IEWS Stern wheelers and Steam Tugs: An Illustrated History of the Canadian Pacific Railway's British Columbia Lake and River Service, Second Editio n, by Robert D. T urner (So no N is Press, Victoria BC, 1998, 288pp, illus, notes, index, ISBN 1553039-089-9; $39.95 pb) T his second edition returns a classic reference back to print. Originally published in 1984, Sternwheelers and Steam Tugs was one of a trilogy of works-The Pacific Empresses and The Pacific Princesses being the other rwo-on the Canadian Pacifi c Railway's Pacific fl eet by Turner, then with the Royal British Columbia Museum and now a heritage consultant. The 16,000-mile coas tline of British Columbia has a significant history of va rious settlements- logging camps, canneries, mining camps and their surrounding com munities-linked by sail and steam. T hat is th e story Turner told in large m easure with The Pacific Emp resses and The Pacific Princesses. But the coastal story is matched by that of British Columbia's rivers, notably the upper Columbi a, the Fraser and th e Stikine, and its numerous lakes. It is the saga of the steamboats that wor ked those interior waters that Turner documents in SternwheelersandSteam Tugs. T he C PR and its predecesso rs -the Co lumbi a and Kootenay Steam Navigation Company, for example-as well as its competitors, like the Grand Turk and Great Northern, are covered. The person aliti es, th e ships and boats, the routes, the communiti es and their stories, both mundane and unusual, fill the pages in a well-written, well-documented and exceptionally illustrated sryle. Wh ile the scholarship and writin g help set T urner's works apart, the des ign and layout of th e book is another tremendo us asset. Color and black-and-white photos, lin e drawings, fleet lists, timetables, and advertisements lavishly illustrate Sternwheelers and Steam Tugs. The first edition had 300 illustrations; the second has an additional rwenry images. The other major addition is a section on rwo histo ric CPR vessels, SS Moyie and SS Sicamous, wh ich have been saved and restored as histo ric sites. Turner worked closely on the restoration of Moyie. The new sections-a nd the entire book, th erefore-have the benefit of both his handson expetience and his scholarly research .
SEA HISTORY 87, WINTER 1998-99
Sternwheelers and Steam Tugs is highly recomme nded, not only for those interested in the maritime history of British Columbi a, but for anyone who delights in the sto ries and particulars of river and lake steamers everywhere. ]AMES P. D ELGADO, Director Vancouver M aritime Museum Vancouver, British Co lumbia
Nelson and the Nile: The Naval War Against Bonaparte, 1798, by Brian Lavery (Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD, 1998,3 18pp, illus, notes, index, ISBN l 55750-640x; $42. 95hc) Brian Lavery, whose knowledge of the ships and ways of the Nelson era is unparalleled, offers an extraordinarily insightful and nuanced acco unt of the critical year 1798, in which Nelson put period to Napoleon's ambitious plans to conquer Egypt and threaten England's position in India. T his effectively confined the aggressive dictator to Europe, setting the stage for the war that raged on more or less con tinuously until 1815 , when Napoleon's army was decisively defeated and his empire dismembered. "Why and how did the destruction of a dozen warships have such wo rldwide repercussions?" asks Lavery at the outset of Nelson 's story-and he traces the co nsequences of the Battle of the Nile on the world since with a sure hand. Lavery's work gives us a lively picture of the wider sweep of the war and th e changing currents of world politics in this tumultuous era, which makes for fascinating reading. He reads Nelson's genius accurately, and the allco nquering spirit of the people of the ships who sailed under his flag. If one had to choose just one book on Nelson and the Napoleonic wars, this would be it. PETER STANFORD Tidewater Triumph: The Development and Worldwide Success of the Chesapeake Bay Pilot Schooner, by Geoffrey M.
Footner (Tidewater Publishers, Centrevill e MD , 305pp, illus, notes, appen, gloss, index, ISBN 0-8 7033-511-1; $39.95 hc) Many naval architects have given technical reasons for the remarkable success of the schooners first built on Chesapeake Bay but this is the first serious work that addresses the social and economic backgro und for their development. Better known today as "Baltimore clippers," their builders simply described them as pilot schooners from colonial times up to the War of 1812. Sometimes rigged as brigs, their swiftness continued to be in demand to carry perishable and illicit cargoes. They became slaver ships, revenue cutters, opium clippers, pilot boats, and racing yachts. The last resemblance of the class co uld be found in the comely pungy schooners that worked well into the 1900s. When Footner discusses the builders, owners, and historical so urces, he's on solid ground. He is unflagging in his search of every available snippet and, after a promising acknowledgment of sources, there is an abundance of footnotes for each chapter. Alas, when it comes to technical exp lanations of design and function , Foomer is at loose ends. Dimensio ns and stabiliry are discussed in no meaningful way. Overall lengths, register lengths and lengths on deck are mistakenly considered to be all the same.Tonnage weights and tonnage spaces are confused. C redibiliry is lost with a theory that, by calculating ratios from lengths or beams with arbitrary internal depths, stab ili ry can be identified. A naval schooner with a pronounced sheer is praised for having a "more balanced deckline" giving "greater buoyancy" to her ends (p. 88). More likely the added weight in the extremities above the waterlin e was a detriment, and the great sheer of her deck would be a difficult platform for the gunners near the bow and stern . The schooner Patapsco is reported to have loaded over 104 tons of sugar, coffee and cotton and 3 tons oflogs. Not satisfied, the author adds that only the logs were "dead-weight cargo," which leaves the bulk of the cargo up in the air. These are just a few of many lubberly descriptions. Many historical illustrations are included in the work; some I believe appear in print for the first time. Fo r these, and an opus of useful research into social history, the author deserves commendation. However, if
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