Maddie Hatter's adventures continue!

Here is a book trailer I did for Maddie Hatter and the Timely Taffeta by Jayne Barnard

Enjoy

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed, and your water iced.
KJ

A real submarine in 1867?

Previously I wrote about the amazing Ictineo II, the worlds first true submarine.

I am currently reading a fascinating book "Munturiol's Dream" by Mathew Stewart, published in 2004.

The book covers the life of this extraordinary man Narcís Monturiol.  A social revolutionary in turbulent 19th century Spain.  He lept at any chance to try to create a utopia. He was a staunch non-Marxist Communist and participated actively in many revolts and social actions, mostly in Barcelona, that hotbed of republican/utopian unrest in Spain.

What I find most fascinating was that Monturiol was NOT an engineer, he was trained as a lawyer and spent most of his time as a revolutionary publicist. His various journals, pamphlets, and news papers were popular amongst Barcelona's teeming thousands and he was regularly shut down by the authorities as a result. He was several times forced to go into exile in the countryside to avoid arrest.

So how did this revolutionary/utopian end up creating the marvelous machine that was the Ictineo II?

She was steam powered, made of wood, capable of diving to more than 100', with a mechanism for scrubbing carbon dioxide and whose engine generated oxygen for the crew!

Jules Verne's fictional Nautilus couldn't even do that, she had to surface to replenish her air supply.

A truly remarkable machine.

 Mathew Stewart's book chronicles how Monturiol, while in exile on the coast, observed coral divers working to harvest the brilliant coral that grows there. This was an incredibly dangerous job and resulted in many drownings. The divers simply held their breath and held a heavy rock to sink to the sea floor.

He had a dream in which a technological solution would be found to help these people in their dangerous business. In part he figured that if he could show that technological progress could help the poor coral divers without destroying anything, that his dream of a technological and scientific based Utopia could be shown to be feasible.

But he was not an engineer or scientist, he was a writer!

So he set about solving the problem by becoming a self taught engineer. He learned the latest physics, chemistry, materials science, fabrication techniques, everything needed. He conducted experiments and recorded his results. In short he became the classic "Mad Scientist" beavering away on his own to develop a contraption that others thought impossible to achieve.

Chronically short of money, he found surprising support amongst his fellow Utopians and managed to bring his designs to fruition. However that same lack of money meant that his incredible invention was never used or further developed because it was seized for lack of payment of his harbour docking fees and destroyed.

A fascinating technological look at Monturiol's design, and also a look at his time and the point in history that gave birth to the Ictineo II. 

A highly recommended read.

Title
Monturiol's Dream
The Extraordinary Story of the Submarine Inventor who wanted to save the World.

Author
Mathew Stewart


Date
2004

Pubisher
Pantheon

ISBN
0375414398



Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed, and your water iced.
KJ

Commissioned by the Province of Alberta!


This is a fascinating document that I found on the Internet Archives.
The Alberta Modern Airship Study was prepared for the Alberta Ministry of Transportation by the Goodyear Aerospace Corporation.

The study examines the realistic feasibility of using modern airships for transportation in Alberta. We had then, and still have today, large areas of the province that have narrow road access if they have access at all.

This study is packed with analyses, graphs, charts, and the technical feasibility of using airships.


Amazingly the study concluded that such use actually made sense!



Here is the conclusion (Spoiler Warning!)

STUDY CONCLUSIONS
The survey and ensuing economic case studies indicate that there are a large number of economically attractive applications for airships in the study area. It is apparent from the surveys and economic case studies that an airship operating company [rental service] is both necessary and economically viable.

The operation of airships within Canada is operationally a viable concept. Environmental factors, while severe in terms of cold, will not appreciably affect airship operations any differently than existing aircraft operating in Canada
.
The technology is available to successfully provide vehicles in the near term. Final definition of the vehicles can proceed immediately. Demonstration vehicles are needed to illustrate:
1) A lack of technical and operational risk to users
2) Economic viability
3) Regulatory agency compliance; and
4) To develop user awareness and confidence it is conservatively estimated that the following vehicle configurations and quantities could be supported by the study area :
Modern Conventional [Non-Rigid]       8 Vehicles
Modern Conventional [Rigid]               2 Vehicles
Heavy Lift                                            6 Vehicles

The earliest operational availability for the configurations considered during the study is:
Modern Conventional [Non-Rigid]       3 Years
Modern Conventional [Rigid]               8 Years
Heavy Lift Airship                                5 Years   

As in the case of the modern conventional non-rigid airships there appear to be two sizes of HLA vehicles having near-term applicability. An HLA with a useful load of 45,372 kg [50 tons] would find primary application in some remote construction activities, power line transmission tower erection, and the forest industry. The largest market in the study area for the HLA is probably in the 90,744 kg [100-ton] useful load range. The device would be used primarily in supporting large remote construction projects.

An excellent read and even though Goodyear obviously had a vested interest in selling Airships (they were the only ones making them in the 70s) they still covered all the bases.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Exploration of the valley of the Amazon (1853)

William Lewis Herndon was a professional naval officer in the US Navy during the first half of the 19th C.
He is mostly remembered as the captain of the SS Central America the famous "Ship of Gold" which sank in a hurricane of the coast of Cape Hatteras in 1857.

