11 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
The Past and Future of the Mississippi
In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the old Oolitic Silurian Period, must a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upward of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-rod. And by the ...Folksonomies: speculation
Folksonomies: speculation
"There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."
04 MAR 2011 by ideonexus
Mark Twain, the Mississippi, and Scientific Conjecture
Now, if I wanted to be one of those ponderous scientific people, and 'let on' to prove what had occurred in the remote past by what had occurred in a given time in the recent past, or what will occur in the far future by what has occurred in late years, what an opportunity is here! Geology never had such a chance, nor such exact data to argue from! Nor 'development of species,' either! Glacial epochs are great things, but they are vague--vague. Please observe:-- In the space of one hundred...Folksonomies: science speculation
Folksonomies: science speculation
Twain speculates on the shortening of the Mississippi over the centuries.