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“Investigator Blames Industry, Nature for Shortage”

Katharine A. Rodger

in Breaking Through: Essays, Journals, and Travelogues of Edward F. Ricketts

Edward F. Ricketts's serious studies of the sardine cycle span the almost twenty-five years he lived and worked in Monterey Bay—from the mid-1920s through the late 1940s—as he watched the boom and ... More

Edward F. Ricketts's serious studies of the sardine cycle span the almost twenty-five years he lived and worked in Monterey Bay—from the mid-1920s through the late 1940s—as he watched the boom and bust of Cannery Row. By the time his last and most articulate essay about the subject, “Investigator Blames Industry, Nature for Shortage,” appeared in the 1948 Monterey Peninsula Herald, the canning industry had begun to collapse. In his article, Ricketts attempted to explain the crisis in a historical context. The article ran on the first and third pages of the newspaper and included a bar graph of the annual tonnage of sardines caught along the entire North American Pacific coastline from the 1920–1921 season through the 1947–1948 season. Ricketts was a staunch conservationist, and while he was willing to take, and took, the unpopular position that overfishing was a major factor in the collapse of the sardine population, he recognized that it was affected by a diverse and complicated set of factors—both human and natural—and knew the problem could not be solved simply.Less

ROBERT SAXTON (b. 1953)The Beach in Winter: Scratby (for Tess) (2007): Text by the composer

Jane Manning

in Vocal Repertoire for the Twenty-First Century, Volume 2: Works Written From 2000 Onwards

This chapter examines Robert Saxton’s The Beach in Winter: Scratby (for Tess) (2007). This piece, originally commissioned for the NMC Songbook, is now to be found as the last song of a major ... More

This chapter examines Robert Saxton’s The Beach in Winter: Scratby (for Tess) (2007). This piece, originally commissioned for the NMC Songbook, is now to be found as the last song of a major seven-movement baritone cycle Time and the Seasons. Its idiom is a far cry from Saxton’s earlier modernist works. The music is mellifluous, basically tonal, and beautifully turned, with voluptuously expressive vocal phrases that cover a wide range. The composer gives the baritone plenty of scope to span spacious phrases and articulate contrasting emotions, amid continual changes of key signature. Lines dart around the registers a good deal and the singer will need to control dynamics and vary timbre throughout his range. The pianist propels the music along with a continuous, ever-shifting texture of wave patterns—first rippling, then surging and pounding, or quite suddenly scattering in spray. Rhythms are pliable and there are many instances of irregular divisions, pitting fours against threes in the piano part.Less

Mangrove Forests under Dry Seasonal Climates in Costa Rica

Jorge A. Jiménez

in Biodiversity Conservation in Costa Rica: Learning the Lessons in a Seasonal Dry Forest

This chapter focuses on the mangrove forests under dry seasonal climates in Costa Rica. It examines their ecology and the impact that dry seasonal climates have on their diversity and biological ... More

This chapter focuses on the mangrove forests under dry seasonal climates in Costa Rica. It examines their ecology and the impact that dry seasonal climates have on their diversity and biological attributes. It also offers recommendations for future research and approaches to coastline management.Less

Rocky Reefs and Kelp Beds

JOHN S. STEPHENS, RALPH J LARSON, and DANIEL J. PONDELLA

in The Ecology of Marine Fishes: California and Adjacent Waters

California's kelp bed and rock-reef habitats are among the most spectacular marine habitats in the world, due in part to the assemblage of fishes that occupy these areas. This chapter discusses the ... More

California's kelp bed and rock-reef habitats are among the most spectacular marine habitats in the world, due in part to the assemblage of fishes that occupy these areas. This chapter discusses the shallow subtidal reef assemblages associated with kelp beds and rocky reefs. Kelp beds are largely restricted to rocky reefs because they depend on hard substrate for the attachment of holdfasts. The composition of fishes within these two habitat groups overlaps almost entirely because there are very few obligate kelp species. Kelp may be limited in its abundance and distribution by various factors, but most of the fishes associated with it are not susceptible to the same limitations. In fact, the abundance and distribution of kelp along California's coastline fluctuates appreciably because of seasonal and annual variability and episodic events.Less

