SAT Pastpaper with Solutions

My emotions are complicated and notreadily verifiable. I feel a vast yearning that issimultaneously a pleasure and a pain. I am certainof the consummation of this yearning, but I don’tknow yet what form it will take, since I do notunderstand quite what it is that the yearning desires.For the first time there is borne in upon me the fulltruth of what I myself said to the doctor only an hourago: that my motives in this undertaking are notentirely clear. For years, for a lifetime, the machineryof my destiny has worked in secret to prepare for thismoment; its clockwork has moved exactly towardthis time and place and no other. Rising slowly fromthe earth that bore me and gave me sustenance, I amcarried helplessly toward an uninhabited and hostile,or at best indifferent, part of the earth, littered withthe bones of explorers and the wrecks of ships, frozensupply caches, messages scrawled with chilled fingersand hidden in cairns that no eye will ever see.Nobody has succeeded in this thing, and many havedied. Yet in freely willing this enterprise, in choosingthis moment and no other when the south windwill carry me exactly northward at a velocity ofeight knots, I have converted the machinery of myfate into the servant of my will. All this I understand,as I understand each detail of the technique by whichthis is carried out. What I don’t understand is why Iam so intent on going to this particular place. Whowants the North Pole! What good is it! Can you eatit? Will it carry you from Gothenburg to Malmö likea railway? The Danish ministers have declared fromtheir pulpits that participation in polar expeditions isbeneficial to the soul’s eternal well-being, or so I readin a newspaper. It isn’t clear how this doctrine is tobe interpreted, except that the Pole is somethingdifficult or impossible to attain which mustnevertheless be sought for, because man iscondemned to seek out and know everythingwhether or not the knowledge gives him pleasure. Inshort, it is the same unthinking lust for knowledgethat drove our First Parents out of the garden.And suppose you were to find it in spite of all, thiswonderful place that everybody is so anxious to standon! What would you find? Exactly nothing.A point precisely identical to all the others in acompletely featureless wasteland stretching around itfor hundreds of miles. It is an abstraction, amathematical fiction. No one but a Swedish madmancould take the slightest interest in it. Here I am. Thewind is still from the south, bearing us steadilynorthward at the speed of a trotting dog. Behind us,perhaps forever, lie the Cities of Men with their teacups and their brass bedsteads. I am going forth ofmy own volition to join the ghosts of Bering andpoor Franklin, of frozen De Long and his men.What I am on the brink of knowing, I now see, is notan ephemeral mathematical spot but myself. Thedoctor was right, even though I dislike him.Fundamentally I am a dangerous madman, and whatI do is both a challenge to my egotism and asurrender to it.

My emotions are complicated and notreadily verifiable. I feel a vast yearning that issimultaneously a pleasure and a pain. I am certainof the consummation of this yearning, but I don’tknow yet what form it will take, since I do notunderstand quite what it is that the yearning desires.For the first time there is borne in upon me the fulltruth of what I myself said to the doctor only an hourago: that my motives in this undertaking are notentirely clear. For years, for a lifetime, the machineryof my destiny has worked in secret to prepare for thismoment; its clockwork has moved exactly towardthis time and place and no other. Rising slowly fromthe earth that bore me and gave me sustenance, I amcarried helplessly toward an uninhabited and hostile,or at best indifferent, part of the earth, littered withthe bones of explorers and the wrecks of ships, frozensupply caches, messages scrawled with chilled fingersand hidden in cairns that no eye will ever see.Nobody has succeeded in this thing, and many havedied. Yet in freely willing this enterprise, in choosingthis moment and no other when the south windwill carry me exactly northward at a velocity ofeight knots, I have converted the machinery of myfate into the servant of my will. All this I understand,as I understand each detail of the technique by whichthis is carried out. What I don’t understand is why Iam so intent on going to this particular place. Whowants the North Pole! What good is it! Can you eatit? Will it carry you from Gothenburg to Malmö likea railway? The Danish ministers have declared fromtheir pulpits that participation in polar expeditions isbeneficial to the soul’s eternal well-being, or so I readin a newspaper. It isn’t clear how this doctrine is tobe interpreted, except that the Pole is somethingdifficult or impossible to attain which mustnevertheless be sought for, because man iscondemned to seek out and know everythingwhether or not the knowledge gives him pleasure. Inshort, it is the same unthinking lust for knowledgethat drove our First Parents out of the garden.And suppose you were to find it in spite of all, thiswonderful place that everybody is so anxious to standon! What would you find? Exactly nothing.A point precisely identical to all the others in acompletely featureless wasteland stretching around itfor hundreds of miles. It is an abstraction, amathematical fiction. No one but a Swedish madmancould take the slightest interest in it. Here I am. Thewind is still from the south, bearing us steadilynorthward at the speed of a trotting dog. Behind us,perhaps forever, lie the Cities of Men with their teacups and their brass bedsteads. I am going forth ofmy own volition to join the ghosts of Bering andpoor Franklin, of frozen De Long and his men.What I am on the brink of knowing, I now see, is notan ephemeral mathematical spot but myself. Thedoctor was right, even though I dislike him.Fundamentally I am a dangerous madman, and whatI do is both a challenge to my egotism and asurrender to it.

My emotions are complicated and notreadily verifiable. I feel a vast yearning that issimultaneously a pleasure and a pain. I am certainof the consummation of this yearning, but I don’tknow yet what form it will take, since I do notunderstand quite what it is that the yearning desires.For the first time there is borne in upon me the fulltruth of what I myself said to the doctor only an hourago: that my motives in this undertaking are notentirely clear. For years, for a lifetime, the machineryof my destiny has worked in secret to prepare for thismoment; its clockwork has moved exactly towardthis time and place and no other. Rising slowly fromthe earth that bore me and gave me sustenance, I amcarried helplessly toward an uninhabited and hostile,or at best indifferent, part of the earth, littered withthe bones of explorers and the wrecks of ships, frozensupply caches, messages scrawled with chilled fingersand hidden in cairns that no eye will ever see.Nobody has succeeded in this thing, and many havedied. Yet in freely willing this enterprise, in choosingthis moment and no other when the south windwill carry me exactly northward at a velocity ofeight knots, I have converted the machinery of myfate into the servant of my will. All this I understand,as I understand each detail of the technique by whichthis is carried out. What I don’t understand is why Iam so intent on going to this particular place. Whowants the North Pole! What good is it! Can you eatit? Will it carry you from Gothenburg to Malmö likea railway? The Danish ministers have declared fromtheir pulpits that participation in polar expeditions isbeneficial to the soul’s eternal well-being, or so I readin a newspaper. It isn’t clear how this doctrine is tobe interpreted, except that the Pole is somethingdifficult or impossible to attain which mustnevertheless be sought for, because man iscondemned to seek out and know everythingwhether or not the knowledge gives him pleasure. Inshort, it is the same unthinking lust for knowledgethat drove our First Parents out of the garden.And suppose you were to find it in spite of all, thiswonderful place that everybody is so anxious to standon! What would you find? Exactly nothing.A point precisely identical to all the others in acompletely featureless wasteland stretching around itfor hundreds of miles. It is an abstraction, amathematical fiction. No one but a Swedish madmancould take the slightest interest in it. Here I am. Thewind is still from the south, bearing us steadilynorthward at the speed of a trotting dog. Behind us,perhaps forever, lie the Cities of Men with their teacups and their brass bedsteads. I am going forth ofmy own volition to join the ghosts of Bering andpoor Franklin, of frozen De Long and his men.What I am on the brink of knowing, I now see, is notan ephemeral mathematical spot but myself. Thedoctor was right, even though I dislike him.Fundamentally I am a dangerous madman, and whatI do is both a challenge to my egotism and asurrender to it.

My emotions are complicated and notreadily verifiable. I feel a vast yearning that issimultaneously a pleasure and a pain. I am certainof the consummation of this yearning, but I don’tknow yet what form it will take, since I do notunderstand quite what it is that the yearning desires.For the first time there is borne in upon me the fulltruth of what I myself said to the doctor only an hourago: that my motives in this undertaking are notentirely clear. For years, for a lifetime, the machineryof my destiny has worked in secret to prepare for thismoment; its clockwork has moved exactly towardthis time and place and no other. Rising slowly fromthe earth that bore me and gave me sustenance, I amcarried helplessly toward an uninhabited and hostile,or at best indifferent, part of the earth, littered withthe bones of explorers and the wrecks of ships, frozensupply caches, messages scrawled with chilled fingersand hidden in cairns that no eye will ever see.Nobody has succeeded in this thing, and many havedied. Yet in freely willing this enterprise, in choosingthis moment and no other when the south windwill carry me exactly northward at a velocity ofeight knots, I have converted the machinery of myfate into the servant of my will. All this I understand,as I understand each detail of the technique by whichthis is carried out. What I don’t understand is why Iam so intent on going to this particular place. Whowants the North Pole! What good is it! Can you eatit? Will it carry you from Gothenburg to Malmö likea railway? The Danish ministers have declared fromtheir pulpits that participation in polar expeditions isbeneficial to the soul’s eternal well-being, or so I readin a newspaper. It isn’t clear how this doctrine is tobe interpreted, except that the Pole is somethingdifficult or impossible to attain which mustnevertheless be sought for, because man iscondemned to seek out and know everythingwhether or not the knowledge gives him pleasure. Inshort, it is the same unthinking lust for knowledgethat drove our First Parents out of the garden.And suppose you were to find it in spite of all, thiswonderful place that everybody is so anxious to standon! What would you find? Exactly nothing.A point precisely identical to all the others in acompletely featureless wasteland stretching around itfor hundreds of miles. It is an abstraction, amathematical fiction. No one but a Swedish madmancould take the slightest interest in it. Here I am. Thewind is still from the south, bearing us steadilynorthward at the speed of a trotting dog. Behind us,perhaps forever, lie the Cities of Men with their teacups and their brass bedsteads. I am going forth ofmy own volition to join the ghosts of Bering andpoor Franklin, of frozen De Long and his men.What I am on the brink of knowing, I now see, is notan ephemeral mathematical spot but myself. Thedoctor was right, even though I dislike him.Fundamentally I am a dangerous madman, and whatI do is both a challenge to my egotism and asurrender to it.

My emotions are complicated and notreadily verifiable. I feel a vast yearning that issimultaneously a pleasure and a pain. I am certainof the consummation of this yearning, but I don’tknow yet what form it will take, since I do notunderstand quite what it is that the yearning desires.For the first time there is borne in upon me the fulltruth of what I myself said to the doctor only an hourago: that my motives in this undertaking are notentirely clear. For years, for a lifetime, the machineryof my destiny has worked in secret to prepare for thismoment; its clockwork has moved exactly towardthis time and place and no other. Rising slowly fromthe earth that bore me and gave me sustenance, I amcarried helplessly toward an uninhabited and hostile,or at best indifferent, part of the earth, littered withthe bones of explorers and the wrecks of ships, frozensupply caches, messages scrawled with chilled fingersand hidden in cairns that no eye will ever see.Nobody has succeeded in this thing, and many havedied. Yet in freely willing this enterprise, in choosingthis moment and no other when the south windwill carry me exactly northward at a velocity ofeight knots, I have converted the machinery of myfate into the servant of my will. All this I understand,as I understand each detail of the technique by whichthis is carried out. What I don’t understand is why Iam so intent on going to this particular place. Whowants the North Pole! What good is it! Can you eatit? Will it carry you from Gothenburg to Malmö likea railway? The Danish ministers have declared fromtheir pulpits that participation in polar expeditions isbeneficial to the soul’s eternal well-being, or so I readin a newspaper. It isn’t clear how this doctrine is tobe interpreted, except that the Pole is somethingdifficult or impossible to attain which mustnevertheless be sought for, because man iscondemned to seek out and know everythingwhether or not the knowledge gives him pleasure. Inshort, it is the same unthinking lust for knowledgethat drove our First Parents out of the garden.And suppose you were to find it in spite of all, thiswonderful place that everybody is so anxious to standon! What would you find? Exactly nothing.A point precisely identical to all the others in acompletely featureless wasteland stretching around itfor hundreds of miles. It is an abstraction, amathematical fiction. No one but a Swedish madmancould take the slightest interest in it. Here I am. Thewind is still from the south, bearing us steadilynorthward at the speed of a trotting dog. Behind us,perhaps forever, lie the Cities of Men with their teacups and their brass bedsteads. I am going forth ofmy own volition to join the ghosts of Bering andpoor Franklin, of frozen De Long and his men.What I am on the brink of knowing, I now see, is notan ephemeral mathematical spot but myself. Thedoctor was right, even though I dislike him.Fundamentally I am a dangerous madman, and whatI do is both a challenge to my egotism and asurrender to it.

My emotions are complicated and notreadily verifiable. I feel a vast yearning that issimultaneously a pleasure and a pain. I am certainof the consummation of this yearning, but I don’tknow yet what form it will take, since I do notunderstand quite what it is that the yearning desires.For the first time there is borne in upon me the fulltruth of what I myself said to the doctor only an hourago: that my motives in this undertaking are notentirely clear. For years, for a lifetime, the machineryof my destiny has worked in secret to prepare for thismoment; its clockwork has moved exactly towardthis time and place and no other. Rising slowly fromthe earth that bore me and gave me sustenance, I amcarried helplessly toward an uninhabited and hostile,or at best indifferent, part of the earth, littered withthe bones of explorers and the wrecks of ships, frozensupply caches, messages scrawled with chilled fingersand hidden in cairns that no eye will ever see.Nobody has succeeded in this thing, and many havedied. Yet in freely willing this enterprise, in choosingthis moment and no other when the south windwill carry me exactly northward at a velocity ofeight knots, I have converted the machinery of myfate into the servant of my will. All this I understand,as I understand each detail of the technique by whichthis is carried out. What I don’t understand is why Iam so intent on going to this particular place. Whowants the North Pole! What good is it! Can you eatit? Will it carry you from Gothenburg to Malmö likea railway? The Danish ministers have declared fromtheir pulpits that participation in polar expeditions isbeneficial to the soul’s eternal well-being, or so I readin a newspaper. It isn’t clear how this doctrine is tobe interpreted, except that the Pole is somethingdifficult or impossible to attain which mustnevertheless be sought for, because man iscondemned to seek out and know everythingwhether or not the knowledge gives him pleasure. Inshort, it is the same unthinking lust for knowledgethat drove our First Parents out of the garden.And suppose you were to find it in spite of all, thiswonderful place that everybody is so anxious to standon! What would you find? Exactly nothing.A point precisely identical to all the others in acompletely featureless wasteland stretching around itfor hundreds of miles. It is an abstraction, amathematical fiction. No one but a Swedish madmancould take the slightest interest in it. Here I am. Thewind is still from the south, bearing us steadilynorthward at the speed of a trotting dog. Behind us,perhaps forever, lie the Cities of Men with their teacups and their brass bedsteads. I am going forth ofmy own volition to join the ghosts of Bering andpoor Franklin, of frozen De Long and his men.What I am on the brink of knowing, I now see, is notan ephemeral mathematical spot but myself. Thedoctor was right, even though I dislike him.Fundamentally I am a dangerous madman, and whatI do is both a challenge to my egotism and asurrender to it.

My emotions are complicated and notreadily verifiable. I feel a vast yearning that issimultaneously a pleasure and a pain. I am certainof the consummation of this yearning, but I don’tknow yet what form it will take, since I do notunderstand quite what it is that the yearning desires.For the first time there is borne in upon me the fulltruth of what I myself said to the doctor only an hourago: that my motives in this undertaking are notentirely clear. For years, for a lifetime, the machineryof my destiny has worked in secret to prepare for thismoment; its clockwork has moved exactly towardthis time and place and no other. Rising slowly fromthe earth that bore me and gave me sustenance, I amcarried helplessly toward an uninhabited and hostile,or at best indifferent, part of the earth, littered withthe bones of explorers and the wrecks of ships, frozensupply caches, messages scrawled with chilled fingersand hidden in cairns that no eye will ever see.Nobody has succeeded in this thing, and many havedied. Yet in freely willing this enterprise, in choosingthis moment and no other when the south windwill carry me exactly northward at a velocity ofeight knots, I have converted the machinery of myfate into the servant of my will. All this I understand,as I understand each detail of the technique by whichthis is carried out. What I don’t understand is why Iam so intent on going to this particular place. Whowants the North Pole! What good is it! Can you eatit? Will it carry you from Gothenburg to Malmö likea railway? The Danish ministers have declared fromtheir pulpits that participation in polar expeditions isbeneficial to the soul’s eternal well-being, or so I readin a newspaper. It isn’t clear how this doctrine is tobe interpreted, except that the Pole is somethingdifficult or impossible to attain which mustnevertheless be sought for, because man iscondemned to seek out and know everythingwhether or not the knowledge gives him pleasure. Inshort, it is the same unthinking lust for knowledgethat drove our First Parents out of the garden.And suppose you were to find it in spite of all, thiswonderful place that everybody is so anxious to standon! What would you find? Exactly nothing.A point precisely identical to all the others in acompletely featureless wasteland stretching around itfor hundreds of miles. It is an abstraction, amathematical fiction. No one but a Swedish madmancould take the slightest interest in it. Here I am. Thewind is still from the south, bearing us steadilynorthward at the speed of a trotting dog. Behind us,perhaps forever, lie the Cities of Men with their teacups and their brass bedsteads. I am going forth ofmy own volition to join the ghosts of Bering andpoor Franklin, of frozen De Long and his men.What I am on the brink of knowing, I now see, is notan ephemeral mathematical spot but myself. Thedoctor was right, even though I dislike him.Fundamentally I am a dangerous madman, and whatI do is both a challenge to my egotism and asurrender to it.

My emotions are complicated and notreadily verifiable. I feel a vast yearning that issimultaneously a pleasure and a pain. I am certainof the consummation of this yearning, but I don’tknow yet what form it will take, since I do notunderstand quite what it is that the yearning desires.For the first time there is borne in upon me the fulltruth of what I myself said to the doctor only an hourago: that my motives in this undertaking are notentirely clear. For years, for a lifetime, the machineryof my destiny has worked in secret to prepare for thismoment; its clockwork has moved exactly towardthis time and place and no other. Rising slowly fromthe earth that bore me and gave me sustenance, I amcarried helplessly toward an uninhabited and hostile,or at best indifferent, part of the earth, littered withthe bones of explorers and the wrecks of ships, frozensupply caches, messages scrawled with chilled fingersand hidden in cairns that no eye will ever see.Nobody has succeeded in this thing, and many havedied. Yet in freely willing this enterprise, in choosingthis moment and no other when the south windwill carry me exactly northward at a velocity ofeight knots, I have converted the machinery of myfate into the servant of my will. All this I understand,as I understand each detail of the technique by whichthis is carried out. What I don’t understand is why Iam so intent on going to this particular place. Whowants the North Pole! What good is it! Can you eatit? Will it carry you from Gothenburg to Malmö likea railway? The Danish ministers have declared fromtheir pulpits that participation in polar expeditions isbeneficial to the soul’s eternal well-being, or so I readin a newspaper. It isn’t clear how this doctrine is tobe interpreted, except that the Pole is somethingdifficult or impossible to attain which mustnevertheless be sought for, because man iscondemned to seek out and know everythingwhether or not the knowledge gives him pleasure. Inshort, it is the same unthinking lust for knowledgethat drove our First Parents out of the garden.And suppose you were to find it in spite of all, thiswonderful place that everybody is so anxious to standon! What would you find? Exactly nothing.A point precisely identical to all the others in acompletely featureless wasteland stretching around itfor hundreds of miles. It is an abstraction, amathematical fiction. No one but a Swedish madmancould take the slightest interest in it. Here I am. Thewind is still from the south, bearing us steadilynorthward at the speed of a trotting dog. Behind us,perhaps forever, lie the Cities of Men with their teacups and their brass bedsteads. I am going forth ofmy own volition to join the ghosts of Bering andpoor Franklin, of frozen De Long and his men.What I am on the brink of knowing, I now see, is notan ephemeral mathematical spot but myself. Thedoctor was right, even though I dislike him.Fundamentally I am a dangerous madman, and whatI do is both a challenge to my egotism and asurrender to it.

