Horsing Around

[Wilmer Rivers]

I finally got around to buying the last several issues of Gladstones
this weekend, so I'm no longer the only person on this list who hadn't
read "Horsing around with History."  I have only one comment to make
on Van Horn's artwork - I **really** don't like the shapes of the
ducklings' heads.  They look like bubbles with tiny bills stuck on.
What's the point of shortening the bills - is it to make them look
more like human kids and less like ducks?  As for the story, I agree
with the comments posted here that it seemed like a rambling set-up
for a single gag.  One technical point, too: I don't think HD&L's
use of that star chart for navigation made any sense.  They claimed
that if they were one degree south of their current position, then
the North Star and some unspecified bright star would be separated
by the proper angle.  That's not right - the separation of the North
Star from any other star (its astronomical "declination") is the
same, no matter where you are on the earth.  What would change if
you sailed south would be the elevation above the horizon of both
the North Star and the other star.  But both elevations would change
by the same amount, so the separation of the two stars would remain
constant.  This happens because the "fixed" stars are so far away
that their parallax can't be measured over so short a baseline as
the diameter of the earth.

Wilmer Rivers

P.S.:  This reminds me that I had planned for almost 2 weeks now to
       post a response to some comments about "The Universal Solvent."
       Maybe I'll get around to it tomorrow!  Hmmm.... I sound like
       Gus Goose.