Iceberg: Mayday and more

pg 115

I've probably shared the definition of Mayday before, but I'll do it again.

"Mayday! Mayday!" [Note Cussler uses it only twice!]

Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice procedure radio communications. It derives from the French venez m'aider, meaning "come help me".
It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency primarily by mariners and aviators, but in some countries local organisations such as police forces, firefighters, and transportation organizations also use the term. The call is always given three times in a row ("Mayday Mayday Mayday") to prevent mistaking it for some similar-sounding phrase under noisy conditions, and to distinguish an actual Mayday call from a message about a Mayday call.

"Surtsey. Surtsey, by the way, is Icelandic for Submarine."

Surtsey does not mean "submarine." It's most famous use is as the name for an island that appeared off Iceland in the 1960s.
Surtsey (Icelandic, meaning "Surtr's island") is a volcanic island off the southern coast of Iceland. At 63.303°N 20.6047°WCoordinates: 63.303°N 20.6047°W Surtsey is the southernmost point of Iceland. It was formed in a volcanic eruption which began 130 metres (426 ft) below sea level, and reached the surface on 15 November 1963. The eruption lasted until 5 June 1967, when the island reached its maximum size of 2.7 km² (1.0 sq mi). Since then, wind and wave erosion have caused the island to steadily diminish in size: as of 2002, its surface area was 1.4 km² (0.54 sq mi).
The new island was named after Surtr, a fire jötunn or giant from Norse mythology. It was intensively studied by volcanologists during its eruption, and afterwards by botanists and biologists as life forms gradually colonised the originally barren island. The undersea vents that produced Surtsey are part of the Vestmannaeyjar (Westmann Isles) submarine volcanic system, part of the fissure of the sea floor called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Vestmannaeyjar also produced the famous eruption of Eldfell on the island of Heimaey in 1973. The eruption that created Surtsey also created a few other small islands along this volcanic chain, such as Jólnir and other, unnamed peaks. Most of these eroded away fairly quickly.

 "Like an Edgar Allen Poe ghost story."

Edgar Allan Poe (born Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
He was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts; he was orphaned young when his mother died shortly after his father abandoned the family. Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia, but they never formally adopted him. He attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. After enlisting in the Army and later failing as an officer's cadet at West Point, Poe parted ways with the Allans. His publishing career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to "a Bostonian".
Poe switched his focus to prose and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move among several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In Baltimore in 1835, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845 Poe published his poem, "The Raven", to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years after its publication. He began planning to produce his own journal, The Penn (later renamed The Stylus), though he died before it could be produced. On October 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unknown and has been variously attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and other agents.
Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world, as well as in specialized fields, such as cosmology and cryptography. Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today. The Mystery Writers of America present an annual award known as the Edgar Award for distinguished work in the mystery genre.

Iceberg: greed driven industrialists and more

pg 111

Admiral Sandecker, in spite of his boiler plate exterior, was at heart a humanitarian, and he rarely disguised his disgust and hatred for greed-driven indutrialists

(Wikipedia's search function redirects industrialist to business magnate!) A business magnate is an entrepreneur who has achieved wealth and prominence from a particular industry (or industries). Other, similar terms are czar, mogul, tycoon, baron, or oligarch.

The word magnate itself derives from the Latin word magnates (plural of magnas), meaning "great person" or "great nobleman."
The word tycoon is derived from the Japanese word taikun, which means "great lord," and it was used as a title for the shogun. The word entered the English language in 1857 with the return of Commodore Perry to the United States. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was humorously referred to as the Tycoon by his aides John Nicolay and John Hay. The term spread to the business community, where it has been used ever since.
The word mogul refers to the Mughal Empire (mughal being Persian or Arabic for "Mongol") of the Indian subcontinent that existed between 1526 and 1857: the early Mughal emperors claimed a heritage dating back to Mongol ruler Genghis Khan. The modern meaning of the word is supposedly derived from the storied riches of the Mughal emperors, who for example produced the Taj Mahal.
As the term industrialist (from Latin industria, "diligence, industriousness") was more widely used in the context of "old world" physical industries such as steel, oil, newspapers,shipping and rail transport, it has largely been superseded by the other, more modern terms that encompass a wider range of virtual business and commercial activity.

  "So they trike a bonanza on the sea floor."

"Bonanza" is a term used by miners in regard to a large vein or deposit of ore, and commonly refers to The Comstock Lode. (It's also the name of a popular Western TV show starring Lorne Greene and Michale Landon.)

Origin:
1835–45, Americanism ;  < Spanish:  literally, smooth sea (hence, good luck, rich vein of ore), nasalized variant of Medieval Latin bonacia,  equivalent to Latin bon ( us ) good + ( mal ) acia  calm sea < Greek malakía  softness ( malak ( ós ) soft + -ia -ia)

"Dr. Matajic was studying currents below a depth of ten thousand feet, trying to prove a pet theory of his that a deep layer of warm water had the capacity to melt the Pole if only one percent of it could be diverted upward."

 There is no deep layer of warm water.

Deep Ocean Water (DOW) is the name for cold, salty water found deep below the surface of Earth's oceans. Ocean water differs in temperature and salinity, with warm, relatively non-salty water found at the surface, and very cold salty water found deeper below the surface layer. Deep ocean water makes up about 90% of the volume of the oceans. Deep ocean water has a very low temperature, typically from 0 °C (32 °F) to 3 °C (37 °F), and a salinity of about 3.5% (35 psu).^[1]
In specialized locations such as the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii NELHA ocean water is pumped to the surface from approximately 3000 feet deep for applications in research, commercial and pre-commercial activities. DOW is typically used to describe ocean water at sub-thermal depths sufficient to provide a measurable difference in water temperature.
When deep ocean water is brought to the surface, it can be used for a variety of things. Its most useful property is its temperature. At the surface of the Earth, most water and air is well above 3 °C. The difference in temperature is indicative of a difference in energy. Where there is an energy gradient, skillful application of science and engineering can harness that energy for productive use by humans. Assuming the source of deep ocean water is environmentally friendly and replenished by natural mechanisms, it forms a more innovative basis for cleaner energy than current fossil-fuel-derived energy.
The simplest use of cold water is simply for air conditioning: using the cold water itself to cool air saves the energy that would be used by the compressors for traditional refrigeration. Another use could be to replace expensive desalination plants. When cold water passes through a pipe surrounded by humid air, condensation results. The condensate is pure water, suitable for humans to drink or for crop irrigation. Finally, via a technology called Ocean thermal energy conversion, the temperature difference can be turned into electricity.

