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 W
NE
BOOK OF

Everything you need to know about the world we live in

Over

500
facts
our p about
l anet

Travel back
in time

Discover
Witness extreme the animal Experience
natural phenomena kingdom wild weather
 Welcome to
BOOK OF

INCREDIBLE
EARTH
The planet we live on is a remarkable place, with incredible
things happening everywhere, all the time. But have you ever
wondered how or why these things occur? How the Earth was
created? How we predict the weather? How fossils form? What
causes earthquakes? Which animals glow in the dark? Or how
the Galapagos Islands came to be? The How It Works Book of
Incredible Earth provides answers to all these questions and
more as it takes you on a thrilling journey through everything
you need to know about the world we live in. Covering the
scientific explanations behind weather phenomena,
poisonous plants, extreme landscapes and volatile volcanoes,
as well as the amazing creatures found throughout the animal
kingdom and in our homes, there is something for everyone to
enjoy. Packed full of fascinating facts, gorgeous photography
and insightful diagrams, the Book of Incredible Earth will
show you just how awe-inspiring our planet really is.
 BOOK OF

INCREDIBLE
EARTH Future Publishing Ltd
Richmond House
33 Richmond Hill
Bournemouth
Dorset BH2 6EZ
+44 (0) 1202 586200
Website www.futureplc.com
Creative Director Aaron Asadi
Editorial Director Ross Andrews
Editor In Chief Jon White
Production Editor Sanne de Boer
Senior Art Editor Greg Whitaker
Assistant Designer Sophie Ward
Cover images Alamy, Dreamstime, Shutterstock, Thinkstock

Printed by
William Gibbons, 26 Planetary Road, Willenhall,
West Midlands, WV13 3XT
Distributed in the UK, Eire & the Rest of the World by
Marketforce, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5HU.

0203 787 9060 www.marketforce.co.uk
Distributed in Australia by
Gordon & Gotch Australia Pty Ltd, 26 Rodborough Road,
Frenchs Forest, NSW, 2086 Australia
+61 2 9972 8800 www.gordongotch.com.au
Disclaimer
The publisher cannot accept responsibility for any unsolicited material lost or
damaged in the post. All text and layout is the copyright of Future Publishing
Limited. Nothing in this bookazine may be reproduced in whole or part without
the written permission of the publisher. All copyrights are recognised and used
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way with the companies mentioned herein.

How It Works Book of Incredible Earth Seventh Edition

© 2016 Future Publishing Limited

Part of the

bookazine series
 CLIMATE PL ANTS GEOGRAPHY GEOLOGY ANIMALS

CONTENTS Weather wonders Plants & organisms Earth’s landscapes

022 50 amazing facts about the weather
028 Where does acid rain come from?
028 The smell of rain
029 Global wind patterns
030 How do jet streams work?
032 The sulphur cycle
034 Cave weather
036 Predicting the weather
038 Lightning
042 Firestorms
048 How plants work 066 Surviving extreme Earth
052 Identifying leaves 076 Waterfall wonders
054 Poisionous plants 080 The maze of Tsingy de Bemaraha
056 The life of trees 082 Antarctica explored
058 Woodland wildlife 086 China’s rainbow mountains
059 World’s tallest trees 088 Glacier power
059 The importance of trees 090 Wonders of Yellowstone Park
060 How do cacti live? 096 Extreme oceans
061 How are plants cloned?
062 How plants grow towards sunlight
062 Killer plants
063 Coffee plants
008
Interview
with Steve
Backshall

066 Surviving extreme Earth

© Alamy

038
© Scotto Bear

Lightning
076 Wonderful waterfalls

006
 010
Incredible
story of Earth
Rocks, gems & fossils
104 Weird world wonders
114 Super volcanoes
118 What is lava?
120 Earthquakes
126 How cenotes form
128 Mountain formation
130 Who opened the Door to Hell?
132 How do crater lakes form?
133 Stalagmite and stalactites
133 What is soil made of?
134 How is coal formed?
135 Fuel of the future
136 What are fossils?

104 Amazing animals

Weird world
wonders 142 The animal kingdom
150 Why do fish have scales?
152 Big cat attack
152
160 Cats vs Dogs Big cat
attack
164 Glow-in-the-dark animals
170 Life cycle of a frog
Explore the
171 Anatomy of a sea anemone animal kingdom
172 Animal invasions 142
© Peter Steen Leidersdorff

164
Glowing animals

007
 Daring adventurer and wildlife enthusiast
Steve Backshall discusses life on the edge

A
fter a few years of living in the jungle,
Steve Backshall earned the title
‘Adventurer in Residence’ for National
Geographic Channel in 1998. He moved to the BBC
in 2003, and has been making programmes about
exploration and wildlife ever since. Backshall has
come face-to-face with some of the planet’s most
fearsome predators. He confesses: “I am much
more frightened in a big city on a Saturday night
after pub closing time than I would be tracking
lions on foot.” Backshall is going on a UK tour to
share stories and reveal some of the behind-the-
scenes action from his expeditions. We spoke to
him about survival tips, death-defying climbs
and dancing with whales.
Your TV shows are edge-of-your-seat
viewing, but what don’t we see on screen?
The outtakes usually involve animals doing the
opposite of what I want. There are countless
examples of animals ignoring me, breaking wind
in my face, snapping and snarling, and doing
other things that you don’t expect them to.
What is the most difficult part of your job?
I think the most difficult part is how long it can
take to find particular animals. Some things I can
go out and find without too much trouble. Other
things take inordinate amounts of effort and
patience, and it can start to get quite stressful
knowing somehow you’ve got to film this show
and you haven’t found the animal yet.
of those was on the Lost Land of the Volcano
expedition. We went to New Guinea with a team
of scientists, and discovered as many as 20 new
animals, including the world’s largest
species of giant rat, a new marsupial, a new
bat and about ten new species of frog.
Do you have a bucket list of animals
you want to see?
There are a lot of animals that I’ve put a huge
amount of work into finding and still haven’t
seen. I’ve spent at least two months on the road
looking for mountain lions and never seen
one. I would love to go to the Karakoram in
Pakistan to climb and look for snow
leopards. That would be a dream. The
longer I do this, the more I see what is left
to do, and the bigger my list becomes.
What’s the most beautiful thing in nature?
Probably free-diving alongside a female
sperm whale, who was interacting with
me, almost dancing with me, underwater.
She was mirroring my movements,
replicating the same somersaults I was
doing and looking me in the eye the whole
time. It was like dancing a ballet with an
animal that must have weighed ten tons.

Have there been any moments in your career

where you’ve genuinely feared for your life?
The expedition involving the first ascent of
Amaurai Tepui, a vertical, sandstone-sided
mountain in Venezuela. It was the follow-on to
the highly successful first ascent we’d done a few
years before. We were really excited about it, and
it ended up being much more dangerous than we
thought. We had rock-fall tumbling around our
ears, a massive storm that raged in. It was unsafe.
Even the guys on the team, who are some of the
best climbers in the world, were terrified.

What’s the greatest discovery you’ve made?

I’ve been lucky enough to take the first light into
cave systems that have never been explored, to
make first ascents of mountains, first descents of
white-water rivers, and to hold animals in my
hand that are new to science. Perhaps the greatest

008
 Steve has wrestled with
Steve has climbed some of
anacondas, vipers and cobras,
the world’s most
but his only snakebite was
dangerous mountains
from an adder in the UK

What is the scariest animal on the planet?

The scariest is the hippo because it is so
unpredictable. Snakes, scorpions and spiders
almost have a set of rules for how they will behave
in each situation. Hippos are much more
intelligent than you might think, much faster and
have a tendency to be aggressive as well, so that
coupled with the fact that you don’t know what
they’re going to do next makes them potentially
the most dangerous animal to be around.

Where is your favourite place on Earth?

Probably the Himalayas. I get a chance to go back
there quite often. It’s a place where the grandeur
and majesty of the landscape is phenomenal. It
changes constantly throughout the day, week and
year. It’s a place with many unclimbed peaks and
great challenges, so I love it.

What item of kit could you never miss?

Superglue. It was apparently developed in the
Vietnam War for surgical use, and I still use it for
that now. I apply it to blisters and minor cuts and
it can also be used to hold together elements of
your kit. It’s one of the first things that I pack.

What useful survival tip have you received?

When you’re working with predatory animals,
never run. Predators, generally speaking, have
learnt over generations to fear us human beings. If
you encounter even potentially very dangerous
animals, such as big cats, in the wild, the chances
of them attacking you are close to zero, unless you
run. The second you run, you are doing what prey
does and their instincts kick in and they will
chase you down and attack you. Stand still and
you’ll probably get away with it.

Any advice for aspiring adventurers?

Start small and close to home. Adventure begins
in your own back yard. Learn about things you
can find right here in the UK: the bugs and
invertebrates that live in your garden. Particularly
at this time of year, when it’s warm, there will be
plenty of things in your garden that you might not
know about but have incredible, interesting lives.

009
 INCREDIBLE STORY OF EARTH

010
Ancient and teeming with life,
Earth is a truly amazing planet,
with a fascinating tale to tell…
T
oday, science has revealed much about
our planet, from how it formed and has
evolved over billions of years through to
its current position in the universe. Indeed,
right now we have a clearer picture of Earth
than ever before.
And what a terrifying and improbable
picture it is. A massive spherical body of metal,
rock, liquid and gas suspended perilously
within a vast void by an invisible, binding
force. It is a body that rotates continuously, is
tilted on an axis by 23 degrees and orbits once
every 365.256 solar days around a flaming ball
of hydrogen 150 million kilometres (93 million
miles) away. It is a celestial object that, on face
value, is mind-bendingly unlikely.
As a result, the truth about our planet and its
history eluded humans for thousands of years.
Naturally, as beings that like to know the
answers to how and why, we have come up
with many ways to fill in the gaps. The Earth
“Earth is awe-inspiring… it’s still reaffirming
the fundamental laws that have governed
the universe ever since the Big Bang”
was flat; the Earth was the centre of the
universe; and, of course, all manner of complex
and fiercely defended beliefs about creation.
But then in retrospect, who could have ever
guessed that our planet formed from specks of
dust and mineral grains in a cooling gas cloud
of a solar nebula? That the spherical Earth
consists of a series of fluid elemental layers and
plates around an iron-rich molten core? Or that
our world is over 4.5 billion years old and
counting? Only some of the brightest minds
over many millennia could grant an insight
into these geological realities.
While Earth may only be the fifth biggest
planet in our Solar System, it is by far the most
awe-inspiring. Perhaps most impressive of all,
it’s still reaffirming the fundamental laws that
have governed the universe ever since the Big
Bang. Here, we celebrate our world in all its
glory, charting its journey from the origins
right up to the present and what lies ahead.
011
 INCREDIBLE STORY OF EARTH

From dust to planet

To get to grips with how the Earth formed, first
we need to understand how the Solar System
as a whole developed – and from what. Current
evidence suggests that the beginnings of the
Solar System lay some 4.6 billion years ago with
the gravitational collapse of a fragment of a
Gathering
giant molecular cloud. meteoroids
In its entirety this molecular cloud – an Chondrites aggregated as
interstellar mass with the size and density to a result of gravity and went
on to capture other bodies.
form molecules like hydrogen – is estimated to This led to an asteroid-
Dust and grains
have been 20 parsecs across, with the fragment Dust and tiny pieces of sized planetesimal.
just five per cent of that. The gravitationally minerals orbiting
induced collapse of this fragment resulted in a around the T Tauri star
impact one another and
pre-solar nebula – a region of space with a mass continue to coalesce
slightly in excess of the Sun today and into ever-larger
consisting primarily of hydrogen, helium and chondritic meteoroids.

lithium gases generated by Big Bang

nucleosynthesis (BBN).
At the heart of this pre-solar nebula, intense
gravity – along with supernova-induced
over-density within the core, high gas
pressures, nebula rotation (caused by angular
momentum) and fluxing magnetic fields – in
conjunction caused it to contract and flatten
into a protoplanetary disc. A hot, dense
protostar formed at its centre, surrounded by a
200-astronomical-unit cloud of gas and dust.
It is from this solar nebula’s protoplanetary
disc that Earth and the other planets emerged.
While the protostar would develop a core
temperature and pressure to instigate
hydrogen fusion over a period of approximately Fully formed
50 million years, the cooling gas of the disc Over billions of years
would produce mineral grains through Earth’s atmosphere
becomes oxygen rich and,
condensation, which would amass into tiny through a cycle of crustal
meteoroids. The latest evidence indicates that formation and destruction,
the oldest of the meteoroidal material formed develops vast landmasses.

about 4.56 billion years ago.

