Emergence
Book One of The Alicorn Quest
Updated

The revised text review and enhancement over a period of several months also prepared it for paperback publication.

Amazon Author's Page

https://www.amazon.com/William-R.-Jenkins-Jr./e/B006UJ1GS0

Emergence - Book One of The Alicorn Quest Characters

Nanda: Sculptor and art student in ancient India. He has shoulder length black hair.

Bhim: Sculptor and art student in ancient India.

Mani: Sculptor and art student in ancient India.

Amar: Experienced metal-crafter, jeweler and teacher.

Parees: A dark, tall, menacing evil Bedouin.

Nigel: Custom's House six-foot tall, stout, burly guard. First to call the crow with a white ring around its neck, Vicar.

James: Custom's House similarly built, six-foot tall, stout, burly guard.

Vicar: An intelligent and wily crow that tags along after Raj.

Gunalan Sundaram: Fifty-year old spice merchant; husband of Nangai, father of Raj, Kalai and Vani.

Raj: Twenty-year old Son of Gunalan, Has long black hair with a knot tied at the back of his head. He is the protagonist for The Alicorn Quest.

Yasmeen: Raj's betrothed sixteen-year-old cousin promised to him when she was four and he was nine-years old.

Kalai: Ten-year-old sister to Raj and Vani. She is full of spontaneous energy and curiosity.

Nangai: Wife of Gunalan and mother of Raj, Kalai and Vani.

Vani: Fifteen-year-old sister of Raj and Kalai. She is a very emotional artistic and kind-hearted dreamer about to enter adulthood.

Nikhil: Gunalan's younger brother, a former sailor.

Javed and Sanjit Rangarajan: Thirty-year-old identical twin brothers. Evil fortune tellers and magicians. Both are tall and slender with dark features accentuated by ebony hair and beards streaked with premature grey. And they always dress alike in fine silks of black and purple. Their arms are adorned with matching tattoos of angry unicorns. Javed wears the angry unicorn tattoo on his left forearm, facing left. And Sanjit has a mirror image of the same tattoo on his right forearm. They are compelled to to keep Raj from getting to the special colt

Agilan: Vendor, kindhearted soothsayer, and reader of minds. He is very wise and knows the complete history of the special star amulet and bangle. He is a  bearded tall older man with a slight build.  His visions tell Raj what the future holds for him.

Mrs. Blake: She is a mature lady about fifty years of age properly attired in a long brown dress with a neatly starched white collar. Her finely styled white hair is set in a bun which compliments her Victorian appearance. She helps Raj enter the Customs House to meet the captain of the Calista.

Captain Fitz-James O'Brien: The captain has grey hair is neatly trimmed to collar length. And his face is weathered from the thirty years he has been sailing. His ship’s name is "Calista" originating from Greek meaning: most beautiful.

Nicholas Kelly: He is a stocky, seasoned thirty-year-old Irish sailor of average height. A seaman of vast experience and the Calista’s coxswain. Well respected by his fellow crew members.

Peter Talbot: Ship's Assistant coxswain: He is a tall, conditioned man of thirty years who has worked beside Kelly for the past decade.

Annie Thomsett: Twelve-year-old girl with blonde hair and a strong constitution.

Samuel Thomsett: Fourteen-year-old boy has taken on an adult role in running the ranch since his father died.

Elizabeth Thomsett: Thirty-two-year-old Widowed mother of Anne and Samuel

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Amazon link to Emergence - Book One of the Alicorn Quest.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0069YLL22/

Beth Jenkins - Rider and Trainer

During the past twenty-years, William's daughter Beth has either leased or owned horses and competed in both dressage and western riding matches. She owns a miniature horse, leases a buckskin mare and once rescued thoroughbred race horse from slaughter. Beth is also a riding instructor for young adults and kids in Portland Oregon. And she is a skilled artist who has painted and sculpted many works depicting horses.

Emergence- Book One of The Alicorn Quest 2019 Updated Edition

On July 22, 2019, William reissued an updated, enhanced Kindle edition of Emergence - The Alicorn Quest, Book One which includes a new introduction, expanded story descriptions and clarifications wherever necessary.  Today he continues working on the second novel in the Alicorn Quest series.

