At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Adriatic was still insufficiently explored sea. The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), which in 1806 resulted in a territorial expansion of the French Empire ...to the eastern Adriatic (formerly part of the Austrian Empire), highlighted the issues of territorial sovereignty both on land and at sea, triggering the first hydrographic survey of the Adriatic. Napoleon Bonaparte, whose military operations were conducted precisely at sea, hired Charles François Beautemps-Beaupré, his best hydrographer, to conduct a hydrographic survey of the eastern coasts of the Adriatic. Conducted in the period 1806–1809, the survey resulted in the first modern hydrographic charts of the Adriatic that were accompanied by a hydrographic report, containing an analysis of its currents, winds, tides, and geomagnetism. Beautemps-Beaupré’s campaign was the first scientifically based survey of the Adriatic whose charts and the attached report represented a shift towards an all-encompassing convention of maritime cartography. It enhanced both the sovereignty over the newly acquired sea and the insight into the maritime theatre of the Napoleonic Wars, thus confirming a strong union between political power and science. The aim of the article is to show why the French survey was a turning-point in geographical knowledge on Adriatic and how French imperialism affected the knowledge on martime geography of the Adriatic Sea.
•Examines how state-sponsored marine science was used as a tool in French imperialism.•Claims Beautemps-Beaupré’s survey of Adriatic Sea as the first scientifically based survey of Adriatic Sea.•Highlights innovations in surveying and cartography.•Shows modernization of maritime charting and standardization of hydrographic practice.•Places territory as major scientific subject of observation to support expansionism.
In 1815, the deposed emperor Napoleon returned to France and threatened the already devastated and exhausted continent with yet another war. Near the small Belgian municipality of Waterloo, two ...large, hastily mobilized armies faced each other to decide the future of EuropeNapoleon's forces on one side, and the Duke of Wellington on the other. With so much at stake, neither commander could have predicted that the battle would be decided by the Second Light Battalion, King's German Legion, which was given the deceptively simple task of defending the Haye Sainte farmhouse, a crucial crossroads on the way to Brussels. In The Longest Afternoon, Brendan Simms recounts how these 400-odd riflemen beat back wave after wave of French infantry until finally forced to withdraw, but only after holding up Napoleon for so long that he lost the overall contest. Their actions alone decided the most influential battle in European history. Drawing on previously untapped eye-witness reports for accurate and vivid details of the course of the battle, Simms captures the grand choreography and pervasive chaos of Waterloo: the advances and retreats, the death and the maiming, the heroism and the cowardice. He describes the gallant fighting spirit of the French infantrymen, who clambered over the bodies of their fallen comrades as they assaulted the heavily fortified farmhouseand whose bravery was only surpassed by that of their opponents in the Second Light Battalion. Motivated by opposition to Napoleonic tyranny, dynastic loyalty to the King of England, German patriotism, regimental camaraderie, personal bonds of friendship, and professional ethos, the battalion suffered terrible casualties and fought tirelessly for many long hours, but refused to capitulate or retreat until the evening, by which time the Prussians had arrived on the battlefield in large numbers. In
reorienting Waterloo around the Haye Sainte farmhouse, Simms gives us a riveting new account of the famous battlean account that reveals, among other things, that Napoleon came much closer than is commonly thought to winning it. A heroic tale of 400 soldiers who changed the course of history, The Longest Afternoon will become an instant classic of military history.
Giving close consideration to previously neglected debates, Matthew Mason challenges the common contention that slavery held little political significance in America until the Missouri Crisis of ...1819. Mason demonstrates that slavery and politics were enmeshed in the creation of the nation, and in fact there was never a time between the Revolution and the Civil War in which slavery went uncontested.The American Revolution set in motion the split between slave states and free states, but Mason explains that the divide took on greater importance in the early nineteenth century. He examines the partisan and geopolitical uses of slavery, the conflicts between free states and their slaveholding neighbors, and the political impact of African Americans across the country.Offering a full picture of the politics of slavery in the crucial years of the early republic, Mason demonstrates that partisans and patriots, slave and free--and not just abolitionists and advocates of slavery--should be considered important players in the politics of slavery in the United States.
