A Matter of Degrees

[tejas]

Henry Kingman wrote:
> 
>  From: Sherwood, Harrison <hsherwood at btg.com>
> 
> > why _not_
> > use 365.25 as the number of degrees in a circle, as they do (did) in
> > China, instead of 360?
> 
> > You'll notice, Dixon
> > digs at Fr. Maire on the next page, "...and 365 and a quarter seems the
> > sort of Division Jesuits might embrace,-- the discomfort of all that
> > extra calculation...? sort of mental Cilice [chastity belt], perhaps?"
> >
> > Isn't this yet one more example of the mysticism/science,
> > Medieval/Enlightenment, East/West dichotomies central to M&D?
> 
> Yet the Chinese and the Jesuits appear to be in cahoots in Minnesota, where
> those weird lead discs are buried...

Weren't those lead disks in the Northern Great Plains planted by
advance men for the Froggy Fur Trade? A fellow named LaVendere (sp.)
was planting them out there in the early/mid 18th c. (I think Lewis
and Clark found a few of these and took them back to Thomas Jefferson.
 And the Babylonians (mainly heathen) gave us the 360 "horrors" 
degreely, didn't they?

-- 
TBSamsel at richmond.infi.net (also tejas at infi.net)
        “Do the boogie woogie in the South American way”
                                            Hank  Snow  THE RHUMBA
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