(urth) Wall of Nessus

[David Stockhoff]

I think Severian alludes to this.

Jack Smith wrote:
> A 9-mile-high wall would cast a long shadow across the city while the 
> sun was rising or setting.
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 14, 2010 at 1:41 PM, Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net 
> <mailto:rclackey at stic.net>> wrote:
>
>     Gerry Quinn quoted and wrote:
>     > > At one point in URTH Sev, going on about the size of the
>     mirrored sails
>     on
>     > > The Ship, said that the Wall was "a few leagues in height and
>     a few
>     > > thousand
>     > > long" (p-103). Bah! That's a Big Dumb Object.
>     >
>     > Too big.  I prefer to maintain my original assumption that the
>     Wall is of
>     > ordinary height and Severian made a typo.
>
>     It's not a typo. Sev also went on about the Wall's improbable height
>     (clouds; the few birds that could fly over it) just as the theater
>     troupe
>     got to the gate. The gate itself is like a huge cave in it.
>
>     James Wynn wrote:
>     > What would the radius of the city need to be for a wall of that
>     height
>     > to disappear beyond the horizon at ground level?
>
>     Mantis made some calculations along these lines, based on
>     scattered comments
>     in the books about the Wall's height, in the Wall entry in LU2.
>
>     And later:
>     > I presumed that Wolfe would use the "Roman" league which is 2.22
>     km or
>     > 1.4 miles. It's still to tall for "several leagues".
>
>     FWIW, in an appendix to CLAW, Wolfe said that his use of league
>     means a
>     distance of "about three miles".
>
>     -Roy
>
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>
>
> -- 
> Best wishes,
> Jack
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