Medical Journals: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

(Taken from Investment Moats - Stock Market Investing by Drizzt first posted on 18 December 2012: http://www.investmentmoats.com/stock-market-commentary/myers-briggswhich-are-you/)

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment is designed as psychometric questionnaire used to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions. These preferences were first established as typological theories by Carl Gustav Jung. Jung theorized that there are four principal psychological functions by which people use to experience the world. They are sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking. One of these four functions would be dominant most of the time. 

The original developers of the MBTI were Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers. They turned their interest of human behavior, after studying extensively Jung's works, into a devotion of turning the theory of psychological types to practical use. They began creating the MBTI during World War II, believing that a knowledge of personality preferences would help women who were entering the industrial workforce for the first time to identify the sort of war-time jobs where they would be "most comfortable and effective". The initial questionnaire grew into the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which was first published in 1962. The MBTI focuses on normal populations and emphasizes the value of naturally occurring differences.

Early To Rise - What Jim Brown Knows

(By Alexander Green)
- Reproduced from an article entitled: If You Knew What Jim Brown Knows, first published in Early to Rise on 27 July 2010

Jim Brown is arguably the best all-around athlete ever.

He was a track star, one of the nation's finest lacrosse players, averaged 38 points per game on his high school basketball team, and broke NFL records as a running back for the Cleveland Browns. In 2002, The Sporting News named him the greatest football player of all time.

He was pretty handy with a tennis racquet, too. And he liked to wager on his matches.
At a Las Vegas tennis club in 1979, Brown was frustrated when his opponent cancelled a money match at the last minute.

A stranger approached him with a young boy. His proposal -- delivered in a thick foreign accent -- was preposterous. He bet Brown that his nine-year-old son -- short and scrawny even for his age -- could beat him in tennis.

And he was cocky about it. He offered to put up his house.

We can only imagine what ran through Brown's mind as he sized up the half-pint. After all, this wasn't a bet. It was an insult.

The stranger had chosen the wrong man to outrage. Brown wasn't just an athletic phenom. His NFL career could be summed up in his oft-quoted remark, "Make sure when anyone tackles you he remembers how much it hurts."

He countered that they should make the bet an even $10,000.

The club owner tried to warn Brown. And while he did reduce his wager, he wouldn't be talked out of the match, insisting, "The man needs to be taught a lesson."

And so Jim Brown strode off to the courts. With Mike Agassi and his young son Andre in tow.

It didn't take Brown long to recognize his error. He had been hustled.

We seldom deliver lessons in humility. More often than not, we wind up on the receiving end. This is especially true in my bailiwick, the investment arena, where high confidence and big egos are routinely taken down like the Berlin Wall.

Every successful investor develops an abiding sense of humility, a deep respect for the unknowable. What will happen tomorrow or next week is always an open question.

And if you don't know who you are, the stock market is an expensive place to find out. Just ask Victor Niederhoffer.

A professional trader and former finance professor, Neiderhoffer established his reputation as hedge fund great George Soros's partner, managing his fixed income and foreign exchange investments from 1982-1990.

Niederhoffer is a smart guy and an unorthodox thinker, drawing on many disciplines -- including psychology, philosophy, and advanced mathematics -- to make his trading decisions. His 1997 book, The Education of a Speculator, was a New York Times bestseller.

But in the fall of that same year, he got his post-graduate degree. Viewing the Asian market meltdown as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Neiderhoffer invested his hedge fund in Thai bank stocks, confident the government would never let them fail. He was wrong. His fund quickly lost more than three-quarters of its value and he was forced to close its doors.

Niederhoffer is an experienced, insightful guy. But I wish he'd written The Education of a Speculator after his hedge fund collapsed, not before. That would have been a book worth reading.

