Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 January 24

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

January 24

Corrections/clarifications required on circumnavigation records.

I was reading the article on George_Griffith and noted that he apparently completed a circumnavigation of the globe in 65 days. The article does not specify the date of this adventure but referred to his account published in Pearson's Magazine. It also states that the journey "shattered the existing record". The magazine articles were published in book form in 2010 as "Around the World in 65 days". The blurb on the book says that his journey occurred in 1984. I decided to check what the Wikipedia article on circumnavigation records had to say about this and I noted that the journey was absent from the list on that page. My eye was drawn to the period at which Mr Griffith's journey is said to have taken place, as below.

People or team	Total duration (days)	Departure date	Arrival date	Notes
George Francis Train	67 days, 12 hours, 3 minutes	18 March 1890	24 May 1890	By ships and trains, from Tacoma, Washington
George Francis Train	64 days	9 May 1891	12 July 1891	By ships and trains, from Fairhaven, Washington

Note: Train had made a previous journey in 1872 of 80 days with a stop-over in Paris for a few months.

One of the references used is http://www.wingnet.org/rtw/RTW001O.HTM which states he took 67 days 12 hours and 3 minutes in 1890 and that he repeated this round-the-world trip again in 1892, setting a 60 day record.

The other reference http://www.skagitriverjournal.com/WA/Library/Newspaper/Visscher/Visscher3-Bio2.html says:

Train may have gone to the well once too often, however, because he decided to repeat his fete a year later, using Fairhaven as his base, and announced his goal of completing his trip in 60 days. Visscher, the editor of the Fairhaven Herald, was again on hand as a booster. Almost every source dates this trip in 1892, but both Roth and Lelah Jackson Edson in The Fourth Corner detail his departure from the Fairhaven wharf on May 9, 1891, after he raised $1,000 locally to defray expenses. He returned 64 days later after two missed ships and by that time the luster was off his rose.

The Wikipedia article on Train says the following:

In 1890, Nellie Bly traveled around the world in 72 days, instigating Train to do a second circumnavigation of the earth in the same year. He completed the trip from Tacoma to Tacoma in 67 days 12 hours and 1 minute, a world record at the time.[2][5] A plaque in Tacoma commemorates the point at which his 1890 trip began and ended. Train was accompanied on many of his travels by George Pickering Bemis, his cousin and private secretary. Bemis was later elected as mayor of Omaha, Nebraska.

In 1892, the town of Whatcom, Washington offered to finance yet another trip around the world in order to publicize itself. Train finished this trip in a record 60 days.

So as you can see we have a number of discrepancies here and potentially unreliable references. If Train made his 3rd journey in 1891 or 1892 in either 60 or 64 days he negates the claim of Griffith to have beaten, let alone 'shattered', the world record by completing the journey in 65 days in 1894. I wonder how verifiable each man's journey was, i.e. whether they reported their whereabouts during the journey and if this did not occur whether that invalidates either claim.

I have now discovered that Train's autobiography is available online at https://archive.org/details/mylifeinmanystat00trai. Train says that his third journey took 60 days. 77.95.178.84 (talk) 13:47, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

• The whole article on circumnavigation records seems to need improvement, due to the unclear definition of "circumnavigation". For example, it accepts two flights by Wiley Post that the airtlce on Circumnavigation does not mention, and I remember reading (but I don't remember where, to cite it) that those flights were considerably shorter than the circumference of the Earth. --70.29.13.251 (talk) 19:14, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

• Hi. Here's a source for Griffith: [1] It's a contemporary report that gives his departure date as March 12, from London, and his return date as May 16: 64.5 days. (Search the book for Griffith and check both results; one give the departure and the other the arrival.) 70.67.222.124 (talk) 21:41, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

• Re Train, he seems to have said different things at different times. As you note, his autobiography claims 60 days in 1892 on his third time making the voyage. In this source, he said he made the trip five times and reached 60 days on the fifth trip. Best you can probably do is report the discrepancies in the article.

If you want to go to the trouble of setting up a seven-day trial account, you will be able to get a lot of dates from contemporary newspapers at newspapers.com. For example, the Vancouver Daily World and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer seem to have been reporting regular updates on a Train round-the-world trip, reported as his third, through May to July 1891.

From the snippet views I glean that he sailed for Kobe on May 11, 1891 from Vancouver, after his actual official departure an unknown period of time earlier from Whatcom, Washington (on May 8, per your skagitriver source?). The Philadephia Inquirer reported his arrival in New York on July 9, 1891,[2] with the cross-continental journey to Washington still to come. Even if May 11 was Day 2, that has him arriving in New York on Day 61 with no chance of doing 60 days. 70.67.222.124 (talk) 21:41, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

The problem with a list of fastest circumnavigations is that of definition — wouldn't anyone at Amundsen-Scott be able to complete a circumnavigation in a few seconds? Nyttend (talk) 04:37, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

How old are the Torslunda plates?

