Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 13:18:33 -0800 (PST)
From: Jerry Friedman 
Subject: RE: (urth) contra Summa contra Marcus


--- Dan'l Danehy-Oakes  wrote:
> > Doesn't the narrator tell Incanto and his dependents that
> > creatures bigger than a man live in the *bark* of trees on
> > Green?  Unless he's exaggerating for effect, I think they're
> > a lot bigger than redwoods,
> 
> Or, more simply, trees with very thick bark to protect the
> heartwood from giant termites (or whatever).

That's *very* thick bark.  How much room does something bigger than a
man need to live (not "sleep" or "den")--ten feet?  The biggest
sequoia is about 26.5 feet thick 
.  That
suggests ten feet of bark on each side and 6 feet of sapwood and
heartwood?  Possible, I guess, but I took the comment to mean that
Green's trees are to ours as people are to bark beetles; that is, the
trees on Green do grow high, to thousands of feet.

--- He later wrote:

> For such a 
> jerryrigged theory to be acceptable, it requires some kind of 
> "smoking gun" _textual_ evidence
...

I just want to mention that the word is "jury-rigged".  "Jury-rigged"!
That's an ENORMOUSLY important point.  :-)

(Unfortunately, there is a word "jerry-built".)

Jerry Friedman

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