QUESTIONS

&ANSWERS

CONTENTS
Introduction
.W h a t are the Great L o n d o n Livery Companies?
Everyday Things
Questions arid A n s w e r s
The Games People Play
V-V-Very Interesting
Kings arid Queens
It's a Strange W o r l d
Stars and Stripes
A B C of Geography
Fact or Fiction?
Nursery Rhyme People arid Places
Tell Me, Tell Me
More Questions arid A n s w e r s
Do You Know?
Fact or Fiction?
Asking A b o u t Animals
Last W o r d s
Is It True That?
Snakes Alive!
Languages of the W o r l d
Canals
Photo File > /
Strarige-Souriding Sports
People arid Places
W h o W a s Piltdowri Man?
The Royal Mail
H o w It W o r k s
W h o W a s Rembrandt?
H o w M u c h Do You K n o w A b o u t Trees?
Poets' Corner
Words, Words, Words!
Landmarks A r o u n d the W o r l d v
A Question of Colour
Fifty Fascinating Facts
W h y Do Soldiers Wear Khaki?
Is It True?
W h o Invented X
The Plantageriet Reign
The Indians of North America
Is A r t Your Subject?
It's All True
W h a t W o u l d W e Do W i t h o u t It?
Other T i m e s - Other Fashionss/
W a y Out W e s t
H o w It W o r k s : Electronic Calculator
Bridges and Bridge Builders
The History of Handwriting
Women Who Wrote
The M o n t h s of the Year
How Did Inri Signs Originate?
Great Composers
True or False?
Tail-But True-Stories!

...

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5
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76
78
80
81
82
83
84
86
88
90
92
94

How?
96
Books arid B o o k m e n
97
Origins of the Cinema
98
The W o r l d of Medicine
100
The Story of Rubber > /
</l02
A-ZQuiz
104
W o u l d You Believe It?
106
S o u n d : W h a t Is It?
108
All A t Sea
110
Edward Lear arid Charles Dickens
112
Religions of the W o r l d
113
T h e Lost People: The Aztecs y
114
Castle Quiz /
116
Y o u and Your Body
118
A Kindle of Cats
120
Qu-Qu-Quiz
121
Books arid B o o k m e n
122
Space Shots
123
They W e r e First!
124
Ingenious Inventions
125
Alphabet of Famous Battles
126
Statues w i t h a Story
129
Food For T h o u g h t !
130
W o u l d Y o u Believe It?
132
H o w M u c h Do You K n o w A b o u t the Story of Clothes 134
Red As
136
The W o r l d of Explorers
138
The Olympics
140
H o w M u c h Do Y o u K n o w . . . A b o u t Plants?
142
W h o W a s the M o n a Lisa?
144
Literary Nicknames
145
H o w Does It W o r k ?
146
Questions and A n s w e r s
147
Do Y o u Know?
148
H o w Did Jigsaws Come Into Being?
149
B o o k w o r m s Quiz
150
Russia
152
Famous Inventors O f W h a t ?
154
Question Time
155
A Literary Lirie-Up
156
Red Letter Days
158
W o u l d Y o u Believe It?
160
Famous W o m e n W h o W e r e They?
161
All A b o u t Nicknames
162
Furi Facts
163
All A b o u t Flowers
164
The W o r l d A b o u t Us
166
Do You K n o w W h y ?
168
Tales of A n c i e n t Greece
170
W e a t h e r Report
172
The Legends of King A r t h u r
174
The Lost Cities: Pompeii arid Hercularieum
176
A Question of A r t
177
A n i m a l Irifo
178
Make Merry Music
180
In The W i l d W e s t
181
Crosswords Galore
182
Guess W h o ?
184
True or False?
185
Disaster!
186
All Creatures Great and Small
188
It's True!
190

QUESTIONS
&ANSWERS

C o p y r i g h t M C M L X X X I by W o r l d International Publishing Limited

All rights reserved t h r o u g h o u t the w o r l d .
Published in Great Britain by W o r l d International Publishing Limited
A Pentos C o m p a n y , P.O. Box 111, Great Ducie, Street, M a n c h e s t e r M60 3 B L
Printed in Czechoslovakia
S B N 7235 0980 8

INTRODUCTION

What is dry ice?

Do flowers grow in the desert?
How do you milk a snake?
How does a ball-point pen work?
Find the answers to all these
questions and many more besides
in this interesting and informative
new annual. It covers topics like
people and places, nature, science,
art, geography, music and general
knowledge. O p e n the book at any
page and learn something new
about the world about you, or the
world as it was. Broaden your mind
and astonish your friends with the
facts at your fingertips.
As you look through the book you
will see that symbols are introduced on some of the question and
answer pages. These symbols tell
you into which category the questions fall, and whether they are of
interest to boys, girls, or both. This
is what they mean:
B o y - q u e s t i o n s o f interest t o a b o y
G i r l - q u e s t i o n s o f interest t o a g i r l
Flower - Nature
M i c r o s c o p e - Science
Sun - W e a t h e r
Globe - Geography
Castle - H i s t o r y

WHAT ARE THE

GREAT LONDON
LIVERY COMPANIES?

The Skinners traded in animal skins, and

sold fur garments. In the Middle Ages only
the nobility were allowed to wear furs, so
furs were an important and valuable
commodity.

In medieval times, craftsmen banded

together to form craft guilds, to decide on
terms of apprenticeship and employment,
and to guarantee conditions and high
standards of workmanship. Survivors of
these craft guilds, there are now twelve
Great London Livery Companies, each
having its own Royal charter and the right
to bear arms.

MERCERS

The Mercers traded in a wide variety of

goods, from fabrics to small pieces of
jewellery. They were the first of the twelve
Great Guilds, first mentioned in the early
1100s.

SKINNERS

The Goldsmiths still hallmark gold, even

today, to guarantee its quality. Every year,
at Goldsmiths' Hall, new coins from the
Royal Mint are delivered in a sealed box
called the Fyx, and they are then weighed
and tested for accuracy. This has happened
ever since the 13th century.

"GOLDSMITHS

EVERYDAY THINGS
Who was the first person
to carry an umbrella
regularly in England as a
protection
against
the
rain?
Although sunshades were used
from early times in the east it was
a man named Jonas Hanway who
started to carry an umbrella about
with him through the streets of
London on rainy days around the
mid 18th century. Poor Jonas was
greatly mocked for this. Small boys
followed him about jeering at him
. . . but while they got wet, he kept
dry. Today a man carries an umbrella with him as naturally as he
does his briefcase.

When
was
the
first
adhesive postage stamp
used in Britain?
It was a Penny Black bearing a
portrait of Queen Victoria. It was
issued in M a y 1840 when Rowland
Hill initiated several postal reforms.
It was not perforated, but had to
be cut from a printed sheet. Today
the Penny Black stamp is very valuable indeed. The introduction of the
stamp also called for the invention
of postboxes, which were introduced
in 1855.

How does
pen work?

ball-point

The tip of a ball-point pen is a rotating metal ball which is made of

a material which grips the paper
when writing. It is held in place by
a seat which is a kind of socket, so
that the ball rotates as you write.
As it rotates the ball picks up ink
from an ink cartridge and so writing
appears on the paper.
6

What is a sponge?
A sponge is usually a marine animal
found clinging to the underside of a
rock. There are three kinds of
sponges: limy, with needles making
up the sponge's body; glass sponges
found in the tropics with beautiful
glassy spikes, and horny sponges
which are of the most commercial
value. The Common Household
Sponge is the skeleton of a certain
kind of sponge with all the living
animal tissue removed.

What was the penny

farthing an early form of?
The bicycle. Penny farthings appeared in 1870 and three years later
a safety penny farthing with a chain
to the rear wheel was developed.
Later, in 1888, a Scottish vet named

John Boyd Dunlop fitted the first

pneumatic tyres to a bicycle; then
came the free wheels, and just
before the turn of the century variable gears were introduced.

How long have people

been using
* buttons?
Since as early as the 13th century
when they were often used as bone
ornaments rather than for buttoning
a garment as they are used today.
Although usually round, buttons
can be almost any shape, size or
colour. Sets of buttons were given
as gifts during the 18th and 19th
century and a N e w York firm have
made buttons f r o m tagua nuts which
harden when they are heated. Pearl
buttons come f r o m certain oyster
and mussel shells. In China a literary
honour is bestowed on someone by
the placing of a gold button in his
cap, while Mandarins wear a different button on the top of their caps.

first

What well-known everyday

object did Walter Hunt
invent?

Sir James Dewar, in the year 1892.

It consists of a double-walled flask
with a vacuum between the walls.
The walls are silvered and heat cannot be conducted across a vacuum.
They keep hot liquids hot because
the heat cannot get out and cold
liquids cold because heat cannot get
in. After the liquid has been poured
in, a cork stopper is used to seal the
flask as cork is a very poor conductor of heat.

By bending a piece of wire into an

unusual but safe shape, W a l t e r Hunt
rediscovered a simple device used
thousands of years ago: the safety
pin. Three years later, in 1849, Hunt
obtained the patent for his new
discovery, having supplied the
Patents Office with a sketch and
description of his wonderful new
invention, which in fact had been
used by the ancient Romans to hold
up their togas!

Who invented
thermos flask?

the

QUESTIONS A N D ANSWERS

Why
were
American
soldiers in World War II
called G.l.s?

What was Alchemy?

Alchemy was an ancient science,
practised from A.D. 500 up until the
Middle Ages, when men believed
they could turn base metals into gold,
if only they were able to find the
right formula and the 'philosopher's
stone'. Alchemists were the forerunners of the chemists we know
today, but they also dabbled in
astrology and spiritualism to try to
achieve their aims of making gold
and finding the secrets of eternal
youth. The earliest alchemists were
the Ancient Egyptians.

How is fog formed?

vapour is always around us
in the atmosphere, in varying
amounts according to pressure and
temperature. W h e n the temperature
suddenly, these water vapour
particles condense on the dust specks
in the air, and this produces the haze
we call 'fog'.
'Smog' is a combination of smoke
and fog, and is a particular menace
in the industrial cities of America,
but surprisingly it's Athens in Greece
which suffers badly from smog.
Smog eats away at the classical
Greek buildings there, such as the
Parthenon, at an amazing rate,
causing serious damage.
8

W o r l d W a r Two was the time that

this nickname originated, although
it has since stuck and most soldiers
are called by this name now. During
that w a r all government kits supplied to recruits in the American A r m y
were
stamped
'G.I.'
meaning
'Government Issue'. It was as rather
a cynical joke that the soldiers began
calling themselves G.l.s, meaning
that they thought themselves little
more important than their equipment. Before this, from about 1850
until the First W o r l d W a r , the American soldiers had called themselves
'Dough boys', because they wore
uniforms with metal buttons which
looked like round cakes of dough.

Q
Who were the
Suffragettes?

They were a group of women at the

beginning of this century who fought
for women's rights, especially the
right of women to vote. Mrs.
Emmeline Pankhurst, along with her
daughter Christabel and friend
Annie Kenney, had to fight Parliament, public opinion and even go
to prison before women were given
equal rights with men to vote on the
affairs of the country. The Representation of the People Act in 1918
meant that some women got the
vote, mainly because public opinion
was better disposed towards women
after their help with the war effort,
but it wasn't until 1928 that every
woman over 21 was able to vote.
The women who had fought for this
were called 'Suffragettes' because
they belonged to the Women's
Suffrage
Movement.
'Suffrage'
means the right to vote.

What is the origin of the

Marathon race?
The M a r a t h o n is a long, gruelling
race which traditionally closes the
Olympic events. It is taken from the
amazing achievement of the Greek
runner Pheidippides, w h o ran over
twenty-six miles in four hours, taking
news to Athens of the Persians'
defeat at the Battle of M a r a t h o n in

Do budgerigars really talk?

Who
invented
thermometer?

the

Galileo, the Italian scientist, invented

the thermometer in 1593. At that
time, however, it was used to
measure pressure changes in relation to weather predictions, rather
than to take a human temperature!

What was the Blitz?

The Blitz was a massive air assault
on London by German bombers and
it began in September 1940, when
nine hundred German
aircraft
bombed London's dockland, setting
most of the East End ablaze. Many
further attacks followed, destroying
historical monuments and homes,
causing great damage and loss of
life. The firemen and voluntary
helpers of London worked so hard
and courageously that Winston
Churchill called them 'the heroes
with grimy faces'.

Budgies, like the other members of

the parrot family, have surprising
powers of mimicry and extremely
retentive memories, so 'talking'
comes fairly easily to them - but of
course they have no idea what it is
that they are actually repeating!
They simply pick up sounds and imitate them, often catching the tone

of voice and pronunciation perfectly. It's quite easy to train your

budgie to say simple sentences, but
don't expect him to hold a conversation with you! Budgerigars
were originally green in their natural
state, but breeding has meant that
they are all the colours of the rainbow these days.

What was a Sedan chair?

A Sedan was a covered chair on
t w o poles, which was carried
through the streets by t w o men.
The chair was box-shaped, with t w o
windows and a door, and the roof
was made so that it could be lifted
should the passenger wish to stand
in the chair - rather a dangerous
thing to do! The porters carried the
chair by the t w o long poles between
which the chair was fixed, and this
kind of transport was popular in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The name comes from the
French town of Sedan, where this
kind of transport is said to have
originated.

What was the

tyrannosaurus?
The tyrannosaurus was an immense
dinosaur, measuring over forty-six
feet tall! 'Dinosaur' means 'terrible
lizard' and the tyrannosaurus was
the most terrible dinosaur of all. O n e
of the most fearsome and ferocious
animals ever to roam the earth, these
giant reptiles existed over 60,000,000
years ago during the Cretaceous
period.

What are Kew Gardens?

The Royal Botanic Gardens are at
Kew, in Surrey. Originally they were
a nine acre botanical estate owned
by Princess Augusta, widow of
Frederick, Prince of Wales. Princess
Augusta's son, George III, lived at
Richmond Lodge nearby and later
its land was to form the basis for
Kew Gardens as we know it today.
The Gardens were given over to the
public in 1841, and in 1897 Queen
Victoria gave the semi-uncultivated
pastures of the Queen's Cottage to
the Gardens. Today there are about
three hundred acres of vast conservatories and botanical museums
at Kew.

Who
was
Newton?

Isaac

Sir Isaac Newton is often considered

to be the world's finest scientist. Born
in Lincoln in 1642, he studied at
Cambridge and went on to discover the law of gravitation, and
invent the first reflecting telescope.
He was knighted in 1702 and died
in 1727. He is buried in Westminster
Abbey. He wrote his masterpiece,
Principia,

10

Sir

in 1 6 8 7 .

What - and where - is the

island of Surtsey?
A volcanic eruption occurred just off
the southern coast of Iceland in 1963,
throwing up a massive amount of
ash, cinders and molten lava. The
ash and cinders were carried by thewaves and then floated to the seabed, but the lava settled on this bed
of ashes, and began to harden and
cool. This mass of once-molten lava
has become hard as rock and is now
an island - the island of Surtsey,
with an area of about one square
mile. O f course, it's not inhabited,
but plant, insect and animal life is
appearing there, making the island
a fascinating place for scientists.

THE GAMES PEOPLE PLAY . . .

What is pelota?
Played mainly in France and
Spain, and in North and Latin
America, pelota is claimed to be
the fastest of all ball games. It
originated many thousands of
years ago in South America,
where it was played as a sacred
game in the temples. It is played
by two players against a wall, the
small, hard rubber ball being
hurled from, and caught in, a
curved basket attached to each
player's wrist. The ball is served
from the basket, and his opponent must catch the ball on the
volley or first bounce, and return
it. A point is won when the
receiver fails to catch and return
the ball. In America pelota is also
known as jai-alai.

What is knur and spell?

A word game? A Viking singing
duo? A witch's curse? No, knur
and spell is a little-known game
that has been played in the Pennine area of Northern England
for the last 300 years. The game
has a terminology all its own.
The knur is a small baked clay
ball, sometimes known as a
potty. The spell is a wooden
structure something like a
miniature gallows, from which
the knur is suspended. The
playersknown locally as laikers
must hit the knur with a long
sycamore cane, the laiker whose
knur travels furthest being the
winner. The game had almost
died out until recently, but now
there has been lots of new interest, and a world championship
is planned.

What is pall-mall?
This game is similar to croquet,
played with a wooden mallet and
ball. The name derives from the
Italian palla (ball) and maglio
(mallet). Though not played
much nowadays, pall-mall enjoyed great popularity in
England, Italy and other parts of
Europe in the 1600s.

V-V-VERY INTERESTING
What is Valhalla?
The word means Hall of the Slain and, in
Norse mythology, was the great hall of the
dead heroes. The hall had 540 doors, so
wide that 800 men could enter side by side,
and the guests were seated at long tables
where they were served with wondrous
foods and drink. Valhalla's walls were of
gold, lined with battle shields so highly
polished that the light they cast made
candles unnecessary, and coats of mail and
armour hung from the walls.

What is a vicuna?
The vicuna is a member of the camel
family, found in the Andes Mountains of
South America, usually above the snow line
at heights of about 15,000 feet. Unlike the
camel it has no h u m p , and grows to about
three feet at the shoulder. It lives in small
herds, eats grass and, thanks to its
remarkable speed, endurance and keen
eyesight, is rarley seen at close quarters.
The vicuna has very fine fleece, which is
made into top quality (and very expensive)
cloth.

What is a verst?
A verst is a Russian measure of length,
about % mile, though seldom used
nowadays.

12

What is Vedic?
Vedic literature is the sacred literature of the
Hindus. Its four main works are the Rig
Veda, the Sama Veda, the Yajur Veda and
the Atharua Veda. Each Veda contains
collections of hymns called Samhitas, most
of which were composed by unknown holy
men as long as 4,000 years ago.

Ancient Vedic wisdom is recorded on palmleaf books like this one.

Who are the Valkyries?

They were the warlike battle-maidens of
Norse mythology who took the dead battle
heroes to Valhalla, and waited upon them
there. The name means those who choose
the fallen, Richard Wagner based his
famous opera Die Walkiire on the story of
one of the Valkyries, Brunhild, who was
awakened from a magic sleep.

What is volvox?
Volvox is probably the simplest living
organism composed of a number of cells
that show a common purpose. Volvox
(Latin for rolling) is a plant, looking like a
tiny green ball as big as this 'o'. If you look
carefully into the surface of a freshwater
pool or pond you will probably see., rolling
through the water, tiny green ballsthese
are voivox.

What is vanadium?
Discovered by Swedish chemist Nils
Sefstrom in 1830, vanadium is a rare,
silvery-white metallic element, and one of
the hardest metals. Vanadium is added to
steel for greater strength and elasticity, often
used in car chassis, and is used widely in
medicines. It is found in small amounts in
the ores of copper, lead and iron, and Peru
is a major producer.

What is Vega?
Vega is a star, the fifth brightest, and is
often called the arc light of the sky. Vega
will become the earth's pole star in
something like 12,000 years time.

13

KINGS A N D QUEENS
Question:
In 1013, a Danish king called Sweyn
Forkbeard made himself king of
England. Later his son became king,
and he is remembered for something
he failed to do. W h a t was this and
what was the king's name?

Answer:
His name was Canute and he
failed to hold back the waves of the
sea, thus proving to his foolish
courtiers that even a king cannot
hold back the forces of nature.

Question:
A king of Scotland was known as
'The Large Head' and married a
pious queen named M a r g a r e t who
was known for her saintly ways.
Can you name the Scottish King?

Answer:
Malcolm Canmore.

Question:
How did the royal House of Plantagenet get its name?

Answer:
From the name of the plant planta
genesta
or broom plant which
appeared on the arms of G e o f f r e y
of Anjou, the father of Henry II.

14

Question:
At what age did Queen Elizabeth I
come to the throne of England?

Answer:
At the age of 25 years,

Question:
Can you give the full name of the
British queen who was known as
'The Great White Queen' and say
how many years she reigned?

Answer:
Alexandrina Victoria, daughter of
Edward, Duke of Kent and Princess
Victoria of Saxe-Coburg,
who
reigned for sixty-four years. Her
reign started when she was 18 years
of age and three years later, in
1840, she married her cousin,
Prince Albert
of
Saxe-CoburgGotha.

Question:
W h o was known as 'The King over
the Water'?

Answer:
James II, after he was forced to flee
to France, also the O l d Pretender,
his son James III, and his grandson,
Charles Edward Stuart. W h e n their
Jacobite followers were asked to
drink the loyal toast to the king,
they passed their glasses first over
a bowl of water before drinking,
thus drinking not to George, but
'The King O v e r the W a t e r ' .

Question:
W h a t are Eleanor Crosses?

Answer:
W h e n his wife Eleanor of Castile
died in 1290 at Hadbury in Nottinghamshire, Edward I wished her to be
buried in Westminster Abbey and so
the Queen's last journey was made,
and at every place where her body
rested, Edward had a cross put up
to commemorate the spot. Three of
these crosses still survive today, but
originally there were twelve: at
Lincoln,
Grantham,
Stamford,
Geddington, Northampton, Stony
Stratford,
Woburn,
Dunstable,
St. Albans, Waltham, Cheapside
and Charing Cross.

Question:
What is a 'Queen's Messenger'?

Answer:
The name given to an official of the
British foreign office who carries
secret diplomatic
papers
from
London to embassies abroad. His
emblem is a silver greyhound, and
there
have
been
Queen's
Messengers dating back for several
centuries.

15

IT'S A STRANGE WORLD!

W h e n the railway was invented,
people could not accustom themselves to the idea that there were
no horses to pull the wagons and
they still designed the coaches in
the same way as the horse-drawn
carriages. They looked exactly the
same and there was even a holder
in which to put the whip!

King James II debased England's

coinage by issuing such worthless
coins as brass pennines, half-pennies
and farthings. A phrase indicating
worthlessness was soon in use - 'Not
worth a brass farthing'.

The bicycle as we know it today

was invented in 1885 and was fitted
with air-filled, pneumatic tyres by
John Boyd Dunlop in 1888. They have
covered many miles since then and
the highest speed for cycling in one
hour was recorded by a Frenchman
in 1928 when he cycled 76 miles in
the one hour, downhill presumably!

The Bedouin people really like to

celebrate when they have a wedding
feast. They eat the largest dish in
the world, which is roasted camel
prepared for the table by cooking
eggs and stuffing them into fish,
stuffing the cooked fish into roast
chickens, stuffing the chickens into a
cooked sheep, and stuffing the camel
with the sheep!
16

Queen Elizabeth sent her seamen

searching
for
the
North-West
Passage, exploring the Arctic, and
sailing to distant lands, yet she herself never left England. The longest
journey she made was to Bristol 112 miles. She never even went to
Wales or Scotland.
In days of old, pedlars used to
collect the bread from a baker to sell
at the market. In payment a pedlar
would get an extra loaf f r o m the
baker for every twelve loaves he
sold, making thirteen loaves in all.
The number thirteen today is called
the baker's dozen.

STARS A N D STRIPES
W h a t is a s t a r f i s h ?
A starfish is not a fish at all, it is a curiously beautiful sea animal with
a body usually shaped like a five-pointed star, hence its name. But a
starfish can have as many as forty arms, or rays as they are sometimes
called. If one of these arms is chopped off, either by accident or design,
then from this arm another starfish grows! Rather a strange w a y to
regenerate, isn't it?
The starfish has peculiar tube-like feet which it often uses to open
oysters, much to the annoyance of oyster fishers, especially as when
the fishers think that they have caught a starfish, the latter just breaks
off one of its arms and hurries away to catch more oysters!

W h a t is the ' S t a r - S p a n g l e d

Banner'?

The national anthem of the United States of America, which was written
during the Anglo-American W a r of 1812 when, despite British bombardment, the American flag with its stars and stripes could still be seen
flying at Fort McHenry as the Americans tried to protect Baltimore. The
words-were written by Francis Scott Key, who was a prisoner a b o a r d
a British ship. It was officially approved as the national anthem of the
USA in 1931. Today the stars on the star-spangled banner number fifty,
one for each state of the union, while the stripes represent the original
number of the united states.

Where w i l l y o u see O r i o n t h e h u n t e r ?
In the sky, as Orion is a constellation of stars above the celestial equator.
In Greek mythology O r i o n was a mighty hunter, and when he was slain
by Diana he was taken up to the heavens together with his dogs. The
constellation contains the shoulder stars, Betelgeuse, an orange-red,
first magnitude, irregular variable star, and Bellatrix, and the giant pure
white star known as Rigel.

In w h i c h c o u n t r y w o u l d y o u see t h e z e b r a m o u s e ?
This tiny creature with its black and brown stripes running d o w n its back
is now only found in Africa. As well as being known as the zebra mouse
it is also called the striped fieldmouse. It is found in many regions, making
its home in a grassy hollow, where it rests during the hot time of day,
after a busy morning scampering about on the savannah. It goes searching
for food in the f o r m of pulses and grasses, but it is always wary of
snakes or birds of prey for whom this little mouse makes an excellent
meal!
WhoisShere-Khan?
Shere-Khan is the tiger, one of the many animals which appear in
Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book which tells of the adventures of Mowgli,
a child brought up by Mother W o l f in the jungle. M o w g l i grows up
obeying the laws of the jungle and amongst his animal friends and
enemies are Shere-Khan the tiger, Baloo the bear, Banderlog the monkey
people and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi the mongoose.

A B C OF G E O G R A P H Y

Hydrography
The science which deals with the
surface waters of the earth, investigating tides and currents, the charting of coastlines and contributing to
navigation.

Artesian well

Igneous rock

A well sunk in a deep water-trapping

basin which produces a continued
flow of water at the surface because the well forces the water upwards by being below the level of
the water's source.

Rock that has solidified from molten

rock (called magma). It is one of
three kinds of rock that make up
the earth's crust.

Beaufort Wind Scale

A westerly current of air moving

between 60 and 270 miles an hour in
the upper atmosphere.

Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort devised

an internationally accepted series of
numbers to chart wind strengths in
1805. O n the Beaufort scale, a light
breeze at four to seven miles an
hour is numbered 2; while a hurricane, going at over seventy-five
miles an hour, is numbered 12.

Jet stream

Estuary
The mouth of a river, usually broad
and V shaped, formed by the sinking
of coastal land as the river reaches
the sea. W h e n the tide comes in,
sea and river mix.

Fiord
Long, narrow inlet of the sea, enclosed by cliffs, a fiord is supposed
to be the result of glaciers moving
seawards many years ago. The
fiords of southern N o r w a y are very
beautiful.

Geyser

Capricorn, Tropic of
A line of latitude, 23 degrees 32'
south of the Equator, where the sun
shines
directly
overhead
on
December 21. The Tropic of Capricorn marks the southern boundary
of the Tropical Zone.

Doldrums
Areas of the seas around the Equator
with very low pressure and little
wind. Sailing ships avoided the
Doldrums
for
fear
of
being
becalmed.
18

A hot spring which throws up steam

and hot water into the air at regular
intervals, geysers are common in
Iceland and New Zealand.

Karst
A rugged landscape of dry valleys,
caverns and underground streams
made of limestone, occuring in
Yugoslavia, the northern Pennines
in England, and the Yucatan region
of Mexico.

Levee
A high ridge or bank along the side of
a river, made of material deposited
on the side of the river after flooding.
Artificial levees, of earth and sandbags, are made to contain a river
during flooding.

Quicksand
A mass of very deep, fine-grained
sand that looks like ordinary sand
but, when wet, will not support any
weight at all and is a fatal menace for
man and animals.

Rainbow
An arch of seven colours seen when
sun follows rain. The raindrops reflect and refract the sun's rays, each
becoming a prism. The colours are:
red, orange, yellow, green, blue,
indigo and violet.

Mistral

Upland
Land that is higher than the surrounding region. Also called highland, as in the Highlands of Scotland.

Volcano

A very cold wind which blows down

over the Rhone valley from a high
pressure area of central France to a
low pressure area over the Mediterranean.

A tide with the smallest range

between low and high water, occurring when the pull of the sun is at
right angles to that of the moon.

An opening in the earth's crust

through which magma (molten rock,
or lava) pours out. As this piles up and
hardens around the opening, the
familiar conical shaped hill is formed.
An active volcano is one which erupts
often, an extinct volcano is one that
has not erupted since recorded
history, and a dormant volcano is
one which although not extinct, has
not erupted for a long period.

Orographic rainfall

Watershed

Rainfall over a mountain range,

caused by moisture-laden air cooling
and releasing its vapour as rain.

High land that separates river

systems, the crest of the surrounding
uplands that form the boundary of a
river basin.

Neap tide

Pampas
The massive grasslands that surround the estuary of the Rio de la
Plata in South America.

Solstice
The time of year when the lengths of
the days and nights are of the
greatest difference. The summer
solstice in the Northern Hemisphere
is about June 21, the winter solstice
around December 22. These dates
are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere.

Tsunami
A Japanese w o r d for great sea
waves caused by submarine earthquakes, sweeping in f r o m the ocean
at up to 600 miles an hour and up to a
hundred feet high, causing immense
damage to coastal communities.
These waves are often mistakenly
called tidal waves.

Year
The time taken by the earth to
travel around the sun, measured by a
calendar year of 365 days, adjusted
from time to time for accuracy to
366 days.

Zenith
The point in the sky that is directly
overhead f r o m the observer's point
of view. Nadir is its opposite, the
point in space directly downwards
from the zenith.
19

FACT OR FICTION?

DID ROBIN HOOD REALLY EXIST?

Opinions differ on the question of Robin Hood's
existence. The earliest ballad about his life was
written in the fifteenth century, almost 200 years
after he was supposed to have lived, and some experts claim that Robin himself was no more than a
ballad character invented to express the poor
peasants' resentment over their unjust treatment.
However, there is earlier written evidence to
suggest that there was such a man, although he was
probably not the romantic character shown in the
ballad. One document states that there was a Robertus
Hod, fugitivus, (Robin Hood, outlaw) living in Yorkshire
in the early thirteenth century, and it is worth remembering that Sherwood Forest extended into
Yorkshire at that time.

WAS THERE REALLY A KING ARTHUR?

Although most of the legends surrounding King Arthur
are untrue, Arthur himself did exist. It is doubtful
that he was a king, but he was certainly a powerful
leader of men, and he led them to victory against
the invading Saxons who attacked Britain f r o m all
sides. At this time - the sixth century - Britain was
divided into small kingdoms, but Arthur's victories
brought stability and peace, and soon his name was
known all over the country.
In the earliest records of Arthur, there is no mention
of Guinevere, Sir Lancelot or the Knights of the
Round Table. These were added much later when
the legends took over f r o m the facts.- The court of
Camelot is thought to have been at Cadbury Castle,
in Somerset, where excavations have revealed a large
earthwork hill-fort belonging to a powerful leader
of the sixth century. As no other such stronghold
has been found, this seems to be the most likely home
of Arthur.

WHO WAS ROB ROY?

According to Sir W a l t e r Scott's novel, Rob Roy
MacGregor was a dashing, courageous outlaw who
robbed the rich to give to the poor. But, in fact, the
real Rob Roy was more of an earlier Al Capone.
He lived in Perthshire at the turn of the seventeenth
century, and he ran a flourishing protection racket,
charging other farmers large sums of money to protect
their herds f r o m cattle thieves. As Rob Roy was also
one of the worst cattle thieves in Scotland they would
not have had much faith in him, but to save themselves
trouble they usually paid.
O n e of Rob Roy's greatest enemies was the Duke
of Montrose, who had taken his property in payment
for a debt. To take his revenge, Rob Roy and his
followers raided the Duke's estates regularly, and
terrorised the neighbourhood. Although captured
by Montrose's men, Rob Roy managed to escape,
and his daring and cunning soon made him a legendary figure.
20

i i r

NURSERY RHYME PEOPLE A N D PLACES

Many of our familiar nursery rhymes recall famous events or people in
history. Do you know which nursery rhyme:

1. Recalls a famous churchman who was the son of an Ipswich butcher?

2. Recalls the days when the Pilgrims of the Mayflower copied a custom
of the Indians concerning the care of young children?
3. Tells of Mistress Mary, so contrary, with her 'pretty maids'?
4. Recalls the days of the terrible plague, the symptoms of which were
rosy rash?
5. Tells of a certain man of Glastonbury who took a special pie to King
Henry VII at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries?
6. Recalls the struggle for power between Scotland and England, and
the final unity of these two great countries?
7. Recalls a handsome young man with yellow hair whom the rhyme
says is a sailor, but who was, in fact, a Parliamentary candidate during
an 18th century election?
Check your answers on page 191

TELL ME, TELL ME

HOW DOES A SUBMARINE STAY UNDER WATER?
You may have noticed that an empty
bottle will float along the surface of
water, but one which is full of liquid will
sink. The submarine works in exactly the
same way. Each submarine has several
large tanks, which can be filled with either
water or air. When they are filled with
air, the submarine will float on the surface of the water, just like a ship. When
it is time for the submarine to dive, large
amounts of water are pumped into the
tanks, so making the vessel much heavier.
By regulating the amount of water and
air in the tanks, the crew of the submarine
can make their vessel rise or sink to
various levels in the water.

DO PLANTS EAT SOIL?

They certainly don't eat soil in the way
that we eat various kinds of food, but it
is in the soil that their roots search for the
water and minerals which are vital for
their health and growth. These minerals
are transported to the various parts of the
plants by the sap. The sap is a special
liquid circulating all over the various parts
of each plant. The plant also takes carbon
dioxide from the air, and with the help
of the energy of sunlight will convert it
into sugars and other substances vital
to healthy growth.

WHY DON'T MEN HAVE TAILS?

All species of animals, including man, of
course, have developed very gradually
over millions and millions of years. In this
way, each animal strengthens and improves those parts of its body which are
particularly useful, and the various parts
which are not so useful diminish or are
adapted. This evolution happens very,
very slowly, and changes can only be
seen over numerous generations. In fourlegged animals, or quadrupeds as they
are called, the tail is very imfx>rtant for
balance, and in many cases it is used
almost as another limb, for instance when
monkeys swing through the trees. Man,
however, walks on two legs - he is called
a biped - and he does not need the tail
for balance. As a matter of fact, a small
very rudimentary 'tail' can be found at
the base of our spines, but it does not
help us at all with balance or movement.
22

WHY DOESN'T ONE KEY OPEN EVERY DOOR?

There wouldn't be much point in locking
your door if you knew that anyone could
come along with another key and unlock
it! Locks and keys are made for keeping
things safe from burglary or damage,
and you should always lock up a house
if you are going out, or a car if you are
leaving it parked in a public place. There
are many different shapes and sizes of
keys, and each one fits into its own particular lock. The lock will be shaped inside

so that it will only take its own key. If a

key is forced into it which does not fit
l_.V-.l_
exactly, the lock will not turn, and the door
will stay shut. Unfortunately, many
burglars learn various tricks by which
they can force a lock open, and so anything which is particularly valuable is
p - usually protected by other devices, such
as alarms, 'combination' locks, or one of
1
the most effective deterrents - a guard
dog.

WHY DOESN'T THE SUN SHINE AT NIGHT?

Well, as a matter of fact the sun is shining
at night, but we can't see it. The Earth,
which is rotating in space, turns completely round once every twenty-four
hours. In the course of this rotation each
part of the globe will be facing the sun
for a certain amount of time. It is this time
which we call 'day'. When the part of the
globe where we live is facing away from
the sun, and we cannot see its light, we
call the time 'night'. So, when it is day for
you, it is night for many other people,
far away in other lands.

HOW CAN WE HEAR THE SEA IN A SHELL?