•Pyroclastic eruption of Tambora constitutes mainly easily weatherable minerals.•Soil formation rates is rapid, namely 1.1 to 5.3 mm yr−1 under tropical conditions.•Low allophane formation (<2.3%) ...leads to low P retention (<43 %) and high bulk density.•Young soil development stage is revealed by chemical alteration and base depletion indices.•Pyroclastic deposits rejuvenate soils in long-term “rock-derived” nutrients.
Early-stage pedogenic processes and formation rates on completely obliterated volcanic landscapes, such as the super explosive 1815 Mount Tambora eruption, have not previously been robustly explored. The objectives of this study were to determine (i) the mineralogical composition of the sand fraction, selected physical and chemical soil properties and potential nutrient reserves after 200 years of pedogenesis, and (ii) chemical weathering indices, rate of soil formation, and rates of C and N accretion. Soil formation was examined for five soil profiles on stable plain/foot slope positions representing the diversity of soils in these landscape positions, which are important for agricultural production. Results showed that the soil mineralogical composition of the sand fraction was dominated by easily weatherable minerals (e.g., labradorite and augite volcanic glass) indicating high potential nutrient reserves (e.g., Ca2+, Mg2+, K+, P) as confirmed by X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyses. Allophanic material formation was minimal (<2.3%) owing to the preferential accumulation of Al3+ into Al-humic complexes. The low contents of allophanic materials and metal-humus complexes resulted in low P-retention (17.5–43.4%) within the soil solum, with the highest value in surface horizons (33–43%). Morphological features showed rapid solum (A + B horizons) development of 22 to 107 cm. Shallow soils occurred on shallow eruption deposits (consisting of pyroclastic flow underlain by pumice), whereas the deepest soils were found on thick deposit consisting of either trachyandesite pyroclastic or basaltic andesite materials. The chemical index of alteration (CIA) followed the order of A horizons (48.4 ± 4.6) > B horizons (45.4 ± 2.4) > C horizons (43.8 ± 4.2) ≈ tephra/lava (43.1), indicating accumulation of Al oxides and depletion of base cations in the upper horizons. Similarly, the base depletion index (BDI) showed a trend of A horizons (1.13 ± 0.18) < B horizons (1.25 ± 0.09) < C horizons (1.34 ± 0.20) ≈ tephra/lava (1.35), indicating depletion of base cations (Ca2+, Mg2+, K+, Na+) from the soil surface to C horizons. Based on solum depths (A + B horizons) and 200 years of post-eruption soil development, the solum formation rate ranged from 1.2 to 5.3 mm yr−1. Appreciable stocks of SOC (2.3–12.8 kg C m−2) and SON (0.21–0.77 kg m−2) accumulated over the 200 year period. Eruption materials from the Mt. Tambora eruption with a precisely known timescale contributed new pedological insights documenting rapid soil formation rates from pyroclastic materials leading to a rapid recovery of soil functions to support agricultural production.
The response of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) to tropical volcanic eruptions has important worldwide implications, but remains poorly constrained. Paleoclimate records suggest an “El ...Niño-like” warming 1 year following major eruptions Adams JB, Mann ME, Ammann CM (2003) Nature 426:274–278 and “La Niña-like” cooling within the eruption year Li J, et al. (2013) Nat Clim Chang 3:822–826. However, climate models currently cannot capture all these responses. Many eruption characteristics are poorly constrained, which may contribute to uncertainties in model solutions—for example, the season of eruption occurrence is often unknown and assigned arbitrarily. Here we isolate the effect of eruption season using experiments with the Community Earth System Model (CESM), varying the starting month of two large tropical eruptions. The eruption-year atmospheric circulation response is strongly seasonally dependent, with effects on European winter warming, the Intertropical Convergence Zone, and the southeast Asian monsoon. This creates substantial variations in eruption-year hydroclimate patterns, which do sometimes exhibit La Niña-like features as in the proxy record. However, eruption-year equatorial Pacific cooling is not driven by La Niña dynamics, but strictly by transient radiative cooling. In contrast, equatorial warming the following year occurs for all starting months and operates dynamically like El Niño. Proxy reconstructions confirm these results: eruption-year cooling is insignificant, whereas warming in the following year is more robust. This implies that accounting for the event season may be necessary to describe the initial response to volcanic eruptions and that climate models may be more accurately simulating volcanic influences than previously thought.
