Do not go to the coordinates above!! This offset multi-cache is the third of four caches based on information gleamed from the Pulitzer prize winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (1997, ISBN 0-393-31755-2). The first three caches are independent of one another and can be done singly, however completing the fourth cache requires that you complete the first three.
You don’t need to buy the book if you don’t want to, just get it from your local library or pick up the travel bug I’ve started (see notes below). I would love for you to read the book from cover to cover, but that certainly isn’t necessary, an index in the back may be very helpful (although you may want to read a few paragraphs before and after the bit of trivia I ask, I think you will find this information quite intriguing. And I promise you the whole book is just as interesting as the sections about which I ask.) Since you’ll be doing research at home this should be an easy cache even if you are planning on visiting from out of town.
This is an offset Multi-Cache. The trivia you answer below gives you the coordinates to a tag, which gives you the coordinates to the final cache location.
A:Yali asks the question, "Why is it that you white people developed so much ______ and brought it to New Guinea, and we black people had little _______ of our own?" Take the number of letters in the missing word and add 3. (( ? + 3 = A ))
B: "In all, of the world’s 148 big wild terrestrial herbivorous mammals – the candidates for domestication – only 14 passed the test. Why did the other 134 species fail?" Take the number of groups of reasons the other species failed and add 2. (( ? + 2 = B ))
C: Take the number of Indians that died on the island of Hispaniola between Columbus’s discovery in 1492 and 1535 when they were entirely wiped out and divide by one million, then subtract 4. (( [? ÷ 1,000,000] - 4 = C ))
D: The QWERTY keyboard was anti-engineered in 1873. Take the number of times one could increase ones typing speed using the keyboard in the 1932 trials and multiply it by 3, then add 1. (( [? x 3] + 1 = D ))
E: Kleptocracies are governments concerned with transferring net wealth from commoners to the upper class.
"What should an elite group do to gain popular support while still maintaining a more comfortable life style than commoners? Kleptocrats throughout the ages have resorted to a mixture of ____ solutions." Take the number of solutions and subtract 3. (( ? - 3 ))
F: "In the early 15th century it [China] sent treasure fleets, each consisting of hundreds of ships up to _______ feet long and with total crews of up to 28,000, across the Indian Ocean as far as the east coast of Africa, decades before Columbus’s three puny ships crossed the narrow Atlantic Ocean to Americas’ east coast." Divide the length of the ships by 10 and then subtract 34. (( [ ? ÷ 10 ] - 34 ))
Check sum is 34. The coordinates to the tag are:
N 38o 56.AB(C-1)
W 92o 19.DE(F+1)
You can check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com.
Additional notes:
1. The MU library has available three copies of GG&S. The Daniel Boone Regional Library has one copy available. Additionally I’ve started a copy of the book as a travel bug. Its kind of oversized, so good luck stuffing it into caches!
2. The final cache is an over sized ammo box full of books. Each of the books has been registered with www.Bookcrossing.com. I ask that if you take a book, please go to the above website and tell that it has been caught. You may pass it on or keep it as you wish. Please feel free to bring a book to trade, but please register the book with bookcrossing.com first, if you plan to trade. However, you need not leave any items in the final cache. I’ll try to keep the cache stocked with books as long as I can.