p. 5 | 1989.-Birds in Water by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jan 30, 1907

1989.—Birds in Water.

By Editor

In your Question Department, 1953, you say: “Many have been studying for years and years how birds lighter than the same bulk of water can sink in water and remain so for hours, and how they can rise to great heights and maintain a long flight for days even.” Do you mean to say birds can live under water for hours, and then come up, rise to great heights, etc.?

No; we mean that there are birds which will submerge their whole body, their head only visible above the water, and so remain for hours. The bodies of these birds are much lighter than the water they displace. How do they do it? Other birds, like geese and ducks, will rise with no apparent effort and take long flights far above the earth for many hundreds of miles. What makes it possible?

1990.—The Letters “U” and “V.”

Please tell me thru the columns of your paper where I can substantiate the fact that the letter “V” was used interchangeably with “U,” and that “V” had with the Romans a numerical value of five.

“The International Encyclopedia” under the letter “U” says: “Originally U was the uncial and cursive [writing] form, and V the capital form. The two were differentiated about the fifteenth century a.d., when V was limited to represent the consonant sound. Before the fifteenth century, small v and u were used interchangeably.” In such case, of course, both had the same value as V now has, namely, five, as they were the same letter.