Sad to say, it isn't really the sea which you
can hear when you hold a shell up to
your ear, even though it may sound
exactly like it. W h a t is really happening
is this. . . . All sounds move through the
air on vibrations of air called sound
waves. W e can't see sound waves
moving, but even the tiniest sounds being
made in a room will have their own
sound waves. There is air too, of course,
in the spiral cavity inside the shell, and
when sound waves enter they make this
air vibrate as they bounce backwards
and forwards off the inner walls of the
shell. The result is a deep rumbling sound
from the air which is resounding inside
the shell. This sound reminds us of the
sound of waves beating on a shore. It is in
just the same way as this that air vibrates
inside the 'resonator' of musical instruments, making the sounds of the notes
being played.
23

MORE QUESTIONS A N D ANSWERS

WHAT IS QUICKSAND?
Quicksand is a loose, light sand mixed with water. It looks no different
from ordinary sand, but it won't support any weight. Quicksand is usually
found near the mouths of large rivers or flat shores where there is a stiff
layer of clay below ground level. This clay stops the natural drainage of
water, so the water collects in the sand. It's a common belief that quicksand
will suck you under but, in fact, as the sand contains so much water, it's
possible to float, as long as you move slowly. M o v i n g slowly enables the
sand to flow around the body and act like water in which you can swim.
cO>

WHAT WAS THE PONY

EXPRESS?
In America, before the days of the
railway and the telegraphs, the
Government began a new system
for carrying mail across the United
States - from St. Joseph, Missouri,
to the Pacific Ocean - which was
known as the Pony Express. A number of horses carried the rider, with
his mail bag, in a number of stages
along the route. Each horse would
travel ten or fifteen miles, and then
a fresh horse would be saddled up
and ridden away. The rider himself
would travel three stages, or thirty
miles, before being replaced with
another rider. The riders had to
brave Indian attacks, as well as all
kinds of weather, to see the mail
delivered, so they must have had
great courage. They actually rode
horses, not ponies, although they
were called the Pony Express!

WHAT IS POMPEII?

Pompeii is an ancient Roman town in

Italy, and an amazing thing happened there on August 24th, A.D. 79.
The volcano Vesuvius erupted and
lava completely buried the town.
The lava, together with ashes and
pebbles, fell dry on Pompeii and
HOW DID CHESS BEGIN?
later, when water came down on top
Chess is said to be the oldest game in the world, originating in India 5,000 of this, the material became like
years ago with the Buddhists, who, believing war to be wrong, devised, plaster and formed moulds which
preserved all that was underneath!
the game of chess as a peaceful substitute. From India the game spread
In the Middle Ages this town was
to Persia, Arabia and then to Western Europe. The w o r d 'chess' is derived
from the Persian w o r d 'shah', meaning king, and 'check-mate', from forgotten, until in 1594 an under'shah mat', the king is dead. A t one time the king could be captured, ground aqueduct was discovered
and interest re-kindled in the town.
which would be impossible in today's game, and in ancient times the queen
Excavating has been going on ever
was the weakest piece on the board, only finding her present power
since and Pompeii has become valu500 years ago. The method of 'castling' was introduced to the game 400
able - and infinitely fascinating years ago, and the rook got its name f r o m the Indian w o r d 'ruhk', meaning
evidence of the past.
soldier.
24

WHAT ANIMAL CAN RUN

FASTEST?
W o u l d you believe that man, and an
elephant, can actually run up to
twenty-five miles an hour, if running
for a very short distance? The race
horse, traditionally a fast animal,
can reach fifty miles an hour, and
a greyhound up to thirty-five miles
an hour. The fastest animals, however, are wild in the bush; the antelope and gazelle can run up to
sixty-five miles an hour, for a run of
a mile or so. The fastest animal is,
of course, the cheetah or hunting
leopard, which can run at a maximum
speed of seventy miles an hour!

WHAT WAS THE KINGDOM

OF ATLANTIS?
Atlantis is supposed, in legend, to
be a lost continent in the Atlantic
Ocean, a paradise on earth whose
people conquered all of southwestern Europe and northern Africa,
but who were finally defeated by
the Athenians. The people of Atlantis
finally became wicked, so in punishment the island was swallowed up
by the sea. Plato, the Greek philosopher, told this story in his work
Timaeus, and even today, many
people believe that Atlantis really
existed.

HOW WERE MOUNTAINS MADE?

Mountains were formed millions of years ago, when the earth was settling
down. Some mountains were begun when the earth was a ball of fire like volcanoes, which are still burning, deep within the earth's crust. Others
began with massive earthquakes, which forced and pushed the land
together, forming great peaks when the land cooled and hardened. And
some mountains happened because, as Earth spun round the sun, it became
flatter at the N o r t h and South Poles, so the surface of the earth wrinkled,
pushing up ridges and peaks which became mountains and mountain ranges.

WHERE DID TEDDY BEARS

COME FROM?
Teddy Bears began with the American President 'Teddy' Roosevelt, who
was fond of hunting. O n e day he
found a bear cub which had lost his
mother and his kindness to the cub
was noticed by a newspaper cartoonist. Afterwards Teddy Roosevelt
went to a wedding and, at the
reception, was given some toy bears.
He was delighted and someone suggested they be called 'Teddy Bears',
after Teddy Roosevelt. Soon toymakers were making a great many
toy bears for children all over the
world.
25

HOW DO CATS PURR?

A cat purrs when it feels happy or contented, and purring is caused by the
vibrating of its vocal cords. W h e n a cat takes air into its lungs, the air goes
through the voice box that contains the vocal cords. Then if a cat feels
happy, it will allow the cords to vibrate as air passes in and out.
members of the cat family, such as the lion, tiger, jaguar and leopard cannot
purr, because of a different formation of bones in the throat. The lion
roars instead, and the jaguar and leopard make a noise like a hoarse bark.

WHO ARE THE GIPSIES?

Gipsies are bands of travelling
peoples, who wander over the world
without settling down and have their
own
customs
and
languages.
N o b o d y knows for sure where gipsies originated, but they are believed
to have come from India in the tenth
century and migrated to Persia. They
reached the Balkans and the Greek
islands in the fourteenth century and,
always moving west, reached Britain
during the 1500s. Because they are
different f r o m those who have settled on the land or in towns they have
always been disliked and hurried on
from place to place. This attitude has
encouraged the gipsies to keep to
themselves and to keeptheir customs
alive. Two tribes of gipsies are the
Hungarian tziganes, and the Spanish
gitanos. British people thought they
came from Egypt, and called these
people 'gipsies', but they call themselves 'Romanies' and their language 'Romany', and are a people
proud of their past.

WHY DO WE CRY WHEN

WE PEEL ONIONS?
W e cry because of an oil called ally I
which is inside every onion. W h e n
we cut into the onion, this oil escapes
into the air and irritates the nerves
in our eyes and nose. These nerves
send a cry for help to the brain,
and the brain responds with tears
to soothe the stinging.

WHY DOES VENICE HAVE SO MANY CANALS?

The Italian city of Venice was built on a group of mud banks that formed
many small islands at the head of the Adriatic Sea. N o cars are allowed in
the oldest parts of the city and people travel by boats or gondolas along
the canals, which serve as streets. Venice began as twelve townships on
the lagoon and this was the beginning of the state of Venice. Venice didn't
become part of Italy until! 866, and this was because of a long and steady
decline in power. In 1450, however, Venice had been the head of a large
colonial empire and was the chief world sea-power.
26

WHY DO THE SEASONS CHANGE?

W e have summer and winter weather because of the way the earth spins
around the sun on a tilted axis. The axis is what we call the line from the
North Pole through the South Pole, and it tilts because of the combination
of forces at work on the earth, from the pull of the sun and the moon.
This means that during part of the year the North Pole tilts nearer the sun,
and at other times further away from the sun. When the Northern
Hemisphere is turned to the sun the countries north of the equator have
their hot, summer weather, while the countries of the Southern Hemisphere,
who are further from the sun at this point, have their winter weather.

WHY DO HUMMINGBIRDS
HUM?
These small birds are very beautiful
and can be found in dense jungles
or by the sides of tropical mountains,
mostly in Colombia and Equador.
The humming noise they make is
caused by the beating of their wings
as they hover over the flowers where
they gather nectar with long bills.
The hummingbird's wings can beat
up to seventy-five times in a single
second, enabling the bird to reach
speeds of fifty miles an hour! During
the courtship flights of the hummingbird, its wings can beat as fast as two
hundred times a second.

WHAT IS A "BLUE PETER"?

The "Blue Peter" is a blue flag with
a white square in the centre. A ship
always flies this flag when leaving
port to sail. The flag stands for the
letter P - for Peter - in the international code of signals.

WHY DO WE SNEEZE?
Sneezing is a reflex action to expel
air very quickly from the nose and
mouth. W e want to sneeze when our
mucous membranes are irritated
or swollen by a cold. During the sixth
century there was a plague in Italy,
so Pope Gregory the Great decided
that prayers be said against sneezing, and this began the custom of
saying 'God Bless You' after a

The Alamo is a building in San Antonio, Texas. It was the chapel of a

Franciscan mission in 1718, but by 1835 was sometimes used as a fort
as the mission had long since left. In 1835 a band of American settlers in
Texas - not yet part of the United States - revolted against the Mexicans,
who at that time owned Texas. Davy Crockett came to help the American
settlers and they took the Alamo building as their fort. Then the Mexican
general, Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, marched on San Antonio with
4,000 men. In the Alamo only 180 men waited, among them Colonel Travis
and James Bowie. The Mexicans surrounded the fort, but the men in the
Alamo held them back for thirteen days. Finally the Mexicans blasted a hole
in the Alamo wall and got in that way. But as the Mexican troops poured
into the old mission, the defenders of the Alamo went on fighting until
every one of them was killed. The Mexicans were subsequently beaten
in another battle during the next six months.
27

D O YOU KNOW .
. . . THE MEANINGS OF THESE CATTY
SAYINGS?
1. All cats love fish
but fear to wet their
paws.

4. To be made a
cat's paw of.

This is said of anyone who

is very keen to obtain
something, but less keen to
go to the necessary risk or
trouble.

This means to be made to

do another's dirty work for
them, and is supposed to
have originated in the story
of a monkey who, wanting
some chestnuts that were
roasting in the fire, used
the paw of his friend the
cat to pull them out, rather
than his own.

2. Before the cat

can lick her ear.

3. To fight like
Kilkenny cats.

This means 'never', since

no cat could ever manage
to lick its ear.

This means to fight very

determinedly until
completely exhausted. It is
said that when the town of
Kilkenny was occupied by
troops during the 1798
Irish rebellion, some
soldiers amused themselves
by tying two cats together
and throwing them over a
clothes-line to fight. When
an officer came to see what
was going on, a soldier
hurriedly cut the cats free
by severing their tails. The
explanation given for the
two bleeding tails on the
line was that the'cats, in
fighting, had devoured
each other all but the tails.

5. Who is to bell
the cat?
This means: who will risk
his life to save another's?
Again the source is an old
fable, on-this occasion the
story of an old mouse who
suggested a bell was hung
on the cat's neck to warn
of its approach. This was
fine, said a wise young
mouse, but who was to
undertake the job of
attaching the bell?

. . . AND OF THESE FELINE EXPRESSIONS?

1. Cat's cradle.

2. Cat's eyes.

This is a string game for

two, popular with children.
It is thought the name
might come from the word
'cratch-cradle', meaning a
manger of the sort in which
Jesus was laid. 'Cratch'
comes from the French
word for cradle, which is
'creche'.

These are reflectors which

are positioned along our
roads to help drivers when
it is dark. The name clearly
comes from the fact that all
that can be seen of a cat in
the dark is its large
gleaming eyes.

3. The cat's
pyjamas.
This means 'the best' or
'first-rate', and was
originally an American
expression. 'The cat's
whiskers' is used in the
same way, and has the
same meaning.

4. Cat's whisker.
This was the name given to
the fine wire in a 'crystal'
wireless set that actually
made contact with the
crystal.
29

FACT OR FICTION?
Many popular beliefs about
animals are taken for granted,
but are they actually based on
the true facts?

An elephant never forgets

Surprisingly this belief does have
some truth in it. Experiments
have shown that, having been
taught a series of tests, an
elephant is capable of remembering more than three quarters of
them a year later. Elephants,
while extremely slow learners,
undoubtedly do have good
memories.

Red rags enrage bulls

This belief is something of a nonstarter since bulls, like most
mammalswith the exception of
men and monkeysare colour
blind. Although matadors traditionally use red cloaksperhaps
to hide the bloodstainsother
colours make bulls angry just as
effectively. It is the movement of
the cloak, rather than its being
red, that enrages bulls.

Rats desert a sinking ship

It has long been thought that rats
possess a prophetic power,
capable of foreseeing the sinking
of a ship. Useful a sign though
this would be, rats, like humans,
only desert ships when the water
rises inside and threatens to
drown them. Since rats generally
live in the holds of ships they
would doubtless have an early
warning, but this would be based
on sea water rather than a sixth
sense.

Music charms snakes

Believe this at your peril! Snakes
are in fact deaf, having no ears,
but they respond to the rhythmic
vibrations of a charmer's foot
tapping the ground and the
swaying of his body and pipe.

30

ASKING ABOUT ANIMALS

1. What is an accentor?

2. Where are penguins

found, the Arctic, the
Antarctic, or both?

3. What is a briard?

4. Some animals sleep right

through the cold winter
months. What is this long
sleep called?

5. Which is the only bear

still found in South
America?

6. What is the smallest

breed of dog?

7. What type of creature is

the hammerhead?

8. O n e way to tell the

difference between Indian
and African elephants is to
compare the size of their
ears. Which has the larger
ears?

9. Where did the golden

hamster, now popular as a
pet, originate?

10. What does the word

hamster mean?
Answers
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peajdsapim 'piiq b si jj {

LAST W O R D S

Which famous people had these as their last words?

1. "Die, my dear doctor?

That's the last thing I shall do."

4. "Qualis artifex pereo."

(What an artist the world is losing in me.)

2. "Kiss me, Hardy."

5. "Treason! Treason!"

3. "Is that you, Dora?'

6. "Light, more light!"

ANSWERS

345309 '9

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:als

M V ^poMspjo/Yi :uosia|vj z

:uo}Siauj|e(j \

IS IT TRUE THAT . . .
. . . Birds Hibernate?
Certain birds do hibernate, one of them
being the poor-will, which is found in the
western parts of the United States. In the
1940s a scientist found a poor-will in a
torpid state and ringed it. He found that the
bird returned to the same place in
successive winters and slept until spring; it
hibernated. How is it able to survive? When
they are not active the body working slows
down, as does the body temperature, so
that a little stored fat will provide enough
energy to keep the bird alive until spring
(and a fresh food supply) comes. Poor-wills
are rarely seen, being nocturnal in habit,
and equipped with very effective
camouflage markings. They feed on moths
and beetles, flying with their beaks wide
open, scooping up food as they go. During
the day they sleep among rocks, for they do
not make nests, laying their eggs in a simple
scrape in the ground.

. . . Moles Are Blind?

Moles are not completely blind, though their'
eyesight is very poor. This is because they
spend almost all their time underground,
only venturing above the ground at night.
For this reason their eyes have become
somewhat unnecessary, the tiny eyes being
almost hidden by fur. The mole digs a series
of underground tunnels and corridors, and
runs along them, sniffing out its food of
worms, insects and other small creatures. Its
appetite is enormousit eats its own body
weight in food every day. Imagine a 10
stone man eating 10 stones of food every
day!

. . . The Upside-Down Catfish

Swims Upside-Down?
The upside-down catfish can swim normally
or on its back. It usually swims upside-down
so that it can feed on the surface of the
water more easily. Even the fish's
colouration is adapted: it has a dark belly
and a light back, the opposite of a normal
fish's camouflage system.

. . . Millipedes Really Have

1,000 Legs?
Although millipedes hold the world record
for the largest number of feet, it is unlikely
that any have as many as 1,000. Moulting
occurs regularly throughout a millipede's
life, and after each moult an extra body
segment grows, complete with two pairs of
feet, so that as it grows older a millipede
grows longer and longer, and has more and
more pairs of feet! Although a millipede's
many feet are well co-ordinated, it does not
move quickly, and is only active at night,
spending its days hiding in the soil or under
stones, feeding on dead leaves and plants
that grow in damp places. There are
hundreds of species of millipede, most of
them to be found in Africa, though the
largest is to be found in the Seychelles. It
grows to 12" in length!

. . . Hedgehogs Are Found in the

Desert?
Certain species of hedgehog are able to live
in desert areas. They resemble our own
common hedgehog, but are much smaller,
growing to a length of between 6 and 9
inches. Found in the dry, arid areas of
Africa and Asia, the desert hedgehog
spends most of the daylight hours in a hole
dug in the ground so that it is reasonably
cool, emerging at night to go in search of
foodinsects. The hedgehog is remarkably
well adapted to the harsh desert life, being
able to survive for more than two months
without food or water.

SNAKES ALIVE!
Is the blind snake
really blind?
Blind snakes live
underground and are
practically blind, though
perfectly suited to their
subterranean existence,
being smooth, shiny and
slender so that they move
easily through the ground.
The heads are bony, unlike
other snakes, so that they
can excavate tunnels with
them. There are many
species, none growing
much longer than about
7".

How did the

boomslang get its
name?

Which is the
longest and heaviest
of all snakes?

Boomslang is the Afrikaans

word for 'tree snake'.
Found in southern Africa, it
lives in the trees, climbing
swiftly and nimbly. It eats
small reptiles, animals and
birds, and will steal eggs
and young birds from
nests, killing its prey with
very powerful venom.

That record goes to the

anaconda of South
America. They spend most
of their time immersed in
water, and feed on small
deer and other mammals,
strangling their prey by
coiling around it, then

Do snakes live in
the sea?
Many snakes have adopted
aquatic habits, and are
never seen on dry land.
One of them, the tentacled
snake, is often found in
fishing nets on the coast of
Thailand. It is not a true
sea snake, but nevertheless
is never seen on dry land,
feeding on small fishes,
molluscs and crustaceans.
The two tentacle-like
growths on the snout give it
its name. The function of
these growths is not
known, though some
scientists believe that they
may have something to do
with the detection of prey.

opening their huge and

flexible jaws and swallowing
the animal whole.
Anacondas longer than
20'are quite common,
though there have been
claims of snakes as long as
40'. One snake shot in the
Orinoco River was
measured at 37 V2', but
before it could be
authenticated, the snake
recovered and escaped!

LANGUAGES OF THE W O R L D
What alphabet is
used by deaf people?
Understanding what somebody else is saying when you are deaf can be an impossible
task, making the deaf person feel isolated
and alone. Dumb people, unable to speak,
are similarly denied the basic human
medium of communication. F i n g e r spelli n g is a method of talking to someone using a signalling code, similar to semaphore.
The two-handed method used in Australia,
Britain, Burma, India and some other countries, utilises relative positions of the hands
and fingers to spell different letters. It is
quicker to learn than the one-handed
method and can be seen more clearly at a
distance.

Which European language

has the largest vocabulary?
The E n g l i s h language is spoken by approximately 400 million people, making it
the second most-used language on Earth,
though it is generally agreed that it is the
richest of the world's 5,000 languages. Four
hundred years ago English was spoken only
by the inhabitants of the British Isles, but today more than half the world's magazines,
newspapers and scientific journals are
printed in English.
In 1066 the language only had a
vocabulary of about 30,000 words, whereas
modern English is estimated to include
some 500,000 words, of which only
200,000 are in current use. An average
person today knows and uses at least
10,000 words and can understand a conversation of up to 322 words a minute. In
conversation the word T is most used, while
in writing it is 'the'.

W h o spoke Latin and

what is it used for today?
L a t i n was originally spoken by people living in and around Rome, taking its name
from one of the tribes living in the Tiber
Valley, the Latini. The Latin that is used or
studied today comes from a period several
hundred years later, by which time it had
become a refined and dignified language used mainly by educated Romans, such as administrators, orators and writers. A more
vulgar version was used by the uneducated
masses.
Latin was the principle language of
Europe for hundreds of years, and its influence on modern European languages is
immense, although it has not been in
general use itself since the Middle Ages.
Latin is widely used for scientific and legal
terminology.

Which language is
spoken by most people?
Over 500 million people speak one of the
M a n d a r i n C h i n e s e dialects. Chinese is
unlike most other languages as it has no
alphabet, but uses instead several thousand
characters or symbols, each of which conveys one complete idea. Each character
has only one syllable, and most words are
made up of two or more characters. A
character can change its meaning by the
way it is pronounced or by changing its
position in a sentence. It is only in the last
hundred years that ways have been invented to write Chinese in the Roman
alphabet.

35

CANALS
The Canals of Britain
It's quite likely that you live quite near to a canal though you might not know it. Even today, a huge
complex of canals criss-crosses Britain, although many
of them are overgrown now. But once canals were the
backbone of Britain's prosperity, carrying goods of all
kinds from place to place efficiently and quickly. The
tragedy is that these canals were allowed to decline
when roads and railways developed, so that now the
country owns many stretches of canals with little or no
use - they're too old and decayed. Recently new
interest has been shown, however, with teams of young
workers renovating the canals and people holidaying in
barges, seeing from a new angle the incomparable
beauty of the countryside - from the canals!
It all began in 1761 with the opening of the
Bridgewater canal in Lancashire. This was the brainchild
of the Duke of Bridgewater and it nearly bankrupted
him; but after its opening the canal began to recoup the
Duke's investment handsomely. The engineer was
James Brindley, whose genius was to make the canal
system such a success. In fact, the Bridgewater canal
was so profitable that in the next seventy years some
5,000 miles of waterways were opened. It wasn't until
Thomas Telford brought his brilliant mind to work,
though, that canals stopped following the sometimes
extremely tortuous contours of the land, in favour of
aqueducts and embankments.
During this reckless boom time of canal-building,
many fortunes were won and-lost, but despite the

adventures and the disasters, Britain was left with a

system of inland waterways which covered just about
every area of the country. It was during the nineteenth
century that the canals reached their peak of success,
and were largely responsible for the industrial
greatness Britain enjoyed at that time. Unfortunately
railways came with progress and proved to be a far
more dangerous rival than the inconvenient roads had
been. It wasn't only their speed, it was also the practice
of the railways to buy up stretches of canals only to let
them run down, that finally brought the canal system to
its knees.
Nowadays there are still boats on the canals - and
some do carry freight, but the general atmosphere is
one of dereliction. Narrow boats, carrying goods,

usually travel in pairs - the 'motor boat' and the 'butty',

and between them can carry up to fifty tons. There are
still the gaily-painted traditional narrow boats which
are lived in all the year round by families who have
made the canals their life; and who can blame them, for
they see much more of the unspoiled, peaceful scenery
than car and rail-travellers are ever likely to see!
The situation does seem more hopeful, however, with
the work of the Inland Waterways Association and its
efforts to get many canals open for public use again and succeeding! One of their most spectacular feats
was the clearing of sixteen miles (on which stood
thirty-six locks) of the Stratford-on-Avon canal, which
had been virtually derelict since 1930.
Canals to visit are the Staffordshire and

Worcestershire canal, especially at Caldwell Lock,

near Kidderminster - the surroundings here are really
picturesque - and the Grand Union canal at Wolverton,
where you can see an aqueduct standing thirty-five feet
above the River Ouse. This was built in 1811, and is still
in use!
Canals are still a way of life for many people.
Anglers use the waterways regularly, and there are
reputedly more than three million of them! Apart from
this, canals are often a relief from city landscapes even the dilapidated ones! - for walking the dog or just
taking some air. It does seem a shame that these
invaluable amenities couldn't be repaired completely;
the advantages would be enormous, for both industry
and recreation.
37

W.H. Fox T a l b o t

PHOTO FILE

Who coined the term

Photography and what
does it mean?

J.N. Niepce

The word was coined by the

astronomer, Sir John Herschel, in
1839, and replaced the term
'Photogenic Drawing' used by
William Talbot, an English amateur
scientist who had been experimenting
along his own lines, parallel to
Daguerre.
'Photography' is from the Greek:
Photos (light) + graphos (writing). It
therefore means 'writing with light'.
Herschel also coined the terms
'negative' and 'positive', as the two
stages in producing a photograph.
His friend Talbot was the first
person to reverse negative
photograms - photographs made
without a camera, by simply laying
objects on a piece of photographic
paper and exposing the paper to
light - to obtain a positive picture on
a second sheet of light-sensitized
paper.

Who invented Photography

and when?
There was no single 'inventor' of
photography. It evolved through the
combined work of many people of
many different nationalities.
One Frenchman, Joseph
Nicephore Niepce (1765-1833),
often gets the credit, however, since
he was the first to obtain a picture
'from nature' with a camera, in the
modern photographic sense. He was
also the first to 'fix' a picture, so that
it did not immediately deteriorate,
though the result was still not as
permanent as with a present-day
'fixer'.
A plaqup near the estate where
Niepce used to live reads: "Dans ce
village Nicephore Niepce inventa la
Photographie en 1822". Experts,
having examined the metal plate
used in this first photograph, think
1826 is probably more accurate.
It was in 1839, when the painter
Jacques Daguerre's process was
made public, that the subject of
photography became known.
Daguerre had modified Niepce's
work to produce his daguerreotype.
It was recorded that "opticians' shops
were crowded with amateurs
panting for daguerreotype
apparatus, and . . . everyone wanted
to record the view from his
window."
38

Daguerre's
apparatus

L . J . M . Daguerre

How was the word

camera derived and what
are or were: (a) camera
obscura; (b) camera lucida;
(c) detective cameras;
(d) candid cameras?
'Camera' is again from the Greek:
'kamara', meaning 'anything with an
arched cover'. In fact, in later cameras
this was superceded by a box
structure - basically a light-tight box
with a light-sensitive film at one end,
and a lens or pinhole at the other.
It is fairly simple to make a pinhole
camera, but nowadays most
cameras are a lot more
sophisticated.

(a) c a m e r a obscura

is a n a p p a r a t u s

Camera Obscura

which projects an image of a

distant object onto a wall or screen.
The term means 'dark-room'. It was
used by artists in Renaissance times
and at first, light was introduced
simply by a hole in a wall. Then in
1550, a lens was introduced. The
image projected was always
inverted.

(b) camera

lucida

is t h e t e r m f o r a

Light Box (its other name) invented by

Natan Lerner. The box should be at
least four feet long, three feet wide
and two feet high, and the bigger the
better.
One side is open and the inside is
painted black. A camera lens is
inserted into a central hole at one
end, and objects can be placed over,
or spotlights shone through, other

holes at the sides of the box.

Tobacco smoke, for instance, can
be puffed in to produce shafts of
light, enabling one to photograph
light in purer form; and light can be
directed and filtered to obtain
different desired lighting effects and
moods.
The Light Box was also used by
artists.

(c) detective cameras (early hand

cameras) were so called because
'surreptitious' shots could be taken
with them. This was because of the
size of them. They became a craze,
and were often disguised as paper
parcels or pieces of luggage, or
hidden in people's hats.
One of the first commercial makes
of camera was George Eastman's
first Kodak box camera in 1888.

An early d e t e c t i v e

FOR SEASON

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(d) candid cameras were so called

because (using only available light i.e. no flashlight) they could take
pictures indoors without the subject
knowing his picture was being taken.
This development was made
possible by the improved quality of
lenses in the 1920s, meaning 'what
you could see you could photograph'.
The Leica was the first candid or
miniature camera, in 1924, and it was
also the first to use 35mm film.
The detective camera, and now
the candid camera, were the
earliest examples of recording
moments of 'life passing by', which is
the basis of modern photojournalism.

35 &. 38 LOWER MARSH,

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39

STRANGE-SOUNDING SPORTS
What sort of sport
was Savate?

What is Shorinjikempo?

What equipment is
used in Skiyaking?

It was a French form of

kick boxing, popular in the
18th century. It has now
died out, but contributed
much to the style of French
boxing now being revived
as one of the modern
martial arts.

This is one of the most

popular Japanese martial
arts, with around a million
people practising the sport.
Over 2,000 years old, it
was originally introduced
into China by a Buddhist
monk from India.
The uniform for the sport
is the traditional black robe
of the Chinese monks, and
although there are
superficial similarities with
ju-jitsu, with similar holds
and throws being used,
Shorinji-kempo has an
emphasis on balancing the
active side with the calm of
meditation.

To skiyak, you need two

narrow, elongated boats
(like kayaks) which are
worn like skis. There is an
opening for each foot
rather like an air-filled
pocket, and these pockets
help to keep you stable.
The idea is to push
forwards with each foot
alternately, getting up
speed with the aid of a
double-bladed paddle. On
running water with a
favourable current, it is
possible to reach 30 mph.
The skiyaks are made of
polyester resin, and are
unsinkable.

Where would you

come across
Spelunking?
In caves, for this is another
name for caving, coming
from the old English word
'spelunk' (meaning cave).
This is a non-competitive
sport, taken up for fun and
for the enjoyment of the
natural underground beauty
of the caves. However, it
can be dangerous and
should always be done in
groups. Proper equipment
is essential, especially
sturdy boots, warm and
waterproof clothing (caves
are often damp and chilly
even in summer), lights,
ropes, a first-aid kit and
food.

What kind of people

would take part in a
bout of S u m o ?
Most likely huge Japanese
men, weighing as much as
25 stone, for Sumo is the
traditional form of
Japanese wrestling and, as
far as its fans are
concerned, the larger the
contestants the better!
At the beginning of a
bout, the wrestlers spend a
few minutes alternately
throwing salt (a special
ritual), stomping, squatting
and glaring at each other.
Then, when physical
contact begins, the aim is
to drive the opponent out

of the ring, or to throw him

to the ground.
Although Sumo is one of
the most popular Japanese
sports, it is largely a
spectator sport, with less
than 1,000 active
participants. Wrestlers are
often recruited as young as
twelve years old, and then
housed in a sort of
monastery where they
undergo intensive training
while serving their elders.

41

PEOPLE AND PLACES

What was Tasmania
originally called?

This island, lying off the coast of Southern

Australia, was discovered by a Dutchman,
Abel Tasman, in 1642. Sent by the
governor of the Dutch East Indies (presentday Indonesia), Tasman first called the
island Van D i e m e n ' s Land in his honour,
and sent the ship's carpenter to swim ashore
and erect a pole claiming the place for the
Dutch East India Company. It was the
British who renamed the island Tasmania in
1885. Regrettably, European
settlersincluding many convicts
succeeded in causing the deaths of every
last native aborigine on the island by 1876.

What Country,
discovered by a N O R W E G I A N ,
was named by a GERMAN
after an ITALIAN?
It was an odd chance of fate that neither of
the two disputed discoverers of America,
Leif Ericson or Christopher Columbus, gave
his name to the new continent. The Italian
geographer, A m e r i g o Vespucci,
commanding two Spanish ships under the
Portuguese flag, explored in detail a
considerable stretch of the east coast of
South America between 1497 and 1501.
He described the continent as 'a new
world', and this term so inspired the
German publisher Waldseemuller, that when
he produced a world map in 1507 he
labelled the southern land mass 'America'.
Once it became clear that the northern and
southern land masses were one continent,
the whole of it became known as America.

Which African State

has had three names
within the last twenty years?
For the last seventy years this country in
Southern Africa was called S o u t h e r n
R h o d e s i a ; when Northern Rhodesia
became Zambia in 1964, it resorted simply
to R h o d e s i a , as it had been known when
Cecil Rhodes, the British colonial statesman,
had originally united the Matabele and
Mashona tribes under one colony. With the
introduction of the first modern black
government in 1979, however, the country
was renamed Z i m b a b w e R h o d e s i a , after
a well-organised and flourishing African
civilisation which ruled Rhodesia more than
1,000 years ago. The first black president,
Josiah Gumede, is an ancestor of Chaka,
the legendary 19th century Zulu chief.

Which Middle Eastern

State is named after
a Biblical Character?
The state of Israel was established in 1948.
In Biblical times the leader of the Jewish
faith, Abraham, settled his followers in
Palestine. They belonged to a group of
tribes known as the Hebrews, who are
sometimes called Israelites, because Jacob,
Abraham's son, is said by the Old
Testament to have been given the name
I s r a e l by God. Many Jews fled from
Palestine because of persecution by the
Romans, but in the late nineteenth century
Jewish settlers returned to live in Palestine,
and this led to the creation of modern
Israel.

W H O WAS PILTDOWN MAN?

Piltdown Man was said to be
proof of the missing link in the
evolutionary chain, bridging the
gap between ape and man or
was he?
One day in 1908 amateur archaeologist
Charles Dawson was walking on Piltdown
Common, just outside the village of
Fletching in Sussex, England. Always on
the lookout for interesting fossils, he noticed
workmen digging in a gravel bed, moving
gravel that evidently dated from the early
Ice Age. He urged them to watch for
anything unusual, and was delighted when
they reported finding a piece of skull.
Dawson and other diggers found more
pieces of skull in the years that followed, as
well as flint and bone tools, animal bones
and teeth, and an ape-like jawbone. They
were all found in the early Ice Age level of
the gravel, and Dawson naturally supposed
that the bones dated from that time.

Were the bones authentic?

One person who believed so was Sir Arthur
Smith Woodward, Keeper of the
Department of Geology at the British
Museum, and a friend of Dawson's. He was
very excited by the find, and in 1912
announced to the world that the skull and
jawbone were from the same creature, the
'missing link' between ape and man.
Piltdown Man became famous, for most
people believed that the bones were the
earliest ever discovered, and lengthy papers
and books were written on the subject. Sir
Arthur gave many lectures, backed up by
an artist's impression of the Piltdown Man,
hairy, with a flat nose, low brow and
chinless jaw. Though some experts doubted
the authenticity of the bones, they were
definitely in a small minority, and for the
next forty years Piltdown Man was accepted
as genuine.

How were the bones proved to

be fake, after all?
It wasn't until after the Second World War
that a new method for testing the age of
fossils was discovered. Based on the idea
that anything which lies in the ground
absorbs fluorine from water, and that the
older that thing is the more it will contain,
scientists could date fossils quite accurately.
The Piltdown bones were subjected to the
tests, and a dumbfounded world learned
that they were fakes. Further tests, using the
Carbon-14 method, confirmed the facts.

But how were the bones faked?

The pieces of skull were human, but they
were only a few thousand years old. The
jawbone was not that of the so-called
Piltdown Man, but that of an ape, crudely
stained so that it looked much older, and
matched the skull. And the animal bones
and teeth? One proved to be a fossilised
elephant tooth from Tunisia; another a
hippopotamus tooth from Malta! Even the
flint tools were found to have been given a
appearance of age, and the bone tool
(which had been considered unique) was
found to have been shaped with a modern
tool.

W h o faked the Piltdown Man?

That is something which remains a mystery
to this day. Piltdown Man was a
giganticand very successfulhoax, but as
to who perpetrated that hoax, we do not
know. Only one thing is certainthe socalled 'Piltdown Man', the missing link in

THE ROYAL MAIL

Every time you post a letter, it is
carried by the Royal Mail. But has
this always been true?
The answer is nothe original Royal Posts
were only used for state business, and other
letter-writers (then mainly monks, scholars
and merchants) had to make their own
arrangements.
Messengers were used to deliver the
king's letters as long ago as the Middle
Ages. They rode on horseback, and were
chosen for their speed, honesty and
bravery. Not only did they have to get the
mail delivered quickly, they also had to
protect it from frequent attacks by
highwaymen.
In the sixteenth century the messengers
began to carry private letters, and they were
given uniforms and called postboys'. Then,
from 1609 onwards, all post had to be
carried by the Royal Mail.
Unfortunately, the roads at this time were
atrocious, so fresh horses were kept for the

W h ^ t was the first

postage stamp?
When were the first
charges made for
delivering letters?
When and where was the
first pillar-box erected?

44

postboys at inns every twenty miles along

the routes. They were also allowed to cross
private landeven farmers' crops, although
often the irate farmers tried to force them
off.
As more people learnt to write, and the
volume of post increased, letters were
carried in mail-bags, and delivered to postinns around the country. In a way these
were the forerunners of our post offices, just
as the postboys preceded our postmen, and
the mail-coaches preceded our Royal Mail
vans and travelling post-offices.
The first mail-coach ran in 1784, from
Bristol to London, and within twenty years
there were two hundred coaches, running
to a timetable, and each carrying an armed
guard.
They had 'Royal Mail' painted on their
sides, just as the mail trains did when they
were introduced in Victorian times, and just
as the fleet of about 26,000 Post Office
vans do today.

The first postage stamp

was the Penny Black,
showing the head of
Queen Victoria, the
reigning monarch of the
time. It was issued in
1840 and, as its n a m e
suggests, cost one penny.

It wasn't until 1855 that

the first pillar-box was put
up. This is what it looked
like. It was on the corner
of Farringdon Street and
Fleet Street, in London.
As you can see, it was 5
furlongs 213 yards from
the General Post Office
and to give you an idea
how far that is, there
were 8 furlongs in a mile
(one furlong = 220
yards).

The first charges for

delivering letters were
made in 1708, when a
halfpenny post began in
London. This was before
both stamps and pillarboxes, and postmen
c a l l e d letter

carriers

walked through the

streets to collect the
letters and the
halfpennies. They used to
ring a bell to let people
know they were coming.

