WE WERE HERE

Seibert (Discovering El Niño, not reviewed, etc.) narrows the definition of “time capsule” to include only sealed containers with a specific opening date. Then (evidently feeling that that didn’t leave enough material for an entire book) proceeds to pad the discussion with examples that don’t qualify: the pyramids, the Rosetta Stone, the tomb of Ch’in Shih Huang Ti, the engraved plates placed aboard the Voyager space probes, the thousands of hollow building cornerstones. But she spares only a few glances at the revealing, sometimes quirky artifacts placed into the “true” time capsules that she does mention, such as the Centennial Safe, closed in 1876 and opened in 1976, the Westinghouse Capsule buried at the 1939 World’s Fair, and the granddaddy of them all: Oglethorpe University’s Crypt of Civilization. The drab black-and-white photos don’t help, and for readers eager to create time capsules of their own she provides such “instructions” as “you will need to research which kinds of containers can preserve items in the best way.” The annotated Web sites at the end are a plus, but not a big enough one to rescue this uninspired effort. (glossary, index) (Nonfiction. 9-11)