Geography. Козлова Е.П. - 86 стр.

invention in the library courtyard and waited for the longest day in the year.
     On June 22 the sun arose in the sky above Alexandria. At that moment the
scientist measured the length of the shadow the column threw on to the bottom of the
bowl. He found it to be one-fiftieth of the scatha circumference. At that same moment
there was no shade at all at Syene (vicinity of the modern Aswan): there the
sunbeams fell vertically. The distance between the two cities was 5,000 stadia (the
stadium was a Greek unit of length) or 800 kilometres. Such would be the length of
one of 50 equal arcs constituting the complete circumference of the Earth. From this
Eratosthenes calculated the entire circumference to be 800*50=40,000 kilometres.
Then by a simple calculation he found the radius of the globe to be equal to 6,370
kilometres.
     Since then investigators have measured the Earth’s surface many times, but their
results always coincide in the main with the figures derived in ancient times by
Eratosthenes. The space laboratories of artificial Earth satellites have also confirmed
these figures.
     Thus, the Alexandrian librarian measured the earth correctly almost 2,200 years
ago.

                              17.2 A Hook to the Earth

     Comparatively not so long ago our country as far as the Carpathians and the
south Urals was covered with ice, as were also Canada and the north of the United
States. This fact is beyond any shadow of doubt. About 12,000 years ago the ice
melted: this is also an authentic fact. But why did it happen?
     Ludwig Seidler, a Polish scientist, made a careful study of the circumstances of
this event. The explanation he found is based mainly on what would seem to be a
rather unimportant fact.
     In north-eastern Siberia there are cemeteries of extinct animals where tens of
thousands mammoths are buried in the permafrost layers. The flesh of these animals
has been excellently preserved, because the animals lived under conditions of Arctic
cold. But this is not so. Undigested remains of food were found in the stomachs of the
dead mammoths, remains of cones and needles of spruce and larch, which do not
grow in the north tundra.
     This means that the ancient elephants lived in a moderate climate and they
perished from the unexpected cold. It means that a great catastrophe fell on the planet
12,000 years ago. What was this catastrophe?
     Ludwig Seidler thinks that the Earth collided with a very large cosmic body,
which made it shudder and displace. The geographic poles quickly shifted 30 degrees
in the direction of the action of the outer force. The North Pole moved out of Hudson
Bay into its present position, and the “ice cap” shifted rapidly from Labrador to the
mouth of the Yenisei, freezing a herd of mammoths. The equator changed its position
accordingly. Previously it has passed through the highest peak in the world – Mount
Everest. That is how some regions of our planet grew sharply colder, and others
much warmer. That is how the climate changed unexpectedly.
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