As the dust and grains were drawn together
to form ever-larger bodies of rock (first
chondrules, then chondritic meteoroids), “The collapse of this fragment resulted in a
through continued accretion and collision-
induced compaction, planetesimals and then
pre-solar nebula – a region of space with a
protoplanets appeared – the latter being the mass slightly in excess of the Sun today”
precursor to all planets in the Solar System. In
terms of the formation of Earth, the joining of
multiple planetesimals meant it developed a
gravitational attraction powerful enough to The history 13.8 BYA*
Big Bang fallout
4.6 BYA
New nebula
sweep up additional particles, rock fragments
and meteoroids as it rotated around the Sun. of Earth Nucleosynthesis as a result
of the Big Bang leads to
the gradual formation of
A fragment of a giant
molecular cloud
experiences a gravitational
The composition of these materials would, as Follow the major milestones in
our planet’s epic development chemical elements on a collapse and becomes a
we shall see over the page, enable the huge scale. pre-solar nebula.
*(BYA = billion years ago)
protoplanet to develop a superhot core.

012

Planetesimal
By this stage the
planetesimal is massive
enough to effectively
sweep up all nearby dust,
grains and rocks as it
orbits around the star.
Atmosphere
Thanks to volcanic
outgassing and ice
deposition via impacts,
Earth develops an
intermediary carbon-
dioxide rich atmosphere.
4.57 BYA
Protostar
Several million years
later, the precursor to the
Sun (a T Tauri-type star)
emerges at the heart of
the nebula.
Layer by layer
Under the influence of Origins of the Moon
gravity, the heavier Today most scientists believe Earth’s sole
elements inside the satellite formed off the back of a collision event
protoplanet sink to the that occurred roughly 4.53 billion years ago. At
centre, creating the major this time, Earth was in its early development
layers of Earth’s structure. stage and had been impacted numerous times
by planetesimals and other rocky bodies –
events that had shock-heated the planet and
brought about the expansion of its core.
One collision, however, seems to have been a
planet-sized body around the size of Mars –
dubbed Theia. Basic models of impact data
suggest Theia struck Earth at an oblique angle,
with its iron core sinking into the planet, while
its mantle, as well as that of Earth, was largely
hurled into orbit. This ejected material – which is
estimated to be roughly 20 per cent of Theia’s
total mass – went on to form a ring of silicate
material around Earth and then coalesce within
a relatively short period (ranging from a couple
of months up to 100 years) into the Moon.
Growing core
Heated by immense
pressure and impact
events, the metallic
core within grows.
Activity in the mantle
and crust heightens.
Axial tilt
Why does our planet Rotation axis
have an axial tilt? Celestial
equator
Earth’s axial tilt (obliquity), which is at 23.4
degrees in respect to the planet’s orbit currently,
came about approximately 4.5 billion years ago
through a series of large-scale impacts from
planetesimals and other large bodies (like Theia).
These collisions occurred during the early stages
of the planet’s development and generated forces
great enough to disrupt Earth’s alignment, while
also producing a vast quantity of debris.
While our world’s obliquity might be 23.4
degrees today, this is by no means a fixed figure,
with it varying over long periods due to the
effects of precession and orbital resonance.
For example, for the past 5 million years, the
axial tilt has varied from 22.2-24.3 degrees, with a
mean period lasting just over 41,000 years.
Interestingly, the obliquity would be far more
variable if it were not for the presence of the
Moon, which has a stabilising effect.
4.56 BYA 4.54 BYA 4.53 BYA
Disc develops Planet Birth of the Moon
Around the T Tauri As dust and rock Theia, a Mars-sized body,
star a protoplanetary gather, Earth becomes impacts with the Earth.
disc of dense gas a planet, with planetary The resultingdebris rises
begins to form and differentiation leading into orbit and will
then gradually cools. to the core’s formation. coalesce into the Moon.
013
 INCREDIBLE STORY OF EARTH
Earth’s structure
As the mass of the Earth continued to grow, so
did its internal pressure. This in partnership
with the force of gravity and ‘shock heating’
– see boxout opposite for an explanation –
caused the heavier metallic minerals and
elements within the planet to sink to its centre
and melt. Over many years, this resulted in
the development of an iron-rich core and,
consequently, kick-started the interior
convection which would transform our world.
Once the centre of Earth was hot enough to
convect, planetary differentiation began. This
is the process of separating out different
elements of a planetary body through both
physical and chemical actions. Simply
put, the denser materials of the body sink
towards the core and the less dense rise
towards the surface. In Earth’s case, this would
eventually lead to the distinct layers of inner
core, outer core, mantle and crust – the latter
developed largely through outgassing.
Outgassing in Earth occurred when volatile
substances located in the lower mantle began
to melt approximately 4.3 billion years ago. This
partial melting of the interior caused chemical
separation, with resulting gases rising up
through the mantle to the surface, condensing
and then crystallising to form the first crustal
layer. This original crust proceeded to go
through a period of recycling back into the
mantle through convection currents, with
successive outgassing gradually forming
thicker and more distinct crustal layers.
The precise date when Earth gained its first
complete outer crust is unknown, as due to the
recycling process only incredibly small parts of
it remain today. Certain evidence, however,
indicates that a proper crust was formed
relatively early in the Hadean eon (4.6-4 billion
years ago). The Hadean eon on Earth was
“Outgassing occurred when volatile
substances in the lower mantle
began to melt 4.3 billion years ago”
4.4 BYA Early atmosphere
Surface hardens Outgassing and escaping
Earth begins developing gases from surface
its progenitor crust. This volcanism form the first
is constantly recycled atmosphere around the
and built up through the planet. It is nitrogen heavy.
Hadean eon.
014
characterised by a highly unstable, volcanic
surface (hence the name ‘Hadean’, derived
from the Greek god of the underworld,
Hades). Convection currents from the
planet’s mantle would elevate molten rock
to the surface, which would either revert to
magma or harden into more crust.
Scientific evidence suggests that
outgassing was also the primary
contributor to Earth’s first atmosphere,
with a large region of hydrogen and
helium escaping – along with
ammonia, methane and nitrogen –
considered the main factor behind its
initial formation.
By the close of the Hadean eon,
planetary differentiation had produced
an Earth that, while still young and
inhospitable, possessed all the ingredients
needed to become a planet capable of
supporting life.
But for anything organic to develop, it first
needed water…
Outer core
Unlike the inner core, Earth’s outer core is not solid but
liquid, due to less pressure. It is composed of iron and
nickel and ranges in temperature from 4,400°C
(7,952°F) at its outer ranges to 6,100°C (11,012°F) at
its inner boundary. As a liquid, its viscosity is estimated
to be ten times that of liquid metals on the surface.
The outer core was formed by only partial
melting of accreted metallic elements.
Inner core
The heaviest minerals and elements
are located at the centre of the planet
in a solid, iron-rich heart. The inner
core has a radius of 1,220km (760mi)
and has the same surface temperature
as the Sun (around 5,430°C/9,800°F).
The solid core was created due to the
effects of gravity and high pressure
during planetary accretion.
4.28 BYA
Ancient rocks
A number of rocks have
been found in northern
Québec, Canada, that date
from this period. They are
volcanic deposits.
Crust
Earth’s crust is the outermost solid
layer and is composed of a variety of
igneous, metamorphic and
sedimentary rock. The partial melting
of volatile substances in the outer
core and mantle caused outgassing to
the surface during the planet’s
formation. This created the first crust,
which through a process of recycling
led to today’s refined thicker crust.
Magnetic field
in the making
Earth’s geomagnetic field began to
form as soon as the young planet
developed an outer core. The outer
core of Earth generates helical fluid
motions within its electrically
conducting molten iron due to current
loops driven by convection. As a result,
the moment that convection became
possible in Earth’s core it began to
develop a geomagnetic field – which in
turn was amplified by the planet’s rapid
spin rate. Combined, these enabled
Earth’s magnetic field to permeate its
entire body as well as a small region of
space surrounding it – the magnetosphere.

Mantle
The largest internal layer, the mantle
accounts for 84 per cent of Earth’s
volume. It consists of a rocky shell
2,900km (1,800mi) thick composed
mainly of silicates. While predominantly
solid, the mantle is highly viscous and
hot material upwells occur throughout
under the influence of convective
circulation. The mantle was formed by
the rising of lighter silicate elements
during planetary differentiation.

Shock heating explained

During the accretion to its present size, Earth
was subjected to a high level of stellar impacts
by space rocks and other planetesimals too.
Each of these collisions generated the effect of
shock heating, a process in which the impactor
and resultant shock wave transferred a great
deal of energy into the forming planet. For
meteorite-sized bodies, the vast majority of
this energy was transferred across the planet’s
surface or radiated back off into space,
however in the case of much larger
planetesimals, their size and mass allowed for
deeper penetration into the Earth. In these
events the energy was distributed directly into
the planet’s inner body, heating it well beneath
the surface. This heat influx contributed to
heavy metallic fragments deep underground
melting and sinking towards the core.

4 BYA 3.9 BYA 3.6 BYA

Brace for impact Supercontinent
The Late Heavy Archean Ocean origins
The Hadean eon Earth is now covered with Our world’s very
Bombardment (LHB) of first supercontinent,
Earth begins, with intense finally comes to liquid oceans due to the
an end and the release of trapped water Vaalbara, begins to
impacts pummelling many emerge from a series
parts of the young crust. new Archean from the mantle and from
period begins. asteroid/comet deposition. of combining cratons.

015
 INCREDIBLE STORY OF EARTH

Kenor
Supercontinent Believed to have formed in the later
part of the Archean eon 2.7 BYA,
development Kenor was the next supercontinent to
form after Vaalbara. It developed
Where did the earliest landmasses come through the accretion of Neoarchean
from and how did they change over time? cratons and a period of spiked
continental crust formation driven by
submarine magmatism. Kenor was
It started with Vaalbara… broken apart by tectonic magma-
Approximately 3.6 billion years ago, plume rifting around 2.45 BYA.
Earth’s first supercontinent – Vaalbara
– formed through the joining of several
large continental plates. Data derived
from parts of surviving cratons from
these plates – eg the South African
Kaapvaal and Australian Pilbara; hence
‘Vaal-bara’ – show similar rock records
through the Archean eon, indicating
that, while now separated by many
miles of ocean, they once were one.
Plate tectonics, which were much
fiercer at this time, drove these plates
together and also were responsible for
separating them 2.8 billion years ago.

Formation of land and sea

Current scientific evidence suggests that the
formation of liquid on Earth was, not
surprisingly, a complex process. Indeed, when
you consider the epic volcanic conditions of the
young Earth through the Hadean eon, it’s
difficult to imagine exactly how the planet
developed to the extent where today 70 per cent
of its surface is covered with water. The answer
lies in a variety of contributory processes,
though three can be highlighted as pivotal.
The first of these was a drop in temperature
throughout the late-Hadean and Archean eons.
This cooling caused outgassed volatile
substances to form an atmosphere around the
planet – see the opposite boxout for more
details – with sufficient pressure for retaining
liquids. This outgassing also transferred a
large quantity of water that was trapped in the
planet’s internal accreted material to the
surface. Unlike previously, now pressurised
and trapped by the developing atmosphere, it
began to condense and settle on the surface
rather than evaporate into space.
The second key liquid-generating process
was the large-scale introduction of comets and
water-rich meteorites to the Earth during its
formation and the Late Heavy Bombardment
period. These frequent impact events would
cause the superheating and vaporisation of
many trapped minerals, elements and ices,
which then would have been adopted by the
atmosphere, cooled over time, condensed and
re-deposited as liquid on the surface.
“This erosion of Earth’s crustal layer aided the
distinction of cratons – the base for some of
the first continental landmasses”
The third major contributor was
photodissociation – which is the separation of
substances through the energy of light. This
process caused water vapour in the developing
upper atmosphere to separate into molecular
hydrogen and molecular oxygen, with the
former escaping the planet’s influence. In turn,
this led to an increase in the partial pressure of
oxygen on the planet’s surface, which through
its interactions with surface materials
gradually elevated vapour pressure to a level
where yet more water could form.
The combined result of these processes – as
well as others – was a slow buildup of liquid

3.5 BYA 3.3 BYA 2.9 BYA

Early bacteria
Evidence suggests that the
earliest primitive life forms
– bacteria and blue-green
algae – begin to emerge in
Earth’s growing oceans at
this time.
Hadean discovery Island boom
Sedimentary rocks have The formation of island
been found in Australia arcs and oceanic plateaux
that date from this time. undergoes a dramatic
They contain zircon grains increase that will last for
with isotopic ages between about another 200
4.4 and 4.2 BYA. million years.