However his long and distinguished career in the Navy included one of the first source to mouth explorations of the Amazon river. Captain Herndon's report of his explorations in the Amazon was a best seller and immensely popular when it was first published in 1853. One young man was so inspired that he set out to travel down the Mississippi to try to get to the Amazon himself. There were no ships heading to Brazil from New Orleans so he stayed in the States changing his name from Samuel Clements to Mark Twain, the call of the men on the riverboats sounding the depths.

You can read a scanned copy of Captain Herndon's book here at the Internet Archive

Captain Herndon, although a US Navy officer, was in command of the SS Central America when she was lost in a hurricane in 1857, taking 423 men and many tons of gold to the bottom of the Atlantic along with her.

He was widely honoured for his heroic attempts to save his ship before loosing his life when she finally foundered after 3 days of pounding in the hurricane.

From Wikipedia

Herndon was carrying perhaps 15 tons of gold (then worth $2,000,000) and 474 passengers, many of whom were from California and were returning to the East Coast, as well as 101 crew members. After leaving Cuba on 7 September 1857, a few days later, they encountered a three-day hurricane off Cape Hatteras. The hurricane steadily increased in force. By the 12th, the Central America was shipping water through several leaks due to the ship's lack of water-tight bulkheads and general unseaworthiness. Water in her hold put out her boiler fires, precluding the use of steam for both controlling the ship and pumping out the bilges.
Herndon recognized that his ship was doomed; he flew its flag upside down as a distress signal and hoped another ship would see them. At 2 p.m., the West Indian brig Marine arrived to help take passengers from the stricken steamer. It did not have room to take on all of the passengers and crew. Commander Herndon supervised the difficult loading of women and children into lifeboats to transfer to the Marine. He gave one of the women passengers his watch to send to his wife, saying that he could not leave the ship while there was a soul on board. Most of the women and children reached safety on the Marine. Herndon's concern for his passengers and crew helped save 152 of the 575 people on board.
Men on the Central America tried to break up wooden parts to use as floats, in hopes of surviving the sinking. Some were rescued later by passing vessels, but most of the 423 persons on board died in what was the largest loss of life for a commercial ship in United States history. Survivors of the disaster reported last seeing Commander Herndon in full uniform, standing by the wheelhouse with his hand on the rail, hat off and in his hand, with his head bowed in prayer as the ship gave a lurch and went down.
The ship disaster and loss of so much gold, which banks still depended on, contributed to the financial Panic of 1857 in the United States.
The wreckage of the ship was discovered in a 1987 treasure recovery expedition.

The story of the Central America and the search for her is chronicled in a book "Ship of Gold" by Gary Kinder and will be the subject of another post. Stay tuned.

Keep your sightglass full your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

A Rudyard Kipling SF tale.

Reading the Log of the H.M.A. R 34 I posted about last time I came across this gem:

10.15 a.m. Weather report from St. John's :"Barometer 1010.2.Steady ; temperature 44 F. Fog. Visibility about half a mile, fog seaward, wind westerly, very light."
This is all right.
Turned in for an hour, but unable to sleep.
Become absorbed in Kipling's story of "The Night Mail" in Actions and Reactions. Think I must have read this story fifty times! Every time I read it the more impressed I become with the reality of its prophecies, which give one that very same  "atmosphere" of Aerial Liner travel that we are actually experiencing during every
moment of this journey.

 A quick lookup on Google and I discover this wonderful tale:

With the Night Mail

A STORY OF 2000 A.D.

(TOGETHER WITH EXTRACTS FROM THE CONTEMPORARY
MAGAZINE IN WHICH IT APPEARED)

BY
RUDYARD KIPLING

Illustrated in Color
BY FRANK X. LEYENDECKER
AND H. REUTERDAHL

NEW YORK
Doubleday, Page & Company
1909



This is a wonderful SF tale about traveling on a Mail Packet across the Atlantic. A delightful look at a future where airships are as much a part of regular air traffic as are heavier than air craft.

You can read the whole book, complete with the original colour illustrations, at Project Gutenberg here:

"With the Night Mail" by Rudyard Kipling

A bonus is the ads and articles that make up the "EXTRACTS FROM THE CONTEMPORARY
MAGAZINE IN WHICH IT APPEARED" portion.  Here is an example:

 High Level Flickers
"He that is down need fear no fall"

Fear not! You will fall lightly as down!

Hansen's air-kits are down in all respects. Tremendous reductions in prices previous to winter stocking. Pure para kit with cellulose seat and shoulder-pads, weighted to balance. Unequaled for all drop-work.  Our trebly resilient heavy kit is the ne plus ultra of comfort and safety.  Gas-buoyed, waterproof, hail-proof, non-conducting Flickers with pipe and nozzle fitting all types of generator. Graduated tap on left hip.
Hansen's Flickers Lead the Aerial Flight
197 Oxford Street
The new weighted Flicker with tweed or cheviot surface cannot be distinguished from the ordinary suit till inflated.

