TIME CAPSULE — PENDRAY 537 



Capsule itself also contains multilingual texts, a dictionary and a 

 lexicon of slang and colloquial English. 



Also contained in the Book of Kecord are messages to the future 

 from three famous men of our time : Dr. Albert Einstein, Dr. Robert 

 Millikan, and Dr. Thomas Mann. A table of common measures in 

 the English and metric systems is given, including a statement of the 

 length of the standard meter in terms of the wave length of red 

 cadmium light — a constant that will never vary, no matter what other 

 systems of measurement are in use 5,000 years from now. 



SELECTING THE CONTENTS 



Choosing what was to go into the limited space of the Time Capsule 

 crypt proved perhaps the most difficult problem of all, because nothing 

 short of an enormous gallery of vaults could accommodate all the 

 objects and records of any civilization. 



The Time Capsule Committee turned for advice to archeologists, 

 historians, and authorities in virtually every field of science, medicine, 

 and the arts. On the basis of their helpful suggestions, the Com- 

 mittee chose to include some 35 articles of common use, ranging from 

 a slide rule to a woman's hat, each selected for what it might reveal 

 about us to the future archeologists. Also included are about 75 

 samples of common materials, ranging from fabrics of various kinds, 

 metals, alloys, plastics, and synthetics, to a lump of anthracite and a 

 dozen kinds of common seeds. 



These material items, however, are only supplementary to a volumi- 

 nous essay about us and our times, reduced to microfilm. On three 

 and a half small reels there are reproduced books, articles, magazines, 

 newspapers, reports, circulars, catalogs, pictures ; discussing in logical 

 order where we live and work, our arts and entertainment, how infor- 

 mation is disseminated among us, our general information, our reli- 

 gions and philosophies, our education and educational systems, our 

 sciences and techniques, our earth, its features and peoples ; medicine, 

 public health, dentistry and pharmacy, our major industries, and other 

 subjects. This "Microfile" comprises more than 2^2,000 pages of text 

 and 1,000 pictures; a total of more than 10,000,000 words. It would 

 take an ordinary person more than a year to read all of it; more 

 than a decade to assimilate all this knowledge. Probably no man 

 living knows as much about us as those who study this Time Capsule 

 will know. 



A small microscope is included for reading the microfilm ; also in- 

 structions for making a larger, more comfortable reading machine, 

 such as those used in libraries and newspaper offices for this purpose. 

 There are likewise instructions for making various kinds of modern 

 instruments, including a motion picture projection machine. For 



