Drake Plate

Hedges, R. E. M. (1979), Analysis of the Drake plate Comparison with the composition of Elizabethan brass, Archaeometry 21, 21-26. 

An inscribed thick plate of brass attributed to the landing, in 1579, of Francis Drake on the coast of California, is retained in safekeeping at the University of California, Berkeley. Since its discovery, in the San Francisco Bay area in 1936, however, there have been doubts about the authenticity of the plate, although an early chemical study had apparently confirmed its authenticity. Regardless of this initial study, doubts about the origin of the plate persisted, and a new study, based on the composition of the brass as determined by neutron activation, X-rays fluorescence, and atomic absorption analysis was initiated to reevaluate the earlier authentication of the plate. The results of this study were then compared with the composition typical of brass from Drake s time as well as from modem brass, and it was then concluded that the plate was probably made during the latter part of the nineteenth century or the early years of the twentieth century (Hedges 1979). 

Fink, C. G. and E. P. Polushkin (1938), Plate of Brass Evidence of the Visit of Francis Drake to California in the Year 1579, California Historical Society Special Publication, Vol. 14, San Francisco. 

Drake [99] in which ultrasound is used to promote fast electron exchange at the electrode surface. The ultrasound agitation is provided by an ultrasonic transducer immersed in the bath. This method is particularly suitable for the selective plating of precious metals, e.g. Au on printed circuit boards. 

Due to the specialty nature and niche applications for polyamide-imide parts, many of these low-volume pieces are machined from preformed stock shapes. Toray, based in Japan, is producer of polyamide-imide resin that it converts to polyamide-imide parts and stock shapes, largely for the Asian markets. In the United States, Quadrant EPP supplies extruded Torlon polyamide-imide rod and plate stock as well as compression-molded ingots and shapes. Drake Plastics extrudes custom profiles in addition to standard shapes from Torlon resins. Injection-molded Torlon polyamide-imide stock shapes are available through Parkway Products. 

January 19th, 1583. A few days afterwards three disabled ships, sent back by Diego Flores, arrived and attacked the English. One of the Spanish ships was sunk. Fenton made no further attempt to prosecute the voyage. He returned home with the two ships, arriving at Kinsale on June 14th, 1583, but the pinnace was wrecked on the coast near the river Plate, and her crew fell into the hands of the natives. John Drake, and a few others, escaped to a Spanish settlement, and were sent to Peru according to Lopez Vaz. Their subsequent fate is unknown. 

Arrived in this port of San Vicente, we found the three ships in it, which had been left at Santa Catalina to proceed to Rio Janeiro the Begona being at the bottom, with half her masts above water. We were informed that when our three ships arrived, they found two English ships inside the port, being two of the three which had robbed the friar, as already stated. The other was a pinnace which was lost between the island of Lobos and the main land at the mouth of the river Plate, as Pedro Sarmiento heard in the following year. The crew escaped in a small boat and went to the natives, who detained them. After a time the captain, who was named John Drake, a native of Plymouth, the pilot named William, and another man escaped in a... 

M.A. Penn, D.M. Drake, J.D. Driskell, Accelerated surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS)-based immunoassay on a gold-plated membrane. Anal. Chem. 85, 8609 (2013)... 

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