Niederhoffer is hardly alone, of course. History has not been particularly kind to all manner of experts and their definitive pronouncements:

1. Anglican Archbishop James Ussher (1581-1656) researched the dates of Biblical events and painstakingly subtracted all the Old Testament generations. When he finished his calculations, he proclaimed that the earth was created on October 23, 4004 B.C. at nine o'clock in the morning. (We now know he missed his mark by 4.6 billion years or so.)
2. In 1899, Charles H. Duell, commissioner of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, proposed shuttering the office. "Everything that can be invented," he said, "has been invented."
3. In 1927, The New York Times heralded Philo T. Farnsworth's new creation, the television, with a front-page article and this subhead: "Few Commercial Possibilities Seen."
4. Walter Lippman, one of the 20th century's most respected journalists and thinkers, wrote in a column dated April 27, 1948, "Among the really difficult problems of the world, the Arab-Israeli conflict is one of the simplest and most manageable."
5. In 1962, a little-known Liverpool group called The Beatles auditioned for Tony Meehan of Decca Records. They performed 15 songs in just under an hour. Decca sent them packing, saying "Guitar groups are on the way out" and "The Beatles have no future in show business."

It's not just the "experts" who flounder, of course. Life is one long lesson in humility. Our perceptions can deceive us. Trust gets misplaced. Knowledge grows and opinions change. Even when the truth is with us, there are often exceptions.

It's natural to seek out experts who can guide us. But outside of physics and chemistry, predictions about the future are best taken with a whole shaker of salt.

We are all swimming in a vast sea of the unknown. The sooner we recognize this -- and embrace it in our personal and business lives -- the better our chances of staying afloat.

P.S. Alexander Green, Investment Director of The Oxford Club, has more than 20 years of experience as a research analyst, investment advisor, financial writer, and portfolio manager. He is the author of The Secret of Shelter Island: Money and What Matters, as well as the editor of "Spiritual Wealth," a free e-letter about the pursuit of the good life.

Financial Journals - US Dollars (Part 2)

(By Porter Stansberry)
- Reproduced from The Daily Crux: First published on 29 June 2010

Porter Stansberry: U.S. is headed for one of the worst inflations in history

"It could never happen here"... That's the refrain we hear from our friends and colleagues. They say it after we've gone over all of the numbers involved in the government's financial position and explained our out-of-consensus view that the U.S. is not only heading toward a period of massive inflation, but such an outcome has long since ceased to be avoidable. People respond – "Oh, that could never happen here." – in the same way they repeat a catechism.

We don't think our view is shocking or even surprising. Much like with our GM analysis (we predicted bankruptcy as early as 2005), when you simply look at the numbers, the outcome is unavoidable.

And then there's history. Not a single brand of paper money has ever lasted. Or you might say, in all of recorded human history, gold remains undefeated. We expect that trend to continue. Likewise, we can't recall any nation that ever repaid its debts (in sound money) once they'd grown to 100% of GDP. And watching our neighbors "strategically" defaulting on their mortgages in record numbers, we see no reason to expect Americans will prove to be any more honest about their government's obligations.

Since America isn't the first powerful democracy to default through inflation, it may pay for investors to be familiar with the most famous such event...

In 1915, just after World War I began, you could exchange 4.2 German marks for one U.S. dollar – and that was when the U.S. dollar was still backed by gold. As you know, Germany lost the war. Its people were literally starving by the end, thanks to the British blockade. With no alternative except starvation and annihilation, Germany accepted an armistice that demanded $12.5 billion in reparations. The debt was equal to 100% of Germany's GDP prior to the war. At the time, the exchange rate stood at 65 marks to the dollar, a devaluation of roughly 95%. Most people believe Germany's hyperinflation was caused by this war debt. Not exactly.

After the war, Germany was broke... That's true. But the mark was cheap. It seemed like a terrific investment opportunity. Most people believed Germany would find a way to finance its debts. We imagine foreign investors at the time said, "Oh, hyperinflation could never happen in Germany..." And so speculators pumped another $2 billion of additional credit into Germany. Then came trouble. Germany's main creditor (France) refused to renegotiate the terms of the armistice. And the German people lost confidence in their own government. The people didn't want to pay the debts. Assassinations began to occur, most notably the murder of Walther Rathenau – the foreign minister. Investors lost confidence in the country. They abandoned the mark.

