King George III, he maintained a friendly correspondence with Benjamin Franklin in revolutionary America.
He did not discriminate between British and foreign scientists. He helped maintain scientific relations with
France during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic
Wars. Banks was greatly respected by Carl Linnaeus,
who devised the binomial naming system used today
for all plants and animals. Banks applied the Linnaean
method to his burgeoning museum collections. From
1772 to 1820, his collectors voyaged to Cape of Good
Hope (Francis Masson, James Bowie); West Africa
(Mungo Park); the East Indies (Mungo Park); South
America (Allan Cunningham); India (Anton Hove); and
Australia (David Burton, George Caley, Robert Brown,
Allan Cunningham, and George Suttor). David Nelson
went on Cook’s third voyage (1776–1780) and with
Bligh on the “Bounty” (1787–1788). Archibald Menzies
collected for Vancouver’s North American voyage
(1791–1795).
It is not surprising that more than 80 plant species bear
his name, including the renowned Proteaceous genus,
Banksia. His patronage of municipal works and voyages
of discovery have ensured that his name also dots maps
of Britain, North America, the Pacific islands, and Australia. The latter, as New South Wales, was much influenced
by his patronage. Banks was a leading authority and advisor to the British government. In 1779, he recommended
Botany Bay for convict settlement. In 1780, he organized
surveys by Matthew Flinders, who mapped and named
Australia for the first time. Banks communicated with
each of the four early governors. Practically everyone
who had an interest in early Australia consulted Sir Joseph
Banks.
On risk taking. . . 1806 (aged 63). Writing to WJ Hooker,
then a promising young student who was reluctant to travel.
“I was about twenty-three when I began my peregrinations,
you are somewhat older, but you may be assured that if
I had listened to a multitude of voices that were raised to persuade me I should have been now a quiet country gentleman
ignorant of a multitude of things I am now acquainted with
and probably never attained higher rank in life but that of
a country Justice of the Peace.”
Bibliography
Anderson, R. G. W., 2000. Joseph Banks and the british museum,
the world of collecting, 1770–1830. Journal of the History of
Collections, 20, 151–152.
Beaglehole, J. C. (ed.), 1962. The Endeavour Journal of Joseph
Banks, 1768–1771 (2 vols.) Online at: http://gutenberg.net.au/
ebooks05/0501141h.html
Hooker, J. (ed.), 1896. Journal of The Right Hon Sir Joseph Banks.
London: Macmillan.
O’Brian, P., 1987. Joseph Banks: A life, p. 328. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press edition (1997).
Cross-references
Cook, James (1728–1779)
BARBADOS
David Hopley
1
, Ian G. Macintyre
2
1
James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland,
Australia
2
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, WA, USA
Introduction
Barbados is situated at 13
10
0 north, about 150 km east of
the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles. The island is
32 km long, 23 km broad at its widest dimension, and
towards the central interior attains a maximum elevation
of 340 m.
Lying just east of the Lesser Antillean volcanic forearc,
Barbados is a pinnacle on the broad accretionary prism
caused by east-west convergence between the North
American and Caribbean plates (Speed and Larue, 1982).
The island is composed of a core of deformed Eocene to
Neogene marine sediments, exposed in the north-east as
the Scotland District, capped by a series of gently buckled
reef terraces that record its rapid and differential uplift during the Pleistocene (Taylor and Mann, 1991).
Pleistocene reef terraces
Fifteen separate Pleistocene reef terraces (Figures 1 and 2)
have been identified in this coral cap and represent an episodic record of reef development from 640 ka to 60 ka
(Broecker et al., 1968; Mesolella et al., 1969; James
et al., 1971; Matthews, 1973; Bender et al., 1979; Edwards
et al., 1987; Schellmann and Radtke, 2004). The continuous uplift of the Island at rates of up to 0.5 mm/year have
exhumed reefs that correspond to the last six or seven interglacial sea-level highstands, extending as far back as MIS-17
(Shackleton and Matthews, 1977; Fairbanks and Matthews,
1978; Speed and Cheng, 2004). Early advances in radiometric dating of corals established the absolute chronology of
these highstand reefs and provided the first confirmation
of the Croll–Milankovitch theory of the Quaternary IceAge, which holds that orbitally forced variation in northern-hemisphere summer insolation drives changes in ice
volume and sea level (Mesolella et al., 1969). Although
further improvement in dating precision has subsequently
questioned this theory and suggested that deglacial sealevel rise preceded the orbitally forced rise in insolation
(Gallup et al., 2002), the precise timing of that rise remains
difficult to substantiate due to the subtle diagenetic
exchange of U-series nuclides in the fossil corals (Blanchon
and Eisenhauer, 2001; Scholz and Mangini, 2007).
Reef zonation
Aiding the comparison of reef terraces of different ages
has been the remarkable stability in their zonation over
time, (Mesolella, 1967; James et al., 1971) consisting of:
A forereef facies of steeply dipping calcarenites and
coral rubble, sometimes partially buried by the back
reef facies of the next lower and younger terrace.
