Additional Readings

Reading 01

The Great Wall of China

Begun in 200 B.C., during the reign of Emperor Tsin, the Great Wall of China stretches 1,400 miles inland from the sea. If its eastern end were in Philadelphia, its western end would be in Kansas. The wall is 30 feet high and 25 feet thick at the base. A paved highway runs along its top. Alone among the works of man, it could be seen from the moon.

Tsin ordered the wall built to discourage raids by the Mongolian nomads, known as Huns. The workmanship is excellent. Naturally! Tsin ordered that a workman who left a crack between the stones wide enough to stick a nail through should be instantly beheaded.

The wall itself was not high enough or thick enough to halt invaders, nor was it possible to station soldiers along its entire length. The Huns could always rush a section of the wall, drive back the local defenders by massed archery, and climb over the top with scaling ladders, but, while a man can climb a ladder, a horse cannot. Therefore the raiders had to leave their horses behind and go clumping about the Chinese countryside in their heavy boots. Without their horses they were easily attacked by the local garrisons, especially when they were trying to get back over the wall with their loot. Thus the wall proved a success, and the Huns were repulsed from China.

Reading 02

A Favorite Expression

There was, at the court of Seville, a wise and gentle man named Don Carlos who was esteemed by the king. Don Carlos had a favorite expression which he never wearied of repeating. It went as follows: "Everything that happens to us in this world is for the best."

Now, certain nobles were jealous of Don Carlos and accused him of plotting to overthrow the monarchy. The king believed them and summoned Don Carlos to the palace. He also gave orders to have him killed on the way.

Don Carlos hastened to obey, but as he left his home, he fell and broke his leg. In the midst of his pain he said, "Everything that happens to us in this world is for the best."

Because of this accident, he could not go to the palace. In the meantime the king had discovered that the accusations were false and that Don Carlos was innocent. After punishing the guilty nobles, he drove in a carriage laden with gold and jewels to the home of Don Carlos. "My dear friend," the king said, as he bestowed the gifts on Don Carlos, "you were absolutely right. Everything that happens to us in this world is for the best."

Reading 03

Dreams as Prophecy

Since man's earliest beginnings, dreams have fascinated and mystified him. Primitive people, troubled by the human-seeming shapes in dreams, inferred that every man had both a living, physical body and a phantom or ghost soul.

The ancient Babylonians believed that whatever happened to the ghost soul in dreams would happen to the dreamer in his waking life; and they made up a code for interpreting the nature of dream-acts. For example, if a man saw himself in a dream cutting wood, it signified that his enemies would meet a violent death. If he saw himself gazing into a deep well, it signified that he would be put in prison; and if he saw himself crouching in daylight, it meant his misdeeds would be found out by the gods.

This notion that dreams foretell the dreamer's future, or foreshadow events-to-be, carried over into later times. A Greek soothsayer foretold the fall of Troy from a dream; and the Roman emperor Julius Caesar foresaw his own death while dreaming.

The Bible is rich in prophetic dreams. In the Old Testament God frequently appears in dreams to warn of danger or to announce the coming of a prophet. The New Testament recounts the dream of Joseph, in which he is visited by God and told his wife is pregnant with Jesus.

The most famous prophetic dream occurred barely a hundred years ago, and the dreamer was President Lincoln. During a Cabinet meeting the President announced that before long there would be important news. "Have you heard something?" someone asked. "I have heard nothing," Lincoln said, "but last night I dreamed I was in a boat, alone. I had no oars or rudder. I was helpless in a raging ocean."

Five hours later, Lincoln was assassinated.

Reading 04

Understanding Comets

Until modern times, no one knew exactly what comets were. They were feared as omens of tragedy or misfortune. The very word 'comet' comes from the Greek 'kometes,' which means 'the long-haired one.' The Greeks and Romans believed that comets were evil spirits with flowing beards. In the Middle Ages, the Church decreed that comets were sent by God to punish man for his sins. A medieval astronomer said the comet of 1531 'was the color of blood. An ugly demon with long hair rode at its head. It looked to horrible and produced such terror in the common people that some died of fear and others fell sick.'

These views prevailed until late in the seventeenth century, when the English astronomer Edmund Halley noticed a similarity in the paths of the comets of 1456, 1531, 1607, and 1683. Halley became convinced that these comets were one and the same comet swooping round and round the sun like a planet. He predicted that this comet would return about the end of 1758 or early in 1759, since it had been sighted regularly every seventy-five or six years.

Halley himself did not live long enough to see his comet return, but his prediction proved to be correct, for on March 12, 1759, a comet was seen blazing across the sky. This was the first time in history that a comet had been definitely expected. Since 1759, it has re-appeared three times, once in 1835, and once again in 1910, and it returned in 1986. It will again return to us in 2051. The comet is named Halley's Comet, after the man who accurately predicted its appearance.

