Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 20:33:20 -0000 From: Gary Fritz <fritzxxxnospamrii.com> Subject: Re: Octane ratings.....what's the truth?
still me <wheeledBobnospamo.com> wrote: > Don't let Leif Erikson, evidence of explorations in New Foundland and > possibly ME, USA, the Norse tower at RI shown on the first maps of > North America drawn in the early 1500's, voyages accounted for by > Venetian bothers Zeno in the late 1300's, or the fact that crops that > only grow in North America were carved in stone in Rosslyn Chapel in > the 1440's get in your way of that "Columbus had no knowledge" thing. You realize several of those are pretty shaky arguments: * The Zeno map was "found" by a descendent of the Zeno brothers, and is widely regarded as a fraud. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno_brothers * The "Norse tower" at Newport RI has been archaeologically investigated. The mortar was C14 dated to roughly 1680, and only 17th-century artifacts were found in the soil when they excavated around it. I don't know what Verrazano's and Mercator's maps were talking about, but according to the evidence it couldn't have been the tower. http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/society/text/other_artifacts.htm#n ewport * The Rosslyn Chapel carvings are very stylized, and have been interpreted by various specialists as wheat, strawberries or lilies. (I grew up on a farm in Iowa and it doesn't look like corn to me. :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosslyn_Chapel