When did exploration of the North Pole begin?   Exploration of the Arctic began as early as the sixteenth century when man sought a short cut to the East, for more economic trade routes, over the ‘top of the world’. English and Dutch seamen such as Chancellor, Frobisher, Davis and Hudson and Barents, all sought channels into the Pacific to the north of America and Asia. The attempts became known as...

What is map projection? Map projection is the result of transferring the circular or spherical surface of the globe onto a flat piece of paper. This is done by drawing a system of lines, called the meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude, over the area of the earth. The two most commonly used project ions, although there are many more, are the Mercator and the Mollweide. The Mollweide projection,  or...

When did man begin to discover that there were other continents? The Greeks had an astonishing knowledge of the world around them, the advances they made in science and astronomy hold good, even today. But the Romans who came to power after them in 500 BC were really better warriors than they were men of thought. The routes they followed for their invasion of England, begun in 55 BC were, on...

Who drew the first accurate map of the known world? The most knowledgeable map-maker of Ancient Times was undoubtedly Ptolemy. He was a Greek astronomer living in Egypt about 200 years after Christ. He drew the world’s first most accurate map, but before doing this he carried out an enormous amount of research. He collected information from every source available to him. He interviewed Greek sail-ors who had travelled, anywhere at...

When was the first map drawn?   The Egyptians were the first people to have been known to draw maps, which would have been as early as 3000 BC. However, their estimations were very wrong, as they thought Egypt was the centre of the world and this world was surrounded by water. But none of these maps remain, as they we drawn on papyrus, which is a material paper and so...

How many kinds of whale are there? There are many different kinds of whale, but they can be grouped into two sorts : those with teeth and those without. Those without teeth are called baleen whales. Whales such as the blue whale (above), the right whale and the humpback whale are all baleen whales. In-stead of teeth, baleen whales have enormous rows of brushes, called baleen plates, inside their mouths attached...

Are whales fish? Although whales spend all their time in the water, and are shaped rather like fish, they are mammals, however, just like you or I. Fish use their gills to take in oxygen which is dissolved in water, but whales must come to the surface to breathe air, although they can stay under water for nearly an hour. Instead of moving their tails from side-to-side when swimming (as fish...

How fast and powerful are railway locomotives? The fastest steam engine was the British `Mallard’ which reached 203 km (126 miles) per hour. The most powerful were the huge engines built in the USA, such as the ‘Mallet’ locomotive. There are now few steam trains. Instead we use electric and diesel engines. Electric trains pick up current from extra ‘power’ rails or overhead cables. The French TGVs (Train Grand Vitesse, French...