So m u c h for the past, but

what happens to a letter
you post now?

This is the sort of pillarbox we have now, and

unless you happen to post
your letter at a Post
Office, this will be the
beginning of its journey. A
plate on the front of the
box gives the times at
which a van will come to
collect the mail.

The mail bags are taken

The first machine is

t o t h e l o c a l sorting

c a l l e d a segregator.

office,

unloaded from the van,

and put on a

chain

conveyor, which takes

them off up to the sorting
machinery.

and

has a moving belt onto

which the contents of the
bags are tipped. It then
separates letters from
packets, and bigger
envelopes from smaller
ones.

When they have been

sorted by size, the next
step involves the stamp,
and is carried out by a
machine called ALF. This
s t a n d s f o r automatic

letter

facer, and ALF's first task

is to arrange all the
letters so that their
stamps are in the top
right-hand corner, a job
known as facing.

Letters then used to be

sorted by hand, into the
pigeon holes
corresponding to the
various areas of delivery,
whether towns or rural
districts, in this country
or abroad. But in the
most up-to-date sorting
offices, this stage is now
semi-automated, using
coding

desks

a n automatic

attached to
letter

sorter.

ALF also sorts first-class

from second-class mail,
by 'reading' the different
phosphor bands running
through each stamp. Y o u
can just see these bands if
you look at a stamp in
the right lightenough at
least to see the different
bands on first and second
class stamps.

When ALF has turned all

the letters the right way
round, it puts a postmark
on each stamp, so that it
cannot be used again.
This is called cancelling.
Each postmark indicates
where and when the letter
was posted.

A man sits at each desk

and operates a keyboard,
instructing the machine to
put coded phosphor dots
onto each letter,
corresponding to the

Letters for each

destination are now
bundled together and
bagged, ready for the next
stage of the journey. This
m a y only be a-local
delivery, in which case it
would only involve one
postman, or possibly a
short trip by van.

postcode

on the envelope.

Although we cannot see

them, these dots are
'read' by the sorting
machine, which sends
each letter into its correct
pigeon hole.

'Ml

The operation will only

become fully automatic
when some way is found
for people to write onto
an envelope something
which a machine can
understand, without need
for coding in between.

46

For longer journeys, mail

usually goes by train,
during the night, arriving
very early the next
morning. S o m e mail goes
by ordinary passenger
trains, but at night there
are special mail trains,
known as
travelling-postoffices.

Letters going abroad

travel either by sea or by
air. Air mail is quicker,
but also more expensive
except to nearer countries
on the Continent, where
all mail goes by air.

Letters c a n be

sorted en route, to save

time on arrival.

O n e way or another, the

mail bags eventually
reach the sorting office at
the far end, where letters
are to be sorted into the
various local delivery
areas. This operation,
known as setting in, is
traditionally the job of the
early morning sorter.

However, today sorting

machines can use the
second half of the
postcodes, again by
reading the phosphor
dots, to sort out the mail
street-by-street. (If the
postcode were AX1 4 W A ,
the first half denotes the
larger area, Axborough
the rest locates the
street). This was a job the
postman originally did
himself before setting out
on his round.

Sometimes inland mail

goes by road, for instance
in rural areas where there
is no railway. In the heart
of London, however, the
traffic is often very slowmoving, so the Post
Office has its own
underground railway, with
ten kilometres of track
linking six main sorting
offices and two of the
main line railway stations.

The postman is dropped

off by van at the
beginning of his walk.
This is the n a m e for the
patch one postman
covers, and the specific
route he takes. In fact,
not all postmen
walksome ride bicycles
and others drive vans
(where larger distances
are to be covered,
especially in the country).

When your letter pops

through the door in the
morning, its journey is
over, along with millions
of others delivered that
day. There are nearly
100,000 postmen who
deliver letters to 20
million addresses in
Britain, and if all the
letters posted in one day
were placed on top of one
another, the pile would be
four times the height of
Mount Everest!

47

HOW IT W O R K S

Aluminium

Thermostat
This is a device to control
temperature automatically,
and is usually made of two
different metals joined
together to form a strip.
One metal expands more
than the other when
heated, so, as the
temperature rises, the metal
that expands more
lengthens and pushes the
strip into a curve.
The curve moves away
from an electric contact,
and by doing this, switches
off the supply of electricity.
Then, as the metal cools,
the strip straightens, so that
it touches the contact
again, and switches on the
current.
Hence the thermostat
switches off the electricity
when it is too hot, and on
again when too cold, thus
keeping the temperature
between the two set limits.
Thermostats are often
used in electric irons,
cookers and radiators.

Cold
Steel

Hot

Control
knob
Bimetallic
strip

Heating
element

metal case

Thermos (Flask)
This works using a
vacuum. Indeed it is also
known as a vacuum flask or sometimes a Dewar flask
after the British scientist, Sir
James Dewar, who
invented it in the 1880s.
The name Thermos was
the trade name under
which the flasks were first
sold.
It consists of one glass
vessel, sealed inside
another. The air between
the two has been removed
to form the vacuum. A
cork closes the mouth of
the flask, and there is an

48

Glass vessels
outer metal case to protect
vacuum .
the glass from damage.
Glass, cork and the
vacuum are all bad
conductors of heat. i.e.
heat passes through them
very slowly. O n top of this,
the glass surfaces are
polished (silvered) to make
them even worse radiators
of heat.
Hence these flasks are
able to keep at a constant
temperature for some
length of time, and they
are used to keep cold
liquids cold, or hot liquids
hot.

W H O W A S REMBRANDT?
Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn was
one of the greatest artists in the
world. Born in 1606 in the town of
Leyden, Holland, he created three
hundred etchings, more than two
thousand drawings and over six
hundred paintings, many of which
are priceless masterpieces.
Rembrandt's father was a miller.
After being sent to university in
Leyden at fourteen, Rembrandt
decided he would become a painter
and practised working on canvases
at home, using his brothers and
sisters as models. Then he was sent
to Amsterdam where he studied
under Pieter Lastman, a gifted artist
who had travelled in Italy and was
influenced by Tintoretto. Lastman
himself had a strong influence on
Rembrandt's early work.
In 1625, a young man, Rembrandt
returned to Leyden determined to
make a career for himself there. He
was such a success in his home town
that he was encouraged to return to
the capital, Amsterdam, and settled
there permanently in 1631.
Two years later Rembrandt married
Saskia van Uijlenburgh, daughter of
an art dealer, who appeared in
countless etchings and paintings
during their happy years together. It
was during this time that Rembrandt
became more widely known in
wealthy Amsterdam circles, and
seemed set to enjoy a prosperous life
as an artist. His direct, uncomplicated
style with subtle overtones, and
imaginative use of light and shadow,
made his work as admired then as it
is now. It was his interest in, and deep
understanding of the people he
portrayed that gave his work such
honesty. Among his many subjects he
was fond of religious themes, and
there are also the self-portraits he
painted throughout his life - valuable
in themselves for the light they throw
upon the changing fortunes of
Rembrandt's life, since the artist left
little or no written information about
himself.
Life did not continue so
successfully as before: with the
completion of perhaps his best-

'"i

SB

known work, the Night Watch,

Rembrandt's fame paradoxically
declined. Saskia died, the painting
received savage criticism, and he
was soon close to bankruptcy.
Throughout all this he was still a
painter, and the work produced
during this period, including the
famous self-portrait of 1656,
mirrored his misfortunes, adding

greater depths and majesty to his

masterpieces. In 1656 he did in fact
go bankrupt, and spent the last
decade of his life in poverty, blit he
still continued painting until his death
in 1669. Some of his best works were
completed towards the end of his
life, and now his paintings hang in art
galleries and private collections all
over the world.

W h i c h tree is f a v o u r e d for m a k i n g the best

w o o d w i n d instruments?
The laburnum. This tree, with its lovely hanging
blossoms and delicate leaves, has heartwood (the
wood below the bark which you can see) of a rich,
dark-brown colour which is exceptionally stable and
dense, with good resonance, too. Not thick enough to
be used for construction purposes, laburnum wood is
used to make flutes, oboes and the chanters and
drones for bagpipes.

W h i c h tree's n a m e arises f r o m confusion w i t h

another tree in the Bible, w h o s e fruits e n a b l e d
J o h n the Baptist t o s u r v i v e in the w i l d e r n e s s ?
The locust, a tree native to eastern North America. The
pale grey bark is very rough and the tree has
attractive chains of blossom rather similar to the sweet
pea flower during June. The wood is used for good
furniture. The locust has hard, black peas in pods
which the early settlers in America confused with the
sweet fruits of the real locust tree.

W h i c h tree is a l m o s t a l w a y s f o u n d near w a t e r ?
The alder. It grows by the sides of rivers and lakes, or
beside a water source which has since dried up. Its tiny
seeds have 'wings' to make them water-borne and
will only sprout in damp mud. The roots like swampy
soil and the leaf-fall enriches the land. The alder has a
dark-grey or black bark, deeply cracked and fissured,
and rich green, tooth-edged leaves. The cones, the
alder's most distinctive feature, bear the seeds which
float away on the water to take root elsewhere.

W h i c h tree's berries are used to f l a v o u r gin a n d

can be used in c o o k e r y ?
The juniper. This evergreen tree is small and resembles
a gorse bush with its spiky needles and fragrant grey
bark. Juniper wood is used for small decorative
carving and inlay, but it is the berries which make it
useful. These are distilled into oil of juniper, which is
then used in perfumery and exotic cookery. Another of
its uses was in medicine, but nowadays its main
function is to flavour gin.

W h i c h tree's n a m e derives f r o m the o l d Norse

w o r d ron a n d the Gaelic rhuadan, a n d w h y ?
The rowan. These words both mean red and describe
the rowan's distinctive scarlet berries. The rowan grows
on mountains and in highland regions, and is a small,
sturdy tree with attractive feathery leaves. Rowan trees
are believed to be lucky and were planted to keep
witches away. Their berries are too acid to be eaten
raw, but make delicious jellies.
51

POETS' CORNER
Both Shelley and Byron were poets of the Romantic age,
geniuses of their time. Even today their poetry is read
and appreciated by people all over the world. They led
fascinating lives....

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Shelley was born in Sussex in 1792, and grew up an
imaginative boy living in his own world of makebelieve and drama, until he was sent away to Eton in
1804. There he experienced unmerciful bullying which
left its mark on his temperament, although he was a
good student, if a little unconventional.
He went on to University College, O x f o r d , but was
expelled from there after only five months for
publishing The Necessity of Atheism. He went to live in
London and would not be reconciled with his father,
although his sisters visited him. And it was through
them that he met Harriet Westbrook, who was then
only fifteen.
Before the end of that year, he and Harriet had eloped
to Edinburgh and been married. For two years they
were very happy, travelling around Britain, and
Shelley wrote his first important poem, Queen /Vlab.
In 1813 Harriet bore a daughter, whom they called
lanthe, after the heroine in Queen Mab.
Soon, however, Shelley met Mary Godwin, the
daughter of William Godwin, whose books had
inspired Shelley at Eton. Soon he and Mary were deeply
in love, and in 1814 they escaped to France, but
returned after six weeks to find that Harriet had spent
all Shelley's money. It was only the death of Shelley's
father which kept them solvent, and after settling on an
allowance, Harriet agreed to be separated from
Shelley.
Mary and Shelley travelled on the Continent, after
the publication of a new poem, Alastor, and met Byron
there. Mary also wrote a story that won her lasting
fame - Frankenstein.
Harriet drowned herself in 1816, and Shelley married
Mary Godwin soon afterwards. Two years later they
went back to Italy, and the Shelleys became close
friends of Byron. It was during the last five years of his
life that Shelley produced his best poetry, and while he
w a s in Italy he w r o t e Prometheus
The Skylark

Unbound,

a n d Ode to the West Wind.

The

Cloud,

Learning of

Keats' death in 1821 he wrote Adonais in memory of

him.
52

Only a year later, Shelley was drowned when his

boat was caught in a storm in the bay of Spezia, near
Leghorn. His body was recovered ten days later, and
friends, including Byron, built a funeral pyre on the
beach. Byron couldn't bear to watch and leapt into
the sea, to swim to his boat. Shelley's tomb is now in
Rome, engraved with the words:
"Nothing

of him that doth

But doth suffer a

Into something

fade,

sea-change,

rich and

strange."

George Gordon, Lord Byron

Byron was born in 1788 in London. While he was still a
baby, his father ran away to France and died there
within three years, leaving Byron to be raised by a
mother who was violent towards him.
They went to live in Aberdeen as Catherine Byron was
Scottish, and Byron first went to school there. After the
death of his great-uncle Byron became a Lord at the
age of ten, and they moved to Newstead Abbey, the
family estate near Nottingham. After studying at
Harrow, Byron went to Cambridge. It was during this
time that he published his poems in a book called
Hours of Idleness, which was poorly reviewed.
Coming of age, Byron took his place in the House of
Lords, and then set off on a tour of Greece, Portugal,
Spain and Turkey, beginning his great poem Childe
Harolde. This was an immediate success and when he
came back to London he found he was a celebrity
overnight.

Byron was in debt, and unhappy with his roving life.

He tried to settle down in marriage, but this was a
failure, and after his wife of just one year, Annabella
Milbanke, had borne him a child, she left him. This
caused him great unpopularity and public opinion
turned against him.
Because of this, he left England in 1816 for the last
time, and travelled to Italy, where he became close to
Shelley. He continued writing such great poems as
Don Juan, and when, in 1823, his love of freedom
drew him to Greece, he joined the struggle there as
the Greeks fought to be free from Turkey. Although he
became a hero, and did much to help the Greeks, he
didn't live to see the success of his cause. He died after
catching a fever, and his body was taken back to
Britain. He was buried at Hucknall Torkard, in
Nottinghamshire, in 1824.
53

WORDS, WORDS, WORDS!

You might just be surprised where
our everyday words came from, once
upon a time. Here are a few words
with interesting histories - all you
have to do is work out whether the
origins below are actually true, or
false!

Hawker:
nowadays, this means anyone who
goes from place to place selling
goods, or has a market stall. But once
'hawker' was a word belonging to the
ancient art of falconry and meant a
foot-traveller going around from
castle to castle, selling trained falcons
and spaniels to the noblemen who
practised falconry. So the meaning
hasn't changed too much through the
years!

54

Stetson:

Mews:

everyone must be familiar with this

word, evoking the W i l d West and its
wilder cowboys. A n d even today
many Westerners wouldn't be seen
dead without their Stetsons! The story
behind the w o r d belongs to John B.
Stetson, the son of a Philadelphia
hatter, who went West to try a cure
for his tuberculosis. While there he
made a wide-brimmed hat from
rabbit skin, which attracted a lot of
attention f r o m the ranchers and cowboys. Orders for the hat poured in,
and John B. Stetson made his fortune.

we associate stables and coachhouses with the word 'Mews' - often

very rich land-owners will own
several mews. The Royal Mews stood
where the National Gallery is today
andthey were built forJamesI and VI
on the site of a much older falcons'
outhouse. 'Mews' is still another
descendant from the age of falconry.
The Latin verb is mutare, to change,
and while the falcons were kept in
this outhouse they went through a
'moulting' process, or mewing. These
days, any building or house which
was connected with stables at any
time can be called The Mews' - the
link with birds is well forgotten!

Haggard:
is another old falconry term, and it
described a fierce, untamed falcon
which was kept in captivity by the
falconers but not trained, it would be
over a year old. The w o r d came to
mean fierce and wild, as it changed
to describe other things apart from
birds. And from there it's just a short
distance to the rather unflattering
word we know now!

Big-Wig:
this is slang, meaning someone important - or just pompous. But in the
eighteenth century calling someone
a 'big-wig' was meant to be taken
quite seriously. In those days, everyone wore wigs, even the gentlemen
of the time - and schoolboys wore
wigs and cocked hats! In fact, your
trade or profession could be distinguished by your wig, and the more
important and powerful you were,
the bigger your wig - hence the
expression.

Fed-up
do you ever feel 'fed-up'? Falcons
used to - yes, it's another w o r d we've
taken f r o m that sport. You see,
falconry was called 'the sport of
kings' and some of its expressions
are nearly a thousand years old! O f
course falconry still goes on today,
but it's no longer such an all-important occupation as it once was. But to
go back to being 'fed-up', this was
what a tercel, or male hawk which
had been given a good meal, would
be called, as after eating well the
bird wouldn't feel very much like
flying f r o m the wrist to kill, and sport
would be useless. Through the years
we have come to use the expression
when feeling sluggish or bored there's not much difference there
f r o m what the falcon probably felt!

H a v e y o u d e c i d e d w h i c h stories
w e r e true a n d w h i c h false? Well,
they w e r e all true!
55

LANDMARKS AROUND THE WORLD

STATUE OF LIBERTY
The Statue of Liberty stands, towering
305 feet high over Liberty Island, off
the channel of New York harbour.
France gave the statue to the United
States in 1884 as a symbol of 'Liberty
Enlightening the W o r l d ' .
The project was initiated by Frederic
Bartholdi, a French sculptor, who later
executed the work. Begun in 1847, the

SAN SALVADOR'S
CATHEDRAL
San Salvador is the capital of El
Salvador, the smallest country in the
Western Hemisphere. A tropical
republic, El Salvador lies along the
Pacific Ocean on the west coast of
Central America. It is a beautiful land
of volcanoes, mountain lakes, and
picturesque beaches.

RUINS OF MACHU PICCHU

Machu Picchu, situated about 50
miles north-west of Cusco, in Peru, is
the site of what was once an ancient
Inca city. The stone structures forming the ruins of Machu Picchu stand
on a mountain over 6,000 feet high.
The ruins were discovered in 1911 by
the American explorer Hiram Bingham.

enlarged and completed figure was

assembled in pieces (copper on wood)
on a framework designed by Gustave
Eiffel, builder of the Eiffel Tower. The
robed figure stands 151 feet high. O n
the base of the statue is a poem by
Emma Lazarus, part of which reads:
Give

me your

tired,

your

poor,

Your huddled

masses yearning

The wretched

refuse

Send these,
I lift my lamp

56

beside

to breathe

of your teeming

the homeless,

Inca Indians developed an empire in

South America before the arrival of
the Spaniards. The Inca were conquered by Spanish troops in the
1500s after years of fighting. Inca
civilisation was at its peak between
1450 and 1532, the empire stretching
for more than 2,500 miles f r o m north
to south. It had its centre in the Andes
Mountains of present-day Peru.

tempest-tost,

the golden

door.

free,

shore.
to me.

San Salvador's Cathedral, Spanish

Gothic in style, has a background of
extinct volcanoes. It was built of
w o o d to give it protection from the
earthquakes that frequently strike
the capital.

TAJ MAHAL
The Taj M a h a l which stands at A g r a
in northern India, is actually a tomb,
one of the most beautiful and costly
tombs in the world. The Indian ruler
Shah Jahan ordered it to be built in
memory of his favourite wife, whose
title
Mumtaz-i-Mahal,
meaning
'pride of the palace', gave the building its name.
The Taj Mahal is made f r o m white
marble and rests on an eight-sided
platform of red sandstone. Each side
is 130 feet long. The dome covering
the central part of the building is 70
feet in diameter and 120 feet high.
The Taj Mahal stands in a garden,
where pools reflect the building.
The bodies of Shah Jahan and his
wife lie in a vault below.

THE LOUVRE

TOWER OF LONDON

One of the world's finest museums,

the Louvre in Paris is also the largest
art museum and palace in the world,
and covers almost 50 acres on the
north bank of the River Seine. The
Louvre contains the French Ministry
of Finance and has seven departments holding collections of art treasures, including paintings, sculptures
and examples of the decorative arts.
There are numerous exhibits f r o m
ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.
The Louvre has about 5,000 paintings, covering almost every period of
art, and these works may be seen in
the museum's 140 exhibition rooms
and eight miles of galleries. In the
Grand Gallery, 900 feet long, may
be seen Leonardo's famous M o n o
Lisa. Displayed on the first floor are
masterpieces which include the

The Tower of London, which stands

on the north bank of the River Thames
in London, is a mediaeval castle and
includes an ancient fortress, a prison,
an early Norman chapel and a former
royal residence. The group of buildings is surrounded by a high stone
wall and a moat. The Tower today is a
peaceful place, a showplace and
museum frequented by eager tourists
and sightseers. The Corps of Yeomen
Warders, sometimes referred to as
Beefeaters, help to guard the crown
jewels, which are kept in the Wakefield
Tower. In the museum is an extensive
collection of armour, begun by Henry
VIII. Soldiers from the regiments of
foot-guards usually provide the
Tower's garrison.

sculptures Venus
Winged

Victory

de

Milo

and

of Samothrace,

the
an

ancient Greek Statue.

The first Louvre was built as a Gothic
fort by King Philip Augustus, in the
1100s. The main portions of the
palace were constructed during the
reign of King Louis XIV.

THE PYRAMIDS
The huge structures known as
Pyramids were used by ancient
peoples as tombs and temples. The
most famous Egyptian Pyramids are
the three standing near Giza (or
Gizeh), and these pyramids are
among the oldest monuments built
by man. The largest of them, the
Great

Pyramid,

royal residence. Many famous people,

however, have been imprisoned there.
Sometimes the prisoners were taken
there by boat, entering by the river
entrance known as Traitor's Gate.
Among the famous prisoners to have
been there are Lady Jane Grey, Anne
Boleyn, Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir
Thomas More. The last well-known
prisoner there was William Joyce,
sometimes called 'Lord Haw Haw';
Joyce was confined in the Tower until
his execution for treason in 1946.

The Tower of London holds an important place in English history. The construction of the Tower was started by
William the Conqueror and, until the
reign of James I, the Tower was a

PANTHEON
The Pantheon, standing in the centre
of Rome, is one of the finest and
best-preserved examples of ancient
Roman architecture.
It was built by the Romans as a temple
in honour of their gods; its name
actually means 'of all the gods'. The
original Pantheon was built in Rome
by A g r i p p a in 27 B.C. In 123 A.D.
Hadrian built the great central space
called the rotunda,
subsequently
altered in design by Septimius

Severus and Caracalla.The rotunda,

in the shape of a circle, now forms
the main part of the building. At the
top of the dome, in the centre, is a
window about 30 feet in diameter,
through which comes the only light
entering the building. The magnificent portico (porch) belonged to
Agrippa's original temple, and
across the front of it stand sixteen
great Corinthian columns.

was one of the Seven

Wonders of the ancient world. Built

by the Pharaoh Khufu during the
2,600s B.C., it towers to a height of
450 feet, and the base covers about
13 acres. The second pyramid of the
group, which is 447V2 feet high, was
built by Khafre, who ruled shortly
after Khufu. The third, 204 feet high,
was built by Menkaure, Khafre's
successor. There are about 80
Egyptian pyramids still standing,
most of them in groups on the west
side of the River Nile. The pyramids
were built as royal tombs.
57

A QUESTION OF COLOUR
WHERE IS, AND WHO LIVES IN THE WHITE HOUSE?
The White House is the official residence of the President of the United States of
America. It is a freestone building, painted white, hence its name, and it
stands in Washington, DC. The corner stone of the White House was laid
by George Washington.

WHO OR WHAT IS BLUE

JOHN?
Blue John, named after a miner
named John Kirk who first discovered it in a mine which also bears
the same name in Castleton in
Derbyshire, is a blue fluorspar, a
mineral of calcium fluoride also
known as 'Derbyshire spar'.

WHERE WOULD YOU FIND A BLACK WIDOW?

In tropical America and the southern United States. The Black W i d o w is one
of the most poisonous of all the spiders, the female having a deadly bite
which is not always counteracted by a person being given anti-poison
serum . . . so beware the Black W i d o w !

WHAT IS A 'CLOUDED YELLOW'?

The Clouded Yellow is a butterfly found in almost every county in Britain.
Its name belies its colour as it is orange with black borders, and both sexes
have a black spot near the centre of the forewings and a deep orange spot
in the middle of the hind wings.
58

WHO WAS THE CAPTAIN OF THE GOLDEN HIND?

Sir Francis Drake, who was knighted
on board the Golden Hind by Elizabeth I in April 1581. The ship had
originally been called the Pelican but
it was rechristened the Golden Hind
in 1578 near the straits of Magellan.

WHAT IS A RED LETTER DAY?

Today we say a red letter day is a
special day when something exciting
happens, a day to remember. The
phrase still recalls the days when
calendars marked certain church
days and saints' days in red to make
them stand out from ordinary days,
which were marked in black.

Ik-

21

15*

2 2

l b

2 3

10

1 7

II

18

2k
26

<5*

\z

19

2 6

13

2 0

2 7

7
1

2 8

3 0

31

WHAT IS A GREY GURNARD?

The least colourful of a species of three very unusual European fishes. It
has slate grey colouring with a little green and purple added here and
there. The grey gurnard is also the smallest of the species, a fact which is
rather unfortunate for these small fish as it makes them easy prey for bigger
fish!

WHERE WOULD YOU FIND

A GREEN ROOM?
In a theatre. It is the place where
actors wait near the stage for their
entrance or to rehearse their lines,
and it is so called because long ago
this room was painted green as a
pleasant contrast to the harsh glare
of the stage.
59

FIFTY FASCINATING FACTS

Utterly true but sometimes a m a z i n g i n f o r m a t i o n .

BEWARE O F THE BULL

A bull's front legs are shorter than its back ones,
enabling it to run faster going uphill than down.
PAMPERED PUSSY
Rather than tempt fate, when a party of thirteen
arrives at the Savoy Hotel, London, for dinner, an
extra place is laid for the hotel cat.

Y O U O N L Y LIVE O N C E
There is enough explosive on earth to wipe out mankind
50,000 times.
G A L L O N O F I N K , PLEASE
In pence to the mile, it is cheaper to run a motorbike
than a ballpoint pen.

HELLO, XLZPTZ S P E A K I N G
There is enough telephone cable under N e w York
to reach Venus.
CHEEKY M O N K E Y
An art student in Pretoria who submitted a chimpanzee's pictures instead of his own was a w a r d e d a pass
mark by examiners.

DEEP FREEZE
A lizard discovered inside a block of ice buried 33ft
below ground level in Siberia, was found t o be alive.
G O I N G UP
The three astronauts w h o spent twelve weeks in space
on the Skylab mission had g r o w n t w o inches taller
by the time they returned to Earth.

FISH A N D CHIPS
In Las Vegas some casinos have floating gambling
tables in the swimming pools.
B A R E - F A C E D PIGGERY
At the turn of the century, a shaved bear dressed
in female clothing was exhibited as 'The Pig-Woman',
a fortune-teller whose grunted replies were prompted
by a man beneath the table with a sharp stick.
60

SWEET TEETH
One third of the world's boiled sweets are eaten in
Britain.
OLD S C H O O L TIES
Eighteen of the forty-six Prime Ministers to govern
Britain went to Eton.

PASSING FANCY
Inmates who escaped f r o m Sing Sing prison could rely
on a change of clothes at the home of millionaire
W h i t e l a w Reid, w h o kept t w o suits hanging in an
outside barn for that purpose.
U N S T E A D Y A S SHE G O E S
In 1590 the Royal N a v y beer ration was one gallon
per sailor per day. In 1731 sailors had the choice of
half a pint of rum or a pint of wine.

ARMLESS DEPRESSION?
Squids in captivity often commit suicide by eating
their own tentacles.

OPEN HOUSE
2,500 pints of beer are sold in the House of Commons
bar in London every week.

G I V E GENEROUSLY
Duelling in Uruguay is legal only on one condition that both parties are registered blood donors.
*

B E W A R E O F THE B E A R
W h e n Lord Byron was at Cambridge there was a
rule forbidding students to keep dogs in their rooms.
Byron kept a bear.

BIRTH P A I N S
Although the kiwi and the hen are virtually the same
size, the kiwi's egg is eight times bigger. Kiwis are
the only birds t o hunt by smell.
ZIP!
If all the zips on earth were laid end t o end they
would reach to the moon and back twice.

READY FOR BED

The average double bed requires four miles of walking
and 25 hours work per year.
LIGHT S N A C K
Frank Reese, a prisoner in a Texas jail, was responsible
for a huge turnover in lightbulbs. He had been eating
them. Pressed for a demonstration by television
reporters, Frank downed fourteen bulbs and the
sheriff's sunglasses.

DOLLAR WISE
Anyone wise enough to invest one dollar at 4 per
cent compound interest on the day Jesus was born
would now be worth the equivalent of one hundred
solid gold balls, each one a thousand times as big
as the earth.
PEACE O N EARTH
Just under three quarters of the earth's population
live without radio, television, newspapers
or
telephones.

SILENT M A J O R I T Y
There are thirty dead people for every one living
on earth.
THERMOMETERS OBSOLETE?
If you count the number of times a cricket chirps
in one minute, subtract forty, divide by four and add
fifty, you'll find the temperature Fahrenheit.

PROGRESS
The life expectancy of Swedish men and women is
71.7 years and 75.5 years respectively, the highest
of all civilised countries and virtually the same as
that of Australian Aborigines.
COLOURFUL W O R L D
Apart f r o m humans, monkeys are the only mammals
capable of distinguishing different colours.

S A Y CHEESE
Spacemen visiting other planets would do well not
to smile. The smile is the only gesture man does not
share with other earth animals. To most mammals,
baring the teeth is an act of aggression.
STOP E M I G R A T I O N
M o r e people emigrate from the United Kingdom
than from any other country.

WEIGHTY MATTER
A scientist who weighed people immediately before j
and after death concluded that the human soul
weighs 21g.
FROZEN F O O D
A giant hailstone that landed in Essen, Germany,
had a carp frozen inside it.

FISH A N D SHIPS
Fish kept on board ships get seasick.
EQUAL PAY
Minstrels at the court of King Henry V were paid 1
shilling per day, the same as the Royal surgeon.

R O A R I N G EXPORTS
Lions from Windsor Safari Park in England have been
exported to Africa.
STRICT U P B R I N G I N G
Young men in Malagasy Indian tribes must pay their
fathers for the right to grow taller than them. While
their fathers are alive they cannot shave or eat
animal rumps.

LARGER T H A N LIFE
O j
Western sets in old Hollywood movies were buil^^
smaller than in real life to make the cowboys look
big.
V I N T A G E STUFF
The w o r d vinegar comes from the French vin aigre,
meaning sour wine.

V A M P I R E S TAKE NOTE
American doctors in Florida have noticed that when
the moon is in its second quarter some patients bleed
up to twice as much during operations.
N O GUARANTEE
A Nigerian witch doctor who shot dead a prospective
customer while demonstrating a bullet proof charm
was sentenced to death in 1972.

SUPERTANKERS
The rudder of a giant oil tanker could provide parking
space for nearly fifty cars if laid on its side.
WINDY
Workers on Japanese building sites sometimes
kites to carry bricks up tall buildings.

N O T CATS A N D D O G S
During a freak storm in France, thousands of small
toads rained down on the startled population.
SPIDER DRESSING
High-class barbers in Roman times used to dress
the cuts of their clients with spiders' webs soaked in
vinegar.

S L O W RISERS
Some species of snail have been known to sleep
continuously for four years.
THICK-SKINNED
Although toads are capable of surviving 10,000 mg
of fluoracetic acid, as little as 1 mg. will kill a doa

EARLY START
Female children in the Tiwi Islands in the Pacific are
engaged before they are born. They are married
at birth to the adult of their parents' choice.
WET LOT
The average American uses sixty gallons of water
every day.

M U S E U M PIECE
A coin described as a 'Roman sesterce coin from
between 135 and 138 A.D.' was removed from display
when a nine-year-old boy recognised it as a plastic
medallion given away with bottles of pop.
W H O KNOWS WHAT?
The average woman's brain weighs around 4 oz lighter
than a man's. The brain of Neanderthal man was
bigger than both.

WHY D O SOLDIERS WEAR K H A K I ?

Soldiers w e a r k h a k i for c a m o u f l a g e , of course, t o
ensure that t h e y b l e n d w i t h their b a c k g r o u n d a n d
make t h e m less easily spotted b y their enemies.

In early times camouflage was not so important to

soldiers; fighting at that time was usually hand to hand,
and distinctive uniforms were necessary so that the
combatants could discriminate between friend and foe.
The uniforms were as colourful as possible, and were
covered with feathers, ribbons and other decorations to
give the fighting men a sense of unity, a feeling of
belonging to, and being a part of their own regiment.
But with the invention of the breech-loading gun
and long-range artillery, camouflage became very
important indeed, as the British soldiers fighting in the
American W a r of Independence found to their cost.
Many of the Americans had no uniform as such, and
wore their usual hunting shirts, whose neutral colour
gave them good protection. The British soldiers, in their
red coats and white breeches, presented perfect
targets, and were unable to melt into the landscape.

In the 1840s Lieutenant Harry Lumsden was forming

a regiment of cavalry and infantry in northern India,
and was given permission to arm and dress his men as
he wished. Since their duties would involve skirmishes
with the natives he decided that his men should wear
uniforms the colour of the local ground, so that they
would be inconspicuous, and had cloth specially dyed
locally. It was called khaki after the Urdu word for
dusty, and when Lumsden's regiment went into action
in 1849 they were known as the 'Mudlarks'.

The success of the khaki camouflage led to all

British soldiers being issued with khaki uniform when
they were posted overseas, though colours changed
slightly in accordance with the surrounding countryside.
When the First W o r l d W a r started in 1914 some
cavalry regiments wore their traditional colourful
uniforms, but they soon changed to khaki, the colour of
the mud in the trenches and the dust of the roads they
had to travel.
Today soldiers all over the world dress in khaki, glad
of the protection if affords them. The bright, colourful
uniforms that once glamourized war have disappeared.
65

IS IT TRUE?

Noah's Ark
The Book of Genesis in the Old
Testament tells of a Great Flood
which was God's way of punishing
men for their wicked ways. This flood
destroyed all life, with the exception
of Noah, his family, and those
animals he took with him on the Ark.
No one will ever know if Noah
really existed, or if he really built an
Ark, but what is known is that there
was a great flood in the land known
as Mesopotamia, between the rivers
Tigris and Euphrates, completely
submerging what was to the
inhabitants the whole earth. There
are three proofs of this flood, and the
first lies in another story, the Epic
of Gilgamesh.
66

This story was translated from a

series of stone tablets found during
the excavation of the royal library at
Ninevah, the ancient capital of
Mesopotamia. The story is 4,000
years old - older than the Bible and tells of a great flood sent by the
gods to destroy the human race.
Gilgamesh was warned by one of
the gods, so he built an ark and took
his family and animals on board.
The second proof is the Ancient
Sumerian king-list, compiled around
2,000 BC. This starts with the names
of eight kings, then it states that 'the
flood came', and after the flood 'a

kingship was sent down from the

gods'.
The final piece of evidence was
found in 1929, during Sir Leonard
Woolley's excavations of the Royal
Cemetery in the Euphrates valley. As
he dug down, he discovered various
layers of broken pottery, flints and
the remains of buildings. Then he
came to a layer of clean, water-laid
mud, eight feet deep, and under that,
more pots and flints. This suggested
that there had been a flood with
water at least twenty-five feet deep,
and other excavations in the area
drew the same conclusion.