Iceberg: Celtinium-279 and more

pg 109

"The probe operated by briefly exposing the metallic elements to neutrons given off by a laboratory-produced element called celtinium-279."

 Celtinium is an element invented by Cussler.

"When activated by the neutrons, the elements on the ocean's bottom gave off gamma rays."

Gamma radiation, also known as gamma rays or hyphenated as gamma-rays and denoted as γ, is electromagnetic radiation of high frequency and therefore high energy. Gamma rays are ionizing radiation and are thus biologically hazardous. They are classically produced by the decay from high energy states of atomic nuclei (gamma decay), but are also created by other processes. Paul Villard, a French chemist and physicist, discovered gamma radiation in 1900, while studying radiation emitted from radium during its gamma decay. Villard's radiation was named "gamma rays" by Ernest Rutherford in 1903.
Natural sources of gamma rays on Earth include gamma decay from naturally occurring radioisotopes, and secondary radiation from atmospheric interactions with cosmic ray particles. Rare terrestrial natural sources produce gamma rays that are not of a nuclear origin, such as lightning strikes and terrestrial gamma-ray flashes. Gamma rays are produced by a number of astronomical processes in which very high-energy electrons are produced, that in turn cause secondary gamma rays by the mechanisms of bremsstrahlung, inverse Compton scattering and synchrotron radiation. A large fraction of such astronomical gamma rays are screened by Earth's atmosphere and must be detected by spacecraft.
Gamma rays typically have frequencies above 10 exahertz (or >10¹⁹ Hz), and therefore have energies above 100 keV and wavelengths less than 10 picometers (less than the diameter of an atom). However, this is not a hard and fast definition, but rather only a rule-of-thumb description for natural processes. Gamma rays from radioactive decay are defined as gamma rays no matter what their energy, so that there is no lower limit to gamma energy derived from radioactive decay. Gamma decay commonly produces energies of a few hundred keV, and almost always less than 10 MeV. In astronomy, gamma rays are defined by their energy, and no production process need be specified. The energies of gamma rays from astronomical sources range over 10 TeV, at a level far too large to result from radioactive decay. A notable example is extremely powerful bursts of high-energy radiation normally referred to as long duration gamma-ray bursts, which produce gamma rays by a mechanism not compatible with radioactive decay. These bursts of gamma rays, thought to be due to the collapse of stars called hypernovas, are the most powerful events so far discovered in the cosmos.

"I take it that was a white lie?"
From Wiki Answers;

There is no special origin or etymology to the term "little white lie." The word "white" has long been synonomous with "good," "pure," and "intending no harm." For example, "white magic" simply means "good magic" or "magic not intended to harm" (as opposed to "black magic" which is.) Same applies to "white lie" which is a lie told for a good reason, with no intent to harm any one.

Only very recently has the term been used to suggest some racial connotation. For example, a headline might read "The Little White Lie -- Cop Lies on Stand in O.J. Case." However, that usage is only clever word play and has nothing to do with the true origin or meaning of "white lie."

Iceberg: Tidi Royal and more

Starting out with Cussler's treatment of women...very much in the James Bond love 'em and leave 'em mode.

pg 101 to 103, Tidi Royal keeps watch over Dirk while he sleeps. Very interesting, 1970s man-to-woman dialog. Ya just want to slap Cussler for writing this tripe... for all that there's a few women who always have submitted themselves like Royal does in these pages- very sad.

"When I want sarcastic remarks I'll book Don Rickles or Mort Sahl."

Donald Jay "Don" Rickles (born May 8, 1926) is an American stand-up comedian and actor. A frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Rickles has acted in comedic and dramatic roles, but is best known as an insult comic.

Rickles was born in the New York City borough of Queens to Max Rickles, who had emigrated in 1902 with his parents Joseph and Frances Rickles (Rikhters) from Kaunas, Lithuania (then in the Russian Empire), and Etta (Feldman) Rickles, born in New York to immigrant parents from the Austrian Empire. His family was Jewish and spoke Yiddish at home. Rickles grew up in the Jackson Heights area.
After graduating from Newtown High School, Rickles enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served during World War II on the USS Cyrene as a seaman first class. He was honorably discharged in 1946. Two years later, he studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and then played bit parts on television. Frustrated by a lack of acting work, Rickles began doing stand-up comedy. He became known as an insult comedian by responding to his hecklers. The audience enjoyed these insults more than his prepared material, and he incorporated them into his act. When he began his career in the early 1950s he started calling ill-mannered members of the audience a "hockey puck". His style was similar to an older insult comic, "Mr. Warmth" Jack E. Leonard, though Rickles denies that Leonard influenced his style. RIckles hit the big time when Frank Sinatra saw his show and loved it.

Morton Lyon "Mort" Sahl (born May 11, 1927) is a Canadian-born American comedian and actor. He occasionally wrote jokes for speeches delivered by President John F. Kennedy. He was the first comedian to record a live album and the first to perform on college campuses. He was on the cover of Time magazine in 1960 where they called him "the patriarch of a new school of comedians".

 "At this point my crystal ball gets foggy."

A crystal ball is a crystal or glass ball believed by some people to aid in the performance of clairvoyance. It is sometimes known as a shew stone. A body of water, either in a container or on the ground, used for this purpose, is called a scrying pool.

Dr. John Dee (July 13, 1527 – 1608 or 1609) was a noted British mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I. He also devoted much of his life to alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy. He was known for his use of crystal balls in his work.

"The message is written in neon lights."