016
 Rodinia
Maybe the largest supercontinent
ever to exist on Earth, Rodinia was a
colossal grouping of cratons – almost
all the landmass that had formed on
the planet – that was surrounded by a
superocean called Mirovia. Evidence Pangaea
suggests Rodinia formed in the The last true supercontinent to exist
Proterozoic eon by 1.1 BYA, with a core on Earth was Pangaea. Pangaea
located slightly south of Earth’s formed during the late-Palaeozoic and
equator. Rodinia was divided by rifting early-Mesozoic eras 300 MYA, lasting
approximately 750 MYA. until 175 MYA when a three-stage
series of rifting events left a range of
landmasses that make up today’s
continents. Interestingly, the break-up
of Pangaea is still occurring today, as
seen in the Red Sea and East African
Rift System, for example.

water in various depressions in Earth’s surface

(such as craters left by impactors), which
throughout the Hadean and Archean eons grew
to vast sizes before merging. The presence of
extensive carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
also caused the acidulation of these early
oceans, with their acidity allowing them to
erode parts of the surface crust and so increase
A closer look at Earth’s
their overall salt content. This erosion of evolving atmosphere
Earth’s crustal layer also aided the distinction Earth has technically had three atmospheres throughout its existence. The
of cratons – stable parts of the planet’s first formed during the planet’s accretion period and consisted of atmophile
elements, such as hydrogen and helium, acquired from the solar nebula. This
continental lithosphere – which were the base atmosphere was incredibly light and unstable and deteriorated quickly – in
for some of the first continental landmasses. geological terms – by solar winds and heat emanating from Earth. The second
With liquid on the surface, a developing atmosphere, which developed through the late-Hadean and early-Archean
eons due to impact events and outgassing of volatile gases through volcanism,
atmosphere, warm but cooling crust and was anoxic – with high levels of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and very
continents starting to materialise, by the little oxygen. This second atmosphere later evolved during the mid-to-late-
mid-Archean (approximately 3.5 billion years Archean into the third oxygen-rich atmosphere that is still present today. This
oxygenation of the atmosphere was driven by rapidly emerging oxygen-
ago) conditions were ripe for life, which we look producing algae and bacteria on the surface – Earth’s earliest forms of life.
at in depth over the next couple of pages.

2.8 BYA 2.5 BYA 2.4 BYA 2.1 BYA 1.8 BYA
Breakup Proterozoic More oxygen Eukaryotes Red beds
After fully forming The Archean eon The Earth’s Eukaryotic cells Many of Earth’s red beds
circa 3.1 BYA, finally draws to a atmosphere evolves appear. These most – ferric oxide-containing
Vaalbara begins to close after roughly 1.5 into one that is likely developed sedimentary rocks –
fragment due to billion years, leading rich in oxygen due by prokaryotes date from this period,
the asthenosphere to the beginning of the to cyanobacterial consuming each other indicating that an oxidising
overheating. Proterozoic era. photosynthesis. via phagocytosis. atmosphere was present.

017
 INCREDIBLE STORY OF EARTH

The development of life

Of all the aspects of Earth’s development, the been present during Earth’s early formation. In
origins of life are perhaps the most complex contrast, the metabolism-first theory suggests
and controversial. That said, there’s one thing that the earliest form of life on Earth developed
upon which the scientific community as a from the creation of a composite-structured Prokaryote
Small cellular organisms
whole agrees: that according to today’s organism on iron-sulphide minerals common that lack a membrane-
evidence, the first life on Earth would have around hydrothermal vents. bound nucleus develop.
been almost inconceivably small-scale. The theory goes that under the high pressure
There are two main schools of thought for and temperatures experienced at these Shelled animals
The beginning of the
the trigger of life: an RNA-first approach and a deep-sea geysers, the chemical Cambrian period sees the
metabolism-first approach. The RNA-first coupling of iron salt and emergence of shelled
hypothesis states that life began with self- hydrogen sulphide creatures like trilobites.

replicating ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules,

while the metabolism-first approach believes it
all began with an ordered sequence of chemical
reactions, ie a chemical network.
Ribozymes are RNA molecules that are
capable of both triggering their own replication
and also the construction of proteins – the main
building blocks and working molecules in cells.
As such, ribozymes seem good candidates for
the starting point of all life. RNA is made up of
nucleotides, which are biological molecules
composed of a nucleobase (a nitrogen
compound), five-carbon sugar and phosphate
groups (salts). The presence of these chemicals
and their fusion is the base for the RNA-world
theory, with RNA capable of acting as a less
stable version of DNA.
This theory begs two questions: one, were
these chemicals present in early Earth and,
two, how were they first fused? Until recently,
while some success has been achieved in-vitro
showing that activated ribonucleotides can
polymerise (join) to form RNA, the key issue in
replicating this formation was showing how
ribonucleotides could form from their
constituent parts (ie ribose and nucleobases).
Interestingly in a recent experiment reported
in Nature, a team showed that pyrimidine
ribonucleobases can be formed in a process
that bypasses the fusion of ribose and
nucleobases, passing instead through a series
of other processes that rely on the presence of
other compounds, such as cyanoacetylene and
glycolaldehyde – which are believed to have
Fish
The world’s first fish
evolved in the
Cambrian explosion,
with jawless
ostracoderms
developing the ability
to breathe exclusively
through gills.
Insects Reptiles
During the Devonian The first land
period primitive insects vertebrates – Tetrapoda
begin to emerge from – evolve and split into
the pre-existing two distinct lineages:
Arthropoda phylum. Amphibia and Amniota.
produced a composite structure with a mineral producing ever-more complex compounds,
base and a metallic centre (such as iron or zinc). pathways and reaction triggers.
The presence of this metal, it is theorised, As such, the metabolism-first approach
triggered the conversion of inorganic carbon describes a system in which no cellular
into organic compounds and kick-started components are necessary to form life; instead,
constructive metabolism (forming new it started with a compound such as pyrite –
molecules from a series of simpler units). This a mineral which was abundant in early Earth’s
process became self-sustaining by the oceans. When considering that the oceans
generation of a sulphur-dependent metabolic during the Hadean and early-Archean eons
cycle. Over time the cycle expanded and were extremely acidic – and that the planet’s
became more efficient, while simultaneously overall temperature was still very high –

1.4 BYA 1.2 BYA 542 MYA 541 MYA 106 MYA
Fungi Reproduction Explosion Phanerozoic Spinosaurus
The earliest signs With the dawn The Cambrian The Proterozoic The largest theropod
of fungi according of sexual explosion occurs – a eon finally draws dinosaur ever to live
to current fossil reproduction, the rapid diversification of to a close and the on Earth, weighing
evidence suggest rate of evolution organisms that leads to current geologic eon up to an astonishing
they developed here increases rapidly the development of most – the Phanerozoic – 20 tons, emerges at
in the Proterozoic. and exponentially. modern phyla (groups). commences. this time.

018
 Earth
Our planet forms out of accreting
dust and other material from a
protoplanetary disc.
Cyanobacteria
Photosynthesising
cyanobacteria – also known as
blue-green algae – emerge
over the planet’s oceans.
Solar nebula
The solar nebula is formed by the A journey
gravitational collapse of a fragment
of a giant molecular cloud. through time
See how life evolved over
millions of years to fill a
range of niches on Earth

Sponges
Sponges in general –
but particularly
demosponges – develop
throughout the seas.

Eukaryote
Eukaryotes – cellular
membrane-bound
organisms with a
nucleus (nuclear
envelope) – appear.

Pterosaurs
During the late-Triassic
period pterosaurs appear –
the earliest vertebrates
capable of powered flight.

Fungi
Primitive organisms that
are precursors to fungi,
capable of anastomosis
(connection of branched
tissue structures), arrive.

Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs diverge
from their Archosaur
ancestors during the
mid-Triassic era.

Humans
a model similar to the iron-sulphur world type Humans evolve from the
is plausible, if not as popular as the RNA theory. family Hominidae and
There are other scientific theories explaining reach anatomical
modernity around
the origins of life – for example, some think 200,000 years ago.
organic molecules were deposited on Earth via
a comet or asteroid – but all return to the notion
that early life was tiny. It’s also accepted that
Mammals
life undertook a period of fierce evolution in While pre-existing in primitive
order to adapt to the ever-changing Earth. But forms, after the K-T extinction
without the right initial conditions, we might event mammals take over most
ecological niches on Earth.
never have evolved to call this planet home.

65.5 MYA 55 MYA 2 MYA 350,000 200,000

K-T event
The Cretaceous-
Birds take off
Bird groups
Homo genus
The first members
years ago years ago
Palaeogene extinction begin to diversify of the genus Neanderthal First human
event occurs, wiping dramatically, with Homo, of which Neanderthals evolve and Anatomically modern
out half of all animal many species still humans are spread across Eurasia. humans evolve in Africa;
species on Earth, around today – such members appear They become extinct 150,000 years later they
including the dinosaurs. as parrots. in the fossil record. 220,000 years later. start to move farther afield.

019
 WEATHER
WONDERS
50 amazing Lightning
weather facts
022 038

022 50 amazing facts about 036 Predicting the weather

the weather Discover how we get forecasts for
Your burning climate questions the days ahead
are answered
038 Lightning
028 Where does acid rain Learn the science behind how and
come from? why lightning strikes
How does this damaging
substance form? 042 Firestorms
What are the causes of nature’s
034 028 The smell of rain
What is the strange phenomenon
most violent infernos?
A stunning of the fresh smell after rainfall?
cave system
029 Global wind patterns
How Earth’s spin affects the winds
and the weather
030 How do jet streams work?
Invisible phenomena vital to
our climate
032 The sulphur cycle
The vital element that takes many
different forms
034 Cave weather
The cave system that has
030 developed its own microclimate
Jet streams

020
 How do we
predict the
weather?
036

© Alamy; Dreamsimte; DK Images; Thinkstock; Robbie Shone; SPL

Firestorms
explained 028
042 Why does
rain smell?

021
 WEATHER WONDERS

How many

50
lightning
strikes are How high
there each is a typical
second cloud?
globally?
2,000m
100 (6,550ft)

AMAZING
FACTS ABOUT
How many
thunderstorms
break out
worldwide How hot is the Sun?
at any given The core is around
moment?
2,000 15,000,000˚C
(27,000,000˚F)

We answer your burning questions about the incredible

variety and awesome power of the planet’s most intriguing
climatic phenomena
W
e like to be able to control everything,
but weather – those changes in the
Earth’s atmosphere that spell out rain,
snow, wind, heat, cold and more – is one of those
things that is just beyond our power. Maybe that’s
why a cloudless sunny day or a spectacular
display of lightning both have the ability to
delight us. Meteorologists have come a long way
in their capability to predict weather patterns,
track changes and forecast what we can expect to
see when we leave our homes each day. But
they’re not always right. It’s not their fault; we still
don’t completely understand all of the processes
that contribute to changes in the weather.
Here’s what we do know: all weather starts with
contrasts in air temperature and moisture in the
atmosphere. Seems simple, right? Not exactly.
Temperature and moisture vary greatly depending
on a huge number of factors, like the Earth’s rotation,
where you’re located, the angle at which the Sun is
hitting it at any given time, your elevation, and your
proximity to the ocean. These all lead to changes in
atmospheric pressure. The atmosphere is chaotic,
meaning that a very small, local change can have a
far-reaching effect on much larger weather systems.
That’s why it’s especially tough to make accurate
forecasts more than a few days in advance.