The Man in the Iron Mask

In the famous novel by Alexander
Dumas, the man in the iron mask is
kept a miserable prisoner in the
Bastille, and is portrayed as the twin
brother of Louis XIV - or maybe
even the king himself.
In fact, there was a masked
prisoner in the Bastille during the
reign of Louis XIV, but his mask was
of velvet and he lived in style and
comfort. He was guarded by two
Musketeers at all times, and they had
orders to kill him if he unmasked. He
was arrested in 1669, and spent the
rest of his life a prisoner, dying
thirty-four years later. He was
forbidden under pain of death to
speak of anything but his everyday
needs, and his name was never
revealed - he was buried under a
false name. W h o was he?
No one will ever know for certain,
but the most likely theory is that the
prisoner was the true father of
Louis XIV. Louis XIII and his queen had
been childless for thirteen of their
twenty-two years of marriage, and
had lived apart for years until
Cardinal Richelieu brought about a
brief reconciliation. Shortly after
this the queen gave birth to a son,
and it is probable that the father was
not Louis but some nobleman, chosen
to make certain that there was a
royal heir. Certainly the young Louis
looked nothing like his father.
The theory goes that the real
father was sent abroad to avoid any
scandal, and when he returned,
perhaps hoping for favours from his
son who was now the all-powerful
'Sun King', he was arrested and
hidden away. He probably looked
too much like the king for comfort.
Louis couldn't bring himself to
murder his own father, so he had
him gaoled for life instead.
But of course, no one will ever
know for sure who the mysterious
masked man was, for his secret was
buried with him.

executing heroes such as William

Wallace. But he never managed to
control Scotland during his reign, and
for many more years Scotland
managed to hold on to her
independence, helped by France, her
old ally, against the English.
There was no love lost between
the English and the French, and in
1337, in the reign of Edward III, the
Hundred Years' W a r began. The
pretext for the war was the
contested succession to the throne of
France: Edward claimed he should
be the next French king. But
underlying this was the bitterness
caused by the French aiding the
Scottish.
The first period of war ended
victoriously for Edward when he
defeated the French at Crecy
and Poitiers, gaining large amounts
of French territory in the process.
Later, however, the war went badly
with him, casting a shadow on the
last years of his reign.
This long war reached its climax
in Henry V's reign, when he routed
the French at Agincourt and forced
the French to recognise him as
successor to the throne. By a twist of
fate, however, Henry died and the
race between the English and the
French began to Reims Cathedral,
where the kings of France were
crowned. The English had with them
the baby Henry VI, while the French,
led by Joan of Arc, had Charles Vl's
son, the 'dauphin'. Joan of Arc
defeated the English and managed
to have the French child crowned
Charles VII.
Less than a few years, after the e n d
of this great and bloody war, another
war raged under P/anfagenef rule the Wars of the Roses. This was a
civil war between the houses of
York and Lancaster, and the issue at
stake was the throne of England. The
existing king, Henry VI, who was to
have been crowned at Reims
Cathedral, had grown up to be a
half-wit. His cousin, Edward the
Duke of York, deposed him and had
himself crowned king as Edward IV.
Supporters of Henry VI took up arms
against him, and the war ended only
in 1481 on the death of Edward.
' Edward's two sons, one of whom
would have succeeded him, were
both killed by Edward's brother

Richard, ruthlessly determined to be

king himself. In fact he did become
Richard III, but hatred rose up
against him and the son-in-law of
Edward, Henry Tudor, defeated
Richard in the battle of Bosworth and
became Henry VII, the first Tudor
king. This year, 1485, saw the end of
the Plantagenet reign.
71

THE INDIANS OF NORTH AMERICA

IROQUOIS

t e p e e

SIOUX

PuEBLO

'Vgo cl

The North American Indians lived in

the USA for thousands of years
before Columbus. From the border
with Canada to the swamps of what
is now Florida countless tribes existed,
each with their own languages,
cultures and ways of life. Some were
hunters, some fishermen, some simpiy
seed-gatherers in the arid deserts of
the west. They were peaceful, like the
Seminole, or Cree; warlike, like the
Sioux. 'Sioux' means 'enemy' in an
Indian language (they called
themselves the Dakota) but this fierce
tribe were feared by many other
American Indians.
72

C,V e ^ e v
Different climates meant Indians
built different homes. The Navaho
had earth-covered log shelters called
hogans. The Pueblo built their 'blocks
of flats' with adobe, sun-dried brick.
The nomad tribes lived in tepees and
wickiups, which could be moved
easily from place to place.

They lived on maize, beans,

pemmican (dried meat and grease),
peppers, tomatoes and ground nuts.
They were the first race to gather
rubber and grow tobacco! They also
hunted buffalo and bison.
The American Indians loved
trading, and would follow long trails
to barter goods and precious metals
for wampum, a kind of shell money.
The chief of the tribe held power but
there was also a council of all men in
the tribe. Before the coming of the
white man war was thought of almost
as a ceremonial game, a test of
bravery, but the battles the Indians
fought later were for their lands and
survival.

SfOUX C H I L D

The North American Indians had

their heroes, too - men like Cochise,
the Apache chief who fought against
the United States for eleven years
before making peace, and Crazy
Horse and Sitting Bull, who both
played decisive parts in the victory of
the Battle of the Little Big Horn in
1876, when the Sioux wiped out the
American forces of General Custer.

Religion was very important, and

many different gods were
worshipped. There was a totem in
each tribe, embodying the spirit of
their clan. The shaman or medicine
man, a kind of religious doctor, cured
sicknesses and wounds with herbal
remedies such as quinine, which is
used in the modern world. There was
a belief that a life existed after death,
and that they would go to the 'happy
hunting ground'.

PN<-V
Indians were skilled at embroidery
- they made clothes from cloth and
sewed animal skins together cleverly
to make coverings, tepees and
saddles - weaving, making baskets,
jewellery, beadwork and pottery.
Music was important and they
made many kinds of instruments:
castanets, drums, rattles, flutes and
pipes, made from bone and cane.
Although they did not write as we do,
they drew picture figures and often
kept records of years on animal
hides. Their languages were intricate
and diverse - often different tribes
had to use sign-language as they
couldn't understand each other.

There were over a million Indians

in America when the mass of
Europeans settled. These people
wanted the Indian lands and pushed
the retreating tribes further and
further west, while the government
made treaty after treaty with the
Indians. As each treaty failed there
were small but savage wars between
the Indians and the new 'Americans'.
Three factors caused, in part, the
downfall of the traditional Indian way
of life: the fact that the settlers had
guns and also horses, both of which
were unknown to the tribes, and
lastly the influx of alcohol, 'firewater'
as the Indians called it, which had a
disastrous effect on the Indian way of
life. All these pressures, and more,
meant that tribal traditions and
standards were broken down and by
the nineteenth century many Indians
were being settled in reservations,
where their children grew up, rootless
and confused about their racial
identity.
73

IS ART YOUR SUBJECT?

1
W h o painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome?
2

W h o p a i n t e d The Artist

in His

Studio?

Nifctv-

3
Which artist specialised in drawings and paintings of Tudor aristocrats,
including some fine studies of Henry VIII?
4
W h o painted the very famous landscape, The

Hay-Wain?

5
This Dutch painter was famous for his use of light and shade,
and among his best paintings are The Night Watch and The Anatomy
Lesson of Professor

Tulp. W h o w a s he?

6
Which French artist made informal pastel studies of ballet dancers,
as in The Dancing

Class?

7
The Laughing Cavalier must be one of the most famous paintings in
the world. W h o painted it?
8
This American artist is one of the most well-known of the 'action
painters', and he uses a drip technique to produce his paintings.
W h o is he?
Check y o u r answers o n page 191
74

IT'S ALL TRUE!

There were only one hundred television sets in the United Kingdom in
November 1936 when the first
public television broadcast went on
the air. N o w there are estimated to
be 96 sets to every 100 people in
some parts of the world.

ro
<D
{

]
o
00

The shark has the most remarkable digestive powers. In its stomach is a
vitriol-like fluid, enabling the fish to digest almost any substance. The
iron on a horse's hoof swallowed by a shark had, when the shark was
caught and cut open, begun to disintegrate. This fluid, spilled on a man's
bare flesh, will remove the skin as if the flesh had been scorched with fire.

\
\

JISfsTare able to t y p e f f r o m 30 - 60 words per minute under test

conditions, but an American typist has been recorded typing 170 words
in one minute. The slowest typists are the Chinese because their written
language, and hence their typewriter, is so complicated that even the most
skilled operator cannot type more than 11 words in one minute.

Do you have trouble with maths at

school? You are not alone. The
Temiar peoples of Malaysia in the
Indian Ocean have no understanding of any number greater than
three! When a number higher than
three is mentioned their faces show
complete bewilderment.

The w o r d 'boudoir' comes from the

French bouder, meaning 'to sulk'.
In eighteeth-century England, men
as well as women had these sulking

75

WHAT WOULD WE D O WITHOUT IT?

SALT
Everyone needs salt to stay alive:
it's absolutely essential to our
systems, and is found in most of the
foods we eat. Britain alone produces t w o and a half million tons
every year - and every ounce is
used up!
In fact, we need salt so much that
when a group of criminals in Sweden
were once given the choice to do
without salt for a month, as an alternative to capital punishment, those
who agreed were dead within the
month! W e take salt very much for
granted these days, but in earlier
times it was very highly prized; wars
were fought simply to obtain salt,
and it is true that as late as this
century the people of Sierre Leone
were willing to sell their families for
salt.
There is a fascinating city made of
salt, carved underground in the salt
mines of Wieliczka, Poland. You can
walk around admiring churches,
monuments, streets and even railway stations - all carved from salt!
And to prove just how important
salt used to be to us, our w o r d 'salary'
comes from the Latin 'salarium',
meaning money for salt.
76

COAL
Coal is something which we all need
in some way or other. W e need coal
to produce heat and light for our
homes and offices; our industry
needs coal to provide many commercial and household goods to
export all over the world.
Different types of coal are often
found in a coalfield. There are
'coking coals', for instance which,
when mined, aren't used for home
consumption but are valuable f o r t h e
blast furnaces of a steel works. Then
there is anthracite, a hard kind of
coal which burns with a very intense
heat.

Coal is still mined today by men

going down into the earth and risking their lives to bring the coal from
the seams up to the surface. Despite
a great many new safety measures
mining is still a difficult and dangerous job. At least the practice of taking
children to work down the mineshafts has ceased now, although pitponies are still used to pull loads of
coal underground.
There are quite a few mines in
Britain, mostly in Wales, Scotland
and North-East England. A world
famous mining area is that of the
Ruhr valley in Western Germany.

WOOL
W o o l has kept us w a r m since very
ancient times when man first domesticated sheep, and even in this age
of synthetic fibres wool still remains
a firm favourite with most of us.
Britain, especially, has a lot of sheep
grazing on the hills of Scotland,
Wales and Ireland, and has a
thriving wool industry.

SOAP
This is something that everyone uses
at least once every day! But about
a hundred years ago soap was so
expensive that only very rich people
could afford it.
Soap is made from different fats
and oils. W e import these oils from
other countries, as we need coconut
and olive oils and whale fats, as well
as some other animal fats. These
oils and fats are all heated up together, with caustic soda, which is an
alkaline solution. Heating these
ingredients produces glycerine, which
is used for other purposes, so this
is separated from the soap mixture.

The soap, which by now has

formed a curd, is boiled again, to
remove all traces of salt. After this,
it is given its perfume and colourings.
Left to cool in long bars, it's then
cut up and w r a p p e d for us to buy.
Soap is really a 'dirt loosener'.
It dissolves in water, so the soap in
in the water surrounds the specks of
dirt on our hands, and loosens them
from the skin. Then, as we move our
hands in the water, the specks float
away with the water, leaving our
hands clean and fresh!

Britain was very important when

it came to wool-producing in the
Middle Ages, and a sack of wool
became a status symbol of wealth,
hence the Lord Chancellor's seat in
the House of Lords becoming known
as the Woolsack. All in all, the sheep
population of the world is about
970,000,000!
W h e n shorn, the sheep's fleece
is matted and oily and unfit for
spinning, so the fleece must be
washed and 'carded' before going
on to the next process. Once spun,
the wool goes on to be woven into
the woollen clothes and rugs, carpets, etc., we are familiar with in the
shops. In the Middle Ages the Flemish
were celebrated weavers; these
days Bradford and Leeds are wellknown for their fine weaving!
77

OTHER TIMES - OTHER FASHIONS

Fashions a r e c h a n g i n g a l l the t i m e , a n d w h a t y o u w e a r t o d a y
m i g h t s e n d a V i c t o r i a n i n t o fits of g i g g l e s ! Just h o w m u c h d o y o u
k n o w a b o u t t h e w a y p e o p l e d r e s s e d in t h e p a s t ? M a n y of t h e i r
e v e r y d a y accessories a n d styles w o u l d b e c o m p l e t e l y u n k n o w n
t o us . . . b u t s o m e others m i g h t b e m o r e f a m i l i a r !

The r u f f was a wide white collar

which originated in Spain in the sixteenth century when it was worn by
everyone - men, women and children! It became high fashion in 1575
and grew so much that by 1586 it
became known as a cartwheel!
Called Duttenkragen
in Germany,
the ruff was made of fine linen,
stitched, folded, starched and stayed
with wire to keep it close to the neck.
Germans wore it until the eighteenth
century and for a long time it was
considered a traditional part of the
Jewish dress.

The c r i n o l i n e was a very famous

fashion for quite a while; it was invented in Paris in 1840. This skirt was
called after the material supporting
it from underneath - and this skirt
needed support, because it was
massive! 'Crin' was the horse hair
in the material, and 'linum' was the
thread used to sew the underskirt.
The crinoline itself was usually made
of much more sumptuous material,
such as satin or silk. Although the
crinoline itself needed vast amounts
of fabric, the fashion was to embellish it with extra flounces, and in
1859 the Empress Eugenie wore a
crinoline with 103 such flounces! To
produce such a wide, flowing effect
the crinoline needed hoops to
support the almost circular line, and
one German factory made so many
crinolines, with 60 yards of wire
hoops in each, that the wire used
would have been sufficient to span
the globe at the equator thirteen
times! The crinoline began to fade
from fashion about 1870; it had many
enemies who protested that the skirt
was ugly, took up too much space
and was cruel to the figure.

78

G a i t e r s were a covering of cloth

or leather for the ankle and lower
ileg, and they made their first appearcance in France during the seventeenth
ccentury, with typical side-fastenings.
They don't have soles, they cover
1
the
shoe and the lower leg, protectt
iing them from rain and wet paveDuring
the
eighteenth
rments.
ccentury they were mostly used with
IArmy uniforms, and in the next
ccentury, with the advent of goloshes,
cgaiters lost their appeal.

Lorgnettes were used up until the

last century - perhaps your grandparents have seen them! They were
spectacles on a long, elegant handle,
and they weren't w o r n - just held
up to the eyes by the handle. The
upper classes found them popular
during the eighteenth century, and
it was generally women who used
them. In the nineteenth century,
using a lorgnette became a highly
complicated and involved social
game - rather as fans were used
by younger women.
T o g a , the Roman outer garment,
was quite small to begin with, but
later began to grow larger and more
voluminous. The toga was usually
semi-circular or elliptical in shape,
and would measure about twelve
feet wide and eighteen feet long!
A t night the toga would be draped
around a dummy, in order that the
carefully-placed folds should not
crumple; but in time this kind of toga
proved to be impractical for day to
day use, and others were favoured.
The toga virilis could be worn by all
men, provided they were freemen
a n d n o t s l a v e s ; t h e toga

praetexta

was worn by higher officials, and

only consuls could wear the toga
palmata. It was forbidden for slaves
to wear togas.

D o u b l e t was another w o r d for the

padded coat men wore underneath
the breastplate of armour. During
the fifteenth century the doublet
became more important, being the
main garment worn underneath the
top coat or cloak. It would always
have sleeves, and during its time
it followed fashion closely, changing
style many times. Sometimes it was
slashed and puffed, sometimes
tight-fitting. It grew shorter and
shorter through the years, until in
the seventeenth century it was replaced by the waistcoat which men
wear today.

G a l l i g a s k i n s sound much more

exciting than they really were! In
fact, they were stockings for men,
worn in the sixteenth century and
during the first half of the seventeenth. They only reached the knees,
and could be either padded or
smooth round the hips. I wonder
where their names came from?
Knickerbockers, or Plus Fours, were
reminiscent of galligaskins, but they
were sports trousers, ending at the
knee, worn in the Twenties and
Thirties.

W o u l d you have worn any of these

strange-sounding things? Yes, you
would - if you'd been born at the
right time. And you would have
thought that jeans and plimsolls
looked very funny indeed - wouldn't
you?
79

W A Y OUT WEST
Which American President was born in a log cabin
in Kentucky?
Abraham Lincoln. Later the family moved to Indiana where the family
built a 'half-face' which was a three-sided shelter, framed with poles and
thatched with bark. He ate wild berries and learned to shoot wild turkeys
for food. Later still the family went by covered w a g g o n to N e w Salem,
and years later his new home became the White House in Washington, D.C.

With what do you associate

Jim Bowie?
The Bowie knife, which Bowie first
used in a fight in Mississippi and
which proved so effective that it was
manufactured
as
a
weapon,
marketed as the Bowie knife. It was
fashioned f r o m a rasp used by
blacksmiths and had a curved edge
ending in a point. Jim Bowie was one'
of the gallant band who defended
the Alamo in 1836.

How did the city of Wichita in Kansas get its name?

It was named after a tribe of Indians whose name means 'The men'.
A living monument to these days of the old west still survives in the city
today, recalling the origin of its name, in a section called 'Cowtown'.
Cowtown contains the city's first jail, its first hotel and several early
buildings. Today Wichita is also well known for the production of wheat,
corn, pigs and poultry, and it also manufactures excellent f a r m implements.
80

DISPLAY PANEL-

H O W IT W O R K S
Electronic Calculator

SWITCH POINTS

INTEGRATED CIRCUIT

The operations of an electronic

calculator are not only very quick,
they are also very basic. Most of the
calculations are done using simple
addition and subtraction, and a
number system which has only two
numbers, 0 and 1.
This binary (two-state) number
system is used in calculators and
other electronic devices, because
they operate on a system of
electronic switches, which at any time
can only be in one of two states: off
or on. In the binary code, 'off' is
represented by 0, and 'on' by 1.
The calculator keyboard uses our
usual (decimal) numbers, from 0 up to
9, on its keys, but when a key is
pushed down, the calculator
understands this in the binary
equivalent, which is fed through a

VCHIP

'switch point', situated under the key,

and from there into the heart of the
calculator - the 'chip'.
This is a tiny integrated circuit, an
incredible network of electronic
components in a piece of silicon, itself
smaller than a postage stamp.
The chip carries out the binary
operations at the speed of light, and
its answers are sent back to the
display. The calculator converts
binary into decimal again, using a
'decoder' (a circuit based on
switches), and these decimals appear
on the display panel, using LED, or
light emitting diode, segments.
The space for each unit on the
display has seven such segments,
plus a decimal point, arid each LED
gives off a reddish glow when
required. Different combinations of
these segments light up any decimal

number from 0 up to 9, as the chip

instructs through the switching circuit.
The chip adds in the standard
binary way: 0 + 1 = 1; 0 + 0 = 0;
and 1 + 1 = 10 (equivalent of 2). And
it subtracts by reversing this procedure.
The operations of multiplication and
division are carried out by continued
addition and subtraction, respectively.
For example, to multiply 43 by 17, the
calculgtor adds 43 seventeen times.
This may seem slow to us, but
electronically the answer is arrived at
almost immediately.
Just try dividing 1,089 by 33, and
see how long you take! How would
the calculator solve this one? And
because it works electronically, it can
do harder sums in about the same
amount of time. It would divide 582.31
by 34.9 as soon as add two and two!

Seven LED segments that form any

numeral: here are the combinations for
each number, from 0 up to 9.
81

BRIDGES A N D BRIDGE BUILDERS

The Forth Bridge was opened in 1890 and was for
many years the longest bridge in Europe with a span of
1,700 feet.
The Lower Zambesi Bridge, built for the Central
African railway, is over 2 miles long and has 33 main
spans.
The Great Salt Lake Viaduct, made of timber, steel,
brick and reinforced concrete, is 62,605 feet long in
Utah, U.S.A.
Isambard Kingdom Brunei (1806-1889) was a famous
bridge and railway engineer who was born in
Portsmouth, although he went to Paris to study in 1820,
when he was fourteen. He was later to build the
Clifton Suspension bridge over the River Avon, in
1864, and the Tamar bridge in Cornwall in 1859. In
1883 he was appointed engineer to Great Western
Railways.
Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was another talented
bridge-designer who built bridges all over Europe. He
is regarded as the father of iron and steel construction
in France; his work is still admired today for its skill
and versatility. His bridges can be seen in Portugal and
in France where the Railway Viaduct over the River
Truyere crosses a 406-foot deep ravine in a single span
of 540 feet. This was for many years the highest bridge
in the world. Because of his skill he was later to be
commissioned to design the Eiffel Tower for the Paris
Exposition of 1889.
In 1856 the Englishman Henry Bessemer developed
a revolutionary process of producing steel cheaply
from molten pig-iron inside a furnace or 'converter'.
This proved to be a breakthrough in the construction

E I F F E L TOWER

BRUNEL

THE HISTORY OF HANDWRITING

The way we write is very important

these days. Every child is taught how
to form words on paper and we base
a great deal of our everyday
communication on handwriting.
Apart from the ordinary handwriting
which we all learn, some people are
expert at the craft of beautiful writing
called calligraphy.
The English alphabet developed
from the alphabet that the Romans,
in turn, adapted from the Greeks.
Other alphabets, such as Russian and
Chinese, use different letters with
different shapes. These come from
other sources.
Long ago, very few people could
write. There were special employees,
called scribes, who knew how to
write, and they wrote letters and
messages for their masters, who
were rich and powerful men.
The scribes had to write very fast
indeed, in order to include everything
their masters dictated. Eventually this
meant that the angular, separate
letters of the Roman alphabet
became more curved, much like our
letters of the alphabet today. The
Roman scribes also developed quill
pens and parchment to write on.
Later it was the Christian monks
who learned to write. They worked
on the wonderful books of the
Gospels, writing all the text by hand
and painting the illustrations. They
wrote in what was called the Gothic
o r black letter

script.

As years passed the letters that

were formed changed and became
more fluid and compressed. Italian
scribes at the Papal Chancery in
Rome developed a graceful, oval,
sloping way of writing which was
known as Italic. This is popular today.
A more recent method of
handwriting is called Copperplate.
When handwriting manuals were
being engraved on copper plates the
engraver wrote with swirling,
complex curves to show the
perfection of his skill. Copperplate,
although it needed special pens, was
very popular in the nineteenth century.

W O M E N W H O WROTE
George Sand
George Sand, in fact, was a woman, born Amandine
Dupin, Baronne Dudevant. She was a gifted writer and
also a woman ahead of her time, who flouted the
conventions of her age and shocked many people by
her lifestyle.
After an unhappy marriage she fled to Paris and
obtained a divorce, changing her name to George
Sand and supporting herself and her two children
with her writing. Her novels dealt with the issue of
women's rights, and she was a tireless crusader for this
cause, often demonstrating her own independence by
wearing trousers - unheard of in the nineteenth
century!
Her best-known novels are The Haunted Pool,
w r i t t e n in 1846, a n d The Master

Bell Ringers, w r i t t e n in

1853. She also had a long-lasting friendship with the

famous composer Frederick Chopin. She died in 1876.

Louisa May Alcott

She was born in Pennsylvania in 1832 and began her
working life as a servant, to eke out her family's
income. She also became a skilled seamstress before
turning to writing and making her fortune.
During the American Civil W a r Louisa May Alcott
left home to be a nurse, and her letters to the family
while she was away were later published. She began to
see her poems and stories appear regularly in The
Atlantic Monthly, and went on to be made editor of
Merry's Museum, a children's magazine.
The novel she is most remembered for, Little Women,
appeared a few years later, in 1868, and was loved at
once by children and adults alike. O n e of the
characters, the tomboy of the March family, Jo, was
modelled largely on Louisa May Alcott herself. The
book was so popular that she wrote two sequels,
Little Men and Jo's Boys. Although Louisa May Alcott
wrote about Jo's marriage in these books, she herself
never married. She died in 1888.
84

Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was born in 1874 in Pittsburgh. She
attended Raddiffe College for Women, and later
trained in medicine, but she gave her career up to travel
through Europe and settle in Paris. There she began
writing, and also befriending many struggling artists
and poets who would one day be famous, like
herself.
The nineteen twenties were Gertrude Stein's high
point. She became the head of a cultural group which
included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and
Sherwood Anderson. She called them 'the lost
generation'. She was also friendly with Picasso and
Matisse.
Her novels were unconventional, discarding grammar
and punctuation in order to clarify her thoughts and
ideas. Three Lives, written in 1909, is perhaps her bestknown novel. She died in 1946.

Virginia Woolf
Virginia W o o l f was a very original and perceptive
writer, who was one of the first female exponents of
the 'stream of consciousness' style of writing. Her novels
are both impressionistic and finely-drawn. Born into a
reputable English family, Virginia W o o l f married
Leonard Woolf, a critic, in 1912. Together they started
the Hogarth Press, and their home became a meetingplace for critics, writers and artists. This group became
known as 'the Bloomsbury Group', and published a fair
deal of material.
Her own novels include The Voyage Out, written in
1915, and The Lighthouse, in 1927. Virginia W o o l f
drowned herself in 1941.

85

THE MONTHS OF THE YEAR

January was dedicated by
the Romans to J a n u s , a
two-faced god, who could
look back on the old year,
and forward to the new. It
was, however, originally
the eleventh month of the
year.

G a s first used in W o r l d W a r I, 1 9 1 5 (Battle of Ypres

April derives from the
Latin aperire, to open,
referring to the month
when buds and blossoms
open.
,

May was probably named

after Maia. the Roman god
dess of growth or increase,
mother of Mercury. Alternatively its origin lies in the
Latin word majores. mean
ing elders.

Battle of S p i o n K o p , 1 9 0 0

Captain Cook killed, 1779

February was originally the

Roman month of purification prior to the new year,
from the Latin februo, 'I
purify by sacrifice'.
Slave trade a b o l i s h e d

J o a n of Arc burnt at the stake, 1 4 3 1

J u n e comes from either
Juno, the Queen of
Heaven, or from Junius, a
clan name based on the
Latin word juvenis. meaning young.

in British E m p i r e , 1 8 0 7

March was named after

Mars, the Roman god of
war. In the ancient Roman
calendar it was the first
month of the new year.

K i n g J o h n signed Magna Carta, 1 2 1 5

Man lands o n the M o o n , 1 9 6 9

J u l y was named after
Julius Caesar, by Mark Antony in 44 B.C.; this
month was originally called
Quintilis, or fifth month.
Until the end of the eighteenth century July was
y pronounced to rhyme with
truly.
I I

October was originally the

eighth Roman month, from
octo (eight) and was held
sacred to Mars.

'

C o l u m b u s reaches America, 14
The G u n p o w d e r Plot, 1 6 0 5

August was changed from

Sextilis to Augustus in 8
B.C., in honour of the first
emperor, because it was his
lucky month.
.

Great Train Robbery, 1963\)

S e p t e m b e r was the
seventh month of the early
Roman calendar, deriving
its name from septem
(seven). Julius Caesar
reformed the calendar in
46 B.C., making
September the ninth
month; it was renamed
several times, but none of
the new names lasted long.

Battle of Britain ends, 1 9 4 0

November comes from

nouem (nine). Having
changed July and August
to commemorate great
Romans, the Senate offered to rename November
after Tiberius Caesar, but
he declined.
Tay Bridge destroyed, 1 8 7 9 *

D e c e m b e r was originally
the tenth month, from
decern (ten).
87

H O W D I D INN SIGNS ORIGINATE?

From earliest times it was important that
traders and shopkeepers identified
themselves to their customers. People could
not read or write, and houses and shops
were not numbered, so shopkeepers used
to put up simple signboards outside their
premises to let everyone know just what
they had to offer.

W h e n were signboards first used?

Tradesmen's signs existed in Greek and
Roman times, and by the 17th century in
England signs (and sign writing) flourished.
Usually the signs were simple and eyecatching, painted in bold colours, and hung
outside the shop from elaborate brackets.
Since communities were usually small,
trades were rarely duplicated, so the signs
were simple and explicit: three sugar loaves
for a grocer, a goat for a dairy, a boy
carrying a basket of loaves for a bakery, a
boy being caned for the local schoolmaster!

Early inn signs had a religious significance,

as inns served as hostels for pilgrims on
their way to Canterbury, hence The
Pilgrim's Rest.

r1
r
Jf

/
J w
1

vW

L
1

CsH

Vo
1

tAVj

J f

''i'M

i
KM

W h a t a b o u t inn signs?
Inn signs were different. Since even small
communities usually had many inns, each
had to have a different and distinctive sign.
Also, though the erection of signs was
optional for shopkeepers, from the 14th
century in England inn keepers were
compelled by law to erect a sign outside
their premises. The great variety of inn
names grew over the years, with many still
surviving from early times and, though
nowadays many inns and pubs are neon-lit,
the traditional signs are still to be seen
everywhere.
88

Inns called The Lamb and Flag take their

name from old signs that depicted the Lamb
of God, a device used by soldiers who
fought in the Crusades. The Saracen's Head
also commemorates the Crusades.

The still-popular Cat and Fiddle sign has

nothing to do with catsor fiddles. A brave
knight who fought for France was dubbed
Sir Caton le Fidele, or Sir Caton the
Faithful. Inn signs were erected in his
honour, but the French words were
corrupted over the ages to Cat and Fiddle.

The traditional Five Alls sign depicts a king

('I rule all'), a soldier ('I fight for all'), a
farmer ('I pay for all'), a priest ('I pray for
all') and a lawyer ('I plead for all').

Inn signs often commemorated important

historical events. The Royal Oak
commemorates Charles II who, after the
battle of Worcester, is said to have hidden
in an oak tree.

The Cat and Kittens alludes to the large and

small pewter tankards in which beer was
served. Stealing these tankards was called
'cat and kitten sneaking'. Inns of this name
nowadays usually carry a sign depicting a
feline cat and its kittens.

89

GREAT COMPOSERS
Hector Berlioz
Born: Cote-St-Andre, France, December
11 1803
Died: Paris, France, March 8 1869
Berlioz was a romantic and a rebel.
Although his greatest love was music, his
father, a doctor, persuaded him to take up
medicine by bribing him with a silver flute.
But this didn't last long. Soon Berlioz
announced that he intended to become a
composer, and when his family disowned
him he made a living by singing in a chorus.
Meanwhile he studied at the famed Paris
Conservatoire and went on to teach there,
with some of his own new ideas about
music thrown in.
He learnt a lot about the orchestra and
his 'ideal' for performances of his own
Requiem was 242 strings, 62 woodwind
instruments, 47 brass, 30 harps, 8 pairs of
kettledrums, a percussion section of 47 men
and a chorus of at least 360 peoplea
grand scale by anyone's standards!
Berlioz was also a brilliant conductor and
augmented his income by writing about
music as well. He married twice, but had a
troubled love life and when his second wife
died in 1862, followed by his son five years
later, he seemed to lose the will, and died
soon afterwards.

Modest Mussorgsky
Born: Karevo, Russia, March 21 1839
Died: St Petersburg, Russia, March 25

1881
Mussorgsky was once described as 'a
cuckoo in a nest of singing birds' for his
refusal to submit to convention and his
resulting rough and uncompromising
compositions.
In his opera Boris Uodunuj). his crashing
chords and striking arias rang out against
tyranny, seeking justice for the masses.
Although now considered the perfect
Russian opera it was then considered a
subversive work, and it really only became a
success after Mussorgsky's death.
His most famous work is his Pictures At
An Exhibition but he also wrote other
pianoforte and orchestral works as well as a
number of songs noted for their simple
everyday language and their basic humanity
and championing of the underdog.
His own life was not always happy.
Becoming depressed about living on his
own, he turned to drink and, losing his
friends and his money, he died a rather
pathetic figure at the age of only forty-two.

Johannes Brahms
Born: Hamburg, Germany, May 7 1833
Died: Vienna, Austria, April 3 1897
Brahms used to rise every day at 5 am,
mal<e himself some strong coffee, and then
begin his work, going over and over his
pieces painstakingly until he was quite
satisfied they were finished.
He would sometimes get discouraged. On
his fiftieth birthday, for instance, he was
determined to write a symphony but could
think of no ideas. "1 am too old to compose
any more," he said and went off to his
birthday dinner. Then, in a better mood, he
suddenly found himself singing a melody
the melody, as it turned out, to his I'hird
Sin;phc.n\.

"A geniusa musical prophet," was how

his fellow composer Robert Schumann
described him, and he and his wife Clara
were among Brahms' best friends. Indeed
when Schumann died, it was to Brahms
that Clara turned, and they grew very close.
Brahms was to remain a bachelor,
however. "It is as hard to marry," he once
said, "as it is to write an opera." He never
wrote an opera either, but was to compose
a huge variety of other great works.

Franz Liszt
Born: Raiding, Hungary, October 22
1811
Died: Bayreuth, Germany, July 13 1886
When he was only a few weeks old, Franz
Liszt was so small and weak that his father
had him measured for a coffin. But as it
happened this great composer was to live
life to the full, and to the tune of seventyfour years.
When asked to write the story of his life,
he replied: "No, thanks, it was hard enough
to have lived it." And yet success for him
came without having to struggle.
He played his first public concert at the
age of nine and was only eleven when
Beethoven, hearing him play, told him:
"You are one of the fortunate ones, for you
will give joy and happiness to many
people."
This Liszt did, as composer, pianist,
showman and conductor. He also raised
huge sums of money through benefit
concerts for needy causes, and championed
the 'music of the future', helping Wagner
and Berlioz among many others.

91

TRUE OR FALSE?
The Galvanometer
was named after
art Italian anatomist

Eugenics was named

after Sir Eugene Galton
The truth is that eugenics, the science of
race improvement through breeding, was
not named after any person; it was given its
name by a Sir Francis Galton, whose work
on heredity had led him to urge for improvement of the h u m a n race by selecting
parents only f r o m the superior classes.
Galton (1822-1911). a cousin of Charles
Darwin, was also k n o w n for his work in
other fields. He introduced the idea of anticyclones into meteorology; made the
discovery that fingerprint patterns remain
unaltered throughout l i f e w h i c h led to their
present use for the purposes of identification
a n d received a gold medal f r o m the
Royal Geographical Society for his work as
an anthropologist, studying the peoples of
the Sudan and south-western Africa.

A l t h o u g h it may seem unlikely that an instrument used to detect and measure electric current should be named after a m a n
working with living organisms, it is in fact
true. Luigi Galvani (1737-98) was the
pioneer of electrophysiologythe study of
the connection between living organisms
and e l e c t r i c i t y a n d it was his work on the
muscles in frogs that led to the study of
what is termed animal electricity.
Galvanism, a sort of electricity developed
by the action of various metals and
chemicals u p o n each other, is also named
after Galvani. Iron and steel are both
galvanised
with a coating of zinc in a process k n o w n also as electroplating; it is this
which helps to protect them against corrosion.
FRANCIS
&ALTON

Galilee was named

after the astronomer
Galileo Galilei

SAMARIA

92

Since Galileo was only born in 1564, while

the name Galilee dates back to over 700
years before the birth of Christ, this cannot
possibly be true. The name in fact comes
f r o m the Hebrew w o r d galil. meaning
circle, and it is thought that this is because
the Hebrews living in the Galilee area of
Israel at the time were surrounded by Gentiles w h o had m o v e d into the surrounding
areas after the fall of Samaria in 7 2 2 B C .

SKIN
W h a t is Skin?

W h a t is its f u n c t i o n ?

The skin is the largest and most versatile organ in the body.
It is also the heaviest, weighing between 6V2 and 7lbs.
Basically, the skin consists of two layers, with the epidermis
on the outside and the dermis underneath. New skin
cells are being produced continually, and as the old ones
die they are worn away from the skin's surface.

The skin has several functions. It protects the underlying

tissue from injury and infection, it regulates the body
temperature, it is a sense organ and it produces vitamin D
when exposed to sunlight.

W h y do w e sweat?

W h a t is Goose Flesh?
Goose flesh is the name we give to the tiny bumps that
appear on the skin when we are cold. The reason for it
lies in the hairs that cover the skin. Air trapped between
hair becomes an insulator, and the more the hair sticks out
the more the trapped air and therefore the better the
insulation. When the body is cold, a tiny muscle at the base
of each hair contracts, making the hair stand on end and
producing goose-pimples.

Sweating is the body's most effective way of reducing its

temperature. Sweat glands are situated in the dermis there are between two and three million in most people and they are tiny coiled tubes which open onto the skin
through small holes, or pores. When the body is too hot
the glands produce sweat - a mixture of water and waste
products - and as it evaporates from the skin's surface
it uses heat from the body, thus cooling it down. On a
hot day as much as three pints of sweat are produced,
mainly, from the soles of the feet, the palms of the hands,
under the arms and the forehead.
93

TALL - BUT TRUE - STORIES!

More than fifty years ago quack
dentists, often dressed as Red Indians,
pulled out teeth and did simple
repairs in the market squares of
small towns. They made sure they
were accompanied by a loud brass
band - to hide the screams of the
customers!

In an American town police charged

a man with illegal parking - after a
train had demolished his car. He had
left it on a level crossing!

