Reply: Item #4398743 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#
Carved Mountains of Urth
--"grim heads . . . spangled with snow . . . eyes are as large as towns, figures whose shoulders are wrapped in forests (III, ch. 2).
++comments: thus most idols have only the head in the snowline. How to define the area of "towns"? Use 20 hectares, a good historical size, which gives us a circle with a diameter of 505 meters.
--Mt. Typhon the highest: "Not only its head but its shoulders too bore a shroud of snow, which desended nearly to its waist" (III, ch.
18).
++comments: it would seem Mount Typhon is nearly twice as high as most idols.
OUTSIDE FACTOIDS
One of those glossy science fiction picture books by Harry Harrison has an intriguing drawing of a proposed mountain monument city carved in honor of Alexander the Great. The mountain to be used was Mt. Athos in Greece/Macedonia. The city to be in the idol's lap, with water from a reservoir cunningly formed by its bent right arm. The drawing showed helmeted Alex relaxing against the mountain: i.e., no throne, no 360 degree carving (just the front), no free standing head, etc. Of course I've tried looking up any historical mention of this plan, drawn up by one of Alex's architects, but have yet to find anything. (Personally I've always had this drawing in mind whenever thinking of the idols of Urth.)
Earth's Mt. Athos is 6,670 feet. We thus have some sort of blueprint (however fantastic) for an idol of Urth in that size, and if the snowline is at a Patagonian 6,000 feet, that works out about right for most mundane idols. Making Mount Typhon something more like 12,000 feet.
But there is a "high jungle" at Mount Typhon's feet, a rainforest covered with lianas. Well, says here lianas can grow pretty much wherever the big trees can grow.
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=mantis=