Henry Carter Hull

Journey now to San Francisco, California, of 1853 where. An English socialite finds more treasure than expected on her trip to the American West. When Abby Effingham becomes stranded in the middle of the California gold rush, her money depletes quickly even while her prospects for marriage increase daily. But Abby is on a mission to find her mother not romance. Will a ridiculous scandal keep her from traveling on, or will it wake up an aloof innkeeper...

In the tradition of Dava Sobel's Longitude comes sailing expert David Barrie's compelling and dramatic tale of invention and discovery-an eloquent elegy to one of the most important navigational instruments ever created, and the daring mariners who used it to explore, conquer, and map the world. Since its invention in 1759, a mariner's most prized possession has been the sextant. A navigation tool that measures the angle between a celestial object...

The forgotten century of English voyages to the Americas, 1518-1618 In the popular imagination, English colonization in the Americas began with the founding of Jamestown in Virginia in 1607. But the focus of English voyages to this side of the Atlantic for 100 years before that had been much further south, in defiance of Pope Alexander VI's decree that South America would be divided between Spain and Portugal. Examining not only the oft-forgotten...

Hundreds of islands that once appeared on nautical charts and general atlases are now known to have vanished--or never even existed. How were they detected in the first place? Henry Stommel, an oceanographer and senior scientist at Massachusetts' Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, chronicles his fascinating research in documenting the false discoveries of these phantom islands. British and American Hydrographic Offices compiled lists for navigators...

This is a seafarer's book that draws from the accounts of hundreds of sixteenth-century and early seventeenth-century ocean voyages to convey the realities of everyday life aboard the galleons sailing between England and the West Indies and beyond. From jacktar to captain, what was life like aboard an Elizabethan ship? How did the men survive tropical heat, storms, bad water, rotten food, disease, poor navigation, shifting cargoes and enemy fire?...

"Bryson is as amusing as ever ... As a celebration of 350 years of modern science, [ Seeing Further ] it is a worthy tribute." -- The Economist In Seeing Further, New York Times bestseller Bill Bryson takes readers on a guided tour through the great discoveries, feuds, and personalities of modern science. Already a major bestseller in the UK, Seeing Further tells the fascinating story of science and the Royal Society with Bill Bryson's trademark wit...

A tale of eighteenth-century invention and competition, commerce and conflict, this is a lively, illustrated, and accurate chronicle of the search to solve the longitude problem, the question of how to determine a ships position at seaand one that changed the history of mankind. Ships, Clocks, and Stars brings into focus one of our greatest scientific stories: the search to accurately measure a ships position at sea. The incredible, illustrated volume...

Even geniuses change their minds sometimes. Edge (www.edge.org), the influential online intellectual salon, recently asked 150 high-powered thinkers to discuss their most telling missteps and reconsiderations: What have you changed your mind about? The answers are brilliant, eye-opening, fascinating, sometimes shocking, and certain to kick-start countless passionate debates. Steven Pinker on the future of human evolution ; Richard Dawkins on the mysteries...

A dramatic rethinking of the encounter between Montezuma and Hernando Cortés that completely overturns what we know about the Spanish conquest of the Americas On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. This introduction-the prelude to the Spanish seizure of Mexico City and to European colonization of the mainland of the Americas-has long...

The #1 New York Times bestselling author reveals "the chilling story" of disaster and suspected murder on the19th century Polaris expedition (Vincent Bugliosi, author of Helter Skelter ) Sponsored by the United States government, the Polaris expedition of 1871 was intended to be the first to reach the North Pole. By its end, the ship was sunk, Captain Charles Hall was dead under suspicious circumstances, and thirty-three men, women, and children were...