REVIEWS Island Sound lines as well. The Lines are covered separately, with a very thorough chapter devoted to each: the Bridgeport Line, the New Haven Line, and so forth. The premier service of New Haven New England Steamship Company, of course, was the great Fall River Line, whose steamers from its first sailing in 1847 to its last ninety years later, were the finest and most elegant and most beautiful of all American overnight boats. Although this Line has been treated in many other studies, the authors manage to give us a fresh approach , much interesting new material, and a great many excellent photographs, many of which have never appeared before in print. From the first that one opens the flyleaf and finds a fascinating photograph of steamers Plymouth and City of Fall River, to the final flyleaf, with its full broadside of the beautiful Puritan (with William Webb'sProvidence in the background), the photographs in this book , of the Fall River steamers and many unexpected photographs of other Sound steamers, do not fail to be exciting. One minor problem, however, is that some of the photographs, especially towards the end of the book, have been printed too densely, giving them an overall gray cast. These photos are nonetheless legible. The authors have done a great deal of original research and have presented us with a considerable amount of new and interesting material. There are some errors, but none that matter. But one will not understand the value and pleasure this book offers until one has bathed in it for many delightful hours. WILLI A M G. MULLER Mr. Muller, is a founder and Fellow of the American Society of Marine A rtists and an advisor of NMHS. Tuning the Rig, Harvey Ox horn (Harper & Row, New York 1990, 320pp, maps, illus; $22.95hb) This splendid book is a must for those about to embark on their first sai l training experience-and also for those who knew the late Dr. George Nichols, founder of Ocean Research and Education Society (ORES) and captain of its research vessel , the barkentine Regina Maris . While many neophytes or trainees have written about their initiation under sail and the character-building metamorphosis that they underwent, Harvey SEA HISTORY 55, AUTUMN 1990
Ox horn, as a teacher, writer and philosopher, approaches the subject in a more mature and self-analytical way than most. The narrative of this journey to the Arctic develops the characters of all the players in totality as the rigors and challenge of the voyage force them into a unique team . The closing pages present the unwritten "code of service" that has evolved aboard the ship. A rewarding feature of Ox horn 's log
is hi s ability to put in language comprehensible to the layman the marine biol ogy activities and to provide capsules of the hi story of the regions in the northern seas discovered by the Norsemen. H ENRY H. ANDERSON , Jr. Commodore Anderson, a Vice Chairman of NMHS, and Chairman Emeritus of the American Sail Training Association , sails his sloop Blue Shadow in Labrador each summer.
THE NORTH PACIFIC STUDIES SERIES
The Finest Publications on Exploration of c'The Great Ocean)) Voyages of the Columbia to the Northwest Coast: 1787-1790 & 1790-1793, EDITED AND ANNOTATED BY FREDERIC W. HOWAY $40.00
An elegant facsimile reprint of a classic
in American exp loration studies. Originally published in 1941, Howay's brilliantly annotated volume contains four firsthand accounts of life on board the Columbia Rediviva, including John Boit's description ofRobert Gray's entry into the mouth of the Columbia River in 1792. Historians and scholars have long regarded this work as an invaluable resource on the fur trade and maritime exploration in the Pacific Northwest and will treasure this handsome new edition. Juan Perez on the Northwest Coast: Six Documents ofHis Expedition in 1774, TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED BY HERBERTK. BEALS $24.95
The controversy surrounding the 1774 voyage ofJuan Perez to tl1e Northwest Coast of North America has been thoroughly annotated by author and translator Herbert K. Beals. The failure of tl1e Santiago to reach the sixtieth parallel or make a landing on the Northwest Coast is weighed against Perez's fame as tl1e first European to ply the waters off the Pacific Northwest. These six documents, translated from the Spanish, allow the reader an opportunity to judge the scale of Perez's achievements, or shortcomings, on that 1774 voyage.
The Last Temperate Coast: Maritime Exploration of Northwest America, 1542-1794, MAP: HERBERT K. BEALS $20.00 Maritime historian Beals has defined and charted thirteen of the most important early sea explorations along the Northwest Coast. These voyages in search of knowledge about the "Last Temperate Coast" spanned a period of more than 250 years. Also included are inset maps-fifteen in all- that show individual routes of the explorers and the gradual decrease of terra incognita. This impressive map measures 35 "x 44", is reproduced in five colors, and illustrates for the first time the juxtaposition of these important voyages. ALSO JUST PUBLISHED
Soft Gold: The Fur Trade & Cultural Exchange on the Northwest Coast of America, (2nd ed., rev.) by Thomas Vaughan and Bill Holm, over 100 color illustrations, $25.00, paperback; Bering's Search for the Strait: The First Kamchatka Expedition 1725-1730, by Evgenii G. Kuslmarev, translated and edited by E.A.P. Crownhart-Vaughan, $24.95 . FOR MORE INFORMATION about these or other North Pacific Studies Series books, please contact: Oregon Historical Society Press, 1230 sw Park Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97205 U.S.A. 503 I 222-1741 fax 503 / 221 -2035
OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY PRESS 43