Frozen out

Frozen out

THERE is a certain splendidness to the blundering of the British Royal Navy. It has never done anything the easy way. But there is perhaps no stranger tale of blundering, blind self-interest and mismanagement at the top, coupled with stoic heroism at the bottom, than Britain's Navy-led exploration of the Arctic.

John Barrow, ambitious and manipulative Second Secretary of the Admiralty at the opening of the last century, sent teams of ill-prepared men and ships to suffer untold hardship in his quest to fill in blank areas of the map.

This book brings maps to life. The ironic, simple writing highlights the contrast between the odd way decisions were made in London, and the harrowing difficulties experienced by explorers on the ground - surreal attempts at the North West Passage, coupled with a fixation about the source of the Niger, a wholly mistaken idea that Darwin could be made into another Singapore, and a fleeting interest in colonising the Antarctic, all fed from the overwhelming ambition of John Barrow.

Barrow's boys had a tough time, but this immensely readable book makes human a period in British history which says much about the way we run things.

Read it. You won't know whether to laugh or cry.

Barrow's Boys. Fleming, Fergus. Published by Granta Publications, 2/3 Hanover Yard, London N1 8BE, UK. £20.00
JG

Treasure chest

IF you want to earn a lot of money these days, write a book about the loss of a ship (Sebastian Junger's Perfect Storm). Or, even better, make a film (James Cameron's Titanic). Or, if you're very clever, re-release a book about how you found a famous wreck (Robert Ballard's The Discovery of the Titanic). Gary Kinder has combined elements of all three in Ship of Gold in a Deep Blue Sea, the story of another man's quest to make a lot of money from the oceans - this time by finding sunken treasure.

The ship is the Central America, lost in the North Atlantic in the 1850s. Carrying passengers on their way back from the Californian goldfields, the ship was heavily laden with riches, including a massive government consignment of bullion. None of the gold ever reached its destination. Nor, sadly, did many of its passengers. Waiting for the ship was the worst storm in memory.

Once lost, the Central America lies undisturbed for over a century. Until Tommy Thompson, an American inventor and entrepreneur, decides to find it and claim the hundreds of millions of dollars in gold on board. What follows is a tense and detailed story of the wreck's discovery in the face of overwhelming odds and stiff competition.

Kinder has produced a well-written and captivating book, full of interesting detail and surprising episodes. Lawyers will especially enjoy the arrest of a lump of coal. If there is one criticism it is that, like its title, the book is over-long and over-indulgent. An absolute treasure, nonetheless.

Ship of Gold in a Deep Blue Sea.
Kinder, Gary. Published by Little Brown & Company UK, Brettenham House, Lancaster Place, London
WC2E 7EN Price £16.99
RO

Changing carriages

TO the naked eye, little would seem to change in connection with the carriage of goods by sea. The subject appears to have the turning circle of a small continent. Yet here we have a second edition of The Sale of Goods Carried by Sea from Butterworths, written by Charles Debattista. So something must be happening.

In fact, quite a lot has been happening. Since the first edition, the shape of the subject has been strongly influenced by three major statutes - the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1992, and the Sale of Goods (Amendment) Acts of 1994 and 1995.

The central purpose of this book is to examine how terms in a cif or an fob contract about the shipping documents to be tendered have a direct impact on the seller's chance of payment.

This book is a useful addition to Butterworths' maritime law library although, like almost all law books, it is grossly overpriced. (Why are law books so expensive? Is it because it is assumed that only lawyers will read them, because it is assumed that only lawyers can afford them, or because the comparatively small number of copies sold demands a high unit cost to compensate? Discuss).

The pointless inclusion of some specimen shipping forms in the Butterworths book, unreadable to eyes anything above twenty years of age, is offset by a clear general lay-out and a first-class index. Worthy of a place on the shelves of any self-respecting shipping or law office.

The Sale of Goods Carried by Sea. Debattista, Charles. Published by Butterworths, Halsbury House, 35 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1EL, UK. Tel: +44 171 400 2500. Fax: +44 171 400 2842. £150.00
CH