German prices rose forty fold in 1922. The mark fell from 190 to 7,600 to the dollar. When Germany failed to make a foreign debt payment in 1923, 40,000 French and Belgian troops invaded. To appease its creditors, the German government printed more money. It issued 17 trillion marks in 1923 (compared to 1 trillion in 1922). By August 1923, a dollar was worth 620,000 marks. By early November 1923, the exchange rate hit 630 billion to one.

Could something like this happen in the U.S.? Not exactly. We doubt, for example, China will ever attempt to invade the U.S. to force debt repayment. But we think what will likely happen could easily be worse than Weimar Germany. You see, the mark wasn't the foundation of the world's economy. Today, more than 60% of all bank reserves around the world are U.S. Treasury obligations. As the U.S. continues to run massive annual deficits and as the Fed engages in "quantitative easing," the world's supply of money is growing, by large amounts. Sooner or later, people holding paper money of every variety, not just Uncle Sam's, will come to doubt its most important quality – the stability of its exchange value. The resulting massive inflation will not merely strike the U.S., but the entire world.

Financial Journals - US Dollars (Part 1)

(By Porter Stansberry)
- Reproduced from The Daily Crux: First published on 11 May 2010

Porter Stansberry: The U.S. dollar is about to implode

Dear subscribers... we hope you pay special attention to today's Digest. The world has officially entered what we believe will be the final chapter of the U.S. dollar's reign as the world's reserve currency. The dollars in your wallet now not only back bankrupt U.S. money center banks and subprime home "owners"... they are also officially backing all of the economies of Europe. The world's monetary system has evolved into a new kind of global socialism. We don't think that can be bullish for long.

Here are the facts we've been told so far... The European Central Bank (the ECB) will spend $1 trillion (750 billion euro) bailing out Europe's sovereign borrowers (like Greece, Spain, and Portugal). It will also purchase billions of troubled assets from Europe's largest banks – like UniCredit. The mechanisms for these purchases will likely be convoluted. The EU treaties contain a no-bailout clause, forbidding any member to "be liable for or assume the commitments of" another EU country. And the European Central Bank cannot lend to countries or buy their debt directly. To get around the technicalities, the EU created an off-balance-sheet entity that will "borrow" the money and lend it to countries in trouble. Whether this matters to the EU's creditors or not, we can't say... but we certainly wouldn't lend to an off-balance-sheet entity of a central bank that's not represente d by any country. Buying euros used to be a game of "who owes me nothing." Now, it will be a game of "whose off-sheet entity owes me nothing." We doubt that will make Europe more creditworthy in the long term.

What does any of this have to do with the U.S. dollar? More than you'll ever hear anywhere else. On paper, the money is supposed to come from Europe's biggest governments and the IMF. But in reality, most of the money will be borrowed from the U.S. Federal Reserve, which just happened to re-open its trillion-dollar swap account with the ECB this weekend. Ironically, the Federal Reserve says these loans are risk-free because the counterparty is a central bank (or at least the off-balance-sheet entity of a central bank). But if the ECB is truly creditworthy, why couldn't Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy, or Ireland raise the money for themselves?

At the beginning of the year, we declared rising interest rates in the U.S. as "the single most important trend in finance." We believe interest rates on long-term U.S. government bonds will rise to compensate investors for the increased risk of owning paper-backed sovereign debt. Our logic is simple: The more money the U.S. prints to bail out banks and other sovereign borrowers, the riskier the U.S. balance sheet becomes. By the first half of 2010, the Fed had already spent $2 trillion to bail out Wall Street's banks and the U.S. mortgage market. And as we reminded subscribers just last Friday, because the world's banking system uses the U.S. dollar as its reserve currency, the Fed would eventually be forced to bail out Europe's economy. Indeed, that's exactly what happened over the weekend. The U.S. Federal Reserve has officially become the world's lender of last resort. We would humbly suggest these policies will likely lead to a permanent loss of value for holders of U.S. dollars.

Why are we so concerned? Printing money to bail out borrowers around the world will not solve the problems of over-leveraged governments or debt-ridden economies. It simply shifts the risks from private balance sheets to the U.S. government's. The U.S. dollar has assumed all of these risks. Our currency has become a ticking time bomb.

