) | Other (Eighteenth C) | Indian Ocean | Pacific | Internal Waterways
Subjects include: Archaeology | Miscellaneous
‘Things Produced by the Works of Nature’ Published 1639
The article describes and illustrates the variety of cargo boats on which Peking depended for its immense supply of foodstuffs from the South. Canal boats, about 52 feet long, each carried about 200 tons of rice. Their masts and sails were adapted to pass under low bridges and yet to cope with the variety of […] Read More
Filed under: High Middle Ages | Other (Early Modern) | Pacific | Internal Waterways
Subjects include: Leisure & Small Craft
The Navy of the Province of Fukien
MANUSCRIPT No. 5 of the Hirth collection in the Royal Library of Berlin was written about 1850 by a functionary of the navy, at the order of the authorities. It is a manual of instruction in shipbuilding for the navy; and it has all the faults of books composed in that way, by men not […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Nineteenth C) | Pacific
Subjects include: Navies | Ship Models & Figureheads | Shipbuilding & Design
John Cunningham’s Journal Part II
In the previous part of this paper, H.M.S. Cambridge was sailing from Valparaiso to Callao. Once there, the newcomers could appreciate the rebellion of the troops against the governor, and the civil war in progress. The ship carried two consuls for the new republican government of Peru, but a counter-revolution put Lima and Callao in […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Nineteenth C) | Pacific
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies
John Cunningham’s Journal Part I
John Cunningham was a surgeon in the Navy who write a Journal of 600 pages on board H.M.S. Cambridge, during a voyage to the West Coast of South America in 1824 and 1825. Presumably he would have published it, if Capt. Basil Hall had not forestalled him with a book printed early 1824. The interest […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | English Channel | North Sea | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C) | Pacific
Subjects include: Biography | Navies | Strategy & Diplomacy
Foochow Pole Junks
As the name implies these junks carried wooden poles from Foochow coastwise but also undertook long sea voyages. The hull was divided into watertight compartments approximately 8ft by 4ft, which served two purposes. They protected the ship in the event of an accident but also provided convenient, dedicated spaces for shippers to store their freight. […] Read More
Filed under: Other (Twentieth C) | Pacific
Subjects include: Manpower & Life at Sea | Merchant Marines | Ship Handling & Seamanship
Drake’s Voyage of Circumnavigation: Some of the Original Sketches
Drake’s circumnavigation of the globe was recorded by the expedition’s Chaplain, Francis Fletcher, with his notes and accompanying sketches now preserved in the British Museum. Fletcher’s records range from the reasonably accurate, for example of flying fish, to the fanciful, such as his description of ‘Giants’. The notes, but not the sketches, were published by […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | Tudors | Francis Drake | Caribbean | Pacific
Subjects include: Science & Exploration