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Atlas Shrugged – the sequel

Ayn Rand was a great one for setting up ‘straw man’ imagined futures, as a way of showing how terrible things would be if her precepts were not followed.  It seems fair enough, therefore, to play that same game with her imagined future, as presented in ‘Atlas Shrugged’ and imagine what would have happened next.

More thoughts on some letters

On Page 34 of Volume 1 of the Historique, the six-volume narrative section of Louis de Freycinet’s Voyage autour du Monde, he described a visit to a church service in Rio de Janeiro. His description is almost identical to that provided by his wife, in a letter to her mother that survives today only in a manuscript copy. This provides some constraints on hypotheses as to when the copy might have been made.

In Memoriam – Hugh Davies

It is not given to many people to be recognised as the most important figure in the geological history of an entire country, but Hugh Davies, who died on April 26 this year, had that distinction.

Rand and the motorist

In its desperate search for straws from which to fashion an election platform, the UK government has turned to the motorists, hoping against hope that they will gather votes from the people who see global conspiracies everywhere. They would have had Ayn Rand on their side

Bretillard, a most unsatisfactory consul

The French consul in Tenerife, who might have been expected to provide all sorts of services to the Uranie expedition, seems to have concentrated on just one. He offered to buy wine on its behalf.

‘From Compass to Drone’ – a book review

In late 2022, Bill Hinze published, through the Minnesota Geological Survey, a book entitled From Compass to Drone: The Evolving Role of Magnetics in Mapping the Geology and Ore Deposits of the Lake Superior Region: 1830-2022.