You can watch the dollar die, one day at a time, by keeping your eye on the growing spread between the value of long-term U.S. bonds and the price of gold. Over the last year – even as the U.S. economy apparently improved – the spread widened by about 35%.

The Cellist of Sarajevo

It was May 27th in 1992 at 4pm in the afternoon, a mortar shell dropped in the middle of a long queue who were then waiting patiently for bread in front of one of the last functional bakeries in the market place. 22 people were killed instantaneously on the spot. Vedran Smailovic looked out of his window to find remnants of flesh, blood, bone, and rubble splattered over the area. It was at that moment where he knew he had had enough.

Smailovic, who was 37 at that time, was the principal cellist of the Sarajevo Opera and was also widely recognised as an extraordinarily talented cello player too. Till 1992, he was occupied with his involvements in the Sarajevo Opera, the Sarajevo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra RTV Sarajevo, and the National Theatre of Sarajevo, as well as playing the festival circuit and working in recording studios.

Smailovic felt infuriated by what was happening around him but helpless to do anything to stop it. He was neither a politician nor a soldier, but just a musician. But did that mean he would just stand by and watch people die, while fearing for his own life all this time? In the long, dark night that followed the bread queue massacre, Smailovic thought long and deep. With the dawn of a new day, he had made up his mind that he would do something, and that something would be what he knew best, and that was to make music.

So every evening after that, for the next consecutive 22 days at exactly 4pm in the afternoon, Smailovic would walk to the middle of the street where the massacre had occurred. He would be dressed formally in his black coattails as if for a performance. There in the middle of the street, he would sit on a battered camp stool placed in the crater created by the mortar shell, with his cello in his hand, playing music. All around him, mortar shells would fall and bullets would fly. Yet he would play on regardless.

For 22 days, one day each for the people who were killed in the bread queue, Smailovic played his cello in the same spot at the ruined Sarajevo market place. He played to ruined homes, smouldering fires, as well as the terrified people hiding in basements. He played for human dignity that was the first casualty in war. But most importantly, he played for life, for peace, and for the possibility of hope that will exist even in the darkest of nights.

As his story began to filter into the press, he became a symbol for peace in Bosnia. An English composer, David Wilde, was so moved and inspired by the story that he wrote a composition for unaccompanied cello, simply called “The Cellist of Sarajevo”.

World renowned cellist Yo Yo Ma played this piece at the International Cello Festival held in Manchester, England, in 1994. When he finished playing the piece, Yo Yo Ma remained bent over his cello and his bow remained resting on the strings. No one in the hall moved, not a sound was made for a long time. Finally still in silence, Yo Yo Ma slowly straightened in his chair, looked out across the audience, and stretched out his hand toward them. All eyes followed as he beckoned someone to come forward to the stage. He was none other than Vedran Smailovic, the Cellist of Sarajevo himself. He rose from his seat and walked down the aisle as Yo Yo Ma came off the stage and headed up the aisle to meet him. With arms flung wide, they met each other in a passionate embrace. The audience then exploded into a chaotic and emotional frenzy of applause and cheering.

More recently, a young Canadian novelist, Steven Galloway, was also similarly inspired so much so that he wrote a poignant short novel in the same setting as the actual incident itself and whose title was also called “The Cellist of Sarajevo”.

So what does “The Cellist of Sarajevo” really stand for? It is the name of a bestselling book. And it is also the name of soul stirring cello composition. But most importantly, it is the name of life, of peace, and of the possibility that hope will exist even in the darkest of nights.

Spear of Destiny - The spear that pierced Christ's side

The Spear of Destiny, sometimes known as the Lance, Spear Luin or Spear of Longinus, is claimed to be the spear that pierced the side of Jesus when he was on the cross. It is described in John 19:31-37 as being used by a Roman soldier. Later Christian tradition would give the soldier's name as Gaius Cassius, and he is later called Longinus.

It is superstitiously believed that whosoever might hold the spear would have the power to conquer the world but losing it would mean instant death. The legend states that since the Spear had pierced the body of God, that would be Jesus Christ, it became imbued with some kind of magical power and therefore was a weapon capable of defeating any opponent. It is rumoured that the spear even has the power to kill an angel.

