# Nessus *The Urth list — 1 messages, 1 voices, 14 Apr 1997* > 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. --- ### Scott Dalrymple *14 Apr 1997, 08:44* I'm very interested in the Nessus as Buenos Aires vs. Alexandria discussion. It seems to me that Alexandria, while intriguing symbolically, can't be true literally, for the simple reason that the Library at Alexandria doesn't exist today-- therefore how can it exist a million years from now (absent some shenanigans by Jonas and the Green Man, which I'm as yet unwilling to entertain)? I also don't have the passages at hand, but I remember many clues to suggest that South America was the correct continent. As for plate tectonics, it is possible, but given the strength of the folklore in Severian's world (as well as Wolfe's penchant for leaving fair clues, however small), I'd expect that during his travels Severian would learn something of such a cataclysmic event. And, regarding Vodalus's assertion that Urth has flipped on her axis, would that matter? To someone like Severian, wouldn't the world appear to be the same? He'd still be traveling toward Urth's belly to reach the tropical regions. After all, North and South, while tied to poles, are somewhat arbitrary constructs, aren't they? Why couldn't we depict the world with the South Pole on "top"? Maybe we've got the whole universe upside-down. Scott Dalrymple ---