Re: The Vinland Map Find Or Fraud?

From: Seppo Renfors (Renfors_at_not.com.au)
Date: 03/10/05 

Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 04:35:34 GMT

David B wrote:
>
> Hu McCulloch wrote in message ...
> >
> >"Steve Marcus" <smarcus_spamout_@cox.net> wrote in message
> >news:H9EWd.48215$7z6.6893@lakeread04...
> >> "Seppo Renfors" <Renfors@not.com.au> wrote in message
> >> news:422AB06A.945DF7D2@not.com.au...
> >
> >For some reason David B's message didn't show up on my
> >Outlook Express newsreader, so I'll answer him and Steve
> >together here.
> >
> >How could the possibility that the VM anatase comes from clay have
> >been "considered and dismissed before Weaver's [1976] paper was ever
> >written," if no one knew that VM-sized anatase particles appear in clay
> >until Weaver's paper? Do you have an actual reference?
>
> Personal communication from the former editor of the journal "Clays and
> Clay Minerals": Mr K. Towe.

...and.... what is that - a secret not to be divulged on this
group.....???
>
> >>> "David B." wrote:
> >>>>Unless somebody can
> >>>> explain why nearly all of the other clay minerals are absent (in
> effect,
> >>>> why anybody would go to the considerable trouble of removing the most
> >>>> important ingredients from "pounce") it's a non-starter.
> >
> >As I point out on my webpage, the McCrones did find aluminum +
> >silicon consistent with 10-19% kaolinite in the anatase-rich particles
> they
> >analyzed. They also found particles they did not bother to analyze that
> >they identified as possibly clay (and therefore of no great interest in
> >1974 before Weaver found pigment-sized anatase in kaolinites).
>
> That "also" is a bit ambiguous.

The hell it is. In context it refers to another part of the map.

> The aluminium + silicon is most likely the
> very same stuff as the "possibly clay" particles.

David, David... you really should be so disingenuous. Hu referred to
several different places in the map, as you know, YOU are now trying
to conflate them to the ONE in order to evade dealing with the actual
issue!

> The problem remains that
> there should be much much more kaolinite than anatase, unless most of the
> kaolinite has been removed from the original clays without removing any of
> the anatase- and if the clay minerals are the result of pouncing, why would
> anybody want to remove the component of clay which makes it most effective
> as pounce? Towe & co's informal dismissal of the clay contamination theory
> in 1974 was based on this problem of wrong proportions of ingredients.

As this clay issue has NOT been investigated beyond what is known from
McCrone (who bypassed it deliberately). You assertions re clay have no
backing either because of it being virtually ignored. Therefor the
clay/kaolinite issue cannot simply be dismissed as you try to do.

The alternative claims are even more ridiculous. For instance the
claim, a printing ink requiring heat to set was used on the map.
Ridiculous! It takes some 6 -> 8 hours to cure without heat! It is too
thick to use for writing and it could NOT produce the fine size text
found on the map.

If that ink was thinned to make it manageable for writing with, it
would have produced a much wider line (probably also a longer drying
time) - a size line NOT found on the map. Further more, it would have
produced inevitable smears not found either. One more VERY important
thing is the inconstant finding of anatase in the ink. A COMMERCIAL
anatase product would have it disbursed evenly throughout the ink
lines - it is NOT. This is evident from both McCrone's study and that
virtually worthless paper by Brown & Clark.

Lets face it, David evades dealing with the finding "...a few square
micrometers... that appeared to be rich in the anatase crystalline..."
that is to say very localised pockets in a larger area being studied.
In other words NOT as one would expect from a commercial product.
However of something found in nature, one CAN expect the crystals to
be clumped together.

Nobody but NOBODY has managed to prove that commercially produced
anatase was in fact used on the map. It requires more than mere
assertion to that effect - but nothing else exists. The practical
method of anatase ending up on the map is another matter the true
believers cannot explain! The simplicity of the pure assertion is good
for the true believers, otherwise it would require an expansion of the
conspiracy theory to include other people and professions, a mere
assertion does not need to address! That PAINT was used to lay down a
line, then overwritten is even more ridiculous and in fact quite
impossible to achieve! Yet it doesn't stop true believers pushing this
nonsense as "fact".

For a fake to exist it requires three things - motive, opportunity and
ability to create the thing. "Opportunity" requires sufficient blank
parchment to exist in the right place of the book - after 6 pages of
paper. If this is so, I don't really know as true believers don't care
if this fits the picture they are painting. "Ability" means the
impossible double inking would have to be done perfectly at the very
first go.... yeah right...!! Kirsten's idea on the "motive" and
"ability" is fairy tale material. It simply isn't remotely believable
or even plausible! None of the three critical items have been
established, not even as a plausible hypothesis to lend strength to
the conspiracy theorists.

That a map exists, with known information on it, on the right age
parchment, in the correct place in the book with genuine pages either
side of it, is hardly anything out of the ordinary. Nor is it
something that requires any quantum leaps of faith as the claims of
"fake" requires.

[..] 

-- 
SIR - Philosopher unauthorised 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The one who is educated from the wrong books is not educated, he is
misled.
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