WOOD, James

WOOD, James ( - ), Lieutenant in the Royal Navy who ran the packet brig H.M.S. Pandora on her voyage in the Pacific Coast of North America (1845-1851). Pandora was a 319-ton, wood-hulled packet brig (1833-1862) with three guns.

Two survey ships were dispatched from Plymouth in June 1845, H.M.S. Pandora and H.M.S. Herald, Captain Henry Kellett. The vessels worked off the Pacific Coast of North America and conducted a survey of the coast of British Columbia after the Oregon boundary dispute with the United States.

Both ships were assigned for charting the coast of the Americas. The vessels reached Cape Flattery, Washington (most northwesterly tip of the contiguous 48 states) on 24 June 1846. The Herald and the Pandora spent several months charting the Puget Sound and Vancouver Island until September 2, 1846 when the vessels sailed south for Alta California. (In 1847, the Modeste was the only British ship in the region during 1847, and the Oregon Treaty "seemed to have taken the edge off of the Royal Navy's interest in the Northwest Coast.")

In 1848 Kellett and H.M.S. Herald was reassigned with to join the search for Sir John Franklin in the Bering Strait.

Specimens collected on these Pacific coast voyages are in the British Museum, including a Santa Rosa Island fox collected in 1847.