Kirjahaku

Trundling along in essentially the same form for some 220 million years, turtles have seen dinosaurs come and go, mammals emerge, and humankind expand its dominion. Is it any wonder the persistent reptile bested the hare? In this engaging book physiologist Donald Jackson shares a lifetime of observation of this curious creature, allowing us a look under the shell of an animal at once so familiar and so strange.Here we discover how the turtle’s proverbial slowness helps it survive a long, cold winter under ice. How the shell not only serves as a protective home but also influences such essential functions as buoyancy control, breathing, and surviving remarkably long periods without oxygen, and how many other physiological features help define this unique animal. Jackson offers insight into what exactly it’s like to live inside a shell—to carry the heavy carapace on land and in water, to breathe without an expandable ribcage, to have sex with all that body armor intervening.Along the way we also learn something about the process of scientific discovery—how the answer to one question leads to new questions, how a chance observation can change the direction of study, and above all how new research always builds on the previous work of others. A clear and informative exposition of physiological concepts using the turtle as a model organism, the book is as interesting for what it tells us about scientific investigation as it is for its deep and detailed understanding of how the enduring turtle “works.”

Most water control projects in the American West depend on huge gravity dams, whose stability lies in massive quantities of concrete and earth or rock fill. In the early twentieth century, John S. Eastwood designed novel dams that minimized the concrete necessary for construction.Eastwood's multiple-arch designs proved less expensive than comparable gravity dams. Yet he faced the opposition of a powerful cadre of engineers, financiers, and politicians who believed the distinctive appearance of multiple-arch dams did not inspire public confidence. Donald C. Jackson offers compelling insight into the world of America's dam-building elite and describes how proponents of ""bigger is better"" dams won out over Eastwood's competing idea that ""bulk does not mean strength.""

The damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park is widely seen as a watershed event in American environmental history. Passionately opposed by naturalist John Muir and his ardent supporters, the massive undertaking succeeded largely through the efforts of John R. Freeman, one of the most important, influential, and politically adroit engineers of the Progressive Era. In The Man Who Dammed Hetch Hetchy, Donald C. Jackson focuses on Freeman to offer a nuanced account of how the City of San Francisco won the right to transform the bucolic valley into a municipal water supply reservoir that, a century later, continues to serve millions of Bay Area residents. Central to Freeman's work for San Francisco from 1910 to 1913 was his design of a high-pressure aqueduct projected to deliver 400 million gallons of water per day to the Bay Area and generate more than 150,000 horsepower of electricity. Beyond crafting an extensively illustrated 42 -page report detailing his design, he also worked - and succeeded - as a political advocate lobbying for Congressional approval of the project. Jackson draws on a wealth of correspondence, reports, and other documents, including Congressional records, to highlight Freeman's contention that the Hetch Hetchy project would not just provide copious quantities of water and power, but would also enhance the Sierra Nevada environment and increase tourist access to the northern reaches of the national park. His self-avowed goal was not to tear down or destroy Hetch Hetchy but to utilize the valley for the greater public good and to create a system that would serve the city for decades if not centuries to come. Portraying Freeman for the first time in all his provocative complexity, The Man Who Dammed Hetch Hetchy is at once a deeply researched, richly detailed biography and social history and a compelling reinterpretation of a pivotal moment in US environmental culture.

In Deeper Currents, Donald C. Jackson guides us on a journey into the cathedrals of wild and lonely places, those sacred spaces where hunters and fishers connect with the rhythms of the earth and the spirit that resonates within us. Jackson explores hunting and fishing as frameworks - sacraments - for discovering, engaging, and finding meaning. He invites readers to consider connections with wilder realms of being.Hunting squirrels on an autumn morning, probing the woods, rifle in hand, Jackson reveals an attention to nature too often neglected. Following a bird dog into the damp and mysterious places where woodcock settle on their southbound migrations; chasing hounds on the trail of raccoons on a frosty winter night; stalking deer in a quiet corner of a small farm; fishing for carp in a creek, bass and bluegill in ponds, catfish in a murky river, and reef fish in the Gulf, Jackson reminds that we are stewards of not only resources but also a past that defines us as hunters and fishers. We must pass this legacy along to the generations that follow.In Deeper Currents, tractors and old barns find a place in the reader's heart. Boats and canoes navigate realms of danger and dreams. Jackson shares outdoor pilgrimages with good friends in cabins, tents, camps, and old trailers tucked beyond the reach of a rushing world. He rejoices in the whisper of stiff wings as ducks come to decoys, the call of geese and cranes over tidal flats, the hush before a storm, the muffled snap of a twig at twilight, a drop of dew falling on the surface of a pond, and the clicking of caribou hooves on an Alaskan gravel bar. Jackson finds these natural moments fill us with energy. They remind us that we are taking part in a sacred heritage and that creation is unfolding all around us.