Neon lighting consists of brightly glowing, electrified glass tubes or bulbs that contain rarefied neon or other gases. Neon lights are a type of cold cathode gas-discharge light. A neon tube light is a sealed glass tube with a metal electrode at each end, filled with one of a number of gases at low pressure. A high potential of several thousand volts applied to the electrodes ionizes the gas in the tube, causing it to emit colored light by fluorescence. The color of the light depends on the gas in the tube. Neon lights were named for neon, a noble gas which gives off a popular red light, but other gases and chemicals are used to produce other colors, such as helium (yellow), carbon dioxide (white), and mercury (blue). Neon tubes can be fabricated in curving artistic shapes, to form letters or pictures. They are mainly used to make dramatic, multicolored glowing signage for advertising, called neon signs, which were popular from the 1920s to the 1950s.

The term can also refer to the miniature neon glow lamp, developed in 1917, about seven years after neon tube lighting. While neon tube lights are typically meters long, the neon lamps can be less than one centimeter in length and glow much more dimly than the tube lights. Through the 1970s, neon glow lamps were widely used for displays in electronics, for small decorative lamps, and as electronic devices in of themselves. While these lamps are now antiques, the technology of the neon glow lamp developed into contemporary plasma displays and televisions.


Georges Claude, a French engineer and inventor, presented neon tube lighting in essentially its modern form at the Paris Motor Show from December 3–18, 1910. Claude, sometimes called "the Edison of France", had a near monopoly on the new technology, which became very popular for signage and displays in the period 1920-1940. Neon lighting was an important cultural phenomenon in the United States in that era; by 1940, the downtowns of nearly every city in the US were bright with neon signage, and Times Square in New York City was known worldwide for its neon extravagances. There were 2000 shops nationwide designing and fabricating neon signs.^] The popularity, intricacy, and scale of neon signage for advertising declined in the U.S. following the Second World War (1939–1945), but development continued vigorously in Japan, Iran, and some other countries. In recent decades architects and artists, in addition to sign designers, have again adopted neon tube lighting as a component in their works^.

Neon lighting is closely related to fluorescent lighting, which developed about 25 years after neon tube lighting. In fluorescent lights, the light emitted by rarefied gases within a tube is used exclusively to excite fluorescent materials that coat the tube, which then shine with their own colors that become the tube's visible, usually white, glow. Fluorescent coatings and glasses are also an option for neon tube lighting, but are usually selected to obtain bright colors.

Iceberg: Florence Nightengale and more

pg 100 the smile gave way to a feminine look of Florence Nightingale concern.

Florence Nightingale, (12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was a celebrated English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing. She came to prominence while serving as a nurse during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night.

Early 21st century commentators have asserted Nightingale's achievements in the Crimean War had been exaggerated by the media at the time, to satisfy the public's need for a hero. But her later achievements remain widely accepted.

In 1860, Nightingale laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment of her nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital in London. It was the first secular nursing school in the world, now part of King's College London. The Nightingale Pledge taken by new nurses was named in her honour, and the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world on her birthday. Her social reforms include improving healthcare for all sections of British society; improving healthcare and advocating for better hunger relief in India; helping to abolish laws regulating prostitution that were overly harsh to women; and expanding the acceptable forms of female participation in the workforce.

Nightingale was a prodigious and versatile writer. In her lifetime much of her published work was concerned with spreading medical knowledge. Some of her tracts were written in simple English so they could easily be understood by those with poor literary skills.

She helped popularize the graphical presentation of statistical data. Much of her writing, including her extensive work on religion and mysticism, has only been published posthumously.
Nightingale was born to a wealthy upper-class family, at a time when women of her class were expected to focus on marriage and child bearing. Religious inspiration led her to devote her life to serving others, both directly and as a reformer. Nightingale rejected proposals of marriage so as to be free to pursue her calling. Her father had progressive social views, providing his daughter with a well rounded education that included maths, and supported her desire to lead an active life. Nightingale's ability to effect reform rested on her exceptional analytic skills, her high reputation, and her network of influential friends. Starting in her mid thirties, she suffered from chronic poor health, but continued working almost until her death at the age of ninety.

she could take shorthand a shade faster 

Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to a normal method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek stenos (narrow) and graphē or graphie (writing). It has also been called brachygraphy, from Greek brachys (short) and tachygraphy, from Greek tachys (swift, speedy), depending on whether compression or speed of writing is the goal.
Many forms of shorthand exist. A typical shorthand system provides symbols or abbreviations for words and common phrases, which can allow someone well trained in the system to write as quickly as people speak. Abbreviation methods are alphabet-based and use different abbreviating approaches. Several autocomplete programs, standalone or integrated in text editors, based on word lists, also include a shorthand function for often used phrases.
Shorthand was used more widely in the past, before the invention of recording and dictation machines. Shorthand was considered an essential part of secretarial training as well as being useful for journalists. Although the primary use of shorthand has been to record oral dictation or discourse, some systems are used for compact expression. For example, health-care professionals may use shorthand notes in medical charts and correspondence. Shorthand notes are typically temporary, intended either for immediate use or for later transcription to longhand, although longer term uses do exist, diaries (like that of the famous Samuel Pepys) being a common example

Pitman shorthand

Main article: Pitman shorthand

Taylor's system was superseded by Pitman Shorthand, first introduced in 1837 by Sir Isaac Pitman, and improved many times since. Pitman's system has been used all over the English-speaking world and has been adapted to many other languages, including Latin. Pitman's system uses a phonemic orthography. For this reason, it is sometimes known as phonography, meaning 'sound writing' in Greek. One of the reasons this system allows fast transcription is that vowel sounds are optional when only consonants are needed to determine a word. The availability of a full range of vowel symbols, however, makes possible complete accuracy. Isaac's brother Benn Pitman, who lived in Cincinnati, Ohio, was responsible for introducing the method to America.
The record for fast writing with Pitman shorthand is 350 wpm during a two-minute test by Nathan Behrin in 1922, although this result has been questioned.^{[citation needed]}

