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Re: Some more inconsistencies--metric units

From: Norm Wolcott <nwolcott2ster~at~gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 10:46:28 -0400
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~gilead.org.il>

Thanks for the marvellous map of the eclipse path. I think this map puts the
eclipse close enough to 70 deg north for "literary license". No doubt most
of the inconsistencies have long been known to French readers, but the
translators were probably approaching them for the first time. A similar
problem arose with the "state" of New Brunswick in 'Round the Moon.

Interesting too the web page on The Fur Country also references a web page
(by the same author apparently) about the Adventures of 3 Englishmen and 3
Russians, a similar story of a scientific expedition in tough places. This
web page also contains a discussion of units in Verne, echoing a point of
view I also espoused in my introduction fo Around the Moon (ibiblio,
R-II-Intro.htm) that Verne and Hetzel were promoting the transition to
metric units. No doubt this has also been discussed extensively in the SJV
annals. At least it is interesting to see a Frenchman coming to the same
conclusion.

nwolcott2~at~post.harvard.edu
----- Original Message -----
From: "Garmt de Vries" <G.deVries~at~phys.uu.nl>
To: "Jules Verne Forum" <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>
Sent: Wednesday, June 14, 2006 1:47 PM
Subject: Re: Some more inconsistencies


> On Wed, 14 Jun 2006, Norm Wolcott wrote:
>
> > In the last page of the Fur Country, Thomas Black says he is sorry to
> > have missed the eclipse of 1860, but as it will occur again in the same
> > place 26 years later, he will meet everyone there twenty-six years later
> > in 1896.
> >
> > Take your pick. This leaves aside the question as to whether it is
> > likely that another eclipse would occur at the same place on earth in 26
> > years.
>
> I seem to remember an article in the BSJV about the dates and locations of
> these eclipses. IRRC, the 1860 totality was not quite so far north. The
> map at <http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conWebDoc.1027> seems to confirm
> this.
>
> See also Jacques Crovisier's interesting article on this novel at
> <http://www.lesia.obspm.fr/~crovisier/JV/verne_PF.html>.
>
> Cheers,
> Garmt.
Received on Thu 15 Jun 2006 - 17:58:49 IDT

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