The Nautical Magazine and Naval Chronicle for 1841

The Nautical Magazine first appeared in 1832, and was published monthly well into the twenty-first century. It covers a wide range of subjects, including navigation, meteorology, technology and safety. An important resource for maritime historians, it also includes reports on military and scientific expeditions and on current affairs. The volume for 1841 was the fifth in the ‘enlarged series’, and the journal’s structure continued to evolve. China features strongly in this volume, with coverage of the ongoing First Opium War, and there are several reports from the Beagle survey in Western Australia, and from a Niger expedition, Sumatra and the Falkland Islands. James Ross, writing from Tasmania on 7 April, describes his Antarctic voyage and the naming of Mount Erebus, a ‘magnificent volcano … emitting flame and smoke in splendid profusion’. Closer to home, the magazine also outlines proposals for improvements to Bristol docks, involving a certain ‘Mr Brunel’.