There was a bank robbery in London

when two men grabbed a
jewellery shop manager's briefcase
and made off. They were unlucky,
though; all the briefcase contained
was the manager's lunch!
Builders in Frankfurt, Germany, filled
in the only doorway in a building
with concrete, trapping themselves
inside. They had to be rescued
through a ceiling sky-light window!

In Death Valley, California, rocks are

seen to move all by themselves. This
is one of the many of Nature's
mysteries which no-one can unravel.
They can move fair distances and
leave tracks behind them in the sand.
Locally they are known as the
'racetrack rocks'.
94

A Japanese journalist was supposed

to be covering a sporting event
which was televised. He fell asleep
half-way through - and appeared
on TV! His boss was watching, and
fired him!

ONE GOOD TURN . . .

There are several o d d
friendships in the a n i m a l
w o r l d , some of w h i c h benefit
the a n i m a l p a r t n e r s in u n u s u a l
ways. Do y o u k n o w :

In w h a t part of the w o r l d does a

w o o d p e c k e r nest in the side of
a n ants' nest?
When the time comes for a Southern
Rufous woodpecker which lives in
Ceylon and India to build a nest,
instead of building a nest in a tree it
searches for a colony of Black Tree
ants. N o w normally these little
insects resent intruders, but for some
strange reason they allow the
Rufous woodpecker to lay its eggs in
a hole in the side of their ants' nest
and share their home.

W h y the h o n e y g u i d e a n d the
ratel are friends?
The African honeyguide, as its name
suggests, can quickly find a bee's
nest with its delicious supply of
honey. But because it is a small bird
it cannot get the honey out because
it fears the stings of the bees. So off
he goes to tell the ratel of his find
and the ratel goes off and breaks
open the nest, his fur protecting him
from the bees' anger. W h e n the
ratel has eaten all he wishes, there is
still plenty left for the little
honeyguide as a reward for finding
the nest in the first place.
H o w does the b l a c k b i r d p l o v e r
help the A f r i c a n crocodile?
The African crocodile is a very fiercelooking creature, but the little
blackbird plover does not seem in
the least afraid of him. Indeed, the
plover performs a great service to the
crocodile by picking out the morsels
of food from between the crocodile's
teeth. Then this bird-toothpick eats
the scraps of food himself!

*
W h y are hornbills called ' M o n k e y
Birds'?
Hornbills get their curious nickname
from the fact that they always like to
be near the Guenon monkeys of the
Upper African Congo when the
monkeys climb the fruit trees in
search of a juicy meal. The clever
hornbills realise that as the
monkeys pick the fruit for
themselves they also discover various
moths and beetles and other
insects among the leaves. As these
tasty insect morsels fall to the ground
they are eagerly seized by the
monkey bird hornbills who are
delighted to be given such an
easy meal from the monkeys.

W h y are ostriches a n d zebras

o f t e n seen t o g e t h e r ?
This animal-bird partnership is based
on the fact that the ostrich has poor
hearing and sense of smell while the
zebra's two senses are highly
developed, and so the zebra warns
the ostrich of any nearby danger.
However, the zebra's eyesight is not
as keen as that of its feathered friend,
the ostrich, which has really
excellent eyesight especially over a
distance, and the ostrich uses this
eye sense to warn the zebra of any
danger approaching from a distance.
One good turn, in f a c t . . .
95

HOW?

H o w does a Spider spin its w e b ?

The spider's web is made of silk, which the spider produces from special
glands in its abdomen. The actual spinning organ is at the tip of the abdomen
and it contains many small holes. The silk is forced through these holes as a
liquid, but as soon as it comes into contact with the air it hardens.
One of the most highly-developed webs is that of the garden spider. This
is circular in shape, with a central zig-zag crossing the main strands for
extra support.
There are hundreds of types of web, the most common being the wheel
type. Other shapes include flat sheets, funnels and domes. The trap-door
spider even spins a lid on its web to catch and hold its prey.

H o w d o Oysters m a k e pearls?
The body of an oyster is very soft
and tender, and although it is
protected by its shell, it also secretes
a lining of mother-of-pearl to make
the inside smooth.
If an irritant, such as a grain of
sand, gets into the shell, the oyster
immediately covers it with layer after
layer of mother-of-pearl. The result
is a pearl.
To speed up the process, man
inserts a piece of sand or motherof-pearl into the shell of a living
oyster, and after a couple of years a
pearl will have been formed. Such
pearls are called''cultured pearls'
and they are cheaper to buy than
the very expensive natural pearls.

H o w does a W e a s e l c h a n g e colour?
Camouflage is important to many animals as a protection against their
enemies. In the case of the weasel, the camouflage changes according to the
season, so that during the winter, when the ground is covered with snow,
its coat is white, and during the summer, brown.
The change is a gradual one, and it is triggered off by the shortening days
as autumn progresses. The weasel begins to moult and as the brown hairs
fall out they are replaced by white ones. By November the entire animal is
white except for the black tip of its tail.
In the spring the reverse happens, although the belly of the weasel
remains white all the year round.
96

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

/.

1. Who wrote Black

Beauty?

2. In which of Charles
Dickens' novels did Mr
Jingle, Sam Weller and Mrs
Bardell appear?

3. Under what name did

Samuel L Clemens write?

4. Virginia Woolf wrote

about the dog of another
famous literary lady in her
book Flush. Who was the
dog's owner?

5. Mary Ann Evans wrote

under a pen name; do you
know it? One of her most
famous books is Silas
Marner.

6. W h o wrote Tarka the

Otter

a n d Salar

the

Salmon?

7. Which famous writer

was once known as 'Boz'?

8. Mrs Hubert Bland wrote

The Railway

Children,

very famous children's

book, under a pen name.
What is her pen name?

9 . W h o w r o t e Lord

Jim?

10. What is the name of J

M Barries famous character
from Never-Never-Land?
Answers
:
u b j aaiaj o i
1H3 sSioaQ g iSuiu/Yioag
d3SO
JpejuoQ M
f 6 UtqsaM
Hexieg qjaqezijg p !uiemj
3 'sua>p!Q sa^BLQ
vjJBj^ -SJadDj j p i m i p y
3
euu
7, luosmeiuiM fauan 9
U
Z
V I

97

ORIGINS OF THE CINEMA

What is a Magic Lantern?
The magic lantern, invented in about 1660
by the Dutch physicist C h r i s t i a n H u y g e n s ,
is an early version of our present day slide
projector, using a strong light source which
was reflected and concentrated on to a lens
by a concave mirror. It was very popular
throughout the 18th and 19th centuries for
horror shows of ghosts and spirits,
educational and travel lectures, and comic
effects. Moving parts in the slides helped tell
a story with 'moving pictures', and the use
of several projectors simultaneously, in later
years, produced a wide range of effects.

What did a Phenakistoscope do?

The phenakistoscope was the most popular
of many 19th century optica! toys based on
the principle of persistence of vision which
led eventually to the creation of modern
cinema. If you move a cigarette end in a
rapid circle in a darkened room it appears
to be a continuous circle of light, because
the brain cannot distinguish all the different
positions of the light at that speed. This is
the phenomenon known as persistence of
vision, which was first observed almost
2.000 years ago.
The phenakistoscope used a cardboard
disc on which one imagefor example, a
horse trotting was shown in a
progressively changing series of positions.
The viewer looked through the slots, one
for each different picture, and saw a
reflection of the image on a mirror while the
disc rotated rapidly. The images seen in the
mirror through the slots changed so quickly
the eye interpreted it as motion.

98

Who first photographed motion?

E a d w e a r d J . M u y b r i d g e , an Englishman
who settled in California and became a
photographer, was the first to produce a
motion picture, in 1878. The main problem
in producing moving pictures had been the
time it was necessary for a photographic
plate to be exposed; a model could stand
still long enough, a moving object by its
very naturecould not.
After many years of experiment
Muybridge finally succeeded in producing a
set of twelve instantaneous photographs of
a trotting horse and carriage, taken by
twelve cameras set up in a line. Trip wires,
over which the carriage passed, triggered
each camera in turn, producing a series of
consecutive frames which gave the
appearance of motion. Muybridge went
further and produced a zoopraxiscope. a
more complex development of the
phenakistoscope. which allowed him to
project the motion picture on the screen.

When were the first

public films shown?
Unfortunately for Edison he decided that his
invention was a novelty which would pass
off. Inspired by his work R . W . P a u l , as well
as Birt Acres, in England, and the
L u m i e r e B r o t h e r s in France, all produced
their own cameras and projectors in the
next two years.
The first public exhibition of moving
pictures was at the G r a n d C a f e in Paris
o n D e c e m b e r 2 8 t h , 1 8 9 5 . On January
14th 1896. in London, Birt Acres showed
films of the Derby, the Boat Race, and the
opening of the Kiel Canal. In February both
the Lumieres and R.W.Paul exhibited in
London; by the end of the century films
were being made and shown all over the
world. The cinema had arrived.

Which famous inventor

contributed significantly to
cinema?
With the invention and development by
E . J . M a r l e y , between 1882 and 1890. of a
single camera which could take ten
photographs a second, and the introduction
of flexible transparent celluloid by the
American E a s t m a n in 1889. the birth of
the cinema was imminent. Perforations, to
keep the pictures aligned with one another,
were first introduced in 1890, and the need
now was to invent a suitable projector to
exhibit the films.
W . K . L . D i c k s o n , a Scotsman, working
in conjunction with T h o m a s E d i s o n ,
produced the kinetoscope in 1893. This was
a one-man viewing cabinet which could also
be connected to the Edison phonograph to
give talking pictures of a simplistic kind.
One of Edison's most lasting contributions to
cinema was his decision to make four
perforations per frame, and to use 35mm.
film, both of which are standard for cinema
film even today.
99

THE W O R L D OF MEDICINE
What is the Hippocratic Oath?
Hippocrates, the great Greek physician, was
born on the island of Cos, off the coast of
Asia Minor, in about 460 B.C. His medical
methods were soundly based on observation
and logical reasoning, but his greatest
contribution to medicine was his Oath
which, although not law, still forms the basis
of the ethical code or ideal for medical men.

THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH

"I will look upon him who taught me
|
this Art even as one of my parents. I
will share my substance with him, and
I will supply his necessities, if he be in
need. I will regard his offspring even as
my own brothers, and I will teach them
this Art by precept, by lecture and by
every mode of teaching, not only to my
own sons but to the sons of my teacher,
and to disciples bound by covenant and
I
oath, according to the Law of Medicine.
L
but to none others.
"I will follow that method of treatment
which, according to my ability and
judgement, I consider for the benefit of
my patients, and not for their hurt or
any wrong. I will give no deadly drug to
any, though it be asked of me, nor will I
counsel such, and especially I will not
aid a woman to procure abortion.
"Whatsoever house I enter, I will go into
for the benefit of the sick, refraining
from all wrong doing or corruption, and
especially from any act of seduction, of
male or female, of bond or free.
Whatsoever things I see or hear
concerning the life of men, in my
attendance on the sick or even apart
therefrom, which ought not to be
spoken abroad, I will keep silence
thereon, counting such things as sacred
secrets."

What was the Black Death?

The worst epidemic known to mankind was
the Black Death which killed an estimated
75,000,000 people during its most serious
outbreak in 1347-51. Originating in the
ports of the Black Sea, it reached Italy, and
spread throughout Europe.
The infectious organism was Bacillus
Pestis, transmitted to man by fleas from
the black rat. It caused a sudden onset of
chills, fever, headaches and body pains,
black or pink swellings known as buboes,
madness and almost certain death.
Approximately one in three Europeans
died.
Outbreaks of the black deathwhether
bubonic, pneumonic, or septicaemic plague
ravaged Europe recurrently until the late
17th century. Although virtually unknown
today, isolated cases still occur.
TAG-ET
CATHODE

RAYS

What connection is there

between television and X-rays?
Wilhelm Konrad Roentgen (1845-1923)
accidentally discovered X-rays in 1895,
while experimenting with a Crookes tube, a
glass cylinder containing two electrodes in a
vacuum; when high voltage was passed
through it, c a t h o d e rays emanated from
the negative terminal.
Roentgen discovered that when these
rays hit the positive terminal, the electrons
inside its atoms were forced out of position
and fell back into place, producing an
electromagnetic wave whose rays would
pass through almost any material unlike
cathode rays. He called them x-rays as x is
used scientifically to represent the unknown.
X-rays are used widely nowadays in
medicine, scientific research and industry.
The cathode ray tube is, of course, part of
every television set.

Which was the first disease

to be defeated by vaccination?
During the 18th century 60,000,000
Europeans died of s m a l l p o x , yet today the
disease is rare, thanks to a principle '
advanced by Dr. Edward Jenner
(1749-1823).
Ancient country lore said that contraction
of cowpox (transmitted from cows to
humans through sores on the udders during
milking) prevented smallpox. Jenner
investigated thoroughly, and on 14 May
1796 innoculated an eight-year-old boy with
cowpox, producing a mild illness. Later he
injected him with smallpox, which was
successfully resisted.
Vaccination the injecting of material
which causes formation of antibodies and
resultant immunity, has since been used to
prevent such diseases as cholera, polio and
typhoid.

101

THE STORY OF RUBBER

Where was rubber
first found?
In South America. No one
is sure who discovered it,
but it is known that the
Aztecs made rubber balls
and even had a god of ball
games called Xolotl.
The first recorded
reference of rubber being
heard of in Europe is a
story of a French explorer
who came across rubber
trees being tapped in Peru
in 1735.

When was it first used as an

eraser?
The first recorded instance is again from the
mid-18th century. Some pieces of crude
rubber from South America were received
by a British merchant, but he thought it
useless and passed it on to his children to
play with. They in turn gave a piece to a
boy called Joseph Priestley who, it is said,
then accidentally discovered its use as an
eraser.

In 1823 t h e S c o t C h a r l e s Macint o s h f o u n d a w a y of using n a p h t h a

a n d r u b b e r t o g e t h e r , a n d t h u s invented w a t e r p r o o f c l o t h . Previous
a t t e m p t s at i n v e n t i n g a s u i t a b l e
rubberized c l o t h h a d failed since
a p a r t from b e i n g sticky, s m e l l y
and
unpleasant
to w e a r ,
the
c l o t h i n g m e l t e d if o n e s t o o d n e a r
to a fire!

Who were the 'rubber barons'?

This is the name given to the greedy men who exploited the
demand for rubber when it first came to be used as a raw
material important in the manufacture of waterproofing,
tyres, etc., at the beginning of this century.
At the time, all of the world's rubber came from the
Amazonian forests and it was here that the 'rubber barons'
set up villas and estates where they used native labour to tap
the trees. They made great fortunes in no time at all, but in
the process destroyed many trees and exploited a great
number of people.

Where is rubber obtained from now?

It no longer comes from South America, for the simple
reason that cheaper rubber is now being produced
elsewhere. This is because an Englishman managed to
smuggle some rubber tree seeds out of Brazil in 1876,
cultivating them in Kew Gardens, London, and then sending
some to Ceylon.
The Far East provided ideal conditions, so much so that
the success of the plants there meant the end of the boom in
Brazil, and therefore of the 'rubber barons'.
Now Malaya is the largest producer, with Thailand,
Indonesia and Ceylon also figuring heavily. But today it is
possible also to make good synthetic rubberan invention of
the Americans during the Second World War when rubber
was scarce and as this is cheaper to make than real rubber,
there is more of it being produced.

Charles Goodyear, the American

inventor w h o s e n a m e is n o w used
for a sort of tyre, w a s t h e m a n
responsible for t h e process of
' v u l c a n i s i n g ' r a w r u b b e r . T h e dry
r u b b e r p r o d u c e d f r o m t h e latex
t a p p e d from a r u b b e r tree is soft
a n d flexible a n d so unsuited to use
in tyres, s h o e soles, etc. G o o d y e a r
discovered t h a t h e a t i n g t h e r a w
substance with sulphur hardened
it, a n d this invention of 1 8 3 9 is still
used t o d a y .

103

A-Z QUIZ

Q u e s t i o n : W h a t is an Abigail?
A n s w e r : A lady's maid.
Q u e s t i o n : The Gloucestershire home
of the Dukes of Beaufort gave its
name to a game. Can you name it?
A n s w e r : Badminton.
Q u e s t i o n : W h a t is the name of a
song sung in Trinidad, often to the
accompaniment of steel bands?
A n s w e r : Calypso.
Q u e s t i o n : W h a t was 'Dagger
Money'?
A n s w e r : The sum once paid to
judges on the legal Circuit to purchase
weapons as a protection against
robbers.
Question: Which country has the
white-headed eagle as its emblem?
A n s w e r : The United States of
America.
Q u e s t i o n : W h o wrote The Fair
Maid

of Perth?

A n s w e r : Sir Walter Scott.

Question: W h o is the god of war,
according to ancient Rome?
A n s w e r : Mars.
Question: In heraldry, what colour
is gules?

A n s w e r : Red.
Question: W h o has the motto:
Ich D/en?
A n s w e r : The Prince of Wales.
Question: W h o wrote about the
Jabberwocky?
A n s w e r : Lewis Carroll.
Question: W h a t is a 'Kentucky Pill'?
A n s w e r : A bullet.

Question: Where is the 'Land of the

White Eagle?
A n s w e r : Poland.
Question: W h a t does MS stand for?
A n s w e r : Manuscript.
Question: W h a t is a Naiad?
A n s w e r : A water nymph.
Question: W h o hid from his
enemies in an oak tree?
A n s w e r : Charles II.
Question: W h a t is a palindrome?
A n s w e r : A word which reads the
same when read either backwards
or forwards.
Question: What is another name for
Quicksilver?
A n s w e r : Mercury.
Question: W h a t name is given to
the sign of the ram in the zodiac?
A n s w e r : Aries.
Question: W h o is the patron saint
of travellers?
A n s w e r : St. Christopher.
Question: W h a t is the 'Third
Estate'?
A n s w e r : The House of Commons.
Question: W h o was the first person
to use an umbrella in Britain?
A n s w e r : Jonas Hanway.
Question: By what name is Van
Dieman's Land now known?
A n s w e r : Tasmania.

Q u e s t i o n : W h a t kind of musical
instrument is a xylophone?

Question: W h a t is wampum?

A n s w e r : A percussion instrument.

A n s w e r : Shell bead money used

by the North American Indians.

Q u e s t i o n : W h a t is the song of the

Yellowhammer?
A n s w e r : "A little bit of bread and no
cheese."
Q u e s t i o n : W h a t are the Zingari?
A n s w e r : This is the name given to
gypsies in Italy.

105

W O U L D Y O U BELIEVE IT?
Amazing facts about exotic pets in
history . . .
A story straight out of the Arabian Nights - but
perfectly true - is about Zureyk the blue-eyed lion,
who was the pet of Sultan Khumaraweyh of Cairo,
many hundreds of years ago. Zureyk would guard his
master's side through the day and night. The Sultan
suffered from insomnia, so he would while away the
hours lying on an air-bed in a pool of quicksilver,
listening to tame turtle doves singing in the trees.
Zureyk lay in a bed of roses.

The Romans loved having exotic pets, too. Elegabalus,

a dissipated Emperor, used his lions as rather fierce
practical jokers! After inviting guests to a dinner party
at which they ate and drank too much, Elegabalus let
his lions into the room while they were recovering from
their stupor. Not a pleasant way to be revived!
Other Romans in high places dressed Barbary apes
in rich togas and trained them to play musical
instruments at gala occasions. They seemed to enjoy
the apes' music!

Legend tells, in China, that once a lion and a marmoset

fell in love. Because the lion is very large while
the marmoset is very small, a Buddhist monk took pity
on them and shrank the lion to the marmoset's size.
Out of this union came the Pekinese dog - which,
Chinese people believe, has the heart and courage of
a lion within its small body.
When British and French soldiers broke into the
Forbidden City of Peking in 1860 they found the dead
Empress of China fiercely guarded by her faithful
Pekinese dogs. Although they fought bravely, their
small size was against them and they were taken as
bounty. One ended up in the Royal Court of Queen
Victoria!

107

SOUND: W H A T IS IT?

W h a t is an oscilloscope?

W h a t is meant b y supersonic speed?

It is an electronic device which enables one to 'see

sound'. Sounds are made by something vibrating, and
so making the air around it vibrate. The motion of the
vibrating object, back and forwards, compresses the
air and then allows it to expand again, and this is
repeated with each vibration. This in turn affects the air
further from the object, such that the vibration travels
through the air in all directions, until it eventually dies
away. These vibrations are known as sound waves, and
an oscilloscope shows the pattern, or shape, of these
waves on a screen similar to a TV screen. The sound is
fed into the machine through a microphone, which
changes the energy of the sound waves into electrical
energy, as an electric current.

These are speeds faster than the speed of sound.

Jet planes often fly at these speeds - Concorde, for
example, is designed to fly at 2.2 times the speed of
sound.
When the plane reaches the speed of sound, it has
reached the sound barrier, a resistance in the air which
the aircraft must break through. In fact, it slices through
the 'solid' air, as if cutting with a knife, and the nose of
the plane produces a shock wave (or bow wave), while
its rear end creates vacuum.
Air rushing in to fill this vacuum causes turbulence
called a vortex

path.

The bow wave spreads out, and forms the shape of

a cone, and it is where this cone meets up with the
ground, that the noise of the jet is heard. If the
aircraft is below 30,000 feet, the sound pressure may
rise as high as 301b. per square feet, enough to shatter
windows. This phenomenon is known as a sonic bang.
In aviation, the speed of an aircraft at any time
can be given by a Mach number, the ratio of that
speed to the speed of sound in the air through which
it is flying, and named after the Austrian physicist
Ernst Mach (1838-1916).
Mach 0.5 is half the speed of sound, or subsonic.
Mach 1 is the speed of sound, or transonic.
Mach 2 is twice the speed of sound, or supersonic.

W h a t is the speed of sound?

It is much slower than the speed of light (186,282 miles
a second) and depends upon the density and
elasticity of the medium through which the sound is
travelling. The denser the medium, the slower it moves;
the more elastic, the faster it moves. The speed is about
16400 feet a second in steel, 4700 f.p.s. in water, and
1100 f.p.s. in air at 0C (32F). The large difference
between the speed of light and sound give one method
of determining how far you are from thunder and
lightning, since you will see the lightning before you
hear the clap of thunder. The lightning will be about a
mile away for every five seconds counted between
the two.
108

MOISECONE

.ZONE W H E R E
WO/SE 15 HEARD

W h a t is the characteristic of ultrasonic s o u n d ?

It vibrates at frequencies too high for the human ear
to hear, i.e. anything over 20,000 times a second.
Ultrasonic waves can be focussed like the beam from
a searchlight, and the beam's reflection can easily be
detected.
O n this basis, naval vessels use ultrasonic devices
(called sonars) for detecting submarines under water,
by listening for echoes reflected from them. Devices
to measure the depth of the ocean, or to locate schools
of fish, are two more examples.
Ultrasonic waves are also used to detect flaws, for
example weaknesses in railway lines; to kill insects; to
pasteurise milk; to sterilise surgical instruments, and to
treat arthritis. And an ultrasonic drill can be used on
both metals and teeth, where it is less painful than drills
which are not ultrasonic, and which can be heard by
the patient as well as felt!

W h i c h ultrasonic sound is a n e l e m e n t a r y f o r m of
radar?

^SCHOOL

SFA

OF

FISH

BOTTOM

The high-pitched twittering of the bat. The pitch of this

sound is a lot higher than a human can hear, but bats
use it to warn of impending obstacles, by listening
for the echoes of their twittering, as the ultrasonic
sound bounces off a house, a tree, a person or
whatever.
Radar - which stands for Radio Direction A n d
Range - works by the use of a very high power pulse
of radio energy, at a speed of about 186,000 miles per
second. The radar echoes picked up by the radio
receiver are shown on an oscilloscope, and the
distance of the object is measured using electronic
circuits, while the direction is determined by a
directional

antenna.

109

ALL AT SEA
What is a 'Hippocampus'?
This word is derived from two Greek words meaning
horse and sea monster, and therefore it is another
name for a seahorse, that strange little creature which is
sometimes used as the model for a knight in the game
of chess.
The seahorse has a long snout and prominent eyes
and a tail by which he clings tightly to a piece of
seaweed. The seahorse swims in an upright position
using his dorsal fin and is carried along by the strong
ocean currents. He feeds on tiny living sea creatures
which he sucks into his mouth as he swims along . . . and
it is the male seahorse who looks after the eggs, in a
special pouch under his body, until they are safely
hatched out!

Who was the 'Shantyman'?

The Shantyman was the sailor who sang the solo lines in
a sea shanty while the rest of the ship's crew sang the
remaining chorus lines. Sea shanties were a way of
getting men to work together efficiently when
performing tasks aboard the old time sailing ships. On
certain lines in the shanty the men would push or pull
together.
Windlass and halliard were two kinds of sea shanties.
The former, also known as a capstan shanty, was used
for weighing anchor, while the halliard was used for
hauling up sails.

Who sailed in the Longships?

The Scandinavian sea warriors known as the Vikings
sailed the North Atlantic and the Baltic and
Mediterranean Seas in longboats which had one sail
and which used oars as power. A longship was about
eighty feet long, hence its name, and almost seventeen
feet in width. The ships were very shallow and there
were some thirty or forty Vikings to a ship. These men
could sail in almost any sea because their longships
were so well constructed.
The Danish Vikings raided and plundered England,
France and Spain, the Swedish Vikings raided Germany
while the Norwegian Vikings in their horned helmets
travelled to Greenland, Iceland, Ireland and Scotland,
and became the subjects of many colourful heroic sagas.
110

What is a group of seals called?

A group of seals is called a pod. Seals are warmblooded animals which live in the sea but which gather
in a rookery to breed. Female seals are called cows and
their offspring pups or calves. True seals have no
outer ears, they just have holes at the side of their
heads, while sea-lions and fur seals make up one of the
families known as the eared seals. Walruses are
distinguished from other seals by their large tusks.
Common seals are found in Europe and North
America, large Elephant seals in northern and southern
waters, while Greenland seals live in North Atlantic and
Arctic oceans. The ferocious Leopard seals live in the
Antarctic, while the rare Grey seals live in the waters
around the British Isles.
Although fur-seal hunting is strictly controlled,
Eskimoes hunt seals for food, using the seals' skins for
the roofs of their summer homes and for making shoes
and clothing for themselves and their families.

Do any snakes live in the sea?

There are nearly fifty different kinds of sea snakes, all
with one exception living in waters between the Persian
Gulf and Polynesia. The Yellow-bellied Sea Snake lives
in Africa and Mexico.
Sea snakes, such as the one illustrated here with its
black rings or bars on its blue body, belong to the
Hydropphidae family. It has a wide tail which it uses as
an oar when swimming, and although it comes to the
surface to breathe it can dive to great depths to catch its
fishy food.
Female snakes hatch out their eggs on a sandy beach
and all the sea snakes are far more poisonous than
their land cousins - so beware!

111

EDWARD LEAR A N D CHARLES DICKENS

Edward Lear and Charles Dickens both lived during the
last century, but their work was very different - just as
their lives were. Yet we remember them both today
with affection and respect.

Edward Lear
Edward Lear was born in Highgate, London, in 1812,
and he was only one of twenty-one children! His
childhood must have been fascinating, if a little
crowded; his parents employed a fleet of servants and
owned no less than twelve carriages.
At the age of thirteen, though, Edward Lear's father
lost much of his wealth and the large family had to
break up. Edward went to live with his sister Ann, of
whom he was very fond. She taught him at home, as
he wasn't well enough to go to school, and one of his
favourite hobbies was drawing wild-life and plants.
As he grew up this interest became his career, and
his first job was to draw the parrots at London Zoo!
This took him a year and after this he was invited by the
Earl of Derby to live in his stately home near Liverpool
in order to draw the Earl's private menagerie. Edward
stayed there for four years, and during this time met
many famous and rich people, but he liked to be with
the Earl of Derby's children best of all, and it was for
them that he first made up his 'nonsense' poems.
Edward didn't think of himself as a poet, however.
He always considered himself to be an artist, and after
his work for the Earl was finished he travelled around
the world, drawing everything he saw. This life wasn't
always easy as Edward was often ill, sad and poor,
but he went on drawing and writing his funny verses.
He never married or raised any children, but thousands
of children all over the world are enchanted by his
strange poems.
112

Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens must have had a very different
childhood from Edward Lear's. Charles was sticking
labels on bottles in a miserable factory while Edward
would probably have been playing with some of his
many toys. Charles Dickens' father was often in debt;
Charles often went to see his parents in debtors' prison
at Marshalsea. The experience affected him deeply
and he wrote about it in some of his later books.
His father's fortunes did change later, though,
and Charles was able to go to school, then become an
office boy to a solicitor. He was much happier, and
during this time began to write and draw sketches,
using his nickname 'Boz'. It wasn't long before 'Boz'
became well-known, and Dickens had a great success
with his Pickwick Papers. He used his memories of prison
for this book, then went on to write of his boyhood in
his next novel David Copperfield. He had gained this
writing expertise by becoming a reporter for a London
paper, and from this early success, went on to write
many masterful books.
After seeing so much of the darker side of life
himself, Dickens was very anxiogs that people should
know about the injustices of Victorian England,
especially against children.
He exposed the way that young boys were
encouraged to steal in packs, led by a cruel master,
in Oliver Twist, and the fraudulent and harsh 'schools'
set up for boys away from home, in Nicholas Nickleby.
In fact, this book helped to close such schools down.
Charles Dickens married while he was quite young,
and had many friends during his life. He toured
America a number of times; Americans loved his tales
of London life as much as the British did! He died in
1870.

RELIGIONS OF THE W O R L D

Try this quiz and find out how much you know about
the different religions of the world.
1. Buddhism is the Western name for the teachings of
an Indian prince. Do you know his name?
2. Do you know which religion has the Koran as its
holy book?
3. In Japan there was once a f o r m of ancestor w o r ship. Do you know what it was called?
4. A great Chinese philosopher and sage began a cult,
which later became a religion when his followers
regarded him as a G o d . Do you know what he was
called?
5. Do you know what a stupa is?
6 . D o y o u know what litanies are?
7. Do you know what the ceremony of 'bar-mitzvah'
is about, and to which religion it belongs?
8. Do you know what Church Archbishop Makarios
was the head of?

Check y o u r answers on page 191

THE LOST PEOPLE: THE AZTECS

Who were the Aztecs?
They were ancient American Indians w h o lived in
Mexico from A.D. 1200 until the coming of Cortes
in 1521. The Aztec Indians created a highly advanced
and powerful form of civilisation. They built large
and well-planned cities, and had organised governments.
In appearance, they were sturdy people with dark
skins and straight, dark hair; in fact very like the
(Indians who still live around Mexico. Most of the
Aztecs spoke the Nahuatl language, from which we
have taken such words as tomato, chili and chocolate.

What was the Aztecs' religion?

The Aztecs worshipped many gods, usually in the
form of animals. Their beliefs were so strong that
religion dominated even civil laws and decisions. The
Aztecs waged w a r on other peoples not only because
of political reasons, but to bring back prisoners of
w a r . Rather a gruesome element in the Aztecs
religion was the human sacrifice of these prisoners,
often in the most barbaric ways. Alongside the temples
in the plaza would stand racks of thousands of severed _
heads, evidence of the sacrifices.

How did they live?

Outside the cities, the Aztec Indians lived in simple
houses made of adobe (mud bricks) with a thatched
roof. The husband worked in the fields while the wife
ground corn and made unleavened cakes called
tortillas. They would also spin and weave cloth.
Clothes were made f r o m the fibres of the century
plant. Men wore loin-cloths, capes and sandals, while
women wore short skirts and sleeveless blouses. Many
of their clothes were beautifully decorated, and the
designs indicated the wearer's position in society.
The chief city of the Aztecs, Tenochtitlan, was built
where the modern Mexico City stands today. The
Spanish explorer Cortes called the city 'The Venice
of the New W o r l d ' , as it was built up from the bed
of the Lake Texcoco. The city was a wonder of
ancient engineering: as well as many canals there
were also aqueducts, causeways and movable d r a w bridges. All the main canals and roadways led to the
main plaza or square, where many temples dedicated
to the Aztec gods stood. The main government
buildings were situated there as well.
114

The favourite Aztec god was Huitzilopochtli,

or |
Hummingbird W i z a r d , god of w a r and of the sun. I
There were many others: Quetzalcoatl,
the Plumed
Serpent, is the most important, the god of learning and
of the priesthood.

Were the Aztecs great craftsmen?

They are famous all over the world for their work%>f,
with precious metals like gold and silver. They carved
many fine pieces of jewellery from jade, and dyed
cloth in the most beautiful designs. They made
pottery, and sculpted in stone.
The most famous Aztec sculpture is the A z t e q
Calendar Stone, twice the size of a man, showing the
sun-god Tonatiuh and outlining the Aztec version of
world history, myths and prophecy. They also built
many temples, with stone carvings and long stairways

Did the Aztecs have money?

No. Instead, they paid taxes and traded in food,
clothing, skins, pottery, gold and silver. Taxes had
to be paid to the emperor, who ruled supreme over
the high council, who elected him. Only military men
could attain high rank in Aztec society and all men
had to serve in the army. Historians belive the Aztecs
were the first Indians to use swords.

Did the Aztecs have schools?

Yes. Priests trained young girls and boys for official^
religious duties in special schools called calmecacs,
and there were also telpuchcalli (houses of youth)
where history, A / t e c traditions, crafts and religious
observances were taught. But the Aztecs were unable
^ to write; they formed picture-writing symbols on.
^

books made of leaves, rolled into a scroll. Some of]

these survive today.

How did the Aztecs die out?

This happened when the Spanish explorer Hernando
Cortes discovered the Aztec Empire in 1519. At first
on good terms with the Spanish, the Aztecs were
betrayed when Cortes imprisoned their emperor and,
after much fighting, finally conquered the Aztecs in
1521, with the aid of horses, guns and iron weapons.
The Aztec civilisation collapsed almost immediately
after this defeat. Many of the people died from European diseases brought by the Spanish. Cortes had the
plaza and the temples, government buildings and the
market-places levelled to the ground, building his own
administration offices there.
There are still many descendants of the Aztec
Indians living in small villages near Mexico City, and
they speak the language of their forefathers. But
most of their customs and religions are taken from the
Spanish soldiers who settled in their land so many

115

CASTLE QUIZ

W h a t are pele towers

and

keeps?

W h a t are motte and

bailey

castles?
These were the earliest Norman
castles. They were built on the top of
a man-made mound with a ditch and
a wooden fence around the 'bailey',
which was an area of ground around
the wooden fort used for defending
the castle. The wooden buildings are
gone now, of course, but it's still
possible to see the mounds, or
'mottes'.

W h a t are curtain w a l l s ?
Castles built in later years had
strong curtain walls, made of stone
and often very thick indeed. These
walls went all around the castle and
had many principal rooms built into
them, usually in the shape of towers.
Sometimes there would be a double
circle of walls for extra security.

Pele towers are strong, fortified

towers. They stand by themselves,
without the moat or drawbridge of
other types of castle, usually on
higher ground. They can be seen
near the Borders, as they were built
to fight bands of marauders which
used to cross into Scotland or
England from their own lands to
harass and steal.
Keeps are towers, too, built by the
Normans when they had established
a stronghold on Britain and could
create permanent castles made of
stone. The keep was the central
tower, surrounded by battlements.

Pele+owet

Moife

and Bailey

caslle

Keep

Curtain

wal/s

Barbican
Machiolations

What w o u l d
castle?

What

are

Ihachiolations?

These are long holes let into the roof

from the battlements of a castle.
Their use was, in centuries gone by,
to protect the people inside the castle
while they hurled down missiles on to
the heads of the attackers. Very
similar are the arrow loops you can
see in many castles, let into the walls.
They were for bowmen who could
point their arrows through these
holes without being seen themselves.
Sometimes you'll see arrow loops in
the shape of crosses; the horizontal
slits were for archers using crossbows.

What

was

the

barbican?

The barbican was an outer defence

building in a castle, situated close to
the gatehouse, where the drawbridge and portcullis were kept.
Soldiers would use the barbican as
an outer defence when the castle
was being attacked. The portcullis
was a large door made of iron or
wooden bars which could be
lowered or raised by way of grooves
cut into the doorway. It was another
defence against invaders, as was
the drawbridge, which was a bridge
raised or lowered on chains across
the moat.

be inside the

A castle was like a world on its own.