022
DID YOU KNOW? Many types of animals are reported to have fallen from the sky including frogs, worms and fish

Is there a way to tell 1. Start the count
how close a storm is?
Lightning and thunder always go together, because thunder is the sound
When you see a flash of lightning,
start counting. A stopwatch would
be the most accurate way.
2. Five seconds
that results from lightning. Lightning bolts are close to 30,000 degrees The rule is that for every five
Celsius (54,000 degrees Fahrenheit), so the air in the atmosphere that they seconds, the storm is roughly 1.6
zip through becomes superheated and quickly expands. That sound of kilometres (one mile) away.
expansion is called thunder, and on average it’s about 120 decibels (a 3. Do the maths
Stop counting after the thunder and
chainsaw is 125, for reference). Sometimes you can see lightning but not do the maths. If the storm’s close,
hear the thunder, but that’s only because the lightning is too far away for take the necessary precautions.
you to hear it. Because light travels faster than sound, you always see
lightning before hearing it.
CAN IT
REALLY RAIN
ANIMALS?
Animals have fallen
from the sky before, but
it’s not actually ‘raining’
them. More likely strong winds
have picked up large numbers of
critters from ponds or other
concentrations – perhaps from
tornadoes or downspouts – then
moved and deposited them.
Usually the animals in question
are small and live in or around
water for a reason.

DOES FREAK WEATHER

Lightning occurs most often
in hot, summer-like climates
CONFUSE WILDLIFE?
A short period of unseasonable
weather isn’t confusing for
wildlife, but a longer one can be.
For example, warm weather in
winter may make plants bloom
What is the fastest too early or animals begin
mating long before spring
wind ever recorded, actually rolls around.
not in a tornado? IS THE ‘RED SKY AT
407km/h (253mph) NIGHT, SHEPHERD’S
DELIGHT’ SAYING
Gusts recorded during TRUE?
The rest of the proverb is, ‘Red
Cyclone Olivia in 1996 sky at morning, shepherd’s
warning’. A red sky means you
could see the red wavelength of
Is it possible to sunlight reflecting off clouds. At
sunrise, it was supposed to mean

Where are you most likely stop a hurricane? the clouds were coming towards
you so rain might be on the way.
to get hit by lightning? We can’t control the weather… or If you saw these clouds at sunset,
the risk had already passed.
Generally lightning strikes occur most often during the
summer. So the place where lightning strikes occur the
can we? Some scientists are trying Which is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is a
matter of opinion.
most is a place where summer-like weather prevails to influence the weather through
year-round: Africa. Specifically, it’s the village of Kifuka WHAT ARE SNOW
in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Each year, it gets cloud seeding, or altering the clouds’ DOUGHNUTS?
more than 150 lightning strikes within one square processes by introducing chemicals Snow doughnuts, also known as
kilometre. Roy Sullivan didn’t live in Kifuka but he still
managed to get struck by lightning seven separate times like solid carbon dioxide (aka dry rollers, are a rare natural
phenomenon. If snow falls in a
while working as a park ranger in the Shenandoah
National Park in the USA. The state in which he lived –
ice), calcium chloride and silver clump, gravity can pull it down
over itself as it rolls. Normally it
Virginia – does have a high incidence of lightning strikes iodide. It has been used to induce would collapse, but sometimes a
per year, but since Sullivan spent his job outdoors in the
mountains, his risk was greater due to his exposure.
rainfall during times of drought as hole forms. Wind and
temperature also play key roles.
well as to prevent storms.
Cloud
What makes clouds? Air currents rise up and
become thermals – rising
columns of warm,
expanding air.

Buildup
The warm, moist air builds
up somewhere between 305m
and 1,525m (1,000-5,000ft)
Bases
The bottom of
above the surface.
the cloud is the
saturation point
Warm, wet of the air, and it
air rises is very uniform.
Sunlight heats and
evaporates water from
the Earth’s surface.

023
 WEATHER WONDERS

WHAT ARE
KATABATIC
WINDS?
From the Greek for
‘going downhill’, a
katabatic wind is also
known as a drainage
wind. It carries dense air
down from high elevations,
such as mountain tops, down a
slope thanks to gravity. This is a
common occurrence in places
like Antarctica’s Polar Plateau,
where incredibly cold air on top
of the plateau sinks and flows
down through the rugged
landscape, picking up speed as
it goes. The opposite of katabatic
winds are called anabatic,
which are winds that blow up a
steep slope.
What causes hurricanes?
Depending on where they start,
hurricanes may also be known as tropical
cyclones or typhoons. They always form
over oceans around the equator, fuelled by
the warm, moist air. As that air rises and
forms clouds, more warm, moist air moves
into the area of lower pressure below. As
the cycle continues, winds begin rotating
and pick up speed. Once it hits 119
kilometres (74 miles) per hour, the storm is
Winds
As the warm, moist air
rises, it causes winds to
begin circulating.
What are the
officially a hurricane. When hurricanes odds of getting
reach land, they weaken and die without
the warm ocean air. Unfortunately they
hit by lightning
can move far inland, bringing a vast
amount of rain and destructive winds.
in a lifetime?
People sometimes cite ‘the butterfly effect’
in relation to hurricanes. This simply
1 in 300,000
means something as small as the beat of a
Cool, dry air
butterfly’s wing can cause big changes in
Cooled, dry air at the top of the
the long term.
system is sucked down in the
centre, strengthening the winds.

DOES IT EVER SNOW

IN AFRICA?
Several countries in Africa see
snow – indeed, there are ski
resorts in Morocco and regular
snowfall in Tunisia. Algeria and
South Africa also experience
snowfall on occasion. It once
snowed in the Sahara, but it
was gone within 30 minutes.
There’s even snowfall around
the equator if you choose to How hot is Warm, moist air
count the snow-topped peaks of
mountains in that area.
lightning? This air rises up from the

WHAT COLOUR 27,760˚C oceans, cooling on its way

and condensing into clouds.
High-pressure air flows downward
Eye
through this calm, low-pressure
IS LIGHTNING?
Usually lightning is white, but
(50,000˚F) area at the heart of the storm.

it can be every colour of the

rainbow. There are a lot of
factors that go into what shade
the lightning will appear, If the Moon didn’t exist it Why do clouds look different
© SPL

would have a catastrophic

including the amount of water
vapour in the atmosphere,
whether it’s raining and the
amount of pollution in the air. A
high concentration of ozone, for
example, can make lightning
look blue.
WHY DO SOME CITIES
HAVE THEIR OWN
MICROCLIMATE?
Some large metropolises have
microclimates – that is, their
own small climates that differ
from the local environment.
Often these are due to the
massive amounts of concrete,
asphalt and steel; these
materials retain and reflect
heat and do not absorb water,
which keeps a city warmer at
night. This phenomenon
specifically is often known as
an urban heat island. The
extreme energy usage and
pollution in large cities may also
contribute to this.
effect on world climates depending on their height?
Altocumulus Cirrus
Patchy clumps and These thin, hair-like
layers make up this clouds form at, or
mid-level cloud. It often above, 5,000m
precludes storms. (16,500ft) and may
arrive in advance of
thunderstorms.
Stratocumulus
What would happen to our These are low, Altostratus
weather without the Moon? lumpy clouds
usually bringing
These very thin, grey
clouds can produce a
a drizzling rain. little rain, but they
It’s difficult to know exactly what would happen to our
They may hang may grow eventually
weather if the Moon were destroyed, but it wouldn’t be
as low as 300m into stratus clouds.
good. The Moon powers Earth’s tides, which in turn (1,000ft).
influence our weather systems. In addition, the loss of Cumulus
the Moon would affect the Earth’s rotation – how it spins These vertically
on its axis. The presence of the Moon creates a sort of building clouds are
puffy, with a base
drag, so its loss would probably speed up the rotation,
sub-2,000m (6,550ft).
changing the length of day and night. In addition it
would alter the tilt of the Earth too, which causes the
changes in our seasons. Some places would be much Stratus
These low-lying,
colder while others would become much hotter. Let’s not Cumulonimbus
This vertical, dense cloud horizontal, greyish
neglect the impact of the actual destruction, either; that clouds often form when
heaps upon itself and often
much debris would block out the Sun and rain down on fog lifts from the land.
brings heavy thunderstorms.
Earth, causing massive loss of life. Huge chunks that hit
the ocean could cause great tidal waves, for instance.

024
 DID YOU KNOW? Sir Francis Beaufort devised his wind scale by using the flags and sails of his ship as measuring devices

WHAT IS
What is ball CLOUD
IRIDESCENCE?

How many
lightning? This happens when
small droplets of

volts are in This mysterious phenomenon water or ice crystals in

clouds scatter light,

a lightning looks like a glowing ball of appearing as a rainbow of

colours. It’s not a common
flash? lightning, and floats near the phenomenon because the
ground before disappearing, cloud has to be very thin, and

1 billion often leaving a sulphur smell.

Despite many sightings, we’re
even then the colours are often
overshadowed by the Sun.

WHAT DO WEATHER
still not sure what causes it. SATELLITES DO?
The GOES (Geostationary
Operational Environmental
Satellite) system is run by the
US National Environmental
Satellite, Data, and Information
Service (NESDIS). The major
element of GOES comprises
four different geosynchronous
satellites (although there are
also other geo-satellites either
with other uses now or that
have been decommissioned).
Why are you safer inside a car The whole system is used by
during an electrical storm? NOAA’s National Weather
People used to think the rubber tyres on a car grounded any What causes Service for forecasting,

© SPL
lightning that may strike it and that’s what kept you safe. giant hailstones? meteorological research and
storm tracking. The satellites
However, you’re safer in your car during an electrical storm
Put simply, giant hailstones come from giant storms provide continuous views of
because of the metal frame. It serves as a conductor of electricity,
– specifically a thunderstorm called a supercell. It has Earth, giving data on air
and channels the lightning away into the ground without
a strong updraft that forces wind upwards into the moisture, temperature and
impacting anything – or anyone – inside; this is known as a
clouds, which keeps ice particles suspended for a long cloud cover. They also monitor
Faraday cage. While it is potentially dangerous to use a corded
period. Within the storm are areas called growth solar and near-space activities
phone or other appliances during a storm because lightning can
regions; raindrops spending a long time in these are like solar flares and
travel along cables, mobile or cordless phones are fine. It’s also
© SPL

able to grow into much bigger hailstones than normal. geomagnetic storms.
best to avoid metallic objects, including golf clubs.

How does the Sun cause the seasons? Winter solstice

The winter solstice marks the
Seasons are caused by the Earth’s revolution around the Sun, as beginning of winter, with the
well as the tilt of the Earth on its axis. The hemisphere receiving Sun at its lowest point in the
Vernal equinox sky; it takes place around 20
the most direct sunlight experiences spring and summer, For the northern
December each year.
while the other experiences autumn and winter. During the hemisphere, this day –
warmer months, the Sun is higher in the sky, stays above the around 20 March – marks
the first day of spring. On
horizon for longer, and its rays are more direct. During the this day, the tilt of the Earth’s
cooler half, the Sun’s rays aren’t as strong and it’s lower in the axis is neither towards nor
sky. The tilt causes these dramatic differences, so while those away from the Sun.
in the northern hemisphere are wrapping up for snow, those in
the southern hemisphere may be sunbathing on the beach.

SUMMER WINTER
The Sun is at its highest point in The Sun is at its lowest point in the
the sky and takes up more of the sky and there is less daylight. The
horizon. Its rays are more direct. rays are also more diffuse.

Autumnal
equinox
On, or around, 22
September in the
northern hemisphere,
Summer solstice this marks the start of
During the summer solstice, autumn. The tilt of the
around 20 June, the Sun is at Earth’s axis is neither
its highest, or northernmost, towards nor away
point in the sky. from the Sun.

