Polo, Marco

Approximately two thousand years ago, Arabian scientists developed methods for the distillation of petroleum, which were introduced into Europe by way of the Arabian incursions into Spain. Petroleum, used in China since it was encountered when drilling for salt, appears in documents of the third century. The Baku region of northern Persia was also reported by Marco Polo in 1271—1273 as having a commercial petroleum industry. 

Bodenhausen ° developed a pattern-recognition programme (MARCO POLO) in order to extract coupling pathways in COSY spectra. He subsequently described a recursive deconvolution technique for the measurement of couplings, but this seems to offer more benefits to the measurement of scalar couplings in two-dimensional spectra than in one-dimensional spectra. 

In the ninth century, oil fields were exploited to produce naphtha in Baku, Azerbaijan. These fields, described by the geographer Masudi in the tenth century, had increased output to hundreds of shiploads in the thirteenth century as described by Marco Polo. 

My discretion said my wisest move would be to retrace the steps of Marco Polo on a fast camel, but I headed out obediently. This time the visitors were a lesser surprise than Matteo— Bernardo and Domenico Michiel, grim and imposing in their black patrician robes and tippets. I hauled the door wide and bowed low. 

Asbestos has been known and used for over 2000 years. Egyptians used asbestos cloth to prepare bodies for burial. The Romans called it aminatus and used it as a cremation cloth and for lamp wicks. Marco Polo described its use in the preparation of fire-resistant textiles in the... 

Parks, G. B., The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, Book League of... 

Polo, Marco 1958 [1292]. The Travels of Marco Polo, trans. R. E. Latham. Harmondsworth Penguin. 

Borax was a rarity in Ancient Rome, found only near a few Tuscan hot springs. But then, in the thirteenth century, Marco Polo returned from the Orient with samples of gunpowder, spaghetti, and white crystals of borax. The Italians quickly fig-... 

Wood, F. 1996. Did Marco Polo Go To China Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado. Zebroski, E., and M. Levenson. 1976. Annual Review of Energy 1 101. 

The clay work of China can be traced to prehistoric times. In the thirteenth century, Marco Polo probably brought the first Chinese clay or ceramic pieces to Europe from the East. These pieces were made of a special clay heated to a high temperature to produce a... 

Many maritime routes were developed to India and China with an ultimate desire to develop a spice route. In the late 13th century, Marco Polo s exploration of Asia established Venice as the most important trade port. Venice remained prosperous until about 1498. The Portuguese explorer, Vasco de Gama, sailed around Africa s Cape of Good Hope to reach Calicut, India. He returned with pepper, cinnamon, ginger and jewels, and also deals for the Portuguese to continue trade with India. 

The name borax is derived from the Persian word borak, meaning white. Humans have used it for centuries. The Egyptians used borax as a flux for soldering, and this is still one of the more important uses for it. Borax was probably first imported to Europe by Marco Polo around 1300, and it was used in trade for many years afterward. However, borax was not used extensively until the deposits in California were discovered in the 1860s. Originally, the borax was removed from these deposits using mule teams, hence the name 20-mule team borax. 

Cannabis saliva (marijuana, hemp) (Cannabaceae) [cannabis leaf resin (hashish), marijuana leaf extract (bhang), smoked leaf (ganja)] [incorrectly reputed intoxicant of assassins of Hasan-i-Sabbah (story according to Marco Polo) Arthur Rimbaud Pierre Gautier Charles Baudelaire, members of Club des Hachischins ... 

The storyteller was a merchant named Marco Polo. The year was A.D. 1297. Venice and Genoa were at war. Polo had been taken prisoner during a sea battle on his return from the Far East. Now, as he awaited his fate, he was recording memories of the eventful expedition he had just completed. Whatever his fate, he would leave behind a record of all the marvellous things he had seen and heard. 

Columbus was not the only person to be influenced by Marco Polo s travelogue. Seven centuries after Polo s death, the Congress of the United States and the American public were once again treated to an excerpt from Marco Polo s writings. It was an excerpt that was widely cited in the 1920s and 1930s as proof that hashish was a drug that incited fanaticism, lust, and uncontrollable violence. The irony of this presentation was that Marco Polo himself had never even heard of hashish. 

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