Twister_Ken
Well-Known Member
Jolly good read:
The Rattlesnake: A Voyage of Discovery to the Coral Sea.
Author Jordan Goodman, published Faber & Faber
Admiral Beaufort - chief of UKHO - commissioned Captain Owen Stanley to recommission the rotten old frigate Rattlesnake and survey the Great Barrier Reef, the Coral Sea and Papua New Guineau.
Stanley embarked an assortment of supernumeries including professional and amateur naturalists. Also the ship's surgeon, one Thomas Huxley, who had little doctoring to do, but by setting nets when the ship was on passage, and dredging when anchored, became the authority on marine invertebrates. Definitely much of Maturin in this man, and bits more of him in some of the others that were embarked, especially the way they railed aginst the Captain when he refused to let them go ashore to naturalise.
Makes me wonder whther O'Brien knew the Rattlesnake's story.
The Rattlesnake: A Voyage of Discovery to the Coral Sea.
Author Jordan Goodman, published Faber & Faber
Admiral Beaufort - chief of UKHO - commissioned Captain Owen Stanley to recommission the rotten old frigate Rattlesnake and survey the Great Barrier Reef, the Coral Sea and Papua New Guineau.
Stanley embarked an assortment of supernumeries including professional and amateur naturalists. Also the ship's surgeon, one Thomas Huxley, who had little doctoring to do, but by setting nets when the ship was on passage, and dredging when anchored, became the authority on marine invertebrates. Definitely much of Maturin in this man, and bits more of him in some of the others that were embarked, especially the way they railed aginst the Captain when he refused to let them go ashore to naturalise.
Makes me wonder whther O'Brien knew the Rattlesnake's story.