Reading 05

Curious Rainfalls

Unbelievable as it sounds, a rain of fish did actually occur in 1817, at Appin, in Scotland. It consisted of a downpour of small herrings, a feat that nature repeated in 1830, at Islay, in Argyllshire. Some eighty years ago there was a shower of small frogs in the west of England and in 1900 a thunderstorm brought down more of the creatures near Liverpool. Even this doesn't exhaust the marvels of nature, for many other curious effects have been connected with rainfall. For example there was a shower of red rain in 1608 at Aix, during which large red drops of liquid were seen on the cemetery and the walls of the church. Needless to say, this 'shower of blood' was not taken lightly by the frightened inhabitants. Red rain has been recorded many times since then, for instance at Vienna and in Italy in 1901, in Cornwall and Hamburg in 1902, and in England in 1903. The explanation probably lies in the fact that large quantities of algae were brought down by the rain. Algae are tiny plants measuring less than one-thousandth of an inch in diameter - the simplest forms of vegetable life.

Black rain is another oddity that has visited the British Isles. In 1862, four showers of black rain fell in Scotland. They were probably the result of volcanic dust brought to earth from the higher atmosphere. Yellow rain has also been recorded and pollen is suspected of being the coloring agent.

While such curiosities of nature are startling, they all have natural explanations. The herrings - and small ones at that  - were probably picked up by a water-spout at sea. The frogs probably enjoyed a similar experience as a result of a whirlwind, either from a swamp or from a meadow. In any event, no rainstorms of fish or frogs have been recorded far from either seacoasts or swampland.

Reading 06

Difficulties of Attacking a Castle

A medieval castle was difficult to attack. The castle itself usually stood on a hill, which the attackers had to climb. Then they had to pass the drawbridge. If the drawbridge had been pulled up, the attackers had to find some way of crossing the moat, a deep ditch filled with water. While they were finding a way across, the defenders could shoot arrows at them from the safety of the castle battlements.

If the attackers did succeed in crossing the moat, they had to get past a heavy iron gate called the portcullis. From slits above the castle the defenders could pour down boiling water, hot lead or burning oil.

Once inside the castle itself, the attackers had to fight their way through the different buildings and storerooms. Sometimes a wall divided the castle into two parts: the outer and inner yards. The attackers had to scale this wall. If they were brave and strong enough, they might reach the keep, or 'donjon,' as the French called it. This was the heart of the castle. From holes in the walls of the keep, skilled archers would shoot arrows at the men below. The attackers might have to make a siege in order to starve out the defenders. Until gunpowder was brought into Europe from China, sieges were common, and could last for two or three months.

Reading 07

How To Make a Decision

"Which one are you going to buy?"

"I can't make up my mind."

This is all I caught of a conversation between two girls in a record shop, but it was enough to remind me of a problem we all face - how to make a decision.

Within the next 24 hours you will have to make some choices. They may be trivial, or they may be decisions that will affect your whole life.

If you can make decisions quickly and without excessive emotional strain, you are lucky. Many people cannot, but the art of making decisions can be learned.

Sometimes you will make poor decisions and sometimes you will make right ones. Your well-being will depend partly on your batting average of wise choices, but it will also depend on making decisions. Success never rests on indecision.

There are no hard and fast rules for making decisions, but here are a few pointers.

Don't waste time over insignificant problems. If it is a choice between a blue necktie with white stripes or a blue tie with red stripes, weigh the evidence quickly, make a decision, and let it go at that. It probably will not make much difference which one you wear.

Know your problem. Analyze it clearly. Be sure you understand what is involved. John, for example, cannot decide whether to try out for the school debate team or the senior class play. It is possible that unconsciously he does not want to try out for either. Perhaps he really wants to run for class president but does not want to face the possibility of defeat. He was therefore trying to solve the wrong problem.

Get the facts involved. This does not mean just getting other people's ideas. Good decisions are based on truths.

If you are planning to study accounting and you are looking for the right college to attend, you will want to know which colleges offer courses in accounting. Then you will want to know which of these colleges rates the highest among those who might employ you later. When you have gathered these facts, you will hardly make the mistake of picking a college that offers only one or two courses in accounting.

Getting the facts may involve a little research and time, but if the problem is important, your time will hardly have been wasted. No matter how much intelligence a person may have, he cannot make wise choices unless he knows the facts pertaining to his problem.

In some cases you may postpone your decision for a time. If you cannot find the answer, and you do not have to make an immediate decision, it may be well to "sleep on" the problem. Perhaps in a day or two the solution will come to you like a flash. This is sometimes called insight.

Actually you have not put the matter completely out of your mind. What is commonly called your subconscious mind takes over the problem, and in a short time the answer often comes into consciousness.