In days when war was an everyday
possibility, castles were made to be as
secure and self-sufficient as possible.
There would be barracks for the
soldiers, living quarters for the
servants and the kings:, queens or
noblemen, as well as kitchens, wells
and granaries to produce the
immense amount of food needed to
feed the many people living in the
castle. There would be cellars for
wine and stores, a great banqueting
hall, quarters for the animals that
would be kept for food, and stables
for the horses. Most important, there
would be an armoury, where
weapons were kept, and areas like
the barbican, where the castle would
be defended. In some castles there
would be a paved courtyard in the
very centre, or gardens where the
people would sit. There would be
laundries and places where craftsmen would work, making pottery,
weapons
or
shoeing
horses.
Lavatories were set into the thick
outer walls of the castle and were
known as garderobes.

117

Y O U A N D YOUR BODY

WHAT ARE REFLEXES?

Most of the movements we make are completely under
our control, but some, the reflex actions, are not.
A reflex action is an automatic response to a stimulus,
for example pain, and we cannot control it at all.
If you were to touch something very hot, your hand
would automatically be pulled away before you had
realised that it was burning. This is because the nerves
in your hand send a message to the brain, which
immediately sends back the message which pulls the
hand away - all in a split second.
Other examples of reflex actions are blinking when
a spec of grit gets in the eye, and the way your
mouth waters when you think of certain foods.

WHAT IS TASTE?

SALT

SOUR

118

SWEET

BITTER

Taste is one of the five senses, the others being sight,

smell, touch and hearing. Our chief organ of taste
is the tongue, which is covered with tiny cells or
taste buds. These react to different tastes and send
messages to the brain.
You may be surprised to learn that there are in
fact only four kinds of taste: sweet, sour, salty and
bitter. All the flavours we know are a combination
of these four.
Just as there are four kinds of taste, so there are
four kinds of taste bud, and these are situated in
different areas of the tongue. Only the centre of the
tongue has no buds at all, as you will see if you put
a little salt on the middle of your tongue. Experiment
with other flavours to find the areas of taste buds
on your tongue, and then see how placing an ice
cube on your tongue affects your sense of taste.

WHAT IS BALANCE?
Balance is what keeps us upright, although we tend
to take it for granted unless we are standing on a
swaying bus or crossing a narrow bridge. But how
do we know when we are upright? The answer lies
in our ears, in three small tubes called semi-circular
canals. These canals are filled with liquid and they
act very much like a spirit level. W h e n we tip them
the liquid flows to one side and bumps against special
nerves which immediately send messages to the brain,
telling it how far we should move to regain our
balance.
There are three of these canals in each ear, although
they have nothing to do with our hearing. One canal
is concerned with twisting movements, one with
sideways movements, and one with backward and
f o r w a r d movements.

KA

HOW DO WE SMELL?
Our organ of smell is, of course, the nose, and it is
the weakest of our five senses. As we breathe in air
through our nostrils, any gases or tiny particles it
contains are carried into the nasal cavity to the
olfactory (smell-detecting) nerves. The tiny nerve
endings react to the various chemicals that make up a
smell, and the result is sent along the main olfactory
nerve to the special reception centre in the brain.
Smell and taste are very closely associated, and
often what we think of as a taste is in fact a smell.
For example, coffee, tobacco, apples and potatoes
are 'tasted' in the nose. To prove this, try blindfolding
a friend, then hold his nose while he eats a slice of
apple and a slice of potato. He will find it hard to
distinguish between them.

119

A KINDLE OF CATS

A collection of cats is called a kindle, and here is a

collection of questions on cats . . . of many kinds!

. which boolc does the Cheshire Co,

appear?

'

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. This is the story

of the adventures of a little girl when she followed a
White Rabbit down a hole and met such fascinating
creatures and the M a d Hatter, the Queen of Hearts,
the Dormouse . . . and of course, the Cheshire Cat,
who had a large head and a wicked smile!

Who was Bubastis?

The Egyptian goddess with the face of a cat, to whom all
cats were sacred and whom the Egyptians worshipped
as the high priestess of the animals which saved their
grain stores f r o m mice.

What was the first Catamaran?

A raft or number of logs tied side by side and longest
in the middle. It was used to get to and from shore to
ship on a short voyage.

What is unusual about a Manx cat?

It has no tail, because according to legend, it was so
late getting to the Ark that N o a h closed the door
before it got inside properly . . . and so it lost its tail!

Can you give another name for the

Cat-bear?
This is one of the names of the Red Panda, which has
lovely red fur and lives in the Himalayas, where it
feeds on fruit and leaves.

What were the Catacombs?

The underground passages where the early Christians held services and buried their dead. It was in
these passages, carved out of the soft rock, that the
Christians hid when they fled for their lives f r o m the
Romans.
120

QU-QU-QUIZ
Here's a quick test on t h i n g s b e g i n n i n g w i t h
'qu'....

1. W h a t w e r e quaestors?
2 . W h a t is q u a r t z ?
3 . Do y o u k n o w w h a t q u a s a r s a r e ?
4 . W h e n s o m e o n e ' s in q u a r a n t i n e , w h a t ' s
happened to them?
5. W h a t k i n d of a n i m a l is a q u a i l ?
6. Q u e t z a l is the n a m e of t w o d i f f e r e n t t h i n g s
Do y o u k n o w w h a t t h e y a r e ?
7. W h a t is a q u i n c e ?
8. W h e r e is the Q u a i d ' O r s a y ?

Check your answers on page 191

BOOKS A N D B O O K M E N
W h a t is t h e D o m e s d a y B o o k ?
This is a record, ordered to be collected by William the Conqueror, of
those owning property in England, together with the amount of property
they owned. The Domesday Book, which is in t w o volumes, was completed
in 1086, and enabled William to devise a system to tax this land. O n e
volume covered Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk while the other covered the
remaining part of Anglo-Saxon England.
The Domesday Book was written in Latin and it is also known as
'The King's Book' and 'The Winchester Roll'. Today it is kept in London
in the Public Records Office.
Who was William Caxton?
Caxton was known as 'The Father of English Printing' because after
learning his trade in Germany and Belgium he set up his printing press
'At the sign of the Red Pale' where he printed his first book in England.
It w a s c a l l e d The

Dictes

or

Sayings

of

Philosophers,

but Caxton

had

already helped to produce an English translation in Flanders of The

Recuyell
bury

of the Histories

of Troy a n d l a t e r he p u b l i s h e d C h a u c e r ' s

Tales a n d M a l o r y ' s Le Morte

Canter-

d'Arthur.

W h a t is a ' B o o k p l a t e ' ?
A bookplate is a printed label which a person pastes into the front of
his books to show that he owns them. Today, bookplates are coming
back into fashion, some featuring birds and animals, others scenes from
well-known books.
The first bookplates were made in the early 15th century in Germany.
They were woodcuts, coloured by hand. Albrecht Durer designed the
first printed bookplate in the early 16th century.
Today some people collect old bookplates as a hobby. A Charles Dickens,
William W o r d s w o r t h or Bronte sisters bookplate would be a treasure
indeed, if you were lucky enough to find one!
W h e r e w o u l d y o u see 'The B o o k of K e l l s ' ?
In Trinity College, Dublin. It is a beautifully illustrated manuscript of the
four gospels dating back to the 8th century. It is believed that this book
with its exquisite decoration and calligraphy was the work of the monks of
a monastery founded by St Columba at Kells in County Meath. Because
of the detail in its penmanship and elaborate borders this book is said to
be the best of its kind in this field of art in early times.

SPACE SHOTS

Check y o u r answers o n page 191

Since America and Russia cut back on their manned

space programmes, a lot of the public's interest in
space travel has disappeared. But still there are
satellites and unmanned probes visiting other planets
to help us unlock the secrets of our solar system.
Just how much do you know about space?
1. Which of the planets in our solar system travels
the fastest?
2. W h o was the first man to be launched into
space?
3. In what ship was he travelling?
4. W h o discovered the planet Uranus?
5. Which planet was named after the Roman G o d
who ruled the underworld?
6. W h o first suggested that it was the sun and not
the earth that was the centre of our solar system?
7. W h o was the first woman in space?
8. W h o was the second man to step down onto the
moon?
9. Does the moon orbit the earth or the earth orbit
the moon?
10. Which planet is known as the Red Planet?

THEY WERE FIRST!

W h o b u i l t the f i r s t w o r k i n g
submarine?
Although
various
experimental
models had been produced - such
as a leather-covered rowing boat
which could submerge - it was not
until 1775 that an American named
David Bushnell built the first working
submarine, which he named the
Turtle. A year later it was used in
an attempt to blow up the British
warship Eagle during the American
W a r of Independence. An American
named Ezra Lee tried to attach a
mine to the hull of the warship, but
failed because the hull was encased in copper!
W h o i n v e n t e d the first m i n e r s '
safety l a m p ?

W h o b u i l t t h e first p r a c t i c a l
w o r k i n g m o d e l of a s e w i n g
machine?

Sir Humphrey Davy produced his

safety lamp in 1815, which protected
miners from the danger of gas
formed by decaying coal, known as
firedamp. The safety lamp was like
an oil lamp surrounded by gauze
which formed a guard around the
flame. If the wick was lowered, a
blue flame would appear around
the main flame if firedamp was
present, and this would give the
miner enough time to get well away
from the danger area. Some safety
lamps cannot be opened and others
go out if opened. The Davy safety
lamp has helped to save many lives.

Although Englishman Thomas Saint

patented the first sewing machine
in 1790, made f r o m w o o d and with
a needle which had a notch and not
an eye, it was a Frenchman,
Barthelomy Thimonnier, who finally
produced the first practical sewing
machine about forty years later. He
used it for making uniforms for
soldiers, but he was almost killed
by angry workmen who thought
that this machine would deprive
them of their living!

W h o m a d e the first n o n - s t o p
trans-atlantic flight?
John William Alcock and Arthur
Whitten Brown, who won the
10,000 prize money by flying a
Royal Air Force Vickers Vimy bomber
with Rolls-Royce Eagle VIII engines,
from St. John's in Newfoundland to
County G a l w a y in Ireland, in M a y
1919. These airmen had to fight fog,
instrument failure and bad storms
on the journey, and for their great
courage they were later knighted by
King George V.

INGENIOUS INVENTIONS

The telescope was invented by

j Galileo, an Italian astronomer many
; centuries ahead of his time. As early
las 1609 he had found a w a y of
] making lenses strong enough to view
I the heavens clearly, and he disc o v e r e d that, contrary to beliefs
[popular at that time, the earth was
j n o t the centre of the universe!
(During his lifetime, despite his invention, he was ridiculed for his
ideas.
\

mtm

The telephone was invented by

Alexander Graham Bell, a teacher
^
of the deaf. He worked hard trying fe,
to transmit the sound of a human
voice through machinery, but at first
^ ^
his telephone could only pick up i s H
strange, blurred sounds. In 1876 the
first clearly-heard and understood
transmission was made by accident,
when Bell cried out after spilling
some acid and was heard by his
assistant in another room.

The electric light was the culmination

of a great deal of hard work and
hope for Thomas Edison. His incandescent electric lamp was produced in 1879, a glass bulb with
carbonised cotton thread connected
to the source of electricity by platinum wires. The cotton threads were
changed and tungsten replaced
them this century, but Edison's
invention meant a turning-point ir
the world's history.

The printing press came into being

because of the ingenuity of a man
called Gutenberg. His invention of
movable type was probably the most
important discovery of the Renaissance, and made the spread of
learning far more rapid and f a r reaching than if books had had to
continue being hand-made and
laboriously written out. It is due to
Gutenberg that we are able to
discover new ideas through the wide
range of books available today.
125

ALPHABET OF F A M O U S BATTLES

Dunkirk, 1940
The Germans attacked relentlessly
all the time that the great evacuation
of Dunkirk was taking place. This
was one of the best-organised
withdrawals of troops ever carried
out. All kinds of vessels, from
destroyers to rowing-boats, sailed
to the French coast to rescue retreating Allied forces and take them
to Britain.

Armada, 1588
The first great gun battle at sea.
Lord Howard of Effingham led the
English fleet in the defeat of the
130-ship

Invincible

Armada

of

Philip II of Spain. Drake, Hawkins

and Frobisher played prominent
parts in the victory.

Culloden, 1746
The battle that marked the end for
Prince Charles
Edward
Stuart,
'Bonny Prince Charlie', in his fight to
win Scotland's crown f r o m the
English. His army, made up mostly
of farmers, ill-prepared for the
fierce fighting, was defeated by
the
Duke of
Cumberland
on
Culloden moor, near Inverness.

Balaclava, 1854
The battle which included the famous
'Charge of the Light Brigade' on
September 6, when the
Light
Cavalry was sent into action against
the Russian artillery. This was a
disastrous and crucial point in the
Crimean W a r . Two hundred and
fifty men were wounded f r o m a
force of about 670.
126

Gettysburg, 1863
The Union army defeated the Confederate forces of General Robert
E. Lee when they met accidentally at
Gettysburg. This marked a turningpoint in the American Civil W a r ,
which heralded defeat for the South.
Gettysburg is now a memorial
graveyard for those who died.

Hastings, 1066

Leipzig, 1813

This, one of the most important

battles of history, gave the Normans
control of England when William,
Duke of Normandy, defeated the
Saxon king Harold. During the
battle Harold's eye was pierced by a
spear. The Bayeux tapestry commemorates the battle.

The battle sometimes referred to as

'The Battle of the Nations'. A combined army of Prussians, Russians
and Swedes defeated Napoleon's
army near Leipzig.

Jutland, 1916
This battle, the only major confrontation between Britain and Germany's
main fleets in W o r l d W a r One, left
Britain master of the seas. The British
G r a n d Fleet was led by Admiral
Jellicoe, the German Fleet led by
Admiral von Scheer. The battle took
place in the channel between N o r way and Jutland called the Skaggerak.

Iwo Jima, 1945

This battle marked some of the
bloodiest fighting during W o r l d W a r
Two. The American Marines captured the tiny but strategically vital
island of Iwo Jima f r o m the Japanese.

Marathon, 490 B.C.

Darius's Persian army wanted to
invade Greece, but was defeated by
a much smaller force of Athenians
and Plataeans, led by Militiades.
127

Stalingrad, 1942-3
The German Sixth Army captured
Stalingrad f r o m the Russians after
much heavy fighting during W o r l d
W a r Two. But Russian forces
counter-attacked and sieged the
Germans in the city. After a long
time the Germans, under General
Von Paulus, surrendered. This was
the first major defeat of the Germans
in Russia. Stalingrad is now called
Volgograd.

Orleans, 1429

Trafalgar, 1805

Joan of Arc led the French into

battle and forced the English to end
the siege of Orleans. This was a
decisive battle of the Hundred Years'
War.

Admiral Lord Nelson led the British

fleet to victory against a combined French and Spanish fleet off
Cape Trafalgar on the southern
coast of Spain. Nelson, on HMS
Victory, lost his life in the battle,
which established Britain's command of the seas.

Quebec, 1759
General W o l f e made a surprise
attack on Quebec f r o m the St.
Lawrence river, where the French
were besieged, and his attack was
successful, although both W o l f e and
the French commander Montcalm,
were killed. The battle marked the
end of French control in N o r t h
America.
128

Waterloo, 1815
'The Iron Duke', Wellington, with
his outnumbered armies, held off
Napoleon's French forces until the
arrival of Prussian reinforcements
under Marshal Blucher. This meant
that Napoleon suffered a crushing
defeat which brought about his final
downfall and exile to St. Helena.

STATUES WITH A STORY

Around the world in many
countries there are many interesting statues, some of which
have an unusual story behind
them.
The Statue of Liberty towers some 305 feet high over
Liberty Island, off the channel of New York harbour.
The people of France gave this symbol of 'Liberty
Enlightening the World' to the United States of
America in 1884, in commemoration of the centenary of
the American W a r of Independence. The statue, which
is of bronze, had as its model Mme Tallien, 'NotreDame-de-Thermidor', and is the work of an Alsatian
sculptor named Auguste Bartholdi.

In Kensington Gardens in London, near Long Water,

there is a statue of Peter Pan, the boy who never grew
up and who took the Darling boys and their sister
Wendy to live with him and his boys so that Wendy
could be a mother to all the children there.
Peter Pan was a character created by J. M. Barrie,
and the statue, standing on a pedestal on which are
carved fairies, rabbits and fieldmice, was erected in
1912. Among the other characters in the play are a
pirate captain named Hook, an Indian princess called
Tiger Lily and a fairy named Tinker Bell.

In Rome there is a bronze statue of two small

boys being fed by a she-wolf. The children are Romulus
and Remus, the legendry founders of the city, who were
the sons of Mars and Rhea Sylvia. Left to die, they were
found and fed by the wolf and they grew to manhood.
The brothers planned to build a great city, but they
quarrelled about this and in a rage Romulus slew his
brother. When the city was built, on the seven hills
which give it its other well-known name, it was named
after Romulus.
But Romulus always bitterly regretted killing his
brother and he always kept an empty throne beside
him, as a symbol that Remus shared his power.
When he disappeared in the middle of a
thunderstorm the citizens of Rome firmly believed that
Romulus had been taken up in a fiery chariot to heaven
by his father, the god Mars. Later they renamed
Romulus Quirinus and worshipped him as a god.

At Kamakura, near Tokyo in Japan, there is a giant

statue of Buddha, cast in bronze with eyes of pure
gold. It represents the Amitabha Buddha who his
followers believe lives in Pure Lane Paradise, and all
devout Buddhists offer prayers to this god. But the
founder of Buddhism was the son of a rich maharajah
who renounced a life of luxury to become a poor man.
He cut his hair and became a monk and he sat under
a tree contemplating his life. He preached his first
sermon at the city of Benares, which later became
a holy city to his followers.
Gautama became known as the Buddha, or The
Enlightened One', because of the Four Noble Truths
which he preached. These were that man could not
escape suffering, suffering is caused by selfish
desires, it can be cured by concern for others instead
of oneself, and that all devout Buddhists must follow the
'Middle W a y ' to Nirvana.

129

FOOD FOR THOUGHT!

W h a t d i d Persephone eat d u r i n g
her stay in the u n d e r w o r l d ?
Six pomegranate seeds, and as a
result of this she had to stay in Hades
for six months of the year as Queen.
During this time her mother Ceres
mourned the loss of her daughter
and this was when winter came to
the earth. But when Persephone
returned above ground for her
summer stay, corn grew and
flowers bloomed until it was time for
her to return to her husband once
again.

W h o is said to h a v e b u r n e d the
cakes?
Alfred, King of Wessex, was said to
have let the cowherd's wife's cakes
burn when she asked him to watch
them in return for safe shelter after
a weary battle-with the Viking
invaders in the Athelney marshes.
Not realising that her guest was
the king himself, the peasant woman
scolded the monarch soundly for

spoiling the cakes, and an

embarrassed King Alfred left the
cottage without telling the woman
who he was.
But the episode was later
recounted to a monk named Father
Neot who told the story in his
Chronicles

of St. Neot's,

a history o f

that period. Without this we would

never have learned about the king's
carelessness.

Can y o u n a m e the fruit w h i c h lost A t a l a n t a a race?

W h y does a j u m p i n g b e a n j u m p ?
Because it contains the imprisoned
larva of a moth which has laid an
egg in the bean before the bean
was fully formed. These very
unusual beans come from Mexico.

An oracle warned Atalanta, daughter of the king of Boeotia, that marriage

would bring her unhappiness. So when she was of marriageable age
Atalanta said that she would only marry a man who could outrun her, for
she was extremely fleet of foot.
Because of her great beauty many men took up her challenge, although
they knew that the penalty for failure was death. Many young men died and
Atalanta remained free until one day a youth named Hippomenes saw her
and fell in love with her. But Hippomenes knew he needed something
else beside the skill of his running to win the race. So he sought the help of
the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite, whom others called Venus.
Aphrodite gave Hippomenes three beautiful golden apples, telling him to
drop them in front of Atalanta during the race.
Hippomenes did as the goddess told him, dropping an apple at various
intervals during the race. The last apple was the most beautiful of all, and
Atalanta gazed at it for a few precious moments as she held it in her hand
after picking it up . . . just long enough for Hippomenes to win the race.
But although she had lost the race, Atalanta prized the golden apples,
and she was perfectly willing to marry the victor, for Hippomenes was both
young and handsome.
But in his joy at winning Atalanta for his bride, Hippomenes forgot to offer
thanks to Aphrodite for the part the goddess had played in his victory.
This made Aphrodite very angry and she made Cybele, the goddess
of the earth, very angry with the lovers. As a result Cybele turned Atalanta
and her husband into lions and forced them to pull her chariot for the rest
of their lives.
And so, despite all Atalanta's precautions, her marriage did bring her
disaster... as a result of stopping to pick up three golden apples.

BROWN EGGS ARE MORE

NUTRITIOUS THAN WHITE

W O U L D Y O U BELIEVE IT?
A l l the ideas on these t w o p a g e s
are t h o u g h t b y m a n y p e o p l e t o
be a b s o l u t e l y true. But are t h e y ?
Let's f i n d out if a n y of t h e m r e a l l y
h a v e a n y f o u n d a t i o n in f a c t . . .

OSTRICHES HIDE THEIR

HEADS IN THE SAND

The colour of the shell has nothing

whatever to do with the quality of an
egg. Although to most of us a brown
egg generally looks much more
appetising than a white one, in some
countries it is quite the opposite, and
white eggs are thought to be
somehow purer than brown. Again,
not true!

N o ostrich living in captivity or in the

wild has ever been seen to do such a
thing. At the approach of another
animal they sometimes bend their
necks close to the ground and listen
intently, and this may be what has
given rise to the belief. The ostrich in
fact has a much better way of coping
with possible attack from an enemy.
It runs away.

f?>

CARROTS HELP YOU SEE

IN THE DARK
One of the basic requirements for
good vision in poor light is a diet
which contains adequate amounts of
Vitamin A, found in milk, butter and
green vegetables. This vitamin assists
in the formation of 'visual purple',
which is a pigment in the retina.
Carrots contain a substance called
carotene, and this is converted by the
body into Vitamin A. The belief that
carrots help you see in the dark
therefore, is founded on scientific
f a d - but it certainly isn't true that
you will suddenly be able to see
clearly in pitch blackness if you've just
munched your way through a bunch
of them!

THE DEATH PENALTY HAS

BEEN ABOLISHED IN
BRITAIN
Capital punishment for crimes of
murder has been abolished in
Britain, but there are still two
offences for which the penalty is
death by hanging. The first is treason,
which covers a number of
exceptionally serious crimes,
including conspiring to kill the king or
queen. And the second, intriguingly,
is piracy with violence, which is a
section of the Piracy Act of 1837 - an
act which has never been repealed.
Until 1971, when the law was
changed, arson in a naval dockyard
was also punishable by death.

IT IS SAFE TO REMOVE A
SPLINTER WITH A NEEDLE
BUT NOT WITH A PIN
Many people believe that splinters
can be safely removed by using a
needle, but that a pin is much more
likely to cause infection. The belief
probably came about because pins
and needles were originally made of
different metals, and somehow the
idea spread that the metal used for
pins was dangerous. Nowadays we
realise that it is not the metal, but
the germs carried on the metal,
which cause infections. Always
sterilise any splinter-removing
implement in boiling water before
use, never use a rusty point, and use
plenty of antiseptic on the cut after
the offending particle is removed.

LIGHTNING NEVER STRIKES

TWICE
Scientists have yet to unravel all the
mysteries of the phenomenon of
lightning, and there is much they still
have to discover about its causes and
its nature. One thing they do know,
however, is that it is by no means
unusual for it to strike in the same
place twice. Lightning generally
strikes prominent buildings, and when
there are frequent storms in one area
those buildings are likely to be struck
repeatedly. The Empire State
building, for instance, was struck 68
times during its first ten years.

A LITTLE DUTCH BOY SAVED

HOLLAND FROM
FLOODING

RED SKY AT NIGHT,

SHEPHERDS' DELIGHT
This belief, along with as many as
half of the most familiar weather
proverbs, has been found to be
almost always true. It is well known in
several countries of the world, and it
is even mentioned in the Bible. The
other part of the rhyme is 'Red sky at
morning, shepherds' warning', and
this too has proved itself to be a
reliable 'barometer'. Test it out for
yourself and see how many times the
rhyme is proved to be accurate.

The stirring tale is often told of the

brave little Dutch boy who saved
Holland from flooding by putting his
finger in a hole in a dyke. Sadly, this
charming story has no basis in fact,
though it does exist quite definitely in
fiction. The tale was invented by a
nineteenth-century American writer,
Mary Mapes Dodge, and it appeared
in some editions of her book Hans
Brinker,

or The Silver Skates. The idea

of the brave little boy sitting all night

with his finger in the icy water of the
dyke has so captivated succeeding
generations of readers that it has
now passed into the realms of
popular folklore.

133

H O W M U C H D O Y O U K N O W A B O U T THE HISTORY OF CLOTHES?

What were the first shoes like?

They were often knitted or sewn stockings; later these were made from
animal skins and in bad weather covered by a simple wooden sandal. In the
warmer countries, sandals with leather thongs were worn from the earliest
times. There was little change in footwear until the seventeenth century when
the first heeled shoes came into being, trimmed with lace and ribbons. From
then on heels have remained important. Later leather boots were invented.
In modern times shoes are made from wood, rubber, cloth and synthetics as
well as from leather.

What was a doublet?

This was originally the padded coat
worn beneath a breastplate. Later it
became the main garment that a
man wore beneath his heavy coat or
cloak. From the fifteenth to the
seventeenth centuries the doublet
was affected by different fashions,
and sometimes was very finely made
of expensive cloth, slashed and
puffed to make the wearer seem
bigger. Henry VIII was fond of these
bulky garments. By the seventeenth
century the doublet grew smaller
until its function was taken over by
the waistcoat.

What was the 'hobble skirf ?

A long skirt which was so narrow
around the ankles that walking
normally was difficult - women tended
to hobble instead. Fashionable
between 1910 and 1914, it became
popular because a famous actress
used it on stage for an original role.
Since she wore it only because the role
required her to stand motionless
against a pillar for some hours and
wanted a dress to match the pillar's
shape, it was a surprise to many when
the hobble skirt's followers wore it to
walk, dance and be generally active.
But its impracticality ensured it was not
fashionable for very long.
134

When was the umbrella first thought of?

After a kind of umbrella was used by the ancient peoples as a sunshade, it
was not seen again until the sixteenth century when a giant umbrella was
made for several people at once! Marie de Medici took the fashion to
France, when sunshade umbrellas and parasols were made of waxed
material with horn handles. But 'wet weather' umbrellas came into their
own in the eighteenth century. Made of oiled cloth and cane, they were
heavy and unfashionable, but they paved the way for lighter, more practical
umbrellas which became an essential for every well-dressed man. For a
while parasols with fancy fringing and silk covers were invaluable for
shielding the sun from women; but now most people wear sunglasses instead.

Who created the 'New Look'?

The famous French fashion designer
Christian Dior began a revolution in
women's clothes when his 'New Look'
came out in 1947. After the
dreariness and skimpy line of the
clothes worn throughout the Second
W o r l d W a r his more feminine
approach, of small waists and wide,
full skirts, caught the world's
imagination, and set the style for the
fifties. It wasn't until the sixties, and
the advent of the mini-skirt, that
Dior's 'New Look' fell from the
forefront of fashion.

What is the history of the handbag?

During the Middle Ages women tied purses to a belt around their waists.
These were called aumonieres, after the French word for alms, and held
coins and other small objects. Later there was a Gothic fashion entailing the
wearing of many different bags around the waist! Later, ladies had small
draw-string bags to hold, either sewn or knitted. This was the fore-runner of
the Victorian reticule, a bag on a long cord. It wasn't until the last quarter of
the nineteenth century that strong, stiff handbags became known, rather the
same as the handbags in fashion today.
135

R E D

Where is 'the rose-red city'?

A S . . .

The 'rose-red city, half as old as time',

is Petra in Jordan, now in ruins. It can
only be reached through narrow
gorges of red sandstone cliffs, but
when it was discovered in 1812,
archaeologists discovered the remains
of beautiful tombs and an amphitheatre.

What is a mantella?
A mantella is a beautiful orange-red
frog which lives in Madagascar.

Who were the 'Redbreasts'?

This was the nickname given to the
Bow Street Runners, the forerunners
of the new police force in the midnineteenth century. They wore a blue
dress-coat with brass buttons and a
bright red-cloth waistcoat, hence their
nickname.

Who was Eric the Red?

Eric the Red's full name was Eric Thorwaldson, and he was a Norseman who
explored Greenland and set up a colony there in the late tenth century. He was
the first European to record a voyage on the Atlantic Ocean. His son Lief Ericson
later visited Norway, the land from which Eric and his father had once fled,
where Lief learned about Christianity which he in turn spread in his father's
colony of Greenland.

Who founded the Red Cross?

Jean Henri Dunant, a Swiss banker and philanthropist, founded the Red Cross
after seeing the suffering of the wounded during the mid-nineteenth century
Austro-Sardinian W a r . The Committee of Five' met in Geneva and as a
result the Geneva Convention was signed, for the protection and care of
wounded soldiers in war. Later came the International Red Cross Committee,
with branches in most countries of the world.
In both war and peace the Red Cross help the suffering with medical aid,
food parcels, finding missing relatives and so on. There is also a Junior Red
Cross which help the ill and handicapped, visit hospitals and shop for
disabled people. The junior branch also run their own special projects such as
an Austrian camp for diabetic children and a Greek school which is run
entirely by funds supplied by a Canadian school.
The Red Cross Flag honours Switzerland where the Red Cross was founded
in 1863. The Swiss flag is a white cross on a red background, so a red cross
on a white field was chosen as the new name and emblem of this mercy
mission. In non-Christian countries a red crescent is the emblem instead of
a cross.

Where would you find a

red-hot poker?
Growing in a garden, as it is a flower,
a member of the lily family. It grows
up to nine feet tall and its upright
flower spikes remind one of a hot
poker, hence its name, as the flowers
change from glowing red, through
orange to yellow.
It is also known as the Torch Flower
and although coming originally from
South Africa it can now be seen in
many gardens during spring and
early autumn.
137

THE W O R L D OF
EXPLORERS
W h o was Marco Polo?
In 1271, young Marco Polo (1254-1324)
set out with his father and uncle i o journey
from Italy to the legendary empire of
Cathay (China) ruled by the mighty Kublai
Khan. Marco travelled far and wide in the
imperial service of the Khan and was keenly
interested in everything he saw, the
splendours of the East being, at that time,
far in advance of Europe.
They returned h o m e in 1295, laden with
silks, jewels and wonderful tales of Cathay's
wealth and vastness. Marco Polo's vivid,
detailed descriptions inspired a whole new
age of exploration.

Which ship first

circumnavigated the world?
Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) left Spain
in 1519 with five ships, to find the fabled
westward route to the Indies. Three ships
survived to round the tip of South America,
then Magellan sailed 1,000 miles
northwards along the coast, before striking
west across the Pacific. For three desperate
months the crews suffered near-starvation
and disease before reaching hospitable land.
Shortly afterwards Magellan was killed.
Further misfortunes followed, and in
September 1522 only one ship, the
V i c t o r i a , sailed into Seville after a journey
of almost three years.

Who discovered the

source of the White Nile?
The mystery of the source of the Nile
fascinated geographers from the earliest
times, but it was not until the 19th century
that serious expeditions were mounted to
discover it.
J o h n H a n n i n g S p e k e (1827-64) first
discovered Lake Victoria, which he believed
to be the source, in 1858, but his claim was
disputed. A new expedition provided further
proof in July 1862, and Samuel Baker and
H.M.Stanley later confirmed his discoveries.
As a reward, Speke was allowed the right to
add a hippopotamus and a crocodile to his
coat-of-arms.

IfitfiJSb

W h o was the first Englishman

to reach the South Pole?
C a p . R o b e r t F a l c o n S c o t t reached the
South Pole on 17th January 1912, a month
after the Norwegian, Amundsen. Though
bitterly disappointed, Scott's efforts
contributed immeasurably to our scientific
understanding of the Antarctic.
The ensuing Polar winter seriously
deteriorated surface conditions; this,
together with extremely severe weather,
disastrously slowed their return. Scott's
refusal to abandon two seriously ill men,
Evans and Oates, further reduced their
speed.
Desperate fuel shortages cut their hot
food ration, and finally, only 11 miles from
a supply depot, Scott and his surviving
companions, Wilson and Bowers, perished,
confined to their tent by a violent blizzard.

139

THE OLYMPICS
A c c o r d i n g to legend, Heracles,
t h e p a t r o n of athletes, m a r k e d out
the original O l y m p i c s t a d i u m with
600 footsteps i m p r i n t e d in t h e
s a n d a n equivalent to a distance
of 192.70 metres.

What is the Olympic motto?

It is the Latin citius, altius, fortius, which
means 'faster, higher, stronger'. This motto
is attributed to Father Didon, a friend of
Pierre de Coubertin, who was responsible
for the re-establishment of the Games in
modern times.

When were the first modern

Olympic Games?
They were held during April 1896 in
Athens. Altogether 311 athletes competed,
of whom 230 were Greek. The highlight
was the marathpn, run from Marathon to
Athens, in which a humble water-carrier
from Athens delighted the patriotic crowd
by winning the gruelling three-hour race.

W h o first said 'The most

important thing is not to win,
but to take part'?
These words were first spoken by the
Archbishop of Philadelphia during a
ceremony held in honour of the athletes for
the 1908 Games, which were held in
London. They were elaborated on in a
speech by Baron de Coubertin later that
year, and have often been used since as an
expression of the spirit of the Olympics.

140

cf

Who designed the Olympic flag,

what is its emblem and when
was it first displayed?
The flag was designed by none other than
de Coubertin, and shows the five Olympic
rings. De Coubertin himself described the
flag as 'white, except for the five intertwined
rings: blue, yellow, black, green and red. It
symbolises the five land masses united by
olympism and reproduces the colours of
every nation'.
This latter was a reference to the world's
flags, which are all covered by these six
colours (including white), while the five land
masses are our five continents.
The flag was first displayed at the
Sorbonne in 1914, and has been used at all
the Games since 1920.

In 1976 t h e O l y m p i c flame was lit

simultaneously in O l y m p i a a n d in
Montreal, using a laser b e a m .

What is the other famous

Olympic symbol?
The flame. This was introduced by the
Olympic Congress in 1925 (in honour of
the ancient custom) and was first used in
modern Olympics at the 1928 Amsterdam
Games.
In 1936 the flame was lit for the first time
at Olympia itself, using the original method
of laying a piece of wood on a concave
mirror and exposing it to sunlight until it
caught fire. The flame was then carried to
Berlin, the site of that year's Games, by a
relay of runners, a practice which was to
continue in the years to come.

141

H O W MUCH D O YOU KNOW .

ABOUT PLANTS?

On which side of a
tree does moss
grow?
Usually on the north side.
This is because moss likes
moist places and obviously
there is least sunlight falling
on the north side of a tree,
making it darker and
damper than the rest of the
tree trunk.
Deep in a forest,
however, where the rays of
the sun cannot penetrate,
moss may well grow on all
sides of the trees.

How can you tell poison ivy from other plants?

By its leaves. There is a saying 'Leaflets three, let it be' which
comes from the fact that poison ivy leaves are made up of
three leaflets, two of which form a pair on opposite sides of a
stem while the third lies by itself at the end of the stem.
Although the plant woodbine could in some ways easily be
confused with poison ivywhich grows as either a bush or a
vine, with shiny green leaves in the summer turning bright red
in the autumnthe saying about the leaves still holds true, for
woodbine clearly has five leaflets instead of the ivy's three.

Why isn't a mushroom green,

like most plants?
Because it is a fungus. Fungi do not contain
chlorophyll, which is what gives plants their
green colour. Since chlorophyll is needed
by plants to make their own food,
mushrooms and other non-green plants
have to absorb their food from elsewhere,
for instance from the soil, which is rich with
decaying plants.

Are there any animal-eating

plants?
Yes, although they do not eat anything
larger than insects (which, of course, are
members of the animal kingdom).
These carnivorous plants capture their
prey using various means. The pitcher plant
has tubelike leaves that hold water, and
insects crawl down into these leaves only to
be caught on tiny hairs which line the tube.
They then slide down the tube into the
water, where eventually they drown.
The sundew has circular leaves, this time
covered with hairs on the outside. Each hair
has a drop of sticky liquid at its tip which
holds onto the insect and prevents its
escape, while the leaf curls inwards and
traps it, ready for eating.
But perhaps the most well-known animaleating plant is the aptly-named Venus'flytrap. This has hinged leaves, again with
hairs over their surface. When an insect
lands on one of these especially sensitive
hairs, the leaf closes up on its hinge,
trapping the insect inside.

