Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Wonderful World of Odd (48 page)

Glosson doesn’t expect all of the farmers who attend his workshops to pick up his cow-municating skills, admitting that they’re mostly instinctive. But he can at least teach them methods to keep their cattle happy—and a happy cow is less dangerous, less prone to illness, has a better appetite, and makes for better-tasting beef. (Stressed-out carcass meat is usually tougher and darker, and ends up in the discount bin at the supermarket.)

So if you have unhappy cows, you know who to call.

Natural disasters aren’t uncommon. Unfortunately, we often read about devastation caused by floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes. But how often do you hear about death and destruction caused by a giant burp? (Part II of the story is on page 229.)

C
LOUD OF DOOM

Cattle herders graze their animals on the hills above Lake Nyos, and after the lake disgorged as much as 80% of its massive store of CO
₂
in one big burst, dead cattle were found as high as 300 feet above the lake, indicating that the suffocating cloud shot at least that high before settling back onto the surface. Then the gas poured over the crater’s edge into the valleys below, traveling at an estimated 45 miles per hour.

For people living in the villages closest to the lake, death was almost inevitable. A few people on hillsides had the presence of mind to climb to higher ground; one man who saw his neighbors drop like flies jumped on his motorcycle and managed to keep ahead of the gas as he sped to safety. These were the lucky few. Most people didn’t realize the danger until they were being overcome by the gas. Even if they had, it would have been impossible to outrun such a fast-moving cloud.

In villages farther away from the lake, people had a better chance of survival, especially if they ignored the noise the lake made as it disgorged its CO
₂
. Some survivors said it sounded like a gunshot or an explosion; others described it as a rumble. But people who stepped outside their homes to see where the noise had come from, or to see what had caused the rotten egg smell (a common smell “hallucination” associated with CO
₂
poisoning) quickly collapsed and died right on their own doorsteps. The sight of these first victims passing out often brought other members of the household to the door, where they, too, were overcome…and killed.

People who were inside with their windows and doors shut had a better chance of surviving. There were even cases where enough CO
₂
seeped into homes to smother people who were lying down asleep, but not enough to kill the people who were standing up and had their heads above the gas. Some of these survivors did not even realize anything unusual had happened until they checked on their sleeping loved ones and discovered they were already dead.

The disaster at Lake Nyos was only the second such incident in recorded history—the 1984 incident at Lake Monoun was the first. To date, scientists believe that only three lakes in the entire world, Nyos, Monoun, and a third lake called Lake Kivu on the border of Congo and Rwanda, accumulate deadly amounts of dissolved CO
₂
at great depths.

It had taken about a year to figure out what had happenend at Nyos. Then, when it became clear that the lake was filling with CO
₂
again, the government of Cameroon evacuated all the villages within 18 miles of the lake and razed them to prevent their inhabitants from coming back until the lake could be made safe.

Scientists spent the next decade trying to figure out a way to safely release the gas before disaster struck again. They eventually settled on a plan to sink a 5 ½-inch diameter tube down more than 600 feet, to just above the floor of the lake. Then, when some of the water from the bottom was pumped up to the top of the tube, it would rise high enough in the tube for the CO
₂
to come out of solution and form bubbles, which would cause it to shoot out the top of the tube, blasting water and gas more than 150 feet into the sky. Once it got started, the siphon effect would cause the reaction to continue indefinitely, or at least until the CO
₂
ran out. A prototype was installed and tested in 1995, and after it proved to be safe, a permanent tube was installed in 2001.

As of the fall of 2006 the tube was still in place and releasing more than 700 million cubic feet of CO
₂
into the air each year. That’s a little bit more than enters the lake in the same amount of
time. Between 2001 and 2006, the CO
₂
levels in Lake Nyos dropped 13%.

But the scientists who study the lake are concerned that 13%is too small an amount. The lake still contains more CO
₂
than was released in the 1986 disaster, and as if that’s not bad enough, a natural dam on the north side of the lake is eroding and could fail in as little as five years. If the dam collapses, the disaster of 1986 may prove to be just a small taste of things to come: In the event of a dam failure, 50 million cubic meters of water could pour out of the lake, drowning as many as 10,000 people as it washes through the valleys below. That’s only the beginning—releasing that much water from the lake would cause the level of the lake to drop as much as 130 feet, removing the water pressure that keeps the CO
₂
at the bottom of the lake and causing a release of gas even more catastrophic than the devastation of 1986.

Scientists and engineers have devised a plan for shoring up the natural dam with concrete, and it’s believed that the installation of as few as four more siphon tubes could reduce the CO
₂
in the lake to safe levels in as little as four years. The scientists are hard at work trying to find the funding to do it, and there’s no time to waste: “We could have a gas burst tomorrow that is bigger than either [the Lake Monoun or the Lake Nyos] disaster,” says Dr. George Kling, a University of Michigan ecologist who has been studying the lake for 20 years. “Every day we wait is just an accumulation of the probability that something bad is going to happen.”

*       *       *

Pete Conklin worked as a lemonade vendor for the Mabie Circus in the 1850s. One hot day, business was so brisk he had to make a batch in a hurry and used a bucket of water from a nearby tent. When he poured his first glass, he noticed the lemonade was pink. Conklin immediately began selling his mistake as “strawberry lemonade.” So what made it pink? A circus performer’s red tights had been soaking in the bucket of water Conklin had used.

