From Dust We Come
Last night I posted a little entry about Midshipman Robert Bastard James, who was taken prisoner in a prize in 1804 at the age of just 16 and spent the next ten years in captivity despite several bold and spirited attempts to escape.
In Napoleon and His British Captives Michael Lewis describes James was a boy of extraordinary pluck and principal and relates the beginning of his adventures as follows. When James' prize was captured and he was removed to a chase maree, though still half-drowned, and guarded by a dozen veteran soldiers, he had not been afloat an hour before he had contrived to surprise and disarm the guard and, make for the open sea. Alas he was overtaken by a privateer and driven back to Nantes. On landing, James' men were almost persuaded to desert and join the French. Hearing of it just in time, James ran straight into the office of the general commanding at Nantes, and not only told the men, most forcibly what he thought of them, but also quite fearlessly, told General Dumuy what he thought of him for trying to tamper with his men's loyalty. He won both battles. Lewis states that the horrors James suffered on his forced march to Verdun were worse than any previously recorded and relates the story of a pitched battle James and his men were forced to fight in the darkness of a foetid gaol against its criminal occupants who were armed with wooden sabots and stones tied in handkerchiefs. James and his men won the day but eventually the boy's strength gave out and he was thrown in the bottom of a farm cart and transported the rest of the way to Verdun. His men stayed with him until they reached the end of the road at the prison depot.
That was only the start of James adventures and I have yet to read his own account of his time as a POW. However I came across a fascinating detail last night that suggests that as well as being brave and resilient James also had an enquiring mind that contributed to the research of Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin and is still provoking further research to this day.
Charles LyellA year after regaining his freedom in 1814 James was promoted to lieutenant, however like many young officers at the end of the war, and particularly those whose careers had been interrupted by captivity, he never made it past the rank of lieutenant commander. Towards the end of his naval career in 1833 James was commander of the Falmouth picket brig Spey. In 1838, while sailing off the Cape Verde Islands the Spey was engulfed by a dust storm despite being 400 miles off the coast of Africa. James had the foresight to collect samples of the dust from his gig and the brig's topgallant sails and sens them with a covering letter to the eminent geologist Charles Lyell, author of the influential Principles of Geology . Lyell promptly forwarded both to his colleague Charles Darwin who had observed a similar incident during the Beagle's voyage. Darwin later went on to summarise James' letter and present it in a paper "An account of the fine dust which often falls on vessels in the Atlantic Ocean", read in 1845 at the Geological Society. James' latter to Lyell is preserved in the Darwin Correspondence Project Archive and begins:
H.M: Packet Brig Spey Falmouth
Dear Sir,
Although I have not the pleasure of being personally known to you- yet, I beg, you will be pleased to consider me, as a sincere friend to any science, that may tend towards the improvement of the human understanding-and, in my humble opinion;- I know of no other science, that can surpass Geology,-especially, since the discovery of so many wonderful fossil remains in the high northern Latitudes;
Permit me then Sir, to add my mite, in sending you a few papers of dust,-blown on board the Spey-from the coast of Africa-nearly four hundred miles distance- I almost despaired of being able to collect any at all- It was too light and too fine to get even a pinch of it-but a clean sponge and fresh water soon procured me as much as I wanted;
But the story doesn't quite end there. In 2007 the University of Geneva launched a research project to analyse the samples collected to James aboard the Spey almost 170 years previously. Through geochemical analysis plant biologist William Broughton was able to trace the sample to the Bodélé Depression, an ancient lake bed once covered by Lake Chad in the Sahara. Broughton was also able to cultivate at least 12 identifiable species of fungi and 15 species of bacteria from James' original samples, thus helping to prove that dust can travel thousands of miles and still contains live bacteria, lending support to the idea that microbes can hitchhike their way across oceans on the tiny grains.
Dust sample labelled by Darwin
James died in 1840 when the Spey was wrecked on Racoon Key, Florida, but his legacy lives on not only in his spirited account of his early adventures but also in his remarkable scientific foresight.