My emotions are complicated and notreadily verifiable. I feel a vast yearning that issimultaneously a pleasure and a pain. I am certainof the consummation of this yearning, but I don’tknow yet what form it will take, since I do notunderstand quite what it is that the yearning desires.For the first time there is borne in upon me the fulltruth of what I myself said to the doctor only an hourago: that my motives in this undertaking are notentirely clear. For years, for a lifetime, the machineryof my destiny has worked in secret to prepare for thismoment; its clockwork has moved exactly towardthis time and place and no other. Rising slowly fromthe earth that bore me and gave me sustenance, I amcarried helplessly toward an uninhabited and hostile,or at best indifferent, part of the earth, littered withthe bones of explorers and the wrecks of ships, frozensupply caches, messages scrawled with chilled fingersand hidden in cairns that no eye will ever see.Nobody has succeeded in this thing, and many havedied. Yet in freely willing this enterprise, in choosingthis moment and no other when the south windwill carry me exactly northward at a velocity ofeight knots, I have converted the machinery of myfate into the servant of my will. All this I understand,as I understand each detail of the technique by whichthis is carried out. What I don’t understand is why Iam so intent on going to this particular place. Whowants the North Pole! What good is it! Can you eatit? Will it carry you from Gothenburg to Malmö likea railway? The Danish ministers have declared fromtheir pulpits that participation in polar expeditions isbeneficial to the soul’s eternal well-being, or so I readin a newspaper. It isn’t clear how this doctrine is tobe interpreted, except that the Pole is somethingdifficult or impossible to attain which mustnevertheless be sought for, because man iscondemned to seek out and know everythingwhether or not the knowledge gives him pleasure. Inshort, it is the same unthinking lust for knowledgethat drove our First Parents out of the garden.And suppose you were to find it in spite of all, thiswonderful place that everybody is so anxious to standon! What would you find? Exactly nothing.A point precisely identical to all the others in acompletely featureless wasteland stretching around itfor hundreds of miles. It is an abstraction, amathematical fiction. No one but a Swedish madmancould take the slightest interest in it. Here I am. Thewind is still from the south, bearing us steadilynorthward at the speed of a trotting dog. Behind us,perhaps forever, lie the Cities of Men with their teacups and their brass bedsteads. I am going forth ofmy own volition to join the ghosts of Bering andpoor Franklin, of frozen De Long and his men.What I am on the brink of knowing, I now see, is notan ephemeral mathematical spot but myself. Thedoctor was right, even though I dislike him.Fundamentally I am a dangerous madman, and whatI do is both a challenge to my egotism and asurrender to it.

We are not witnessing the abandonment of thesuburbs, or a movement of millions of people back tothe city all at once. The 2010 census certainly did notturn up evidence of a middle-class stampede to thenation’s cities. The news was mixed: Some of thelarger cities on the East Coast tended to gainpopulation, albeit in small increments. Those in theMidwest, including Chicago, tended to losesubstantial numbers. The cities that showed gains inoverall population during the entire decade tended tobe in the South and Southwest. But when it comes tomeasuring demographic inversion, raw censusnumbers are an ineffective blunt instrument. A closerlook at the results shows that the most powerfuldemographic events of the past decade were themovement of African Americans out of central cities(180,000 of them in Chicago alone) and thesettlement of immigrant groups in suburbs, oftenones many miles distant from downtown.Central-city areas that gained affluent residents inthe first part of the decade maintained thatpopulation in the recession years from 2007 to 2009.They also, according to a 2011 study by Brookings,suffered considerably less from increasedunemployment than the suburbs did. Not manyyoung professionals moved to new downtowncondos in the recession years because few suchresidences were being built. But there is no reason tobelieve that the demographic trends prevailing priorto the construction bust will not resume once thatbust is over. It is important to remember thatdemographic inversion is not a proxy for populationgrowth; it can occur in cities that are growing, thosewhose numbers are flat, and even in thoseundergoing a modest decline in size.America’s major cities face enormous fiscalproblems, many of them the result of public pensionobligations they incurred in the more prosperousyears of the past two decades. Some, Chicago prominent among them, simply are not producingenough revenue to support the level of publicservices to which most of the citizens have grown tofeel entitled. How the cities are going to solve thisproblem, I do not know. What I do know is that iffiscal crisis were going to drive affluent professionalsout of central cities, it would have done so by now.There is no evidence that it has.The truth is that we are living at a moment inwhich the massive outward migration of the affluentthat characterized the second half of thetwentieth century is coming to an end. And we needto adjust our perceptions of cities, suburbs, andurban mobility as a result.Much of our perspective on the process ofmetropolitan settlement dates, whether we realize itor not, from a paper written in 1925 by theUniversity of Chicago sociologist Ernest W. Burgess.It was Burgess who defined four urban/suburbanzones of settlement: a central business district; anarea of manufacturing just beyond it; then aresidential area inhabited by the industrial andimmigrant working class; and finally an outerenclave of single-family dwellings.Burgess was right about the urban America of1925; he was right about the urban America of 1974.Virtually every city in the country had a downtown, where the commercial life of the metropolis wasconducted; it had a factory district just beyond; it haddistricts of working-class residences just beyond that;and it had residential suburbs for the wealthy and theupper middle class at the far end of the continuum.As a family moved up the economic ladder, it alsomoved outward from crowded working-classdistricts to more spacious apartments and,eventually, to a suburban home. The suburbs ofBurgess’s time bore little resemblance to those at theend of the twentieth century, but the theory stillessentially worked. People moved ahead in life bymoving farther out.But in the past decade, in quite a few places, thismodel has ceased to describe reality. There are stilldowntown commercial districts, but there are nofactory districts lying next to them. There arescarcely any factories at all. These close-in parts ofthe city, whose few residents Burgess described asdwelling in “submerged regions of poverty,degradation and disease,” are increasingly thepreserve of the affluent who work in the commercialcore. And just as crucially newcomers to America arenot settling on the inside and accumulating theresources to move out; they are living in the suburbsfrom day one.

We are not witnessing the abandonment of thesuburbs, or a movement of millions of people back tothe city all at once. The 2010 census certainly did notturn up evidence of a middle-class stampede to thenation’s cities. The news was mixed: Some of thelarger cities on the East Coast tended to gainpopulation, albeit in small increments. Those in theMidwest, including Chicago, tended to losesubstantial numbers. The cities that showed gains inoverall population during the entire decade tended tobe in the South and Southwest. But when it comes tomeasuring demographic inversion, raw censusnumbers are an ineffective blunt instrument. A closerlook at the results shows that the most powerfuldemographic events of the past decade were themovement of African Americans out of central cities(180,000 of them in Chicago alone) and thesettlement of immigrant groups in suburbs, oftenones many miles distant from downtown.Central-city areas that gained affluent residents inthe first part of the decade maintained thatpopulation in the recession years from 2007 to 2009.They also, according to a 2011 study by Brookings,suffered considerably less from increasedunemployment than the suburbs did. Not manyyoung professionals moved to new downtowncondos in the recession years because few suchresidences were being built. But there is no reason tobelieve that the demographic trends prevailing priorto the construction bust will not resume once thatbust is over. It is important to remember thatdemographic inversion is not a proxy for populationgrowth; it can occur in cities that are growing, thosewhose numbers are flat, and even in thoseundergoing a modest decline in size.America’s major cities face enormous fiscalproblems, many of them the result of public pensionobligations they incurred in the more prosperousyears of the past two decades. Some, Chicago prominent among them, simply are not producingenough revenue to support the level of publicservices to which most of the citizens have grown tofeel entitled. How the cities are going to solve thisproblem, I do not know. What I do know is that iffiscal crisis were going to drive affluent professionalsout of central cities, it would have done so by now.There is no evidence that it has.The truth is that we are living at a moment inwhich the massive outward migration of the affluentthat characterized the second half of thetwentieth century is coming to an end. And we needto adjust our perceptions of cities, suburbs, andurban mobility as a result.Much of our perspective on the process ofmetropolitan settlement dates, whether we realize itor not, from a paper written in 1925 by theUniversity of Chicago sociologist Ernest W. Burgess.It was Burgess who defined four urban/suburbanzones of settlement: a central business district; anarea of manufacturing just beyond it; then aresidential area inhabited by the industrial andimmigrant working class; and finally an outerenclave of single-family dwellings.Burgess was right about the urban America of1925; he was right about the urban America of 1974.Virtually every city in the country had a downtown, where the commercial life of the metropolis wasconducted; it had a factory district just beyond; it haddistricts of working-class residences just beyond that;and it had residential suburbs for the wealthy and theupper middle class at the far end of the continuum.As a family moved up the economic ladder, it alsomoved outward from crowded working-classdistricts to more spacious apartments and,eventually, to a suburban home. The suburbs ofBurgess’s time bore little resemblance to those at theend of the twentieth century, but the theory stillessentially worked. People moved ahead in life bymoving farther out.But in the past decade, in quite a few places, thismodel has ceased to describe reality. There are stilldowntown commercial districts, but there are nofactory districts lying next to them. There arescarcely any factories at all. These close-in parts ofthe city, whose few residents Burgess described asdwelling in “submerged regions of poverty,degradation and disease,” are increasingly thepreserve of the affluent who work in the commercialcore. And just as crucially newcomers to America arenot settling on the inside and accumulating theresources to move out; they are living in the suburbsfrom day one.

We are not witnessing the abandonment of thesuburbs, or a movement of millions of people back tothe city all at once. The 2010 census certainly did notturn up evidence of a middle-class stampede to thenation’s cities. The news was mixed: Some of thelarger cities on the East Coast tended to gainpopulation, albeit in small increments. Those in theMidwest, including Chicago, tended to losesubstantial numbers. The cities that showed gains inoverall population during the entire decade tended tobe in the South and Southwest. But when it comes tomeasuring demographic inversion, raw censusnumbers are an ineffective blunt instrument. A closerlook at the results shows that the most powerfuldemographic events of the past decade were themovement of African Americans out of central cities(180,000 of them in Chicago alone) and thesettlement of immigrant groups in suburbs, oftenones many miles distant from downtown.Central-city areas that gained affluent residents inthe first part of the decade maintained thatpopulation in the recession years from 2007 to 2009.They also, according to a 2011 study by Brookings,suffered considerably less from increasedunemployment than the suburbs did. Not manyyoung professionals moved to new downtowncondos in the recession years because few suchresidences were being built. But there is no reason tobelieve that the demographic trends prevailing priorto the construction bust will not resume once thatbust is over. It is important to remember thatdemographic inversion is not a proxy for populationgrowth; it can occur in cities that are growing, thosewhose numbers are flat, and even in thoseundergoing a modest decline in size.America’s major cities face enormous fiscalproblems, many of them the result of public pensionobligations they incurred in the more prosperousyears of the past two decades. Some, Chicago prominent among them, simply are not producingenough revenue to support the level of publicservices to which most of the citizens have grown tofeel entitled. How the cities are going to solve thisproblem, I do not know. What I do know is that iffiscal crisis were going to drive affluent professionalsout of central cities, it would have done so by now.There is no evidence that it has.The truth is that we are living at a moment inwhich the massive outward migration of the affluentthat characterized the second half of thetwentieth century is coming to an end. And we needto adjust our perceptions of cities, suburbs, andurban mobility as a result.Much of our perspective on the process ofmetropolitan settlement dates, whether we realize itor not, from a paper written in 1925 by theUniversity of Chicago sociologist Ernest W. Burgess.It was Burgess who defined four urban/suburbanzones of settlement: a central business district; anarea of manufacturing just beyond it; then aresidential area inhabited by the industrial andimmigrant working class; and finally an outerenclave of single-family dwellings.Burgess was right about the urban America of1925; he was right about the urban America of 1974.Virtually every city in the country had a downtown, where the commercial life of the metropolis wasconducted; it had a factory district just beyond; it haddistricts of working-class residences just beyond that;and it had residential suburbs for the wealthy and theupper middle class at the far end of the continuum.As a family moved up the economic ladder, it alsomoved outward from crowded working-classdistricts to more spacious apartments and,eventually, to a suburban home. The suburbs ofBurgess’s time bore little resemblance to those at theend of the twentieth century, but the theory stillessentially worked. People moved ahead in life bymoving farther out.But in the past decade, in quite a few places, thismodel has ceased to describe reality. There are stilldowntown commercial districts, but there are nofactory districts lying next to them. There arescarcely any factories at all. These close-in parts ofthe city, whose few residents Burgess described asdwelling in “submerged regions of poverty,degradation and disease,” are increasingly thepreserve of the affluent who work in the commercialcore. And just as crucially newcomers to America arenot settling on the inside and accumulating theresources to move out; they are living in the suburbsfrom day one.

We are not witnessing the abandonment of thesuburbs, or a movement of millions of people back tothe city all at once. The 2010 census certainly did notturn up evidence of a middle-class stampede to thenation’s cities. The news was mixed: Some of thelarger cities on the East Coast tended to gainpopulation, albeit in small increments. Those in theMidwest, including Chicago, tended to losesubstantial numbers. The cities that showed gains inoverall population during the entire decade tended tobe in the South and Southwest. But when it comes tomeasuring demographic inversion, raw censusnumbers are an ineffective blunt instrument. A closerlook at the results shows that the most powerfuldemographic events of the past decade were themovement of African Americans out of central cities(180,000 of them in Chicago alone) and thesettlement of immigrant groups in suburbs, oftenones many miles distant from downtown.Central-city areas that gained affluent residents inthe first part of the decade maintained thatpopulation in the recession years from 2007 to 2009.They also, according to a 2011 study by Brookings,suffered considerably less from increasedunemployment than the suburbs did. Not manyyoung professionals moved to new downtowncondos in the recession years because few suchresidences were being built. But there is no reason tobelieve that the demographic trends prevailing priorto the construction bust will not resume once thatbust is over. It is important to remember thatdemographic inversion is not a proxy for populationgrowth; it can occur in cities that are growing, thosewhose numbers are flat, and even in thoseundergoing a modest decline in size.America’s major cities face enormous fiscalproblems, many of them the result of public pensionobligations they incurred in the more prosperousyears of the past two decades. Some, Chicago prominent among them, simply are not producingenough revenue to support the level of publicservices to which most of the citizens have grown tofeel entitled. How the cities are going to solve thisproblem, I do not know. What I do know is that iffiscal crisis were going to drive affluent professionalsout of central cities, it would have done so by now.There is no evidence that it has.The truth is that we are living at a moment inwhich the massive outward migration of the affluentthat characterized the second half of thetwentieth century is coming to an end. And we needto adjust our perceptions of cities, suburbs, andurban mobility as a result.Much of our perspective on the process ofmetropolitan settlement dates, whether we realize itor not, from a paper written in 1925 by theUniversity of Chicago sociologist Ernest W. Burgess.It was Burgess who defined four urban/suburbanzones of settlement: a central business district; anarea of manufacturing just beyond it; then aresidential area inhabited by the industrial andimmigrant working class; and finally an outerenclave of single-family dwellings.Burgess was right about the urban America of1925; he was right about the urban America of 1974.Virtually every city in the country had a downtown, where the commercial life of the metropolis wasconducted; it had a factory district just beyond; it haddistricts of working-class residences just beyond that;and it had residential suburbs for the wealthy and theupper middle class at the far end of the continuum.As a family moved up the economic ladder, it alsomoved outward from crowded working-classdistricts to more spacious apartments and,eventually, to a suburban home. The suburbs ofBurgess’s time bore little resemblance to those at theend of the twentieth century, but the theory stillessentially worked. People moved ahead in life bymoving farther out.But in the past decade, in quite a few places, thismodel has ceased to describe reality. There are stilldowntown commercial districts, but there are nofactory districts lying next to them. There arescarcely any factories at all. These close-in parts ofthe city, whose few residents Burgess described asdwelling in “submerged regions of poverty,degradation and disease,” are increasingly thepreserve of the affluent who work in the commercialcore. And just as crucially newcomers to America arenot settling on the inside and accumulating theresources to move out; they are living in the suburbsfrom day one.

We are not witnessing the abandonment of thesuburbs, or a movement of millions of people back tothe city all at once. The 2010 census certainly did notturn up evidence of a middle-class stampede to thenation’s cities. The news was mixed: Some of thelarger cities on the East Coast tended to gainpopulation, albeit in small increments. Those in theMidwest, including Chicago, tended to losesubstantial numbers. The cities that showed gains inoverall population during the entire decade tended tobe in the South and Southwest. But when it comes tomeasuring demographic inversion, raw censusnumbers are an ineffective blunt instrument. A closerlook at the results shows that the most powerfuldemographic events of the past decade were themovement of African Americans out of central cities(180,000 of them in Chicago alone) and thesettlement of immigrant groups in suburbs, oftenones many miles distant from downtown.Central-city areas that gained affluent residents inthe first part of the decade maintained thatpopulation in the recession years from 2007 to 2009.They also, according to a 2011 study by Brookings,suffered considerably less from increasedunemployment than the suburbs did. Not manyyoung professionals moved to new downtowncondos in the recession years because few suchresidences were being built. But there is no reason tobelieve that the demographic trends prevailing priorto the construction bust will not resume once thatbust is over. It is important to remember thatdemographic inversion is not a proxy for populationgrowth; it can occur in cities that are growing, thosewhose numbers are flat, and even in thoseundergoing a modest decline in size.America’s major cities face enormous fiscalproblems, many of them the result of public pensionobligations they incurred in the more prosperousyears of the past two decades. Some, Chicago prominent among them, simply are not producingenough revenue to support the level of publicservices to which most of the citizens have grown tofeel entitled. How the cities are going to solve thisproblem, I do not know. What I do know is that iffiscal crisis were going to drive affluent professionalsout of central cities, it would have done so by now.There is no evidence that it has.The truth is that we are living at a moment inwhich the massive outward migration of the affluentthat characterized the second half of thetwentieth century is coming to an end. And we needto adjust our perceptions of cities, suburbs, andurban mobility as a result.Much of our perspective on the process ofmetropolitan settlement dates, whether we realize itor not, from a paper written in 1925 by theUniversity of Chicago sociologist Ernest W. Burgess.It was Burgess who defined four urban/suburbanzones of settlement: a central business district; anarea of manufacturing just beyond it; then aresidential area inhabited by the industrial andimmigrant working class; and finally an outerenclave of single-family dwellings.Burgess was right about the urban America of1925; he was right about the urban America of 1974.Virtually every city in the country had a downtown, where the commercial life of the metropolis wasconducted; it had a factory district just beyond; it haddistricts of working-class residences just beyond that;and it had residential suburbs for the wealthy and theupper middle class at the far end of the continuum.As a family moved up the economic ladder, it alsomoved outward from crowded working-classdistricts to more spacious apartments and,eventually, to a suburban home. The suburbs ofBurgess’s time bore little resemblance to those at theend of the twentieth century, but the theory stillessentially worked. People moved ahead in life bymoving farther out.But in the past decade, in quite a few places, thismodel has ceased to describe reality. There are stilldowntown commercial districts, but there are nofactory districts lying next to them. There arescarcely any factories at all. These close-in parts ofthe city, whose few residents Burgess described asdwelling in “submerged regions of poverty,degradation and disease,” are increasingly thepreserve of the affluent who work in the commercialcore. And just as crucially newcomers to America arenot settling on the inside and accumulating theresources to move out; they are living in the suburbsfrom day one.