An unusual legend, and a fascinating place to visit.

T
HE ROYAL TOMB

If you’re visiting the tiny village of Shingo in the far north of Honshu island in Japan, you can take a path up into the woods until you come to a dirt burial mound. Rising above it is a large wooden cross. This, says local legend, is the last resting place of Jesus Christ.

The legend claims that Jesus’ brother took his place on the cross, allowing Jesus to escape from Israel. He made his way across Siberia, then traveled into what is now Alaska, and finally ended up in Japan. There, the legend continues, he married a Japanese woman named Miyuko, had three daughters, and lived to the ripe old age of 106. Many people in Shingo believe the legend is true—and the “Christ Museum” next to the tomb claims it has the proof.

The story seems to have started somewhere around 1935, when a priest in the area discovered what he claimed were ancient scrolls. The 1,900-year-old documents were Christ’s last will and testament, he said, indicating that Shingo is the location of Jesus’ grave. According to a local museum, the original scrolls were destroyed in World War II and all that exist now are copies. But other evidence supposedly supports the claim:

• Although the tomb was never opened, rods thrust into the dirt around it confirm it is lined by stones, an honor only bestowed on people of great importance.

• For hundreds of years it has been a local tradition to draw charcoal crosses onto babies’ foreheads, a practice found nowhere else in Japan.

• Many ancient kimonos from Shingo have been found decorated with what appears to be a Star of David.

No serious historian believes the legend, but more than 40,000 people make the trip to the “Tomb of Christ” every year, and many visit with the garlic farmer who owns the land on which the tomb sits—a man who is reputed to be a direct descendant of Jesus. He, like a surprising number of other people in the area, has blue eyes.

Actors won’t even call it by its name—they refer to it as “the Scottish play.” Why? Because they say it’s cursed. And after reading this, you may think so too. Here’s one of our favorite “classic” Bathroom Reader articles.

O
UT, OUT DAMN SPOT

In a scene from Shakespeare’s
Macbeth,
three witches stand around a bubbling cauldron, brewing up a stew which includes ingredients such as eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog—“double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble”—we all know the scene. But there’s a story behind that scene…and a curse on the play.

In 1606 King James I commissioned Shakespeare to write a play in honor of the visit of his brother-in-law, King Christian of Denmark. The play Shakespeare wrote was
Macbeth
.

James was no stranger to tragedy. He was taken from his mother shortly after birth and never knew her. His father was murdered soon after that. His mother was forced from the throne of Scotland, imprisoned for 19 years in England, and beheaded by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. James began his rule of Scotland at age 19, married Anne of Denmark, had nine children, and survived a number of assassination attempts. When Queen Elizabeth died, he ascended the throne.

Moving to England from Scotland was like turning on a light in a dark room for James. He was particularly taken with Shakespeare’s plays. He gave Shakespeare and his company royal protection in a time when actors were considered scoundrels. Shakespeare now had the security, popularity, respect, and money that he needed. He produced six new plays in the next five years.

King James was fascinated by witchcraft and obsessed by death and
demons. He wrote a book about demonology and was considered the foremost authority on the subject. With this in mind, Shakespeare sat down to write a play that looked seriously at the king’s favorite subject, and he did his homework. The plot was a thinly disguised account of the death of James’s father; the witchcraft scene was crafted with care and filled with authentic details.

Some say the play’s witchcraft spells and incantations were so faithfully reproduced that they created a curse, and that the curse is renewed every time the words are uttered. Others claim that local witches were so incensed at having their secrets revealed that they placed a perpetual curse upon the play. Whatever the case, for 400 years,
Macbeth
has been uncannily surrounded by death and disaster. So malevolent is the spell that it is said that bad luck will befall any actor who merely quotes from the play.

The curse manifested itself immediately. The young actor scheduled to play Lady Macbeth for King James came down with a fever right before the performance. Some accounts say he died. King James, who had a phobia about knives and gore, was horrified by the death scenes, which were realistically portrayed with guts and blood secured from a butcher. He immediately banned performances of
Macbeth
for five years.

After the ban ended, the play was performed at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. A few days later, the theater burned to the ground and with it all of the company’s scenery, props, costumes, and manuscripts.

Skeptical? Here is just a sampling of the disasters that have surrounded
Macbeth
in the 20th century:

• In the early 1900s, the Moscow Arts Company was doing a dress rehearsal when actor Constantin Stanislavski forgot his lines in the middle of the murder scene. He whispered for a prompt but the prompter was silent. He
yelled
for a prompt, but the prompter remained silent. Investigating, he found the prompter slumped over the script, dead. The show never opened.

• During a 1937 production at the Old Vic Theatre in England, the theater’s founder, Lilian Baylis, suddenly died of a heart attack
just before the play opened. Laurence Olivier, who was starring in the lead role, missed death by seconds when a sandbag accidentally fell from the rafters.

• In 1948, during a production in Stratford, Connecticut, Diana Wynyard as Lady Macbeth loudly announced she thought the curse was ridiculous. She also decided it was silly to play her sleepwalking scene with her eyes open, and tried it with her eyes closed. She walked off the edge of the stage during the next performance and fell 15 feet down.