Waterloo was the last battle fought by Napoleon and the one which finally ended his imperial dreams. It involved the deployment of huge armies and incurred heavy losses on both sides; for those who ...fought in it, Dutch and Belgians, Prussians and Hanoverians as well as British and French troops, it was a murderous struggle.
It was a battle that would be remembered very differently across Europe. In Britain it would be seen as an iconic battle whose memory would be enmeshed in British national identity across the following century. In London news of the victory unleashed an outburst of patriotic celebration and captured the imagination of the public. The Duke of Wellington would go on to build his political career on it, and towns and cities across Britain and the Empire raised statues and memorials to the victor.
But it was only in Britain that Waterloo acquired this iconic status. In Prussia and Holland its memory was muted - in Prussia overshadowed by the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig, in Holland a simple appendage to the prestige of the House of Orange. And in France it would be portrayed as the very epitome of heroic defeat. Encapsulated in the bravery of General Cambronne and the last stand of the Old Guard, remembered movingly in the lines of Stendhal and Victor Hugo, the memory of Waterloo
served to sustain the romantic legend of the Napoleonic Wars - and contributed to the growing cult of Napoleon himself.
Density-independent and density-dependent population regulation has long been a subject of investigation. We examined density-dependent and density-independent factors on growth rates of pronghorn ( ...Antilocapra americana (Ord, 1815)) using a retrospective analysis of population survey data. Across Idaho, we found that as the proportion of the subpopulation harvested the previous year increased, growth rates increased. Similarly, as fawn recruitment increased, growth rates increased. We also found when the growth rate in the previous year increased, the growth rate the subsequent year decreased. When subpopulations were examined independently, we found that in a low-elevation desert subpopulation, growth rates were influenced by growth the previous year. In an agricultural-dominated site, growth rates were influenced by fawn recruitment in the current year and maximum temperature the previous fall. Growth rates in a mid-elevation shrub–steppe site were influenced by drought severity prior to parturition and the growth rates from the previous year. Growth rates in two mountain valley subpopulations were influenced by measures of vegetative greenness. At the statewide scale, while managers may strive for increased numbers of pronghorn, density dependence will limit the ability for a region-wide numerical response. On the localized scale, drivers of growth were temporally and spatially explicit, and biologists must consider site-specific actions.
Abstract
Yi Ok 李鈺 (1760–1815) was a prolific writer who lived in Hanyang (modern Seoul) during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Among the massive pile of writings he left behind, ...his Iŏn 俚諺 (Folk Vernacular) best reveals his broad and multifaceted linguistic and literary knowledge, which in turn epitomizes the cultural complexity of late Chosŏn. In its three introductory treatises, as well as in the ensuing sixty-six pentasyllabic Sinitic quatrains written in female voices, Yi Ok illustrates why and how he writes poems about how “heaven and earth and the ten thousand things” (ch’ŏnji manmul 天地萬物) speak through him. This article combines a scholarly introduction to Yi Ok's life and oeuvre with a philological translation of his Iŏn that unpacks the complexity of Yi Ok's age to gain a fuller understanding of the last stage of Literary Sinitic (hanmun) literature in traditional Korea.
Phenotypic plasticity of life-history traits is well known among vertebrate species. We estimated reproductive and somatic efforts of female Columbian ground squirrels ( Urocitellus columbianus (Ord, ...1815)) to test for plasticity of these important resource allocations. We examined a 27-year dataset of life-history traits on these long-living (8–10 years), hibernating, montane-living mammals. Environmental variation was estimated from two important traits of mothers, their relative timing of breeding and spring maternal body mass (initial “capital” for use in subsequent reproduction). Results from 183 known-aged mothers and 508 litters revealed considerable variation in the relative timing of breeding, initial maternal mass, and reproductive and somatic efforts, as well as significant variation among ages and years. Results from 125 mothers that reproduced more than once (and 450 litters) revealed significant plasticity of reproductive and somatic efforts with respect to relative timing of breeding and spring maternal mass. A within-subject centering statistical approach showed that phenotypically plastic reproductive and somatic efforts were due to variation within individuals, but were not always reflected by the pattern of responses among individuals in the population. The plastic responses of different mothers appeared to be similar in strength.
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