Arabic book Map of Sicily from a 13th-century copy of the Fatimid cosmography, The Book of Curiosities, housed in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. a b c d e f g h i j Rapoport, Yossef; Savage-Smith, Emilie (2018). Lost Maps of the Caliphs. University of Chicago Press. doi: 10.7208/chicago/9780226553405.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-226-54088-7.

Jumping spiders can leap up to 40 times their own body length. If humans could jump this far, they would be able to jump over 230 feet. [8] While the chapters containing the maps are not known to be preserved in later copies or incorporated into other treatises, portions of Book 1 (on celestial matters) of the Book of Curiosities, as well as the first chapter of Book 2 (on the measurement of the earth) are found in five unillustrated manuscripts (all much later copies) of treatises having the same title ( Ghara’ib al-funun wa-mulah al-‘uyun) but slightly differing contents. These sections of Book I, and the first chapter of Book 2, are preserved in Cairo, Dar al-Kutub, miqat MS 876, fols. 1a-18b copied in 1641 [1051 H]; in Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, MS & 76 sup., folios 2a-67b; and also partially in a manuscript written in Karshuni (Arabic in Syriac script) and now in the Bodleian Library (MS Bodl. Or. 68, fols. 37a-143b). Of these three manuscripts, the one in Milan is closest in content to the first book of the Bodleian Library manuscript, but all three manuscripts proved useful in editing various portions of Book I. Two other copies are recorded as being in Mosul and in Algiers, but they were unavailable for comparison. Take The Book of Curiosities of the Sciences, and Marvels for the Eyes, an eleventh-century Arabic geography compiled by an anonymous scribe. Despite the wear of centuries, the book is still a wonder. Its illustrations are designed to excite the senses as well as the intellect. Waters painted with silver to make them shimmer; comets that blaze with flakes of gold; lapis lazuli deepening the ocean’s blue. In those days, paper was an expensive commodity, such that the book’s wide margins were a show of lavish excess. When a spider travels, it always has four legs touching the ground and four legs off the ground at any given moment. [16]Book 2 – Chapter 3: On the seven climes and their conditions, the lands beyond the equator and the lands at the edge of the northern boundary The bell’s strikes were broadcast internationally for the first time in 1932, during King George V’s Christmas broadcast on the Empire Service (later the World Service). The Library's buildings remain fully open but some services are limited, including access to collection items. We're

Book 1 – Chapter 8: On the attributes of the planets, their influences, properties, measurements, the manner of their pictorial representations and their various names Some spiders, such as house spiders, are able to run up walls because their feet are covered in tiny hairs that grip the surface. They can’t get out of a bathtub, however, because the surface is too slippery. Other spiders, such as garden spiders, cannot crawl up walls because their legs end in claws, which help them grip threads of silk instead. [10]The Elizabeth Tower is one of London’s most enduringly famous film and television stars. It has featured in the likes of 28 Days Later, V for Vendetta, Lost, Doctor Who, Thunderball and Mary Poppins.