[Brian Newell] #> 1. "Dragon" #> I could not make head or tails of Vlad's marching path from Castle Black to Mount Drift. It seemed to me he marched nearly 900 miles in 3 days, which is ludicrous. ... #> During those 7 days, he marched in the vicinity of 800 miles, which works #> out to about 7 miles per hour... still an awfully fast march but... #> well, I don't know enough to call that impossible. [Jerry Friedman] #At <http://www.vhtrc.org/mmt/2003/hunter-report.htm> you'll find #a woman's course record for a 101.7-mile race: 24 hours 40 minutes. #She wouldn't have done it again the following day. A march of 800 #miles in 7 days is better than 3 days, but still impossible (unless #the Jenoine modified human endurance, or a Dragaeran mile isn't an #American mile, or something). [BN] #> However, Brust's recent posting in which he said he can only think of a #> single geographical mistake he's made has caused me to revisit this #> issue. I can't speak for Steve, but I can quote him. ---------------- 1: http://cracksandshards.com/how-long.html#Measurements How High are Shortisle's File Cabinets? Spying magically on Shortisle's records room before entering it, Kiera observes: "If the ceiling was as high as the ceiling of this room, then the filing cabinets were about eight meters tall..." [Orc164]. That's about 25 feet. Even Dragaerans would need ladders to get into most of the drawers. Eight feet, on the other hand, would be a reasonable height for filing cabinets for Dragaerans. There's no suggestion of ladders when Kiera finally enters the room and snoops through all the cabinets. Date: Tue, 03 Mar 1998 09:25:23 -0700 From: Steven Brust [...] You are also right about "8 meters" being "8 feet." I had forgotten, when I first wrote it, that I wanted Kiera thinking in meters to represent a different one of the too many measurement systems in use in the Empire, and then I somehow forgot to convert it, but just changed the word. Ooops. ---------------- 2. http://cracksandshards.com/how-long.html#Bengloarafurd How High Is Bengloarafurd? Bengloarafurd had "a population of eleven thousands, more than twice its elevation measured in meters" [TPG250]. Round that down and say 5,000 meters, or 5 kilometers, or slightly over 3 miles. Castle Redface is even higher [TPG277]. Sea-level athletes notice a real difference in Denver, "the mile-high city". Yet our heroes don't seem to notice any shortness of breath in either Bengloarafurd or Castle Redface. (Pointed out by Ben-San Arizona.) Well, they are heroes, and in excellent physical condition, and they've come up gradually and had time to become acclimated to the change; and if Dragaera City is at a significant elevation, there's less change than if they were coming from Adrilankha, at sea level. Besides, maybe Dragaerans are less sensitive to the difference than Easterners are. For that matter, how big is the planet that Dragaera is on? We can suppose that its surface gravity is about the same as Earth's, but (leaving aside any magical effects) if it is less dense -- and our own planet appears to be the densest in our solar system -- then the gravity gradient would be shallower, and air pressure would fall off more slowly with increasing elevation, with a correspondingly slighter physiological effect. On the other hand, how much simpler to assume that Brust (author or translator) had the same problem here as with the file cabinets, referring to meters but using the measurement in feet. Then the elevation is just about a mile (5,280 feet), the same as Denver, which alleviates the problem to the point of insignificance. --------------- Of course, if you throw in assumptions like that all over, you can solve many geographical conundrums, but you also lose most of the constraints that give the problem a point and make it fun. -- Mark A. Mandel http://cracksandshards.com a Steven Brust Dragaera fan website