A Pirate Of Exquisite Mind: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer: The Life of William Dampier.A PIRATE OF EXQUISITE MIND: Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer buccaneer: see piracy. buccaneer Any of the British, French, or Dutch sea adventurers who chiefly haunted the Caribbean and the Pacific seaboard of South America during the latter part of the 17th century, preying on Spanish settlements and shipping. : The Life of William Dampier William Dampier (baptised 5 September 1651 – died March 1715) was an English buccaneer, sea captain, author and scientific observer. He was the first Englishman to explore or map parts of New Holland (Australia) and New Guinea. DIANA AND MICHAEL PRESTON William Dampier was the first man to circumnavigate cir·cum·nav·i·gate tr.v. cir·cum·nav·i·gat·ed, cir·cum·nav·i·gat·ing, cir·cum·nav·i·gates 1. To proceed completely around: circumnavigating the earth. 2. the world three times during his lifetime, which spanned the years 1651 to 1715. Yet his reason for doing so wasn't exactly noble. He was a pirate. He and his crew sailed the seas looking to attack gold-laden ships. This is not to say that Dampier wasn't an avid and interested traveler. In fact, the data that he gathered on these far-reaching journeys would rank him as one of the greatest naturalists, travel writers, sailors, explorers, and, to some degree, scientists of his time. AS the authors report, Dampier did unofficial reconnaissance for Charles Darwin in the Galapagos and coined the term "subspecies subspecies, also called race, a genetically distinct geographical subunit of a species. See also classification. " before Darwin used it. As Dampier traveled to five continents, he logged thousands of pages describing flora, fauna, and cultures that had never been witnessed before. To the English, he introduced curiosities ranging from avocados to zebras. Dampier proposed that wind causes currents, which he mapped. His charts of reefs, tidal races, and shoals of Pacific islands were so detailed that the British Navy used them as late as the 20th century. Even the English language English language, member of the West Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Spoken by about 470 million people throughout the world, English is the official language of about 45 nations. benefited from this buccaneer: He added more than 1,000 words, including chopsticks, posse, and excursion to the Oxford English Dictionary Oxford English Dictionary (OED) great multi-volume historical dictionary of English. [Br. Hist.: Caught in the Web of Words] See : Lexicography . Dampier's travelogues generated popular interest in travel writing. In this book, Diana and Michael Preston celebrate Dampier's scientific contributions, which have been largely overshadowed by his sinister side. Walker, 2004, 372 p., b&w photos/illus., hardcover, $27.00. |
|
||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion