Otley 1823
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| Transcription of Jonathan Otley's Concise Description of the English Lakes, 1823. | ||
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The transcription, and notes, are from the Concise
Description of the English Lakes, by Jonathan Otley, 1823,
published by the author, Simpkin and Marshall, London, and
Arthur Foster, Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmorland, 5th edition,
1834. The copy used is in a private collection.
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| Transcription | ||
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Deciding how to arrange a transcription in 'records' which
are destined to become html pages is not always easy.
Jonathan Otley's text is well structured in sections with
regular use of headings; but to match previous efforts this
transcript is made page by page, ignoring the problems that
a section or sentence might be split across page breaks. The
original markers for the few footnotes are a star
(asterisk), which are replaced in the transcript by a serial
number within each page.
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Somewhen, the text, at present in MODES records, will
migrate to xml. At this change the Text Encoding Initiative
(TEI) should be considered, though that methodology is
biased towards academic study of 'Literature' rather than
everyday text. TEI would mark up the whole of Otley's text
as one document, the particular arrangement into pages for
an edition treated as a subsidiary feature. I need to have
smaller units as records, which will become html pages. The
book here is being treated as an object in its own right,
rather than a text which just happens to be in a book.
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Some of the exact typesetting has been ignored, though
italics and some characters are indicated using html markup.
Hyphenation across lines has been removed, judging as well
as I am able to retain the hyphen where it likely belongs,
comparing with the same word elsewhere in the text if
possible. A word split across pages is left that way, but
the beginning part of the word is added as inferred data to
its continuation on the following page.
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Peculiarities of spelling and grammar are preserved; they
might be confirmed by '(sic)', but not always: I have typed
and have proof read as accurately as I can.
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Also see OFR file:-
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| Text Indexing | ||
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Keywords for indexing the text have been recorded, as well
as I am able: mostly using today's placenames rather than
the text's version; recognising unnamed places if possible;
using locality type terms if nothing else is possible, in
particular trying to spot 'stations' ie special viewpoints;
indexing objects and topics only if useful. Thus, I have
tried to interpret and understand the text to make the
indexing helpful and comprehensible in today's world; a
basic rule is 'would you want this page if you were
searching with this keyword?' The placename spellings of the
text are put into the Old Cumbria Gazetteer, where all sorts
of spellings are indexed. References to different rocks are
mostly indexed by the keyword geology, as I am not always
able to make a reliable interpretation of Otley's rock
names. Botanical names are indexed with spellings
standardised to today's pattern, but no attempt has been
made to regularise the binomial to a modern term, and no
attempt has been made to add common names except those given
in the text.
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| placenames |
If Otley's placename is similar but not exactly the same,
index under the regularised form, eg:-
Crummock Water for Crummock Lake. If there is probably confusion, then add a locality term to the placename, eg:- Raven Crag, Longsleddale using the place identifier in the standard gazetteer. For streams this might appear as:- Sour Milk Gill (2) If Otley's placename is really different then record two keywords, eg:- Burtness Tarn (Bleaberry Tarn) & Bleaberry Tarn The first quotes the source and gives the preferred term in explanation; the second indexes on the preferred term. Uncertainty is marked by an added detail:- Tarn How (?) |
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| Gazetteer Extracts | ||
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Chunks of text relevant to each place are extracted and
gathered together, and loaded into the record for the place
in a gazetteer. This is much easier to use for a place than
searching through pages in the guide book; you can go to the
original text and read it all in context if you wish. The
gazetteer is arranged using standard placename spellings,
today's version of the placename, but will be indexable on
all sorts of spellings, and by other place data. The
gazetteer can also hold extracts from other sources, and map
square images, including Jonathan Otley's map.
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Not all keywords allocated to the text will prompt a
gazetteer entry. Some places in the text will be
unidentifiable some keywords are for other topics than
places, char, botanical species, rocks, etc.
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| Stations | ||
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Jonathan Otley makes little formal use of 'stations' as were
proposed by Thomas West in his Guide to the Lakes, 1778.
Good viewpoints from which to appreciate a view are
suggested, and might be considered as stations. The
gazetteer entries, and indexing keywords, use the term
'station' followed with a pertinent placename when this
seems a useful thing to do.
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| Binomial Names | ||
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In his botanical notices, Jonathan Otley makes does not
follow the regular pattern of leading capitals that we
recognise today. In many instances he has a leading capital
for the Genus and not for the species, which is now normal
practice; but in the same paragraph he will mix this with
other styles. When a genus is repeated he might or might not
indicate this with a capital letter abbreviation. I have
followed his spelling accurately, I hope. None of the
variations are marked by '(sic)'. The pattern of a leading
capital for genus but not for species is a recent
convention. The preface of Clapham, Tutin and Warburg, 1952,
has:-
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In the spelling of certain specific epithets it has been
customary to use an initial capital letter when the epithet
concerned is derived from a personal name or is a noun, e.g.
the name of another genus, or the pre-Linnean name for the
plant. This custom is not made obligatory by the
International Rules of Nomenclature but is mentioned in a
recommendation attached to these Rules. The use of the
initial capital has certain advantages; for instance it
conveys some information about the origin of the name and
explains the apparent lack of grammatical agreement between
a generic name and a specific epithet which appears when
written with a small initial letter to be adjectival (e.g.
Selinum Carvifolia). We found upon inquiry, however, that
many botanists in this country prefer, as a matter of
convenience, to drop the initial capital. We have therefore
adopted small initial letters for all specific epithets in
the body of the book, but have indicated those which are
commonly spelled with capitals.
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Jonathan Otley's botanical data is not ordered by any
obvious plan; not listed by species or place.
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Clapham, A R & Tutin, T G & Warburg, E F: 1952: Flora of the British Isles: Cambridge University Press |
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For indexing the modern style of spelling is used.
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| Gazetteer Extracts? | ||
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The botanical data is NOT used for gazetteer extracts.
Instead an attempt has been made to tabulate the data by:-
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binomial / common name / habitat / placename |
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| binomial |
as given, no attempt to modernise.
The few missing binomials have been added, using modern terms, marked by being in [ ]s. |
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| common name |
as given, except put into lowercase and unecessary
hyphens removed to match other conventions in this
project.
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| habitat |
a simple list of keywords, sometimes deduced rather
uncertainly from Jonathan Otley's information, some detail
kept in ( )s.
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| placename |
standardised terms, matching the gazetteer.
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All this means that what you get is not what Jonathan Otley
wrote: if you want his form of words you will have to look
at the original text. If the data is not edited it remains a
confusing muddle, edited it is no longer the original data.
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| Following Otley | ||
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Jonathan Otley's descriptions of his routes use no grid
references of locations. He travelled on foot and horseback
on roads and tracks that will have changed, perhaps improved
perhaps faded away; though paths are remarkably longlived.
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When travelling around, Jonathan Otley could presume on
other gentlemen. He could ask to cross their private
grounds, stand in their gardens for views, and so on. Today
this is not possible. As an individual you may be well
behaved, even gentlemanly, but the number of people wanting
to see what there is to see, is too great for access to be
granted so easily to private land.
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Transcriptions of matter not found in the 5th edition have
been made, and other appendices written:-
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Lakes Guides menu.