On the very slim off chance that I am not the only person round here to be utterly fascinated by this you can find out more about James and his extraordinary scientific legacy below:
Darwin Correspondence Project http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/
R. B. James to Charles Lyell, March 1838, http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-405
Geotimes: Dust in the Wind http://www.agiweb.org/geotimes/mar08/article.html?id=nn_dust.html
In Napoleon and His British Captives Michael Lewis describes James was a boy of extraordinary pluck and principal and relates the beginning of his adventures as follows. When James' prize was captured and he was removed to a chase maree, though still half-drowned, and guarded by a dozen veteran soldiers, he had not been afloat an hour before he had contrived to surprise and disarm the guard and, make for the open sea. Alas he was overtaken by a privateer and driven back to Nantes. On landing, James' men were almost persuaded to desert and join the French. Hearing of it just in time, James ran straight into the office of the general commanding at Nantes, and not only told the men, most forcibly what he thought of them, but also quite fearlessly, told General Dumuy what he thought of him for trying to tamper with his men's loyalty. He won both battles. Lewis states that the horrors James suffered on his forced march to Verdun were worse than any previously recorded and relates the story of a pitched battle James and his men were forced to fight in the darkness of a foetid gaol against its criminal occupants who were armed with wooden sabots and stones tied in handkerchiefs. James and his men won the day but eventually the boy's strength gave out and he was thrown in the bottom of a farm cart and transported the rest of the way to Verdun. His men stayed with him until they reached the end of the road at the prison depot.
That was only the start of James adventures and I have yet to read his own account of his time as a POW. However I came across a fascinating detail last night that suggests that as well as being brave and resilient James also had an enquiring mind that contributed to the research of Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin and is still provoking further research to this day.
Charles LyellA year after regaining his freedom in 1814 James was promoted to lieutenant, however like many young officers at the end of the war, and particularly those whose careers had been interrupted by captivity, he never made it past the rank of lieutenant commander. Towards the end of his naval career in 1833 James was commander of the Falmouth picket brig Spey. In 1838, while sailing off the Cape Verde Islands the Spey was engulfed by a dust storm despite being 400 miles off the coast of Africa. James had the foresight to collect samples of the dust from his gig and the brig's topgallant sails and sens them with a covering letter to the eminent geologist Charles Lyell, author of the influential Principles of Geology . Lyell promptly forwarded both to his colleague Charles Darwin who had observed a similar incident during the Beagle's voyage. Darwin later went on to summarise James' letter and present it in a paper "An account of the fine dust which often falls on vessels in the Atlantic Ocean", read in 1845 at the Geological Society. James' latter to Lyell is preserved in the Darwin Correspondence Project Archive and begins:
H.M: Packet Brig Spey Falmouth
Dear Sir,
Although I have not the pleasure of being personally known to you- yet, I beg, you will be pleased to consider me, as a sincere friend to any science, that may tend towards the improvement of the human understanding-and, in my humble opinion;- I know of no other science, that can surpass Geology,-especially, since the discovery of so many wonderful fossil remains in the high northern Latitudes;
Permit me then Sir, to add my mite, in sending you a few papers of dust,-blown on board the Spey-from the coast of Africa-nearly four hundred miles distance- I almost despaired of being able to collect any at all- It was too light and too fine to get even a pinch of it-but a clean sponge and fresh water soon procured me as much as I wanted;
But the story doesn't quite end there. In 2007 the University of Geneva launched a research project to analyse the samples collected to James aboard the Spey almost 170 years previously. Through geochemical analysis plant biologist William Broughton was able to trace the sample to the Bodélé Depression, an ancient lake bed once covered by Lake Chad in the Sahara. Broughton was also able to cultivate at least 12 identifiable species of fungi and 15 species of bacteria from James' original samples, thus helping to prove that dust can travel thousands of miles and still contains live bacteria, lending support to the idea that microbes can hitchhike their way across oceans on the tiny grains.
Dust sample labelled by Darwin
James died in 1840 when the Spey was wrecked on Racoon Key, Florida, but his legacy lives on not only in his spirited account of his early adventures but also in his remarkable scientific foresight.
On the very slim off chance that I am not the only person round here to be utterly fascinated by this you can find out more about James and his extraordinary scientific legacy below:
Darwin Correspondence Project http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/
R. B. James to Charles Lyell, March 1838, http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-405
Geotimes: Dust in the Wind http://www.agiweb.org/geotimes/mar08/article.html?id=nn_dust.html