Alan Roberts, age 10, of Winnipeg, Hanitoba, Canada, for his question:

Which is the highest mountain in the world?

The people of Tibet live on its high shoulders and call it Chomolungma. The people of Nepal, who also live on its slopes, call it Sagarmatha. We call it Mount Everest, in honor of the first man who measured it and proved that it is the highest mountain in the world. In the 1800s, Sir George Everest said that the topmost peak of the mighty mountain stands 29,002 feet higher than the level of the sea. No other mountain can match it.

Several other surveyors measured it later. Some say it is 29,028 feet and others that it is 29,141 feet tall. Everybody agrees that it is higher than 29,000 feet, which is about five and a half miles. Mighty Mount Everest stands on the shoulders of the high Himalayas. It lies north of India, on the frontiers of Tibet and Nepal. And nobody climbed to its topmost peak until 1953.