So what exactly is a "flicker" a parachute or some sort of personal lift device?
Lots more intriguing bits and pieces of the world of 2000 AD as envisioned by Rudyard Kipling.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Trans Atlantic Airship!

The  R 34 was built in 1918 for the Royal Navy by the William Beardmore and Company in Inchinnan, Renfrewshire, Scotland. Her design was influenced strongly by that of a German Zeppelin that had been captured almost intact in England during the war.

In 1921 it was decided to attempt the first ever return East to West flight across the Atlantic.

From Wikipedia

It was then decided to attempt the first return Atlantic crossing, under the command of Major George Scott.[11] R34 had never been intended as a passenger carrier and extra accommodation was arranged by slinging hammocks in the keel walkway. Hot food was prepared using a plate welded to an engine exhaust pipe.

The crew included Brigadier-General Edward Maitland and Zachary Lansdowne as the representative of the US Navy.[12] William Ballantyne, one of the crew members scheduled to stay behind to save weight, stowed away with the crew's mascot, a small tabby kitten called "Whoopsie"; they emerged at 2.00 p.m. on the first day, too late to be dropped off.[13]

R34 left Britain on 2 July 1919 and arrived at Mineola, Long Island, United States on 6 July after a flight of 108 hours with virtually no fuel left.[14] As the landing party had no experience of handling large rigid airships, Major E. M. Pritchard jumped by parachute and so became the first person to reach American soil by air from Europe. This was the first East-West crossing of the Atlantic and was achieved weeks after the first transatlantic aeroplane flight. The return journey to RNAS Pulham took place from 10 to 13 July and took 75 hours.

As an observer on board the crossing Air Commodore Maitland kept a log of everything that occurred and this was published as a book. Illustrated with 35 photographs taken during the flight, this is real airship adventure!


Here is the introduction to this fascinating read.

IT is often thought necessary to preface a 
first literary effort with apologies from the author 
for its shortcomings. In this instance no one 
could be more aware of such a necessity than 
myself. But am I entitled to make apologies? 
R 34 is not a literary effort neither, therefore, 
am I an author. 

In writing a story such as this, the obvious 
and comparatively simple course would have 
been the adoption of the conventional narrative 
form, helped by notes and memories, ample 
time and thought and a comfortable arm-chair. 

Apart, however, from its practical usefulness 
or official importance, R 34's journey was just 
one long, wonderful and delightful experience. 

To look upon this journey coldly as part of 
yesterday, or to treat it with recognized con- 
vention, would be to lose both the essence and 
the spirit. 

My only hope of convincing my reader of this 
is to try and induce him to share our adventure- 
taking him with us upon our flight. 

Every word of this diary was written on board 
the Airship during the journey, with the exception 
of the explanatory footnotes and, of course, the 
appendices : the writer perched in odd corners, 
and amid continuous interruptions and ever- 
changing surroundings, to the silent accom- 
paniment of the wireless, like ghostly whispers 
across lonely space. Every incident, important 
or trifling, was recorded at the actual time of 
happening. Even to stop to focus or to pigeon- 
hole these would have been to destroy actuality. 

If only I can share a little of that fascinating 
and buoyant adventure with any readers of these 
pages I shall be content, I only hope my ship- 
mates may not find their journey too dull; if 
they do they must not blame R 34, for the 
fault will be mine. 

You can read this wonderful adventure in its entirety at the Internet Archive


For those who want a hard cover version of this book a reprint  edition is also available from Amazon
 
Keep your sightglass full your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Title
The Log of H.M.A. R34
Journey to America and Back.

Author
Air-Commodore E. M. Maitland
C.M.G., D.S.O, A.F.C, Royal Air Force

Date
1921

Pubisher
Hodder and Stoughton
Re-published
Kessinger Publishing (Sept. 10 2010)

ISBN
1164269127

Thanks to everyone who entered their solutions.

SPOILER WARNING this post contains the solution to the Mystery of "The Evil Eye of Africa" if you would rather try to figure it out on your own first you can start at the beginning here.

Here is Margaret Curelas of Tyche Books, with her announcement of the winners and the solution!

Keep your sightglass full your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

 

"The Evil Eye of Africa"
By Jayne Barnard

A Guess-the-Murderer Mystery in Two Acts 

Steampunk Mystery Game Solution and Winners

Thank you to everyone for reading and submitting solutions to "The Evil Eye of Africa" Steampunk Mystery Game! Many thanks to Madame Saffron for reviewing entries. And, of course, our deepest appreciation to Jayne Barnard for writing the story and giving us such amusement.

Three intrepid detectives have solved the mystery: H. L. Dickson; Tim Ford; and James Prescott. All three submitted wonderful analyses of the mystery, and their solutions are presented below. Each poses several queries that we hope Hercule Hornblower will be able to resolve when he makes his arrest.

Now, the moment you have been waiting for...it is time to unmask the murderer of Baron von Boddy!

Gentlemen:

While I commend this work to you, I also caution you that one must laugh loudly at it in polite "mixed" company if one wishes such polite company to continue its genial course

Ladies:
Note that we of this enlightened age do NOT hold such views and are thankful that you have been able to join us in advancing all of humanity along its future path together with us, as equal partners in its successes and failures. It is a good read if only to put such old views into perspective and to support the great enduring cry of...

You've come a long way baby!

Keep your sight glass full and your furnace trimmed.
KJ


Title
Revolted Women
Past, Present and To Come

Author
Charles G. harper

Published
Elkin Mathews
Vigo Street
London

Date
1894

PDF File
Revolted Woman 1894

Examples
------
Woman is altogether different from and inferior
to man: narrow-chested, wide -hipped, ill-propor-
tioned, and endowed with a lesser quantity of brains
than the male sex. She will, when sufficiently open
to conviction, allow that, mentally, she is not so well
equipped as man, but gives herself away altogether
in insisting upon the ' instinct ' that takes the place
of reason in her sex ; thereby tacitly placing herself
on a level with other creatures—like the dog or
cat—who act upon ' instinct ' rather than upon
reasoning powers. ' A woman's reason ' is a no-
toriously inadequate mental process ; and, having
once arrived at a conviction or a determination on
any subject, it is of no use attempting to argue
her out of it. That is widely acknowledged by the
popular saying that ' it is useless to argue with a
woman '

' If she will, she will, and there's an end on't :
If she won't, she won't, depend on't.'
------
And

MODERN dress-reform crusades have ever
been allied with womanly revolts against
man's authority. They proceeded originally from
that fount of vulgarity, that never-failing source of
offence—America. In the United States, that in-
effable land of wooden nutmegs and timber hams, of
strange religions, of jerrymandering and unscrupu-
lous log-rollery, the Prophet Bloomer first arose,
and, discarding the feminine skirt, stood forth, un-
ashamed and blatant, in trousers ! The wrath of
the Bloomers (as the followers of the Prophet were
termed) was calculated to disestablish at once and
for ever the skirts and frocks, the gowns and
miscellaneous feminine fripperies, that had obtained
throughout the centuries ; and they conceived that
with the abolishment of skirts the long-sustained
supremacy of man was also to disappear, even as
the walls of Jericho fell before the trumpet-sound
of the Lord's own people. For these enthusiasts
were no cooing doves, but rather shrieking cats,
and they were both abusive and overweening.
No more should 'tempestuous petticoats' inspire
a Herrick to dainty verse, but the woman of the
immediate future should move majestically through
the wondering continents of the Old World and the
New with mannish strides in place of the feminine
mincing gait induced by clinging draperies.
-----
It is not often, however, that women writers
present us with philosophical treatises in the guise
of novels. Their high-water mark of workmanship
is the Family Herald type of story-telling, even as
crystoleum-painting and macram6-work exhaust the
energies and imagination of the majority of women
' art ' workers. What, also, is to say of the lady-
novelists' heroes, of god-like grace and the mental
attributes of the complete prig ? What but that if
we collate the masculine characters of even the
better-known, and presumably less foolish, feminine
novels, we shall find woman's ideal in man to be
the sybaritic Guardsman, the loathly, languorous
Apollos who recline on ' divans,' smoke impossibly
fragrant cigarettes, gossip about their affaires du
cosur, and wave 'jewelled fingers'—repellent com-
binations of braggart, prig, and knight-errant, with
the thews and sinews of a Samson and the morals
of a mudlark.
------

Ouch!

Eye Witness

A fascinating eye witness description of the teeming multitudes that inhabited London in the Mid 19th C.
It was written, as a three volume work originally entitled London Labour and London Poor in 1851, the last edition was published in 1861, by Henry Mayhew a journalist, writer and social researcher.

My copy is one volume distillation of the 1861edition edited by Peter Quennell and first published in 1951. It is a hefty volume of 592 pages.

This book is a wonderful look at how London actually worked, that is to say how Londoner's worked. London in the mid 19thC was a city of several million people, many of whom had no fixed abode. To feed, clothe and entertain such a multitude required enormous labour and ingenuity.

Illustrated with black and white drawings that capture the gritty essence of life beneath the glitter and power of the chief city of the empire, this book is a wealth of information on a vanished way of life.


From Wikipedia

Mayhew went into deep, almost pedantic detail concerning the trades, habits, religion and domestic arrangements of the thousands of people working the streets of the city. Much of the material comprises detailed interviews in which people candidly describe their lives and work: for instance, Jack Black talks about his job as "rat and mole destroyer to Her Majesty", remaining in good humour despite his experience of a succession of near-fatal infections from bites.^[1]

Beyond this anecdotal material, Mayhew's articles are particularly notable for attempting to justify numerical estimates with other information, such as census data and police statistics. Thus if the assertion is made that 8,000 of a particular type of trader operate in the streets, Mayhew compares this to the total number of miles of street in the city, with an estimate of how many traders operate per mile.

