I have been reading Simon Winchester's
The Map that Changed the
World. To be quite frank, I am coming to intensely dislike
it. Some samples:
- "What had hitherto been a signifier of drawing-room decorum
seemed overnight to become the pastime of the dull, and then steadily
evolve into what amateur paleontology is now: no more than the mark of
the nerd."
- describing brachiopods: "The two shells, which were evidently
hinged close to the anchor leg, opened slightly, and from between them
flicked a long, curled, rubbery tonguelike organ, which waved among the
suspended particles in the water, collected some of the edible morsels
stuck to its surfaces, and was then coiled smartly back smartly between
the shell, which promptly snapped shut."
- the glossary seems to defines brachiopods as bivalve molluscs!
- "Before the end of the Upper Carboniferous it was about to do
away with the most attractively lovable lobsterlike Paleozoic arthropod
known as the trilobite"
Has anyone seen/written a review of this book? -Roy
Roy E. Plotnick
Professor
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Illinois at Chicago
845 W. Taylor St.
Chicago, IL 60607
plotnick@uic.edu
office phone: 312-996-2111 fax:
312-413-2279
lab phone: 312-355-1342
web page:
http://www.uic.edu/~plotnick/plotnick.
htm
"The scientific celebrities, forgetting their molluscs and
glacial periods, gossiped about art, while devoting themselves to
oysters and ices with characteristic energy.." -Little Women,
Louisa May Alcott