{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/358",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 358,
    "subject": "Location of Commonwealth",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-02-06T16:25:50+00:00",
    "last": "1998-02-06T16:25:50+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0007-0533@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Jim Jordan",
        "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net"
      },
      "date": "1998-02-06T16:25:50+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Location of Commonwealth",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 02:24 PM 2/6/98 -0500, you wrote:\n\nWhile you are absolutely right that TBOTNS's South America isn't ours, I\nthink it's safe to say it fills the role of South America on Urth. \nRecall that while Severian's universe isn't necessarily (maybe even\ncertainly) ours, it is also stated that each successive universe\nresembles all the others, even down to minor details."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "\tWell, Wolfe has stated that it is South America, so that should settle it.\nAlga is right that there are allusions to Byzantium and Alexandria. There\nare also allusions to Jerusalem and Israel (cp. the gates of Jerusalem in\nthe book of Nehemiah; also the fact that God has selected this tiny land to\nbe the place where the whole future of Urth is determined; etc.). But\ngeographically, it is S.A.\n\tBut, what S.A. Well, not ours, as the map in *Plan[e]t Engineering*\nreveals. The river flows to the Pacific, not the Atlantic, putting Nessus\nin Chile, apparently.\n\tI have another theory, however. The mountains are not the Andes, of\ncourse, because these mountains have been uplifted in historical times. The\nstrata of human civilizations are seen in the mountains. How does this\nhappen? Well, back in the ice age when I was in college, we were taught\nthat large rivers deposit silt in their deltas for millennia. The delta\nbecomes bigger and deeper and heavier, and starts to press down into the\nmantel. After a while, the mantel pushes back, and the delta is thrust up\nas a mountain range.\n\tNow, take our present SA, and imagine a million years of delta from the\nAmazon and Parana (Buenos Aires), then all that area's being thrust up as\nmountains, while the land to the west (present SA) sinks into the sea. In\nthis way, the whole continent would move one step to the east. The location\nof Buenos Aires would remain the same, but the continent would now be\neastward of it instead of westward, agreeing with the map in PE. \n\t(I'm assuming this map is Gene's. I can't imagine it's being put in a book\nto honor him if he did not agree with it.)\n\nNutria"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}