A Few Facts About The Madras Customs House

I want to express my thanks to http://www.chennaicustoms.gov.in/organiz/
for sharing the historical information shown below.
These are excerpts from "Glimpses of the Glorious Past"

On 31st August, 1798, Lord Edward Clive (1754-1839) son of Lord Clive, the Baron had taken over as
Governor (1798-1803) of Madras Presidency. Lard Edward Clive is more important in the history of the Madras Custom House, than as the famed hero of Plassey. It was this Lord Clive who ordered the transfer of the Custom House from the Fort St. George to its present site. It was also during Lord Edward Clive’s period that the first legalized Sea Customs Regulation Sec.2 of Regulation I of 1802 was passed, and then amended as Regulation II of 1803. It is seen from the Sea Customs Proceedings of that time that Lord Edward Clive abolished the post of the Sea Customer and Land Customer and created the posts of Collectors of Sea Customers, who were appointed in each Sea Port District and were put in charge of
Sea and Land Customs Revenue. The last “Sea and Land Customs Revenue. The last “Sea Customer” was Mr. JAMES Call. The first “Collector of Customs” was Mr. Walter Balfour who took office in the year 1800. In 1808, the Madras Sea Customs was brought under the Board of Revenue.

In 1812, regulations were prepared for the Custom House, ‘Kanakupillais’ (Accountants) were to take account of every boatload and no goods were allowed to be removed from the beach, until such account was taken. The coolies who carried the goods from the beach to the Custom House were to be permanently employed to work at a fixed rate. All goods except grain were to be landed in front of the Custom House. The Master of the ship had to furnish a list of each boat load to be filled within the Kanakupillai’s Cadjan List. Confiscated goods under regulations of 1803 and II of 1812 were sold and after duty
had been deducted, one third of the remainder was given to the Collector of Customs and one sixth to his Deputy.

In 1844, Act VI of 1844 Bill was passed which provided for the Presidency to Control the Land and Sea Customs Revenue.

After 1859, the imported goods were assessed according to rates fixed in the Customs Duties Act, 1859. This was followed
by Act VI of 1863.

Frederick Tudor - America's Ice King

The Ice Trade Between America and India.

This article provided courtesy of Today in Science History  from the following link: http://www.todayinsci.com/T/Tudor_Frederic/IceTradeAmericaToIndia.htm

from Mechanic's Magazine  (1836)

"From the Asiatic Journal"

Frederic Tudor - “The Ice King”

[p.10] The arrival of the Tuscany with a cargo of ice from America forms an epoch in the history of Calcutta worthy of commemoration, as a facetious friend remarked, in a medal of frosted silver. In the month or May last we received a present of some ice from Dr. Wise at Hugli, (whose efforts have been so long directed to the extension of its manufacture by the native process,) as a proof that the precious luxury might be pre-served by careful husbandry until the season when its coolness was the most grateful, little did we then contemplate being able to return the compliment, with a solid lump of the clearest crystal ice at the conclusion of the rains! nor that we should be finally indebted to American enterprise for the realization of a measure for which we have so long envied our more fortunate countrymen in the upper provinces; nay, even the beggars of Bokhara, who in a climate at times more sultry than ours, according to Lieutenant Burnes, “purchase ice for their water, even while entreating the bounty of the passenger.” Professor Leslie with his thousand glass exhausters, and his beautiful steam air pumps, tantalized us with the hopes of a costly treat, and ruined poor Taylor, the bold adopter of his theory; but Science must in this new instance, as on many former occasions, confess herself vanquished or forestalled by the simple practical discovery, that a body of ice may be easily conveyed from one side of the globe to the other, crossing the line twice, with a very moderate loss from liquefaction.

    We are indebted to Mr. J. J. Dixwell, the agent of the proprietors, for the following interesting particulars relative to the Tuscany’s novel cargo, and the mode of shipping ice from America for foreign consumption.

    The supplying of ice to the W. Indies and to the southern states of the Union, New Or!eans, &c., has become within these few years an extensive branch of trade under the successful exertions of its originator, Frederick Gudar, Esq., of Boston, with whom, S. Austen, Esq., and Mr. W. C, Rogers, are associated in the present speculation.

    The ponds from which the Boston ice is cut, are situated within ten miles of the city; it is also procured from the Kennebec and Penobscot rivers, in the state of Maine where it is deposited in ice-houses on the banks and shipped from thence to the capital. A peculiar machine is used to cut it from the ponds in blocks of two feet square, and from one foot to eighteen inches thick, varying according to the intensity of the season. If the winter does not produce enough to freeze the water to a convenient thickness, the square slabs are laid again over the sheet ice, until consolidated and so recut. The ice is stored in warehouses constructed for the purpose at Boston.

