Environmental History

Journeys from Hudson’s Bay

George Woodcock describes how, during the century that followed the ‘Glorious Revolution’ in Britain, servants of the Hudson’s Bay Company explored the Canadian west and the Arctic regions.

Tucson: Genesis of a Community

The South-western United States were first explored by Spaniards from Mexico in the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries; Edward P. Murray describes how these states were ceded to the U.S. in 1848.

The Mason Dixon Line

After long dispute between the Penn and Calvert families, writes Louis C. Kleber, the astronomers, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, sailed for America in November 1763 to lay down their momentous line.

Fractious Waters

The controversy over fracking finds echoes in 19th-century concerns over groundwater.

Botany and the Americas

William Gardener investigates the history of American flora and finds among its contributions to the health and happiness of Europe the not inconsiderable commodities of maize, the potato, rubber, tobacco, and quinine.

Cranborne Chase

William Seymour describes how a large area of Dorset and Wiltshire, abounding in deer, was hunted by King John and granted to Robert Cecil by James I.

An English Arctic Expedition: 1553

James Marshall-Cornwall describes a Tudor adventure, ultimately unsuccessful: Willoughby perished on the Kola peninsula; Chancellor reached Moscow and was received by Ivan the Terrible.

William Bartram in America’s Eden

Bartram, like his father, was an eminent naturalist from Philadelphia. J.I. Merritt III describes how his extensive travels in the American South inspired, among others, both Coleridge and Wordsworth.