We are not witnessing the abandonment of thesuburbs, or a movement of millions of people back tothe city all at once. The 2010 census certainly did notturn up evidence of a middle-class stampede to thenation’s cities. The news was mixed: Some of thelarger cities on the East Coast tended to gainpopulation, albeit in small increments. Those in theMidwest, including Chicago, tended to losesubstantial numbers. The cities that showed gains inoverall population during the entire decade tended tobe in the South and Southwest. But when it comes tomeasuring demographic inversion, raw censusnumbers are an ineffective blunt instrument. A closerlook at the results shows that the most powerfuldemographic events of the past decade were themovement of African Americans out of central cities(180,000 of them in Chicago alone) and thesettlement of immigrant groups in suburbs, oftenones many miles distant from downtown.Central-city areas that gained affluent residents inthe first part of the decade maintained thatpopulation in the recession years from 2007 to 2009.They also, according to a 2011 study by Brookings,suffered considerably less from increasedunemployment than the suburbs did. Not manyyoung professionals moved to new downtowncondos in the recession years because few suchresidences were being built. But there is no reason tobelieve that the demographic trends prevailing priorto the construction bust will not resume once thatbust is over. It is important to remember thatdemographic inversion is not a proxy for populationgrowth; it can occur in cities that are growing, thosewhose numbers are flat, and even in thoseundergoing a modest decline in size.America’s major cities face enormous fiscalproblems, many of them the result of public pensionobligations they incurred in the more prosperousyears of the past two decades. Some, Chicago prominent among them, simply are not producingenough revenue to support the level of publicservices to which most of the citizens have grown tofeel entitled. How the cities are going to solve thisproblem, I do not know. What I do know is that iffiscal crisis were going to drive affluent professionalsout of central cities, it would have done so by now.There is no evidence that it has.The truth is that we are living at a moment inwhich the massive outward migration of the affluentthat characterized the second half of thetwentieth century is coming to an end. And we needto adjust our perceptions of cities, suburbs, andurban mobility as a result.Much of our perspective on the process ofmetropolitan settlement dates, whether we realize itor not, from a paper written in 1925 by theUniversity of Chicago sociologist Ernest W. Burgess.It was Burgess who defined four urban/suburbanzones of settlement: a central business district; anarea of manufacturing just beyond it; then aresidential area inhabited by the industrial andimmigrant working class; and finally an outerenclave of single-family dwellings.Burgess was right about the urban America of1925; he was right about the urban America of 1974.Virtually every city in the country had a downtown, where the commercial life of the metropolis wasconducted; it had a factory district just beyond; it haddistricts of working-class residences just beyond that;and it had residential suburbs for the wealthy and theupper middle class at the far end of the continuum.As a family moved up the economic ladder, it alsomoved outward from crowded working-classdistricts to more spacious apartments and,eventually, to a suburban home. The suburbs ofBurgess’s time bore little resemblance to those at theend of the twentieth century, but the theory stillessentially worked. People moved ahead in life bymoving farther out.But in the past decade, in quite a few places, thismodel has ceased to describe reality. There are stilldowntown commercial districts, but there are nofactory districts lying next to them. There arescarcely any factories at all. These close-in parts ofthe city, whose few residents Burgess described asdwelling in “submerged regions of poverty,degradation and disease,” are increasingly thepreserve of the affluent who work in the commercialcore. And just as crucially newcomers to America arenot settling on the inside and accumulating theresources to move out; they are living in the suburbsfrom day one.

We are not witnessing the abandonment of thesuburbs, or a movement of millions of people back tothe city all at once. The 2010 census certainly did notturn up evidence of a middle-class stampede to thenation’s cities. The news was mixed: Some of thelarger cities on the East Coast tended to gainpopulation, albeit in small increments. Those in theMidwest, including Chicago, tended to losesubstantial numbers. The cities that showed gains inoverall population during the entire decade tended tobe in the South and Southwest. But when it comes tomeasuring demographic inversion, raw censusnumbers are an ineffective blunt instrument. A closerlook at the results shows that the most powerfuldemographic events of the past decade were themovement of African Americans out of central cities(180,000 of them in Chicago alone) and thesettlement of immigrant groups in suburbs, oftenones many miles distant from downtown.Central-city areas that gained affluent residents inthe first part of the decade maintained thatpopulation in the recession years from 2007 to 2009.They also, according to a 2011 study by Brookings,suffered considerably less from increasedunemployment than the suburbs did. Not manyyoung professionals moved to new downtowncondos in the recession years because few suchresidences were being built. But there is no reason tobelieve that the demographic trends prevailing priorto the construction bust will not resume once thatbust is over. It is important to remember thatdemographic inversion is not a proxy for populationgrowth; it can occur in cities that are growing, thosewhose numbers are flat, and even in thoseundergoing a modest decline in size.America’s major cities face enormous fiscalproblems, many of them the result of public pensionobligations they incurred in the more prosperousyears of the past two decades. Some, Chicago prominent among them, simply are not producingenough revenue to support the level of publicservices to which most of the citizens have grown tofeel entitled. How the cities are going to solve thisproblem, I do not know. What I do know is that iffiscal crisis were going to drive affluent professionalsout of central cities, it would have done so by now.There is no evidence that it has.The truth is that we are living at a moment inwhich the massive outward migration of the affluentthat characterized the second half of thetwentieth century is coming to an end. And we needto adjust our perceptions of cities, suburbs, andurban mobility as a result.Much of our perspective on the process ofmetropolitan settlement dates, whether we realize itor not, from a paper written in 1925 by theUniversity of Chicago sociologist Ernest W. Burgess.It was Burgess who defined four urban/suburbanzones of settlement: a central business district; anarea of manufacturing just beyond it; then aresidential area inhabited by the industrial andimmigrant working class; and finally an outerenclave of single-family dwellings.Burgess was right about the urban America of1925; he was right about the urban America of 1974.Virtually every city in the country had a downtown, where the commercial life of the metropolis wasconducted; it had a factory district just beyond; it haddistricts of working-class residences just beyond that;and it had residential suburbs for the wealthy and theupper middle class at the far end of the continuum.As a family moved up the economic ladder, it alsomoved outward from crowded working-classdistricts to more spacious apartments and,eventually, to a suburban home. The suburbs ofBurgess’s time bore little resemblance to those at theend of the twentieth century, but the theory stillessentially worked. People moved ahead in life bymoving farther out.But in the past decade, in quite a few places, thismodel has ceased to describe reality. There are stilldowntown commercial districts, but there are nofactory districts lying next to them. There arescarcely any factories at all. These close-in parts ofthe city, whose few residents Burgess described asdwelling in “submerged regions of poverty,degradation and disease,” are increasingly thepreserve of the affluent who work in the commercialcore. And just as crucially newcomers to America arenot settling on the inside and accumulating theresources to move out; they are living in the suburbsfrom day one.

We are not witnessing the abandonment of thesuburbs, or a movement of millions of people back tothe city all at once. The 2010 census certainly did notturn up evidence of a middle-class stampede to thenation’s cities. The news was mixed: Some of thelarger cities on the East Coast tended to gainpopulation, albeit in small increments. Those in theMidwest, including Chicago, tended to losesubstantial numbers. The cities that showed gains inoverall population during the entire decade tended tobe in the South and Southwest. But when it comes tomeasuring demographic inversion, raw censusnumbers are an ineffective blunt instrument. A closerlook at the results shows that the most powerfuldemographic events of the past decade were themovement of African Americans out of central cities(180,000 of them in Chicago alone) and thesettlement of immigrant groups in suburbs, oftenones many miles distant from downtown.Central-city areas that gained affluent residents inthe first part of the decade maintained thatpopulation in the recession years from 2007 to 2009.They also, according to a 2011 study by Brookings,suffered considerably less from increasedunemployment than the suburbs did. Not manyyoung professionals moved to new downtowncondos in the recession years because few suchresidences were being built. But there is no reason tobelieve that the demographic trends prevailing priorto the construction bust will not resume once thatbust is over. It is important to remember thatdemographic inversion is not a proxy for populationgrowth; it can occur in cities that are growing, thosewhose numbers are flat, and even in thoseundergoing a modest decline in size.America’s major cities face enormous fiscalproblems, many of them the result of public pensionobligations they incurred in the more prosperousyears of the past two decades. Some, Chicago prominent among them, simply are not producingenough revenue to support the level of publicservices to which most of the citizens have grown tofeel entitled. How the cities are going to solve thisproblem, I do not know. What I do know is that iffiscal crisis were going to drive affluent professionalsout of central cities, it would have done so by now.There is no evidence that it has.The truth is that we are living at a moment inwhich the massive outward migration of the affluentthat characterized the second half of thetwentieth century is coming to an end. And we needto adjust our perceptions of cities, suburbs, andurban mobility as a result.Much of our perspective on the process ofmetropolitan settlement dates, whether we realize itor not, from a paper written in 1925 by theUniversity of Chicago sociologist Ernest W. Burgess.It was Burgess who defined four urban/suburbanzones of settlement: a central business district; anarea of manufacturing just beyond it; then aresidential area inhabited by the industrial andimmigrant working class; and finally an outerenclave of single-family dwellings.Burgess was right about the urban America of1925; he was right about the urban America of 1974.Virtually every city in the country had a downtown, where the commercial life of the metropolis wasconducted; it had a factory district just beyond; it haddistricts of working-class residences just beyond that;and it had residential suburbs for the wealthy and theupper middle class at the far end of the continuum.As a family moved up the economic ladder, it alsomoved outward from crowded working-classdistricts to more spacious apartments and,eventually, to a suburban home. The suburbs ofBurgess’s time bore little resemblance to those at theend of the twentieth century, but the theory stillessentially worked. People moved ahead in life bymoving farther out.But in the past decade, in quite a few places, thismodel has ceased to describe reality. There are stilldowntown commercial districts, but there are nofactory districts lying next to them. There arescarcely any factories at all. These close-in parts ofthe city, whose few residents Burgess described asdwelling in “submerged regions of poverty,degradation and disease,” are increasingly thepreserve of the affluent who work in the commercialcore. And just as crucially newcomers to America arenot settling on the inside and accumulating theresources to move out; they are living in the suburbsfrom day one.

We are not witnessing the abandonment of thesuburbs, or a movement of millions of people back tothe city all at once. The 2010 census certainly did notturn up evidence of a middle-class stampede to thenation’s cities. The news was mixed: Some of thelarger cities on the East Coast tended to gainpopulation, albeit in small increments. Those in theMidwest, including Chicago, tended to losesubstantial numbers. The cities that showed gains inoverall population during the entire decade tended tobe in the South and Southwest. But when it comes tomeasuring demographic inversion, raw censusnumbers are an ineffective blunt instrument. A closerlook at the results shows that the most powerfuldemographic events of the past decade were themovement of African Americans out of central cities(180,000 of them in Chicago alone) and thesettlement of immigrant groups in suburbs, oftenones many miles distant from downtown.Central-city areas that gained affluent residents inthe first part of the decade maintained thatpopulation in the recession years from 2007 to 2009.They also, according to a 2011 study by Brookings,suffered considerably less from increasedunemployment than the suburbs did. Not manyyoung professionals moved to new downtowncondos in the recession years because few suchresidences were being built. But there is no reason tobelieve that the demographic trends prevailing priorto the construction bust will not resume once thatbust is over. It is important to remember thatdemographic inversion is not a proxy for populationgrowth; it can occur in cities that are growing, thosewhose numbers are flat, and even in thoseundergoing a modest decline in size.America’s major cities face enormous fiscalproblems, many of them the result of public pensionobligations they incurred in the more prosperousyears of the past two decades. Some, Chicago prominent among them, simply are not producingenough revenue to support the level of publicservices to which most of the citizens have grown tofeel entitled. How the cities are going to solve thisproblem, I do not know. What I do know is that iffiscal crisis were going to drive affluent professionalsout of central cities, it would have done so by now.There is no evidence that it has.The truth is that we are living at a moment inwhich the massive outward migration of the affluentthat characterized the second half of thetwentieth century is coming to an end. And we needto adjust our perceptions of cities, suburbs, andurban mobility as a result.Much of our perspective on the process ofmetropolitan settlement dates, whether we realize itor not, from a paper written in 1925 by theUniversity of Chicago sociologist Ernest W. Burgess.It was Burgess who defined four urban/suburbanzones of settlement: a central business district; anarea of manufacturing just beyond it; then aresidential area inhabited by the industrial andimmigrant working class; and finally an outerenclave of single-family dwellings.Burgess was right about the urban America of1925; he was right about the urban America of 1974.Virtually every city in the country had a downtown, where the commercial life of the metropolis wasconducted; it had a factory district just beyond; it haddistricts of working-class residences just beyond that;and it had residential suburbs for the wealthy and theupper middle class at the far end of the continuum.As a family moved up the economic ladder, it alsomoved outward from crowded working-classdistricts to more spacious apartments and,eventually, to a suburban home. The suburbs ofBurgess’s time bore little resemblance to those at theend of the twentieth century, but the theory stillessentially worked. People moved ahead in life bymoving farther out.But in the past decade, in quite a few places, thismodel has ceased to describe reality. There are stilldowntown commercial districts, but there are nofactory districts lying next to them. There arescarcely any factories at all. These close-in parts ofthe city, whose few residents Burgess described asdwelling in “submerged regions of poverty,degradation and disease,” are increasingly thepreserve of the affluent who work in the commercialcore. And just as crucially newcomers to America arenot settling on the inside and accumulating theresources to move out; they are living in the suburbsfrom day one.

We are not witnessing the abandonment of thesuburbs, or a movement of millions of people back tothe city all at once. The 2010 census certainly did notturn up evidence of a middle-class stampede to thenation’s cities. The news was mixed: Some of thelarger cities on the East Coast tended to gainpopulation, albeit in small increments. Those in theMidwest, including Chicago, tended to losesubstantial numbers. The cities that showed gains inoverall population during the entire decade tended tobe in the South and Southwest. But when it comes tomeasuring demographic inversion, raw censusnumbers are an ineffective blunt instrument. A closerlook at the results shows that the most powerfuldemographic events of the past decade were themovement of African Americans out of central cities(180,000 of them in Chicago alone) and thesettlement of immigrant groups in suburbs, oftenones many miles distant from downtown.Central-city areas that gained affluent residents inthe first part of the decade maintained thatpopulation in the recession years from 2007 to 2009.They also, according to a 2011 study by Brookings,suffered considerably less from increasedunemployment than the suburbs did. Not manyyoung professionals moved to new downtowncondos in the recession years because few suchresidences were being built. But there is no reason tobelieve that the demographic trends prevailing priorto the construction bust will not resume once thatbust is over. It is important to remember thatdemographic inversion is not a proxy for populationgrowth; it can occur in cities that are growing, thosewhose numbers are flat, and even in thoseundergoing a modest decline in size.America’s major cities face enormous fiscalproblems, many of them the result of public pensionobligations they incurred in the more prosperousyears of the past two decades. Some, Chicago prominent among them, simply are not producingenough revenue to support the level of publicservices to which most of the citizens have grown tofeel entitled. How the cities are going to solve thisproblem, I do not know. What I do know is that iffiscal crisis were going to drive affluent professionalsout of central cities, it would have done so by now.There is no evidence that it has.The truth is that we are living at a moment inwhich the massive outward migration of the affluentthat characterized the second half of thetwentieth century is coming to an end. And we needto adjust our perceptions of cities, suburbs, andurban mobility as a result.Much of our perspective on the process ofmetropolitan settlement dates, whether we realize itor not, from a paper written in 1925 by theUniversity of Chicago sociologist Ernest W. Burgess.It was Burgess who defined four urban/suburbanzones of settlement: a central business district; anarea of manufacturing just beyond it; then aresidential area inhabited by the industrial andimmigrant working class; and finally an outerenclave of single-family dwellings.Burgess was right about the urban America of1925; he was right about the urban America of 1974.Virtually every city in the country had a downtown, where the commercial life of the metropolis wasconducted; it had a factory district just beyond; it haddistricts of working-class residences just beyond that;and it had residential suburbs for the wealthy and theupper middle class at the far end of the continuum.As a family moved up the economic ladder, it alsomoved outward from crowded working-classdistricts to more spacious apartments and,eventually, to a suburban home. The suburbs ofBurgess’s time bore little resemblance to those at theend of the twentieth century, but the theory stillessentially worked. People moved ahead in life bymoving farther out.But in the past decade, in quite a few places, thismodel has ceased to describe reality. There are stilldowntown commercial districts, but there are nofactory districts lying next to them. There arescarcely any factories at all. These close-in parts ofthe city, whose few residents Burgess described asdwelling in “submerged regions of poverty,degradation and disease,” are increasingly thepreserve of the affluent who work in the commercialcore. And just as crucially newcomers to America arenot settling on the inside and accumulating theresources to move out; they are living in the suburbsfrom day one.