Clearing the Coast: Captain T. A. Scott, a “True American”

Jamin Wells

in Shipwrecked: Coastal Disasters and the Making of the American Beach

This chapter focuses on a lesser-known industry that transformed the physical coastline as well as popular representations of shipwrecks and the shore. It traces the evolution of the marine salvage ... More

This chapter focuses on a lesser-known industry that transformed the physical coastline as well as popular representations of shipwrecks and the shore. It traces the evolution of the marine salvage business from a part-time, ad-hoc enterprise of coastal inhabitants into a sophisticated, capital-intensive industry of urban laborers though a case study of the career of Captain Thomas A. Scott. Drawing on extensive newspaper and archival research, this chapter shows how corporate salvors turned shipwrecks into relatively mundane service work and the coast into the workplace of modern professionals and a pristine play space for urban pleasure seekers.Less

“Haunt[ing] the Waterfront”: Place and Displacement in Echo’s Bones and Les Nouvelles

Nels Pearson

in Irish Cosmopolitanism: Location and Dislocation in James Joyce, Elizabeth Bowen, and Samuel Beckett

The prevailing notion is that Samuel Beckett’s increasing minimalism and abstraction parallel his detachment from Ireland and his philosophical maturation on the continent. However, this narrative ... More

The prevailing notion is that Samuel Beckett’s increasing minimalism and abstraction parallel his detachment from Ireland and his philosophical maturation on the continent. However, this narrative relies upon a set of opposed concepts—“Ireland, nationalism, familiarity, physical territory” versus “expatriation, cosmopolitanism, disorientation, abstract space”—that Beckett’s life and work in the 1930s and 40s actually deconstruct. The chapter argues this point by examining the complex relationship between location and dislocation in the 1935 poems Echo’s Bones and Other Precipitates, written in English and set in Ireland and Europe, and the Nouvelles “The Expelled,” “The Calmative,” and “The End,” Beckett’s first French stories, written in 1946. Reading these texts against the grain of the traditional Irish-to-Cosmopolitan narrative, I argue that an original cultural estrangement relative to Ireland lingers actively throughout these works and that the paradoxical process of moving beyond this native estrangement is what generates their unique spatial poetics.Less

Robert McClure Completes the Passage; Richard Collinson Maps Coastlines, 1850

Roger M. McCoy

in On the Edge: Mapping North America's Coasts

This chapter focuses on the expeditions of Robert McClure and Richard Collinson in 1850 under the British Admiralty. An expedition of two ships left England to search for John Franklin, who did not ... More

This chapter focuses on the expeditions of Robert McClure and Richard Collinson in 1850 under the British Admiralty. An expedition of two ships left England to search for John Franklin, who did not return after sailing off in 1845. McClure commanded the Investigator while Collinson commanded the Enterprise. Although they got separated early in the voyage and each became locked in ice, McClure and Collinson managed to survey some new coastlines and made important contributions to the map of the Arctic. McClure became the first explorer to link the east and west portions of the Northwest Passage and prove that a water route, albeit frozen, existed through the North American Arctic.Less

Mercator's Résumé

in Rhumb Lines and Map Wars: A Social History of the Mercator Projection

Gerard Mercator was an introspective and energetic chap who was competent in science, honest and well liked, technically savvy and clever with his hands, curious about the world around him, ... More

Gerard Mercator was an introspective and energetic chap who was competent in science, honest and well liked, technically savvy and clever with his hands, curious about the world around him, successful as an entrepreneur, and well positioned to make a pair of substantial contributions to mapmaking. He progressed quickly from globes to flat maps and from engraving to full authorship, and, aware of the uncertainty of some delineation, scrupulously differentiated known, previously mapped coastlines from their more speculative counterparts in areas largely unexplored. More impressively accurate is Mercator's 1564 map of England, Scotland, and Ireland, printed on eight sheets, which compose a 35 by 50-inch wall map. Translation of Mercator's Latin narrative into Dutch, French, German, and English created a still-wider market for the thirty editions of the full-size Mercator–Hondius Atlas published between 1606 and 1641.Less