Gregg shorthand

Main article: Gregg shorthand

Pitman shorthand is still in widespread use, but in the U.S. and some other parts of the world it has been largely superseded by Gregg shorthand, which was first published in 1888 by John Robert Gregg. This system was influenced by the handwriting shapes that Gabelsberger had introduced. Gregg's shorthand, like Pitman's, is phonetic, but has the simplicity of being "light-line." Pitman's system uses thick and thin strokes to distinguish related sounds, while Gregg's uses only thin strokes and makes some of the same distinctions by the length of the stroke.
In fact, Gregg claimed joint authorship in another shorthand system published in pamphlet form by one Thomas Stratford Malone; Malone, however, claimed sole authorship and a legal battle ensued.^[16] The two systems use very similar, if not identical, symbols; however, these symbols are used to represent different sounds. For instance, on page 10 of the manual is the word d i m 'dim'; however, in the Gregg system the spelling would actually mean n u k or 'nook'.

 "The admiral's extrasensory perception must be working overtime."

Extrasensory perception (ESP) involves reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses but sensed with the mind. The term was adopted by Duke University psychologist J. B. Rhine in the 1930s to denote psychic abilities such as telepathy, clairaudience, and clairvoyance, and their trans-temporal operation as precognition or retrocognition. ESP is also sometimes casually referred to as a sixth sense, gut instinct or hunch, which are historical English idioms. It is also sometimes referred to as intuition. The term implies acquisition of information by means external to the basic limiting assumptions of science, such as that organisms can only receive information from the past to the present.
Parapsychology is the pseudoscientific^[1] study of paranormal psychic phenomena, including ESP. Parapsychologists generally regard such tests as the ganzfeld experiment as providing compelling evidence for the existence of ESP. The scientific community rejects ESP due to the absence of an evidence base, the lack of a theory which would explain ESP, and the lack of experimental techniques which can provide reliably positive results

Iceberg: beat of a different drummer and more

pg 87

"We both hear the beat of a different drummer."
In Iceland, we follow the lure of a different fisherman."

It is derived from the writings of the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau, who wrote:

"If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away. "

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_did_the_phrase_'march_to_the_beat_of_a_different_drummer'_originate#ixzz2CJSdzzTk

"You will have to search far and wide for a more literate country than Iceland."

Note: over two-thirds of the world's 793 million illiterate adults are found in only eight countries (Bangladesh, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Pakistan); of all the illiterate adults in the world, two-thirds are women; extremely low literacy rates are concentrated in three regions, the Arab states, South and West Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa, where around one-third of the men and half of all women are illiterate

According to a report from 2003, 99% of Icelandic men and women over the age of 15 can read and write. (The source is WIkipedia, which gives the same stats for the United States of America. So Wikipedia is pretty bogus on this particular topic, since we know that's not true!

"A Dr. Jonsson from a little village to the north called and gave the consulate very explicit instructions regarding your convalescence."

The political title Consul is used for the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the consul's own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the peoples of the two countries. A consul is distinguished from an ambassador, the latter being a representative from one head of state to another. There can be only one ambassador from one country to another, representing the first country's head of state to that of the second, and her or his duties revolve around diplomatic relations between the two countries; however, there may be several consuls, one in each of several main cities, providing assistance with bureaucratic issues to both the citizens of the consul's own country travelling or living abroad and to the citizens of the country the consul resides in who wish to travel to or trade with the consul's country.

The office of a Consul is termed a Consulate, and is usually subordinate to the state's main representation in that foreign country, usually an Embassy, or High Commission between Commonwealth countries, in the capital city of the host state. Like the term embassy, the word consulate may refer not only to the office of consul, but also to the building occupied by the consul and his or her staff. In capital cities, the consulate may share the premises with the embassy itself.

Iceberg: Steel-jacked bullets and more

pg 79

There was nothing left now but the mad clangor of steel-jacketed bullets

A full metal jacket (or FMJ) is a bullet consisting of a soft core (usually made of lead) encased in a shell of harder metal, such as gilding metal, cupronickel or less commonly a steel alloy. This shell can extend around all of the bullet (alternatively termed a total metal jacket round) or, more often, just around the front and sides with the rear lead part left exposed. The jacket allows for higher muzzle velocities than bare lead without depositing significant amounts of metal in the bore. It also prevents damage to bores from steel or armor-piercing core materials. The appearance of FMJ ammunition is highly distinctive when compared to hollow-point or soft point bullets. Historically, the first successful full metal jacket rifle bullets were invented by Lt. Col. Eduard Rubin of the Swiss Army in 1882. Full metal jacket bullets were first used as standard ammunition in 1886, for the French Mle 1886 Lebel rifle

A company that still makes steel-jacked bullets:Not only the cases of Wolf rifle ammo are steel. Most of Wolf's rifle cartridges use steel jacketed bullets, though they look like copper jacketed. The copper exterior of the bullet is only about .005 inch thick, (about twice the thickness of a sheet of paper) with a steel jacket underneath about 1/32 inch thick. Only the cartridges in the yellow and black boxes have real copper jackets. The core of the steel jacketed bullets, sometimes marked "bimetal", are lead. Some rifle ranges have started magnet testing shooter's ammunition to determine if bullets are steel jacketed. The steel is said to be more likely to ricochet, and also to cause sparks on impact, which can be a problem when shooting in dry grassland, or forest areas. In addition, a large majority of pistol ranges will not allow shooters to use Wolf, or other Russian ammunition types because of the steel jacket components on many of their products. An oft-cited reason for this is because they claim it damages the backstops. A more likely reason for not allowing steel-cased ammunition is that the ranges are unable to re-sell the berdan-primed steel cases for reloading, an important source of revenue for many ranges