We are not witnessing the abandonment of thesuburbs, or a movement of millions of people back tothe city all at once. The 2010 census certainly did notturn up evidence of a middle-class stampede to thenation’s cities. The news was mixed: Some of thelarger cities on the East Coast tended to gainpopulation, albeit in small increments. Those in theMidwest, including Chicago, tended to losesubstantial numbers. The cities that showed gains inoverall population during the entire decade tended tobe in the South and Southwest. But when it comes tomeasuring demographic inversion, raw censusnumbers are an ineffective blunt instrument. A closerlook at the results shows that the most powerfuldemographic events of the past decade were themovement of African Americans out of central cities(180,000 of them in Chicago alone) and thesettlement of immigrant groups in suburbs, oftenones many miles distant from downtown.Central-city areas that gained affluent residents inthe first part of the decade maintained thatpopulation in the recession years from 2007 to 2009.They also, according to a 2011 study by Brookings,suffered considerably less from increasedunemployment than the suburbs did. Not manyyoung professionals moved to new downtowncondos in the recession years because few suchresidences were being built. But there is no reason tobelieve that the demographic trends prevailing priorto the construction bust will not resume once thatbust is over. It is important to remember thatdemographic inversion is not a proxy for populationgrowth; it can occur in cities that are growing, thosewhose numbers are flat, and even in thoseundergoing a modest decline in size.America’s major cities face enormous fiscalproblems, many of them the result of public pensionobligations they incurred in the more prosperousyears of the past two decades. Some, Chicago prominent among them, simply are not producingenough revenue to support the level of publicservices to which most of the citizens have grown tofeel entitled. How the cities are going to solve thisproblem, I do not know. What I do know is that iffiscal crisis were going to drive affluent professionalsout of central cities, it would have done so by now.There is no evidence that it has.The truth is that we are living at a moment inwhich the massive outward migration of the affluentthat characterized the second half of thetwentieth century is coming to an end. And we needto adjust our perceptions of cities, suburbs, andurban mobility as a result.Much of our perspective on the process ofmetropolitan settlement dates, whether we realize itor not, from a paper written in 1925 by theUniversity of Chicago sociologist Ernest W. Burgess.It was Burgess who defined four urban/suburbanzones of settlement: a central business district; anarea of manufacturing just beyond it; then aresidential area inhabited by the industrial andimmigrant working class; and finally an outerenclave of single-family dwellings.Burgess was right about the urban America of1925; he was right about the urban America of 1974.Virtually every city in the country had a downtown, where the commercial life of the metropolis wasconducted; it had a factory district just beyond; it haddistricts of working-class residences just beyond that;and it had residential suburbs for the wealthy and theupper middle class at the far end of the continuum.As a family moved up the economic ladder, it alsomoved outward from crowded working-classdistricts to more spacious apartments and,eventually, to a suburban home. The suburbs ofBurgess’s time bore little resemblance to those at theend of the twentieth century, but the theory stillessentially worked. People moved ahead in life bymoving farther out.But in the past decade, in quite a few places, thismodel has ceased to describe reality. There are stilldowntown commercial districts, but there are nofactory districts lying next to them. There arescarcely any factories at all. These close-in parts ofthe city, whose few residents Burgess described asdwelling in “submerged regions of poverty,degradation and disease,” are increasingly thepreserve of the affluent who work in the commercialcore. And just as crucially newcomers to America arenot settling on the inside and accumulating theresources to move out; they are living in the suburbsfrom day one.

When scientists first learned how to edit thegenomes of animals, they began to imagine all theways they could use this new power. Creatingbrightly colored novelty pets was not a high priority.Instead, most researchers envisioned far moreconsequential applications, hoping to creategenetically engineered animals that saved humanlives. One enterprise is now delivering on this dream.Welcome to the world of “pharming,” in whichsimple genetic tweaks turn animals into livingpharmaceutical factories.Many of the proteins that our cells crank outnaturally make for good medicine. Our bodies’ ownenzymes, hormones, clotting factors, and antibodiesare commonly used to treat cancer, diabetes,autoimmune diseases, and more. The trouble is thatit’s difficult and expensive to make these compoundson an industrial scale, and as a result, patients canface shortages of the medicines they need. Dairyanimals, on the other hand, are expert proteinproducers, their udders swollen with milk. So thecreation of the first transgenic animals—first mice,then other species—in the 1980s gave scientists anidea: What if they put the gene for a human antibodyor enzyme into a cow, goat, or sheep? If they put thegene in just the right place, under the control of theright molecular switch, maybe they could engineeranimals that produced healing human proteins intheir milk. Then doctors could collect medicine bythe bucketful.Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, studies providedproof of principle, as scientists created transgenicmice, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and rabbits that did infact make therapeutic compounds in their milk.At first, this work was merely gee-whiz, scientificgeekery, lab-bound thought experiments come true.That all changed with ATryn, a drug produced by theMassachusetts firm GTC Biotherapeutics. ATryn isantithrombin, an anticoagulant that can be used toprevent life-threatening blood clots. The compound,made by our liver cells, plays a key role in keepingour bodies clot-free. It acts as a molecular bouncer,sidling up to clot-forming compounds and escortingthem out of the bloodstream. But as many as 1 in 2,000 Americans are born with a genetic mutationthat prevents them from making antithrombin.These patients are prone to clots, especially in theirlegs and lungs, and they are at elevated risk ofsuffering from fatal complications during surgeryand childbirth. Supplemental antithrombin canreduce this risk, and GTC decided to try tomanufacture the compound using geneticallyengineered goats.To create its special herd of goats, GTC usedmicroinjection, the same technique that producedGloFish and AquAdvantage salmon. The company’sscientists took the gene for human antithrombin andinjected it directly into fertilized goat eggs. Then theyimplanted the eggs in the wombs of female goats.When the kids were born, some of them proved to betransgenic, the human gene nestled safely in theircells. The researchers paired the antithrombin genewith a promoter (which is a sequence of DNA thatcontrols gene activity) that is normally active in thegoat’s mammary glands during milk production.When the transgenic females lactated, the promoterturned the transgene on and the goats’ udders filledwith milk containing antithrombin. All that was leftto do was to collect the milk, and extract and purifythe protein. Et voilà—human medicine! And, forGTC, liquid gold. ATryn hit the market in 2006,becoming the world’s first transgenic animal drug.Over the course of a year, the “milking parlors” onGTC’s 300-acre farm in Massachusetts can collectmore than a kilogram of medicine from a singleanimal.

When scientists first learned how to edit thegenomes of animals, they began to imagine all theways they could use this new power. Creatingbrightly colored novelty pets was not a high priority.Instead, most researchers envisioned far moreconsequential applications, hoping to creategenetically engineered animals that saved humanlives. One enterprise is now delivering on this dream.Welcome to the world of “pharming,” in whichsimple genetic tweaks turn animals into livingpharmaceutical factories.Many of the proteins that our cells crank outnaturally make for good medicine. Our bodies’ ownenzymes, hormones, clotting factors, and antibodiesare commonly used to treat cancer, diabetes,autoimmune diseases, and more. The trouble is thatit’s difficult and expensive to make these compoundson an industrial scale, and as a result, patients canface shortages of the medicines they need. Dairyanimals, on the other hand, are expert proteinproducers, their udders swollen with milk. So thecreation of the first transgenic animals—first mice,then other species—in the 1980s gave scientists anidea: What if they put the gene for a human antibodyor enzyme into a cow, goat, or sheep? If they put thegene in just the right place, under the control of theright molecular switch, maybe they could engineeranimals that produced healing human proteins intheir milk. Then doctors could collect medicine bythe bucketful.Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, studies providedproof of principle, as scientists created transgenicmice, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and rabbits that did infact make therapeutic compounds in their milk.At first, this work was merely gee-whiz, scientificgeekery, lab-bound thought experiments come true.That all changed with ATryn, a drug produced by theMassachusetts firm GTC Biotherapeutics. ATryn isantithrombin, an anticoagulant that can be used toprevent life-threatening blood clots. The compound,made by our liver cells, plays a key role in keepingour bodies clot-free. It acts as a molecular bouncer,sidling up to clot-forming compounds and escortingthem out of the bloodstream. But as many as 1 in 2,000 Americans are born with a genetic mutationthat prevents them from making antithrombin.These patients are prone to clots, especially in theirlegs and lungs, and they are at elevated risk ofsuffering from fatal complications during surgeryand childbirth. Supplemental antithrombin canreduce this risk, and GTC decided to try tomanufacture the compound using geneticallyengineered goats.To create its special herd of goats, GTC usedmicroinjection, the same technique that producedGloFish and AquAdvantage salmon. The company’sscientists took the gene for human antithrombin andinjected it directly into fertilized goat eggs. Then theyimplanted the eggs in the wombs of female goats.When the kids were born, some of them proved to betransgenic, the human gene nestled safely in theircells. The researchers paired the antithrombin genewith a promoter (which is a sequence of DNA thatcontrols gene activity) that is normally active in thegoat’s mammary glands during milk production.When the transgenic females lactated, the promoterturned the transgene on and the goats’ udders filledwith milk containing antithrombin. All that was leftto do was to collect the milk, and extract and purifythe protein. Et voilà—human medicine! And, forGTC, liquid gold. ATryn hit the market in 2006,becoming the world’s first transgenic animal drug.Over the course of a year, the “milking parlors” onGTC’s 300-acre farm in Massachusetts can collectmore than a kilogram of medicine from a singleanimal.

When scientists first learned how to edit thegenomes of animals, they began to imagine all theways they could use this new power. Creatingbrightly colored novelty pets was not a high priority.Instead, most researchers envisioned far moreconsequential applications, hoping to creategenetically engineered animals that saved humanlives. One enterprise is now delivering on this dream.Welcome to the world of “pharming,” in whichsimple genetic tweaks turn animals into livingpharmaceutical factories.Many of the proteins that our cells crank outnaturally make for good medicine. Our bodies’ ownenzymes, hormones, clotting factors, and antibodiesare commonly used to treat cancer, diabetes,autoimmune diseases, and more. The trouble is thatit’s difficult and expensive to make these compoundson an industrial scale, and as a result, patients canface shortages of the medicines they need. Dairyanimals, on the other hand, are expert proteinproducers, their udders swollen with milk. So thecreation of the first transgenic animals—first mice,then other species—in the 1980s gave scientists anidea: What if they put the gene for a human antibodyor enzyme into a cow, goat, or sheep? If they put thegene in just the right place, under the control of theright molecular switch, maybe they could engineeranimals that produced healing human proteins intheir milk. Then doctors could collect medicine bythe bucketful.Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, studies providedproof of principle, as scientists created transgenicmice, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and rabbits that did infact make therapeutic compounds in their milk.At first, this work was merely gee-whiz, scientificgeekery, lab-bound thought experiments come true.That all changed with ATryn, a drug produced by theMassachusetts firm GTC Biotherapeutics. ATryn isantithrombin, an anticoagulant that can be used toprevent life-threatening blood clots. The compound,made by our liver cells, plays a key role in keepingour bodies clot-free. It acts as a molecular bouncer,sidling up to clot-forming compounds and escortingthem out of the bloodstream. But as many as 1 in 2,000 Americans are born with a genetic mutationthat prevents them from making antithrombin.These patients are prone to clots, especially in theirlegs and lungs, and they are at elevated risk ofsuffering from fatal complications during surgeryand childbirth. Supplemental antithrombin canreduce this risk, and GTC decided to try tomanufacture the compound using geneticallyengineered goats.To create its special herd of goats, GTC usedmicroinjection, the same technique that producedGloFish and AquAdvantage salmon. The company’sscientists took the gene for human antithrombin andinjected it directly into fertilized goat eggs. Then theyimplanted the eggs in the wombs of female goats.When the kids were born, some of them proved to betransgenic, the human gene nestled safely in theircells. The researchers paired the antithrombin genewith a promoter (which is a sequence of DNA thatcontrols gene activity) that is normally active in thegoat’s mammary glands during milk production.When the transgenic females lactated, the promoterturned the transgene on and the goats’ udders filledwith milk containing antithrombin. All that was leftto do was to collect the milk, and extract and purifythe protein. Et voilà—human medicine! And, forGTC, liquid gold. ATryn hit the market in 2006,becoming the world’s first transgenic animal drug.Over the course of a year, the “milking parlors” onGTC’s 300-acre farm in Massachusetts can collectmore than a kilogram of medicine from a singleanimal.

When scientists first learned how to edit thegenomes of animals, they began to imagine all theways they could use this new power. Creatingbrightly colored novelty pets was not a high priority.Instead, most researchers envisioned far moreconsequential applications, hoping to creategenetically engineered animals that saved humanlives. One enterprise is now delivering on this dream.Welcome to the world of “pharming,” in whichsimple genetic tweaks turn animals into livingpharmaceutical factories.Many of the proteins that our cells crank outnaturally make for good medicine. Our bodies’ ownenzymes, hormones, clotting factors, and antibodiesare commonly used to treat cancer, diabetes,autoimmune diseases, and more. The trouble is thatit’s difficult and expensive to make these compoundson an industrial scale, and as a result, patients canface shortages of the medicines they need. Dairyanimals, on the other hand, are expert proteinproducers, their udders swollen with milk. So thecreation of the first transgenic animals—first mice,then other species—in the 1980s gave scientists anidea: What if they put the gene for a human antibodyor enzyme into a cow, goat, or sheep? If they put thegene in just the right place, under the control of theright molecular switch, maybe they could engineeranimals that produced healing human proteins intheir milk. Then doctors could collect medicine bythe bucketful.Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, studies providedproof of principle, as scientists created transgenicmice, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and rabbits that did infact make therapeutic compounds in their milk.At first, this work was merely gee-whiz, scientificgeekery, lab-bound thought experiments come true.That all changed with ATryn, a drug produced by theMassachusetts firm GTC Biotherapeutics. ATryn isantithrombin, an anticoagulant that can be used toprevent life-threatening blood clots. The compound,made by our liver cells, plays a key role in keepingour bodies clot-free. It acts as a molecular bouncer,sidling up to clot-forming compounds and escortingthem out of the bloodstream. But as many as 1 in 2,000 Americans are born with a genetic mutationthat prevents them from making antithrombin.These patients are prone to clots, especially in theirlegs and lungs, and they are at elevated risk ofsuffering from fatal complications during surgeryand childbirth. Supplemental antithrombin canreduce this risk, and GTC decided to try tomanufacture the compound using geneticallyengineered goats.To create its special herd of goats, GTC usedmicroinjection, the same technique that producedGloFish and AquAdvantage salmon. The company’sscientists took the gene for human antithrombin andinjected it directly into fertilized goat eggs. Then theyimplanted the eggs in the wombs of female goats.When the kids were born, some of them proved to betransgenic, the human gene nestled safely in theircells. The researchers paired the antithrombin genewith a promoter (which is a sequence of DNA thatcontrols gene activity) that is normally active in thegoat’s mammary glands during milk production.When the transgenic females lactated, the promoterturned the transgene on and the goats’ udders filledwith milk containing antithrombin. All that was leftto do was to collect the milk, and extract and purifythe protein. Et voilà—human medicine! And, forGTC, liquid gold. ATryn hit the market in 2006,becoming the world’s first transgenic animal drug.Over the course of a year, the “milking parlors” onGTC’s 300-acre farm in Massachusetts can collectmore than a kilogram of medicine from a singleanimal.

When scientists first learned how to edit thegenomes of animals, they began to imagine all theways they could use this new power. Creatingbrightly colored novelty pets was not a high priority.Instead, most researchers envisioned far moreconsequential applications, hoping to creategenetically engineered animals that saved humanlives. One enterprise is now delivering on this dream.Welcome to the world of “pharming,” in whichsimple genetic tweaks turn animals into livingpharmaceutical factories.Many of the proteins that our cells crank outnaturally make for good medicine. Our bodies’ ownenzymes, hormones, clotting factors, and antibodiesare commonly used to treat cancer, diabetes,autoimmune diseases, and more. The trouble is thatit’s difficult and expensive to make these compoundson an industrial scale, and as a result, patients canface shortages of the medicines they need. Dairyanimals, on the other hand, are expert proteinproducers, their udders swollen with milk. So thecreation of the first transgenic animals—first mice,then other species—in the 1980s gave scientists anidea: What if they put the gene for a human antibodyor enzyme into a cow, goat, or sheep? If they put thegene in just the right place, under the control of theright molecular switch, maybe they could engineeranimals that produced healing human proteins intheir milk. Then doctors could collect medicine bythe bucketful.Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, studies providedproof of principle, as scientists created transgenicmice, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and rabbits that did infact make therapeutic compounds in their milk.At first, this work was merely gee-whiz, scientificgeekery, lab-bound thought experiments come true.That all changed with ATryn, a drug produced by theMassachusetts firm GTC Biotherapeutics. ATryn isantithrombin, an anticoagulant that can be used toprevent life-threatening blood clots. The compound,made by our liver cells, plays a key role in keepingour bodies clot-free. It acts as a molecular bouncer,sidling up to clot-forming compounds and escortingthem out of the bloodstream. But as many as 1 in 2,000 Americans are born with a genetic mutationthat prevents them from making antithrombin.These patients are prone to clots, especially in theirlegs and lungs, and they are at elevated risk ofsuffering from fatal complications during surgeryand childbirth. Supplemental antithrombin canreduce this risk, and GTC decided to try tomanufacture the compound using geneticallyengineered goats.To create its special herd of goats, GTC usedmicroinjection, the same technique that producedGloFish and AquAdvantage salmon. The company’sscientists took the gene for human antithrombin andinjected it directly into fertilized goat eggs. Then theyimplanted the eggs in the wombs of female goats.When the kids were born, some of them proved to betransgenic, the human gene nestled safely in theircells. The researchers paired the antithrombin genewith a promoter (which is a sequence of DNA thatcontrols gene activity) that is normally active in thegoat’s mammary glands during milk production.When the transgenic females lactated, the promoterturned the transgene on and the goats’ udders filledwith milk containing antithrombin. All that was leftto do was to collect the milk, and extract and purifythe protein. Et voilà—human medicine! And, forGTC, liquid gold. ATryn hit the market in 2006,becoming the world’s first transgenic animal drug.Over the course of a year, the “milking parlors” onGTC’s 300-acre farm in Massachusetts can collectmore than a kilogram of medicine from a singleanimal.

When scientists first learned how to edit thegenomes of animals, they began to imagine all theways they could use this new power. Creatingbrightly colored novelty pets was not a high priority.Instead, most researchers envisioned far moreconsequential applications, hoping to creategenetically engineered animals that saved humanlives. One enterprise is now delivering on this dream.Welcome to the world of “pharming,” in whichsimple genetic tweaks turn animals into livingpharmaceutical factories.Many of the proteins that our cells crank outnaturally make for good medicine. Our bodies’ ownenzymes, hormones, clotting factors, and antibodiesare commonly used to treat cancer, diabetes,autoimmune diseases, and more. The trouble is thatit’s difficult and expensive to make these compoundson an industrial scale, and as a result, patients canface shortages of the medicines they need. Dairyanimals, on the other hand, are expert proteinproducers, their udders swollen with milk. So thecreation of the first transgenic animals—first mice,then other species—in the 1980s gave scientists anidea: What if they put the gene for a human antibodyor enzyme into a cow, goat, or sheep? If they put thegene in just the right place, under the control of theright molecular switch, maybe they could engineeranimals that produced healing human proteins intheir milk. Then doctors could collect medicine bythe bucketful.Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, studies providedproof of principle, as scientists created transgenicmice, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and rabbits that did infact make therapeutic compounds in their milk.At first, this work was merely gee-whiz, scientificgeekery, lab-bound thought experiments come true.That all changed with ATryn, a drug produced by theMassachusetts firm GTC Biotherapeutics. ATryn isantithrombin, an anticoagulant that can be used toprevent life-threatening blood clots. The compound,made by our liver cells, plays a key role in keepingour bodies clot-free. It acts as a molecular bouncer,sidling up to clot-forming compounds and escortingthem out of the bloodstream. But as many as 1 in 2,000 Americans are born with a genetic mutationthat prevents them from making antithrombin.These patients are prone to clots, especially in theirlegs and lungs, and they are at elevated risk ofsuffering from fatal complications during surgeryand childbirth. Supplemental antithrombin canreduce this risk, and GTC decided to try tomanufacture the compound using geneticallyengineered goats.To create its special herd of goats, GTC usedmicroinjection, the same technique that producedGloFish and AquAdvantage salmon. The company’sscientists took the gene for human antithrombin andinjected it directly into fertilized goat eggs. Then theyimplanted the eggs in the wombs of female goats.When the kids were born, some of them proved to betransgenic, the human gene nestled safely in theircells. The researchers paired the antithrombin genewith a promoter (which is a sequence of DNA thatcontrols gene activity) that is normally active in thegoat’s mammary glands during milk production.When the transgenic females lactated, the promoterturned the transgene on and the goats’ udders filledwith milk containing antithrombin. All that was leftto do was to collect the milk, and extract and purifythe protein. Et voilà—human medicine! And, forGTC, liquid gold. ATryn hit the market in 2006,becoming the world’s first transgenic animal drug.Over the course of a year, the “milking parlors” onGTC’s 300-acre farm in Massachusetts can collectmore than a kilogram of medicine from a singleanimal.

