By Simon Winchester
In 1793, a canal digger named William Smith made a startling discovery. He stumbled on that via tracing the situation of fossils, which he exposed in his excavations, you can still keep on with layers of rocks as they dipped and rose and fell—clear throughout England and, certainly, transparent around the world—making it attainable, for the 1st time ever, to attract a chart of the hidden underside of the earth. Smith spent twenty-two years piecing jointly the fragments of this unseen universe to create an epochal and remarkably appealing hand-painted map. yet rather than receiving accolades and honors, he ended up in debtors' legal, the sufferer of plagiarism, and nearly homeless for ten years extra.
The Map that modified the World is a really human story of patience and fulfillment, of 1 man's commitment within the face of damage. With a willing eye and considerate element, Simon Winchester unfolds the poignant sacrifice at the back of this world-changing discovery.
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Extra info for The Map That Changed the World: William Smith and the Birth of Modern Geology
Sample text
He loved to travel and now that he had money he wanted to see the world. After all, he was the guy who married a stewardess so he could get cheap flights. Now he became the bane of flight attendants worldwide. In June of 1969 he flew to Copenhagen, which had legalized pornography that very same month. The results of his investigations were originally slated for issue ten of Screw but ended up postponed to issue twenty-three, to be called the Sexual Freedom In Scandinavia issue. When it finally came out it proved so controversial that all the copies were confiscated by the authorities.
A strange line of thought coming from what was created as a vehicle of capitalism and would soon become the inhouse publication of 42nd Street. Goldstein was now flush with cash and busy becoming the ultimate consumer, the epitome of crass materialism and conspicuous consumption. But in fact Field and the two Screw founders were not so far apart. First of all, Goldstein’s sweaty embrace of material goods was to a large degree a personal rebellion against the self-righteous hippy abstinence of the sixties.
Down Every Alley 41 Other titles appeared from both parties in a frenzy of diversification. Screw even announced plans to clone itself with a new tabloid called Erect, although it’s uncertain if Erect ever saw the light of day. Suddenly sex publications were not such a cursed commodity. Seeing the money to be made, even ‘Old Archie’ Gordon was now putting out his own rag called Pleasure and was distributing Kiss. When the cops did their rounds of obscenity busts, Al, Old Archie and the editors of competing rags often ended up sharing the same jail cell, forcing Goldstein to endure their low company, much to his disdain.