I can't offer you two words of Icelandic

Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.
Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the colonisation of the Americas. Icelandic, Faroese, Norn, and Norwegian formerly comprised West Nordic; Danish and Swedish comprised East Nordic. The Nordic languages are now divided into Insular Nordic and mainland Scandinavian languages. Norwegian is now grouped with Danish and Swedish because of its mutual intelligibility with those languages due to its heavy influence from them over the last millennium, particularly from Danish.
Most Western European languages have greatly reduced levels of inflection, particularly noun declension. In contrast, Icelandic retains a four-case synthetic grammar comparable to, but considerably more conservative and synthetic than, German. It is inappropriate to compare the grammar of Icelandic to that of the more conservative Baltic, Slavic, and Indic languages of the Indo-European family, many of which retain six or more cases, except to note that Icelandic utilises a wide assortment of irregular declensions. Icelandic also possesses many instances of oblique cases without any governing word, as does Latin. For example, many of the various Latin ablatives have a corresponding Icelandic dative. However, despite its arguable baggage, the remarkable conservatism of the Icelandic language and its resultant near-isomorphism to Old Norse (which is equivalently termed Old Icelandic by linguists) means that, to their delight, modern Icelanders can easily read the Eddas, sagas, and other classic Old Norse literary works created in the tenth through thirteenth centuries.
The vast majority of Icelandic speakers—about 320,000—live in Iceland. There are about 8,165 speakers of Icelandic living in Denmark, of whom approximately 3,000 are students.The language is also spoken by 5,112 people in the USA and by 2,170 in Canada (Notably in Gimli, Manitoba), indeed, the word 'Gimli' is itself the Icelandic for 'heaven'. 97% of the population of Iceland consider Icelandic their mother tongue, but in some communities outside Iceland the use of the language is declining. Icelandic speakers outside Iceland represent recent emigration in almost all cases except Gimli, which was settled from the 1880s onwards.
The Icelandic constitution does not mention the language as the official language of the country. Though Iceland is a member of the Nordic Council, the Council uses only Danish, Norwegian and Swedish as its working languages. The council does, though, publish material in Icelandic. Under the Nordic Language Convention, since 1987, citizens of Iceland have the opportunity to use Icelandic when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable for any interpretation or translation costs. The Convention covers visits to hospitals, job centres, the police and social security offices; however, the Convention is not very well known and is mostly irrelevant as many Icelanders born after the 1940s have an excellent command of English. The countries have committed themselves to providing services in various languages, but citizens have no absolute rights except for criminal and court matters.
The state-funded Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies serves as a centre for preserving the medieval Icelandic manuscripts and studying the language and its literature. The Icelandic Language Council, comprising representatives of universities, the arts, journalists, teachers, and the Ministry of Culture, Science and Education, advises the authorities on language policy. The Icelandic Language Fund supports activities intended to promote the Icelandic language. Since 1995, on November 16 each year, the birthday of 19th century poet Jónas Hallgrímsson is celebrated as Icelandic Language Day

 Somewhere in the distant past one of my ancestors was a gypsy

The Romani are an ethnic group living mostly in Europe, who trace their origins to the Indian Subcontinent. Romani are widely known in the English-speaking world by the exonym Gypsies (or Gipsies).
They are known collectively in the Romani language as Romane or Rromane (depending on the dialect concerned) and also as Romany, Romanies, Romanis, Roma or Roms.
Romani are widely dispersed, with their largest concentrated populations in Europe, especially the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe and Anatolia, followed by the Kale of Iberia and Southern France.
The Americas are also home to large numbers of Romani. There are an estimated one million Roma in the United States; 800,000 in Brazil, whose ancestors were deported by the government of Portugal during the colonial era; and in more recent migrations, Romani have also moved to other parts of the Americas.
The Romani language is divided into several dialects, which add up to an estimated number of speakers larger than two million. The total number of Romani people is at least twice as large (several times as large according to high estimates). Many Romani are native speakers of the language current in their country of residence, or of mixed languages combining the two.

Iceberg: like a computer at IBM and more

pg 77

Fyrie worked 20 hours a day until the entire operation was running like a computer at IBM (1975 vintage)

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM, is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation, with headquarters in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and markets computer hardware and software, and offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas ranging from mainframe computers to nanotechnology.
The company was founded in 1911 as the Computing Tabulating Recording Company (CTR) through a merger of three companies: the Tabulating Machine Company, the International Time Recording Company, and the Computing Scale Company. CTR adopted the name International Business Machines in 1924, using a name previously designated to CTR's subsidiary in Canada and later South America. Security analysts nicknamed IBM Big Blue in recognition of IBM's common use of blue in products, packaging, and logo
In 1937, IBM's tabulating equipment enabled organizations to process unprecedented amounts of data, its clients including the U.S. Government, during its first effort to maintain the employment records for 26 million people pursuant to the Social Security Act, and the Third Reich, largely through the German subsidiary Dehomag. During the Second World War the company produced small arms for the American war effort (M1 Carbine, and Browning Automatic Rifle).
In 1952, Thomas J. Watson, Jr., became president of the company, ending almost 40 years of leadership by his father. In 1956, Arthur L. Samuel of IBM's Poughkeepsie, New York, laboratory programmed an IBM 704 to play checkers using a method in which the machine can "learn" from its own experience. It is believed to be the first "self-learning" program, a demonstration of the concept of artificial intelligence. In 1957, IBM developed the FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslation) scientific programming language. In 1961, Thomas J. Watson, Jr., was elected chairman of the board and Albert L. Williams became president of the company. IBM develops the SABRE (Semi-Automatic Business-Related Environment) reservation system for American Airlines. The IBM Selectric typewriter was a highly successful model line of electric typewriters introduced by IBM on July 31, 1961.
In 1963, IBM employees and computers helped NASA track the orbital flight of the Mercury astronauts, and a year later, the company moved its corporate headquarters from New York City to Armonk, New York. The latter half of that decade saw IBM continue its support of space exploration, with IBM participating in the 1965 Gemini flights, the 1966 Saturn flights, and the 1969 mission to land a man on the moon.
On April 7, 1964 IBM announced the first computer system family, the IBM System/360. Sold between 1964 and 1978, it was the first family of computers designed to cover the complete range of applications, from small to large, both commercial and scientific. For the first time, companies could upgrade their computing capabilities with a new model without rewriting their applications.
In 1973, IBM engineer George J. Laurer developed the Universal Product Code. On October 11, 1973, IBM introduced the IBM 3660, a laser-scanning point-of-sale barcode reader which would become the workhorse of retail checkouts. On June 26, 1974, at Marsh's supermarket in Troy, Ohio, a pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum was the first-ever product scanned. That pack is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. 