Make your decision and stick to it. When the time comes to make a final decision and you have analyzed the problem, gathered as many facts as possible, and weighed the evidence, then choose the most likely road and stay on it. If you look back over your decisions too often, you may weaken your own convictions and undermine your self-confidence.

When you commit yourself decisively, you may run the risk of making wrong decisions, but you gain poise and self-esteem. Someone has said that a poor decision is better than no decision at all. If you find your decision is wrong you can usually change it to the right decision and go forward, while the person who straddles the fence never finds out which is the right decision and thus seldom gets very far.

Reading 08

Three Eggs and a Flag

It was a small flag, not more than eighteen inches high, yet the man who put it there must have been quick to notice and equally quick to act.

I was part of a military unit moving up on Gaza in Palestine; part of a war machine advancing towards a battle that brought little glory. Men, transport, and animals were converging fanwise, making a bottle-neck in the desert. Among the maze of wheel tracks and hoof marks, I noticed a red marker flag. The lines of traffic diverged a few yards to the left or a few yards to the right, respecting the flags warning. There was no indication of what it was set there to warn us: its mute message was "keep clear" - and one and all kept clear.

Curiosity urged me to move over to see for myself as we passed. A few inches from the square peg of the marker I saw a lark's nest containing three eggs. Only a few yards away the ground was furrowed by uncountable wheel marks and broken up by the hoofs of trampling and straining horses; and yet amid all that confusion the three fragile eggs lay unharmed.

I did not say anything about the nest. The man who put the flag up had not done so. Talking about it would be the last thing he would do, for it might have come to the ears of someone who felt differently about larks and their nests: someone who would see that a marker flag was being put to a purpose for which it was not provided, whose over-disciplined mind might jump to prevent such misuse.

The unknown soldier was probably a country boy. In true country fashion he had let his eyes range over the earth as well as over the sky. He had noticed the nest, and noticing it, he had put aside his own predicament and anxieties, and thought of the bird. I have often wondered about my unknown companion in arms, and whether he got through the campaign safely. I have no great opinion of the gloriousness of war, but I am glad I was on the same side as the chap who hammered in that marker flag.

Reading 09

Interview with Joan K. Rowling

Q How did the idea come to you for Harry Potter?

A I was taking a long train journey from Manchester to London in England and the       idea for Harry just came into my head. At that point it was especially important for      the idea for a boy who didn't know he was a wizard, and the wizard school he         ended up journeying to.

Q How long did it take to write the first book of the Harry Potter Books?

A Five years, although during that time I was also planning and writing parts for the       next six sequels.

Q Did you plan to write Harry's story in more than one book? If so, how many of         them?

A I always planned it as a seven book series because I predicted that it would take        seven years from the ages of 11-17, inclusive, to train as a wizard, and each of         the books would deal with a year of Harry's life at the wizarding school of             Hogwarts.

Q Harry Potter was first successful in England, and then in the United States. Where      else has Harry Potter been released? What things do they have in common and/or       what differences have you found in the response to Harry Potter in different            countries, and, since each of the editions is packaged differently, do you have a         favorite book?

A Harry is now published, in Britain, America, Brazil, Holland, France, Germany, Italy,      Spain, Portugal, Greece, Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, and        Japan. My favorite cover is the American one. I am very much hoping to meet the      illustrator, Mary Grandpre, but I also love the Dutch's edition cover.

Q Are you excited about the movie rights Warner Brothers have purchased for Harry      Potter? Where else might we see Harry Potter in the future?

A I am very excited and a little bit nervous about "Harry Potter the Movie." Warner       Brothers have merchandising rights, so it is possible that we will be seeing Harry       Potter toys soon.

Q Did you always want to be an author?

A Yes, ever since the age of five or six, when I wrote my first book, a story about a     rabbit which was called Rabbit.

Q Where, when, and how do you like to write?

A Any time, any place, and longhand!

Q What books and authors did you read as a kid and teenager? Which are your           biggest influences on your books?

A I admire E. Nesbit, Paul Gallico and C.S. Lewis the most. My favorite book as a        child was The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge.

Q If you were not writing, what profession would you be in?

A Well, as you can see by the answer from the previous question, I would be at a         dead loss. I would still be teaching, which I enjoyed very much.

Q What did you have to do to make sure readers could start with "Harry Potter and       the Chamber of Secrets" and not be confused about what was happening?

A It's becoming more of a challenge to keep new readers up to date with every new      Harry book. In the case of Chamber of Secrets, matters were relatively easy and        straightforward; I tried to introduce information about Harry and his first year at        Hogwarts in as understandable a way as possible. However, by the time I reach        books five or six, this is going to be much harder because of the years in              between. It makes me think of "previously on ER..." when you have to watch           thirty minutes of clips to be able to understand that week's episode. Maybe I'll         just write a preface: "previously in Harry Potter..." and tell readers to go back and      read books 1 - 4 if they have not already!