    The shipping it to the West Indies, a  voyage of ten or fifteen days, little precaution is used. The whole hold of the vessel is filled with it, having a lining of [p.11] tan about four inches thick upon the bottom and sides of the hold; and the top lifts covered with a layer of hay. The hatches are then closed, and are not allowed to be opened till the ice is ready to be discharged. It is usually measured for shipping, and each cord reckoned at three tons: a cubic foot weighs 58½ lbs.

    For the voyage to India, a much longer one than had been hitherto attempted, some additional precautions were deemed necessary for the preservation of the ice. The ice hold was an insulated house, extending from the after part of the forward hatch, about fifty feet in length. It was constructed as follows:-- a floor of one-inch deal planks was first laid down upon the dunnage at the bottom of the vessel; over this was strewed a layer, one foot thick of tan; that is, the refuse bark from the tanners’ pits, thoroughly dried, which is found to be a very good and cheap non-conductor: over this was laid another deal planking, and the four sides of the hold were built up in exactly the same manner. The pump, well, and main-mast, were boxed round in the same manner.

    The cubes of ice were then packed or built together so close as to leave no space between them, and to make the whole one solid mass: about 180 tons were thus stowed. On the top was pressed down closely a foot of hay, and the whole was shut up from access of air, with a deal planking one inch thick nailed upon the lower surface of the lower deck timbers; the space between the planks and deck being stuffed with tan.

    On the surface of the ice, at two places, was introduced a kind of float, having a guage rod passing through a stuffing-box in the cover; the object of which was to denote the gradual decrease of the ice, as it melted and subsided bodily.

    The ice was shipped on the 6th and 7th of May, 1833, and discharged in Calcutta on the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th of September, making the voyage in four months and seven days. The amount of wastage could not be exactly ascertained from the sinking of the ice-guage; because, on opening the chamber, it was found that the ice had melted between each block, and not from the exterior only, in the manner of one solid mass, as was anticipated. Calculating from the rods, and from the diminishing draught of the ship, Mr. Dixwell estimated the loss on arrival at Diamond Harbour, to be fifty-five tons, six or eight tons more being lost during the passage up the river; and probably about twenty in landing. About one hundred tons, say three thousand maunds, were finally deposited in the ice-house on shore; a lower room in a house at Brightman’s Ghaut; rapidly floored, and lined with planks for the occasion.

    The sale has not, we believe, been so rapid as might have been expected, amounting to no more than ten maunds per diem, although Mr. Rogers has fixed the price at the low rate of four annas per seer, one half of the price estimated for the Hugli ice, which was calculated to be somewhat cheaper in proportion to saltpetre. The public requires to be habituated to it, and to be satisfied of the economy of its substitution for the long-established process of cooling. There may also be some doubts of the best mode of preserving so fleeting a commodity; but on this head we cannot but advise an imitation of the methods pursued on a large scale on board of the Tuscany. For the application of ice to the purposes of cooling, ample directions have been given in the “Gleanings of Science,” vol. iii. p. 120. A box or basket, or tin case, with several folds of blankets, or having a double case lined with paddy chaff, or any non-conducting substance, will preserve the ice until wanted; and for cooling water or wine, the most effectual method of all is to put a lump of the clear crystal into the liquid. The next best is to spread fragments upon the bottles laid horizontally, and have them wrapped in flannel for a couple of hours.

    So effectual was the non-conducting power of the ice-house on board, that a thermometer placed on it did not differ perceptibly from one in the cabin. From the temperature of the water pumped out, and that of the air in the rim of the vessel, Mr. Dixwell ascertained that the temperature of the hold was not sensibly affected by the ice. Upon leaving the tropic, and running rapidly into higher latitudes, it retained its heat from some time; but after being several weeks in high latitudes, and becoming cooled [p.12]  to the temperature of the external air and sea, it took more than ten days in the tropics before the hold was heated to the tropical standard.

Text from The Mechanics' Magazine, Museum, Register, Journal, and Gazette (9 Apr 1836), 25, No. 661, 10-12. Publ. J. Cunningham, London (source) . Image, not part of the original text, was added from: Frederic Tudor photo, right (source).

See also:

• Frederick Tudor, Ice Exporter - chapter from Captains of Industry (1884).

• 4 September - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Tudor's birth.
• 13 September - short biography, births, deaths and events on date first shipment of ice arrived in Calcutta, India.
• The Ice King: Frederic Tudor and His Circle, by Carl Seaburg - book recommendation.
  
• The Frozen Water Trade, by Gavin Weightman - book recommendation.