The Coastal Strategy: 1099–1124

Steve Tibble

in The Crusader Strategy: Defending the Holy Land

This chapter mentions an English pilgrim named Saewulf, who made the trip in the summer of 1102 to the Palestinian coast, where he was caught in the midst of battle with crusaders. It talks about the ... More

This chapter mentions an English pilgrim named Saewulf, who made the trip in the summer of 1102 to the Palestinian coast, where he was caught in the midst of battle with crusaders. It talks about the Franks, European settlers in the Holy Land, who kept coming to the new crusader states even in the most dangerous of times and the most perilous of conditions. It analyzes the capture of Jerusalem and the extraordinary culmination of the First Crusade in which strategy exists only in the context of objectives and the decisions that lead up to them. The chapter explains the first phase of Frankish strategy on taking control of the entire coastline of Syria and Palestine. It also looks at the coastal strategy that followed a remarkable trajectory across the three crusader states that bordered on the eastern Mediterranean.Less

Dark with Excess of Bright: Mapping the Coastlines of Knowledge

Paul Carter

in Dark Writing: Geography, Performance, Design

This chapter explores the history of geographical thinking, taking a practical example of linear logic found in the map. Perhaps the most prominent—and from the point of view of imperial ambitions ... More

This chapter explores the history of geographical thinking, taking a practical example of linear logic found in the map. Perhaps the most prominent—and from the point of view of imperial ambitions the most significant—feature found on maps of new places is the coastline. The continuous line that differentiates a mass of land from water is the indispensable prerequisite of territorial expansion. As a cut in nature, the coastline becomes the favored site of scientific enquiry, but it is also the place where Western and non-Western people are suddenly exposed to one another. As an imaginary place, quarantined off from the normal comings and goings of social life, it incubates strange, and often fatal, performances.Less

The Influence of the Counterculture, Community, and State

Shelley Alden Brooks

in Big Sur: The Making of a Prized California Landscape

During the counter-culture era of the 1960s and early 1970s, Big Sur became a magnet for hippies, back-to-the-land activists, and New Age visitors exploring the mind-expanding retreats at the Esalen ... More

During the counter-culture era of the 1960s and early 1970s, Big Sur became a magnet for hippies, back-to-the-land activists, and New Age visitors exploring the mind-expanding retreats at the Esalen Institute. Added to these arrivals were the more mainstream families flocking to the state parks and beaches, and wealthy new residents. Chapter 5 examines the arrival of these various admirers and their influence on Big Sur’s image and land management. This chapter also broadens the picture to examine the statewide impact of the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill. The spill was a wakeup call to the state and the nation, and it reinforced the linkage between the quality of the environment and Americans’ quality of life. It spurred the passage of Proposition 20 in 1972 to protect California’s prized coastline. New state regulations required environmentally sensitive land management plans from all coastal counties. This chapter argues that Big Sur residents understood the importance (and accepted the irony) of coalescing as a vibrant community as they began to draft one of the most stringent antidevelopment plans in the state. Their sophisticated knowledge of land management helped retain this coastline’s distinction and their prized place within it.Less

The Land

in Emperor and Ancestor: State and Lineage in South China

Prior to the Song dynasty, most of what is now the Pearl River Delta used to be a submerged region. From the time of the Southern Song up to the twentieth century, agricultural land was gradually ... More

Prior to the Song dynasty, most of what is now the Pearl River Delta used to be a submerged region. From the time of the Southern Song up to the twentieth century, agricultural land was gradually reclaimed from the sediments that had accumulated in the area. By analyzing archaeological evidence and the written record, historical geographers in Guangzhou have come up with the chronology of reclamation. Running diagonally across Xinhui in the southwest and Shilou in the northeast, the Song coastline continues to the other side of the Pearl River, along a line that cuts almost north–south at the East River delta. To the south of this continuous line is land known as the “sands,” while to its north lie the “dikes.” The distinction between the “sands” and the “dikes” had important implications for social changes in the Pearl River Delta.Less