The original three volume work entitled London Labour and the London Poor is available online here:

• Vol. 1. The London Street-Folk. London, UK: George Woodfall and Son. 1851. Retrieved 2013-09-30. 
• Vol. 2. The London Street-Folk comprising : Street sellers. Street buyers. Street finders. Street performers. Street artizans. Street labourers.. London, UK: Griffin, Bohn, and Company. 1861. Retrieved 2013-09-30. 
• Vol. 3. The London Street-Folk comprising : Street sellers. Street buyers. Street finders. Street performers. Street artizans. Street labourers.. London, UK: Griffin, Bohn, and Company. 1861. Retrieved 2013-09-30. 
• (Vol. 4.) Those that will not work, comprising; Prostitutes. Thieves. Swindlers. Beggars.. London, UK: Griffin, Bohn, and Company. 1862. Retrieved 2013-09-30.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced
KJ

Title
Mayhew's London

Author
Henry Mayhew

Edited by
Peter Quennell

Date
1861
Republished
1951

Publisher
Bracken Books
London

ISBN
0 946495 03 3

Elegant and Expensive


This book is a collection of photos and details of the very expensive toys of the ultra rich.

"The Steam Yachts" by Erik Hoffman is a wonderful look at how "the other half", actually the "other 0.1%", played in the 19th and early 20th Centuries.

 My copy is missing its dust jacket but is otherwise in excellent shape.

In all there are 120 yachts, from the sidewheeler  Northstar  built for Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1853 to the Christina built for Aristotle Onassis in 1954. Each has a photo, details of size, power, rig, crew, and details of the often very short history of these very expensive status symbols.

In the days before the mass production of the fiberglass "gin palaces", that clutter up every posh harbour in the Mediteranean, these vessels embodied both the extreme engineering of the ocean going greyhounds and the elegance and beauty of the most expensive great houses.

These are vessels who were not designed for the work of their commercial and military sisters but were designed simply to show off the wealth of their owners. They spent most of their lives at anchor in conspicuous harbours along the East coast of North America and the ports of England.

Perusing the photos of these magnificent examples of ship building, one can easily trace the technological changes that were occurring in the commercial shipbuilding world as well. They look very much like the fast military vessels, torpedo boats and destroyers, that were being developed at the same time in the 1890s and 1900s. In some cases they were converted and used as such during the great war.

Speed was always one of the key requirements and most of space in their their hulls is taken up with boilers and engines. But they had to look the part of belonging to these great and powerful men as well, so there were vast areas of polished teak, varnished brightwork, polished brass and stained glass maintained by crack crews and professional staffs, masters, stewards and chefs.

 The Ultra Rich still have yachts, but there is a monotony to their modern plastic forms and none of the power and elegance that these steel status symbols displayed.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Title
The Steam Yachts

An Era of Elegance

Author
Erik Hoffman

Publisher
John de Graffe, inc.

Date 
1970

ISBN
0-8286-0040-6

The age of the airship was short lived.

It lasted scarcely more than a a quarter of a century and during that time very few of these elegant and enormous machines survived very long. There are only a handful that survived the rigors of  flight to be broken up. Most were destroyed by fire, accident, storm or carelessness and yet as the author of this marvelous book, Len Deighton, says:

 For me the airship has a magic that the aeroplane cannot replace. The size is awesome, the shape Gothic; a pointed arch twirled into a tracery of Aluminum... the airship remains one of the greatest triumphs of structural engineering the world has ever seen.

This slim volume, written and compiled by Len Deighton and Arnold Schwartzman, is a chronicle of every airship disaster, accident, crash, and explosion. Although a chronicle of dismay it is in a sense also the chronicle of an experiment in engineering magnificence. Even in the grainy black and white images of the twisted and broken girders, torn envelopes, and flaming wreckage there is elegance. The immense labour of the design, the intricacy of the parts, and the bravery of those who would dare to take such vehicles into the skies, are apparent.

In this book, with the help of experts, I have told the story of the airship's failure. It shows the daunting task that the airship designer faced. Perhaps all simple acts of faith bear an imprint of absurdity, and you will find it here. But the book is intended as a tribute to the master builders and their aluminum marvels. This generation of engineers dared to build their cathedrals in the sky; no wonder then that so few of them stayed there.
--Len Deighton

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Title
Airshipwreck

Author
Len Deighton
Arnold Schwartzman

Publisher
Jonathan Cape Ltd
London

Date
1978

ISBN
0-224-01384-X

Iron monsters!

An interesting read covers every engagement involving ironclads from Hampton Roads to the Bombardment of Alexandria.

Filled with maps, reports, and detailed summaries of the actions and vessels involved. 
I found lots of information here that I have not found anywhere else, and at 920 pages in two volumes it would be a weighty tome in paper.

Highly recommended for any fans of this fascinating period of Naval history.

Available in PDF and ebook formats from the Internet archive here:
Volume 1
https://ia700308.us.archive.org/20/items/ironcladsinacti00wilsgoog/ironcladsinacti00wilsgoog.pdf
Volume 2
https://ia600308.us.archive.org/13/items/ironcladsinactio02wilsuoft/ironcladsinactio02wilsuoft.pdf

Title
Ironclads in Action
A Sketch of Naval Warfare
1855-1895

Author 
Wilson, Herbert Wrigley, 1866-1940

Publisher 
London, S. Low, Marston and company

Date
1896

A fascinating collection of tales.