025
 WEATHER WONDERS
HOW LONG
DOES A
RAINBOW
LAST?
There is no set rule for
the duration a
rainbow will last. It all
depends on how long the
light is refracted by water
droplets in the air (eg rain, or the
spray from a waterfall).
WHY DOES THE AIR
SMELL FUNNY AFTER
RAIN HAS FALLEN?
This scent comes from bacteria
in the soil. Once the earth dries,
the bacteria (called
actinomycetes) release spores.
Rainfall kicks these spores up
into the air, and then the moist
air disperses them. They tend to
have a sweet, earthy odour.
HOW MUCH RAIN CAN
A HURRICANE BRING?
The average hurricane, with a
radius of about 1,330 kilometres
(825 miles), can dump as much as
21.3 x 1015 cubic centimetres (1.3 x
1015 cubic inches) of water in one
day. That’s enough rain to fill up
22 million Olympic-size
swimming pools!
WHAT ARE DROUGHTS
AND HEAT WAVES?
Droughts are about an extreme
lack of water, usually due to
lower than average rainfall, and
last for months or even years.
There’s no set definition of a heat
wave, but it typically means
higher than average
temperatures for several
consecutive days. Both can lead
to crop failures and fatalities.
WHY ARE RAINBOWS
ARCH-SHAPED?
Rainbows are arched due to the
way sunlight hits raindrops. It
bends as it passes through
because it slows during this
process. Then, as the light passes
out of the drop, it bends again as
it returns to its normal speed.
How hot was the
hottest day in
history?
58˚ C (136˚F)
Recorded on 13
September 1922 in
Al Aziziyah, Libya
026
What’s the difference
between rain, sleet
and snow?
When it comes to precipitation, it’s all about
temperature. When the air is sufficiently saturated,
water vapour begins to form clouds around ice, salt
or other cloud seeds. If saturation continues, water
droplets grow and merge until they become heavy
enough to fall as rain. Snow forms when the air is
cold enough to freeze supercooled water droplets
– lower than -31 degrees Celsius (-34 degrees
Fahrenheit) – then falls. Sleet is somewhere in
between: it starts as snow but passes through a
layer of warmer air before hitting the ground,
resulting in some snow melting.
© SPL
How do tornadoes work?
What are gravity Polar air
wave clouds? A cold front full of very dry
air and at high altitude is
necessary for a tornado.
Tropical air
The cold front
meets a warm front
full of very moist air
Gravity waves
and at low altitude.
are waves of air
moving through a stable
area of the atmosphere. The air
might be displaced by an updraft or The
something like mountains as the air rotatin
low-p
passes over. The upward thrust of air creates
bands of clouds with empty space between them.
Cool air wants to sink, but if it is buoyed again by the updraft,
it will create additional gravity wave clouds.
Why is it so quiet
after it snows? Tornadoes start out with severe thunderstorms called
supercells. They form when polar air comes in contact
It’s peaceful after snowfall as the with tropical air in a very unstable atmosphere.
snow has a dampening effect; Supercells contain a rotating updraft of air that is known
as a mesocyclone, which keeps them going for a long
pockets of air between the flakes time. High winds add to the rotation, which keeps
absorb noise. However, if it’s getting faster and faster until eventually it forms a
funnel. The funnel cloud creates a sucking area of low
compacted snow and windy, the pressure at the bottom. As soon as this funnel comes in
to contact with the Earth, you have a tornado.
snow might actually reflect sound.
What is a weather front?
A weather front is the
Thunderstorms
Unstable masses of
warm air often contain
Fog
Fog often comes
before the slow-
Wet ’n’ wild stratiform clouds, full moving warm front.
separation between two If there’s a lot of of thunderstorms.
different masses of air, which moisture in the cold air
have differing densities, mass, the wedge can
temperature and humidity. also cause a line of
showers and storms.
On weather maps, they’re
delineated by lines and
symbols. The meeting of
different frontal systems
causes the vast majority
of weather phenomena.
Wedge Cold front Warm front
As cold air is denser, it Cold fronts lie in deep
troughs of low pressure
Warm fronts lie in broad
often ‘wedges’ beneath
the warm air. This lift and occur where the air
troughs of low pressure and
occur at the leading edge of
can cause wind gusts. temperature drops off. a large warm air mass.
DID YOU KNOW? Fog is made up of millions of droplets of water floating in the air

What is a sea breeze?

Rising heat High pressure Cooler air High pressure
Dry land is heated by the High pressure carries the The cooled air High pressure carries the
Sun, causing warm air to cooled air out over the water. slowly sinks cooled air towards land.
rise, then cool down. down over land.

Cooler air Rising heat

The cooled air In the evening,
slowly sinks down the land cools
over the ocean. off faster than
the ocean.
Warm air rises
Surface wind Surface wind over the water,
Wind over the ocean blows the Wind blows the air back out towards where it cools.
cool air back towards land. the ocean. This is a ‘land breeze’.

What is the eye of a storm? Does lightning ever strike WHY ARE
The eye is the calm centre of a storm like a hurricane or tornado,
in the same place twice? CLOUDS
FLUFFY?
Yes, lightning often strikes twice in the same
without any weather phenomena. Because these systems consist of Fluffy-looking
location. If there’s a thunderstorm and lightning
circular, rotating winds, air is funnelled downward through the eye clouds – the big
strikes, it’s just as likely to happen again. Many
and feeds back into the storm itself. cotton-ball ones – are a
tall structures get struck repeatedly during
type called cumulus.
thunderstorms, such as New York City’s famed
They form when warm air
Empire State Building or NASA’s shuttle launch
rises from the ground, meets a
pad in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
layer of cool air and moisture
condenses. If the cloud grows
How cold was enough to meet an upper layer
the coldest day in of freezing air, rain or snow may
fall from the cloud.
recorded history?
WHAT’S IN ACID RAIN?
The eye at the centre of a
-89˚ C (-129˚F) Acid rain is full of chemicals like
© NASA

hurricane tends to be 20- nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide

50km (12-31mi) in diameter and sulphur dioxide, which react
Recorded on 21 July with water in the rain. Much of it
1983 at Vostok II comes from coal powerplants, cars
Station, Antarctica and factories. It can harm wildlife
and also damage buildings.

WHY CAN I SEE MY

Why does the BREATH IF IT’S COLD?
Your breath is full of warm water
Sun shine? vapour because your lungs are
moist. When it’s cold outside and
you breathe out, that warm vapour
The Sun is a super-dense cools rapidly as it hits the cold air.
What are red sprites ball of gas, where hydrogen The water molecules slow down,
© SPL

begin to change form, and bunch

and blue jets? is continually burned into up together, becoming visible.

These are both atmospheric and electrical phenomena that take place
helium (nuclear fusion). This WHAT IS THE GREEN
in the upper atmosphere, and are also known as upper-atmosphere generates a huge deal of FLASH YOU SEE AS THE
discharge. They take place above normal lightning; blue jets occur
energy, and the core SUN SETS SOMETIMES?
around 40-50 kilometres (25-30 miles) above the Earth, while red At sunsets (or indeed sunrises), the
sprites are higher at 50-100 kilometres (32-64 miles). Blue jets happen reaches 15 million degrees Sun can occasionally change
in cone shapes above thunderstorm clouds, and are not related to colour due to refraction. This can
lightning. They’re blue due to ionised emissions from nitrogen. Red Celsius (27 million degrees cause a phenomenon called green
sprites can appear as different shapes and have hanging tendrils.
They occur when positive lightning goes from the cloud to the ground.
Fahrenheit). This extreme flash. It only lasts for a second or
two so can be very tricky to spot.
heat produces lots of light.
027
 WEATHER WONDERS

Where does acid rain come from?

We’ve all seen the effects of acid rain on limestone
statues, but how does this damaging substance form?

A
ll rainwater is a
little bit acidic,
because the
carbon dioxide present in
the atmosphere dissolves
in water and forms
carbonic acid. Stronger
acid rain, however, can
damage stone structures
and can also be harmful to
crops, as well as polluting
waterways. It forms in the
atmosphere when
poisonous gases emitted
by human activities
combine with the
moisture within rain
clouds.
Fossil-fuelled power
stations and petrol/diesel
vehicles give off chemical
pollutants – mainly
sulphur dioxide (SO2) and
3. Gasses dissolve
Acid rain Upon combining with the water vapour (water and
in action oxygen) in the rain clouds, the gasses react to form
weak but potentially damaging acid. Sulphur dioxide
from industry becomes sulphuric acid.
2. Wind
The gases are carried 4. Acid rainfall
on the wind to When acid rain falls it can
higher ground, damage plant life, infiltrate
towards rain clouds. waterways and erode
buildings and statues.
Oxidation of sulphur
and nitrogen
Sulphur
dioxide (SO2)
This is a by-product
of heavy industry,
such as power
stations.
Nitrogen oxides (NOx)
These are released in car
y

exhaust fumes.
ar
br
Li

nitrogen oxides (NOx) – 1. Acidic gases

to
ho

KEY:
eP

which when mixed with Sulphur dioxide and nitrogen

nc
ie

oxides from industry and Blue: Nitrogen

Sc

the water in the air react

©

vehicles are released into Yellow: Sulphur

and turn acidic. the atmosphere. Red: Oxygen

The smell of rain

Find out why precipitation creates a distinctive
aroma that’s the same all over the world

I
t’s possible to smell rain before it has even fallen.
Lightning has the power to split atmospheric nitrogen
and oxygen molecules into individual atoms. These
atoms react to form nitric oxide, which in turn can
interact with other chemicals to form ozone – the aroma
of which is a bit like chlorine and a specific smell we
associate with rain. When the scent carries on the wind,
we can predict the rain before it falls.
Another smell associated with rain is petrichor – a term
coined by a couple of Australian scientists in the mid-
Sixties. After a dry spell of weather, the first rain that falls
brings with it a very particular aroma that is the same no
matter where you are. Two chemicals are responsible for
the production of this indescribable odour called
petrichor. One of the two chemicals is released by a
specific bacteria found in the earth; the other is an oil
secreted by thirsty plants. These compounds combine on
© Thinkstock

the ground and, when it rains, the smell of petrichor will

fill your nostrils.

028
DID YOU KNOW? Clouds on Venus are actually composed of sulphur dioxide and drops of sulphuric acid

Global wind
The tell-tale spiral of 2011’s hurricane Katia
is whipped up, aided by the Coriolis effect

patterns
Wind paths, ocean currents and even airplanes
are governed by the same invisible force

W
inds in our atmosphere do not travel
in straight lines due to a phenomena
known as the Coriolis effect. As the
Earth spins on its axis, the motion deflects the
air above it. The planet’s rotation is faster at the
equator, because this is where the Earth is
widest. This difference in speed causes the
deflection – for example, if you were to throw a
ball from the equator to the North Pole it would
appear to curve off-course.
If Earth didn’t spin like this, air on the planet
would simply circulate back and forth between
the high-pressure poles and the low-pressure
equator. When the rotation of the Earth is
added into the mix, it causes the air in the
Northern Hemisphere to be deflected to the
right, and air in the Southern Hemisphere to
the left, away from the equator. As a result,
winds circulate in cells.
It’s this effect that causes the rotational
shapes of large storms that form over oceans.
The low pressure of cyclones sucks air into the
centre, which then deflects thanks to the Coriolis
force. This explains why cyclones that form in
the Northern Hemisphere spin anti-clockwise,
while in the Southern Hemisphere they rotate
clockwise. The opposite is also true of high The Coriolis effect is so prevalent that it also
pressure storms, also known as anticyclones, governs the movement of long-range airborne
which rotate clockwise in the north and objects such as airplanes and missiles. Pilots
anti-clockwise in the south. have to adjust their flight routes to compensate.

Global winds
Coriolis How Earth’s spin affects the winds, Wind cells
effect on their direction and function Each hemisphere has three
cells, where air circulates
water Jet streams
through the depth of the
troposphere.
It is commonly believed that the
Coriolis effect is the reason why High-altitude jet streams
water is perceived to spiral down flow between cells. They are
the drain in one direction in the strong winds that move
Northern Hemisphere, and in the weather systems.
opposite direction below the
equator. However, the Coriolis
effect isn’t felt on such a small
scale. The Coriolis effect does Earth spins
affect ocean currents, though. At the equator, the
Each ocean basin has a ‘gyre’ – a Earth is spinning at a
strong circulating current that speed of 1,670km/h.
moves around the basin. The
deflected winds cause drag on the
ocean surface, which translates
into deep currents. Gyres in the
Northern Hemisphere turn in a
clockwise spiral, and they turn
anti-clockwise in the Southern
Hemisphere. There are no gyres
crossing the equator so the Coriolis
effect is not felt there.