According to its legend, it has passed through the hands of influential world leaders throughout the ages including Constantine, Justinian, Charlemagne, Otto the Great, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, the Habsburg Emperors, and Adolf Hitler.

The earliest reports of the Spear were circa A.D. 570, described as having been on display in the basilica of Mount Zion in Jerusalem adjacent to the Crown of Thorns, which was wore by Jesus Christ on the day he was cruxified on the cross. The point of the spearhead was alleged to have been snapped following the Persian conquest of Jerusalem in A.D. 615. The point was set into an icon, and found its way to the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. It was later transported to France, where it remained in the Sainte Chapelle until the 18th century. The icon was briefly moved to the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris during the French Revolution, but it subsequently disappeared. The lower section of the spearhead was allegedly conveyed from Jerusalem to Constantinople sometime in the 8th century. It was sent by Sultan Beyazid II as a gift to Pope Innocent VIII in 1492; Innocent had the relic placed in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It still resides there. The Catholic Church makes no claim as to its authenticity.

The holy spear that was used by the Holy Roman Emperors (cited from Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor on, the spear described above) as a part of their imperial insignia found its way to Vienna, Austria, where they are kept in a museum.

Hitler's interest in the relic probably originated with his interest in the 1882 opera named “Parsifal”, which was in turn written by Hitler’s favorite composer, Richard Wagner. The opera’s plot revolves around a group of knights and their guardianship of the Holy Grail, as well as the recovery of the Spear.

On March 12, 1938, the day Hitler annexed Austria, he arrived in Vienna a conquering hero. He made his way to the Schatzkammer in the Hofmuseum where he took possession of the Spear which he immediately sent to St. Katherine’s Church in Nuremberg, the spiritual capital of Nazi Germany.

One legend maintains that the spear came into the possession of the United States of America on April 30, 1945; specifically, under the control of the 3rd Army led by General George Patton. Later that day, supposedly in fulfilment of the legend, Hitler committed suicide. Patton became fascinated by the ancient weapon and had its authenticity verified. Patton did not go on to use the spear, as orders came down from General Dwight Eisenhower that the complete Habsburg regalia including the Spear of Longinus were to be returned to the Hofburg Palace , where it remains today. This legend has recently been shown to be quite false. The spear was not recovered until roughly six months after Hitler's suicide, and Patton never had possession of it.

N.B. It should be noted that there is a historical figure named Gaius Cassius Longinus, one of the conspirators responsible for the murder of Gaius Julius Caesar which occurred on the Ides of March, being March 15, in 44 BC.

Natural Nuclear Reactors in Oklo

(Reproduced in full from the fact sheet as published by the U.S. Department of Energy - Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management under the following website: http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0010.shtml)

Creating a nuclear reaction is not simple. In power plants, it involves splitting uranium atoms, and that process releases energy as heat and neutrons that go on to cause other atoms to split. This splitting process is called nuclear fission. In a power plant, sustaining the process of splitting atoms requires the involvement of many scientists and technicians.

It came as a great surprise to most, therefore, when, in 1972, French physicist Francis Perrin declared that nature had beaten humans to the punch by creating the world’s first nuclear reactors. Indeed, he argued, nature had a two-billion-year head start. Fifteen natural fission reactors have been found in three different ore deposits at the Oklo mine in Gabon, West Africa. These are collectively known as the Oklo Fossil Reactors.

And when these deep underground natural nuclear chain reactions were over, nature showed that it could effectively contain the radioactive wastes created by the reactions.

No nuclear chain reactions will ever happen in a repository for high-level nuclear wastes. But if a repository were to be built at Yucca Mountain, scientists would count on the geology of the area to contain radionuclides generated by these wastes with similar effectiveness.

Nature’s reactors

In the early 1970s, French scientists noticed something odd about samples of uranium recovered from the Oklo mine in Gabon, West Africa. All atoms of a specific chemical element have the same chemical properties, but may differ in weight; these different weights of an element are known as isotopes. Some uranium samples from Gabon had an abnormally low amount of the isotope U-235, which can sustain a chain reaction. This isotope is rare in nature, but in some places, the uranium found at Oklo contained only half the amount of the isotope that should have been there.