When scientists first learned how to edit thegenomes of animals, they began to imagine all theways they could use this new power. Creatingbrightly colored novelty pets was not a high priority.Instead, most researchers envisioned far moreconsequential applications, hoping to creategenetically engineered animals that saved humanlives. One enterprise is now delivering on this dream.Welcome to the world of “pharming,” in whichsimple genetic tweaks turn animals into livingpharmaceutical factories.Many of the proteins that our cells crank outnaturally make for good medicine. Our bodies’ ownenzymes, hormones, clotting factors, and antibodiesare commonly used to treat cancer, diabetes,autoimmune diseases, and more. The trouble is thatit’s difficult and expensive to make these compoundson an industrial scale, and as a result, patients canface shortages of the medicines they need. Dairyanimals, on the other hand, are expert proteinproducers, their udders swollen with milk. So thecreation of the first transgenic animals—first mice,then other species—in the 1980s gave scientists anidea: What if they put the gene for a human antibodyor enzyme into a cow, goat, or sheep? If they put thegene in just the right place, under the control of theright molecular switch, maybe they could engineeranimals that produced healing human proteins intheir milk. Then doctors could collect medicine bythe bucketful.Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, studies providedproof of principle, as scientists created transgenicmice, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and rabbits that did infact make therapeutic compounds in their milk.At first, this work was merely gee-whiz, scientificgeekery, lab-bound thought experiments come true.That all changed with ATryn, a drug produced by theMassachusetts firm GTC Biotherapeutics. ATryn isantithrombin, an anticoagulant that can be used toprevent life-threatening blood clots. The compound,made by our liver cells, plays a key role in keepingour bodies clot-free. It acts as a molecular bouncer,sidling up to clot-forming compounds and escortingthem out of the bloodstream. But as many as 1 in 2,000 Americans are born with a genetic mutationthat prevents them from making antithrombin.These patients are prone to clots, especially in theirlegs and lungs, and they are at elevated risk ofsuffering from fatal complications during surgeryand childbirth. Supplemental antithrombin canreduce this risk, and GTC decided to try tomanufacture the compound using geneticallyengineered goats.To create its special herd of goats, GTC usedmicroinjection, the same technique that producedGloFish and AquAdvantage salmon. The company’sscientists took the gene for human antithrombin andinjected it directly into fertilized goat eggs. Then theyimplanted the eggs in the wombs of female goats.When the kids were born, some of them proved to betransgenic, the human gene nestled safely in theircells. The researchers paired the antithrombin genewith a promoter (which is a sequence of DNA thatcontrols gene activity) that is normally active in thegoat’s mammary glands during milk production.When the transgenic females lactated, the promoterturned the transgene on and the goats’ udders filledwith milk containing antithrombin. All that was leftto do was to collect the milk, and extract and purifythe protein. Et voilà—human medicine! And, forGTC, liquid gold. ATryn hit the market in 2006,becoming the world’s first transgenic animal drug.Over the course of a year, the “milking parlors” onGTC’s 300-acre farm in Massachusetts can collectmore than a kilogram of medicine from a singleanimal.

When scientists first learned how to edit thegenomes of animals, they began to imagine all theways they could use this new power. Creatingbrightly colored novelty pets was not a high priority.Instead, most researchers envisioned far moreconsequential applications, hoping to creategenetically engineered animals that saved humanlives. One enterprise is now delivering on this dream.Welcome to the world of “pharming,” in whichsimple genetic tweaks turn animals into livingpharmaceutical factories.Many of the proteins that our cells crank outnaturally make for good medicine. Our bodies’ ownenzymes, hormones, clotting factors, and antibodiesare commonly used to treat cancer, diabetes,autoimmune diseases, and more. The trouble is thatit’s difficult and expensive to make these compoundson an industrial scale, and as a result, patients canface shortages of the medicines they need. Dairyanimals, on the other hand, are expert proteinproducers, their udders swollen with milk. So thecreation of the first transgenic animals—first mice,then other species—in the 1980s gave scientists anidea: What if they put the gene for a human antibodyor enzyme into a cow, goat, or sheep? If they put thegene in just the right place, under the control of theright molecular switch, maybe they could engineeranimals that produced healing human proteins intheir milk. Then doctors could collect medicine bythe bucketful.Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, studies providedproof of principle, as scientists created transgenicmice, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and rabbits that did infact make therapeutic compounds in their milk.At first, this work was merely gee-whiz, scientificgeekery, lab-bound thought experiments come true.That all changed with ATryn, a drug produced by theMassachusetts firm GTC Biotherapeutics. ATryn isantithrombin, an anticoagulant that can be used toprevent life-threatening blood clots. The compound,made by our liver cells, plays a key role in keepingour bodies clot-free. It acts as a molecular bouncer,sidling up to clot-forming compounds and escortingthem out of the bloodstream. But as many as 1 in 2,000 Americans are born with a genetic mutationthat prevents them from making antithrombin.These patients are prone to clots, especially in theirlegs and lungs, and they are at elevated risk ofsuffering from fatal complications during surgeryand childbirth. Supplemental antithrombin canreduce this risk, and GTC decided to try tomanufacture the compound using geneticallyengineered goats.To create its special herd of goats, GTC usedmicroinjection, the same technique that producedGloFish and AquAdvantage salmon. The company’sscientists took the gene for human antithrombin andinjected it directly into fertilized goat eggs. Then theyimplanted the eggs in the wombs of female goats.When the kids were born, some of them proved to betransgenic, the human gene nestled safely in theircells. The researchers paired the antithrombin genewith a promoter (which is a sequence of DNA thatcontrols gene activity) that is normally active in thegoat’s mammary glands during milk production.When the transgenic females lactated, the promoterturned the transgene on and the goats’ udders filledwith milk containing antithrombin. All that was leftto do was to collect the milk, and extract and purifythe protein. Et voilà—human medicine! And, forGTC, liquid gold. ATryn hit the market in 2006,becoming the world’s first transgenic animal drug.Over the course of a year, the “milking parlors” onGTC’s 300-acre farm in Massachusetts can collectmore than a kilogram of medicine from a singleanimal.

When scientists first learned how to edit thegenomes of animals, they began to imagine all theways they could use this new power. Creatingbrightly colored novelty pets was not a high priority.Instead, most researchers envisioned far moreconsequential applications, hoping to creategenetically engineered animals that saved humanlives. One enterprise is now delivering on this dream.Welcome to the world of “pharming,” in whichsimple genetic tweaks turn animals into livingpharmaceutical factories.Many of the proteins that our cells crank outnaturally make for good medicine. Our bodies’ ownenzymes, hormones, clotting factors, and antibodiesare commonly used to treat cancer, diabetes,autoimmune diseases, and more. The trouble is thatit’s difficult and expensive to make these compoundson an industrial scale, and as a result, patients canface shortages of the medicines they need. Dairyanimals, on the other hand, are expert proteinproducers, their udders swollen with milk. So thecreation of the first transgenic animals—first mice,then other species—in the 1980s gave scientists anidea: What if they put the gene for a human antibodyor enzyme into a cow, goat, or sheep? If they put thegene in just the right place, under the control of theright molecular switch, maybe they could engineeranimals that produced healing human proteins intheir milk. Then doctors could collect medicine bythe bucketful.Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, studies providedproof of principle, as scientists created transgenicmice, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and rabbits that did infact make therapeutic compounds in their milk.At first, this work was merely gee-whiz, scientificgeekery, lab-bound thought experiments come true.That all changed with ATryn, a drug produced by theMassachusetts firm GTC Biotherapeutics. ATryn isantithrombin, an anticoagulant that can be used toprevent life-threatening blood clots. The compound,made by our liver cells, plays a key role in keepingour bodies clot-free. It acts as a molecular bouncer,sidling up to clot-forming compounds and escortingthem out of the bloodstream. But as many as 1 in 2,000 Americans are born with a genetic mutationthat prevents them from making antithrombin.These patients are prone to clots, especially in theirlegs and lungs, and they are at elevated risk ofsuffering from fatal complications during surgeryand childbirth. Supplemental antithrombin canreduce this risk, and GTC decided to try tomanufacture the compound using geneticallyengineered goats.To create its special herd of goats, GTC usedmicroinjection, the same technique that producedGloFish and AquAdvantage salmon. The company’sscientists took the gene for human antithrombin andinjected it directly into fertilized goat eggs. Then theyimplanted the eggs in the wombs of female goats.When the kids were born, some of them proved to betransgenic, the human gene nestled safely in theircells. The researchers paired the antithrombin genewith a promoter (which is a sequence of DNA thatcontrols gene activity) that is normally active in thegoat’s mammary glands during milk production.When the transgenic females lactated, the promoterturned the transgene on and the goats’ udders filledwith milk containing antithrombin. All that was leftto do was to collect the milk, and extract and purifythe protein. Et voilà—human medicine! And, forGTC, liquid gold. ATryn hit the market in 2006,becoming the world’s first transgenic animal drug.Over the course of a year, the “milking parlors” onGTC’s 300-acre farm in Massachusetts can collectmore than a kilogram of medicine from a singleanimal.

When scientists first learned how to edit thegenomes of animals, they began to imagine all theways they could use this new power. Creatingbrightly colored novelty pets was not a high priority.Instead, most researchers envisioned far moreconsequential applications, hoping to creategenetically engineered animals that saved humanlives. One enterprise is now delivering on this dream.Welcome to the world of “pharming,” in whichsimple genetic tweaks turn animals into livingpharmaceutical factories.Many of the proteins that our cells crank outnaturally make for good medicine. Our bodies’ ownenzymes, hormones, clotting factors, and antibodiesare commonly used to treat cancer, diabetes,autoimmune diseases, and more. The trouble is thatit’s difficult and expensive to make these compoundson an industrial scale, and as a result, patients canface shortages of the medicines they need. Dairyanimals, on the other hand, are expert proteinproducers, their udders swollen with milk. So thecreation of the first transgenic animals—first mice,then other species—in the 1980s gave scientists anidea: What if they put the gene for a human antibodyor enzyme into a cow, goat, or sheep? If they put thegene in just the right place, under the control of theright molecular switch, maybe they could engineeranimals that produced healing human proteins intheir milk. Then doctors could collect medicine bythe bucketful.Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, studies providedproof of principle, as scientists created transgenicmice, sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and rabbits that did infact make therapeutic compounds in their milk.At first, this work was merely gee-whiz, scientificgeekery, lab-bound thought experiments come true.That all changed with ATryn, a drug produced by theMassachusetts firm GTC Biotherapeutics. ATryn isantithrombin, an anticoagulant that can be used toprevent life-threatening blood clots. The compound,made by our liver cells, plays a key role in keepingour bodies clot-free. It acts as a molecular bouncer,sidling up to clot-forming compounds and escortingthem out of the bloodstream. But as many as 1 in 2,000 Americans are born with a genetic mutationthat prevents them from making antithrombin.These patients are prone to clots, especially in theirlegs and lungs, and they are at elevated risk ofsuffering from fatal complications during surgeryand childbirth. Supplemental antithrombin canreduce this risk, and GTC decided to try tomanufacture the compound using geneticallyengineered goats.To create its special herd of goats, GTC usedmicroinjection, the same technique that producedGloFish and AquAdvantage salmon. The company’sscientists took the gene for human antithrombin andinjected it directly into fertilized goat eggs. Then theyimplanted the eggs in the wombs of female goats.When the kids were born, some of them proved to betransgenic, the human gene nestled safely in theircells. The researchers paired the antithrombin genewith a promoter (which is a sequence of DNA thatcontrols gene activity) that is normally active in thegoat’s mammary glands during milk production.When the transgenic females lactated, the promoterturned the transgene on and the goats’ udders filledwith milk containing antithrombin. All that was leftto do was to collect the milk, and extract and purifythe protein. Et voilà—human medicine! And, forGTC, liquid gold. ATryn hit the market in 2006,becoming the world’s first transgenic animal drug.Over the course of a year, the “milking parlors” onGTC’s 300-acre farm in Massachusetts can collectmore than a kilogram of medicine from a singleanimal.

Passage 1To avoid . . . the evils of inconstancy andversatility, ten thousand times worse than those ofobstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we haveconsecrated the state, that no man should approachto look into its defects or corruptions but with duecaution; that he should never dream of beginning itsreformation by its subversion; that he shouldapproach to the faults of the state as to the wounds ofa father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude. Bythis wise prejudice we are taught to look with horroron those children of their country who are promptrashly to hack that aged parent in pieces, and put himinto the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by theirpoisonous weeds, and wild incantations, they mayregenerate the paternal constitution, and renovatetheir father’s life.Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contractsfor objects of mere occasional interest may bedissolved at pleasure—but the state ought not to beconsidered as nothing better than a partnershipagreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico ortobacco, or some other such low concern, to be takenup for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolvedby the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on withother reverence; because it is not a partnership inthings subservient only to the gross animal existenceof a temporary and perishable nature. It is apartnership in all science; a partnership in all art; apartnership in every virtue, and in all perfection.As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtainedin many generations, it becomes a partnership notonly between those who are living, but between thosewho are living, those who are dead, and those whoare to be born. . . . The municipal corporations ofthat universal kingdom are not morally at liberty attheir pleasure, and on their speculations of acontingent improvement, wholly to separate and tearasunder the bands of their subordinate community,and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil,unconnected chaos of elementary principles. Passage 2Every age and generation must be as free to act foritself, in all cases, as the ages and generations whichpreceded it. The vanity and presumption ofgoverning beyond the grave, is the most ridiculousand insolent of all tyrannies.Man has no property in man; neither has anygeneration a property in the generations which are tofollow. The Parliament or the people of 1688, or ofany other period, had no more right to dispose of thepeople of the present day, or to bind or to controlthem in any shape whatever, than the parliament orthe people of the present day have to dispose of, bind,or control those who are to live a hundred or athousand years hence.Every generation is, and must be, competentto all the purposes which its occasions require. It isthe living, and not the dead, that are to beaccommodated. When man ceases to be, his powerand his wants cease with him; and having no longerany participation in the concerns of this world, hehas no longer any authority in directing who shall beits governors, or how its government shall beorganized, or how administered....Those who have quitted the world, and those whoare not yet arrived at it, are as remote from eachother, as the utmost stretch of mortal imaginationcan conceive. What possible obligation, then, canexist between them; what rule or principle can be laiddown, that two nonentities, the one out of existence,and the other not in, and who never can meet in thisworld, that the one should control the other to theend of time?...The circumstances of the world are continuallychanging, and the opinions of men change also; andas government is for the living, and not for the dead,it is the living only that has any right in it. Thatwhich may be thought right and found convenient inone age, may be thought wrong and foundinconvenient in another. In such cases, who is todecide, the living, or the dead?

Passage 1To avoid . . . the evils of inconstancy andversatility, ten thousand times worse than those ofobstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we haveconsecrated the state, that no man should approachto look into its defects or corruptions but with duecaution; that he should never dream of beginning itsreformation by its subversion; that he shouldapproach to the faults of the state as to the wounds ofa father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude. Bythis wise prejudice we are taught to look with horroron those children of their country who are promptrashly to hack that aged parent in pieces, and put himinto the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by theirpoisonous weeds, and wild incantations, they mayregenerate the paternal constitution, and renovatetheir father’s life.Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contractsfor objects of mere occasional interest may bedissolved at pleasure—but the state ought not to beconsidered as nothing better than a partnershipagreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico ortobacco, or some other such low concern, to be takenup for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolvedby the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on withother reverence; because it is not a partnership inthings subservient only to the gross animal existenceof a temporary and perishable nature. It is apartnership in all science; a partnership in all art; apartnership in every virtue, and in all perfection.As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtainedin many generations, it becomes a partnership notonly between those who are living, but between thosewho are living, those who are dead, and those whoare to be born. . . . The municipal corporations ofthat universal kingdom are not morally at liberty attheir pleasure, and on their speculations of acontingent improvement, wholly to separate and tearasunder the bands of their subordinate community,and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil,unconnected chaos of elementary principles. Passage 2Every age and generation must be as free to act foritself, in all cases, as the ages and generations whichpreceded it. The vanity and presumption ofgoverning beyond the grave, is the most ridiculousand insolent of all tyrannies.Man has no property in man; neither has anygeneration a property in the generations which are tofollow. The Parliament or the people of 1688, or ofany other period, had no more right to dispose of thepeople of the present day, or to bind or to controlthem in any shape whatever, than the parliament orthe people of the present day have to dispose of, bind,or control those who are to live a hundred or athousand years hence.Every generation is, and must be, competentto all the purposes which its occasions require. It isthe living, and not the dead, that are to beaccommodated. When man ceases to be, his powerand his wants cease with him; and having no longerany participation in the concerns of this world, hehas no longer any authority in directing who shall beits governors, or how its government shall beorganized, or how administered....Those who have quitted the world, and those whoare not yet arrived at it, are as remote from eachother, as the utmost stretch of mortal imaginationcan conceive. What possible obligation, then, canexist between them; what rule or principle can be laiddown, that two nonentities, the one out of existence,and the other not in, and who never can meet in thisworld, that the one should control the other to theend of time?...The circumstances of the world are continuallychanging, and the opinions of men change also; andas government is for the living, and not for the dead,it is the living only that has any right in it. Thatwhich may be thought right and found convenient inone age, may be thought wrong and foundinconvenient in another. In such cases, who is todecide, the living, or the dead?