"Lock, stock and barrel"

Lock, stock, and barrel is a merism (figure of speech) used predominantly in the United Kingdom and North America, meaning 'all', 'total', 'everything'. The effective portions of a gun are the lock (used to hold ready the sparking mechanism); the stock (the portion held), and the barrel (the aiming guide and conveyor for the explosive-driven ball). Collectively they are the weapon, therefore, everything.

The term was first recorded in the letters of Sir Walter Scott in 1817, in the line "Like the High-landman's gun, she wants stock, lock, and barrel, to put her into repair".It is, however, thought that this term evolved into a popular saying some years before in England

"Mined manganese off Vancouver Island in British Columbia

Manganese is a chemical element, designated by the symbol Mn. It has the atomic number 25. It is found as a free element in nature (often in combination with iron), and in many minerals. Manganese is a metal with important industrial metal alloy uses, particularly in stainless steels.
Historically, manganese is named for various black minerals (such as pyrolusite) from the same region of Magnesia in Greece which gave names to similar-sounding magnesium, Mg, and magnetite, an ore of the element iron, Fe. By the mid-18th century, Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele had used pyrolusite to produce chlorine. Scheele and others were aware that pyrolusite (now known to be manganese dioxide) contained a new element, but they were not able to isolate it. Johan Gottlieb Gahn was the first to isolate an impure sample of manganese metal in 1774, by reducing the dioxide with carbon.
Manganese phosphating is used as a treatment for rust and corrosion prevention on steel. Depending on their oxidation state, manganese ions have various colors and are used industrially as pigments. The permanganates of alkali and alkaline earth metals are powerful oxidizers. Manganese dioxide is used as the cathode (electron acceptor) material in zinc-carbon and alkaline batteries.
In biology, manganese(II) ions function as cofactors for a large variety of enzymes with many functions. Manganese enzymes are particularly essential in detoxification of superoxide free radicals in organisms that must deal with elemental oxygen. Manganese also functions in the oxygen-evolving complex of photosynthetic plants. The element is a required trace mineral for all known living organisms. In larger amounts, and apparently with far greater activity by inhalation, manganese can cause a poisoning syndrome in mammals, with neurological damage which is sometimes irreversible.

Iceberg: flamethrower and more

pg 75

"Except for your perceptive deduction concerning the flamethrower..."

A flamethrower is a mechanical incendiary device designed to project a long controllable stream of fire. They were first used during World War I, and widely used in World War II.
Some flamethrowers project a stream of ignited flammable liquid; some project a long gas flame. Most military flamethrowers use liquids, but commercial flamethrowers tend to use high-pressure propane and natural gas, which is considered safer. They are used by the military and by people needing controlled burning capacity, such as in agriculture (e.g., sugar cane plantations) or other such land management tasks. They can be designed to either be carried by the operator or mounted on a vehicle.

The man-portable flamethrower consists of two elements: a backpack and the gun. The backpack element usually consists of two or three cylinders. In a two-cylinder system, one cylinder holds compressed, inert propellant gas (usually nitrogen), and the other holds flammable liquid—typically petrol with some form of fuel thickener added to it. A three-cylinder system often has two outer cylinders of flammable liquid and a central cylinder of propellant gas to maintain the balance of the soldier carrying it. The gas propels the liquid fuel out of the cylinder through a flexible pipe and then into the gun element of the flamethrower system. The gun consists of a small reservoir, a spring-loaded valve, and an ignition system; depressing a trigger opens the valve, allowing pressurized flammable liquid to flow and pass over the igniter and out of the gun nozzle. The igniter can be one of several ignition systems: A simple type is an electrically-heated wire coil; another used a small pilot flame, fueled with pressurized gas from the system.
The flamethrower is a potent weapon with great psychological impact upon unprepared soldiers, inflicting a particularly horrific death. This has led to some calls for the weapon to be banned. It is primarily used against battlefield fortifications, bunkers, and other protected emplacements. A flamethrower projects a stream of flammable liquid, rather than flame, which allows bouncing the stream off walls and ceilings to project the fire into blind and unseen spaces, such as inside bunkers or pillboxes. Typically, popular visual media depict the flamethrower as short-ranged and only effective for a few meters (due to the common use of propane gas as the fuel in flamethrowers in movies, for the safety of the actors). Contemporary flamethrowers can incinerate a target some 50–80 meters (165–270 feet) from the gunner; moreover, an unignited stream of flammable liquid can be fired and afterwards ignited, possibly by a lamp or other flame inside the bunker.

"Zirconium. Atomic number: forty."

Zirconium is a chemical element with the symbol Zr, atomic number 40 and atomic mass of 91.224. The name of zirconium is taken from the mineral zircon, the most important source of zirconium. It is a lustrous, grey-white, strong transition metal that resembles titanium. Zirconium is mainly used as a refractory and opacifier, although minor amounts are used as alloying agent for its strong resistance to corrosion. Zirconium forms a variety of inorganic and organometallic compounds such as zirconium dioxide and zirconocene dichloride, respectively. Five isotopes occur naturally, three of which are stable. Zirconium compounds have no known biological role.

"That's how Kristjan Fyrie built his empire, you know, dredging diamonds off the coast of Africa."