The equator
This is the only
place on Earth
where the Coriolis
force is not felt.

Local factors such as the positioning Tropical hurricane Air movement

of taps has more effect on water A tropical hurricane forms near the As wind circulates in cells, the Coriolis
drainage direction Caribbean. The Coriolis effect force deflects the air to form prevailing
contributes to the swirling system. winds such as the trade winds.

029
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 A BUBBLE REPUTATION
One crowded hour of glorious life
Is worth an age without a name.

I had never suspected Sweeting of a desire to be “somebody.”

Indeed, the jeunesse dorée, in whose ranks Nature had seemed
unquestioningly to bestow him, is not subject to diffidence, or prone
to the wisdom which justifies itself in a knowledge of its own
limitations. I was familiar with his placid, cherubic face at a minor
club or two, in the Park, in Strand restaurants and Gaiety stalls; and
it had never once occurred to me to classify him as apart from his
fellows of the exquisite guild. If, like Keats, he could appreciate the
hell of conscious failure, its most poignant anguish, I could have
sworn, would borrow from some too-late realization of the correctest
“form” in a hat-brim or shirt-collar. I could have sworn it, I say, and I
should have been, of course, mistaken. Keats may have claimed it
as his poetical prerogative to go ill-dressed, and to object, though
John, to be dubbed “Johnny.” It remained to Sweeting to prove that a
man might be a very typical “Johnny” and a poet to boot. But I will
explain.
One day I entered the reading-room of the Junior Winston and
nodded to Sweeting, who was seated solitary at the newspaper-
table. While I was hunting for the “Saturday Review”—which was
conducting, I had been told, the vivisection of a friend of mine—my
attention was attracted by something actually ostentatious in
Sweeting’s perusal of his sheet, and I glanced across. Judge my
astonishment when I saw in his hands, not “Baily’s” or the “Pink ’Un,”
but the very periodical I sought. I gasped; then grinned.
“Hullo!” I said. “Since when have you taken to that?”
He attempted to reply with a face of wondering hauteur, but gave
up at the first twitch.
“O,” he said rather defiantly, “you lit’ary professionals think no
one’s in it but yourselves.”
 “In what?”
“Why, this sort of thing,” he said, tapping the “Saturday”; “the real
stuff, you know.”
“Indeed,” I said, “we don’t. You’re always welcome to the reversion
of my place in it for one.”
“O, me!” he said airily. “It don’t positively apply there, you see,
being a sort of a kind of a professional myself.”
“My Sweet!” I exclaimed. “A professional—you?”
“O, yes,” he said. “Didn’t you know? Write for the ‘Argonaut.’ Little
thing of mine in it last number.”
I felt faint.
“May I see it?” I murmured. “If I don’t mistake, it’s under your
elbow at this moment.”
“Is it?” he answered, blushing flagrantly, “Lor’ bless me, so it is!”
I took it from his hand, opened it, and read, over his undoubted
signature—Marmaduke Sweeting—the title, “The Fool of the Family.”
“Ah!” I thought, “of course. Like title like author.”
But I was wrong. The tale, a veritable conte drolatique, was as
keen and strong as a Maupassant. I had no choice but to take it at a
draught, smacking my lips after. Then I put the paper softly down
and looked across at him. His harmless features were set in a sort of
hypnotic smile, his hat was tilted over his eyes, and he was making
constant mouthfuls of the large silver knob of his stick. My eyes
travelled to and fro between this figure and the figures of print that
were he. What possible connexion could there be between the two? I
thought of Buffon writing in lace ruffles, and all at once recognized a
virtue in immaculate shirt-cuffs, and decided to consult some
fashionable hosier about raising my price per thousand words. In the
meantime my respect for Sweeting was born.
“So,” I said, “you are somebody after all?”
“Am I?” he answered, grinning bucolic. “Glad you’ve found it out.”
“Why,” I said, “honestly there’s genius in this story; but nothing to
what you’ve shown in concealing that you had any. There must be
much more to come out of the same bin.”
He flushed and laughed and wriggled, as I walked over and sat
beside him.
“O, I dare say!” he said. “Hope so, anyhow.”
 “Not a doubt. What made you think of it, now?”
“O! I thought of it,” he said; and, after all, there was no better reply
to an idiotic question. I was beginning humbly to appraise intellectual
self-sufficiency at its value, and to appreciate the hundred disguises
of reason.
I saw a good deal of Sweeting, on his own initiative, after this. He
would visit me in my rooms, and discuss—none too sapiently, I may
have thought in other circumstances, and with the most ingenuous
admiration for his own abilities—the values of certain characters as
portrayed by him in a brilliant series, “The Love-Letters of a
Nonconformist,” which had immediately followed in the “Argonaut”
“The Fool of the Family,” and was taking the town by storm. Thus,
“What d’ee think of that old Lupin, last number,” he would chuckle,
“with his calling virtue an ‘emu,’ don’tcherknow?”
“Ha, yes!” I would correct him, with a nervous laugh. “ ‘Anæmia’
was the word. You meant it, of course.”
“Why, didn’t I say it?” he would answer. “It’s got a big swallow
anyhow”; and then he would check himself suddenly, and, without
further explanation, eye me, and begin to whistle.
Now I might recall the passage to which he referred (to wit, that
every red blood corpuscle, being a seed peccancy, so to speak,
made virtue an anæmia) and try to puzzle out a quite new
significance in it. Suspecting that its author’s apparent naïveté was
only assumed, I was respectfully guarded in my answers, and, when
he was gone, would curiously ponder the perspicacious uses to
which he would put them. He did not consult me, I felt, as an oracle;
but rather drew upon me for the vulgar currency of thought, to which
his exclusiveness was a stranger. He was very secret about his own
affairs; though I understood that he was becoming quite an important
“name” in the literary world. Ostensibly he was not, after that first
essay, to be identified with the “Argonaut,” though any one, having
an ounce of the proper appreciation, could scarcely fail to mark in
the “Love-Letters” the right succession of qualities which had made
the earlier story notable. Indeed, he suffered more than any man I
knew from the penalties attaching to the popular author. The number
of communications, both signed and anonymous, which he received
from admirers was astonishing. Scarce a day passed but he brought
me specimens of them to discuss and laugh over. I did not, I must
admit, think his comments always in good taste; but then I was not
personally subject to the flattering pursuit, and so may have been no
more constituted to judge than a monk is of a worldling.
These testimonies to his fame were from every sort of individual—
the soldier, the divine, the poet, the painter, the actor (and more
especially the actress), the young person with views, the social
butterfly, the gushling late of the schoolroom, the woman of
sensibility late of the latest lifelong passion for art or religion, and
finding, as usual, the taste of life sour on her lips after a recent
debauch of sentiment. They all found something in the “Love-Letters”
to meet their particular cases—some note of subtle sympathy, some
first intimation to their misunderstood spirits of a kindred emotion
which had felt, and could lay its finger with divine solace on the spot.
No longer would they suffer a barren grievance—that hair-shirt which
not a soul suspected but to giggle over. To take, for example, from
the series a typical sentence which served so many for a text—
“To whom does the materialist cry his defiance—to whom but to
God? He cannot rest from baiting a Deity whose existence he
denies. He forgets that irony can wring no response from a vacuum.”
A propos of which wrote the following:—

A Half-pay General.—Don’t tell me, Sir, but you’ve

served, like me, a confounded ungrateful country, and learned
your lesson! Memorialize the devil rather than the War Office.
You’ve hit it off in your last sentence to a T.

A Chorus Girl.—Dear Sir,—You mean me to understand,

I know, and you’re quite right. The British public has no more
ears than a ass, or they’d reconise who ought to be playing
Lotta in “The Belle of Battersea.” It’s such a comfort you can’t
tell. Please forgive this presumptious letter from a stranger.—
Yours very affectionately,
Dolly.

An Apostolic Fisherman.—I like your metaphor. I would

suggest only “ground-baiting a Deity” as more subtly
 applicable to the tactics of a worldling. Note: “And Simon
Peter said, ‘I go a-fishing.’ ”

Take, again, this excerpt: “Doctors’ advice to certain patients to

occupy their minds recalls the Irishman’s receipt for making a
cannon, ‘Take a hole and pour brass round it.’ ” Of which a “True
Hibernian” wrote—

Sir,—I’ve always maintained that the genuine “bull,”

fathered on my suffering country, came from the loins of the
English lion. Murder, now! How could a patient occupy his
doctor’s mind as well as his own, unless he was beside
himself? And then he’d have no mind at all.

Or take, once more and to end, the sentence: “The Past is that
paradoxical possession, a Shadow which we would not drop for the
Substance”; which evoked the following from “One who has felt the
Weariness, the Fever, and the Fret”—

How strangely and exquisitely phrased! It brings, I know not

how, the memory of the Channel before me. I have only
crossed it once; but, O! the recollection! the solemn moving
waters to which my soul went out!