This beautifully bound and printed book is a collection of Victorian Science Fiction tales.
Edited by Mike Ashley, these tales have wonders that even today's Steampunk authors are hard put to equal.
From the forward:

The assemblage of these unjustly forgotten stories... provides us with a chance to divest ourselves of a century of preconceptions, misconceptions and misprisions, and to return to the dawn of a literature, when the future-- our present-- still shone with a numinous radiance.
--Paul Di Filippo

There are tales of airships, robots, aerocars, submarines, fearsome weapons, marvelous adventures and catastrophic dangers. These are tales of the future from a time "when everything seemed not only possible but inevitable."

Although the book is entitled "Steampunk" these are not Steampunk tales anymore than Jules Verne or H.G. Wells tales are Steampunk. These are indeed "Extraordinary Tales of Victorian Futurism", as the subtitle states, and show that imagination is a gift we all share whether in Victorian times or now.

This book is also a jewel as a physical object, the cover is gorgeous, nearly every page is bordered by gears and colours, and the tales are illustrated with fanciful and period illustrations. The colours are vibrant. The pages are fairly thick paper which complements the illustrations and text, giving this book a heft that is a joy to hold and read.

Truly a marvelous addition to anyones library of fiction.

Alas I was only lent this beauty, thank you Monica, so it must return to its owner but I will certainly keep on the lookout to add it to my collection.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Title
Steampunk
Extraordinary Tales of Victorian Futurism

Author
Various
Edited by Mark Ashley

Publisher
Fall River Press

Date
2012

ISBN
978-1-4351-4193-3

A massive book this!

Recently acquired on a trip out to the fabulous used book mecca of Sydney BC this book is nearly 3 kg of awesomeness!

Originally published as a set of five annual paperbacks for the US Department of the Navy for the Centenary of the Civil War, starting in 1961 and continuing until 1965, each volume covered one year of the conflict. A further volume published in 1966 contained a detailed index and a collection of eye witness accounts and  other details to support the previous volumes. My copy was published as a single consolidated volume in 1971 and is in mint condition.

Clocking in at over 1000 pages this book is filled with photos, maps, diagrams and detailed accounts of nearly every naval action of the Civil War. A true treasure for anyone interested in the Civil War but also a fascinating look at the transition from sail to steam, from the old "Wooden Ships and Iron Men" of the Napoleonic era to the age of steam and armour that defined the shifting technological world of the Navy in the 19th Century.

The photos are reproduced in fairly good detail, if a little dark, and the text is also illustrated with period maps and photos of actual documents, diaries, letters and sketches.

Definitely not a good book to try to read in bed unless you have a block and tackle to hold it though!

Keep your sightglass full your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ


Title
Civil War Naval Chronology

Author
Various

Publisher
Naval History Division
US Department of the Navy

Date
1961-66
Consolidated volume 1971

Memoirs of a real Airship Pilot!

I acquired this wonderful book a month ago at a "Antique Mall" in Airdrie Alberta.

Written by T.B. Williams and published in 1974. This book chronicles the his adventures after joined the Royal Navy in 1915 to become an Airship pilot. In the days before the fixed wing heavier than air craft became the standard military aircraft, the hydrogen filled airship, non-rigid and semi rigid were the mainstay of the Royal Navy for scouting and convoy protection from submarine attack near the coast of England. No convoy suffered a loss from submarine attack when one of these airships was in attendance during their approach.

Williams was awarded Airship Pilot Certificate no 28 in 1917. He was instrumental in the training of other pilots as well as being on the crew of the Italian semi-rigid that was the first aircraft to ever fly from Italy to England. He eventually was promoted to Captain.

A fascinating look at the uses that the Royal Navy, and later the Royal Airforce put these primitive but very useful craft too.

Captain Williams also chronicles the post war decline and attempted resurrection of the Airship, for commercial use including the R100 and R101.

The book is filled with interesting photographs and has an extensive bibliography of books that will be very useful to track down.

A must read for anyone interested in this unsung chapter of military aviation.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water ived.
KJ

Title
Airship Pilot No.28

Author
Captain T.B. Williams A.F.C.

Publisher
Willia Kimber and Co.
London

Date
1974

ISBN
07-183-0153-6

There is a intriguing beauty in clockwork.

These images by photographer Guido Mocafico show the elegance and beauty of these amazing high end watches.  The photographs are collected in his book Movement.

This is from one of the reviews on Amazon:

The first paragraph in this book reads: "This is a book of photographs. The photographs in this book all show watch movements, but it is not a book about watches."

That is undoubtedly true. This is not a book about watches, it is a book solely about the beauty of high grade, contemporary wristwatch movements. The Italian photographer Guido Mocafico, together with the German design team of Steidl Publishers, and with the technical advice of Swiss watchmaker Antoine Simonin, has created one of the most extraordinary `watch books' I have ever seen.

