Monuments to the fallen
QUESTION How many countries have a tomb of the unknown soldier?
AT LeAST 50 countries have a tomb of the unknown soldier.
The proposal for commemorating the unknown victims of war with a single tomb was made in 1916 by the reverend David railton, an Anglican clergyman working in wartime France.
He had been moved by the sight of a grave marked by a rough cross and the message written in pencil: ‘An Unknown British Soldier.’
He contacted Herbert ryle, the Dean of Westminster Abbey in London, proposing that an unidentified British soldier from the battlefields in France be buried ‘amongst the kings’ to represent the many hundreds of thousands of empire dead.
This suggestion was widely supported by the public, the prime minister David Lloyd George and King George V. At the same time, it was proposed to have a similar monument in France.
On November 11, 1920, the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior was inaugurated at Westminster Abbey; in France, it was built under the Arc de Triomphe.
Similar tombs were eventually erected in many countries, including a memorial at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, U.S.; one at the base of the Congress Column in Brussels; the National War Memorial in Confederation Square in Ottawa, Ontario; and the russian Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Kremlin Wall in Moscow.
Not all of the memorials are for the dead of the world wars. The National Martyrs’ Memorial in Savar, Bangladesh, commemorates those who died in the 1971 Liberation War.
The extraordinary UFO- like Monument to the Unknown Soldier in Baghdad was designed by Italian architect Marcello D’Olivo and built at the start of the Iran-Iraq War, 1980 to 1988. A giant pyramid- shaped monument in Nasr City, egypt, was built in 1974 in honour of the egyptians and Arabs who lost their lives in the October 1973 (yom Kippur) War.
Simon Taylor, Winchester.
QUESTION How are fatbergs disposed of?
A FATBerG is a congealed mass of fat, wet wipes, tampons and nappies that can block sewage systems.
In September, a fatberg weighing 130 tonnes and stretching 800ft — the length of two football pitches — was found blocking a sewage pipe in Whitechapel, east London. Nicknamed Fatty McFatberg, its smell was described as ‘like rotting meat mixed with the odour of a smelly toilet’.
eight Thames water workers wearing protective suits took a month to break it down using spades, chemicals and high-pressure hoses. They had to carry a monitor to check for harmful gases.
Fatbergs can be put to good use. Scottish green fuel manufacturer Argent energy turns them into biodiesel at its processing plants in Motherwell and Stanlow in Cheshire.
A chunk of the Whitechapel fatberg went on display at the Museum of London and the rest was used to make 10,000 litres of biodiesel.
Gerald Barnes, Liverpool.
QUESTION Can sponges be grown commercially?
SpONGeS can be grown commercially, though farming is in its infancy and relies on clean seas.
These aquatic animals have bodies composed of pores and channels to allow water to pass through.
In ancient times, the phoenicians and egyptians realised the potential of these creatures to absorb water and harvested sponges in the Mediterranean. But it was the Greeks who exploited this natural resource. Divers from the island of Kalymnos have for centuries used stone ballast and a basket to harvest sponges at sea depths of 120ft.
roman soldiers used a sponge for personal hygiene. Sponges soaked in sugary water were given to babies as comforters. Soaked in lemon or vinegar, they were also used as an unreliable form of contraceptive.
Commercial sponge exploitation was exclusive to the Mediterranean until the 17th century, when it spread to the Caribbean and Florida.
From the late 19th century, when the demand for bath sponges increased, traditional methods were abandoned. Fishermen started to rip sponges from the rocks, rather than removing them in a sustainable manner by taking cuttings.
In 1985, sponge disease from Tunisia was first reported in the Mediterranean. Within four years, it had destroyed all of the sponges along the Greek coast and islands.
This led to attempts to create artificial fisheries at Marseilles in France and porto Cesareo in Italy with fragments of sponges attached to pVC vertical structures anchored to the seabed.
At Kalymnos, they were attached to anchored metal plates, but failed due to pollution from the floating cages of a nearby fish farm.
The only successful sponge farms have been established in the clean water of the pacific. On pohnpei island in Micronesia, 12,000 sponges have been produced.
Dr Ken Bristow, Glasgow.
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