|
|
|
|
|
Basic Information |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Science and Fact |
|
This site tells the story of the history of the universe. Click Earlier and Later to follow the story. Note: Many facts have been simplified to make them easier to understand. |
|
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 an idiot, can see that in the Old Oolitic Silurian Period, just 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 same token any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under
a single mayor and a mutual board of alderman.
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesome returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883) ch. 17 |
||
| Like this web site? Buy the book! |
|
Science and Fact |
|
|
Basic Information |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
