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==Page 42==

'''Him so strange...All that Coal-mining, I guess'''<br>
The joke is that Mason is referring to God and Dixon thinks he means the Devil.

==Page 43==

'''Raby Meeting'''<br />

The Quakers (Society of Friends) do not have churches, only 'Meeting Houses' - So Raby Meeting is the congregation.


==Page 45==
'''In swift reply comes a Letter of Reproach and Threat from the Royal Society'''<br>
Much of the back and forth correspondence is available [https://www.mdlpp.org/_files/ugd/6f029b_1e1f89b3705f4a2e99383ad41a804c49.pdf here.]

From the RS letter:
"Resolved unanimously, That the Council are extremely surprised at their declining to 
pursue their Voyage to Bencoolen and which they have solemnly undertaken; and have 
actually received several sums of money upon account of their expences, and in earnest 
of performing their contract.
That their refusal to proceed upon this voyage after their having so publickly and 
notoriously ingaged in it, will be a Reproach to the Nation in General, to the Royal 
Society in particular, and more especially and fatally to themselves: And that, after the 
Crown has been graciously and generously pleased to encourage this undertaking by a 
grant of money towards carrying it on; and the Lords of Admiralty to fit out a ship of 
war, on purpose to carry these gentlemen to Bencoolen; and after the expectation of this 
and various other nations has been raised, to attend the event of their voyage; their 
declining it at this critical juncture, when it is too late to supply their Places, cannot fail 
to bring an indelible scandal upon their character and probably end in their utter Ruin.
That in case they shall persist in their refusal, or volun-tarily frustrate the end and 
disappoint the Intention of their Voyage, or take any steps to thwart it, they may assure 
themselves of being treated by the Council with the most inflexible Resentment, and 
prosecuted with the utmost Severity of Law."

'''As if...there were no single Destiny'''<br />
This paragraph echoes a common them in Pynchon's work, the collapsing of many possible realities into a single Reality through time, a concept that is also echoed in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics quantum mechanics] with the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function_collapse collapse of the wave function], where a haze of possibilities is collapsed into a single state when observed. Or alternatively, as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many_worlds_interpretation "many-worlds interpretation" of quantum mechanics] would have it, perhaps there isn't a collapse into one single reality, but each possiblity continues to form a thread in an infinity of realized outcomes.

This theme is revisited numerous times in ''M & D'', with reality either collapsing or diverging:

* "the event not yet 'reduc'd to certainty' ([[17: 175-182#Page 177|p. 177]])
* "Transition between Two Worlds" ([[17: 175-182#Page 180|p. 180]])
* "Or let us postulate two Dixons, then, one in an unmoving Stupor throughout,&#151; the other, for Simplicity, assum'd to've ridden [...] out to Nelson's Ferry" ([[39: 391-398#Page 393|p. 393]])
* "I myself did stumble [...] into that very Whirlpool in Time,&#151; finding myself in September third, 1752 [...] as ev'ryone else mov'd on to the Fourteenth of September." ([[56: 554-561#Page 556|p. 556]])
* "Suppose that Mason and Dixon and their Line cross Ohio after all..." ([[73: 706-713#Page 706|p. 706]])

On [[Chapter_26:_257-265#Page_258|page 258]], Pynchon uses the nautical term "single up all lines" in what could be interpreted as a metaphor for the reduction of many lines into a single line. "Single up all lines" also appears in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_1#single_up_all_lines ''V.'', p.11]; [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2#single_up_all_lines  ''The Crying of Lot 49'', p.31]; [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_488-491#single_up_all_lines  ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.489]; and [[Chapter_26:_257-265#Page_258|''Mason & Dixon'', pp.258 and 260]]; and [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25#Page_3 ''Against the Day''] where Pynchon deploys the term as both a positive ("Cheerily now [...] Prepare to cast her off!") and a negative (cattle "rationalized into movement only in straight lines and at right angles and a progressive reduction of choices, until the final turn through the final gate that led to the killing-floor").  ([http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25#Page_10 p. 10])

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