Dredging is an excavation activity or operation usually carried out at least partly underwater, in shallow seas or fresh water areas with the purpose of gathering up bottom sediments and disposing of them at a different location. This technique is often used to keep waterways navigable.
It is also used as a way to replenish sand on some public beaches, where sand has been lost because of coastal erosion. Dredging is also used as a technique for fishing for certain species of edible clams and crabs, see fishing dredge.
A dredger (or “dredge” as is the general usage in the Americas) is any device, machine, or vessel that is used to excavate and remove material from the bottom of a body of water. For example, a scoop attached to the end of a rope or pole by which a man can draw sediments up from the bottom of a pond is a dredger. Developing this idea further, a motorized crane equipped with a drag bucket or clamshell (grabber) that is used to scoop material from the bottom of a body of water is also a dredger. The crane could be located on the bank, or perhaps mounted on a barge. If the crane is mounted on a barge, the entire vessel is referred to as a dredger.
The process of dredging creates spoils (excess material), which are carried away from the dredged area. Dredging can produce materials for land reclamation or other purposes (usually construction-related), and has also historically played a significant role in gold mining. Dredging can create disturbance in aquatic ecosystems, often with adverse impacts.

Iceberg: blow up airlines and more

pg 72

"The same maniac who blows up airliners for insurance money."

Passenger airliners as well as cargo aircraft have been the subject of plots or attacked by bombs and fire since the near the start of air travel. Many early bombings were suicides or schemes for insurance money, but in the latter part of the 20th century, political and religious militant terrorism became the dominant motive for attacking large jets. One list describes 86 cases related to airliner bombings, 53 of them resulting in deaths

List of incidents

• United Airlines Chesterton Crash 1933 Boeing 247 was destroyed by a bomb, with nitroglycerin as the probable explosive agent. A Chicago gangland murder was suspected, but the case remains unsolved.^[2] It is thought to be the first proven act of air sabotage in the history of commercial aviation.
• Canadian Pacific Air Lines In-flight bombing In 1949, Joseph-Albert Guay packed a bomb made of dynamite in the baggage carried by his wife. The explosion occurred after take off leading to the death of all 19 passengers and 4 crews. Guay was later put on trial and sentenced to death by hanging on 12 January 1951.
• United Airlines Flight 629 In 1955, Jack Gilbert Graham packed a bomb containing dynamite in a suitcase carried by his mother. The explosion killed all 39 passengers and all 5 crew members. Graham was executed in 1957 for the pre-meditated murder of his mother, as there was no federal statute for the carrying out of an airplane bombing.
• 1956 Greek Cypriot EOKA bombing campaign against British rule in Cyprus leads to destruction of aircraft. Violence continues until Cyprus is granted independence in 1960.
• National Airlines Flight 967 In 1959 a bomb destroyed a Douglas DC-7B aircraft over the Gulf of Mexico. One theory is that a convicted criminal befriended and tricked another man into boarding with luggage containing a bomb so that his wife would be able to collect on his life insurance. Due to lack of evidence, the suspect was never charged in the alleged bombing, and no probable cause for the crash was found.
• Continental Airlines Flight 11, registration N70775, was a Boeing 707 aircraft which exploded on May 22, 1962 in the vicinity of Centerville, Iowa, while en route from O'Hare Airport, Chicago, Illinois, to Kansas City, Missouri. It was later discovered by investigators that one of the passengers, Thomas G. Doty, had brought a bomb on board the aircraft. This was the first in-flight bombing of a jet airliner.
• The Aden Airways DC3 registered VR-AAN was destroyed on 22nd November 1966 at 1220 HRS. Investigations revealed a bomb had been placed by 'Ali, the son of Amir Mohammed bin Said, Prime Minister of Wahidi (not in modern Yeman) who wanted to prematurely succeed him as Amir.
• Cyprus Airways Flight 284 in 1967 a de Havilland Comet owned by British European Airways was flying between Athens, Greece and Nicosia, Cyprus when it suffered an explosion in the cabin, killing all 66 on board. Cause is unsolved, but a recovered seat cushion showed traces of a military plastic explosive. Armed fighting between Greek and the minority Muslim Turkish communities had prompted the United Nations to send peacekeeping forces since 1964. It is believed the bomb was placed by terrorists hoping to kill the Greek general in command of the Cyprus army who was to be aboard but cancelled shortly before departure.
• Swissair Flight 330 On February 21, 1970, HB-ICD^[4] a Convair CV-990 Coronado jet named “Baselland” was flying on the route with 38 passengers and nine crew members. A bomb detonated in the aft cargo compartment of the aircraft All aboard the aircraft were killed. Sabotage was suspected because of sentencing of three Palestinians by a Swiss court. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command, said in Beirut, Lebanon, that it had been responsible for the explosion. Reuters reported later, however, from Amman, Jordan, that a spokesman for the guerrilla group had denied that it was involved.A barometric triggered IED had been used. On the same day, a bomb exploded aboard a Vienna-bound Caravelle after takeoff from Frankfurt. The Caravelle landed safely.
• Oct. 6, 1976 Cubana Airlines plane exploded after takeoff from Barbados. 73 killed. Cuban exiles in Venezuela were convicted.
• Middle East Airlines Flight 438 In 1976, a bomb exploded a cargo bay of a Boeing 720B en route from Beirut, Lebanon to Dubai. The bombers were never identified. Lebanon was going through a civil war at the time.
• On December 12, 1981, an Aeronica Boeing 727 exploded while waiting at the Mexico City Airport. The bomb was timed to go off mid-air, but because of a 50 minute flight delay, it went off early, just before 150 passengers were about to board.
• Pan Am Flight 830 On August 11, 1982 Boeing 747 bomb placed under seat kills one 16 yr old Japanese boy injuring 15. The bomb was allegedly placed by Mohammed Rashed, linked to a palestinean terrorist organization. He was arrested in Greece, later convicted of murder and released in 1996, also convicted in 2006 by a United States court. Abu Ibrahim was also indicted but cannot be found.
• Gulf Air Flight 771 On 23 September 1983, on approach to Abu Dhabi International Airport, a bomb exploded in the baggage compartment. Most of the dead were Pakistani nationals. The bomb was apparently planted by the militant Palestinian Abu Nidal organization for protection money payments.
• Air India Flight 182 1985 transatlantic flight of first 747 destroyed by sabotage. Aircraft exploded in-flight by dynamite placed in a stereo tuner with timers purchased by Sikh separatists. A similar second bomb intended for Air India Flight 301 exploded at the Tokyo airport killing two baggage handlers and injuring four others. This is the first plot to target two planes at the same time. The initial suspect Talwinder Singh Parmar confessed that Lakhbir Singh Brar Rode, leader of the Sikh separatist organization International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) was the mastermind. There are allegations that the ISYF has been supported by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence organization which has been linked to Islamic terrorism organizations.^[8] Later Lockerbie attack would also involve suitcases with explosives placed in electronic music components on a 747. Khalistan activists believe it was a false flag attack by Indian government to discredit their movement.
• TWA Flight 840 (1986) April 2, 1986 on a Boeing 727-231 flying from Rome's Fiumicino Airport to Athens. A bomb detonated ejecting four American passengers (including a nine-month-old infant) to their deaths below, injuring five others. The "Arab Revolutionary Cells" claimed it was responding to "American arrogance" and clashes with Libya. The bomb contained one pound of plastic explosive, probably placed under the seat by a Lebanese woman (arrested, not convicted) who worked for the militant Palestinean Abu Nidal Organisation.
• Korean Air Flight 858, a flight brought down in November 1987 by liquid explosives concealed as liquor bottles by North Koreans who boarded the plane in Iraq. A similar pattern would be used by Ramzi Yousef in the Philippines in 1994
• Pan Am Flight 103/Lockerbie Boeing 747 killing 270 people in 1988 transatlantic flight destroyed in-flight by PETN explosives. Parts of suitcase containing the bomb were recovered with pieces of circuit board of a radio cassette player similar to one concealing a Semtex bomb seized by West German police from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Motive attributed to a number of Middle Eastern terrorist groups. Two Libyan intelligence operatives were committed in connection with the attack. Somewhat similarly to the 9/11 conspiracy theories, one theorist promoted his report that neither Flight 103 nor Air India 182 were attacked by terrorists but suffered a door failure.
• On 19 September 1989, UTA Flight 772 was downed over Niger by a bomb, killing all 156 passengers and 15 crew members. After investigators obtained a confession from one of those who had loaded the bomb in Brazzaville, France indicted six Libyans, including Abdullah Senussi, brother-in-law of Muammar al-Gaddafi, and deputy head of Libyan intelligence. Libya refused to extradite the six, who were condemned in absentia, but subsequently recognized its responsibility by compensating the families of the victims. The deemed motive of the bomber was revenge against the French for supporting Chad against the expansionist projects of Libya toward Chad.
• Avianca Flight 203, a Boeing 727 flying from Bogota to Cali was bombed in on 27 November 1989 killing 107 people plus a possible three on the ground. The bombing was planned by Pablo Escobar of the Medellin drug cartel. The motive was an assassination attempt on presidential candidate César Gaviria Trujillo, but the target was not on the flight.
• Philippine Airlines Flight 434 1994 al-Queda test run for Operation Bojinka, in which a passenger was killed and 747 controls seriously damaged by a liquid explosive packed into contact lens solution bottles containing nitroglycerin. Bomb was assembled from parts in hand luggage by Ramzi Yousef, who also built and detonated the WTC 1993 bomb.
• Bojinka plot al-Queda plot to destroy several airliners over the Pacific Ocean in 1995 using liquid explosives. Elements of Oplan Bojinka inspired both the September 11 attack and the August 2006 plot to bomb transatlantic flights.
• American Airlines Flight 63 The "shoe bomb", a failed al-Qaeda PETN bombing attempt in December 2001.
• China Northern Flight 6136, a 2002 flight brought down by a passenger who had purchased life insurance, who set a fire in flight with gasoline
• 2004 Russian aircraft bombings Islamist terrorist attacks on two domestic Russian passenger aircraft flying from Moscow. The bombs were triggered by two female Chechen suicide bombers. Shamil Salmanovich Basayev militant leader of the Chechen terrorist movement claimed credit.
• 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot al-Queda terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives carried on board at least 10 airliners travelling from the United Kingdom to the United States and Canada. It followed the same general plan as the Bojinka plot.
• Northwest Airlines Flight 253, the target of a failed al-Qaeda PETN bombing attempt in December 2009
• 2010 cargo plane bomb plot, failed al-Qaeda PETN bombing attempt on two planes in October 2010

