When you wanted to see what a Finback whale looked like, or were curious about certain words:
cal'a·bash \ˈka-lə-ˌbash\ 1. The common gourd (plant or fruit)
2. The fruit of the calabash tree.
3. A water dipper, bottle, basket, or other utensil, made from the dried shell of the calabash or other gourd
- where did you turn? Perhaps in even the remotest of outposts you might be lucky enough to have a 1909 edition of the Webster's International Dictionary - all 14-1/2 pounds of it. A hefty tome, that might reside upon a designated library table. By oil lamp augmented by firelight, you might discover Ectopistes migratorius, the Passenger pigeon, "the common wild pigeon of North America".
(Sadly five years after that confident declaration, the last passenger pigeon died in captivity.*)
(Sadly five years after that confident declaration, the last passenger pigeon died in captivity.*)
Now the oil lamp, firelight and 3-D dictionary have been replaced by a flickering screen, portable devices and instant gratification. But I will occasionally brave the odd silverfish, Lepisma saccharina and eye-straining typeface, to turn the still sturdy pages and look up words like: Fur'be-low, Pal'imp-sest, and Tol'u-ta'tion.
* http://www.audubon.org/magazine/may-june-2014/why-passenger-pigeon-went-extinct
Marbled endpaper. Webster's International Dictionary, 1909