The team selected 37 contemporary wristwatch movements, and took amazing, full movement photographs of them (sometimes the under dial view, sometimes the back of the movement). The core of the book consists of these 37 very large, incredibly detailed pictures. They are each reproduced on a double page, in 12 inch diameter vivid color images of stunning clarity and depth of focus, without any text on the pages to diminish their visceral impact. 

Shorn of their faces and without cases these could be any kind of machine not just a watch.  Perhaps these are parts of some larger mechanism or the controls of some fearful weapon. These images inspire imagination!

Here are some examples:

Keep your sightglass full, your fiebox trimmed and your water iced.

KJ

More from
THE GENTLEMEN’S BOOK OF ETIQUETTE, AND MANUAL OF POLITENESS

This section is quoted from an English Lawyer.
Good advice actually.
Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

A celebrated English lawyer gives the following directions for young men entering into business. He says:—
“Select the kind of business that suits your natural inclinations and temperament.—Some men are naturally mechanics; others have a strong aversion to anything like machinery, and so on; one man has a natural taste for one occupation in life, and another for another.

“I never could succeed as a merchant. I have tried it, unsuccessfully, several times. I never could be content with a fixed salary, for mine is a purely speculative disposition, while others are just the reverse; and therefore all should be careful to select those occupations that suit them best.

“Let your pledged word ever be sacred.—Never promise to do a thing without performing it with the most rigid promptness. Nothing is more valuable to a man in business than the name of always doing as he agrees, and that to the moment. A strict adherence to this rule gives a man the command of half the spare funds within the range of his acquaintance, and encircles him with a host of friends, who may be depended upon in any emergency.

“Whatever you do, do with all your might.—Work at it, if necessary, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can just as well be done now. The old proverb is full of truth and meaning—“Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.” Many a man acquires a fortune by doing his business thoroughly, while his neighbor remains poor for life, because he only half does his business. Ambition, energy, industry, and perseverance, are indispensable requisites for success in business.

“Sobriety. Use no description of intoxicating drinks.—As no man can succeed in business unless he has a brain to enable him to lay his plans, and reason to guide him in their execution, so, no matter how bountifully a man may be blessed with intelligence, if his brain is muddled, and his judgment warped by intoxicating drinks, it is impossible for him to carry on business successfully. How many good opportunities have passed never to return, while a man was sipping a ‘social glass’ with a friend! How many a foolish bargain has been made under the influence of the wine-cup, which temporarily makes his victim so rich! How many important chances have been put off until to-morrow, and thence for ever, because indulgence has thrown the system into a state of lassitude, neutralizing the energies so essential to success in business. The use of intoxicating drinks as a beverage is as much an infatuation as is the smoking of opium by the Chinese, and the former is quite as destructive to the success of the business man as the latter.

“Let hope predominate, but be not too visionary.—Many persons are always kept poor because they are too visionary. Every project looks to them like certain success, and, therefore, they keep changing from one business to another, always in hot water, and always ‘under the harrow.’ The plan of ‘counting the chickens before they are hatched,’ is an error of ancient date, but it does not seem to improve by age.

“Do not scatter your powers.—Engage in one kind of business only, and stick to it faithfully until you succeed, or until you conclude to abandon it. A constant hammering on one nail will generally drive it home at last, so that it can be clinched. When a man’s undivided attention is centered on one object, his mind will continually be suggesting improvements of value, which would escape him if his brain were occupied by a dozen different subjects at once. Many a fortune has slipped through men’s fingers by engaging in too many occupations at once.

“Engage proper employees.—Never employ a man of bad habits when one whose habits are good can be found to fill his situation. I have generally been extremely fortunate in having faithful and competent persons to fill the responsible situations in my business; and a man can scarcely be too grateful for such a blessing. When you find a man unfit to fill his station, either from incapacity or peculiarity of character or disposition, dispense with his services, and do not drag out a miserable existence in the vain attempt to change his nature. It is utterly impossible to do so, ‘You cannot make a silk purse,’ &c. He has been created for some other sphere; let him find and fill it.”

The Airship

Now considered an obsolete and even archaic technology (ha!) was once considered one of the greatest technological advances.

Fred T Jane's book The British Battle Fleet, has the following interesting quote:

The possibilities of the dirigible, on the other hand, no man can foresee. the gasbag that can be brought to the ground by a single bullet hole in it, is a very different thing from the possibility of airships of the future which may be a mile or two long, divided into innumerable compartments, filled with non-explosive gas such as is sure to be discovered sooner rather than later. Two miles seems an extraordinary length today, but a ship ten miles long would only be something like the ration of the early dirigible to the future ones compared to the ratio of the Dreadnaughts bear to the first ships built by men.

On the water, bulk is limited by the depth and size of harbours, but in the vast regions of the air there are practically no limitations whatever, and there is practically nothing to limit size, save the building of land docks on open plains into which airships could descend for repair and so forth. Consequently those who hastily assume from a few accidents that the "lighter than air " craft has no future are probably making a great mistake; at any rate, so far as naval work is concerned.  certain definite uses are apparent even now to those who think and ignore commercial rivalries.
--Fred T. Jane, The British Battle Fleet, 1912

What I find most fascinating about this quote, coming as it does at the very end of that amazing history of the warships of the Royal Navy, is the broad simplicity and breathtaking scale of his vision. All through the book he describes the times when new developments were rejected by conservative naval authorities, and ridiculed by pundits and the public, yet ultimately taken up and developed further. And here, at the end, he makes the logical jump to include the airship as one of the next developments that might be in the same boat so to speak. That it ultimately did not become "the next big thing" makes it look a little odd to us, but that is hindsight.

