{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/606",
    "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": 606,
    "subject": "The Wall as \"Well\"",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1998-05-13T01:10:00+00:00",
    "last": "1998-05-14T09:36:15+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0011-0006@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "m.driussi",
        "address": "m.driussi at genie.geis.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-05-13T01:10:00+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) The Wall as \"Well\"",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Here's another curious detail to ponder in the \"hard science\"\ndepartment.  The Wall of Nessus is said to be leagues (plural)\ntall, where each league is three miles.\n\nThat is some serious vertical terrain.  If we take as true the\nPLAN[E]T ENGINEERING map suggestion that the diameter of the\ncircle enclosing Nessus is twenty leagues (sixty miles), and we\nassume the Wall is two or three leagues high (six or nine miles),\nwe could determine the lattitude of Nessus by the altitude of the\npresumed mossline growing on the northern wall where direct sunlight\nnever falls.\n\n(Unless Nessus lies upon the tropic, and then the whole well would be\nbriefly lit for a short while in summer.)\n\nThe shadow of the Wall must be immense!  Just as mountain valley\ncommunities have late sunrise and early sunset, so must Nessus\nexperience truncated sunlight/enhanced dawn/dusk indirect lighting.\n(Is this another reason for the law forbidding buildings any closer\nto the Wall [leading to the Inn of Lost Loves being a treehouse]--\nthat there is a twilight zone of so many leagues?)\n\nThe Sanguinary Field lies at the edge of the built up area, and their\nsennet trumpet is heard when the solar disk reaches the Wall.  Well,\ngee, that could be as early as three o'clock, if at all! <g>\n\nHumans will find it hard to breath at heights greater than four miles\nabove sea level.  So watchers at the machicolations either have\nbreathing gear (necklaces of air, or what-have-you) or they aren't\nstandard issue humans.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0011-0035@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Peter Westlake",
        "address": "peter at harlequin.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "1998-05-14T09:36:15+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) The Wall as \"Well\"",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0011-0006@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 01:10 1998-05-13 GMT, m.driussi at genie.geis.com wrote:\nHere's another curious detail to ponder in the \"hard science\"\ndepartment.  The Wall of Nessus is said to be leagues (plural)\ntall, where each league is three miles.\n\nThat is some serious vertical terrain.  If we take as true the\nPLAN[E]T ENGINEERING map suggestion that the diameter of the\ncircle enclosing Nessus is twenty leagues (sixty miles), and we\nassume the Wall is two or three leagues high (six or nine miles),\nwe could determine the lattitude of Nessus by the altitude of the\npresumed mossline growing on the northern wall where direct sunlight\nnever falls."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "On the other hand, when Typhon is showing Severian the world\nfrom the eye, Nessus is described as spreading over many\nhundreds of leagues. You probably couldn't see the walls from\nthe middle of the city.\n\nPeter."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}