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Tidbits® of Haywood County NORTH & SOUTH: POLES APART • Early astronomers plotted the circle of the sun passing in orbit around the earth. (This was in the days when they thought the earth was the center of the universe.) The circle passed through the constellation of the Great Bear, whose name was Arktos. That is how the northernmost regions of the Earth near that circle became known as the Arctic. The prefix ‘ant-’ means opposite, so the Antarctic is the southernmost region of the planet. • The Antarctic has about eight times as much ice as the Arctic because the Antarctic is a continent and the Arctic is an ocean covered with ice. Land does not hold heat nearly as well as water does, so the ocean moderates the climate in the Arctic. The Arctic is not always cold: summer temperatures above 70°f (21°C) are fairly common. At Fort Yukon near the Arctic Circle in Alaska, it has even reached 100°f. (38°C) in the shade. However, the average year-round temperature in the Antarctic is -18°f. (-28°C) Summertime highs seldom go above freezing.
• Both the Arctic and Antarctic are classified as deserts because annual precipitation totals less than 4 inches (10 cm) a year— but the snow that falls stays. In the Arctic, the ice eventually drifts and melts, but in the Antarctic it accumulates year after year. The deepest layers of ice in the Antarctic are some 3 million years old. In the Antarctic, the ice averages more than a mile (1.6 km) thick and is over 14,000 feet (4.2 km) deep at its thickest. The ice in the Arctic Ocean averages only 8 feet (2.5 m) thick. Only 5% of the Antarctic continent is ice-free. The weight of the ice on the Antarctic continent is so great that it has pressed much of the land below sea level. If all the ice were 1. Is the book of Simon in the Old or New Testaremoved, much of the land would probably not ment or neither? 2. From 1 Samuel 3, whose voice did Samuel rise above the water. think it was when he first heard God calling him? POLES APART Jonathan, Saul, Ahiah, Eli • There are only three species of flowering plants 3. How many chosen men of Israel did Saul take living in the Antarctic, plus 75 kinds of moss with him to the wilderness of Ziph to search for and 400 kinds of lichen. In the Arctic, there David? 12, 100, 200, 3,000 are 900 types of flowering plants, 400 kinds of 4. The word of God is quick, and powerful, and moss, and 2,000 species of lichen. The largest sharper than any ...? Tongue, Knife, Two-edged known land animal living on the Antarctic sword, Wit continent year-round is a wingless relative 5. From Genesis 26, where did Isaac stay when of the common housefly that is only 1/10th there was a famine in the land? Gerar, Endor, of an inch (.2 cm) long. The Arctic teams Sychar, Lydda with wildlife such as polar bears, wolves, and 6. What insect was a plague on the Egyptians? musk ox. Furthermore, there are about 315 Wasp, Locust, Flea, Cockroach million people living within a radius of 2,700
miles (4,345 km) of the North Pole, but only 4,600 living within the same distance of the South Pole— and half of those only live there temporarily.
TRIVIA TEST By Fifi Rodriguez
1. LITERATURE: What 19th-century novel's opening line is, "Call me Ishmael"? 2. HISTORY: The Battle of Hastings was fought for control of which country? 3. U.S. STATES: How much did the United States pay Russia for the Alaskan territory in 1867? 4. MUSIC: Who sang the duet in the pop song "Ebony and Ivory"? 5. GEOGRAPHY: Where is Mount Vesuvius? 6. TELEVISION: Who played Morticia on "The Addams Family" TV series? 7. INVENTIONS: Who pioneered the concept of a blood bank? 8. ENTERTAINERS: Which entertainer also is known as "The Divine Miss M"? 9. AD SLOGANS: Which company featured the ad slogan: "A diamond is forever"? 10. FAMOUS QUOTES: What 20th-century civil-rights leader said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter"?