The article offers no inkling of their age. It just says they were dug up in the 1870s. The reader will likely be curious as to whether they date from the 1800's, the 800's, or the 600's. Lots of dates as to when they were displayed, but nothing as to radiocarbon dating of the context in which they were found, or other traditional scientific methods of archeology as opposed to older practice of just digging things up and displaying it. Edison (talk) 15:57, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

There's 8 references in the "bibliography" section which are not currently cited, but available for further reading. Have you checked those? --Jayron32 16:07, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

I looked at them before coming here, hoping to find a RS which could be added to The first just raves about how cool it is to scan artifacts with a "lazer" scanner.The second I was unable to use control F or"find" to look for the specific artifact, but it did mention some leather backing surviving, implying radiocarbon dating should be possible. I did not find a date estimate, but did not have time to read every word of the work. The one from the Brit Museum rated an "unsafe site " warning from my computer. Some had no link. The 8th one implied a similar master plate (but not specificlly these" might have been used in the 600's. Edison (talk) 17:00, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

According to the Commons Category page here, "They are all dated to the Vendel era, 550-793 CE." DuncanHill (talk) 16:10, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

The mention in the article of Sutton Hoo would indicate the 6th century. Wymspen (talk) 16:18, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

I saw that, but it says these plates are copies of older plates, and did not say that the Sutton Hoo artifact had decorations actually made from these (copied) master bronzes. People still make replicas of Arthurian weapons for sale at museum gift shops. Granted, 19th century archaeology often amounted to treasure hunting, with little thought of carefully documenting the historical context of the finds, but if there were remnants of the leather backing of the helmets, or other organic material, or pottery or other artifacts found with these,or what culture produced them, there should be some clue as to what century or "age" they date from. The bibliography was not very helpful, and each encyclopedia reader should not have to plow through hundreds of pages of scholarly prose about the joys of "lazer" scanning, or the divine right of kings, looking for this basic information. So far the article just tells the reader they date from before 1870. This article is currently on the front page of Wikipedia as a "Did you know?" I went to it and I still do not know some essential information which should be provided with any encyclopedia article about such artifacts. That is why I came here. Edison (talk) 16:50, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

The Origins of Drama in Scandinavia (p. 66) by Terry Gunnell says: "sixth-seventh century". The Longobards (first Century BC-AD 600): A Tentative Explanation by Noël C. de Caprona says: "The plate has been dated sixth century AD, and could represent a 'lleallhunding' or 'Hunding' berserk" (no preview, but the text is visible as a search result). Alansplodge (talk) 08:53, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

And from the bowels of Google Scholar, Berserk Rage through the Ages (p. 2) by Anatoly Simonovich Liberman: "The Torslunda plate, a Vendel- era (about 6th or 7th century) artefact from Sweden, allegedly linked to berserks" (click on "pdf" to see the text). Alansplodge (talk) 08:57, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

I have added the above to the article. Alansplodge (talk) 20:06, 31 January 2018 (UTC)

U.S. Special Counsel investigation = DOJ or FBI?

Is the Special Counsel investigation (2017–present) directly under the Department of Justice or is it under the Federal Bureau of Investigation? If Department of Justice then does that mean that lying to the Counsel is not a crime (I know that lying to the FBI is a federal crime)? — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)  Please ping me when you respond. 17:56, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

If you read the article you linked, under the first sentence of the unsurprisingly titled section "Origin and powers", it directly and unambiguously answers your first question. Regarding your second question, I didn't do much more than skim it, but this blog post from lowfareblog.com seems to discuss much of the minutiae around the legalities of lying during the current Russia investigation. It may come in useful for you. --Jayron32 18:52, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

What does a sentence range really mean?

When reading reports like this [3] where it says "a judge sentenced him on Wednesday to 40 to 175 years in prison", what does the range "40 to 175 years" actually mean? Is it something like the difference between his the maximum possible incarceration vs. when he would become eligible for parole consideration? And who / what factors determine how long someone will actually serve if the judge's instruction provides such a wide range? Dragons flight (talk) 19:42, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

See if Criminal_sentencing_in_the_United_States#Indeterminate_sentencing or other info in that article helps. Generally the parole board will determine if the prisoner is eligible for release. RudolfRed (talk) 19:48, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that article is not very helpful - it describes a sentence with lower and upper limits, but then says, "the legislature generally sets a short, mandatory minimum sentence that an offender must spend in prison (e.g. one-third of the minimum sentence, or one-third of the high end of a sentence)." That suggests that the actual time served in prison could be as short as one-third of the lower limit, so Dr Nassar might get parole in less than 14 years. That contradicts what the judge said about it being a death sentence (meaning he will die in prison). I prefer the UK system: the maximum sentence is "life" which usually comes with a tariff that must be served in prison before a parole application can be made. In some case the tariff itself is "for life" meaning that the criminal will never be released. Wymspen (talk) 22:31, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

See List of prisoners with whole-life orders. 86.169.56.163 (talk) 09:43, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Those are the upper and lower bounds of the sentence. He's already serving a 60-year term for an earlier trial, adding a minimum of 40 years to the sentence means he will be in jail a minimum of 100 years. --Jayron32 13:53, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

An old tale about a judge handing down a multi-decade sentence to a guy who's already like 80 years old. Defendant: "I can't serve a sentence like that!" Judge: "Well, do the best you can!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:27, 25 January 2018 (UTC)