Q What does your daughter think of your work so far? What books do you and like       to read with her, and want her to read on her own someday?

A She is still too young for me to read the Harry Potter books to her, but I am           really looking forward to a time when I can read them with her. She loves the          Beatrix Potter books and I recently read her The Lion, the Witch and the               Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis , which she greatly enjoyed.

Reading 10

Major Threats to the Environment

All the talk about global warming and the hole in the ozone layer can be confusing and overwhelming. Here are brief explanations of five major threats to the environment, including the potential danger if the trend isn't remedied, and how people can respond.

Global Warming

The situation: There is growing evidence that the Earth is warming because of carbon dioxide (and to a lesser extent methane) in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is released when fossil fuels are burned. Rice paddies and livestock are significant sources of methane.

The danger: Rising temperatures could melt polar ice caps, raise sea levels and submerge coastal areas. They also could disrupt agriculture and ecosystems, resulting in desertification and famine.

What we can do: Reduce carbon dioxide emissions by developing alternative energy sources such as solar power and wind energy to replace fossil fuels. Cut automotive emissions of carbon dioxide by developing more efficient engines and encouraging other means of transportation, including mass transit.

The Ozone Hole

The situation: The ozone layer that shields the planet from harmful ultraviolet radiation is deteriorating as industrial chemicals, including chlorinated fluorocarbons(CFCs), are released into the atmosphere. Jet exhaust is another significant cause of ozone depletion.

The danger: The Environmental Protection Agency announced this month that the ozone layer is being destroyed faster than previously believed. The EPA said this destruction could result in 11 million additional cases of skin cancer and 200,000 additional deaths in the United States in the next 50 years.

What we can do: Reduce CFC emissions by proper maintenance and disposal of sources such as refrigerators, air conditioners, insulating foam, chemical solvents and fire extinguishers. Support stricter controls on industrial use of CFCs.

Air Pollution

The situation: Burning fossil fuels, notably gasoline, fuel oil and coal, releases particulates, heavy metals (lead and cadmium), acid gases and organic contaminants into the atmosphere. These emissions can travel long distances in the upper atmosphere. Fossil-fuel combustion also creates nitrous oxide, which falls back to Earth as nitrous acid, a major component of acid rain.

The danger: Organic and acid contaminants can increase rates of lung cancer and respiratory diseases, and destroy plant and animal life. In Mexico City, one of the worst-polluted cities in the world, seven out of 10 children are born with higher lead levels in their blood than the World Health Organization's standards, and it is estimated that one out of every 100 children is born with some form of mental retardation as a result. Air pollution also is taking a devastating toll on other animal and plant life. It is estimated that by early next century, Germany will have lost 90 percent of its trees.

What we can do: Minimize reliance on fossil fuels by using mass transit, car pools or other transportation. Use natural gas, which emits fewer contaminants than coal or oil. Use unleaded gasoline. Because burning garbage produces air pollution, reduce waste by recycling, reusing and not buying things you don't need. Insist on stricter pollution standards.

Water Pollution

The situation: Toxic chemicals are sometimes dumped directly into lakes and rivers or into municipal sewage systems. Runoff of agricultural chemicals is also a major source of water pollution. Lakes, rivers and oceans can also be contaminated by raw sewage, which can spread disease-causing bacteria. Runoff of animal waste from feedlots, and nitrate fertilizers from farm fields are a significant source of nitrate contamination. Other forms of water pollution are acid rain and toxic rain, which result when smokestack emissions from factories mix with rain.

The danger: Drinking water drawn from polluted lakes and rivers can cause mental retardation, cancer and kidney and liver disease. Hazardous concentrations of chemicals have been found in fish taken from polluted lakes and rivers. Where sewage treatment is inadequate, water can transmit cholera, typhus and dysentery. Acid rain also can lower agricultural productivity by making the soil more acidic.

What we can do: Reduce air pollution - see the recommendations above. Properly dispose of engine oil, paint, solvents and other liquid wastes to keep them out of the water system. Lobby governments to require industries and municipal sewage systems to establish "zero discharge" goals.

Endangered Species

The situation: Human activity wipes out more than a thousand plant and animal species every year, and many more species are pushed to the edge of extinction. The causes vary: overhunting, habitat destruction, degradation of the environment through pollution, the disappearance of "primitive" plant and animal varieties as farmers and animal breeders concentrate on a handful of high-yielding varieties.

The danger: The loss of species can be seen as tragic in itself, but there are further consequences. The loss of a species disrupts the ecosystem in which it lives. As plant and animal varieties disappear, we lose potentially valuable sources of new crops, medicines and genetic material that could be used to breed disease resistance or other desirable characteristics into modern plant and animal varieties.

What we can do: Support laws that restrict trade in endangered species.