A Sportsman's Journey lyrically and spiritually connects readers with the natural world. Donald C. Jackson explores the rhythms and ways of hunting and fishing, particularly in America’s Deep South, and in so doing helps readers understand and find meaning in why hunters and anglers venture far afield. Journeying alongside the author, readers will savor the magic of sunrises and the mystery of twilight. Hearts will quicken as deer drift from shadows and ducks circle a woodland pond. The ocean will challenge them as they fight large fish from the deck of a wave-tossed boat far out at sea. Restless winds will whisper messages during a spring squirrel hunt on a Mississippi farm. Bird dogs, old guns, old friends, and times shared with loved ones will remind anglers and hunters of those special, shared memories. Ancient forests and powerful rivers remind us of our fragile, ephemeral state. Quail hunts strengthen cherished relationships with companions. Encounters with a mountain man will take us into a world thought to have vanished generations ago. A gathering of anglers on a Gulf Coast fishing pier at night reminds us of those hidden communities that exist around us, and are often unrecognized or perhaps even unknown. Jackson reveals how all of us depend on the natural world and share very personal interactions with it and with each other. This book reminds us that rediscovering, resurrecting, and celebrating these primal linkages are the real reasons we explore the world.

A Sportsman's Journey lyrically and spiritually connects readers with the natural world. Donald C. Jackson explores the rhythms and ways of hunting and fishing, particularly in America’s Deep South, and in so doing helps readers understand and find meaning in why hunters and anglers venture far afield. Journeying alongside the author, readers will savor the magic of sunrises and the mystery of twilight. Hearts will quicken as deer drift from shadows and ducks circle a woodland pond. The ocean will challenge them as they fight large fish from the deck of a wave-tossed boat far out at sea. Restless winds will whisper messages during a spring squirrel hunt on a Mississippi farm. Bird dogs, old guns, old friends, and times shared with loved ones will remind anglers and hunters of those special, shared memories. Ancient forests and powerful rivers remind us of our fragile, ephemeral state. Quail hunts strengthen cherished relationships with companions. Encounters with a mountain man will take us into a world thought to have vanished generations ago. A gathering of anglers on a Gulf Coast fishing pier at night reminds us of those hidden communities that exist around us, and are often unrecognized or perhaps even unknown. Jackson reveals how all of us depend on the natural world and share very personal interactions with it and with each other. This book reminds us that rediscovering, resurrecting, and celebrating these primal linkages are the real reasons we explore the world.

Donald C. Jackson’s newest book of outdoor essays, Restless Winds: Memoirs of an Outdoorsman, takes the reader on a journey from America’s Deep South out into the world. Jackson’s essays explore landscapes, waters, and cultures that have defined Jackson’s career and life. Hunting and fishing stories from his Mississippi farm blend with stories from Africa, Alaska, Asia, Australia, Europe, and South America. As a fisheries professor at Mississippi State University, naturalist, conservationist, and former pastor for a small rural church in Kentucky, Jackson injects deeply personal and spiritual experiences into his writings. From the desert of Central Australia, into remote jungles of Malaysia and Vietnam, through the Nepalese mountains, to long walks during misty nights in Uganda, Jackson shows readers how to recapture their humanity in a rush-away world. Whether he is recounting his experience during a military coup in Paraguay or the magic of training a puppy to become a good retriever, Jackson’s encounters rediscover how simple things bring life in the present tense into sharper focus.

Donald C. Jackson’s newest book of outdoor essays, Restless Winds: Memoirs of an Outdoorsman, takes the reader on a journey from America’s Deep South out into the world. Jackson’s essays explore landscapes, waters, and cultures that have defined Jackson’s career and life. Hunting and fishing stories from his Mississippi farm blend with stories from Africa, Alaska, Asia, Australia, Europe, and South America. As a fisheries professor at Mississippi State University, naturalist, conservationist, and former pastor for a small rural church in Kentucky, Jackson injects deeply personal and spiritual experiences into his writings. From the desert of Central Australia, into remote jungles of Malaysia and Vietnam, through the Nepalese mountains, to long walks during misty nights in Uganda, Jackson shows readers how to recapture their humanity in a rush-away world. Whether he is recounting his experience during a military coup in Paraguay or the magic of training a puppy to become a good retriever, Jackson’s encounters rediscover how simple things bring life in the present tense into sharper focus.