Supplemental Number.

Alpine views. The Alps are full of excellent natural vantage points, but most of the vistas are spoiled by mountains blocking the view.

Baseball. Abner Doubleday had heard rumors of a game called “cricket,” but he badly misunderstood what he had heard.

Inventions. According to a recent opinion poll, the invention that has most improved the quality of life worldwide was the invention of the opinion poll.

Library of Congress. The entire contents of the Library of Congress can be engraved on the head of a pin, given a sufficiently large pin.

Prohibition. Legally, the passage of the twenty-first amendment to the United States Constitution erased the entire history of the years 1920 to 1933. In a constitutional sense, there never was a “Calvin Coolidge.”

Trees. The seed of a tree contains all the material necessary for the growth of the tree throughout its life. Some of the smaller tree seeds are denser than neutron stars.

Yugoslavia. At the end of the First World War, an anonymous diplomat sketched the nation of “Yugoslavia” on a map of the Balkans as a joke. He did not anticipate that he would be the only statesman in Europe with an ironical sense of humor, but by the time he revealed his pleasantry it was too late.