Obelisks!

At the Guardian, Philip Pullman on the last man who knew everything:

how the human vocal organs worked, the fact that giants probably didn't exist but dragons probably did, how to make a magic lantern, what the Potala palace in Lhasa looked like, and the habits and appearance of the celebrated juvenile Tartar demon and murderer, Phut.

The book he's reviewing sounds wonderful.

The knowledge

At the WSJ, Jeremy Philips on Andrew Lih's history of Wikipedia. (Via Bookforum.)

And while we are on the topic of information, here's a nice bit from Dorothy Wickenden's piece in this week's New Yorker, on the teacher certification exam that her grandmother and grandmother's friend (both Smith graduates) had to pass in order to teach in Colorado in 1916:

[T]he tests turned out to be more idiosyncratic than they had expected, including questions such as "Describe the changes that take place in 'egg on toast' during the process of digestion," "Explain methods of bidding on and letting road work by contract," and "Give a physiological reason for not boxing children's ears."

Temza

At the Times, extracts from a Philip Howard's alluring-sounding The British Library: A Treasure House of Knowledge. On the map reproduced above:

This 1977 map looks unusual but strangely familiar. It shows parts of Essex and Kent linked across the River Thames by the Dartford Tunnel, but it is in Russian. It was not realised outside the Eastern Bloc that the Soviet military were secretly mapping the world at several scales. Their maps are backed with detailed information, down to the types of trees and the number of telephones in a village.

Diplopedia

The State Department embraces the wiki.

Sightings

Alice on lemur sightings and the ramifying properties of the large and liberal theme.