BARBADOS
97
He did not discriminate between British and foreign scientists. He helped maintain scientific relations with
France during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic
Wars. Banks was greatly respected by Carl Linnaeus,
who devised the binomial naming system used today
for all plants and animals. Banks applied the Linnaean
method to his burgeoning museum collections. From
1772 to 1820, his collectors voyaged to Cape of Good
Hope (Francis Masson, James Bowie); West Africa
(Mungo Park); the East Indies (Mungo Park); South
America (Allan Cunningham); India (Anton Hove); and
Australia (David Burton, George Caley, Robert Brown,
Allan Cunningham, and George Suttor). David Nelson
went on Cook’s third voyage (1776–1780) and with
Bligh on the “Bounty” (1787–1788). Archibald Menzies
collected for Vancouver’s North American voyage
(1791–1795).
It is not surprising that more than 80 plant species bear
his name, including the renowned Proteaceous genus,
Banksia. His patronage of municipal works and voyages
of discovery have ensured that his name also dots maps
of Britain, North America, the Pacific islands, and Australia. The latter, as New South Wales, was much influenced
by his patronage. Banks was a leading authority and advisor to the British government. In 1779, he recommended
Botany Bay for convict settlement. In 1780, he organized
surveys by Matthew Flinders, who mapped and named
Australia for the first time. Banks communicated with
each of the four early governors. Practically everyone
who had an interest in early Australia consulted Sir Joseph
Banks.
On risk taking. . . 1806 (aged 63). Writing to WJ Hooker,
then a promising young student who was reluctant to travel.
“I was about twenty-three when I began my peregrinations,
you are somewhat older, but you may be assured that if
I had listened to a multitude of voices that were raised to persuade me I should have been now a quiet country gentleman
ignorant of a multitude of things I am now acquainted with
and probably never attained higher rank in life but that of
a country Justice of the Peace.”
Bibliography
Anderson, R. G. W., 2000. Joseph Banks and the british museum,
the world of collecting, 1770–1830. Journal of the History of
Collections, 20, 151–152.
Beaglehole, J. C. (ed.), 1962. The Endeavour Journal of Joseph
Banks, 1768–1771 (2 vols.) Online at: http://gutenberg.net.au/
ebooks05/0501141h.html
Hooker, J. (ed.), 1896. Journal of The Right Hon Sir Joseph Banks.
London: Macmillan.
O’Brian, P., 1987. Joseph Banks: A life, p. 328. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press edition (1997).
Cross-references
Cook, James (1728–1779)
BARBADOS
David Hopley
1
, Ian G. Macintyre
2
1
James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland,
Australia
2
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, WA, USA
Introduction
Barbados is situated at 13
10
0 north, about 150 km east of
the Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles. The island is
32 km long, 23 km broad at its widest dimension, and
towards the central interior attains a maximum elevation
of 340 m.
Lying just east of the Lesser Antillean volcanic forearc,
Barbados is a pinnacle on the broad accretionary prism
caused by east-west convergence between the North
American and Caribbean plates (Speed and Larue, 1982).
The island is composed of a core of deformed Eocene to
Neogene marine sediments, exposed in the north-east as
the Scotland District, capped by a series of gently buckled
reef terraces that record its rapid and differential uplift during the Pleistocene (Taylor and Mann, 1991).
Pleistocene reef terraces
Fifteen separate Pleistocene reef terraces (Figures 1 and 2)
have been identified in this coral cap and represent an episodic record of reef development from 640 ka to 60 ka
(Broecker et al., 1968; Mesolella et al., 1969; James
et al., 1971; Matthews, 1973; Bender et al., 1979; Edwards
et al., 1987; Schellmann and Radtke, 2004). The continuous uplift of the Island at rates of up to 0.5 mm/year have
exhumed reefs that correspond to the last six or seven interglacial sea-level highstands, extending as far back as MIS-17
(Shackleton and Matthews, 1977; Fairbanks and Matthews,
1978; Speed and Cheng, 2004). Early advances in radiometric dating of corals established the absolute chronology of
these highstand reefs and provided the first confirmation
of the Croll–Milankovitch theory of the Quaternary IceAge, which holds that orbitally forced variation in northern-hemisphere summer insolation drives changes in ice
volume and sea level (Mesolella et al., 1969). Although
further improvement in dating precision has subsequently
questioned this theory and suggested that deglacial sealevel rise preceded the orbitally forced rise in insolation
(Gallup et al., 2002), the precise timing of that rise remains
difficult to substantiate due to the subtle diagenetic
exchange of U-series nuclides in the fossil corals (Blanchon
and Eisenhauer, 2001; Scholz and Mangini, 2007).
Reef zonation
Aiding the comparison of reef terraces of different ages
has been the remarkable stability in their zonation over
time, (Mesolella, 1967; James et al., 1971) consisting of:
A forereef facies of steeply dipping calcarenites and
coral rubble, sometimes partially buried by the back
reef facies of the next lower and younger terrace.
BARBADOS
97