Edition: U.S. / Global  The Robust Charms Of a Yorkshire Port
Published: September 6, 1998 (Page 2 of 3)  Whitby's awkward
access made natural navigators of its population: the town is
not an island but it has an island mentality, cut off for so
many centuries by the sea and the moors. At least one young
shipmaster out on those desolate moors used the skills he had
picked up at sea to guide him safely home in foul weather.
Captain Cook discovered Australia in a Whitby coalship, and the
lessons he learned in the Whitby trade made him one of the
world's greatest navigators.  When Queen Victoria plunged into
prolonged mourning on Albert's death in 1861 she popularized
jewelry fashioned from jet at the very moment local turners
discovered a way to carve the black stone on a lathe. Jet is
native to Whitby; the fossilized remnant of the monkey puzzle
tree, it is mined from the cliffs and found on the beaches, and
when cut and polished it glows. For a while the industry
employed hundreds of workers.  The town is st