Scientists from other countries were skeptical when first hearing of these natural nuclear reactors. Some argued that the missing amounts of U-235 had been displaced over time, not split in nuclear fission reactions. "How," they asked, "could fission reactions happen in nature, when such a high degree of engineering, physics, and acute, detailed attention went into building a nuclear reactor?"

Perrin and the other French scientists concluded that the only other uranium samples with similar levels of the isotopes found at Oklo could be found in the used nuclear fuel produced by modern reactors. They found that the percentages of many isotopes at Oklo strongly resembled those in the spent fuel generated by nuclear power plants, and, therefore, reasoned that a similar natural process had occurred.

Uranium isotopes decay at different levels

The uranium in the Earth contains dominantly two uranium isotopes, U-238 and U-235, but also a very small percentage of U-234, and perhaps small, undetectable amounts of others. All of these isotopes undergo radioactive decay, but they do so at different rates. In particular, U-235 decays about six-and-a-third times faster than U-238. Thus, over time the proportion of U-235 to U-238 decreases. But this change is slow because of the small rates of decay.

Generally, uranium isotope ratios are the same in all uranium ores contained in nature, whether found in meteorites or in moon rocks. Therefore, scientists believe that the original proportions of these isotopes were the same throughout the solar system. At present, U-238 comprises about 99.3 percent of the total, and U-235 comprises about 0.7 percent. Any change in this ratio indicates some process other than simple radioactive decay.

Calculating back to 1.7 billion years ago—the age of the deposits in Gabon—scientists realized that the U-235 there comprised about three percent of the total uranium. This is high enough to permit nuclear fissions to occur, providing other conditions are right.

So how did nuclear reactions occur in nature?

Deep under African soil, about 1.7 billion years ago, natural conditions prompted underground nuclear reactions. Scientists from around the world, including American scientists have studied the rocks at Oklo. These scientists believe that water filtering down through crevices in the rock played a key role. Without water, it would have been nearly impossible for natural reactors to sustain chain reactions.

The water slowed the subatomic particles or neutrons that were cast out from the uranium so that they could hit-and split-other atoms. Without the water, the neutrons would move so fast that they would just bounce off, like skipping a rock across the water, and not produce nuclear chain reactions. When the heat from the reactions became too great, the water turned to steam and stopped slowing the neutrons. The reactions then slowed until the water cooled. Then the process could begin again.

Scientists think these natural reactors could have functioned intermittently for a million years or more. Natural chain reactions stopped when the uranium isotopes became too sparse to keep the reactions going.

What happened to the nuclear waste left at Oklo?

Once the natural reactors burned themselves out, the highly radioactive waste they generated was held in place deep under Oklo by the granite, sandstone, and clays surrounding the reactors’ areas. Plutonium has moved less than 10 feet from where it was formed almost two billion years ago.

Today, manmade reactors also create radioactive elements and by-products. Scientists involved in the disposal of nuclear waste are very interested in Oklo because long-lived wastes created there remain close to their place of origin.

The Oklo phenomenon gives scientists an opportunity to examine the results of a nearly natural two billion-year experiment, one that cannot be duplicated in the lab. By analyzing the remnants of these ancient nuclear reactors and understanding how underground rock formations contained the waste, scientists studying Oklo can apply their findings to containing nuclear waste today. The rock types and other aspects of the geology at Oklo differ from those at Yucca Mountain. But this information is useful in the design of a repository at Yucca Mountain. Were the Oklo reactors a unique event in natural history? Probably not. Scientists have found uranium ore deposits in other geological formations of approximately the same age, not only in Africa but also in other parts of the world, particularly in Canada and northern Australia. But to date, no other natural nuclear reactors have been identified.

Scientists believe that similar spontaneous nuclear reactions could not happen today because too high a proportion of the U-235 has decayed. But nearly two billion years ago, nature not only appears to have created her first nuclear reactors, she also found a way to successfully contain the waste they produced deep underground.

