If you look have at globe of the world or an atlas of the world, have you ever wondered who filled in the pieces or drew the land shapes. From an European point of view the known world was known and the rest needed to be filled in. One of those people who filled in great pieces of the globe was William Dampier. The exploits of Mr. Dampier work is published in a book called A Pirate of Exquisite Mind  by Diana and Michael Preston published by Penguin Books, London, 2004. Mr. Dampier for his exploits should have been knighted or have a title except in his background he was a Pirate (he had to make a living). He was also was one of the few people to go around the world 3 times, sailing more than 200,00 miles in his lifetime. Along the way he observed wind currents, he drew maps of where they went, the floral and animals along the way and in the Oxford English Dictionary he has over a 1,000 entries. With these drawings he produced books which Captain Cook and Darwin took on their voyages. his descriptions laid the foundation for the method we still use. He was quite a man and still remembered in what was called New Holland later to be known as Australia. His books opened peoples eyes to adventure and books such as Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver’s Travels resulted. He was better on the sea looking, recording and learning about the world than one land. On his later journeys they were partly sponsored by the Royal Society to gather information and by business consortiums (some of who were members of the Royal Society) this group engaged the privateer aspects – rob a Spanish ship of her gold and bring it back to England.

Linking to dividend producing stocks, Mr. Dampier was an adventurer and satisfied the need to know, whereas the money is made afterwards. Australia becomes valuable when resources are found in abundance, while it is an interesting country worthy of visiting, from a monetary point of view its resources make it important. We should celebrate Mr. Dampier for bringing knowledge back to England and then that was distributed around the world, but let the universities and governments sponsor his trips. The money from Mr. Dampier was as the books caught the public imagination, other products and services can catch their pocketbook.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.