Coastal Joyce

Nicholas Allen

in Ireland, Literature, and the Coast: Seatangled

Coastlines shape all of Joyce’s books, which are all immersed in water. Images of liquidity and fluidity are central to Joyce’s practice, while the physical and historical geography of Ireland in his ... More

Coastlines shape all of Joyce’s books, which are all immersed in water. Images of liquidity and fluidity are central to Joyce’s practice, while the physical and historical geography of Ireland in his works is connected together by the construction of watery links. This geography extends to the mental coordinates of the characters themselves, many of whom are linked to other places by the sea and its commerce, joins that become visible on Dublin’s quays and foreshores. This chapter situates Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by the coastal curve from Howth head to Kingstown, an arc in which much of Joyce’s writing is set, Dublin an aqua city that had, by the beginning of the twentieth century, dwindled in significance to Britain’s oceanic empire.Less

Heaney Offshore

Nicholas Allen

in Ireland, Literature, and the Coast: Seatangled

This chapter reads Seamus Heaney’s engagement with water, liquidity, and shore and coastlines throughout his poetry. Seamus Heaney is so familiar as the laureate of Mossbawn and its extended ... More

This chapter reads Seamus Heaney’s engagement with water, liquidity, and shore and coastlines throughout his poetry. Seamus Heaney is so familiar as the laureate of Mossbawn and its extended enclosures that his poetry seems impossible to uproot from its locality. The northern countryside that nourished, and often troubled, his imagination is a dominant metaphor for the poet’s ideas of family, community and, by extension, nationality. Under-observed in all this is another element in Heaney’s writing, which is the use of water as a medium to imagine other kinds of human association. Water is a key image throughout Heaney’s work in the form of rivers, streams, bogs, lakes, and oceans; it is there at the beginning as a drip from the farmyard pump, and there again at the end in the eel fishery at Lough Neagh, as this chapter discusses in close readings of his poems.Less

Impacts and Reverberations

Susan Elizabeth Hough and Roger G. Bilham

in Title Pages

Earthquakes and their attendant phenomena rank among the most terrifying natural disasters faced by mankind. Out of a clear blue sky—or worse, a jet-black one—comes shaking strong enough to hurl ... More

Earthquakes and their attendant phenomena rank among the most terrifying natural disasters faced by mankind. Out of a clear blue sky—or worse, a jet-black one—comes shaking strong enough to hurl furniture across the room, human bodies out of bed, and entire houses off their foundations. Individuals who experience the full brunt of the planet’s strongest convulsions often later describe the single thought that echoed in their minds during the tumult: I am going to die. When the dust settles, the immediate aftermath of an earthquake in an urbanized society can be profound. Phone service and water supplies can be disrupted for days, fires can erupt, and even a small number of overpass collapses can impede rescue operations and snarl traffic for months. On an increasingly urban planet, millions of people have positioned themselves directly in harm’s way. Global settlement patterns have in all too many cases resulted in enormous concentrations of humanity in some of the planet’s most dangerous earthquake zones. On the holiday Sunday morning of December 26, 2004, citizens and tourists in countries around the rim of the Indian Ocean were at work and at play when an enormous M9 (magnitude 9.0) earthquake suddenly unleashed a torrent of water several times larger than the volume of the Great Salt Lake. The world then watched with horror as events unfolded: a death toll that climbed toward 300,000 that was accompanied by unimaginable, and seemingly insurmountable, devastation to hundreds of towns and cities. For scientists involved with earthquake hazards research in that part of the world, the images were doubly wrenching: the hazard from large global earthquakes has been recognized for decades. Located mostly offshore, the 2004 Sumatra quake unleashed its destructive fury primarily in the sea. The next great earthquake to affect Asia might well be inland, perhaps along the Himalayan front or in central China. Less