[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Abell'sLondon chauvinism took a battering as well.London , the only major metropolis inEngland , had a
population measured in the low hundreds of thousands. It had grown, of course, and since Abell's family
had from time to time imported grain from the Baltics something that had ended during the current
war he had an idea of its rough size, which was perhaps a quarter of a million people. The idea that the
population ofLondon could be added to the world every day seemed unreal.
The shocks continued once the meaning of the word billion was determined. Surely six million million
people was impossible! Further reading of the essay seemed indeed to make that number impossible
since the numbers did not add up, but the overall impression was staggering.
Before they knew it they had spent three hours copying and discussing the essay and all three had
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
practiced arithmetic with much larger numbers than they had ever done before. Inspired by the essay,
Abell had asked his two students to calculate the amount of food and drink consumed in firstCambridge
and thenLondon in a day, a week and a year. Bess was able to provide some basic information about the
weights and quantities of food served at the Pickerel as a meal for different people as well as ale
consumption which helped to start things. Conversion of pounds, pints, bushels, barrels and so on yielded
much fun and there was considerable argument about whether it was possible to equate a weight of beef
or mutton with a fowl or a fish and whether bread should be counted as a single item or as its constituent
parts.
Unnoticed during this mathematical extravaganza Mrs Smyth had left the classroom but the entrance of
the Master some minutes later as the final calculations of London's annual food consumption were being
made did bring all three back to the mundane world. The Master, however, merely indicated that they
should complete their sums so they did so with alacrity. Then once it was complete he asked them what
they were studying. Both Bess and Abell were somewhat shy, but his daughter was only too happy to
launch into an explanation of population, food and theNational Geographic which was somewhat
confused yet which got the essential points across.
* * *
The Master let the joys of arithmetic pass him by and focussed on the source. Literally, since he took it
in his hand and studied the relevant pages minutely. He quizzed Abell on his understanding of the origin of
theNational Geographic , its meaning and the world it depicted. Abell replied that it seemed that the
booklet was a sort of combination of newsletter and encyclopedia. From the precise dating and other
indications, it seemed that a volume was produced each month and that this was distributed tosubscribers
which was rather like the Dutch corrantos, but the contents seemed more timeless and pedagogical.
The concept was itself briefly interesting to the Master but he put that to one side and considered the
booklet, its content and its implications. This was almost certainly the first Grantville work to arrive in
Cambridge or Oxford, for that matter, he thought with added glee which meant that he had a clear
advantage in studying Grantville. Recalling the conversation in hall the previous evening, he could see that
Grantville studies were likely to be politically sensitive yet philosophically and theologically vital.
Yes... sidestep the politics by analysing the geography of the world that Grantville came from. If you
ignored its version of seventeenth century history, you avoided the dangers of political entanglement while
filling in knowledge that was of benefit. And if the scholars in Magdalene could do that they could profit
from the interest.
Geography! Present this as good for trade, navigation and they'd get the interest of merchants, which
means they get more fellow commoners and benefactions perhaps a university chair...
But first things first.They couldn't print this as it was without a lot of tedious politics. They needed to get
commentary, which meant they needed copies that scholars could analyse. So they would need copyists
to start with, who needed to be reliable and controlable.And...
Had the Master been an excitable Greek philosopher at this point he would have run around the streets
shoutingEureka! But since he was a staid English academic, not to mention a halfway good politician, he [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]