Passage 1To avoid . . . the evils of inconstancy andversatility, ten thousand times worse than those ofobstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we haveconsecrated the state, that no man should approachto look into its defects or corruptions but with duecaution; that he should never dream of beginning itsreformation by its subversion; that he shouldapproach to the faults of the state as to the wounds ofa father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude. Bythis wise prejudice we are taught to look with horroron those children of their country who are promptrashly to hack that aged parent in pieces, and put himinto the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by theirpoisonous weeds, and wild incantations, they mayregenerate the paternal constitution, and renovatetheir father’s life.Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contractsfor objects of mere occasional interest may bedissolved at pleasure—but the state ought not to beconsidered as nothing better than a partnershipagreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico ortobacco, or some other such low concern, to be takenup for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolvedby the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on withother reverence; because it is not a partnership inthings subservient only to the gross animal existenceof a temporary and perishable nature. It is apartnership in all science; a partnership in all art; apartnership in every virtue, and in all perfection.As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtainedin many generations, it becomes a partnership notonly between those who are living, but between thosewho are living, those who are dead, and those whoare to be born. . . . The municipal corporations ofthat universal kingdom are not morally at liberty attheir pleasure, and on their speculations of acontingent improvement, wholly to separate and tearasunder the bands of their subordinate community,and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil,unconnected chaos of elementary principles. Passage 2Every age and generation must be as free to act foritself, in all cases, as the ages and generations whichpreceded it. The vanity and presumption ofgoverning beyond the grave, is the most ridiculousand insolent of all tyrannies.Man has no property in man; neither has anygeneration a property in the generations which are tofollow. The Parliament or the people of 1688, or ofany other period, had no more right to dispose of thepeople of the present day, or to bind or to controlthem in any shape whatever, than the parliament orthe people of the present day have to dispose of, bind,or control those who are to live a hundred or athousand years hence.Every generation is, and must be, competentto all the purposes which its occasions require. It isthe living, and not the dead, that are to beaccommodated. When man ceases to be, his powerand his wants cease with him; and having no longerany participation in the concerns of this world, hehas no longer any authority in directing who shall beits governors, or how its government shall beorganized, or how administered....Those who have quitted the world, and those whoare not yet arrived at it, are as remote from eachother, as the utmost stretch of mortal imaginationcan conceive. What possible obligation, then, canexist between them; what rule or principle can be laiddown, that two nonentities, the one out of existence,and the other not in, and who never can meet in thisworld, that the one should control the other to theend of time?...The circumstances of the world are continuallychanging, and the opinions of men change also; andas government is for the living, and not for the dead,it is the living only that has any right in it. Thatwhich may be thought right and found convenient inone age, may be thought wrong and foundinconvenient in another. In such cases, who is todecide, the living, or the dead?

Passage 1To avoid . . . the evils of inconstancy andversatility, ten thousand times worse than those ofobstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we haveconsecrated the state, that no man should approachto look into its defects or corruptions but with duecaution; that he should never dream of beginning itsreformation by its subversion; that he shouldapproach to the faults of the state as to the wounds ofa father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude. Bythis wise prejudice we are taught to look with horroron those children of their country who are promptrashly to hack that aged parent in pieces, and put himinto the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by theirpoisonous weeds, and wild incantations, they mayregenerate the paternal constitution, and renovatetheir father’s life.Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contractsfor objects of mere occasional interest may bedissolved at pleasure—but the state ought not to beconsidered as nothing better than a partnershipagreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico ortobacco, or some other such low concern, to be takenup for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolvedby the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on withother reverence; because it is not a partnership inthings subservient only to the gross animal existenceof a temporary and perishable nature. It is apartnership in all science; a partnership in all art; apartnership in every virtue, and in all perfection.As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtainedin many generations, it becomes a partnership notonly between those who are living, but between thosewho are living, those who are dead, and those whoare to be born. . . . The municipal corporations ofthat universal kingdom are not morally at liberty attheir pleasure, and on their speculations of acontingent improvement, wholly to separate and tearasunder the bands of their subordinate community,and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil,unconnected chaos of elementary principles. Passage 2Every age and generation must be as free to act foritself, in all cases, as the ages and generations whichpreceded it. The vanity and presumption ofgoverning beyond the grave, is the most ridiculousand insolent of all tyrannies.Man has no property in man; neither has anygeneration a property in the generations which are tofollow. The Parliament or the people of 1688, or ofany other period, had no more right to dispose of thepeople of the present day, or to bind or to controlthem in any shape whatever, than the parliament orthe people of the present day have to dispose of, bind,or control those who are to live a hundred or athousand years hence.Every generation is, and must be, competentto all the purposes which its occasions require. It isthe living, and not the dead, that are to beaccommodated. When man ceases to be, his powerand his wants cease with him; and having no longerany participation in the concerns of this world, hehas no longer any authority in directing who shall beits governors, or how its government shall beorganized, or how administered....Those who have quitted the world, and those whoare not yet arrived at it, are as remote from eachother, as the utmost stretch of mortal imaginationcan conceive. What possible obligation, then, canexist between them; what rule or principle can be laiddown, that two nonentities, the one out of existence,and the other not in, and who never can meet in thisworld, that the one should control the other to theend of time?...The circumstances of the world are continuallychanging, and the opinions of men change also; andas government is for the living, and not for the dead,it is the living only that has any right in it. Thatwhich may be thought right and found convenient inone age, may be thought wrong and foundinconvenient in another. In such cases, who is todecide, the living, or the dead?

Passage 1To avoid . . . the evils of inconstancy andversatility, ten thousand times worse than those ofobstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we haveconsecrated the state, that no man should approachto look into its defects or corruptions but with duecaution; that he should never dream of beginning itsreformation by its subversion; that he shouldapproach to the faults of the state as to the wounds ofa father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude. Bythis wise prejudice we are taught to look with horroron those children of their country who are promptrashly to hack that aged parent in pieces, and put himinto the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by theirpoisonous weeds, and wild incantations, they mayregenerate the paternal constitution, and renovatetheir father’s life.Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contractsfor objects of mere occasional interest may bedissolved at pleasure—but the state ought not to beconsidered as nothing better than a partnershipagreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico ortobacco, or some other such low concern, to be takenup for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolvedby the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on withother reverence; because it is not a partnership inthings subservient only to the gross animal existenceof a temporary and perishable nature. It is apartnership in all science; a partnership in all art; apartnership in every virtue, and in all perfection.As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtainedin many generations, it becomes a partnership notonly between those who are living, but between thosewho are living, those who are dead, and those whoare to be born. . . . The municipal corporations ofthat universal kingdom are not morally at liberty attheir pleasure, and on their speculations of acontingent improvement, wholly to separate and tearasunder the bands of their subordinate community,and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil,unconnected chaos of elementary principles. Passage 2Every age and generation must be as free to act foritself, in all cases, as the ages and generations whichpreceded it. The vanity and presumption ofgoverning beyond the grave, is the most ridiculousand insolent of all tyrannies.Man has no property in man; neither has anygeneration a property in the generations which are tofollow. The Parliament or the people of 1688, or ofany other period, had no more right to dispose of thepeople of the present day, or to bind or to controlthem in any shape whatever, than the parliament orthe people of the present day have to dispose of, bind,or control those who are to live a hundred or athousand years hence.Every generation is, and must be, competentto all the purposes which its occasions require. It isthe living, and not the dead, that are to beaccommodated. When man ceases to be, his powerand his wants cease with him; and having no longerany participation in the concerns of this world, hehas no longer any authority in directing who shall beits governors, or how its government shall beorganized, or how administered....Those who have quitted the world, and those whoare not yet arrived at it, are as remote from eachother, as the utmost stretch of mortal imaginationcan conceive. What possible obligation, then, canexist between them; what rule or principle can be laiddown, that two nonentities, the one out of existence,and the other not in, and who never can meet in thisworld, that the one should control the other to theend of time?...The circumstances of the world are continuallychanging, and the opinions of men change also; andas government is for the living, and not for the dead,it is the living only that has any right in it. Thatwhich may be thought right and found convenient inone age, may be thought wrong and foundinconvenient in another. In such cases, who is todecide, the living, or the dead?

Passage 1To avoid . . . the evils of inconstancy andversatility, ten thousand times worse than those ofobstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we haveconsecrated the state, that no man should approachto look into its defects or corruptions but with duecaution; that he should never dream of beginning itsreformation by its subversion; that he shouldapproach to the faults of the state as to the wounds ofa father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude. Bythis wise prejudice we are taught to look with horroron those children of their country who are promptrashly to hack that aged parent in pieces, and put himinto the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by theirpoisonous weeds, and wild incantations, they mayregenerate the paternal constitution, and renovatetheir father’s life.Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contractsfor objects of mere occasional interest may bedissolved at pleasure—but the state ought not to beconsidered as nothing better than a partnershipagreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico ortobacco, or some other such low concern, to be takenup for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolvedby the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on withother reverence; because it is not a partnership inthings subservient only to the gross animal existenceof a temporary and perishable nature. It is apartnership in all science; a partnership in all art; apartnership in every virtue, and in all perfection.As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtainedin many generations, it becomes a partnership notonly between those who are living, but between thosewho are living, those who are dead, and those whoare to be born. . . . The municipal corporations ofthat universal kingdom are not morally at liberty attheir pleasure, and on their speculations of acontingent improvement, wholly to separate and tearasunder the bands of their subordinate community,and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil,unconnected chaos of elementary principles. Passage 2Every age and generation must be as free to act foritself, in all cases, as the ages and generations whichpreceded it. The vanity and presumption ofgoverning beyond the grave, is the most ridiculousand insolent of all tyrannies.Man has no property in man; neither has anygeneration a property in the generations which are tofollow. The Parliament or the people of 1688, or ofany other period, had no more right to dispose of thepeople of the present day, or to bind or to controlthem in any shape whatever, than the parliament orthe people of the present day have to dispose of, bind,or control those who are to live a hundred or athousand years hence.Every generation is, and must be, competentto all the purposes which its occasions require. It isthe living, and not the dead, that are to beaccommodated. When man ceases to be, his powerand his wants cease with him; and having no longerany participation in the concerns of this world, hehas no longer any authority in directing who shall beits governors, or how its government shall beorganized, or how administered....Those who have quitted the world, and those whoare not yet arrived at it, are as remote from eachother, as the utmost stretch of mortal imaginationcan conceive. What possible obligation, then, canexist between them; what rule or principle can be laiddown, that two nonentities, the one out of existence,and the other not in, and who never can meet in thisworld, that the one should control the other to theend of time?...The circumstances of the world are continuallychanging, and the opinions of men change also; andas government is for the living, and not for the dead,it is the living only that has any right in it. Thatwhich may be thought right and found convenient inone age, may be thought wrong and foundinconvenient in another. In such cases, who is todecide, the living, or the dead?

Passage 1To avoid . . . the evils of inconstancy andversatility, ten thousand times worse than those ofobstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we haveconsecrated the state, that no man should approachto look into its defects or corruptions but with duecaution; that he should never dream of beginning itsreformation by its subversion; that he shouldapproach to the faults of the state as to the wounds ofa father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude. Bythis wise prejudice we are taught to look with horroron those children of their country who are promptrashly to hack that aged parent in pieces, and put himinto the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by theirpoisonous weeds, and wild incantations, they mayregenerate the paternal constitution, and renovatetheir father’s life.Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contractsfor objects of mere occasional interest may bedissolved at pleasure—but the state ought not to beconsidered as nothing better than a partnershipagreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico ortobacco, or some other such low concern, to be takenup for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolvedby the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on withother reverence; because it is not a partnership inthings subservient only to the gross animal existenceof a temporary and perishable nature. It is apartnership in all science; a partnership in all art; apartnership in every virtue, and in all perfection.As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtainedin many generations, it becomes a partnership notonly between those who are living, but between thosewho are living, those who are dead, and those whoare to be born. . . . The municipal corporations ofthat universal kingdom are not morally at liberty attheir pleasure, and on their speculations of acontingent improvement, wholly to separate and tearasunder the bands of their subordinate community,and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil,unconnected chaos of elementary principles. Passage 2Every age and generation must be as free to act foritself, in all cases, as the ages and generations whichpreceded it. The vanity and presumption ofgoverning beyond the grave, is the most ridiculousand insolent of all tyrannies.Man has no property in man; neither has anygeneration a property in the generations which are tofollow. The Parliament or the people of 1688, or ofany other period, had no more right to dispose of thepeople of the present day, or to bind or to controlthem in any shape whatever, than the parliament orthe people of the present day have to dispose of, bind,or control those who are to live a hundred or athousand years hence.Every generation is, and must be, competentto all the purposes which its occasions require. It isthe living, and not the dead, that are to beaccommodated. When man ceases to be, his powerand his wants cease with him; and having no longerany participation in the concerns of this world, hehas no longer any authority in directing who shall beits governors, or how its government shall beorganized, or how administered....Those who have quitted the world, and those whoare not yet arrived at it, are as remote from eachother, as the utmost stretch of mortal imaginationcan conceive. What possible obligation, then, canexist between them; what rule or principle can be laiddown, that two nonentities, the one out of existence,and the other not in, and who never can meet in thisworld, that the one should control the other to theend of time?...The circumstances of the world are continuallychanging, and the opinions of men change also; andas government is for the living, and not for the dead,it is the living only that has any right in it. Thatwhich may be thought right and found convenient inone age, may be thought wrong and foundinconvenient in another. In such cases, who is todecide, the living, or the dead?

Passage 1To avoid . . . the evils of inconstancy andversatility, ten thousand times worse than those ofobstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we haveconsecrated the state, that no man should approachto look into its defects or corruptions but with duecaution; that he should never dream of beginning itsreformation by its subversion; that he shouldapproach to the faults of the state as to the wounds ofa father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude. Bythis wise prejudice we are taught to look with horroron those children of their country who are promptrashly to hack that aged parent in pieces, and put himinto the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by theirpoisonous weeds, and wild incantations, they mayregenerate the paternal constitution, and renovatetheir father’s life.Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contractsfor objects of mere occasional interest may bedissolved at pleasure—but the state ought not to beconsidered as nothing better than a partnershipagreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico ortobacco, or some other such low concern, to be takenup for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolvedby the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on withother reverence; because it is not a partnership inthings subservient only to the gross animal existenceof a temporary and perishable nature. It is apartnership in all science; a partnership in all art; apartnership in every virtue, and in all perfection.As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtainedin many generations, it becomes a partnership notonly between those who are living, but between thosewho are living, those who are dead, and those whoare to be born. . . . The municipal corporations ofthat universal kingdom are not morally at liberty attheir pleasure, and on their speculations of acontingent improvement, wholly to separate and tearasunder the bands of their subordinate community,and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil,unconnected chaos of elementary principles. Passage 2Every age and generation must be as free to act foritself, in all cases, as the ages and generations whichpreceded it. The vanity and presumption ofgoverning beyond the grave, is the most ridiculousand insolent of all tyrannies.Man has no property in man; neither has anygeneration a property in the generations which are tofollow. The Parliament or the people of 1688, or ofany other period, had no more right to dispose of thepeople of the present day, or to bind or to controlthem in any shape whatever, than the parliament orthe people of the present day have to dispose of, bind,or control those who are to live a hundred or athousand years hence.Every generation is, and must be, competentto all the purposes which its occasions require. It isthe living, and not the dead, that are to beaccommodated. When man ceases to be, his powerand his wants cease with him; and having no longerany participation in the concerns of this world, hehas no longer any authority in directing who shall beits governors, or how its government shall beorganized, or how administered....Those who have quitted the world, and those whoare not yet arrived at it, are as remote from eachother, as the utmost stretch of mortal imaginationcan conceive. What possible obligation, then, canexist between them; what rule or principle can be laiddown, that two nonentities, the one out of existence,and the other not in, and who never can meet in thisworld, that the one should control the other to theend of time?...The circumstances of the world are continuallychanging, and the opinions of men change also; andas government is for the living, and not for the dead,it is the living only that has any right in it. Thatwhich may be thought right and found convenient inone age, may be thought wrong and foundinconvenient in another. In such cases, who is todecide, the living, or the dead?

Passage 1To avoid . . . the evils of inconstancy andversatility, ten thousand times worse than those ofobstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we haveconsecrated the state, that no man should approachto look into its defects or corruptions but with duecaution; that he should never dream of beginning itsreformation by its subversion; that he shouldapproach to the faults of the state as to the wounds ofa father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude. Bythis wise prejudice we are taught to look with horroron those children of their country who are promptrashly to hack that aged parent in pieces, and put himinto the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by theirpoisonous weeds, and wild incantations, they mayregenerate the paternal constitution, and renovatetheir father’s life.Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contractsfor objects of mere occasional interest may bedissolved at pleasure—but the state ought not to beconsidered as nothing better than a partnershipagreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico ortobacco, or some other such low concern, to be takenup for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolvedby the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on withother reverence; because it is not a partnership inthings subservient only to the gross animal existenceof a temporary and perishable nature. It is apartnership in all science; a partnership in all art; apartnership in every virtue, and in all perfection.As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtainedin many generations, it becomes a partnership notonly between those who are living, but between thosewho are living, those who are dead, and those whoare to be born. . . . The municipal corporations ofthat universal kingdom are not morally at liberty attheir pleasure, and on their speculations of acontingent improvement, wholly to separate and tearasunder the bands of their subordinate community,and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil,unconnected chaos of elementary principles. Passage 2Every age and generation must be as free to act foritself, in all cases, as the ages and generations whichpreceded it. The vanity and presumption ofgoverning beyond the grave, is the most ridiculousand insolent of all tyrannies.Man has no property in man; neither has anygeneration a property in the generations which are tofollow. The Parliament or the people of 1688, or ofany other period, had no more right to dispose of thepeople of the present day, or to bind or to controlthem in any shape whatever, than the parliament orthe people of the present day have to dispose of, bind,or control those who are to live a hundred or athousand years hence.Every generation is, and must be, competentto all the purposes which its occasions require. It isthe living, and not the dead, that are to beaccommodated. When man ceases to be, his powerand his wants cease with him; and having no longerany participation in the concerns of this world, hehas no longer any authority in directing who shall beits governors, or how its government shall beorganized, or how administered....Those who have quitted the world, and those whoare not yet arrived at it, are as remote from eachother, as the utmost stretch of mortal imaginationcan conceive. What possible obligation, then, canexist between them; what rule or principle can be laiddown, that two nonentities, the one out of existence,and the other not in, and who never can meet in thisworld, that the one should control the other to theend of time?...The circumstances of the world are continuallychanging, and the opinions of men change also; andas government is for the living, and not for the dead,it is the living only that has any right in it. Thatwhich may be thought right and found convenient inone age, may be thought wrong and foundinconvenient in another. In such cases, who is todecide, the living, or the dead?