These are specimens, but a few, of the responses wrung by

Sweeting from the human chords he touched. There were, in
addition, prayers innumerable for autographs, requests for the
reading of manuscripts, petitions for gratis copies of his works, to be
sold for any and every charity but the betterment of impecunious
authors. He fairly basked in the sunshine of a great reputation. There
was only one flaw in his enormous self-satisfaction. By a singular
perversity and most inexplicable coincidence, every one of these
signed documents was without an address. But, after all,
coincidence, which is only another name for the favouritism of Fate,
must occasionally glut itself on an approved subject. Sweeting was
in favour with the gods, and enjoyed “a high old time of it,”
principally, perhaps, because he did not appear to be ambitious of
impressing any “set” but that with which he was wont to forgather,
and above which he made no affectation now of rising superior.
I had an example one evening of this intellectual modesty, when
casually visiting the Earl’s Court grounds. There I encountered my
friend, the centre and protagonist of a select company in the
enclosure. All exquisitely wore exquisite evening dress (for myself I
always scornfully eschewed the livery), and all gravitated about
Sweeting with the unconscious homage which imbecility pays to
brains—“the desire of the moth for the star.” I could see at once that
he was become their Sirius, their bright particular glory, reflecting
credit upon their order. And he, who might have commanded the
suffrages of the erudite, seemed content with his little conquest—to
have reached, indeed, the apogee of his ambition—a one-eyed king
among the blind. These suffered my introduction with some
condescension, as a mere larva of Grub Street. They knew
themselves now as the stock from which was generated this real
genius. As for me, I was Gil Blas’s playwright at the supper of
comedians. And then, at somebody’s initiative, we were all
swaggering off together along the walks.
Now, I had always had a sort of envy of the esprit de ton which
unites the guild of amiable gadflies; and, finding myself here, for all
my self-conscious intellectual superiority, of the smallest account, I
grew quickly sardonic. If I knew who wrote the “Heptameron,” I didn’t
know, even by sight, the Toddy Tomes who was setting all the town
roaring and droning with his song, “Papa’s Perpendicular Pants.” It is
a peevish experience to be “out of it,” even if the it is no more
intelligible than a Toddy Tomes’s topical; and gradually I waxed quite
savage. Reputation is only relative after all. There is no popular road
to fame. As an abstract acquisition, it may be said to pertain at its
highest to the man who combines quick perceptions with adaptive
sympathies. I was not that man. In all, save exclusively my own
company, I felt “out of it,” awkward because resentful, and resentful
because awkward. I despised these asses, however franked by
Sweeting, yet coveted, vainly, the temporary grace of seeming at
home with them. I got very cross. And then we alighted on Slater.
I knew it for his name by Sweeting’s greeting him in response to
his hail. He was seated at a little table all by himself, drinking
champagne, and alternately turning up and biting the ends of a red
tag of beard, and luridly pulling at a ponderous cigar. He was a
small, dingy person, so obviously inebriated, that the little human
clearing in which he sat solitary was nothing more than the formal
recognition of his state. He also, it was evident, to my disgust,
despised the conventions of dress, but without any of those qualms
of self-consciousness with which I was troubled. He lolled back, his
hat crushed over his eyes, a hump of dicky and knotted tie escaping
from his waistcoat-front, his disengaged thumb hooked into an arm-
hole—as filthy a little vagabond, confident and maudlin and truculent
in one, as you could wish. And he hailed Sweeting as a familiar.
My friend stopped, with a rather sheepish grin.
“Hullo, Slater!” said he. “A wet night, ain’t it?”
Our little group came chuckling all about the baboon. Even then, I
noticed, I was the one looked upon with most obvious disfavour by
the surrounding company.
“Look here,” said Sweeting, suddenly gripping me to the front.
“Here’s one of your cloth, Slate’. Let me introjuce you,” and he
whispered in my ear, “Awfully clever chap. You’ll like him when you
know.”
I suppose my instant and instinctive repulsion was patent even to
the sot. He lurched to his feet, and swept off his crumpled hat with
an extravagant bow. Sweeting’s pack went into a howl of laughter. It
was evident they were not unacquainted with the creature, and
looked to him for some fun.
“My cloth, sir?” vociferated the beast. “Honoured, sir, ’m sure, sir.
Will you allow me to cut my coat according to it, sir? Has any
gentleman a pair of scissors? Just the tails, sir, no more—quite large
enough for me; and you’d look very elegant in an Eton jacket.”
I tried to laugh at this idiotic badinage, and couldn’t.
“O, crikey, wouldn’t he!” said a vulgar onlooker. “Like a sugar-
barrel in a weskit.”
Then, as everybody roared, I lost my temper.
“Don’t be a fool,” whispered Sweeting. “It’s the way he’ll get his
change out of you.”
“Change!” I snapped furious. “No change could be for the worse
with him, I should think. Let me pass, please!”
 The odious wretch was pursuing me all the time I spoke, while the
others hemmed me in, edging me towards him and roaring with
laughter. Sweeting himself made no effort to assist me, but stood to
one side, irresistibly giggling, though with a certain anxiety in his
note.
“Call off your puppies!” I cried ragingly, and with the word was sent
flying into the very arms of Slater. I felt something rip, and at a blow
my hat sink over my eyes; and then a chill friendly voice entered into
the mêlée.
“O, look here, Slater, that’ll do, you know!”
I wrenched my eyes free. My champion was not Sweeting, but
Voules, Sir Francis Voules, of whom more hereafter. He was cool
and vicious, and as faultlessly dressed as the others, but in a
manner somehow superior to the foppery of their extreme youth. He
carried a light overcoat on his arm.
“O! will it?” said Slater.
“Yes, I said so,” said Voules, pausing a moment from addressing
me to scan him. Slater slouched back to his table. Nobody laughed
again.
In the meantime, Sir Francis was helping me to restore my hat to
shape, and to don his overcoat.
“Yours is split to the neck,” he said. “Now, let’s go.”
He took my arm, and we strolled off together. The crowd, quite
respectful, parted, and we were engulfed in it.
I was grateful to Voules, of course, but inexplicably resentful of his
cool masterfulness. Truth to tell, we were souls quite antipathetic;
and now he had put me right—with everybody but myself. In a
helpless attempt to restore that balance, I snarled fiercely, smacking
fist into palm—
“I’ll have the law of that beast! You know him, it seems? I can’t
congratulate you on your friends.”
“Sweeting was most to blame,” said Voules quietly.
I grunted, and strode on fuming.
“But, after all,” said Voules, “the poor ass had to back up his
confederate.”
I glanced at him as we walked.
“His confederate?”
 “Of course. Didn’t you know? Slater really writes the things for
which Sweeting gets the credit.”
“O, come, Voules! Here’s one of your foolhardy calumnies. You
really should be careful. Some day you’ll get into trouble.”
“O, very well!”
“You talk as if it were an open secret.”
“You know Sweeting as well as I. Do you recognize his style in the
Nonconformist lucubrations? Possibly you’ve had letters from him?”
“I’ve some specimens of letters to him now—letters from admirers.
If anything were needed to refute your absurd statement, there they
are in evidence.”
He gave a little dry laugh; then touched my sleeve eagerly.
“You wouldn’t think it abusing a confidence to show me those
letters?”
“I don’t know why. Sweeting’s laid no embargo on me.”
“Very well. If you’ll let me, I’ll come home with you now.”
I stumbled on in a sort of haze.
I did not believe this to be any more than a mad shot in the dark.
Sir Francis was one of those men who made mischief as Pygmalion
made Galatea. He fell in love with his own conceptions—would go
any lengths to gratify his passion for detraction. Do not suppose,
from his prefix, that he was a bold, bad baronet. He was just an actor
of the new creation—belonged to what was known by doyens of the
old Crummles school as the be-knighted profession. The stage was
an important incident in his social life, and he seldom missed a
rehearsal of any piece to which he was engaged.
“You know this Slater?” I said, as I drove in my latchkey. “As
what?”
“As a clever, disreputable, and perfectly unscrupulous journalist.”
“It's preposterous! What could induce him to part with such a
notoriety?”
“The highest bidder, of course.”
“What! Sweeting? If he’s still the simple Johnny you’d have him
be?”
“I’m yet to learn that the simple Johnny lacks vanity.”
“But, for him, such an unheard-of way to gratify it!”
 “Opportunism, sir. There are more things in the Johnny’s
philosophy than we dream of.”
“Well, I simply don’t believe it.”
Voules read, with an immobile face, the letters which Sweeting
had left with me. At the end he looked up.
“Are you open to a bet?”
“Can’t afford it.”
“Never mind, then.” He rose. “Truth for its own sake will do.
Anyhow, I presume you don’t object to countering on Slater?”
“O, do what you like!”
“Thanks. Would you wish to be in at the death?”
“Just as you please.”
“You see,” said he, with a pleasant affectation of righteousness, “if
my surmise is correct—and you’re the first one I’ve ventured to
confide in—it’s my plain duty to prick a very preposterous bubble.
Thank you for lending yourself to the cause of decency. Don’t say
anything until you hear from me. Good-bye!”—and he was gone,
followed by my inclination, only my inclination, to hurl a book after
him.
I sat tight—always the more as I swelled over the delay—till, on
the third day following, Sweeting called on me. He came in very
shamefaced, but with a sort of suppressed triumph to support his
abjectness.
“I couldn’t help it, you know,” he said; “and I gave him a bit of my
mind after you’d gone.”
“Indeed,” I answered good-humouredly; “that was what you
couldn’t well afford, and it was generous of you.”
He was blankly impervious to the sarcasm. Had it been otherwise,
my new-fledged doubts had perhaps fluttered to the ground. After a
moment I saw him pull a paper from his pocket.
“Look here,” he said, vainly trying to suppress some emotion,
which was compound, in suggestion, of elation and terror. “You’ve
made your little joke, haven’t you, over all those other people
forgettin’ to put their addresses? Well, what do you think of that for
the Prime Minister?”
I took from his hand a sheet of large official-looking paper, and
read—
 Dear Sir,—You may have heard of my book, “The
Foundations of Assent.” If so, you will perhaps be interested
to learn that I am contemplating a complete revision of its text
in the light of your “Love-Letters.” They are plainly
illuminating. From being a man of no assured opinions, I have
become converted, through their medium, to a firm belief in
the importance of the Nonconformist suffrage. Permit me the
honour, waiving the Premier, to shake by the hand as fellow-
scribe the author of that incomparable series. I shall do myself
the pleasure to call upon you at your rooms at nine o’clock
this evening, when I have a little communication to make
which I hope will not be unpleasing to you. Permit me to
subscribe myself, with the profoundest admiration, your
obedient servant,
J. A. Burleigh.