143

W H O W A S THE M O N A LISA?

Da Vinci's M o n a Lisa is probably the world's

masterpiece. It is the best-known and most priceless
painting in the world. Leonardo took four years to
complete it, while he was working on murals for the
Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.
The woman he chose to paint was Lisa Gherardini,
the sixteen-year-old who had become, in 1492, the
third wife of an elderly Florentine nobleman called
Francesco di Zanobi del Giocondo (hence the M o n a
Lisa's other-name, La Gioconda). Giocondo didn't
commission da Vinci to paint the portrait - unusual in a
time when most works of art were commissioned. W h e n
it was completed da Vinci sold it to Francis I for 4,000
pieces of gold, and it has remained in France ever since,
where it now hangs in the Louvre.
Perhaps the most famous feature of the painting is
the smile. The Mona Lisa, if you look carefully, smiles
with only the left part of her mouth. In fact it has been
discovered, through the discovery of a book printed in
1541 called 'Concerning The Perfect Beauty of A Lady',
that smiling in this way was a kind of fashion, thought to
make a woman more alluring.
Lisa Gherardini was very beautiful in her own right,
of course, despite the fashionable smile. Leonardo
recalls in journals that he had lute music played and
books read aloud while she sat for him, so that her
lovely expression wouldn't fade through boredom.
Instead of dressing in opulent clothes and jewels for
the portrait, as was the custom with noblewomen, Lisa
was dressed simply and darkly. Her plain clothes add
dramatic atmosphere and depth to the painting,
blending with the sombre background of lonely
countryside.
For many people the difference between a portrait
and a masterpiece lies in the w a y that da Vinci had
portrayed Lisa Gherardini's soul and character in a
three-dimensional way. Leonardo made good use of
his extensive knowledge of anatomy to create perfect
figures, correct in every way, while his poetic insight
enabled him to go deeper into the character of his
sitter. In other words, he was able to reconcile scientific
with imaginative exactness - a feat which troubles a
great many artists.
It was this problem - of bringing to a flat canvas the
world of secret thoughts and moods - which Leonardo
struggled with all his life. He tried to create a visual
equivalent for subjects which were intangible and
invisible.
144

In the Mona Lisa are symbols of the hidden

personality of a woman, set down by a genius. Da Vinci
tried to portray many unspoken things which he saw in
Lisa Gherardini's face. It is the power and truth of these
unspoken things which we have recognised and
admired through the centuries since the M o n a Lisa
was painted.

LITERARY N I C K N A M E S
Who was 'The Swan of
Denmark'?
Hans Christian Andersen, born in
Odense, the son of a poor shoemaker, who was destined to become one of the world's greatest
fairytale writers. He wanted to be
an actor, but his efforts in this
direction were mocked, so he turned
to writing. Among his best known
stories a r e The Ugly

Duckling

Who was 'Currer Bell'?

This was the pen name adopted by Charlotte Bronte
when she first wrote her famous novel Jane Eyre,
not wishing the publisher to know that she was a
woman. Her t w o sisters, Anne and Emily wrote under
the names of Ellis and Acton Bell. Charlotte was
the eldest of these three daughters of Patrick Bronte,
and was born in Yorkshire where she later lived at
Haworth Parsonage with her father, her t w o older
sisters, who sadly died in girlhood, and her brother
Branwell. Charlotte also wrote Villette and The
Professor which were based on her own experiences
while teaching at a school in Brussels. Anne wrote
Tenant

of Wildfell

Hall

a n d Emily is r e m e m b e r e d f o r

h e r m a g n i f i c e n t Wuthering

Heights.

who

like Anderses himself finally turned

into a swan, Thumbelina and The
Little Mermaid, a statue of which
stands in Copenhagen harbour, a
lasting remembrance to this w o n derful teller of fairytales.

"A

Who was 'George Eliot'?

This manly pen name hid the t r u e ,
name of the assistant editor of t h e '
Westminster Review, a young lady
who was the daughter of a W a r wickshire estate manager, M a r y
Ann Evans. Among her better known
w o r k s a r e Adam

Who was 'Boz'?

Sketches by Boz, a series of articles on London life, was one of the
early works of Charles Dickens, who wrote them while working as a
reporter in the House of Commons.
Dickens put much of his own life into his later novels, especially
David Copperfield in which he recalled his days working in a bottle
factory, where he put labels on bottles. He also wrote The Old
Curiosity Shop at the end of which the whole nation wept at the
death of Little Nell; Nicholas Nickleby, the adventures of a young
schoolmaster in a very bad school in Yorkshire; Bleak House, and t w o
of the most loved of all, Pickwick Papers which told of the amusing
adventures of Samuel Pickwick and his friends, and in A Christmas
Carol, the tender tale of Tiny Tim, w h o finally helped to melt the hard
heart of Ebenezer Scrooge. Dickens gave public performances of his
own work, both at home and in the United States. He died suddenly
in 1870 at the age of 58.

Bede;

The Mill

on

the Floss, in which the Tulliver family

are drawn from M a r y Ann's own
family life; Silas Marner, the story
of a miser and the foundling he
took into his home;
Middlemarch
a n d Daniel

Deronda.

H O W DOES IT W O R K ?
The Microwave Oven
The microwave oven has been
heralded as a major breakthrough,
first in the catering trade, and now in
the domestic kitchen. But what exactly
is a microwave oven, and how does
it work?

The microwave is really a superspeedy oven that will cook food in

an amazingly short time. For instance,
it takes just fifteen minutes to cook
a whole chicken! It will also cook
frozen food without it having to be
defrosted first.

rotating reflector blades

microwaves are
reflected until
absorbed b y the
food

high voltage
M i c r o w a v e ovens are a potentially
d a n g e r o u s f o r m o f r a d i a t i o n . For t h i s
reason the ovens are metal-lined a n d
h a v e strong doors. The c o o k e r w i l l n o t
function until the doors are closed,
thus ensuring safety.

power supply

How? It is all made possible by

very high frequency radio waves,
which penetrate the food to be
cooked, violently agitating the
molecules therein. This agitation
creates great heat, so that the food
cooks internally, rather than
externally.

The source of the microwaves is a

magnetron, a high-frequency radar
tube. Microwaves generated by the
magnetron travel down a metal duct,
are reflected into the oven, and
dispersed evenly. The waves are
reflected around the oven until they
are absorbed by the food.
W h a t happens to the food? Take
a chicken. The molecules in it have
plus and minus electrical charges,
lined up in all directions. When
microwave energy passes through
the food the molecules are all
aligned parallel with their
electromagnetic field. The next pulse
of energy reverses them.
Pulsed oscillations occur billions of
times per second, producing
tremendous frictional heat. This
accounts for the extra-fast cooking
time, the food cooking from within.
It is because of this internal cooking
that joints of meat etc don't brown
in a'microwave, even when they are
cooked through.

WHAT HAPPENS IN A
MICROWAVE OVEN

1. The molecules in a chicken have plus

and minus electrical charges oriented
every way.
146

2. A pulse of microwave energy passing

through the chicken aligns the molecules
parallel with their electromagnetic field.

3. The next pulse reverses them. Pulsed

oscillations occur billions of times per
second, producing frictional heat and
cooking the chicken very quickly from
within.

QUESTIONS A N D ANSWERS
Vhat was the Gordian Knot?
The Gordian Knot was, in Greek
mythology, a knot tied so intricately
that no one could untie it. It was first
rted by a peasant called Gordius to
fie the ox yoke to his chariot. Later,
Sordius was made a King because
the oracle advised it, and Gordius
dedicated his chariot and yoke to
Zeus. A legend grew up that the man
who could loosen the knot would rule
dII Asia, and later Alexander the
3reat cut the knot through with his
.word to fulfil the prophecy.
Researchers in recent times have
found a tomb thought to belong to
(ing Gordius. The term 'cutting the
3ordian Knot' means tackling a
difficult problem in a clever way.

What language is spoken

in India?

Who was Muhammed?

Muhammed was a prophet who lived
in the early A.D. 600s. He preached
in Mecca that there was only one
god, Allah, and that he, Muhammed,
was the messenger of Allah. People
who follow Muhqmmed's religion
are called Muslims, meaning 'one
who submits to God'. The religion is
called Islam, Arabic for submission.
Islam has more than 400 million
followers, most of whom live in or
around the Middle East, North
Africa and Indonesia and the
Philippines in the East.
The rapid spread of Islam resulted
in the Crusades being fought
between Christians and Muslims. The
Holy Book of Islam is called the
Koran, made up from Muhammed's
teachings.

What are gargoyles?

Gargoyles are decorated waterspouts jutting out from the gutters of
roofs. The word gargoyle comes
from the Latin gurgulio, meaning
gullet. Greek and Roman architects
placed open-mouthed lions at the
edges of each roof, so that water
sliding down would empty from their
mouths. Gargoyles became a
favourite feature of Gothic
architects, used in the building of
churches, cathedrals and other
buildings. They were weird halfhuman, half-animal creatures.
Keeping an eye out for them is a
fascinating pastime.

In fact Indians speak about sixty

different languages, with fourteen
major ones. The two main families to
which each language belongs are
the Dravidian and the IndoEuropean. The Indo-Europeanlanguages are spoken in northern
India and include Hindi and Urdu,
which includes many Persian words.
Hindi is more influenced by Sanskrit,
an ancient Indian language related
to Greek and Latin. A simpler form
of Hindi and Urdu is Hindustani.
The main Dravidian languages are
Kanada, Tamil and Telugu. They are
spoken mainly in the south. Nearly
half the people can speak Hindi,
which is the official language. English
remains as an 'associate official
language'.

What is a hybrid?
A hybrid is the offspring of two
plants or animals of different
genetics. The young of a donkey and
a mare is a mule; the grapefruit and
the tangerine bred together produce
the ugli fruit. The orange and the
tangerine became the ortanique, and
the buffalo and domestic cow
becomes a cattabu. Hybridisation is
important because breeders can
produce variations which are more
suitable for what is wanted than
would be possible otherwise.

DO Y O U K N O W ?

What is hydroponics?

WMRE
i i l i
SAND.
SAWDUST",

PAT

MOSS

A method of growing plants without

soil. Plants are supplied with water
which has been reinforced with
various mineral salts to help good
growth. The seeds are planted in a
layer of damp sawdust, sand or moss
and grow through this, and through
a wire mesh, until the roots are taking
nourishment from the water. Plants
grown this way tend to be sturdier
since they are not vulnerable to
infections and insects in ordinary soil.

Tamk
CH6MICAL

Why are the Society of

Friends called Quakers?
George Fox founded the Society of
Friends, a religious sect, in 1648. His
followers were first called Quakers
after Fox told a judge to "tremble at
the word of the Lord".

Which woman won the

Nobel Prize?
A British chemist, Dorothy Crowfoot
Hodgkin, was awarded the Nobel
Prize in 1964 for her work in chemistry.
She found the structures of substances
such as penicillin and vitamin B12.
She went to Oxford and received the
Order of Merit in 1965.
148

H O W DID JIGSAWS COME INTO BEING?

In the London of the 1760s lived and worked a young

man called John Spilsbury, an engraver and map-maker.
One day he had an idea for a learning aid for children
that was revolutionary, especially in those days, with
books specially written for children only having
appeared a few years before.
John pasted maps onto blocks of wood, cut the blocks
into separate pieces, and put the pieces into special
polished w o o d boxes. The child had to fit the pieces of
wood together, thus completing the map and improving
his geographical knowledge.
At that time children were expected to learn from a
very early age, and had few of the pleasures of
childhood as we know it today. Latin and Greek were
usual subjects for five-year-olds, and poor children
were expected to go out to work and earn a living at
the age of seven. You can imagine how well the
'dissected maps' were received by hard-worked young
scholars, for they provided a little entertainment amid
hours of study, though they were expensive, and
therefore only available to rich children.

John Spilsbury's idea soon spread to Europe and

America, and many new ideas appeared on what came
to be called 'dissected puzzles' - dates, lists of kings and
queens, the alphabet, multiplication tables etc. In fact
their popularity increased so much that they were
eventually used as toys purely and simply, featuring
scenes, verses and rhymes.
As methods of making the puzzles increased, wood
gave way to cardboard, and now jigsaws are enjoyed
by people of all ages, and range from simple pre-school
standard of about eight pieces to complicated scenes
made up from many thousands of pieces.
But what of their modern name? John Spilsbury's
'dissected maps' and 'dissected puzzles' were popular
for many years, the name jigsaw not being used in
Britain until this century. The word probably originated
in America, where the saw used to cut the puzzles is
known as a jigsaw.
149

B O O K W O R M S QUIZ
Just h o w m u c h d o you
t h i n k you k n o w a b o u t
the world of literature?
Test yourself with this
quiz!

8. Anna Sewell wrote a

story about a magnificent
animal. What animal was
it, and what was its name?
9. Can you name the three
female novelists who once
lived together in Haworth
Parsonage?

1. Do you know which

famous author travelled all
over Britain for his job with
the Post Office, and still
had time to write fifty
books?
4. An ill-educated tinker's
son went on to write a
masterpiece about a
character called Christian.
Can you name the author
and his book?
5. This Victorian author's
pen-name was, for a while.
'Boz'. Who was he really?

2. What was the name of

the island Gulliver
discovered at the beginning
of his travels?
3. Alexander Selkirk was a
Scots sailor who, after an
argument with his captain,
was left behind on a
deserted island. Later
Daniel Defoe wrote a book
based on Selkirk's
experiences. Do you know
its name?

10. The Brothers Grimm

wrote and collected
German fairytales. But do
you know what their
careers were?

6. Peter Pan lived, in J.M

Barries book, in a special
kind of land. What was it
called?
7. Do you know which
book featured Mole, Toad
and Ratty? And, if so, can
you name its author, too?

11. Have you ever read

any of P.C. Wren's
adventure stories about the
Foreign Legion? Give the
name of his most famous
novel.

1 2 . First

Impressions

18. A modern American

author wrote a lovely story
about the biggest pearl in
the world. He was born in
California and lived there
most of his life. W h o was
he?

was

the original title of Jane

Austen's first book. By
what name would we know
the novel today?

15. A Scots poet and

author wrote about the
heroes Rob Roy and
Ivanhoe. Do you know
who he was?

13. Someone tilted at

windmills and rode a
mount called Rozinante, in
Cervantes' great book.
W h o was heand do you
know the name of his fat
companion, too?

16. The "Just-So" stories

are well-loved all over the
world. But who wrote
them?

19. Elidor and The

Weirdstone of Brisingamen
are only two of the magical
books written bywho?

14. James Fenimore

Cooper was a writer who
concentrated on portraying
a certain race of people.
W h o were these people?

20. Kate Greenaway was

famous for her skill with
books. But what exactly
was she?

17. Edgar Rice Burroughs

invented a legend with his
books. Do you know what
character he created?

ANSWERS

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151

RUSSIA

Empire of Two Continents

Russia - or the U.S.S.R., to use its proper name - is the
largest country in the world, stretching from the Arctic
in the North to the Pacific in the South. Some people
prefer to call it an empire, which might be more
appropriate. Although the official language is Russian,
the people also speak over sixty other languages, and
belong to national groups like the Georgians, the
Tartars, the Uzbecks, the Kazakhs and the Armenians.
In fact, only sixty per cent of the population are
Russian!

Moscow, Russia's capital, is in Europe, and one of the

largest cities in the world. Although about threequarters of the country is in Asia, most of the important
cities are in Europe: Leningrad, Minsk, Kiev and Gorki,
to name but a few. Moscow in particular is a very
beautiful city with many magnificent reminders of the
days when the Tzars ruled Russia. The Peterhof and
Winter Palaces, which are in Leningrad, used to be
owned by the Russian royal family before the
Revolution in 1917, when soviets (systems of councils)
were set up to govern, giving Russia the name Soviet
Union. Every year there is a May Day parade in the
streets to commemorate the anniversary of the
revolution.

The U.S.S.R. is a very beautiful land, but as you might

expect, being so large it is also very varied. In the
south you will find hot desert, while in Siberia, in the
north, you'll discover the coldest climate in the world!
Lake Baykal, on the edge of the Central Siberian
plateau, is the largest freshwater lake in Asia, and also
has the deepest body of water - 1,700 metres deep!
The Caspian sea, on the other hand, is the largest
inland body of water in the world. It's called a sea
because the water is salty.

There are many schools and universities in Russia,

and a lot of industry as well as agriculture. In the East,
communications are much more efficient than in the
West of the country, but throughout the land the people
rely mostly on railways, since the roads are poor.
The Trans-Siberian railway goes from the centre of
Moscow to the Pacific coast, and is 8,000 kms long!
Main seaports are Odessa and Murmansk.
Russians use roubles as their financial system; 100
kopecks make one rouble. The State owns most of the
businesses and stores in Russia, and they have a great
many important museums and libraries. Everyone has
heard of the Bolshoi Ballet and the Leningrad Kirov,
152

IRAN

whose dancers tour the world with great success every

year. Russia is famous for its love of the dance. Other
achievements have been in space: Russia launched her
space programme in 1961 and since then has sent the
first woman into space, and the first man to float outside
his craft.
In the U.S.S.R., women play an important part in the
work of the country, by digging roads, working on
construction sites and doing other jobs which are still

not deemed suitable for women in other countries.

Russia has thousands of newspapers, but the best
known are Pravda (Truth); Izvestia (News) and Red Star.
Quite a few people own television sets and radios, but
there are relatively few private telephones.
Loudspeakers broadcast programmes in parks and
street corners for people to listen to freely.
Russia has a great cultural history. Tolstoy, Chekhov,
Turgenev and Dostoyevsky all found literary success

with their magnificent novels and plays in the nineteenth

century, while musicians like Rimsky-Korsakov,
Mussorgsky and Rachmaninoff created their
expressive compositions from ancient folk tunes.
To many of us, Russia is a mysterious land, an
unknown world, but as time passes more visitors go
there to discover what lies behind the frontier of the
world's largest country - an empire reaching over two
continents, a land of snow and desert sun.
153

FAMOUS INVENTORS - OF W H A T ?
1.
Sir Isaac Newton was the greatest
mathematician of his time - perhaps
of all time. His genius established
laws and theorems that still hold true
today, and one of them suggested
itself to him as he watched an apple
fall to the ground. Was it:
a) The d i s p l a c e m e n t p r i n c i p a l ;
b) The l a w of g r a v i t y ;
c) The t h e o r y of r e l a t i v i t y .

4.
Michael Faraday was a protege of
the great chemist, Sir Humphrey
Davy, but although the two scientists worked
together
initially,
Faraday's research far outshone
that of Davy. He discovered a way
to harness something we now take
for granted. Was it:
a) Electricity;
b) S t e a m ;

Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian

inventor who came to England to
complete his research. He won the
Nobel Prize for physics, and his invention changed the pattern of
communication all over the world.
Was it:
a) The t e l e g r a p h ;
b) The w i r e l e s s ;
c) M o r s e code.

c) W a t e r .

2.
Edward Jenner worked for twenty
years on a theory that was to revolutionise medicine. The idea first
came to him during his work as a
country doctor, and a local saying
turned out to contain a good deal of
truth. Was his discovery:
a) A n t i s e p t i c ;
b) P a s t e u r i s a t i o n ;
c) V a c c i n a t i o n .
Check your answers on page 191
154

QUESTION TIME
What is the Book of Kells?
An illuminated manuscript of the Gospels by monks on
lona in the ninth century. The monks, driven from their
monastery by a Viking attack, settled later in Kells, in
Ireland. The book has some of the finest illuminated
artwork in existence. It is kept in Trinity College in Dublin.

Who were the Fauves?

Who was the first man to reach the North

Pole?

They were a group of young painters, Matisse, Derain

and Rouault among them, who pioneered a new way
of painting. They used realistic subjects but painted
them in an unrealistic way, using aggressively bright
colours. The point was to stimulate and shock, and this
they did. At their first exhibition in 1905 a critic called
them 'les fauves' (wild beasts), and the name stuck.

Robert Edwin Peary, on April 6th 1909. For a while

argument raged between Peary and a Dr. Frederick
Cook. Cook claimed he had reached the North Pole a
year before, and his story reached the newspapers first.
Peary was disbelieved, and robbed of the acclaim he
deserved until the University of Copenhagen
discredited Doctor Cook.

Who was Keir Hardie?

A miner who was born to poverty in Lanarkshire, Keir
Hardie became the first working-class politician. A
Liberal at the beginning of his career, he joined the
Labour party which was then in its infancy and became
the first Independent Labour Member of Parliament.
As his influence grew he became a decisive force in
British politics, and the Welfare State can in the main be
attributed to him.
155

A LITERARY LINE-UP
W h o created Sherlock Holmes?
Fiction's most famous detective was created
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Born in
Edinburgh in 1859 he decided to become a
doctor, and it was when he was studying
medicine at unversity that he met the man
who was to later inspire him to create his
most famous character. The man was his
professor. Joseph Bell, who was particularly
good at finding out not only what ailed his
patients but, through careful observation,
details of their character, job and
circumstances. It was his powers of
'deduction' that so impressed Conan Doyle
and inspired him to create his famous
detective.
In 1887 Conan Doyle published his first
Sherlock Holmes book, A Study in Scarlet.
featuring the super-sleuth and his friend Dr
Watson, and in the years that followed
many other books and short stories

appeared, all eagerly awaited by Holmes'

growing army of devotees. In fact, Conan
Doyle somewhat resented the popularity of
the Holmes stories, for he believed that his
other work was equally as good, though not
nearly so popular with the public. He tried
to kill off Holmes in one story, but there
was such an uproar that he was forced to
bring the detective back for more
adventures.
Although a successful writer. Conan
Doyle continued to practise medicine, going
to South Africa during the Boer War to treat
injured troops, and he did some real-life
sleuthing, too. championing those he
believed had been wrongly convicted or
badly treated. He was knighted in 1902.
Incidentally, the phrase that has come to
be associated with Holmes "Elementary,
my dear Watson!" does not appear in
Conan Doyle's work'

W h o wrote Dr Jekyll and Mr

Hyde?
Edinburgh-born Robert Louis Balfour
Stevenson (1850-1894) wrote that famous
book, plus many other stirring adventures
like Kidnapped and Treasure Island, rightly
regarded today as classics.
Trained as a lawyer, he soon abandoned
his studies for literature, and his first book,
An Inland Voyage, appeared in 1878.
Many others followed, and he soon became
one of the best-loved authors of his time.
Ill-health forced him to leave Britain for a
better climate, and he made his home on
the island of Upolu, Western Samoa, where
he died.

Who was Mark Twain?

Mark Twain was the pen name chosen by
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, author of
favourites like The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn. Life on the Mississippi and The Prince
and the Pauper
After working as a printer and a
Mississippi pilot, he turned to writing, telling
with charm and humour of the American
people and places he knew best, and
creating, in Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry
Finn, two of the best-loved young rogues in
literature. He died in 1910, aged 75.
Mark Twain took his pen name from the
Mississippi river pilots' jargon: 'by the mark
twain', meaning two fathoms depth by the
sounding line.

W h o created the famous fictional

detective, Hercule Poirot?
The popular Belgian detective features in
many of the novels of Agatha Christie. Her
first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles.
published when she was in her twenties,
was the first of more than fifty detective
novels she was to write, The Murder of
Roger Ackroyd being considered one of the
finest detective stories of all time.
Many of her novels were made into films,
and one of her plays, The Mousetrap, has
been running in London since 1952!

Who wrote The Wind in the

Willows?
It was whilst he was still working as a Bank
of England official that Kenneth Grahame
published his first work, and it was when he
was fifty-nine years old that his masterpiece
appeared. He originally wrote The Wind in
the Willows, a charming animal fantasy, for
his young son. but it soon became a bestseller, and has remained so to this day.

RED LETTER DAYS

In olden times, days which were special appeared in red on the calendar - hence the
expression 'Red Letter Day' meaning a day
with a very special significance.
W h e n is M a r d i G r a s ?
Mardi Gras is the day before Lent begins, Shrove
Tuesday, or as the words 'Mardi Gras' mean literally
'Fat Tuesday'.
Mardi Gras is celebrated in many countries of the
world with gay colourful carnivals with people dancing
and singing in the streets, using this day as the last time
for frivolities before the serious season of Lent, which
starts on Ash Wednesday, the next day.
In Nice there is a special monarch known as 'King
Carnival' while a similar king presides over the many
colourful carnival floats in New Orleans and Haiti.
The name is believed to have been used originally
because at one time a fat, roasted ox was paraded
through the streets of Paris on Shrove Tuesday, and
housewives used up their flour and eggs by making
pancakes since families were expected to eat very
frugally throughout Lent.

W h e r e a n d w h e n w o u l d y o u see
St. Nicholas a n d Black Peter?
St. Nicholas and his servant Black Peter can be seen in
the streets of the Netherlands, Belgium and
Luxembourg on December 6th, when the saint who
gave his name to Santa Claus promises to return during
the night to reward all good children with gifts. They, in
turn, leave clogs filled with biscuits and sweets for the
saint and his servant, but if the children have been
naughty, they find the clogs filled with ashes the
following morning.
158

Where is the f e s t i v a l of G a n e s h
celebrated?
Ganesh is the Indian god of good
fortune, and festivals in his honour
take place among the Hindus of
Poona, Bombay and Madras. Clay
models of the deity with the head of
an elephant are taken through the
streets to the sound of cymbals and
drums before finally being
immersed in the sea or a lake.

W h a t is Teng K a o ?
This is the 'Feast of High Flight' in China when young and old go to fly their
kites. It is celebrated on the ninth day of the ninth month of the Chinese
calendar, and as well as giving pleasure it also has a more serious purpose,
as the Chinese believe that any bad deeds which the kiteflyer has done
during the year will be taken away by the kite when it is cut loose. So, at the
end of the day, the kites are allowed to fly away, and the kiteflyers go home
with clear consciences once again . . . until next year.

W h y d o t h e y celebrate
Thanksgiving D a y in the USA?
To recall the day in 1621 when the
Pilgrim Fathers who had come over
from England in the Mayflower
gave thanks to God for having
gathered in safely the lean harvest
which was to last them throughout
the winter.
Today Thanksgiving Day is
celebrated on the fourth Thursday
in November in most States and
families enjoy such traditional food
as turkey and pumpkin pie.

WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT?

There is a small shrew in
Africa called the hero
shrew, which although only
a few inches long, is so
hardy that a twelve-stone
man could stand on it, and
it would still be able to get
up and scurry away, quite
unharmed.

The horned toad, a North

American species, has a
strange method of defence.
It squirts blood at its attacker from out of its eyes.

A snail can have as many

as 25,000 teeth!

An albatross can glide for

up to six days without once
beating its wings. If it gets
tired, it doesn't bother to
landit has a little nap
while still airborne.

160

FAMOUS W O M E N - W H O WERE THEY?

1
This British nurse ran a Red Cross
hospital for wounded troops in
Belgium during the First W o r l d W a r .
Although the Germans occupied the
country, she was allowed to continue her work, and whenever she
could she helped her patients to escape across the border to Holland.

Finally she was arrested by the

Germans and tried for treason. She
was shot, in spite of appeals from
the U.S.A. and other neutral countries, and her statue now stands
opposite the National Portrait
Gallery in London.
W h o was she?

This Polish woman became the most

famous of all women scientists.
Determined, hard-working and a
brilliant mathematician, she worked
with her husband on the theory that
radium was present in pitchblende.
For four years she worked in an old
shed, refining the tons of pitchblende

3
This American woman was a pioneer
of modern dance in the early years
of this century. She modelled her
style of dancing on classical Greek
art, and amazed her audiences by
dancing barefoot, clad in scanty
Greek tunics and floating scarves.
She had many revolutionary ideas,
including the use of music not written
specially for dancing, and her free,
expressive style greatly influenced
modern dance. She opened dance
schools in London, Paris, Berlin and
Moscow.
W h o was she?

until finally she obtained one-tenth

of a grain of radio-active radium.
She and her husband were awarded
the Nobel Prize for their work in
1903, and she herself received a
second Nobel Prize in Chemistry
eight years later.
W h o was she?

4
This French woman was hailed as
the greatest actress of her time.
Her voice was legendary, and it
was said that she could move an
audience to tears by simply reciting the alphabet. She excelled in
classical and romantic tragedy roles,
and one of her most popular plays
w a s La Dame

aux Camelias.

As well

as acting, she managed several

Paris theatres, and although she had
her leg amputated in 1915 she did
not retire from the stage until just
before her death.
W h o was she ?

Check your answers on page 191

161

ALL ABOUT NICKNAMES

WHO WAS KNOWN AS
'EST-IL POSSIBLE'?
Prince George of Denmark, consort
of Queen Anne, because he made
this remark whenever a statement
was made to him which he did not
think could possibly be true . . . the
first one being that his father-in-law
James II had fled to France leaving
the throne of England empty!

WHO OR WHAT IS 'AULD

REEKIE'?
This is the name given to the old part
of the city of Edinburgh because
people often said that it was covered
in a cloud of 'reek' or smoke.

WHO
BILL'?

WAS

'BUFFALO

William Frederick Cody who was so

called by the railroad men for whom
he provided buffalo meat as food
while they worked on the Kansas
Pacific Railway. Later Bill headed a
Wild West Show which appeared
before the crowned heads of Europe
as well as in all the major American
cities.
162

WHO OR WHAT IS 'A FAIR

MAID OF FEBRUARY'?
This is a country name for a snowdrop
because these
flowers
usually
appeared in early February. It was
considered lucky to wish and touch
the first snowdrop that was seen
each year.

FUN FACTS
SLOW COACHES
Tests ori a giant tortoise show that
its maximum speed on land is 0.17
m.p.h. A hungry tortoise enticed by
a cabbage was unable to move more
than five yards in a minute. Threetoed sloths are even slower. A
female, goaded by the cries of her
baby, reached a maximum 0.155
m.p.h. - nearly twice the usual speed.

NOT SO HARD CASH

Frenchman Francois Viete (15401603) could not sleep unless his
pillow was resting on his entire
personal fortune of 10,000.

SHORT TIME
If the existence of the Earth was
reduced on a time scale to one year,
humans would have made their
first appearance on the 31st of
December at 8.35 p.m. O n the same
scale, the Earth will be unable to
support life - the sun will be too hot in two years.

INDIAN TRAIL

STICK WITH IT

EAT U P . . . OR ELSE!
The popularity of fish plummetted
in England after the break with the
Catholic Church allowed people to
eat what they liked on Fridays.
Frantic lobbying by the nation's
fishermen persuaded
Parliament
not only to reinstate the custom,
but to make failure to observe it
punishable by law.

Novelist John Creasey of Bodenham

received 743 rejection slips before
his first book was accepted. Since
then he has had 549 novels published under 25 different names.

Walking 'Indian file' comes from the

practice of North American Indians,
who, when walking through a forest,
walked in the exact footprints of
the man ahead so that the enemy
could not tell how many of them there
were.

TOP THAT!
Robert W a d l o w was still growing
when he died in Michigan in 1940
at the age of 24 years 4 months.
He measured 8 feet 11 inches and
his hands were I2V2 inches f r o m
the wrist to the tip of the middle
finger.
163

ALL ABOUT
FLOWERS
Do flowers grow in the
desert?
Yes they do, although they grow
only after rain, and flower for a
short time before the sun dries them
up. Desert annuals survive for most
of the year as seeds, and their blooms
are very brightly coloured to attract
insects for pollination. The flowering
Cactus plants store water in their
thick fleshy stems, and their flowers
are also very colourful.

Which is the largest flower

in the world?
The largest flower in the world is the
Giant Rafflesia, which grows in
Malaysia and Indonesia. The flower
itself may be up to three feet across,
with petals up to one and a half feet
long and an inch thick. The flower
weighs between fifteen and twenty
pounds.

164

What is an annual?
The term annual usually refers to a
plant that only lives for one year, but
some gardeners also use it to describe any plant that blooms within
a year of the seeds being sown, no
matter how long it lives after that.
Common annuals are marigolds,
cornflowers and groundsel.

Do all flowers grow from

seeds?
No, some flowers reproduce without fertilization; like the crocus and
daffodil, which g r o w f r o m bulbs, or
the strawberry, which sends out
runners along the ground, each with
a new plant on it.

Why were red and white

roses so significant in the
fifteenth century?

What is pollination?
What
are
plants?

carnivorous

These are plants which trap insects

and small animals. They are found
all over the world, and use various
methods to trap their victims. The
Pitcher plant has large, hollow
leaves resembling a pitcher, and
each is partly filled with sweet sticky
liquid. The insects are attracted to
this liquid, and once inside they
drown. Butterworts have broad,
sticky leaves on which insects get
caught, while the Venus's fly-trap
has leaves which snap shut when an
insect crawls on the surface. In each
case, the plant absorbs the liquid
nourishment from the bodies of the
decomposing insects.

Pollination is the first step in the reproduction of flowers, and the

process begins when the pollen is
transferred from the stamens to the
stigma. At the base of the stigma
is the ovary, or egg cell, and once
the pollen reaches this, fertilization
takes place. This means that the
ovary can now g r o w into a fruit with
seeds, and it is f r o m these seeds that
a new flower will grow.

They represented the t w o families

fighting for the English throne. The
white rose was the symbol of the
followers of the Duke of York, and
the red rose was the symbol of the
House of Lancaster. The 'Wars of
the Roses' as they were called, did
not end until 1455, when the Yorkists
won.

What is a perennial?
The term perennial refers to plants
which live for several years or, in
the case of roses, indefinitely. Most
wild flowers are perennial, including
daisies, buttercups, primroses and
violets. Bulbs are perennial too.

THE WORLD ABOUT US

Where would you find the
Ibo, the Fulani, the Yoruba
and the Hausa?
In Nigeria, they are all native
tribes. The Ibo live in the south
east, the Fulani in the north, the
Yoruba in the south west and the
Hausa in the north. Each of these
four tribes speaks its own language
and the Hausa and the Fulani are
excellent horsemen.

Who was Alfred Bernhard

Nobel?
He was a Swedish chemist who invented dynamite and he also
founded the Nobel Prizes. These are
presented in Stockholm and Oslo
each year under five separate categories to people who have worked
for the good of humanity in their
chosen fields. The five prizes are for
work in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and
world peace.

166

What is Scotland Yard?

Scotland Yard is - the headquarters
of the London Metropolitan Police
and it is to Scotland Yard that other
police forces go for help and advice. Evidence is documented there
of all crime and criminals, including
records of fingerprints and information on the way certain criminals
carry out their crimes.

The Aborigines of Australia

use a certain tree to weave
nets. What is this tree called?
The bottle tree. It has long narrow
leaves, small clusters of flowers on
slender stems and six seeds in each
of its pod-shaped fruits.

What is the Morse Code?

A system devised by Samuel Morse
whereby messages are sent by
telegraph in a series of dots and
dashes, a dash being equal to three
dots in length. The dot is made by
pressing and quickly releasing the
key of the telegraph sending device.

Where is the Lorelei rock?

This will be found on the Rhine in
Germany where legend says that the
beautiful Lorelei maiden with golden
hair sings so prettily that ships are
lured onto the dangerous rocks,
where they sink.

Who lived at Haworth

Parsonage in Yorkshire,
England?
The Bronte sisters, Anne, Emily and
Charlotte with their widowed father
and their brother Branwell. They
wrote such classics as Wuthering
Heights,

Jane

Eyre

Wild fell

Hall

but,

a n d Tenant
sadly,

they

of
all

died at an early age.

What is bronze?
An alloy of copper and tin, which
may contain a quarter of the total
amount in tin. It is known for its hardness and durability and articles in
bronze have been found which date
backto 3,000 BC. Many Chinese ornaments are made in bronze, as it is a
favourite
material
with
many
craftsmen.
167

DO Y O U K N O W W H Y ?
WHY DO BIRDS BUILD THEIR NESTS HIGH IN TREES?
Not all birds build their nests high in trees, but many do, and there is a
very good reason for it. W h e n the young birds hatch from their eggs,
they cannot fly, and they are very vulnerable. There is great danger from
cats, foxes, weasels and other animals which prey on birds. High up in a
tree, the young are much safer f r o m all these threats. All birds do e v e r y thing they can to ensure the safety of their young, and those which do not
build their nests high in trees take various other precautions. Many ducks mallards, for instance - build nests which are so well hidden that it is very
difficult for predators to find them, and some sea birds nest high up on
cliff ledges, which are completely inaccessible to most animal enemies.