Passage 1To avoid . . . the evils of inconstancy andversatility, ten thousand times worse than those ofobstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we haveconsecrated the state, that no man should approachto look into its defects or corruptions but with duecaution; that he should never dream of beginning itsreformation by its subversion; that he shouldapproach to the faults of the state as to the wounds ofa father, with pious awe and trembling solicitude. Bythis wise prejudice we are taught to look with horroron those children of their country who are promptrashly to hack that aged parent in pieces, and put himinto the kettle of magicians, in hopes that by theirpoisonous weeds, and wild incantations, they mayregenerate the paternal constitution, and renovatetheir father’s life.Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contractsfor objects of mere occasional interest may bedissolved at pleasure—but the state ought not to beconsidered as nothing better than a partnershipagreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico ortobacco, or some other such low concern, to be takenup for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolvedby the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on withother reverence; because it is not a partnership inthings subservient only to the gross animal existenceof a temporary and perishable nature. It is apartnership in all science; a partnership in all art; apartnership in every virtue, and in all perfection.As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtainedin many generations, it becomes a partnership notonly between those who are living, but between thosewho are living, those who are dead, and those whoare to be born. . . . The municipal corporations ofthat universal kingdom are not morally at liberty attheir pleasure, and on their speculations of acontingent improvement, wholly to separate and tearasunder the bands of their subordinate community,and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil,unconnected chaos of elementary principles. Passage 2Every age and generation must be as free to act foritself, in all cases, as the ages and generations whichpreceded it. The vanity and presumption ofgoverning beyond the grave, is the most ridiculousand insolent of all tyrannies.Man has no property in man; neither has anygeneration a property in the generations which are tofollow. The Parliament or the people of 1688, or ofany other period, had no more right to dispose of thepeople of the present day, or to bind or to controlthem in any shape whatever, than the parliament orthe people of the present day have to dispose of, bind,or control those who are to live a hundred or athousand years hence.Every generation is, and must be, competentto all the purposes which its occasions require. It isthe living, and not the dead, that are to beaccommodated. When man ceases to be, his powerand his wants cease with him; and having no longerany participation in the concerns of this world, hehas no longer any authority in directing who shall beits governors, or how its government shall beorganized, or how administered....Those who have quitted the world, and those whoare not yet arrived at it, are as remote from eachother, as the utmost stretch of mortal imaginationcan conceive. What possible obligation, then, canexist between them; what rule or principle can be laiddown, that two nonentities, the one out of existence,and the other not in, and who never can meet in thisworld, that the one should control the other to theend of time?...The circumstances of the world are continuallychanging, and the opinions of men change also; andas government is for the living, and not for the dead,it is the living only that has any right in it. Thatwhich may be thought right and found convenient inone age, may be thought wrong and foundinconvenient in another. In such cases, who is todecide, the living, or the dead?

About 750 years ago, a powerful volcano eruptedsomewhere on Earth, kicking off a centuries-longcold snap known as the Little Ice Age. Identifying thevolcano responsible has been tricky.That a powerful volcano erupted somewhere inthe world, sometime in the Middle Ages, is written inpolar ice cores in the form of layers of sulfatedeposits and tiny shards of volcanic glass. Thesecores suggest that the amount of sulfur the mysteryvolcano sent into the stratosphere put it firmlyamong the ranks of the strongest climate-perturbingeruptions of the current geological epoch, theHolocene, a period that stretches from 10,000 yearsago to the present. A haze of stratospheric sulfurcools the climate by reflecting solar energy back intospace.In 2012, a team of scientists led by geochemistGifford Miller strengthened the link between themystery eruption and the onset of the Little Ice Ageby using radiocarbon dating of dead plant materialfrom beneath the ice caps on Baffin Island andIceland, as well as ice and sediment core data, todetermine that the cold summers and ice growthbegan abruptly between 1275 and 1300 C.E. (andbecame intensified between 1430 and 1455 C.E.).Such a sudden onset pointed to a huge volcaniceruption injecting sulfur into the stratosphere andstarting the cooling. Subsequent, unusually large andfrequent eruptions of other volcanoes, as well assea-ice/ocean feedbacks persisting long after theaerosols have been removed from the atmosphere,may have prolonged the cooling through the 1700s.Volcanologist Franck Lavigne and colleagues nowthink they’ve identified the volcano in question:Indonesia’s Samalas. One line of evidence, they note,is historical records. According to Babad Lombok,records of the island written on palm leaves in OldJavanese, Samalas erupted catastrophically before theend of the 13th century, devastating surroundingvillages—including Lombok’s capital at the time,Pamatan—with ash and fast-moving sweeps of hotrock and gas called pyroclastic flows.The researchers then began to reconstruct theformation of the large, 800-meter-deep caldera [abasin-shaped volcanic crater] that now sits atop the volcano. They examined 130 outcrops on the flanksof the volcano, exposing sequences of pumice—ashhardened into rock—and other pyroclastic material.The volume of ash deposited, and the estimatedheight of the eruption plume (43 kilometers abovesea level) put the eruption’s magnitude at aminimum of 7 on the volcanic explosivity index(which has a scale of 1 to 8)—making it one of thelargest known in the Holocene.The team also performed radiocarbon analyses oncarbonized tree trunks and branches buried withinthe pyroclastic deposits to confirm the date of theeruption; it could not, they concluded, havehappened before 1257 C.E., and certainly happenedin the 13th century.It’s not a total surprise that an Indonesian volcanomight be the source of the eruption, Miller says. “Anequatorial eruption is more consistent with theapparent climate impacts.” And, he adds, with sulfateappearing in both polar ice caps—Arctic andAntarctic—there is “a strong consensus” that thisalso supports an equatorial source.Another possible candidate—both in terms oftiming and geographical location—is Ecuador’sQuilotoa, estimated to have last erupted between1147 and 1320 C.E. But when Lavigne’s teamexamined shards of volcanic glass from this volcano,they found that they didn’t match the chemicalcomposition of the glass found in polar ice cores,whereas the Samalas glass is a much closer match.That, they suggest, further strengthens the case thatSamalas was responsible for the medieval “yearwithout summer” in 1258 C.E.

About 750 years ago, a powerful volcano eruptedsomewhere on Earth, kicking off a centuries-longcold snap known as the Little Ice Age. Identifying thevolcano responsible has been tricky.That a powerful volcano erupted somewhere inthe world, sometime in the Middle Ages, is written inpolar ice cores in the form of layers of sulfatedeposits and tiny shards of volcanic glass. Thesecores suggest that the amount of sulfur the mysteryvolcano sent into the stratosphere put it firmlyamong the ranks of the strongest climate-perturbingeruptions of the current geological epoch, theHolocene, a period that stretches from 10,000 yearsago to the present. A haze of stratospheric sulfurcools the climate by reflecting solar energy back intospace.In 2012, a team of scientists led by geochemistGifford Miller strengthened the link between themystery eruption and the onset of the Little Ice Ageby using radiocarbon dating of dead plant materialfrom beneath the ice caps on Baffin Island andIceland, as well as ice and sediment core data, todetermine that the cold summers and ice growthbegan abruptly between 1275 and 1300 C.E. (andbecame intensified between 1430 and 1455 C.E.).Such a sudden onset pointed to a huge volcaniceruption injecting sulfur into the stratosphere andstarting the cooling. Subsequent, unusually large andfrequent eruptions of other volcanoes, as well assea-ice/ocean feedbacks persisting long after theaerosols have been removed from the atmosphere,may have prolonged the cooling through the 1700s.Volcanologist Franck Lavigne and colleagues nowthink they’ve identified the volcano in question:Indonesia’s Samalas. One line of evidence, they note,is historical records. According to Babad Lombok,records of the island written on palm leaves in OldJavanese, Samalas erupted catastrophically before theend of the 13th century, devastating surroundingvillages—including Lombok’s capital at the time,Pamatan—with ash and fast-moving sweeps of hotrock and gas called pyroclastic flows.The researchers then began to reconstruct theformation of the large, 800-meter-deep caldera [abasin-shaped volcanic crater] that now sits atop the volcano. They examined 130 outcrops on the flanksof the volcano, exposing sequences of pumice—ashhardened into rock—and other pyroclastic material.The volume of ash deposited, and the estimatedheight of the eruption plume (43 kilometers abovesea level) put the eruption’s magnitude at aminimum of 7 on the volcanic explosivity index(which has a scale of 1 to 8)—making it one of thelargest known in the Holocene.The team also performed radiocarbon analyses oncarbonized tree trunks and branches buried withinthe pyroclastic deposits to confirm the date of theeruption; it could not, they concluded, havehappened before 1257 C.E., and certainly happenedin the 13th century.It’s not a total surprise that an Indonesian volcanomight be the source of the eruption, Miller says. “Anequatorial eruption is more consistent with theapparent climate impacts.” And, he adds, with sulfateappearing in both polar ice caps—Arctic andAntarctic—there is “a strong consensus” that thisalso supports an equatorial source.Another possible candidate—both in terms oftiming and geographical location—is Ecuador’sQuilotoa, estimated to have last erupted between1147 and 1320 C.E. But when Lavigne’s teamexamined shards of volcanic glass from this volcano,they found that they didn’t match the chemicalcomposition of the glass found in polar ice cores,whereas the Samalas glass is a much closer match.That, they suggest, further strengthens the case thatSamalas was responsible for the medieval “yearwithout summer” in 1258 C.E.

About 750 years ago, a powerful volcano eruptedsomewhere on Earth, kicking off a centuries-longcold snap known as the Little Ice Age. Identifying thevolcano responsible has been tricky.That a powerful volcano erupted somewhere inthe world, sometime in the Middle Ages, is written inpolar ice cores in the form of layers of sulfatedeposits and tiny shards of volcanic glass. Thesecores suggest that the amount of sulfur the mysteryvolcano sent into the stratosphere put it firmlyamong the ranks of the strongest climate-perturbingeruptions of the current geological epoch, theHolocene, a period that stretches from 10,000 yearsago to the present. A haze of stratospheric sulfurcools the climate by reflecting solar energy back intospace.In 2012, a team of scientists led by geochemistGifford Miller strengthened the link between themystery eruption and the onset of the Little Ice Ageby using radiocarbon dating of dead plant materialfrom beneath the ice caps on Baffin Island andIceland, as well as ice and sediment core data, todetermine that the cold summers and ice growthbegan abruptly between 1275 and 1300 C.E. (andbecame intensified between 1430 and 1455 C.E.).Such a sudden onset pointed to a huge volcaniceruption injecting sulfur into the stratosphere andstarting the cooling. Subsequent, unusually large andfrequent eruptions of other volcanoes, as well assea-ice/ocean feedbacks persisting long after theaerosols have been removed from the atmosphere,may have prolonged the cooling through the 1700s.Volcanologist Franck Lavigne and colleagues nowthink they’ve identified the volcano in question:Indonesia’s Samalas. One line of evidence, they note,is historical records. According to Babad Lombok,records of the island written on palm leaves in OldJavanese, Samalas erupted catastrophically before theend of the 13th century, devastating surroundingvillages—including Lombok’s capital at the time,Pamatan—with ash and fast-moving sweeps of hotrock and gas called pyroclastic flows.The researchers then began to reconstruct theformation of the large, 800-meter-deep caldera [abasin-shaped volcanic crater] that now sits atop the volcano. They examined 130 outcrops on the flanksof the volcano, exposing sequences of pumice—ashhardened into rock—and other pyroclastic material.The volume of ash deposited, and the estimatedheight of the eruption plume (43 kilometers abovesea level) put the eruption’s magnitude at aminimum of 7 on the volcanic explosivity index(which has a scale of 1 to 8)—making it one of thelargest known in the Holocene.The team also performed radiocarbon analyses oncarbonized tree trunks and branches buried withinthe pyroclastic deposits to confirm the date of theeruption; it could not, they concluded, havehappened before 1257 C.E., and certainly happenedin the 13th century.It’s not a total surprise that an Indonesian volcanomight be the source of the eruption, Miller says. “Anequatorial eruption is more consistent with theapparent climate impacts.” And, he adds, with sulfateappearing in both polar ice caps—Arctic andAntarctic—there is “a strong consensus” that thisalso supports an equatorial source.Another possible candidate—both in terms oftiming and geographical location—is Ecuador’sQuilotoa, estimated to have last erupted between1147 and 1320 C.E. But when Lavigne’s teamexamined shards of volcanic glass from this volcano,they found that they didn’t match the chemicalcomposition of the glass found in polar ice cores,whereas the Samalas glass is a much closer match.That, they suggest, further strengthens the case thatSamalas was responsible for the medieval “yearwithout summer” in 1258 C.E.

About 750 years ago, a powerful volcano eruptedsomewhere on Earth, kicking off a centuries-longcold snap known as the Little Ice Age. Identifying thevolcano responsible has been tricky.That a powerful volcano erupted somewhere inthe world, sometime in the Middle Ages, is written inpolar ice cores in the form of layers of sulfatedeposits and tiny shards of volcanic glass. Thesecores suggest that the amount of sulfur the mysteryvolcano sent into the stratosphere put it firmlyamong the ranks of the strongest climate-perturbingeruptions of the current geological epoch, theHolocene, a period that stretches from 10,000 yearsago to the present. A haze of stratospheric sulfurcools the climate by reflecting solar energy back intospace.In 2012, a team of scientists led by geochemistGifford Miller strengthened the link between themystery eruption and the onset of the Little Ice Ageby using radiocarbon dating of dead plant materialfrom beneath the ice caps on Baffin Island andIceland, as well as ice and sediment core data, todetermine that the cold summers and ice growthbegan abruptly between 1275 and 1300 C.E. (andbecame intensified between 1430 and 1455 C.E.).Such a sudden onset pointed to a huge volcaniceruption injecting sulfur into the stratosphere andstarting the cooling. Subsequent, unusually large andfrequent eruptions of other volcanoes, as well assea-ice/ocean feedbacks persisting long after theaerosols have been removed from the atmosphere,may have prolonged the cooling through the 1700s.Volcanologist Franck Lavigne and colleagues nowthink they’ve identified the volcano in question:Indonesia’s Samalas. One line of evidence, they note,is historical records. According to Babad Lombok,records of the island written on palm leaves in OldJavanese, Samalas erupted catastrophically before theend of the 13th century, devastating surroundingvillages—including Lombok’s capital at the time,Pamatan—with ash and fast-moving sweeps of hotrock and gas called pyroclastic flows.The researchers then began to reconstruct theformation of the large, 800-meter-deep caldera [abasin-shaped volcanic crater] that now sits atop the volcano. They examined 130 outcrops on the flanksof the volcano, exposing sequences of pumice—ashhardened into rock—and other pyroclastic material.The volume of ash deposited, and the estimatedheight of the eruption plume (43 kilometers abovesea level) put the eruption’s magnitude at aminimum of 7 on the volcanic explosivity index(which has a scale of 1 to 8)—making it one of thelargest known in the Holocene.The team also performed radiocarbon analyses oncarbonized tree trunks and branches buried withinthe pyroclastic deposits to confirm the date of theeruption; it could not, they concluded, havehappened before 1257 C.E., and certainly happenedin the 13th century.It’s not a total surprise that an Indonesian volcanomight be the source of the eruption, Miller says. “Anequatorial eruption is more consistent with theapparent climate impacts.” And, he adds, with sulfateappearing in both polar ice caps—Arctic andAntarctic—there is “a strong consensus” that thisalso supports an equatorial source.Another possible candidate—both in terms oftiming and geographical location—is Ecuador’sQuilotoa, estimated to have last erupted between1147 and 1320 C.E. But when Lavigne’s teamexamined shards of volcanic glass from this volcano,they found that they didn’t match the chemicalcomposition of the glass found in polar ice cores,whereas the Samalas glass is a much closer match.That, they suggest, further strengthens the case thatSamalas was responsible for the medieval “yearwithout summer” in 1258 C.E.

About 750 years ago, a powerful volcano eruptedsomewhere on Earth, kicking off a centuries-longcold snap known as the Little Ice Age. Identifying thevolcano responsible has been tricky.That a powerful volcano erupted somewhere inthe world, sometime in the Middle Ages, is written inpolar ice cores in the form of layers of sulfatedeposits and tiny shards of volcanic glass. Thesecores suggest that the amount of sulfur the mysteryvolcano sent into the stratosphere put it firmlyamong the ranks of the strongest climate-perturbingeruptions of the current geological epoch, theHolocene, a period that stretches from 10,000 yearsago to the present. A haze of stratospheric sulfurcools the climate by reflecting solar energy back intospace.In 2012, a team of scientists led by geochemistGifford Miller strengthened the link between themystery eruption and the onset of the Little Ice Ageby using radiocarbon dating of dead plant materialfrom beneath the ice caps on Baffin Island andIceland, as well as ice and sediment core data, todetermine that the cold summers and ice growthbegan abruptly between 1275 and 1300 C.E. (andbecame intensified between 1430 and 1455 C.E.).Such a sudden onset pointed to a huge volcaniceruption injecting sulfur into the stratosphere andstarting the cooling. Subsequent, unusually large andfrequent eruptions of other volcanoes, as well assea-ice/ocean feedbacks persisting long after theaerosols have been removed from the atmosphere,may have prolonged the cooling through the 1700s.Volcanologist Franck Lavigne and colleagues nowthink they’ve identified the volcano in question:Indonesia’s Samalas. One line of evidence, they note,is historical records. According to Babad Lombok,records of the island written on palm leaves in OldJavanese, Samalas erupted catastrophically before theend of the 13th century, devastating surroundingvillages—including Lombok’s capital at the time,Pamatan—with ash and fast-moving sweeps of hotrock and gas called pyroclastic flows.The researchers then began to reconstruct theformation of the large, 800-meter-deep caldera [abasin-shaped volcanic crater] that now sits atop the volcano. They examined 130 outcrops on the flanksof the volcano, exposing sequences of pumice—ashhardened into rock—and other pyroclastic material.The volume of ash deposited, and the estimatedheight of the eruption plume (43 kilometers abovesea level) put the eruption’s magnitude at aminimum of 7 on the volcanic explosivity index(which has a scale of 1 to 8)—making it one of thelargest known in the Holocene.The team also performed radiocarbon analyses oncarbonized tree trunks and branches buried withinthe pyroclastic deposits to confirm the date of theeruption; it could not, they concluded, havehappened before 1257 C.E., and certainly happenedin the 13th century.It’s not a total surprise that an Indonesian volcanomight be the source of the eruption, Miller says. “Anequatorial eruption is more consistent with theapparent climate impacts.” And, he adds, with sulfateappearing in both polar ice caps—Arctic andAntarctic—there is “a strong consensus” that thisalso supports an equatorial source.Another possible candidate—both in terms oftiming and geographical location—is Ecuador’sQuilotoa, estimated to have last erupted between1147 and 1320 C.E. But when Lavigne’s teamexamined shards of volcanic glass from this volcano,they found that they didn’t match the chemicalcomposition of the glass found in polar ice cores,whereas the Samalas glass is a much closer match.That, they suggest, further strengthens the case thatSamalas was responsible for the medieval “yearwithout summer” in 1258 C.E.

