MDDM Ch. 75 A Curious Black Case

[Dave Monroe]

"'In his movement he seem'd as much a Visitor as I in
this Country.  From his Pack he unfolded a small
Sledge of Caribou Hide, stretch'd upon an ingeniously
hinged framework of Whalebone, and from a curious
black Case produced a Device of elaborately coil'd
Wires, set upon Gimbals, which he affixed to the Prow
of his vehicle.  "Hurry!"  I had barely climb'd aboard
when the whole concern spun about, till pointing, as a
Needle-man I surmis'd, to the North Magnetick Pole,
and began to move, faster and ever faster, with a
rising Wgine, over the Ice-Prairie.'" (M&D, Ch. 75, p.
379)

"as much a Visitor as I in this Country" = strangers
in a strange land?

"curious black Case" = Schwarzgerat?  A black box, of
sorts, at any rate ...

Main Entry: black box
Function: noun
Date: circa 1945
1 : a usually complicated electronic device that
functions and is packaged as a unit and whose internal
mechanism is usually hidden from or mysterious to the
user; broadly : anything that has mysterious or
unknown internal functions or mechanisms
2 : a crashworthy device in aircraft for recording
cockpit conversations and flight data

Main Entry: gim·bal  
Pronunciation: 'gim-b&l, 'jim-
Function: noun
Etymology: alteration of obsolete gemel (double ring)
Date: 1780
: a device that permits a body to incline freely in
any direction or suspends it so that it will remain
level when its support is tipped -- usually used in
plural; called also gimbal ring

Cf. ...

Main Entry: gy·ro·scope 
Pronunciation: 'jI-r&-"skOp, British also 'gI-
Function: noun
Etymology: French
Date: 1856
: a wheel or disk mounted to spin rapidly about an
axis and also free to rotate about one or both of two
axes perpendicular to each other and to the axis of
spin so that a rotation of one of the two mutually
perpendicular axes results from application of torque
to the other when the wheel is spinning and so that
the entire apparatus offers considerable opposition
depending on the angular momentum to any torque that
would change the direction of the axis of spin

Main Entry: gy·ro·com·pass 
Pronunciation: 'jI-rO-"k&m-p&s also -"käm-
Function: noun
Date: 1910
: a compass consisting of a continuously driven
gyroscope whose spinning axis is confined to a
horizontal plane so that the earth's rotation causes
it to assume a position parallel to the earth's axis
and thus point to the true north 

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
   Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; ...
 
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/carroll6.html

"For some reason the children of America conceived
around this time a simultaneous and psychopathic
craving for simple gyroscopes, the kind which are set
in motion by a string wound around a rotating shaft,
something like a top.  Chiclitz, recognizing a market
potential there, decided to expand.  He was well on
the way to cornering the toy gyroscope market when
along came a group of school kids on a tour to point
out that these toys worked on the same principle as a
gyrocompass.  'As wha,' said Chiclitz.  They explained

gyrocompasses to him, also rate and free gyros." (V.,
Ch. 8, Sec. iv, p. 227)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0103&msg=53753&sort=date

And, again, note that polar exploration connection ...

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