The radioactive remains of natural nuclear fission chain reactions that happened 1.7 billion years ago in Gabon, West Africa, never moved far beyond their place of origin. They remain contained in the sedimentary rocks that kept them from being dissolved or spread by groundwater. Scientists have studied Yucca Mountain to see if the geology there might play a similar role in containing high-level nuclear waste.

221b Baker Street, London, England - The residence of Sherlock Holmes

Between 1881-1904, the above address was occupied by Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his colleague, Dr. John H. Watson, M.D., in accordance with the stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson spent many years at this address in London, England, under the rent of Mrs. Hudson. Characters of every type have frequented the rooms of this place, calling on Holmes for help and assistance on mysteries only the finest criminal detective could unravel. The house was last used as a lodging house in 1936 and the famous first floor study overlooking Baker Street is still faithfully maintained as it was kept in Victorian Times.

Sherlock Holmes, the amateur detective, chemist, violin player, boxer, and swordsman (among other talents), first appeared in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "A Study in Scarlet" in the Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887. A brief description of the house at 221b Baker Street could be found from "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone" as follows:

“It was pleasant to Dr. Watson to find himself once more in the untidy room of the first floor in Baker Street which had been the starting-point of so many remarkable adventures. He looked round him at the scientific charts upon the wall, the acid-charred bench of chemicals, the violin-case leaning in the corner, the coal scuttle, which contained of old the pipes and tobacco.”

History of the Marine's Mameluke Sword

(Reproduced from the Marine Corps Historical Center, HQM)

Marine Officers were initially allowed swords of any style as long as they were yellow-mounted.

In 1805, the Marines assembled a fleet to Derna, Tripoli to put down Barbary Coast pirates taking a toll on American merchant ships in the Mediterranean. Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon and his Marines marched across 600 miles of North Africa's Libyan desert to successfully storm the fortified Tripolitan city of Derna.

Hamet Karamanli, a desert chieftain who took as ruler of Tripoli after the war, presented Marine Lieutenant O'Bannon with his personal scimitar to show his appreciation. The scimitar was used by Mameluke warriors of North Africa. By 1825, all Marine officers were mandated to wear the Mameluke sword.

Except for the period from 1859 to 1875, commissioned Marine officers have carried the Mameluke sword.Regulations adopted in 1859 outlined the specifications for the sword still carried by today's noncommissioned officers. The design is based on the 1850 Army foot officers' sword, which Marine officers carried from 1859 to 1875.

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The story of Lieutenant Presley Neville O'Bannon begins in 1805. For several years American ships plying the waters along the coast of North Africa had been endangered by bands of Barbary pirates who grabbed what loot they wanted, killed many of the seamen or shackled them to lives of slavery. Annual payments in tribute to the area's many rulers were demanded for "protection" of American lives and shipping.

Although the U.S. was tired of a Naval war which had dragged on for several years, it decided to carry the fight to Derne, the inland stronghold of the enemy and chief fortress at Tripoli. To do this, General William Eaton, U.S. Navy agent in charge of the region, asked for 100 Marines from a nearby U.S. squadron. In answer to his request, a young Virginian, Lieutenant Presley Neville O'Bannon and seven enlisted Marines were placed at Eaton's disposal.

O'Bannon was given an odd assortment of men to form a task force formidable enough to seek the surrender of Jussup - the reigning Bey of Tripoli. His handful of Marines, a few Greek mercenaries, and a motley crew of cut-throats and sheiks loyal to Hamet Karamanli, the disgruntled brother of the Tripolitan ruler, started from Egypt on the 600-mile trek across the desert of Barca.

Along the way, every obstacle known to the East beset Eaton and O'Bannon. Instead of the usual two weeks, the trip covered 45 days. O'Bannon was called upon to prevent the Moslem's plundering of the Christians. It was he who brought the numerous revolts of the camel drivers to a halt. He constantly prodded the Arab chiefs who repeatedly refused to proceed. And all these delays prolonged the journey, stretched food rations, and at times, exhausted water supplies.

On the 25th day of April, the forces under Eaton and O'Bannon reached Derne and terms of surrender were offered to the enemy. The flag of truce was immediately returned. "My head or yours," came the reply from the Government's stronghold.