About 750 years ago, a powerful volcano eruptedsomewhere on Earth, kicking off a centuries-longcold snap known as the Little Ice Age. Identifying thevolcano responsible has been tricky.That a powerful volcano erupted somewhere inthe world, sometime in the Middle Ages, is written inpolar ice cores in the form of layers of sulfatedeposits and tiny shards of volcanic glass. Thesecores suggest that the amount of sulfur the mysteryvolcano sent into the stratosphere put it firmlyamong the ranks of the strongest climate-perturbingeruptions of the current geological epoch, theHolocene, a period that stretches from 10,000 yearsago to the present. A haze of stratospheric sulfurcools the climate by reflecting solar energy back intospace.In 2012, a team of scientists led by geochemistGifford Miller strengthened the link between themystery eruption and the onset of the Little Ice Ageby using radiocarbon dating of dead plant materialfrom beneath the ice caps on Baffin Island andIceland, as well as ice and sediment core data, todetermine that the cold summers and ice growthbegan abruptly between 1275 and 1300 C.E. (andbecame intensified between 1430 and 1455 C.E.).Such a sudden onset pointed to a huge volcaniceruption injecting sulfur into the stratosphere andstarting the cooling. Subsequent, unusually large andfrequent eruptions of other volcanoes, as well assea-ice/ocean feedbacks persisting long after theaerosols have been removed from the atmosphere,may have prolonged the cooling through the 1700s.Volcanologist Franck Lavigne and colleagues nowthink they’ve identified the volcano in question:Indonesia’s Samalas. One line of evidence, they note,is historical records. According to Babad Lombok,records of the island written on palm leaves in OldJavanese, Samalas erupted catastrophically before theend of the 13th century, devastating surroundingvillages—including Lombok’s capital at the time,Pamatan—with ash and fast-moving sweeps of hotrock and gas called pyroclastic flows.The researchers then began to reconstruct theformation of the large, 800-meter-deep caldera [abasin-shaped volcanic crater] that now sits atop the volcano. They examined 130 outcrops on the flanksof the volcano, exposing sequences of pumice—ashhardened into rock—and other pyroclastic material.The volume of ash deposited, and the estimatedheight of the eruption plume (43 kilometers abovesea level) put the eruption’s magnitude at aminimum of 7 on the volcanic explosivity index(which has a scale of 1 to 8)—making it one of thelargest known in the Holocene.The team also performed radiocarbon analyses oncarbonized tree trunks and branches buried withinthe pyroclastic deposits to confirm the date of theeruption; it could not, they concluded, havehappened before 1257 C.E., and certainly happenedin the 13th century.It’s not a total surprise that an Indonesian volcanomight be the source of the eruption, Miller says. “Anequatorial eruption is more consistent with theapparent climate impacts.” And, he adds, with sulfateappearing in both polar ice caps—Arctic andAntarctic—there is “a strong consensus” that thisalso supports an equatorial source.Another possible candidate—both in terms oftiming and geographical location—is Ecuador’sQuilotoa, estimated to have last erupted between1147 and 1320 C.E. But when Lavigne’s teamexamined shards of volcanic glass from this volcano,they found that they didn’t match the chemicalcomposition of the glass found in polar ice cores,whereas the Samalas glass is a much closer match.That, they suggest, further strengthens the case thatSamalas was responsible for the medieval “yearwithout summer” in 1258 C.E.

About 750 years ago, a powerful volcano eruptedsomewhere on Earth, kicking off a centuries-longcold snap known as the Little Ice Age. Identifying thevolcano responsible has been tricky.That a powerful volcano erupted somewhere inthe world, sometime in the Middle Ages, is written inpolar ice cores in the form of layers of sulfatedeposits and tiny shards of volcanic glass. Thesecores suggest that the amount of sulfur the mysteryvolcano sent into the stratosphere put it firmlyamong the ranks of the strongest climate-perturbingeruptions of the current geological epoch, theHolocene, a period that stretches from 10,000 yearsago to the present. A haze of stratospheric sulfurcools the climate by reflecting solar energy back intospace.In 2012, a team of scientists led by geochemistGifford Miller strengthened the link between themystery eruption and the onset of the Little Ice Ageby using radiocarbon dating of dead plant materialfrom beneath the ice caps on Baffin Island andIceland, as well as ice and sediment core data, todetermine that the cold summers and ice growthbegan abruptly between 1275 and 1300 C.E. (andbecame intensified between 1430 and 1455 C.E.).Such a sudden onset pointed to a huge volcaniceruption injecting sulfur into the stratosphere andstarting the cooling. Subsequent, unusually large andfrequent eruptions of other volcanoes, as well assea-ice/ocean feedbacks persisting long after theaerosols have been removed from the atmosphere,may have prolonged the cooling through the 1700s.Volcanologist Franck Lavigne and colleagues nowthink they’ve identified the volcano in question:Indonesia’s Samalas. One line of evidence, they note,is historical records. According to Babad Lombok,records of the island written on palm leaves in OldJavanese, Samalas erupted catastrophically before theend of the 13th century, devastating surroundingvillages—including Lombok’s capital at the time,Pamatan—with ash and fast-moving sweeps of hotrock and gas called pyroclastic flows.The researchers then began to reconstruct theformation of the large, 800-meter-deep caldera [abasin-shaped volcanic crater] that now sits atop the volcano. They examined 130 outcrops on the flanksof the volcano, exposing sequences of pumice—ashhardened into rock—and other pyroclastic material.The volume of ash deposited, and the estimatedheight of the eruption plume (43 kilometers abovesea level) put the eruption’s magnitude at aminimum of 7 on the volcanic explosivity index(which has a scale of 1 to 8)—making it one of thelargest known in the Holocene.The team also performed radiocarbon analyses oncarbonized tree trunks and branches buried withinthe pyroclastic deposits to confirm the date of theeruption; it could not, they concluded, havehappened before 1257 C.E., and certainly happenedin the 13th century.It’s not a total surprise that an Indonesian volcanomight be the source of the eruption, Miller says. “Anequatorial eruption is more consistent with theapparent climate impacts.” And, he adds, with sulfateappearing in both polar ice caps—Arctic andAntarctic—there is “a strong consensus” that thisalso supports an equatorial source.Another possible candidate—both in terms oftiming and geographical location—is Ecuador’sQuilotoa, estimated to have last erupted between1147 and 1320 C.E. But when Lavigne’s teamexamined shards of volcanic glass from this volcano,they found that they didn’t match the chemicalcomposition of the glass found in polar ice cores,whereas the Samalas glass is a much closer match.That, they suggest, further strengthens the case thatSamalas was responsible for the medieval “yearwithout summer” in 1258 C.E.

About 750 years ago, a powerful volcano eruptedsomewhere on Earth, kicking off a centuries-longcold snap known as the Little Ice Age. Identifying thevolcano responsible has been tricky.That a powerful volcano erupted somewhere inthe world, sometime in the Middle Ages, is written inpolar ice cores in the form of layers of sulfatedeposits and tiny shards of volcanic glass. Thesecores suggest that the amount of sulfur the mysteryvolcano sent into the stratosphere put it firmlyamong the ranks of the strongest climate-perturbingeruptions of the current geological epoch, theHolocene, a period that stretches from 10,000 yearsago to the present. A haze of stratospheric sulfurcools the climate by reflecting solar energy back intospace.In 2012, a team of scientists led by geochemistGifford Miller strengthened the link between themystery eruption and the onset of the Little Ice Ageby using radiocarbon dating of dead plant materialfrom beneath the ice caps on Baffin Island andIceland, as well as ice and sediment core data, todetermine that the cold summers and ice growthbegan abruptly between 1275 and 1300 C.E. (andbecame intensified between 1430 and 1455 C.E.).Such a sudden onset pointed to a huge volcaniceruption injecting sulfur into the stratosphere andstarting the cooling. Subsequent, unusually large andfrequent eruptions of other volcanoes, as well assea-ice/ocean feedbacks persisting long after theaerosols have been removed from the atmosphere,may have prolonged the cooling through the 1700s.Volcanologist Franck Lavigne and colleagues nowthink they’ve identified the volcano in question:Indonesia’s Samalas. One line of evidence, they note,is historical records. According to Babad Lombok,records of the island written on palm leaves in OldJavanese, Samalas erupted catastrophically before theend of the 13th century, devastating surroundingvillages—including Lombok’s capital at the time,Pamatan—with ash and fast-moving sweeps of hotrock and gas called pyroclastic flows.The researchers then began to reconstruct theformation of the large, 800-meter-deep caldera [abasin-shaped volcanic crater] that now sits atop the volcano. They examined 130 outcrops on the flanksof the volcano, exposing sequences of pumice—ashhardened into rock—and other pyroclastic material.The volume of ash deposited, and the estimatedheight of the eruption plume (43 kilometers abovesea level) put the eruption’s magnitude at aminimum of 7 on the volcanic explosivity index(which has a scale of 1 to 8)—making it one of thelargest known in the Holocene.The team also performed radiocarbon analyses oncarbonized tree trunks and branches buried withinthe pyroclastic deposits to confirm the date of theeruption; it could not, they concluded, havehappened before 1257 C.E., and certainly happenedin the 13th century.It’s not a total surprise that an Indonesian volcanomight be the source of the eruption, Miller says. “Anequatorial eruption is more consistent with theapparent climate impacts.” And, he adds, with sulfateappearing in both polar ice caps—Arctic andAntarctic—there is “a strong consensus” that thisalso supports an equatorial source.Another possible candidate—both in terms oftiming and geographical location—is Ecuador’sQuilotoa, estimated to have last erupted between1147 and 1320 C.E. But when Lavigne’s teamexamined shards of volcanic glass from this volcano,they found that they didn’t match the chemicalcomposition of the glass found in polar ice cores,whereas the Samalas glass is a much closer match.That, they suggest, further strengthens the case thatSamalas was responsible for the medieval “yearwithout summer” in 1258 C.E.

About 750 years ago, a powerful volcano eruptedsomewhere on Earth, kicking off a centuries-longcold snap known as the Little Ice Age. Identifying thevolcano responsible has been tricky.That a powerful volcano erupted somewhere inthe world, sometime in the Middle Ages, is written inpolar ice cores in the form of layers of sulfatedeposits and tiny shards of volcanic glass. Thesecores suggest that the amount of sulfur the mysteryvolcano sent into the stratosphere put it firmlyamong the ranks of the strongest climate-perturbingeruptions of the current geological epoch, theHolocene, a period that stretches from 10,000 yearsago to the present. A haze of stratospheric sulfurcools the climate by reflecting solar energy back intospace.In 2012, a team of scientists led by geochemistGifford Miller strengthened the link between themystery eruption and the onset of the Little Ice Ageby using radiocarbon dating of dead plant materialfrom beneath the ice caps on Baffin Island andIceland, as well as ice and sediment core data, todetermine that the cold summers and ice growthbegan abruptly between 1275 and 1300 C.E. (andbecame intensified between 1430 and 1455 C.E.).Such a sudden onset pointed to a huge volcaniceruption injecting sulfur into the stratosphere andstarting the cooling. Subsequent, unusually large andfrequent eruptions of other volcanoes, as well assea-ice/ocean feedbacks persisting long after theaerosols have been removed from the atmosphere,may have prolonged the cooling through the 1700s.Volcanologist Franck Lavigne and colleagues nowthink they’ve identified the volcano in question:Indonesia’s Samalas. One line of evidence, they note,is historical records. According to Babad Lombok,records of the island written on palm leaves in OldJavanese, Samalas erupted catastrophically before theend of the 13th century, devastating surroundingvillages—including Lombok’s capital at the time,Pamatan—with ash and fast-moving sweeps of hotrock and gas called pyroclastic flows.The researchers then began to reconstruct theformation of the large, 800-meter-deep caldera [abasin-shaped volcanic crater] that now sits atop the volcano. They examined 130 outcrops on the flanksof the volcano, exposing sequences of pumice—ashhardened into rock—and other pyroclastic material.The volume of ash deposited, and the estimatedheight of the eruption plume (43 kilometers abovesea level) put the eruption’s magnitude at aminimum of 7 on the volcanic explosivity index(which has a scale of 1 to 8)—making it one of thelargest known in the Holocene.The team also performed radiocarbon analyses oncarbonized tree trunks and branches buried withinthe pyroclastic deposits to confirm the date of theeruption; it could not, they concluded, havehappened before 1257 C.E., and certainly happenedin the 13th century.It’s not a total surprise that an Indonesian volcanomight be the source of the eruption, Miller says. “Anequatorial eruption is more consistent with theapparent climate impacts.” And, he adds, with sulfateappearing in both polar ice caps—Arctic andAntarctic—there is “a strong consensus” that thisalso supports an equatorial source.Another possible candidate—both in terms oftiming and geographical location—is Ecuador’sQuilotoa, estimated to have last erupted between1147 and 1320 C.E. But when Lavigne’s teamexamined shards of volcanic glass from this volcano,they found that they didn’t match the chemicalcomposition of the glass found in polar ice cores,whereas the Samalas glass is a much closer match.That, they suggest, further strengthens the case thatSamalas was responsible for the medieval “yearwithout summer” in 1258 C.E.

About 750 years ago, a powerful volcano eruptedsomewhere on Earth, kicking off a centuries-longcold snap known as the Little Ice Age. Identifying thevolcano responsible has been tricky.That a powerful volcano erupted somewhere inthe world, sometime in the Middle Ages, is written inpolar ice cores in the form of layers of sulfatedeposits and tiny shards of volcanic glass. Thesecores suggest that the amount of sulfur the mysteryvolcano sent into the stratosphere put it firmlyamong the ranks of the strongest climate-perturbingeruptions of the current geological epoch, theHolocene, a period that stretches from 10,000 yearsago to the present. A haze of stratospheric sulfurcools the climate by reflecting solar energy back intospace.In 2012, a team of scientists led by geochemistGifford Miller strengthened the link between themystery eruption and the onset of the Little Ice Ageby using radiocarbon dating of dead plant materialfrom beneath the ice caps on Baffin Island andIceland, as well as ice and sediment core data, todetermine that the cold summers and ice growthbegan abruptly between 1275 and 1300 C.E. (andbecame intensified between 1430 and 1455 C.E.).Such a sudden onset pointed to a huge volcaniceruption injecting sulfur into the stratosphere andstarting the cooling. Subsequent, unusually large andfrequent eruptions of other volcanoes, as well assea-ice/ocean feedbacks persisting long after theaerosols have been removed from the atmosphere,may have prolonged the cooling through the 1700s.Volcanologist Franck Lavigne and colleagues nowthink they’ve identified the volcano in question:Indonesia’s Samalas. One line of evidence, they note,is historical records. According to Babad Lombok,records of the island written on palm leaves in OldJavanese, Samalas erupted catastrophically before theend of the 13th century, devastating surroundingvillages—including Lombok’s capital at the time,Pamatan—with ash and fast-moving sweeps of hotrock and gas called pyroclastic flows.The researchers then began to reconstruct theformation of the large, 800-meter-deep caldera [abasin-shaped volcanic crater] that now sits atop the volcano. They examined 130 outcrops on the flanksof the volcano, exposing sequences of pumice—ashhardened into rock—and other pyroclastic material.The volume of ash deposited, and the estimatedheight of the eruption plume (43 kilometers abovesea level) put the eruption’s magnitude at aminimum of 7 on the volcanic explosivity index(which has a scale of 1 to 8)—making it one of thelargest known in the Holocene.The team also performed radiocarbon analyses oncarbonized tree trunks and branches buried withinthe pyroclastic deposits to confirm the date of theeruption; it could not, they concluded, havehappened before 1257 C.E., and certainly happenedin the 13th century.It’s not a total surprise that an Indonesian volcanomight be the source of the eruption, Miller says. “Anequatorial eruption is more consistent with theapparent climate impacts.” And, he adds, with sulfateappearing in both polar ice caps—Arctic andAntarctic—there is “a strong consensus” that thisalso supports an equatorial source.Another possible candidate—both in terms oftiming and geographical location—is Ecuador’sQuilotoa, estimated to have last erupted between1147 and 1320 C.E. But when Lavigne’s teamexamined shards of volcanic glass from this volcano,they found that they didn’t match the chemicalcomposition of the glass found in polar ice cores,whereas the Samalas glass is a much closer match.That, they suggest, further strengthens the case thatSamalas was responsible for the medieval “yearwithout summer” in 1258 C.E.

About 750 years ago, a powerful volcano eruptedsomewhere on Earth, kicking off a centuries-longcold snap known as the Little Ice Age. Identifying thevolcano responsible has been tricky.That a powerful volcano erupted somewhere inthe world, sometime in the Middle Ages, is written inpolar ice cores in the form of layers of sulfatedeposits and tiny shards of volcanic glass. Thesecores suggest that the amount of sulfur the mysteryvolcano sent into the stratosphere put it firmlyamong the ranks of the strongest climate-perturbingeruptions of the current geological epoch, theHolocene, a period that stretches from 10,000 yearsago to the present. A haze of stratospheric sulfurcools the climate by reflecting solar energy back intospace.In 2012, a team of scientists led by geochemistGifford Miller strengthened the link between themystery eruption and the onset of the Little Ice Ageby using radiocarbon dating of dead plant materialfrom beneath the ice caps on Baffin Island andIceland, as well as ice and sediment core data, todetermine that the cold summers and ice growthbegan abruptly between 1275 and 1300 C.E. (andbecame intensified between 1430 and 1455 C.E.).Such a sudden onset pointed to a huge volcaniceruption injecting sulfur into the stratosphere andstarting the cooling. Subsequent, unusually large andfrequent eruptions of other volcanoes, as well assea-ice/ocean feedbacks persisting long after theaerosols have been removed from the atmosphere,may have prolonged the cooling through the 1700s.Volcanologist Franck Lavigne and colleagues nowthink they’ve identified the volcano in question:Indonesia’s Samalas. One line of evidence, they note,is historical records. According to Babad Lombok,records of the island written on palm leaves in OldJavanese, Samalas erupted catastrophically before theend of the 13th century, devastating surroundingvillages—including Lombok’s capital at the time,Pamatan—with ash and fast-moving sweeps of hotrock and gas called pyroclastic flows.The researchers then began to reconstruct theformation of the large, 800-meter-deep caldera [abasin-shaped volcanic crater] that now sits atop the volcano. They examined 130 outcrops on the flanksof the volcano, exposing sequences of pumice—ashhardened into rock—and other pyroclastic material.The volume of ash deposited, and the estimatedheight of the eruption plume (43 kilometers abovesea level) put the eruption’s magnitude at aminimum of 7 on the volcanic explosivity index(which has a scale of 1 to 8)—making it one of thelargest known in the Holocene.The team also performed radiocarbon analyses oncarbonized tree trunks and branches buried withinthe pyroclastic deposits to confirm the date of theeruption; it could not, they concluded, havehappened before 1257 C.E., and certainly happenedin the 13th century.It’s not a total surprise that an Indonesian volcanomight be the source of the eruption, Miller says. “Anequatorial eruption is more consistent with theapparent climate impacts.” And, he adds, with sulfateappearing in both polar ice caps—Arctic andAntarctic—there is “a strong consensus” that thisalso supports an equatorial source.Another possible candidate—both in terms oftiming and geographical location—is Ecuador’sQuilotoa, estimated to have last erupted between1147 and 1320 C.E. But when Lavigne’s teamexamined shards of volcanic glass from this volcano,they found that they didn’t match the chemicalcomposition of the glass found in polar ice cores,whereas the Samalas glass is a much closer match.That, they suggest, further strengthens the case thatSamalas was responsible for the medieval “yearwithout summer” in 1258 C.E.