"The Thousand and Second Tale of Scheherazade" - читать интересную книгу автора (Poe Edgar Allan)

mathematicians- "to determine the best form that can be given to the
sails of a windmill, according to their varying distances from the
revolving vanes, and likewise from the centres of the revolution."
This is an excessively complex problem, for it is, in other words,
to find the best possible position at an infinity of varied distances,
and at an infinity of points on the arm. There were a thousand
futile attempts to answer the query on the part of the most
illustrious mathematicians; and when, at length, an undeniable
solution was discovered, men found that the wing of a bird had given
it with absolute precision ever since the first bird had traversed the
air.

"Oh my!" said the king.
"'We had scarcely lost sight of this empire when we found
ourselves close upon another, from whose shores there flew over our
heads a flock of fowls a mile in breadth, and two hundred and forty
miles long; so that, although they flew a mile during every minute, it
required no less than four hours for the whole flock to pass over
us- in which there were several millions of millions of fowl.'"*

* He observed a flock of pigeons passing betwixt Frankfort and the
Indian territory, one mile at least in breadth; it took up four
hours in passing, which, at the rate of one mile per minute, gives a
length of 240 miles; and, supposing three pigeons to each square yard,
gives 2,230,272,000 Pigeons.- "Travels in Canada and the United
States," by Lieut. F. Hall.

"Oh fy!" said the king.
"'No sooner had we got rid of these birds, which occasioned us great
annoyance, than we were terrified by the appearance of a fowl of
another kind, and infinitely larger than even the rocs which I met
in my former voyages; for it was bigger than the biggest of the
domes on your seraglio, oh, most Munificent of Caliphs. This
terrible fowl had no head that we could perceive, but was fashioned
entirely of belly, which was of a prodigious fatness and roundness, of
a soft-looking substance, smooth, shining and striped with various
colors. In its talons, the monster was bearing away to his eyrie in
the heavens, a house from which it had knocked off the roof, and in
the interior of which we distinctly saw human beings, who, beyond
doubt, were in a state of frightful despair at the horrible fate which
awaited them. We shouted with all our might, in the hope of
frightening the bird into letting go of its prey, but it merely gave a
snort or puff, as if of rage and then let fall upon our heads a
heavy sack which proved to be filled with sand!'"
"Stuff!" said the king.
"'It was just after this adventure that we encountered a continent
of immense extent and prodigious solidity, but which, nevertheless,
was supported entirely upon the back of a sky-blue cow that had no
fewer than four hundred horns.'"*