A GLOBE WITH EVERYTHING

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34130, 17 April 1976, Page 12

A GLOBE WITH EVERYTHING

JOHN DRUMMOND

If we could discover what makes the world go round, would we have discovered the secret of perpetual motion ? And would that mean being able to tap unlimited and endless power?

It was these thoughts which were partly responsible for bringing into existence the world’s largest revolving globe, built by Babson’s Institute in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Such a globe, its creators argued, might well arouse a new interest in the minds of scientists who are keen to solve the many remaining mysteries of the universe.

This massive replica of the earth is a great steel ball, 28ft in diameter, supporting a map of the world in 20 different colours, on a scale of 24 miles to the inch.

For two years engineers, artists and other experts laboured on this unique project, including the globe’s map, inside the grounds of the Babson Institute.

The artist who planned it said on dedication day: “Scores of people worked,

sometimes around the clock, over a period of six months or more to accomplish this, because what you see -here is not just ordinary paintl It is vitreous — it is ceramic. The sun, the rain, the heat and the cold will never affect it. It is glass fused to metal at 1500 deg. Fahrenheit. “It has the strength of steel, the durability of glass, and it is alive, responding to every change of light. You are looking into a layer of glass.”

Some 950 world aeronautical charts were consulted. The gigantic sphere was mounted on a 6-ton hollow steel shaft.

Standing higher than the average two-storey house, the globe is 88ft in circumference and ■ weighs nearly 25 tons. It cost $200,000.

So ingeniously and marvellously constructed is this globe that it takes only a one-horsepower motor to rotate it upon its axis to represent day and night.

So that the seasons can also be simulated, its 6-ton shaft is set at an angle of 23.5 degrees from the vertical (the same way that the earth is tilted), while the shaft itself is supported by a 10-ton triangular carriage

revolving on a circular steel track 20ft in diameter, this movement representing the earth’s passage around the sun. A visitor examining this lovely globe can see within the space of four minutes the entire surface of the earth. He will see 50 major mountain peaks 25 major mountain ranges, 100 principal rivers, innumerable lakes, islands and groups of islands, oceans, seas, bays, and canals, peninsulas, gulfs, straits and capes, as well as all the nations of the world and their capitals and major cities. The depths of the seas and oceans are indicated by different shades of blue, while the heights of mountain ranges are designated by various tones of brown.

But, you may wonder, how can this globe be kept up to date? What happens when boundaries are re-drawn, and new countries come into being? This problem has been foreseen.

The globe itself is made up of 578 curved plates of porcelain enamel, each bolted into place. If changes occur one or more new plates are made showing these changes; they replace the out-dated ones.