The United States wanted it, Russia wanted it, but a dark horse got away with it.

The term began as horse racing parlance for a race horse that is not known to gamblers and thus is difficult to place betting odds on.
The earliest-known mention of the concept is in Benjamin Disraeli's novel The Young Duke (1831). Disraeli's protagonist, the Duke of St. James, attends a horse race with a surprise finish: "A dark horse which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grandstand in sweeping triumph."

In the political arena

The concept has been used in political contexts in such countries as Peru, Philippines and United States.
Politically, the concept came to America in the nineteenth century when it was first applied to James K. Polk, a relatively unknown Tennessee Democrat who won the Democratic Party's 1844 presidential nomination over a host of better-known candidates. Polk won the nomination on the ninth ballot, and went on to win the presidential election.

How far to Reykjavik?

Reykjavík (Smoke Bay) is the capital and largest city in Iceland.
Its latitude, at 64°08' N, makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay. With a population of around 120,000 (and over 200,000 in the Greater Reykjavík Area), it is the heart of Iceland's economic and governmental activity.
Reykjavík is believed to be the location of the first permanent settlement in Iceland, which Ingólfur Arnarson is said to have established around 870 C.E. Until the 18th century, there was no urban development in the city location. The city was founded in 1786 as an official trading town and grew steadily over the next decades, as it transformed into a regional and later national centre of commerce, population, and governmental activities.

"We could have always sent a Mayday to the Coast Guard."

Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice procedure radio communications. It derives from the French venez m'aider, meaning "come help me".
It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency primarily by mariners and aviators, but in some countries local organisations such as police forces, firefighters, and transportation organizations also use the term. The call is always given three times in a row ("Mayday Mayday Mayday") to prevent mistaking it for some similar-sounding phrase under noisy conditions, and to distinguish an actual Mayday call from a message about a Mayday call.