Fionnáin apžvelgė autoriaus Alister Clavering Hardy knygą Great Waters
Ocean discoveries from aboard the Discovery
5 žvaigždutės
Alister Hardy was a polymath – a scientist, artist, engineer and also a great writer. His prose is as enjoyable as his illustrations of plankton, and Great Waters is a culmination of all of those skills. Written in 1967, Hardy revisits his diaries from his time as a marine researcher aboard the RRS Discovery in 1925-27. He then writes the story of how that research ship discovered new truths about the behaviours of whales and plankton in the Southern Ocean near the Antarctic, drawing both from the diaries and from the subsequent reports.
This book is so rich, I have no idea how to do it justice. From wonderful descriptions of the sailors and their behaviours on board, to deep and thoughtful sections on the behaviour of plankton, Hardy rarely loses his unique storytelling ability. He describes how he designed and tested the Continuous Plankton Recorder, a device that …
Alister Hardy was a polymath – a scientist, artist, engineer and also a great writer. His prose is as enjoyable as his illustrations of plankton, and Great Waters is a culmination of all of those skills. Written in 1967, Hardy revisits his diaries from his time as a marine researcher aboard the RRS Discovery in 1925-27. He then writes the story of how that research ship discovered new truths about the behaviours of whales and plankton in the Southern Ocean near the Antarctic, drawing both from the diaries and from the subsequent reports.
This book is so rich, I have no idea how to do it justice. From wonderful descriptions of the sailors and their behaviours on board, to deep and thoughtful sections on the behaviour of plankton, Hardy rarely loses his unique storytelling ability. He describes how he designed and tested the Continuous Plankton Recorder, a device that I have been researching for some time and that drew me first to this book and to Hardy. Even in this, he is a good storyteller, linking together engineering design with funny anecdotes about the device as a trip hazard on deck.
The text is interspersed with incredible photographs and beautiful colour illustrations of the creatures and the voyage, along with graphs and maps and other visual aides. The book is still so modern, and so poignant, and so relevant; the Discovery's huge depth of research remains the backbone for much modern climate research and the story of that ship is a story worth telling still.