Signs of Civilization

Still on the road....
We came out of Roswell along the not too dramatic Hondo River, then turned along the Rio Benito into the Capitan Mountains at just the right time. A rainstorm the day before had set the high plains ablaze in colorful blossoms.

This is the land of Billy the Kid and Smokey the Bear. Smokey was found as a cub clinging to a burnt out tree after a forest fire in the Capitan Gap. There is still a marker near the spot on Hwy 380 near Lincoln.

Back in 1881, three years after the close of the Lincoln County War (Oh.. the Ranchers and the Farmers should be friends...) and less than three months before his death, Billy the Kid made his last, and perhaps his most spectacular, jailbreak from the Lincoln jail.

Lincoln was founded in 1860 after the US Army had "brought the Mescalero Apaches under control" (Apparently they had been naughty indians). Originally settled by Spanish farmers, with the name Los Placitas del Rio Bonito (much prettier) the town was renamed Lincoln when the county was formed, and named Lincoln in 1869.

Stopping along the road to take pictures of the flowers, we found the sign posted on the front of a locked gate. We decided not to stay and visit with the Thomases in spite of their obvious hospitality, but I did wonder how the US Army in 1860 would have responded if the Apaches had put out such a sign..."Sgt, blow retreat, it's back to the fort for us.. we can't intrude on private land..." (or maybe not)..


I suppose if I really wanted the land I could go in and challenge them to a fight for it, as the precedent for using force had been clearly established, but except for the flowers, the land held little that seemed worthy of a fight. SO, we took off down across the high plains, perhaps the same direction by which Billy the Kid escaped. Off toward Soccorro and the Very Large Array Observatory, and along the way we passed the Trinity site, where the Atomic Bomb was first tested.... Civilization....

Lincoln and Euclid

I wrote once about Linconln's interest in the meaning of "demonstrate" and how it led him to study Euclid. I just came across a rather extended account of the same story posted by John Armstrong at The Unapologetic Mathematician which is worth repeating, so here 'tis:
"I want to point out something about Abraham Lincoln.
It’s said that he carried three books with him, particularly as a young itinerant lawyer. The Bible is a given. A collection of Shakespeare isn’t unexpected, considering his practiced ease with language. But the third? Lincoln studied Euclid, and carried a copy of the Elements. His law partner tells of Lincoln stretched out on the floor, reading geometry in the lamplight.

Lincoln himself explained his interest:

In the course of my law reading I constantly came upon the word “demonstrate”. I thought at first that I understood its meaning, but soon became satisfied that I did not. I said to myself, What do I do when I demonstrate more than when I reason or prove? How does demonstration differ from any other proof?

I consulted Webster’s Dictionary. They told of ‘certain proof,’ ‘proof beyond the possibility of doubt’; but I could form no idea of what sort of proof that was. I thought a great many things were proved beyond the possibility of doubt, without recourse to any such extraordinary process of reasoning as I understood demonstration to be. I consulted all the dictionaries and books of reference I could find, but with no better results. You might as well have defined blue to a blind man.

At last I said,- Lincoln, you never can make a lawyer if you do not understand what demonstrate means; and I left my situation in Springfield, went home to my father’s house, and stayed there till I could give any proposition in the six books of Euclid at sight. I then found out what demonstrate means, and went back to my law studies. "

Thanks Johh.