O'Bannon then swung into action. With the support of naval gunfire from American ships in the harbor and accompanied by his seven Marines, he spearheaded a bayonet charge which resulted in the capture of the fort on 27 April, 1805. O'Bannon personally lowered the Tripolitian flag and hoisted the Stars and Stripes for the first time on foreign soil, securing the War with Tripoli.

Hamet Karamanli promptly took as ruler of Tripoli and presented the Marine lieutenant with his personal jeweled sword, the same type used by his Mameluke tribesmen. Today, Marine officers still carry this type of sword, commemorating the Corps' service during the Tripolitian War, 1801 - 05.

Appropriately, the actions of O'Bannon and his small group of Marines are commemorated in the second line of the Marines' Hymn with the words, "To the Shores of Tripoli". These same words were also inscribed across the top of the Marine Corps' first standard, adopted around 1800.

Upon his return to this country O'Bannon was given a welcome by the people of Philadelphia and was acclaimed "The Hero of Derne." After his separation from service, O'Bannon went to Kentucky, where his brother, Major John O'Bannon, a Revolutionary War figure, was living. Shortly after his arrival he was elected by the people of Logan County to represent them in the state legislature. He served from 1812 through 1820.

Presley O'Bannon died on September 12, 1850, and was buried in Henry County, Kentucky. In 1919, through the efforts of the Susannah Hart Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, O'Bannon's body was moved to the Frankfort Cemetery at Frankfurt, Kentucky. On a lonely knoll in the cemetery stands a simple stone marking the grave of the "Hero of Derne". It is among the final resting places of vice-presidents, senators, governors, artists, and scores of local patriots who fell in action against the wilderness and foreign aggressors. Even today, many people still stop by to pay their respects to the man who, by his gallant actions, helped to "set the best traditions of the Corps".

Reichenbach Falls - The place of Sherlock Holmes's death

The Reichenbach Falls in Meiringen, Switzerland, has a total drop of 250 metres. At 90 metres, the Upper Reichenbach Falls is one of the highest cataracts in the Alps. This is the place where Sherlock Holmes apparently died at the end of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series "The Adventure of the Final Problem".

Accordingly, to the storyline of "The Adventure of the Final Problem", Watson was tricked by Holmes's greatest opponent, the criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty, to return back to the hotel where he was then staying with Holmes. After Watson realised at last what had happened, Watson rushed back to Reichenbach Falls only to find no-one there, although he did see two sets of footprints going out onto the muddy dead-end path, but none coming back. Towards the end of the path, there were also signs that a violent struggle had taken place. Apparently, it seemed that Holmes and Moriarty have both died, falling to their deaths down the gorge whilst locked in mortal combat.

Lead of a pencil

The pencil lead, as it is known today, is actually not made of lead. The traditional material used to make the pencil lead is actually a mixture of Bavarian clay (or, to a lesser extent, Georgian clay) and graphite from Sri Lanka, Madagascar or Mexico. The above mixture is bound together with waxes from Brazil or Mexico and gum Tragacanth from Asia. The wood used to encase the pencil lead in the Americas is generally derived from cedar from California, Oregon and some parts of Nevada. On the other hand, white pine and basswood are the preferred pencil wood in Russia and China respectively.

The purest graphite discovered was revealed in 1564, when an oak tree fell during a storm near Borrowdale, England. The shepherds in the area found the rough chunks to be useful to mark their flocks, but the raw material was also very dirty and messy to handle. That problem was addressed by cutting the material into square pieces and encasing them with wood. The material discovered was called "plumbago" (imitation lead). In 1779, K. W. Scheele, a Swedish chemist, found "plumbago" to be a form of carbon and suggested that it be called "graphite" from the Greek word for writing. The first hand made pencils, in the form that we know today are the "Crayons d'Angleterre", made from Borrowdale graphite. One year after the discovery in Borrowdale, Conrad Gesner of Zurich, wrote the earliest surviving description of a pencil in his Treatise on Fossils, illustrated with a woodcut by the author showing a wooden tube holding a piece of graphite. Some scholars believe this "Gesner pencil" was used by Shakespeare.