Writing of the incredible technological changes and scale of the advances in naval technology that had occurred in the previous century, much of it during his lifetime, Jane was well aware of the dangers of making predictions. Yet here he does just that.

A man after my own heart I think.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

A Guide for Gentlemen
This section covers the thorny issue of how to behave at plays and musical venues taken from:
THE GENTLEMEN’S BOOK OF ETIQUETTE, AND MANUAL OF POLITENESS

 ETIQUETTE FOR PLACES OF AMUSEMENT.

When you wish to invite a lady to accompany you to the theatre, opera, a concert, or any other public place of amusement, send the invitation the day previous to the one selected for taking her, and write it in the third person. If it is the first time you have invited her, include her mother, sister, or some other lady in the invitation.

If she accepts your invitation, let it be your next care to secure good seats, for it is but a poor compliment to invite a lady to go to the opera, and put her in an uncomfortable seat, where she can neither hear, see, nor be seen.

Although, when alone, you will act a courteous part in giving your seat to a strange lady, who is standing, in a crowded concert room, you should not do so when you are with a lady. By giving up your place beside her, you may place a lady next her, whom she will find an unpleasant companion, and you are yourself separated from her, when the conversation between the acts makes one of the greatest pleasures of an evening spent in this way. In case of accident, too, he deprives her of his protection, and gives her the appearance of having come alone. Your first duty, when you are escorting a lady, is to that lady before all others.

When you are with a lady at a place of amusement, you must not leave your seat until you rise to escort her home. If at the opera, you may invite her to promenade between the acts, but if she declines, do you too remain in your seat.

Let all your conversation be in a low tone, not whispered, nor with any air of mystery, but in a tone that will not disturb those seated near you.

Any lover-like airs or attitudes, although you may have the right to assume them, are in excessively bad taste in public.

If the evening you have appointed be a stormy one, you must call for your companion with a carriage, and this is the more elegant way of taking her even if the weather does not make it absolutely necessary.

When you are entering a concert room, or the box of a theatre, walk before your companion up the aisle, until you reach the seats you have secured, then turn, offer your hand to her, and place her in the inner seat, taking the outside one yourself; in going out, if the aisle is too narrow to walk two abreast, you again precede your companion until you reach the lobby, where you turn and offer your arm to her.

Loud talking, laughter, or mistimed applause, are all in very bad taste, for if you do not wish to pay strict attention to the performance, those around you probably do, and you pay but a poor compliment to your companion in thus implying her want of interest in what she came to see.

Huzzah!

This monumental, 400 page, work was originally published in 1912 (and republished in 2003 by Conway Classics in the UK.) Written by Fred T. Jane, the founder of the influential Jane's series of military books and annual digests, this book chronicles the history of the British Battle Fleet, and the Royal Navy itself. From it's earliest days in the early medieval period, through the tumultuous 18th century and the massive technological changes of the 19th centuries and up to the massive scale and power of the British Fleets before WWI.

For anybody interested in the history of ships and the men who commanded and sailed them this is an absolute treasure. 

My copy is the 1912 edition and is in very good condition, given it's over a hundred years old! 

The book has many illustrations, some in colour, taken from paintings in the early years and photos of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

There are lots of technical diagrams of deck and gun layouts after steam propulsion is introduced as well.

The first half of the book is an interesting history, covering much of the politics as well as the military actions of the early days of the Royal Navy. Jane covers many of the social and political issues in some detail, quoting from period sources when available. He covers the Great Mutinies at Spithead and the Nore in 1797 and discusses many of the causes and results of them on the subsequent social changes in ships crews.

He covers the period of the almost continuous warfare with France with lots of detail. That section alone is a treasure for anyone interested in what ships and fleets did what.

The second half of the book covers the period from the first introduction of steam propulsion to the development of  the "All Big Gun" Dreadnaught and all her subsequent, handsome and very lethal, kin.

Fred Jane has a good eye for the historical anecdote, as well as the technical detail he displayed in his original monographs covering the state of the world's navies since his first "All the World's Fighting Ships" of 1898 .  Jane is also not shy about making some sage predictions as to how the future would look given all the technological changes that had occurred in his own lifetime. Some of them turned out to be spectacularly wrong (entertaining none the less) and others prescient indeed, as the great cataclysm of WWI subsequently showed.


I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the developments of the Battle Fleet from both a technical and social/political standpoint.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Title
The British Battle-Fleet
Its inception & growth throughout the centuries.

Author
Fred T. Jane

Date
1912

Publisher
S.W. Partridge & Co,., LTD. (1912)
London
Conway Maritime Press (2003)

ISBN
978-0851777238