In the basin of a half-billion souls, purification and pollution swim together in unholy wedlock. According to Hindu mythology, the Ganges river of India - the goddess Ganga - came down to the earth from the skies. The descent was precipitated when Vishnu, the preserver of worlds, took three giant strides across the Underworld, the Earth, and the Heavens, and his last step tore a crack in the heavens. As the river rushed through the crack, Shiva, the god of destruction, stood waiting on the peaks of the Himalayas to catch it in his matted locks. From his hair, it began its journey across the Indian subcontinent. Whatever one makes of this myth, the Ganges does, in fact, carry extraordinary powers of both creation and destruction in its long descent from the Himalayas. At its source, it springs as melted ice from an immense glacial cave lined with icicles that do look like long strands of hair. From an altitude of nearly 14,000 feet, it falls south and east through the Himalayan foothills, across the plains of northern India, and down to the storm-lashed Indo-Bangladesh delta, where it empties out into the Indian Ocean. Another version of the myth tells us that Ganga descended to earth to purify the souls of the 60,000 sons of an ancient ruler, King Sagara, who had been burnt to ashes by an enraged ascetic.
<span>Political cartoon from the Chicago Tribune from 1914, showing how this US was bestowed as releasing former Spanish colonies, 15 years after the Spanish-American War.</span>
The first secretary is Thomas jefferson.