“Well,” I murmured, feeling suffocated, “there’s no address here

either.”
“No,” he answered; “but, I say, it’s rather crushing. Won’t you come
and help me out with it?”
“What do you want me for?” I protested. “I’ve no wish to be
annihilated in the impact between two great minds. You aren’t
afraid?”
“O, no!” he said, perspiring. “It’ll be just a shake, and ‘So glad,’ and
‘Thanks, awfully,’ I suppose, and nothing more to speak of. But you
might just as well come, on the chance of helping me out of a tight
place. It’s viva voce, don’tcherknow—not like writin’, with all your wits
about you. And I shall get some other fellows there, too, so’s we
aren’t allowed to grow too intimate; and you might as well.”
“I wonder what the ‘communication’ is?” I mused.
“O, nothin’ much, I don’t suppose,” said Sweeting, with a blushing
nonchalance. But it was evident that he had pondered the delirious
enigma and emerged from it Sir Marmaduke.
“Well,” I concluded rather sourly, “I’ll come.”
He went away much relieved, and I fell into a fit of stupor. In the
afternoon a telegram from Voules reached me, “Be at Sweeting’s
8.45 to-night.”
 At a quarter to nine I kept my appointment. Sweeting was
insufferably well-to-do, and his rooms were luxurious. They were
inhabited at the moment by an irreproachable and almost silent
company. Among them I encountered many of the young gentlemen
who had been witnesses of, and abettors in, my discomfiture the
other night. But they were all too nervous now to presume upon the
recognition—too oppressed with the stupendous nature of the
honour about to be conferred upon their host—too self-weighted with
their responsibility as his kindred and associates. They could only
ogle him with large eyes over immensely stiff collars, as he moved
about from one to another, panic-struck but radiant. It was the
crowning moment of his life; yet its sweeter aftermath, I could feel,
reposed for him in the sleek necks of champagne-bottles just visible
on a supper-table in the next room. He longed to pass from the test
to the toast, and the intoxicating memory of a triumph happily
accomplished. And then suddenly Slater came in.
He was not expected, I saw in a moment. Indeed, how could such
a death’s-head claim place at such a feast? He was no whit
improved upon my single memory of him, unless, to give the little
beast his due, a shade less inebriated. But he was as grinning,
cocksure, and truculent a little Bohemian as ever. Sweeting stared at
him aghast.
“Good Lord, Slate’,” said he, “what brings you here, now?”
“Why, your wire, old chap,” said the animal.
“I never sent one, I swear.”
“Oho!” cries Slater, glaring. “D’ you want to go back on your word?
Ain’t I fine enough for this fine company?” and he pulled a dirty scrap
of paper out of his pocket, and screeched, “Read what you said
yourself, then!”
The telegram went round from hand to hand. I read, when it came
to my turn: “Come supper my rooms 8.45 to-night. M. Sweeting.”
“I never sent it,” protested our host. “It must be a hoax. Look here,
Slate’. The truth is, the Prime Minister wrote he wanted to make my
acquaintance, because—because of the ‘Letters,’ you know; and—
and he’s due here in a few minutes.”
The creature grinned like a jackal.
“My eyes, what fun!” he said. “I shall love to see you two meet.”
 “There’s—there’s fizz in the next room, Slate’,” said the miserable
Sweeting.
“You needn’t tell me,” said Slater. “I’d spotted it already.”
And then, before another word could be said, the door was
opened, and the guest of the evening announced.
He came in smiling, ingratiatory, the familiar willowy figure in
pince-nez. We all rose, and the stricken Sweeting advanced to meet
him. The great man, looking, it is true, a little surprised over his
reception, held out his hand cordially.
“And is this——” he purred—and paused.
Sweeting did not answer: he was beyond it; but he nodded, and
opened his mouth, as if to beg that the “communication” might be
posted into it, and the matter settled off-hand.
“I did not, I confess,” said the Premier, glancing smilingly round,
“expect my little visit of duty—yes, of duty, sir—to provoke this signal
welcome on the part of a company in which I recognize, if I mistake
not, a very constellation of the intellectual aristocracy.”
Here a youth, with a solitaire in his eye, and a vague sense of
parliamentary fitness, ejaculated “Hear, hear!” and immediately
becoming aware of the enormity, quenched himself for ever.
“It makes,” went on the right hon. gentleman, “the strict limit to my
call, which less momentous but more exacting engagements have
obliged me to prescribe, appear the more ungracious. In view of this
enforced restriction, I have equipped myself with a single question
and a message. Your answer to the first will, I hope—nay, I am
convinced—justify the tenor of the second.”
He released, with a smile, the hand which all this time he had
retained, much to Sweeting’s embarrassment, in his own. Finding it
restored to him, Sweeting promptly put it in his pocket, like a tip.
“I ask,” said the Premier, “the author of ‘The Love-Letters of a
Nonconformist’ to listen to the following excerpt” (he produced a
marked number of the “Argonaut” from his pocket) “from his own
immortal series, as preliminary to some inquiry naturally evoked
thereby”—and he read out, with the intonation of a confident orator:
“ ‘We have (shall I not declare it, my sweet?) the most beautiful
women and the most beautiful poets in the world—two very good
things, but the latter unaccountable. Passion, in perpetuating,
idyllically refines upon the features of its desire; hence the
succession of assured physical loveliness in a race which, however
insensible to the appeals of emotional and intellectual beauty, can
understand and worship the beauty that is plain to see.’ ”
Here the reader paused, and looking over his glasses with a smile,
very slightly shook his head, and murmuring, “The beauty that is
plain to see! H’m! a fence that I will recommend to Rosebery,”
continued, “ ‘Passion endows passion, far-reaching, to bribe the gods
with a compound interest of beauty. It touches heaven in imagination
through its unborn generations. It tops the bunker of the world, and,
soaring, drops, heedless of Time the putter, straight into the
eighteenth hole of the empyrean.”
The Premier stopped again, and, looking gravely at Sweeting,
asked, “What is the eighteenth hole of the empyrean?”
Now I expected my friend to reveal himself, to sally brilliantly,
referring his questioner, perhaps, to some satire in the making, some
latter-day Apocalypse of which here was a sample extracted for bait
to the curious. Well, he did reveal himself, but not in the way I hoped.
He just strained and strained, and then dropped his jaw with the
most idiotic little hee-haw of a laugh I ever heard, and—that was all.
The other, looking immensely surprised, repeated his question:
“What, sir, I ask you, is the eighteenth hole of the empyrean?”
“Why, the one the Irishman poured brass round.”
I started. It was not Sweeting who spoke, but Slater. The little
demon stood grinning in the background, his tongue in his cheek,
and his hands in his trousers pockets.
“H’mph!” said the Prime Minister. “Very apt, sir. I recall the
witticism. It is singularly applicable at the moment to the
reorganization of the Liberal party. ‘Take a hole and pour brass round
it.’ Exactly.”
His manner, there was no denying it, was extremely severe as he
again addressed the perspiring Sweeting—
“Once more, sir,” he said, “I resume our discussion of a passage,
the intellectual rights in which you would seem to have made over to
your friends.” And, with a positive scowl, he continued his reading.
“ ‘So well’ (writes the impassioned Nonconformist) ‘for the national
appreciation of beauty that is physical. On the other hand (tell me,
dear. It would come so reassuringly from your lips), what can
account for the spasmodic recurrence in our midst of the inspired
singer? What makes his reproduction possible among a people
endowed with tunelessness, innocent of a metrical ear?’ ”
Quite abruptly the Prime Minister ended, and, deliberately folding
his paper, hypnotized with a searching stare his unhappy examinee.
“The question, Mr. Sweeting,” said he, “is before the House. You
will recognize it as ending—with some psychologic subtlety, to be
continued in our next—number 10—the last published of the
“Argonaut.” To me, I confess, the answer can be, like the Catholic
Church, only one and indivisible. Upon the question of your
conformity with my view depends the nature of the communication
which I am to have the pleasure, conditionally, of making to you.
Plainly, then, sir, what makes possible the spasmodic recurrence of
the inspired singer in the midst of a people endowed with
tunelessness and innocent of a metrical ear? I feel convinced you
can return no answer but one.”
A dead silence fell upon the room. Sweeting scratched his right
calf with his left foot, and giggled. Then in a moment, yielding the last
of his wits to the unendurable strain, he gave all up, and, wheeling
upon Slater—
“O, look here, Slate’!” he said. “What does?” and without waiting
for the answer, drove himself a passage through his satellites, and
collapsed half dead upon a sofa.
The Premier, with an amazing calm, returned the “Argonaut” to his
pocket.
“Surely, sir,” said he, “this is inexplicable; but” (he made a
denunciatory gesture with his hands) “it remains to me only to inform
you that, conditional on your right reply to your own postulate, it was
to have been my privilege to acquaint you of His Majesty’s intention
to bestow upon you a Civil List pension of £250 a year; which now, of
course——”
He was interrupted by Slater—
“O, that’s all one, sir! Fit the cap on the right head. The answer’s
‘Protection,’ isn’t it? I ought to know, as I wrote, and am writing, the
stuff.”
“You, sir!”
 All eyes were turned upon the beastly little genius, as he stood
ruffling with greed and arrogance, and thence to the sofa.
“O, shut up!” said Sweeting feebly. “It was only a joke. I paid him,
handsome I did, to let me have the kudos and letters and things.
He’d the best of the bargain by a long chalk.”
“He-he!” screeched Slater. “Why, you fool, did you think merit
earned such recognition in this suffering world? Hope you enjoyed
reading ’em, Sweet, as I did writing ’em.” He turned, half-cringing,
half-defiant, upon the guest. “I’m the author of the ‘Love-Letters,’ sir
—honour bright, I am; and I wrote every one of the testimonials, too,
that that ass sets such store by. You’ll take those into consideration, I
hope.”
“I shall, sir,” thundered the other—“in my estimate of a fool and his
decoy.”
He blazed round and snatched up his hat.
“Make way, gentlemen!” he roared, and strode for the door.
A slip of pasteboard fluttered from his hand to the carpet; he flung
wide the portal, banged it to behind him, and was gone.
Some one, in a sort of spasmodic torpor, picked up the card, and
immediately uttered a gasping exclamation. We all crowded round
him, and, reading the superscription at which he was pointing, “Mr.
Hannibal Withers, Momus Theatre,” exchanged dumbfounded
glances.
“Why, of course,” stuttered a pallid youth; “it was Withers, Voules’s
pal; I reco’nize him now. He’s the Prime Minister’s double, you know,
and—and he’s been and goosed us.”
“What!” screamed Slater.
But I was off in a fit of hysterical laughter.
It was actually a fact. It is a mistake to suppose that your
professional scandal-monger is prepared to build except on a
substratum of truth. Voules had pricked the bubble as he had
promised. The bargain, it was admitted, had been struck—on
Slater’s side for such a consideration as would submerge him in
champagne had he desired it. He had written and sent the
manuscripts to Sweeting, who had had them typed, and passed
them on to the “Argonaut” as his own. But the real author knew that
his tenure was insecure so long as the other’s colossal vanity was
not ministered to. Hence the correspondence, in which the little
monster burlesqued his own lucubrations. It might all have ended in
a case of perpetual blackmail (Sweeting never could see beyond the
end of his own nose) had not the bait answered so instantly to
Voules’s calculations.
There was a bitter attack on the immorality of the stage in the next
number of the “Argonaut,” which subsequently had to compound with
Voules under threat of an action for libel. But Sweeting had his wish.
He was “somebody,” as never yet. Until he took his notoriety for a
long sea-voyage, he was more crushingly than any gentleman in the
“Dunciad” “damn’d to fame.”
 A POINT OF LAW
BY A CAPTIOUS LITIGANT

Given a wet night on circuit, a bar parlour with a chattering fire, a

box of tobacco, a china bowl of punch, and a mixed forensic
company to discuss the lot, and what odds would you lay for or
against the chances of a good story or so?
Grope in your memory (before you answer) among legal
collectanea and the newspaper reports of famous, or infamous,
trials. What then? “Lord!” you admit, “these bones unearthed seem
wretched remains indeed! I find your grooms of the horsehair, young
and old, cracking their ineffable chestnuts for the benefit of an
obsequious tipstavery; I find a bench so conservative that, though it
be pitched in the very markets of chicanery, it is never to be won
from its affected ignorance of those topical affairs which are matters,
else apart, of common knowledge; I find the profession for ever
given to whet its wits on a thousand examples of resourcefulness
and impudence, and most often failing in the retort piquant.” Give me
a cheeky witness to cap the best drollery ever uttered by counsel.
Legal facetiæ, forsooth! The wit that tells is the wit that can cheat the
gallows, not send to it. Any dullard can hang a dog.
Look at the autobiographies of your retired legal luminaries: what
scurvy bald reading they make as a rule. Look at—but no: he rests in
Abraham’s bosom; he is studying the Mosaic law; we may be in
need of him again some day.
There is an odd family likeness between the personalia of lawyers
and of actors. The fellows, out of court, stripped of their
melodramatic trappings, can’t raise a laugh which would tickle any
one less than a bishop. They are obsessed with the idea of their own
importance. Much self-inflation has killed in them all sense of
proportion. They prove themselves, the truth is, dull dogs on
revision.
 The law is not so exhausting a study as it appears on first sight to
a layman. Given an understanding of its main principle, which is
syllogism, and there you are already in its Holy of Holies. As, for
instance, I call a man a beast: a cheetah is a beast: I have called the
man a cheater—ergo, he can proceed against me for defamation.
There is its rubric in a nutshell—perfectly simple.
However, exceptis excipiendis, there were Curran, and Erskine,
and some others. There was also Brindley, the great Crown
Prosecutor, whose eloquence was of such persuasiveness that it
was said the very Bench hung upon his word. I had the chance to
meet him once, in such a place and on such a night as I began by
describing. It was in the “Maid’s Head” at Norwich, and my
experience is at your service.
It had, I knew, been a full list and a varied; yet the great man, it
seemed, had found nothing in it all to stimulate his humorous
faculties. The liveliness was all supplied by a pert Deputy Clerk of
the Peace, whose bump of reverence was as insignificant as his
effrontery was tremendous. The Bar began by tolerating him; went
on to humour his sallies; chilled presently over his presumption; grew
patronizing, impatient, and at last rude. He didn’t care; nor I,
certainly. His readiness was the only relief from a congested
boredom.
The talk drifted, in the course of the evening, upon legal posers—
circumstantial evidence, ex-statutory cases, and so forth. There were
some dull examples proffered, and I observed, incidentally, that the
Law, when it couldn’t hark back to precedent, was wont to grow a
little hazy and befogged. Many solemn conundrums were
propounded; but the Deputy Clerk, as usual, pushed himself to the
front with an impertinence—
“If I slink out of the company of a bore, am I guilty of stealing from
his person?”
“Pooh, pooh!” said Brindley, with contempt. “Don’t be flippant, sir.”
The Deputy Clerk was not a whit abashed.
“Sir, to you,” he said. “If that isn’t liked, I’ll propose another. If a
woman is divorced from her husband, and a child is born to her
before the decree is made absolute, is that child, lawfully begot,
legitimate or illegitimate?”
 They were glad to take this seriously. I forget what the decision
was—that, given the necessary interval between the decree and its
confirmation, I think, the situation was virtually impossible.
“Very well,” said the Deputy Clerk. “But perhaps one can conceive
such a question rising. Let it pass, however; and answer me this,
gentlemen: If one is imprisoned unjustly—that is to say, for a crime
one has not committed—and, breaking out of prison, gives proof of
one’s innocence, can one be indicted for prison-breaking?”
This, at least, was a fair poser, and discussion on it grew actually
warm.
“Bosh!” said a fierce gentleman. “You ain’t going to justify your
defiance of the law by arguing that the law is liable to make an
occasional mistake—don’t tell me!”
Here a very young barrister dared the revolutionary sentiment that
the law, being responsible in the first instance to itself, might be
treated, if caught-stumbling in flagranti delicto, as drastically as any
burglar with a pistol in his hand. He was called, almost shouted,
down. The suggestion cut at the very root of jurisprudence. The law,
like the king who typified it, could do no wrong; witness its time-
honoured right to pardon the innocent victims of its own errors.
“It may detain and incarcerate one for being only a suspected
person,” said Brindley. “That its suspicions may prove unfounded, is
nothing. It must be cum privilegio, or the constitution goes. A nice
thing if the Crown could be put on its defence for an error in
judgment.”
“A very nice thing,” said the Deputy Clerk.
Brindley snorted at him. “Perhaps,” said he sarcastically, “the
gentleman will state a case.”
The gentleman desired nothing better. I would have backed him to
hold his own, anyhow; but, in this instance, I was gratified to gather
from his manner that he had a real story to tell. And he had.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “it occurred within my father's memory; but
my own is good enough to reproduce it literally. It made a rare stir in
the Norwich of his day, and quite fluttered, I assure you, the
dovecots of the profession.
“The parties chiefly concerned in it were three: old Nicholas
Browbody, his ward Ellen, and Mr. George Hussey, who was put on