Twentieth Century Dictionary

My mom and dad sent me a Webster's dictionary published in 1939. It's the regular 8.5 x 11 but the thing is 5 inches thick!! It weighs more than 10 lbs I can tell you that much, I tried weighing it on my little mail scale and the thing freaked out on me...

So despite the colossal girth of this thing, it really is a cool book with many helpful features. Last night I came away knowing some World Facts I didn't know before. For instance,can you name all the 7 Wonders Of the World? Ancient and Medieval? I'll give you all the ancient ones:

1. The Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt.
2. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
3. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia
4. The Temple of Diana at Ephesus
5. The Tomb of Mausolus at Halicarnassus
6. The Pharos or Lighthouse of Alexandria
7. The Colossus of Rhodes.

In 1939, one of the Great Natural Wonders was a tree in Calcutta called the Great Banyan Tree. That's the tree pictured above. Apparently this tree covered 3 acres of ground, 300 feet by 400 feet. And since it grows rapidly, they predicted that it would cover 20 acres in about 1959.

Whether or not that actually happened, I can't say, but it certainly seems plausible considering that one famous Banyan was said to be 600 meters around. It was so big that 20,000 people could all shelter at once in its shade. The Great Banyan of Calcutta has one thousand trunks and a walk around the tree is almost a quarter mile long.

So now my next ambition is to visit Calcutta and see this tree for myself. If you want to learn more about it, click here. To view some photos of the Banyan Tree, click here.

Music For Friday

Over & Over- Jeffrey Gaines

Grace Is Gone-Dave Matthews Band

Georgia- Ray Charles (it's just an ol' sweet song)