WHY AREN'T ALL BIRDS' BEAKS THE SAME SHAPE?

The shape of a bird's beak - or bill, as it should really be called - depends
on what kind of food the bird usually eats. Feeding habits differ a great
deal, and while there are one or t w o species which will eat practically
anything which is available, most birds stick to one particular kind of food.
Let's look at three examples of birds with highly specialised bills. The
woodcock has a long, thin bill, which is perfect for digging in soft ground
to extract the worms which are its favourite food. The wide bill of the
spoonbill gave this bird its name. It is just right for scooping up and filtering
a wide variety of water plants, small fish, and water insects, in the shallow
waters where it always feeds. Finches are always seed-eaters, and all
species of finches have hard, conical beaks. Each species is slightly different
though, and the hawfinch has a bill which is so strong that it can crack a
cherry stone.

WHY DO OWLS ONLY HOOT AT NIGHT?

Owls are night birds, which means that they sleep through the day, and
wake up when darkness falls. During the day, an owl can hardly see at all,
because the bright light hurts its large eyes. At night though, it can see
very clearly, and it becomes very active, hunting its prey of small animals
and birds. W h e n you listen to an owl's cries in the stillness of a dark
night it's easy to see why many people have found the sound strange and
eerie, echoing through the darkness. But it is also a lovely sound, and
many people love to listen to it, as they lie in their beds.
168

WHY ARE MALE BIRDS OFTEN MORE BRIGHTLY

COLOURED THAN FEMALES?
In the bird world, just as in all the animal worlds, it is very important for
the adults of the species to find mates, to breed and to produce young.
If this did not happen the entire species would die out. Thus the instinct
to find a mate is very strong. The bright and attractive colouring of many
male birds is intended to attract a female bird, and the male will spend
a lot of time preening his feathers, to make sure that he is looking his best
when the time for courtship comes near. One bird in particular has a
really spectacular plumage, which it uses in its courtship displays. This
bird is the peacock, and its partner, the pea-hen, looks drab indeed alongside her handsome mate. In some species of birds - robins, for instance the t w o sexes are exactly alike in their plumage, and in these species other
methods of choosing a mate have evolved.

WHY DON'T DUCKS FEEL COLD IN ICY WATER?

Ducks have a wonderful coat of feathers, which is specially designed to keep
them warm and snug in even the coldest weather. First of all, they have
an undercoat of soft downy feathers, which g r o w very close together,
and trap a 'cushion' of air next to the duck's body. This stops the natural
warmth of their bodies escaping into the cold outside. As for their top
feathers, they protect these with a special oil which is secreted from a
gland in their bodies. W h e n you watch a duck preening its feathers, it
is spreading this oil all over them, making its top coat of feathers completely w a t e r p r o o f . Neither water nor cold can penetrate the feathers
from the outside, and the body warmth cannot escape through the down,
and so the lucky duck stays w a r m and dry. W o u l d you like a coat of
feathers like that?

WHY DO DUCKS HAVE WEBBED FEET?

Ducks are water birds, and it is very important for them to be able to
swim well. Their 'fingers' are joined by pieces of strong skin called webs,
and these make the total area of each foot much larger. Their feet become
like strong paddles. Using these 'paddles' they can swim swiftly through
the water. You can try a little experiment for yourself which might help
you to understand. Spread out your fingers wide and pull your hand
through a bowl of water. Your hand will slip through the water easily.
Now close your fingers so that they are side by side, and pull your hand
through the water again. This time you will find that it is harder to move
your hand, but that you are making a much stronger, firmer movement.
In just the same way, swimmers wearing flippers are able to swim very
strongly.
169

TALES OF ANCIENT GREECE

Many thousand of years ago the Greeks believed

in different gods and goddesses, who could control
or explain away the natural events of life - the
changing of the seasons, the coming of day or night,
the reflecting powers of water . . . .

Adonis
Adonis was a very handsome young man indeed,
the son of a woman who had been turned into a
sweet-smelling tree. As he grew up, living in the
countryside in total freedom, the goddess Aphrodite
fell in love with him.
But one day Adonis was wounded by a boar and
died. Aphrodite was so grief-stricken for her beautiful
young man that Zeus, the supreme ruler of the
heavens, decreed that for six months of the year
Adonis could leave the underworld, the kingdom of
the dead, and return to the earth.
So while Adonis spent six months in the underworld,
the countryside was dead and barren too. But when
he returned, the leaves unfurled and the flowers
bloomed. In this way the Ancient Greeks resolved
their questions about winter and summer.
170

Aphrodite
Aphrodite was very beautiful, and very powerful, too.
She was the goddess of beauty and love, and the
daughter of Zeus. At one time the Greeks thought
of her as the goddess of gardens and calm seas.
When Paris, a hero and soldier, desired the most
beautiful woman in the world for his wife it was
Aphrodite who found Helen for him, and thus began
the Trojan W a r . Aphrodite also helped Jason gain
the Golden Fleece.
Although she had many lovers, Aphrodite was said
to be married to the god Hephaestus, and the mother
of Eros.

Pandora
Pandora was the first woman on earth, according to
the Ancient Greeks' beliefs. Zeus had become angry
because Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give
to men, and he ordered that an evil being be sent
to earth to punish mankind. Pandora was created.
All the gods gave Pandora gifts (Pandora means
all-gift); gifts of knowledge, beauty, cunning and
flattery. She was also given curiosity, and a box
which she was told never to open.
While she was on earth Pandora's curiosity grew
until she could not contain it, and she opened the box.
Out flew all the vices, sins, troubles and diseases of
the world. She shut the lid quickly, but nothing remained except Hope. This was the Ancient Greeks'
way of explaining the evils that pervaded the earth.

Narcissus
Narcissus was the son of the river god Cephisus,
and he was very proud of his beauty. M a n y women
loved him but in his vanity he paid them no attention.
The young nymph, Echo, was so hurt by his coldness
that she faded a w a y until only her voice remained . . .
which explained for the Greeks the cause of echoes.
But the young nymph's suffering had made the other
gods angry, and they decided to punish Narcissus.
They caused him to fall in love with his own reflection
in a pool of clear water, and there he stayed, unable
to leave, staring at his own face until eventually he
died and turned into a flower, which was called
Narcissus.

WEATHER REPORT
What are weather centres?
These are places, set up in many parts of the world,
where information about weather is collected and
classified on a regional and worldwide basis. The
information - taken from weather balloons, oceangoing ships and planes, satellites, weather-ships and
weather-stations based on land - has proved
invaluable in the making of maps and weather-charts.
Readings are taken every day. In main centres, such
as airports, readings can be taken as often as once
every thirty minutes.

What equipment is used

in weather-forecasting?
T h e maximal

and

minimal

thermometer

is u s e d t o t a k e

the highest and lowest temperatures of the day. It

is shaded from direct sun by a screen called a
Stevenson's

Screen.

The

rain-gauge

measures

the

amount of precipitation that has fallen, and the

barograph continually measures the air pressure. It
works by making a constant record with a pen on a
chart. An anometer tests wind-speeds.

Clear

Weather
S -

Light

XStvA-

Wi'nds
Warm,moist

What is mist, fog and smog?

Mist occurs when warm, moist air cools and the
moisture is condensed. Sometimes this falls as dew, but
at others, such as still evenings, it remains in the air
as mist, because the fine water particles are too
small to be affected by gravity. Fog is similar to
mist, but it is much denser, and more dangerous as
visibility is much less. Smog is when fog becomes
mixed with smoke of carbon-dioxide fumes from
car engines, to form a thick, dirty-smelling atmosphere. Smog is now being controlled in many urban
areas by the use of smokeless zones, but the problems
of exhaust fumes still exist.
172

Cool ai

Valley

or

Hollow

air

There are three types of rain.

Do you know what they are?
First there is convectional rain. This happens on a hot
day when the sun heats the lower atmosphere and
causes the air to rise. The water vapour in the air
condenses when it reaches a certain height, and rain
falls.
Relief rain is quite different. It occurs when moisturebearing winds (those which have travelled across
oceans) reach land and then must rise to cross
mountains. In doing so, the moisture condenses, falling
as rain on the peaks and their seaward side. The dry
area inland is called the 'rainshadow' area.
Lastly there is cyclonic rain, caused when the warm
front in a cyclone catches a cold front and rises above
it (warm air being lighter than cold air). The moisture
in the warm air condenses with cooling, and rain falls.

Clouds are often helpful

in weather-forecasting.
What are the main types?
There are Cirrus, Nimbus, Cumulus and Stratus clouds.
Cirrus are sometimes known as 'mare's tails' - they
are thin and wispy. Lying as high as 30,000 feet, they
are ice-clouds and usually signal a depression, and
rain. Nimbus are dark, full rain-clouds. Nimbus means
'rain-bearing'. Cumulus are the piled-up, cotton-wool
clouds. Stratus are layered clouds, which do not
necessarily forecast rain. M a n y clouds combine these
different types: for instance, there are CumuloNimbus, Cirrus-Stratus and Nimbus-Stratus cloud
formations.
173

THE LEGENDS O F K I N G ARTHUR

Who was Arthur?

He was the hero of many tales and
legends of the late Middle Ages, who
became a mythical figure as the
centuries passed and truth and
fiction could not so easily be defined. W h a t is believed, however,
is that Arthur was a chief or leader
of the Britons, who fought against
the Saxon invasion during A.D. 400
and 500. That he had a castle,
Camelot, is also believed; historians
think it was probably in Somerset
or Wales. But what is real history
and what is merely myth is very
hard to discover.

What was the legend of his life?

Arthur was supposed to have been the son of the King of the Britons,
Uther Pendragon. Merlin, a magician, advised Uther Pendragon to
hide his son from his enemies, and so he was brought up with a
nobleman, Sir Ector.
Arthur became king after his father's death when he was able to
pull the great sword Excalibur from a stone. Arthur established his
court at Camelot and he married Guinevere, although Merlin warned
him that one of his knights, Lancelot, loved Guinevere too.
While Arthur and Lancelot were fighting, M o d r e d , a nephew of
Arthur's, plotted a rebellion, as he wished to be king in Arthur's place.
Although Arthur killed M o d r e d , he was wounded himself. After the
battle Arthur's fairy sister took him to the magical Vale of Avalon
to heal him. According to legend, this is where he lies still, and should
Britain be invaded again he will rise and fight once more.

What was the Round

Table?
This was a large table used by
Arthur and his 150 knights. It was
round so that no knight would have
a more honourable or important
seat than another. The seats were
called sieges. Among the knights
of the Round Table were Lancelot,
Gawain and Galahad. Galahad was
known as the purest and noblest
knight of all Arthur's knights.
G a w a i n was Arthur's nephew. He
and Lancelot became enemies when
Lancelot killed his brothers by mistake. Gawain was killed fighting
Modred.

What was the Holy Grail?

According to old legends this was a
, dish which had contained some of
the blood of Christ. Brought t
England by Joseph of Aramathea,
it later disappeared, and the knights
resolved to find it. Only those who
had led pure lives could take part
in this quest. W h e n the Round Table
was founded a special seat was set
aside for the knight who could find
the Grail. This seat was called the
Siege

Perilous.

Lancelot took part in the quest

but, because of his guilty love for
Guinevere, was unsuccessful. Only
Galahad saw a full vision of the
Grail, but it floated up to Heaven

Who wrote the legends about Arthur?

The earliest-known reference to Arthur was made by
a Welsh monk in A.D. 800, in his History of the Britons.
During the 1100s G e o f f r e y of Monmouth published
another history of the kings of Britain which mentioned
Arthur, as well as a life-history of Merlin!
In the years that followed many poets and storytellers created tales about Arthur, and these spread
to many countries in Europe, and became more and
more fantastic as time separated them from reality.
One of the most famous romances about Arthur is
Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur, written in the
thirteenth century.

Who was the Lady of the Lake?

A magical enchantress called Vivien, who lived in the
lake and had powers over the sword Excalibur. In
Malory's story, as Arthur is wounded at the end of
his last battle, he throws the sword into the lake. An
arm rises from the water to receive it, then both
sword and arm disappear below the calm surface.
175

THE LOST CITIES:

POMPEII A N D HERCULANEUM

August 24, A.D. 79, was an ordinary

summer's day for the people in the
neighbouring Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. They went
about their business, ate, talked, and
walked the streets in the hot sunshine.

But less than a mile from the centre

of Pompeii stood the dark shadow
of the volcano Vesuvius. Although
its slopes were rich with vineyards
and it seemed to sleep, below the
earth white-hot streams of lava
rushed and bubbled, forcing themselves upwards . . . .
W i t h a deafening roar the lava
erupted from Vesuvius and swept
down the mountainside into the
towns of Herculaneum and Pompeii.
There was no time for escape; t w o
hundred people died trying to rush
through one of Pompeii's exits, and
many more died where they had
fallen. After the lava came a soft
white film of ash, covering the t r a g edy like snow.
176

In the silence of the summer's day

nothing moved in either Pompeii or
Herculaneum.
Homes,
streets,
people, animals, all lay under the
blanket of lava and ash. Soon rain
came, and by some strange chance
it acted with the ash to make a kind
of cement, so that the victims and
their lost cities were trapped forever.
Pompeii and Herculaneum lay like
this for centuries, forgotten and
abandoned until 1763, when the first
real excavations were begun by an
archaeologist called Giuseppe Fiorelli. W o r k has continued ever since
then, the longest excavation in
history. Yet even now there are parts
of Pompeii and Herculaneum which
are still to be discovered.

The fascinating thing about these

cities is that they were not lost
through the gradual passing of
time. They were struck down in a
single day, and because of the ash,
left intact. Pompeii was a typical
Roman city, well-laid-out with symmetrically planned streets. There
was a theatre, pagan temples, industrial buildings, markets, baths,
and everywhere were beautiful
sculptures and paintings in the luxurious and comfortable homes.
Pompeii provides an excellent view
of the Roman Age, and it is a monument to the Romans which, because
of a nafural disaster, gives archaeologists valuable perception into
the past. It is a real quirk of fate!

What is perspective?

A QUESTION OF ART

Perspective is the art and science

of making flat, two-dimensional
drawings and paintings look three
dimensional. The artist uses aerial
and linear perspective to create an
illusion of depth. W i t h aerial perspective, objects are made lighter as
they move further from the eye.
W i t h linear perspective, the object
is made smaller as it approaches
' the horizon. The techniques of perspective were perfected during the
''-Renaissance by artists like Leonardo
da Vinci.

What is chiaroscuro?
Chiaroscuro is the name of a technique whereby the artist makes
great use of the contrast between
light and shade to lend drama to
his subject. O n e of the best known
exponents of the technique was
Rembrandt, who used it to great
effect in his portraits and religious
paintings. Other artists who have
used it are Caravaggio, El Greco
and Tintoretto. The w o r d itself is
taken from the Italian words meaning light and dark.

What is fresco?
Fresco is a method of painting on
fresh plaster with water colours, and
it is also the name of the finished
product. Before starting a fresco,
the artist makes a preliminary
drawing, or cartoon, the exact size
of the finished picture. Then he lays
as much plaster as he can paint in
a day on the surface. He traces the
cartoon onto this and begins to paint
as quickly as possible. He cannot
paint on the plaster once it is dry.
Fresco painting reached its peak
during the Renaissance in Italy.

What is tempera?

Tempera is a painting medium

consisting of powdered pigments,
water, and either the yolk or the
white of an egg. W h e n properly
applied in a series of layers it gives
a semi-transparent finish and makes
the colours extra brilliant. To prepare the surface to be painted,
artists cover it with gesso, a special
mixture of glue and chalk, and when
finished the painting has great
lasting qualities.

ANIMAL INFO
Are mute swans really silent?
The mute swan is a more or less silent bird,
hence its name. It is a magnificent creature,
widespread in Europe and North Asia, and
is one of the heaviest birds able to fly,
sometimes reaching weights of over 401bs.
Its graceful wing-span is between 7 and 8
feet, though one famous swan, known as
'Guardsman' attained a recorded wing span
of 12 feet! Mute swans live in pairs for
many years, building large nests and laying
between 8 and 10 eggs, which hatch as
grey cygnets. The birds usually get their
stunning white plumage by the age of two.

Why are surgeonfish so called?

Surgeonfish have a powerful weapon in the
form of two blades or 'knives', embedded in
the skin at the base of the caudal fin, used
for attack as well as defence. These blades,
which resemble surgeons' scalpels, give the
fish their name.

What is an agama?
Agamas are an important group of lizards
found mainly in Africa and Asia, with only
one, the starred lizard, living in Europe.
They are beautifully coloured when in the
sunlight during the day, but turn a dull
brown at night, when they enter their
underground homes. They are very active
creatures, and their speed and excellent
vision means that they are very successful
hunters, eating insects. They have a
reputation for being quarrelsome, and will
defend their own territories to the death.

178

How did the cowbird get Its

name?
The cowbird got its name because of its
habit of following the huge herds of buffalo
that once roamed the plains of North
America, feeding on the many insects that
were disturbed by the buffaloes' hoofs. It
was also known as the buffalo bird. Now
that the herds of buffalo are no more, the
cowbirds fly in great flocks, descending on
fields of ripening corn or rice and
completely stripping acres of land, making
them very unpopular with farmers.
Cowbirds do not build a nest, but the
female lays her single egg in the nest of
another bird, hoping that the egg will be
incubated (and the chick reared) by the
unwitting foster-mother.

What is bee's wool?

This insect was so named because it was
thought that it attacked and killed bees for
food, but this has been proved to be untrue
It is sometimes found in abandoned hives,
where it will feed on sick or dead bees, but
it usually hunts and feeds on other, smaller
insects. It grows to a length of about V2".

Are flamingoes always pink?

The colouring of the flamingo's plumage
depends on its diet. It eats tiny crustaceans,
filtered from the water in its huge curved
bill, and it is the colour of these minute
creatures that determines the flamingo's
colouranything from palest pink to rosy
red. In captivity, if the flamingo's usual food
is not available, the plumage turns quite
white.

179

MAKE MERRY MUSIC

What is a Sitar?
A sitar is a type of lute often played in India. The w o r d comes f r o m a
Persian w o r d meaning three-stringed, but in fact most sitars have four,
five or even seven strings. The body of the instrument is shaped like a
pear, and on the long neck are placed wire bars known as frets, which
can be moved up and down to suit the w a y the music is played. The
pegs which appear at the top of the neck of the instrument are used to
tune the sitar, which is played on one string only for the melody, the others
providing a background noise.

What is a Madrigal?
A M a d r i g a l is a type of song, usually about some form of nature. They
originated in Italy but became very popular in England during the 16th
and 17th century. It is also known as a canzonet or ayre. A t first they
were sung unaccompanied and later they began to have a religious
content. As time went on music was added, sometimes taking the place
of one of the voices, and the madrigal was also included in several
Gilbert and Sullivan operas.

Which well-known composer was deaf?

Ludwig Van Beethoven, who lived from 1770 to 1827. He was also a
pianist, organist and violinist as well as a great composer. He wrote
orchestral music, sonatas and chamber music, choral music and songs and
one opera, Fidelio. Beethoven started to suffer f r o m deafness in his late
twenties, and the last thirty years of his life were spent in a world of silence;
he was only able to hear musical notes in his own head. But he still
retained his sense of humour and love of fun.

Can you name three percussion instruments?

The percussion group of instruments includes all instruments that you
strike, so you can include the triangle, the xylophone, the glockenspiel and,
of course, drums: from the tomtom and timpani to the African bell drum
and the bass and side drums. Other popular percussion instruments are
the tambourine, the cymbals and the gong.
180

IN THE WILD WEST

Here's a quiz to test your knowledge of the Wild West . . . .

1. W h a t was Billy the Kid's real name, and the name of the man who
eventually brought him to justice?
2. During the violent hey-day of the West, a man formed a detective
agency which had considerable success in trapping outlaws and
bank-robbers. W h a t was his name?
3. Do you know who was nicknamed 'the deadly dentist'?
4. W h o belonged to the infamous 'Hole in the Wall' gang?
5. W h a t was the name of the sharp-shooting woman who appeared in
Buffalo Bill's Wild West show?
6. W h o was the judge in the small town of Fort Smith, Arkansas, who
earned the name of 'hanging judge' after he condemned hundreds of
men and women to the gallows during his term of office?

Check your answers on page 191

181

GUESS W H O ?

1. He was born in Dublin in 1882, and

graduated from University College
before studying medicine in Paris.
Although very much an Irishman, he
only returned to Ireland twice after
leaving; once for his mother's burial,
once for his wedding. His most
famous book, Ulysses, took him
seven years to write and was banned
in America. He suffered increasingly
from blindness before his death in
1941.

The short life-stories below all belong to famous writers. Do you know
who they are?

2. She lived a very quiet life, her first twenty five years being spent at her
father's rectory in Hampshire. It was there that she wrote her first novel,
Pride and Prejudice. Later her family moved to Bath, where some of her
work is set, and after her father's death she stayed with her mother and
sister until her death in 1817. She never married, and although she
gained little acclaim from her books while she was alive, they're regarded
as classics today.

3. He was an American, born in San Francisco in 1876.

W h e n he was 17 he took to the sea and saw Japan
and the Bering Sea while serving as an able seaman.
After this he tried his hand at many different things:
he was an oyster pirate, a gold-prospector in the
Klondike Gold Rush, and a war correspondent in the
Russo-Japanese war. He began to write books about
his adventures, The Call of the Wild being perhaps his
best-known. He was a socialist, and felt deeply the
injustices of his time. He died at the early age of forty
in 1916.

4. She wrote under a male pseudonym, and her early life was not an
easy one. Born into an aristocratic family in France, she was brought up
by a stern grandmother and then entered into an unhappy marriage
which ended when she fled to Paris with her two children to obtain a
divorce. It was then, to support herself and her children, that she took up
writing, and in the course of her lifetime she wrote up to eighty novels in
all, the best-known being The Haunted Pool. She was very concerned
with the issue of women's rights, and was a tireless crusader for equality.
During her life Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin, Baronne Dudevant (to
give her her proper name) was very close to the great musician Chopin.
Check your answers on page 191
184

ssm

TRUE OR FALSE?

1. Julius Caesar gave news of his victory with the

words "Veni, vidi, vici" - I came, I saw, I conquered.
True or false?
2. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norkay were the first
men to conquer Everest. True or false?
3. William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-uponAvon. True or false?
4. The Book of Kelts' is an illuminated copy of the
Gospels in Latin. True or false?
5. Rembrandt actually painted some sixty self-portraits.
True or false?
6. "Nature Morte" is an artists' expression meaning
Impressionism. True or false?
7. Davy Crockett died fighting at the Battle of the
Little Big Horn. True or false?
8. The D.S.O. award for bravery stands for "Distinguished Service Order". True or false?
9. The city of Leningrad was formerly called St.
Petersburg. True or false?
10. St. Bernard is traditionally associated with Christmas in Europe. True or false?
11. The Bridge of Sighs is in Rome. True or false?
12. Billy The Kid's real name was William Bonney.
True or false?
13. The river Orinoco is in Botswana. True or false?
14. 'Lippizzaner' is the name given to a special kind
of horse. True or false?
15. Rubber begins its life as a gummy juice called
latex. True or false?
16. This is the the correct way to spell 'inflamatory'.
True or false?
17. The Russian Crown Jewels are kept in the Palace of
Arms, within the Kremlin. True or false?
18. Mark Twain's real name was Samuel Langhorne
Clemens. True or false?
19. Big Ben first came into use in 1859. True or false?
20. A 'Stradivarius' is a famous kind of cello. True or
false?
Check your answers on page 191
185

DISASTER!
Which disaster
began in Pudding Lane?
In the early hours of the
morning, during September
1666, fire broke out in a
bakery in Pudding Lane,
east of London Bridge,
after a long drought. Fanned by an easterly gale, the
flames soon spread across
the city: 13,000 houses, 84
churches, and countless
other buildings were
destroyed in the blaze,
which lasted four days, and
was seen as far away as
Oxford.
Incredibly, only eight
died, and in two crucial
ways the Great Fire actually
proved beneficial, cleansing
the worst plague areas, and
allowing at least part of
London to be rebuilt by
Christopher Wren.

When was the

San Francisco Earthquake?
San Francisco lies along the
notorious San Andreas
Fault in California, a
geological split in the
Earth's surface. At 5.15am
on 1 8 t h A p r i l 1 9 0 6 , the
first of several massive
tremors split streets and
collapsed buildings
throughout the city.
A giant tidal wave hit the
waterfront, and fractured
electricity cables and gas
mains, starting fires which
burned for three days.
25,000 buildings were lost,
and almost 150,000,000
of damage caused,
although miraculously less
than 500 people died.

What was the last

great airship disaster?
Airships, dirigible aircraft
using lighter than air gas to
stay airborne and propellers
for directional flight, flew
more than 50 years before
the first aeroplane. Germany pioneered airship
passenger travel, under
Count Zeppelin, between
1910-14, carrying nearly
35,000 passengers without
fatality.
Destruction of the British
R101 (1930), and the
American Akron (1933),
among others, however,
resulted in complete abandonment of commercial airships, except in Germany.
T h e Hindenburg,

the

largest airship ever built

(1926), was totally
destroyed in May 1937,
when an explosion on
board ignited its hydrogen
envelope. The last great
airship, t h e Graf

Zeppelin.

withdrew from service in

1938.

Why did the Titanic sink?

The Titanic was the largest
and most luxurious liner of
her time when she set out
on her maiden, transatlantic voyage in April 1912
with 2,200 passengers and
crew. Despite reports of
icebergs in the vicinity, the
Titanic maintained her
speed of 22 knots and
struck an iceberg which
tore a 300-foot gash in her
hull.
Described by her makers
as unsinkable, the ship was
capable of remaining afloat
with two of her sixteen
watertight compartments
flooded, but six were in fact
holed. Insufficient warning
to abandon ship and inadequate lifeboat space meant
that only 705 people survived.

ALL CREATURES GREAT A N D SMALL

Which isthe world's largest

land animal?
The largest land animal without any
doubt is the elephant. The Indian
elephant has a concave forehead
and the African elephant has a
convex forehead, but both male and
female elephants have ivory tusks.
Because of their great strength
elephants are often used to push or
pull heavy weights such as timber
logs and this is especially true of the
Indian elephant. An elephant can
eat as much as half a ton of food
a day and likes to be near water,
both for drinking and washing
purposes.

What is so special about a

Przewalski's horse?
It is the only true remaining wild
horse left living in a natural habitat.
It was discovered in the late 19th
century by the man whose name it
bears, roaming wild and free in
central Asia. It can still be found
in Mongolia today in small numbers,
but to make sure that the breed
does not become entirely extinct it
can also be seen in many zoos, and if
bred successfully several may be
returned to the steppes to live in a
real wild state.

How does the Egyptian

plover bird help the Nile
crocodile?
By picking the morsels of food f r o m
between the crocodile's teeth and
so helping to keep the teeth clean.
In thus helping the crocodile, the
plover bird also gets food for itself.
Crocodiles will snap at the hand of
a man but they allow the plover
to pick out leeches and other larvae
from their teeth without harming
them at all. This strange friendship
between these t w o creatures has
existed for many years.
188

Which is the tallest animal

in the world?

The young of which animal

is called a 'joey'?

The giraffe; the male giraffe can be

as much as eighteen feet tall. They
use their long necks and tongues to
bite off the leaves from tall trees,
but they have very poor voices and
can only manage a low 'bleat bleat'
occasionally. They are fleet of foot
when danger threatens, but if provoked to fight they attack their
enemies with their sharp hooves,
which can prove very dangerous.

The kangaroo, one of those large

bounding mammals which live in
Australia and New Guinea. The
Great Grey Kangaroo lives in the
forests and feeds on grass and
leaves, while the Red Kangaroo
prefers the highlands. Smaller kangaroos are known as wallabies
and there is even a tree kangaroo
with specially adapted padded feet
for safe tree-climbing. All female
kangaroos carry their young in
pouches until they are able to look
after themselves and a group of
kangaroos living together is known
as a 'mob'.

What is a Lodgepole?
An Eastern Chipmunk found in the
woodlands of the eastern United
States and Canada. These cheeky
little creatures like trees, unlike other
members of the chipmunk family who
prefer the ground. They eat fruit and
berries, often storing food in their
cheeks until it is safe to eat it if they
are pursued by predators. They live
in underground burrows made up
of a network of tunnels and
passages.
189

IT'S TRUE!
The average man can expect to live for 68 years, fourteen of which will
be spent at work and twenty-one asleep. His heart will beat 2,500,000,000
times, he will take 600,000,000 breaths, speak 20,000,000 words, walk
128,000 miles, grow 35 feet of hair and 27 feet of beard. To sustain
himself he will eat the equivalent of 20 pigs, 300 chickens, 6,000 loaves,
8,000 lbs of sugar, 9,000 lbs of potatoes and 10,000 eggs, all washed
down with 18,000 pints of milk and 850 lbs of tea and coffee.

The famous Austrian composer

Haydn, who died in 1809, was buried
in a tomb at Eisenstadt, but the skull
inside the tomb is not his own.
Haydn's skull was stolen from the
tomb a few days after the body
was interred and is now preserved
in the Musical Society of Vienna.
The authorities mistakenly seized
another man's skull and replaced
it in Haydn's tomb.

Nursery rhymes often seem nonsensical, but they are not. Jack Horner
steward to the A b b o t of Glastonbury at the time King Henry ordered
the dissolution of the monasteries. In an attempt to escape trial the abbot
sent 12 property deeds to the king hidden in a large pie. Jack Horner
took the deed for Mells M a n o r out before delivering the pie and his
family still live there today. The king rejected the bribe and the abbot
was hanged.

The natives of the Basasari tribe of

Togo, West Africa, have a unique
way of naming their children. They
place the favourite foods of their
ancestors on a table and let the
child choose which one he wants.
He assumes the name of the ancestor
whose favourite food it was.

Scientists stopped using the period

taken by the earth to circle the sun
as a standard unit of time in 1956
when it was discovered that the earth
is slowing down and we have already
lost two seconds this century. They
now use atom clocks that are accurate to one second every 1,000
years.
190

ANSWER
PAGE
IN THE W I L D WEST

1. Billy the Kid's real name was William

Bonney. It was Pat Garrett, a sherriff,
who arrested Billy and then, after
Billy's escape from jail, caught up
with him and killed him.
2. The man's name was Allan Pinkerton.
He was the founder of Pinkerton's
Detective Agency. One method he
originated was a system of file cards
describing the wanted men, which
proved very useful, and Pinkerton's
agency was a great success.
3. Doc Holliday, the notorious companion of Wyatt Earp, was known as
the 'deadly dentist', because before
taking to a life of violence he had been
a practising dentist. He killed many
men while living in the rough and ready
town of Tombstone, and died at the
age of 35 in a sanitarium, of tuberculosis.
4. At one time Butch Cassidy, Kid Curry,
the Sundance Kid, Tom O'Day and
Harvey Logan were all part of the
Hole in the Wall gang - a community
of outlaws who sheltered from the law
in the barren, desolate valley known
as Hole in the Wall. Later these best
known of all desperadoes broke away
and formed their own gang, called The
Wild Bunch.
5. The sharp-shooting woman was
Annie Oakley, who travelled for quite
a few years with Buffalo Bill's show.
She was born Phoebe Oakley Mozee,
and beat a celebrated marksman,
Frank Butler, in a shooting contest when
she was still in her teens. They later
married, and Frank Butler introduced
her to Buffalo Bill. She died in 1926,
at the age of 67.
6. It was Judge Isaac Charles Parker
who was given the nickname of 'hanging
judge'. His town, Fort Smith, was beset
by violence then, and the judge was
a stern man. Often there would be
hangings of twelve men at a time after
his court had been in session. Opinion
turned against him towards the end
of his career and many of his sentences
of death were repealed by lawyers in
Washington, until finally he was stopped
from judging cases. He died soon afterwards, at 58.

QU-QU-QUIZ
1. Quaestor in Latin means 'someone
who questions'. Quaestors were
magistrates in Ancient Rome, and as
their power grew they became assistants to consuls and state treasurers,
too.
2. Quartz is a mineral which looks like
glass and forms about 12 per cent of
the earth's crust. It is used for making
sandpaper and is very important in the
manufacture of televisions and radar
equipment.
3. Quasars are also called Quasistellar objects. They are the most
powerful source of light waves and
radio waves ever known, but they remain a mystery, as no one knows
exactly what they are. They are smaller
than galaxies.
4. Quarantine means putting people or
animals in a state of isolation in case
they have an illness which is infectious
to others. The word quarantine comes
from the Latin quadraginta, meaning
forty. A long time ago, a ship had to
stay outside port for forty days if there
was illness on board.
5. A quail is a bird belonging to the
pheasant family, living in most parts of
the world. Some types of quail migrate
to Northern Africa from Europe, and the
painted quail is the smallest species,
being only six inches long.
6. The quetzal is a brightly coloured
bird found in Central America. The male
has very long tail feathers which Maya
chiefs used as symbols of their authority
long ago. The quetzal is also the monetary unit of Guatemala, made of silver,
with a picture of the bird on one side.
7. Quince is a small tree bearing fruit
shaped like small pears. But since the
fruit has an acid taste, it is not eaten
raw but used to make jams and jellies.
8. The Quai d'Orsay is a street in Paris
that runs along the left bank of the river
Seine. 'Quai' in French means bank.
The street was named after a French
general whose name was Orsay, and
the offices of the French Ministry of
Foreign Affairs are situated there.

FAMOUS W O M E N
1. Edith Cavell 2. Marie Curie 3. Isadora
Duncan 4. Sarah Bernhardt.
F A M O U S INVENTORS OF
WHAT?
1. b); 2. c); 3. a); 4. b).

NURSERY RHYME PEOPLE A N D

PLACES
1. Little Boy Blue was Cardinal Wolsey,
who fell from power when he displeased
the king.
2. Hush-a-bye-baby. The cradle was put
on the treetop to keep the child safe from
prowling wolves and other wild animals
while his parents tilled the fields.
3. Mary, Queen of Scots, who had a
beautiful dress decorated with cockleshells and four faithful serving maids
called Mary.
4. The game of Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses.
5. Little Jack Horner. Horner's pie held
the deeds to several manor houses, but
on the way Master Jack opened up the
pie and took the deed of the Manor of
Mells for himself.
6. The lion and the unicorn.
7. Bobby Shafto.
SPACE SHOTS

1. Mercury; it orbits the Sun in 88 days.

2. Yuri Gagarin, on April 12th 1961.
3. Vostok-1. 4. Sir William Herschel
(1738-1822). 5. Pluto. 6. Nicholas
Copernicus (1473-1543). 7. Valentino
Tereshkova, in June 1963, in Vostok-6.
8. Buzz Aldrin. 9. The moon orbits the
earth, the earth orbits the sun. 10. Mars.
GUESS W H O ?
I. James Joyce. 2 Jane Austen.
3. Jack London. 4. G e o r g e Sand.
R E L I G I O N S O F THE W O R L D
1. Siddhartha Gautama. 2. The Muslim
religion. 3. Shinto. 4. Confucius. 5. A
stupa is a Buddhist burial mound or
shrine. 6. Sung or chanted prayers.
7. 'Bar-mitzvah' is a Jewish ceremony.
It occurs when a boy becomes old
enough to enter the adult Jewish
community, usually at the age of
thirteen. 8.The Greek Orthodox Church
of Cyprus.
TRUE O R FALSE?
1. True. 2. True. 3. True. 4. True. 5. True.
6. False. It means "Still Life". 7. False.
He died at the Alamo. 8. True. 9. True.
10. False. It is Saint Nicholas. 11. False.
It's in Venice. 12. True. 13. False. It's in
Venezuela. 14. True. 15. True. 16. False.
Spell it 'inflammatory'. 17. True. 18. True.
19. True. 20. False. It's a violin.
IS A R T Y O U R SUBJECT?

1. Michelangelo; 2. Jan Vermeer; 3. Hans

Holbein the Younger; 4. Constable;
5. Rembrandt; 6. Edgar Degas; 7. Frans
Hals; 8. Jackson Pollock.
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