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Re: Flat Earth

At 11:59 -0600 2/12/02, Jack Uretsky wrote:

Find me a picture of an ancient ship with a crows nest.
On the other hand, the distance from which the light of the
Alexandria lighthouse could be seen gives a reasonable estimate of the
earth's radius.

Well, how ancient do you want to go? Galileo talked about dropping
stones from a ship's mast. Perhaps early ships didn't have crow's
nests as such, but I believe that the sailors had to go aloft to rig
and furl sails, and it shouldn't have been long before someone
realized that someone at the masthead could see land (or a possibly
threatening other ship) before those on the deck could.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

(919) 467-7610

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