Well, starting yesterday the power went out. It will probably be out till this afternoon. But the good news is that we got a generator and a wifi mobile hotspot from my brother Jonathan, so that is how I can write this blog post. We are using the generator for our fridge and sometimes for our coffee makers. PG&E shut off the power to some parts in northern California because the winds could start a fire with a telephone pole coming down.
Author: ezradharris
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Before Roman Roads – History of Inventions – Lesson 24
Before Roman roads, the Romans used dirt paths. The way a dirt path would be formed is when someone or some animal walks in the same place over and over, that place will become a path, it will become just hard dirt and rocks, and will overtime knock off loose dirt or rocks. Even small animals like a little dog can make a path as good as bigger animals.
The problem with dirt paths is that it can get muddy after rainstorms, and that can make traveling along a path very difficult, and muddy roads can cause delays for ancient people trying to get army from one country to the other, which can cause for wars to be lost.
An ideal road in ancient times should be able to to do this:
- Help armies travel quickly
- Be able to send messengers without delay from the rain
- Easy travel with big wagons of supplies without getting stuck in the mud
- Milestones to tell you how far you are going
- The road will always stay whether, or not someone has walked on it or not
Here is a video about Roman roads:
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Eating Dinner on a Mountain!
Yesterday our whole family, except for Nicholas and my Dad, drove up to a mountain near Shasta lake, I don’t know the name of the mountain but, I do know it is somewhere near Shasta Lake because we saw Shasta lake from the top of the mountain. We followed the map coordinates Jonathan sent to us to get to the bottom of the right mountain, then we drove up the gravel road to the top. We had been invited by my brother Jonathan; we weren’t the only ones Jonathan invited. He also invited some of his other friends. We had dinner there, and we ate venison stew, rice, and sweet potatoes. It was a beautiful view when it started to get dark because we could see Redding slowly light up way down below. We drove back down when it started to get dark. All of the other cars followed us till we got to the bottom of the mountain then we each went home our separate ways.
My favorite part was when I saw sunlight descending on the lower hills through the separated clouds.
Here is some videos and pictures my Mom took there:
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Ts’ai Lun Paper Maker – History of inventions – Lesson 23
Ts’ai Lun was born around 50 AD in China. He is the first paper maker that established paper in China.
The story of Ts’ai Lun is that he started work for the imperial Chinese Government, at a very young age, and he was put in charge of inventing new types of weapons. Ts’ai Lun was so good at his job that he rose quickly in the ranks. Because the emperor especially liked his weapons being the best.
The current way of writing during his time was on either bamboo slabs or silk. The problem with those is that bamboo is not as easy to store because each slab of bamboo is like one page in a book. The problem with silk is that it was expensive to buy.
Around 105 AD he was inspired to make paper because he saw the paper wasps make their nests with paper. The wasps made paper by chewing wood fibers from logs and mixing it with saliva. With that, they formed their nests.
Ts’ai Lun created paper by mixing tree bark, scraps of cloth, scraps of hemp, and old fishing nets. Then he mixed that with water and mashed it into a pulp. Then he strained out all other the water from the pulp to turn it into paper
Here is the process in a video:
