<p>The Cirque de Mafate is a caldera on Réunion Island . It was formed from the collapse of the large shield volcano the Piton des Neiges.</p><br>
<p>The very remote and inaccessible cirque was settled in the 19th century by maroon slaves (i.e. slaves who had escaped from their masters), then later by poor white laborers. It owes its name to one maroon leader.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The cirque is entirely enclosed by mountains, especially tall cliffs, known as remparts, save for the sole river exiting, the Rivière des Galets ("river of the pebbles"). Inside the cirque, there are considerable declivities. The îlets are pieces of more-or-less flat lands, on which the hamlets are located.</p><br>
<p>The name "Mafate" comes from the Malagasy word "Mahafaty", which means lethal, an allusion to the difficulty for accessing the Cirque.</p><br>
<h2>Population</h2><br>
<p>The cirque has one village, La Nouvelle, and several hamlets: Marla, Roche-Plate, the Îlet-aux-Orangers, etc.</p><br>
<p>The Cirque is entirely public property, managed by the Forestry service, from which the inhabitants rent inexpensive concessions.</p><br>
<p>There is no main electrical supply. Inhabitants thus produce their own electricity using solar panels (with battery storage), and occasionally diesel generators. However, fuel for the latter must be brought by helicopter at high cost. Because of the reduced available power supply, inhabitants systematically use low-consumption (fluorescent) light bulbs.</p><br>
<p>Similarly, all inhabitants use solar water heaters. These can be supplemented by gas-powered heaters &mdash; but gas canisters must also be brought by helicopter.</p><br>
<h2>Services</h2><br>
<p>La Nouvelle and hamlets have grocery stores where staples can be bought. Typically, these stores also provide some limited bar and restaurant services (hot coffee and local fast food, such as samosas).</p><br>
<p>Many inhabitants have opened gîtes (dormitories, WC and showers) where hikers can stay for the night, and often dine, for a fee.</p><br>
<p>La Nouvelle and several of the hamlets have elementary schools. In 2005, the school at Marla reopened with 6 pupils after being closed for an insufficient number of schoolchildren. There are no secondary nor higher education facilities.</p><br>
<p>There are several dispensaries between which a few nurses rotate, as well as scheduled visits of a physician, but no permanent health care facilities. All emergencies have to be evacuated by helicopter. There is no Gendarmerie station.</p><br>
<h2>Transportation</h2><br>
<p>One originality of Mafate is that there are no roads. Because of this, it is a major attraction for hikers willing to experience some unspoiled nature, while still benefiting from grocery stores and other amenities. For this reason, with the impending creation of a national park on the heights of Réunion, it seems very unlikely that roads would be ever built.</p><br>
<p>All access, including for supplies, is by foot or helicopter. There are a number of footpaths for accessing the cirque, among which:</p><br>
<p>By the Col des Bœufs ("pass of the oxen"), from the Cirque de Salazie, leading to La Nouvelle. This way is the easiest, since there is a forestry road leading to parking lots at the pass.</p><br>
<p>By the Col du Taïbit from the Cirque de Cilaos.</p><br>
<p>By the Canalisation des Orangers on the heights of Saint Paul (Réunion).</p><br>
<p>Skawa  is a river in southern Poland, a right tributary of the Vistula. It originates in the Western Carpathians , is 96 km long and drains 1,160 km². It passes several towns: Jordanów, Maków Podhalański, Sucha Beskidzka, Wadowice and Zator, and whole river is located within the territory of Lesser Poland Voivodeship.</p><br>
<p>Skawa has its source in the Spytkowice Pass, at the height of 700 meters above sea level. Since it is a mountain river and causes frequent floodings, its regulation has for years been a priority. Construction of a dam at a village of Świnna Poręba is to be completed by 2014. A reservoir will be created, which will prevent future floods, and which will serve as a source of drinking water for the local population. Skawa flows into the Vistula near the village of Smolice.</p><br>
<h2>Sources</h2><br>
<p>Necker Island is a 30 hectare island in the British Virgin Islands just north of Virgin Gorda. The island&#39;s land is entirely owned by Sir Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Group, and is part of the Virgin Limited Edition portfolio of luxury properties. The whole island operates as a resort and can accommodate up to 34 guests, with additional room for six children.</p><br>
<h2>Location</h2><br>
<p>Necker Island is located at latitude 18.55 north and longitude 64.35 west in the eastern section of the British Virgin Islands. It is about 5.9 km north of Virgin Gorda and north-east of Prickly Pear Island and also Mosquito Island (sometimes spelled Moskito Island), which is also owned by Branson. The British Virgin Islands (BVI) are a group of islands about 1,815 km south-east of Miami, Florida, 184 km due east of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and about 175 km north-west of St. Barts.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The island was named after the 17th-century Dutch squadron commander Johannes de Neckere, although it remained uninhabited until the late 20th century.</p><br>
<p>In 1965, the photographer Don McCullin and journalist Andrew Alexander, spent 15 days on the island at the behest of The Daily Telegraph newspaper for which they worked. The magazine editor had hoped that they would survive their castaway adventure for at least three weeks, but as McCullin later recounted, "because of our gathering weakness... out of temper, and out of water, we hoisted the red flag and were taken off in the early hours of the fifteenth day". According to McCullin, there was nothing idyllic about the desert island: "The mosquitos and other insects were more venomous and persistent than any I had encountered in Vietnam or the Congo."</p><br>
<p>In February 2017, former USA President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle visited Necker as guests of Sir Richard Branson.</p><br>
<h2>Land ownership by Richard Branson</h2><br>
<p>Richard Branson was made aware that some of the islands in the British Virgin Islands were for sale in 1978. Branson soon after went to the British Virgin Islands for a holiday to investigate the prospective real estate. On first observing the islands, he envisioned using them to put up rock stars for his record label. Upon arrival, they were given a luxury villa and travelled around islands for sale by helicopter. The final island he saw was Necker Island, and after climbing the hill and being stunned by the view and wildlife, decided to purchase the island. After making a lowball bid of $100,000 for the $6 million island (due to his relatively modest funds at that time in his career), he was turned down and escorted back to the mainland. A year later, the owner, John Lyttelton, 11th Viscount Cobham, in need of short-term capital, eventually settled for $180,000. However, the government imposed a restriction on alien landholders: that the new owner had to develop a resort within four years or the island would revert to the state. Branson committed to build a resort on his tropical dream island.</p><br>
<p>When Branson bought the island, it was uninhabited. He purchased the island at the age of 28, just six years after starting Virgin Group. It took three years and some US$10 million to turn it into a private island retreat. Using local stone, Brazilian hardwoods, Asian antiques, Indian rugs, art pieces and fabrics and bamboo furniture from Bali, architects and designers created a 10-bedroom Balinese-style villa crowning a hill above the beach. Each of the ten bedrooms has open walls, giving a 360-degree view and cooling winds from any direction in the house. The island has accommodation for 30 people and rents out in total at US$65,000 a day, US$2,167 per person a day. The cost of staying includes access to two beaches, private pools, tennis courts, scenic views, a personal chef, a team of about 100 staff and a wide array of water sports equipment.</p><br>
<p>On August 22, 2011, The Great House burned down in a blaze believed to be caused by lightning from Tropical Storm Irene. At the time the house was occupied by as many as twenty guests, with Branson himself staying in a residence nearby. All of the guests escaped unhurt from the burning house, which was totally destroyed. Among the twenty occupants were actress Kate Winslet, Branson&#39;s 90-year-old mother Eve and his 29-year-old daughter Holly. The Great House was subsequently rebuilt with an expanded Great Room.</p><br>
<p>The Necker Cup, an exhibition tennis tournament held at the end of the tennis season, has been held on the island annually since 2012.</p><br>
<p>On September 6, 2017, Hurricane Irma, a category 5 hurricane, made landfall on Necker Island destroying most of the island. Branson was quoted as saying " I have never seen anything like this hurricane. Necker and the whole area have been completely and utterly devastated".</p><br>
<h2>Privacy and access</h2><br>
<p>Although the land on the island is entirely privately owned, under British Virgin Islands law, all beaches up to the high-water mark are Crown land, and are open to the public.</p><br>
<p>Massachusetts Hall is the oldest surviving building at Harvard College, the first institution of higher learning in the British colonies in America, and second oldest academic building in the United States after the Wren Building at the College of William & Mary. As such, it possesses great significance not only in the history of American education but also in the story of the developing English Colonies of the 18th century. Massachusetts Hall was designed by Harvard Presidents John Leverett and his successor Benjamin Wadsworth. It was erected between 1718 and 1720 in Harvard Yard. It was originally a dormitory containing 32 chambers and 64 small private studies for the 64 students it was designed to house. During the siege of Boston, 640 American soldiers took quarters in the hall. Much of the interior woodwork and hardware, including brass doorknobs, disappeared at this time.</p><br>
<p>While designed as a residence for students, the building has served many purposes through the years. After Thomas Hollis donated a quadrant and a 24-foot telescope in 1722, for example, the building housed an informal observatory.</p><br>
<p>Currently, the President of the University, Provost, Treasurer, and Vice Presidents have offices that occupy the first two floors and half of the third. Freshmen reside in the fourth floor.</p><br>
<p>Massachusetts Hall, as Harvard&#39;s oldest extant dormitory, has housed many influential people. Founding fathers who lived in Massachusetts Hall include John Adams, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Elbridge Gerry, and James Otis. Members of the Wigglesworth, Weld, Thayer, Eliot, and Lowell families (among others), whose names now grace other dormitories, also lived in Massachusetts Hall. More recent notable residents of Massachusetts Hall include Alan Jay Lerner, Elliot Richardson and John Harbison.</p><br>
<p>Angelus Temple is a Pentecostal megachurch of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel in the Echo Park district of Los Angeles, California, United States. The senior pastor is Matthew Barnett. The attendance is 8,975 persons.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The church was founded in 1923 by Aimee Semple McPherson. Aimee Semple McPherson chose Los Angeles as the location of the Temple after receiving a vision of the California dream, "a little home in Los Angeles," as she prayed beside her ill daughter, Roberta. When she found the lot nearby Echo Lake, she paused silently and then said, "This is the place God would have us build."</p><br>
<p>Aimee Semple McPherson hired Brook Hawkins from Winter Construction Company, the architect of the Culver Hotel, the Grauman&#39;s Metropolitan Theatre and the Pasadena Playhouse.</p><br>
<p>The Angelus Temple building, seating 5,300 people, was opened in Echo Park in 1923. On opening day, Aimee Semple McPherson declared, "Today is the happiest day of my entire life. I can hardly believe that this great temple has been built for me!" Aimee Semple McPherson managed to raise $250,000 from wealthy followers to finance the construction. The temple is considered to be the first megachurch built in the United States, and its 125-foot wide dome was the largest in North America</p><br>
<p>The attendance has become a megachurch with 10 000 people.</p><br>
<p>According to church records, Angelus Temple received 40 million visitors within the first seven years At first, McPherson preached every service, often in a dramatic scene she put together to attract audiences. Its high roof for the time was also the morbid stage of suicidal acts.</p><br>
<p>In 1972, the temple was renovated with a $500,000 budget.</p><br>
<p>In November 2001, Matthew Barnett became the senior pastor.</p><br>
<p>In 2015, the weekly attendance is 8,975 persons.</p><br>
<h2>Buildings</h2><br>
<p>It was constructed under the leadership of denominational founder Aimee Semple McPherson and dedicated on January 1, 1923. The cornerstone of the building bears the inscription "Dedicated unto the cause of inter-denominational and worldwide evangelism".</p><br>
<p>The temple, located opposite Echo Park Lake, had an original seating capacity of 5,300, huge for a church then and now, but suited well for the crowds McPherson attracted as an evangelical sensation of the 1920s and 1930s. The halcyon days have yet to be repeated, and a 2002 renovation has left it with a capacity of a more manageable 3,500. According to the United States Department of Labor’s Consumer Price Index, Angelus Temple’s construction would cost $3,245,964.91 in 2014.</p><br>
<p>It was the largest construction of its time in North America, rising "125 feet from the main floor". A panorama of clouds, which was the work of artist Anne Henneke, adorns the ceiling, and the temple has eight stained glass windows depicting the life of Jesus Christ, created by artist George Haskins. The building underwent renovations in 1972, while still retaining its original interior and exterior appearance. The lighted cross atop the temple&#39;s dome is a longstanding landmark. The entire temple was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1992.</p><br>
<p>It was a Class "A" fireproof building constructed of concrete and steel designed by Brook Hawkins. The main architectural feature of the structure is its large, unsupported concrete dome coated with a mixture of ground abalone shells. The domes interior was painted azure blue, with fleecy clouds, a reminder to "work while its day" and "to look for His coming". McPherson insisted on a bright joyous setting, avoiding any reminder of sin from either artwork or motto. In back of the pulpit was her theme verse from Hebrews 13:8 "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today and forever." She later said that she loved "every stone in Angelus Temple...I love to touch its walls, its altar...I look to its high vaulted dome...." but no part of the church pleased her more than the magnificent Kimball pipe organ which always soothed her and brought her peace of mind.</p><br>
<p>The main building was dedicated on January 1, 1923. The auditorium had a seating capacity of 5,300 people and was filled three times each day, seven days a week.</p><br>
<p>L. I. F. E. Bible College was founded in a building adjacent to Angelus Temple. This building is currently the home of the Angelus Temple Hispanic Church. The former Queen of Angels Hospital is the base of operations for the Dream Center, which housed many people from the Gulf States displaced after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita. In 2001, Pastor Matthew Barnett and the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel united the Dream Center with Angelus Temple.</p><br>
<p>Government House is a heritage-listed mansion at 170 Fernberg Road, Paddington, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It is the official residence of the Governor of Queensland, the representative of the Australian monarch in Queensland. It was originally designed by Benjamin Backhouse and built 1865, but has been subsequently extended and refurbished. It is also known as Fernberg. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.</p><br>
<p>The Premier of Queensland must visit the Governor at Government to request the dissolution of the Queensland Legislative Assembly and the calling of a general election. Following the outcome of such elections, the governor appoints the Premier and Ministry and the swearing-in of Members of the Legislative Assembly takes place at Government House.</p><br>
<p>Government House is open to the general public on certain open days, usually on Australia Day, 26 January and Queensland Day, 6 June.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The land on which the Government House stands was originally granted as two separate portions. Portion 223 was bought in May 1860 by Johann Christian Heussler, who also purchased the adjoining portion 291 two years later in partnership with George Reinhard Francksen. In 1864 Francksen died and the land passed to Heussler. At that time the landscape in this outlying suburb of Brisbane may have been close to undeveloped natural bushland.</p><br>
<p>The Hon Johann (John) Christian Heussler, 1820-1907, was a native of Germany who emigrated to Victoria, Australia in 1852. Due to poor health he moved to Brisbane 1854 and established the mercantile firm Heussler and Co. Over two decades Heussler became a highly respected business man and citizen of Queensland. He was recognised as a founding member of the Queensland Club, Consul for the Netherlands, German Consul, and Emigration Agent for German shipping companies. In 1866 he was appointed to the Queensland Legislative Council.</p><br>
<p>Heussler commissioned Brisbane architect Benjamin Backhouse to design a residence for Heussler, which was constructed in 1865.</p><br>
<p>Heussler named his home Fernberg, giving it a name of German origin that meant "distant mountain". Benjamin Backhouse was an architect responsible for several substantial commissions in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Local examples of his work include other villa residences such as Baroona, Cintra House, Riversleigh and Old Bishopsbourne.</p><br>
<p>Due to financial difficulties, Heussler was forced to leave the property by 1871 after which it was leased to Arthur Palmer, then the Premier of Queensland. In November 1877, the estate was advertised for sale; the house and grounds were described as being:"The house is built of brick and stone, being four stories high, having below kitchen and servants room; on the ground floor spacious drawing, dining, and breakfast rooms; on the first floor three large bedrooms, and one large room on the second floor. The roof is covered with slates, the verandahs and balconies being spacious, and presenting a delightful retreat for the enjoyment of pure air, shade, and widespread and charming view. The whole of the internal and external workmanship and materials are of the very best description, and the out-offices are replete with every necessary. The stable contains a great many stalls. There is also carriage-house, storeroom, grooms room, harness-room, &c, &c.""The grounds are all enclosed, the timber having been thinned so as to give the place a park-like appearance, and there is a shrubbery and garden round the house. The Enoggera water pipes run through the property so that there is an abundant supply of water in all seasons. The view from Fernberg is something out of the common, both for extent, variety, and beauty; and one of the best proofs that can be adduced in favor of this assertion is the fact that, go where you will the house is seen towering aloft above every tenement in the neighborhood."The property was transferred to George and Nathan Cohen in 1878, neither of who resided in the house.</p><br>
<p>John Stevenson, a successful pastoralist, stock and station agent and a Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly, bought Fernberg in the mid 1880s and commissioned architect, Richard Gailey in 1888 to design extensive additions and alterations to the house. The scheme was a major undertaking which more than doubled the size of the original house, and altered the building from an 1860s villa to an Italianate Mansion. The new section had stuccoed detailing, faceted bays and the main entrance was orientated northwards and marked by a tower. These additions made the residence very close to the road; however following the "straightening" of Fernberg Road, the original road became the driveway. The road was transformed into a winding avenue that led to both the front and side entrances. In 1890 a fountain, gates and gate pillars were erected in the grounds that were well established with trees and shrubs. Various other outbuildings and structures were also developed on the property and included: a coach house, five stall stable, harness room, tool room, mans room, laundry, gymnasium, aviary, fowl house, closets, bush house, glass house and asphalt tennis court. The 1890s economic depression brought an end to Stevensons fortune and by 1895 the property was mortgaged to William Pattison and Walter Russell Hall. Two years later Hall, a well-known philanthropist who had made his fortune from gold at Mount Morgan, took possession of the residence; however, he chose never to live at the property.</p><br>
<p>The decision to lease Fernberg as a temporary Vice-regal residence was made in February 1910 following the formal dedication on 10 December 1909 of the original Government House as Queenslands first university, the University of Queensland. At the same time, plans for a new Government House to be erected at Victoria Park were being prepared; however work on the new House never progressed beyond the construction of footings. In June 1911, despite reports that Fernberg was too small, the government purchased Fernberg as a permanent government house. Alterations and renovations carried out immediately included painting, new floor coverings, the installation of electric light, metalling, gravelling, and rolling of roadways and fencing. Several buildings from the former Government House site were moved to Fernberg in 1910-11 to provide accommodation for offices, a billiard room and apartments for the private secretary and aide-de-camp. A lodge and servants quarters were also relocated to the site. A chauffeur&#39;s cottage was built in 1923, and a commodious timber garage erected in 1935.</p><br>
<p>Formal gardens were initially developed in 1910, primarily for the purpose of providing functional spaces for Vice-Regal garden parties and fund-raising events. Generally the selection of plant material in these garden areas was exotic, mostly ornamental and some native trees. Surrounding the gardens was the original bushland that covered about 70% of the entire grounds. In comparison to the formal gardens, the bushland received very little attention except for the successive clearing of the understorey plants and later of sapling and shrub regrowth. In 1928 "woodland walks" were created by Governor Sir John and Lady Goodwin through the bushland behind Government House. Paths were created, foot bridges constructed and various plants introduced, such as jacarandas, wattles and poinsettias.</p><br>
<p>In September 1936, suggestions to relocate the Governor back to the original residence were raised by the then Governor, Sir Leslie Wilson. Despite serious consideration, the Premier and Cabinet rejected the idea and instead proposed substantial additions to Fernberg, thus settling the issue of a permanent Government House. Governor and Lady Wilson were both intimately involved in the plans for additions that were designed by the Department of Public Works. The extent of the 1937 additions included construction of a new eastern wing that contained a large reception room, billiards and supper room and a new bedroom with ensuite. To give coherency to the entire building, the entire exterior of Fernberg was painted cream. New maids&#39; quarters and a laundry were built separate to the main house.</p><br>
<p>Minor internal alterations were carried out on Fernberg in the mid 1940s after a change of Governor and in anticipation of visits by various members of the Royal Family (Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester having been appointed as Governor-General of Australia in January 1945). Pressure for additional accommodation for the Governor&#39;s private staff in the late 1940s resulted in the construction of a single storied brick Auxiliary Building. This building replaced the earlier timber building that had been relocated onto the site in 1910 and was subsequently moved to another site in Bardon. In 1950 a brick administration building and a new coverway with port cochere were erected. The entire complex was painted white at this time.</p><br>
<p>In 1953 a balcony with a concrete staircase leading to the ground level was constructed, opening off the reception room. Doors and windows in the billiards rooms were altered so that they opened out onto a terrace beneath the balcony.</p><br>
<p>Additional residences for staff accommodation were introduced in 1959, 1984 and 1986. A tennis court and swimming pool were built in 1959-1960. Air conditioning services were first introduced in 1957 and were extended in 1978. Refurbishment of the original section of Fernberg, referred to as the guest wing, was carried out in 1981-82. A new guard house was constructed in 1987 and substantial internal works involving the refurbishment of the reception areas were also carried out in the same year. The main house underwent major external refurbishment and painting again in 1992.</p><br>
<p>Late in 1992 one hectare of Government House grounds was taken over by the Department of Transport as part of the widening of Kaye Street. The result of these works is the construction of substantial retaining walls along the western perimeter of the property.</p><br>
<h3>The Governors</h3><br>
<p>In the period 1910-37, when Fernberg was considered a temporary Government House, it served as the home for five Governors:</p><br>
<p>1909-1914 Sir William MacGregor, Scottish born governor who signed the University Act providing the newly inaugurated University of Queensland with a home at Old Government House. He reputedly chose Fernberg because of the grounds in which it stood.</p><br>
<p>1915-1920 Sir Hamilton John Goold-Adams, Irish born governor who played a prominent role in Queensland&#39;s politics during his appointment.</p><br>
<p>1920-1925 Sir Matthew Nathan</p><br>
<p>1927-1932 Sir Thomas Herbert John Chapman Goodwin</p><br>
<p>1932-1946 Sir Leslie Orme Wilson, Queensland&#39;s longest serving governor who prompted major additions to Fernberg.</p><br>
<p>Following the declaration of Fernberg as the permanent Government House, the following Governors have resided at the property:</p><br>
<p>1946-1957 Sir John Lavarack, first Australian born governor</p><br>
<p>1958-1966 Sir Henry Abel Smith, Queensland&#39;s last English born governor</p><br>
<p>1966-1972 Sir Alan Mansfield</p><br>
<p>1972-1977 Sir Colin Hannah</p><br>
<p>1977-1985 Sir James Ramsay</p><br>
<p>1985-1992 Sir Walter Campbell</p><br>
<p>1992-1997 Her Excellency Mrs Leneen Forde, first female governor</p><br>
<p>1997-2003 Major General Peter Arnison</p><br>
<p>2003-2008 Dame Quentin Bryce, later Australia&#39;s first female Governor-General</p><br>
<p>2008-2014 Penelope Wensley</p><br>
<p>2014- Paul de Jersey</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>Fernberg is situated on a rise that is approximately 100 metres above sea level overlooking the Brisbane CBD in the south-east and Mount Coot-tha to the west. The 15 hectares of grounds comprise formal, ornamental gardens around the main house, ancillary administration, staff and maintenance buildings, the whole of which is surrounded by native bushland. The site is bounded by Fernberg Road, Kaye Street, Baroona Road and Murruba Street.</p><br>
<h3>The Main House</h3><br>
<p>Government House is basically a two storied building with a basement level. Stylistically the building demonstrates Victorian Italianate characteristics such as asymmetrical massing, a prominent tower employing classical motifs, a balustraded roof parapet, bracketed eaves, segmental arch openings and a stucco wall finish.</p><br>
<p>The earliest section of the house is the 1860s wing which is located at the southernmost part of the house. The formal entry to the house is via the 1880s section of the house and the 1937 addition form the eastern wing of the house.</p><br>
<p>Internally the main focus of the building is its large central foyer that has a large fireplace, timber panelled dados and an intricately carved timber staircase, over shadowed by a large stained glass window depicting a life size Robert the Bruce. The principal rooms located at ground level are the formal reception and dining rooms, and the governor&#39;s study. Each of the rooms is substantially intact; however, their decorative schemes have been subject to several refurbishments. Original furniture from the Old Government House still remains in these rooms.</p><br>
<p>At the upper level are the private bedrooms of the governor and several guest bedrooms that are located in the southern (earliest) wing of the house. These guest rooms were subject to major renovations in 1981-1982 and currently are furnished to reflect Australian interiors prior to 1900.</p><br>
<p>The principal rooms in the basement level of the house are the investiture room, billiard room, private dining room and the kitchen. The interiors of these areas have been greatly altered and some alterations to the original layout have occurred.</p><br>
<p>Original joinery, partitions, openings and fittings remain extensively through the entire house.</p><br>
<h3>The Grounds</h3><br>
<p>The Government House grounds consist mainly of two different types of gardens; formal and natural bushland. The formal gardens comprise about 25% of the property with the rest being bushland.</p><br>
<p>The formal gardens include the developed garden areas as well as the drives, paths, retaining walls and steps. Generally, the selection of plant material in this section is exotic and decorative, with some old remnant native trees. There is extensive use of mown grass surfacing in these areas.</p><br>
<p>The bushland areas are characterised by the presence of remnant eucalypt forest and the lack of extensive built development. Several paths meander through the area. Several gullies feed into a slightly larger stream in the bottom south-eastern corner.</p><br>
<h3>The Ancillary Buildings</h3><br>
<p>The lodge (built before1910, relocated to this site from Old Government House) is a timber building located next to the vice-regal entrance gates. The building, which has two projecting gables, has been extensively altered over a long period of time.</p><br>
<p>The chauffeur&#39;s residence (built 1923) is a spacious timber house with a gabled roof. The building has a verandah attached to two sides and has a faceted bay at the front.</p><br>
<p>The garages (built 1935) are a timber structure with a galvanised iron roof crown with a fleche and weathervane. The garage contains space for seven cars in three separate rooms, and several other small rooms.</p><br>
<p>The staff accommodation (built 1937) is a two storied brick and concrete building located south-west of the main house. The building is substantially intact despite several refurbishments.</p><br>
<p>The administration cottage (built 1948) is a single storied brick building containing several offices, bedrooms and sitting room for the aide-de-camp, the personal assistant to the governor and some guest accommodation.</p><br>
<p>The gardener&#39;s residence (built 1959) is a standard public service D Type residence.</p><br>
<p>The butlers and the chefs residences (built 1984 and 1986) are recent constructions as are the two staff garages located nearby.</p><br>
<h2>Heritage listing</h2><br>
<p>Government House was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992 having satisfied the following criteria.</p><br>
<p>The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland&apos;s history.</p><br>
<p>Government House, Brisbane, demonstrates the evolution of the government in Queensland, and is particularly important as the official residence of the Queensland Governor since 1911, and the place for many vice regal functions including Royal visits. It is the Queensland&#39;s symbol of British colonisation of Australia.</p><br>
<p>The creation of an animal "Sanctuary" and the "Woodland Walks" by Sir John and Lady Goodwin contribute to the early appreciation of native flora and fauna in Queensland.</p><br>
<p>The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland&apos;s cultural heritage.</p><br>
<p>The main house, built in 1865 and originally known as Fernberg, is the only remaining substantial residence and villa estate, of almost original proportions, in Brisbane from the 1860s.</p><br>
<p>The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places.</p><br>
<p>The residence, as a result of extensive additions in the 1880s, is regarded among the finest examples of a Victorian Italianate villa in Brisbane. Other buildings built in the grounds following the conversion of the house into a vice regal residence contribute to the understanding of the Governor&#39;s role and the complex of necessary auxiliary services.</p><br>
<p>The place is important because of its aesthetic significance.</p><br>
<p>Government House is important for its strong aesthetic qualities that symbolise the wealth and influence of its residents. The residence&#39;s setting, situated on a wooded hilltop position with a tower, has been a significant landmark since its construction. The layout of the grounds, particularly the formal gardens and the surrounding bushland contribute significantly to the intrinsic character of the property.</p><br>
<p>The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland&apos;s history.</p><br>
<p>Government House, Bardon has had important associations with the governors of Queensland since 1911. The house and grounds contain evidence of the contribution of each of the vice regal couples and also records the changes that were made for Royal Tours.</p><br>
<p>The residence is important for its association with several prominent architects who have contributed to the evolution of Government House; Benjamin Backhouse (1865), Richard Gailey (1880s) and the Department of Public Works (1937). The house also has important associations with several early successful settlers in Brisbane. Among these were John Heussler, who built the house in 1865 and was prominent both in business and public life in Queensland and John Stevenson, a pastoralist, stock and station agent and member of the Legislative Assembly, who epitomised the success of the 1880s boom time by changing an 1860s villa to an Italianate Mansion.</p><br>
<p>Chambers Island, named in honor of Col. Talbot Chambers, is a 2,834 acre  island in Green Bay, about 7 mi off the coast of the Door Peninsula, near Gibraltar, Wisconsin. It is part of the Town of Gibraltar in Door County.</p><br>
<h2>Land description</h2><br>
<p>Approximately 1/8 (12.3%) of the island&#39;s area is taken up by shallow 348.73 acre Mackaysee Lake, in the northeastern part of the island. There is a smaller lake to the west of Mackaysee Lake called Mud Lake. There are two islands in Mackaysee Lake. The land area is 10.04 km² (3.8765 sq mi, or 2,481 acres). Since 1867, the island has been home to the Chambers Island lighthouse, which has been deactivated since 1961. The lighthouse has been the maintained at the 40 acre Chambers Island County Park since its commissioning in 1976.</p><br>
<p>The highest elevation on the island is approximately 55&#39; above the lakeshore. In the southeast, Chambers Island narrows to a spit, called Hanover Shoal, which extends toward the shoreline of the Door Peninsula, from which it is approximately 5 mi distant. The island has a small number of cabins.</p><br>
<h2>On the island</h2><br>
<p>Other than the Chambers Island Lighthouse Park and 2 dirt roads, the entire island is privately owned by a number of different persons and corporations, and landing at any other area is considered trespassing under Wisconsin law. No permanent population was reported in the 2000 census.</p><br>
<p>For more than 60 years, through 2013, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay maintained a seasonal retreat house on Chambers Island, called the Holy Name Retreat House, on a 70-acre former resort property located on the isthmus between Green Bay and Mackaysee Lake on the east shore of the island. The house opened in the middle of 1951 after being gifted to the diocese by George Baudhuin. The retreat house typically attracted thousands of people per year to reflect for several days or a week between the months of May and September. On January 15, 2014, the Diocese announced that it would cease to offer retreats at the property. The diocese cited that 758 retreatants had visited the island in 2013, a number that made maintaining the island unsustainable. Guests were charged $210 to attend a retreat and it cost the diocese $409 per person for transportation, food, and administration. Another concern cited was potential medical emergencies on the isolated island. Over 62,000 people had attended a retreat in 62 years.</p><br>
<p>Chambers Island Airport is located on the island. It is a private use airport owned by Chambers Island Flying Corp. with a single 1,200 by gravel runway.</p><br>
<p>Electricity is not commercially available on the island, it is provided by individual generators or solar / wind power. Cellular telephone service is provided to the island and the Door county coastline by Cellcom which has a tower on the island. In 2012 the company installed a wind turbine to augment the solar panels that charge the batteries that power the site.</p><br>
<p>Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary is a heritage-listed zoological garden at 28 Tomewin Street, Currumbin, Queensland, Australia. It was built in 1947 onwards. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 18 September 2009. The sanctuary is world-renowned for its feeding of huge flocks of free-flying wild rainbow lorikeets, which come to the sanctuary to feast off the special mixture which the lorikeets eat.</p><br>
<p>The multitude of events, shows and attractions include dingo encounters, free flight bird shows and feeding of the park&#39;s massive saltwater crocodile. The park also contains a serious aspect of its work and exhibits, and behind the scenes includes a state-of-the-art veterinary and rehabilitation hospital.</p><br>
<p>The sanctuary was opened as the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary by Alex Griffiths in 1947 as a scheme to stop the local lorikeet population destroying his flower plantations. The lorikeets still flock to the sanctuary twice daily to be fed by visitors. The sanctuary now houses one of the largest collections of Australian native species in the world. Exhibits include Tasmanian devils, a reptile house and the largest walk-through aviary in the Southern Hemisphere. The sanctuary also has a miniature railway that has been operating since 1964. In 2009 an adventure park course opened. In May 2011, the hospital has appealed for donations and government support as it faces a funding shortage that may force it to turn away injured wildlife.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary was established by beekeeper and floriculturist Alex Griffiths in 1947 as a small-scale tourist venture featuring lorikeet feeding displays in which tourists could participate. By at least 1953 it was known as the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary and by the mid-1950s had become an iconic tourist attraction on the Gold Coast. The place had evolved by the early 1970s to offer visitors a variety of experiences, including:</p><br>
<p>the chance to see numerous bird and animal species and learn about their part in the regional natural environment</p><br>
<p>take a miniature train ride around the large site</p><br>
<p>purchase souvenirs</p><br>
<p>enjoy a meal.</p><br>
<p>In 1976 Griffiths gifted the sanctuary to the National Trust of Queensland (the Trust), and the terms of this exchange and its ongoing operation are set out in the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary Act 1976. The place was renamed the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary in 1995. It continues to be operated by the Trust as a nature-based tourism enterprise and is recognised as one of the oldest of its kind to remain in operation in the state.</p><br>
<p>The sanctuary lands gifted by Alex Griffith to the Trust encompassed four main areas:</p><br>
<p>the original sanctuary site on the southern side of Tomewin Street and three contiguous properties in Teemangum Street, including a house occupied by Alex Griffiths from 1971 until 1998</p><br>
<p>a car park and a picnic ground on the northern side of Tomewin Street</p><br>
<p>18.728 hectare of heavily treed land on the western side of the Gold Coast Highway, known as the Western Reserve</p><br>
<p>a 17.8 hectare property that Griffiths had named Coolamon, located on the Currumbin Creek-Tomewin Road in the Currumbin Valley just over 9 km to the west of the main venue</p><br>
<p>The Trust also took over the leasehold of:</p><br>
<p>swampy land on either side of Flat Rock Creek formerly leased by Griffiths for sanctuary purposes</p><br>
<p>a tunnel that Griffith had constructed under the Gold Coast Highway, linking the Tomewin Street site and the Western Reserve.</p><br>
<p>The Currumbin area was taken up as timber leases in the 1860s and 1870s, with some gold fossicking in the creek in the late 1870s. The coastal strip was subdivided into housing allotments in 1886, but was slow to develop. Access to the area at that time was via a coach service that used the beach as a roadway. Bananas were a successful crop from the late nineteenth century and became a key industry in the Currumbin Valley in the twentieth century. In 1903 a rail line between Nerang and Tweed Heads was constructed, and a siding built at Currumbin in 1908 to cater for timber getters and dairy farmers. The Currumbin School opened the following year. During the 1920s and 1930s a rapid rise in private motor vehicle ownership, the construction of a new coastal road (the Pacific Highway) between Brisbane and Southport, and the opening of the Jubilee Bridge over the Nerang River, led to the subdivision and sale of many estates between Southport and the New South Wales border including Currumbin, especially after the final section of the Pacific Highway, between Currumbin and Coolangatta, opened in December 1933.</p><br>
<p>It is ironic that the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary, a nature-based venture, emerged from the post-World War II development boom that saw the Gold Coast establish its present iconic identity as Queensland&#39;s premier tourist destination. In the 1950s a greater capacity to pursue leisure, increasing ownership and usage of private motor vehicles, and a growing preference among holidaymakers for American-style resorts and tourist entertainments, resulted in changed accommodation styles on the Gold Coast and increased patronage of "tourist attractions" other than the natural attractions of surf beaches and estuary bathing and fishing. With the lifting of war-time building restrictions in 1952, an intense period of building development and property speculation at the South Coast followed, attracting entrepreneurs focussed largely on the tourism potential of the place. The term "Gold Coast" was coined in response to this promise of prosperity and wealth, and was embraced by locals. The South Coast Town Council officially changed its name to Gold Coast Town Council in 1958, and in 1959 the municipality was declared a city.</p><br>
<p>The Currumbin Bird Sanctuary evolved from the flower-farming and bee-keeping activities of Alexander Morris Griffiths. Born in New Zealand in 1911, his family moved in 1927 to Norfolk Island, where they grew bananas for the Sydney market. His parents retired to Currumbin in 1941, acquiring two adjoining parcels of land comprising two and a half acres (1.01ha) in Tomewin Street in February 1944. Alex joined them and at their Currumbin property established bee hives, planted gladioli, and ran a small road-side stall selling honey and flowers. However, local lorikeets proved problematic, destroying the marketability of the flowers and eating the honey from the hives. The diversionary solution Griffiths devised to protect his flower crop was to feed the birds honey and bread from a plate. The birds increased in numbers to a point where visitors would come to witness the afternoon feedings. Around 1947 Griffiths erected a small kiosk on Tomewin Street to sell his honey and Devonshire teas. The lorikeet-feeding spectacle continued to gain renown and was included in South Coast tourism promotional material. Griffiths did not charge admission fees to his sanctuary but left a donation box near the exit. He also became the unofficial wildlife carer of the district, caring for fauna in his home and utilising small structures in the sanctuary for sick and recuperating birds and animals.</p><br>
<p>Soon after Griffiths established his nascent bird sanctuary, another nature-based tourism venture commenced in nearby Tallebudgera Valley in 1951 with the establishment of David Fleay Wildlife Park. Fleay had a similar philosophy to Griffiths arguing that fauna should be kept in conditions as close as possible to the natural environment, and was critical of modern zoos; however, Griffiths began as an entrepreneurial amateur while Fleay was a naturalist with scientific training, and before moving to Queensland, when still in Victoria, had been responsible for the first successful captive breeding programs of a number of Australian indigenous animals.</p><br>
<p>During the early 1950s Griffiths expanded his bird sanctuary with the acquisition of more land on the southern side of Tomewin Street, and utilised the adjacent public reserves along Flat Rock Creek. When an application was made for a dredging lease in the Scenic Reserve (R.579) along the creek in January 1956, Griffiths wrote a letter to the editor of The Courier-Mail protesting against the proposed sand mining because he had spent years encouraging wild birds to Flat Rock Creek. He received widespread public support and petitions against the sand mining were lodged. The Land Commissioner inspected the creek and noted that it contained a permanent waterhole frequented by wild ducks, pigmy geese and black swans. He also reported that the South Coast Town Council valued the bird sanctuary as an important tourist attraction and endorsed Griffiths actions in preserving wildlife. A number of conservation organisations, including the Queensland Naturalists Club and the Save the Trees Campaign, also objected to the sand mining, arguing that, in the wake of other recent sand mining operations on the coast that had caused the loss of many native trees, Currumbin Sanctuary provided alternative food and shelter to displaced birds. The dredging application was withdrawn. This early example of a conservation battle waged on the South Coast occurred twelve years prior to Fleays battle to save Tallebudgera Creek from canal development.</p><br>
<p>The sanctuary had gained such a level of renown that in October 1956 the (American) National Geographic sent top-ranking nature photographer and journalist Dr Paul Zahl to document the lorikeet-feeding phenomena. He described a scene of expectant lorikeets and tourists waiting for Alex Griffiths to fill pie tins with a mixture of bread, water and honey, and the delight of tourists when allowed to feed the birds. By this time Griffiths had other indigenous wildlife on the property and was well known as a wildlife carer of sick and injured animals and birds. No bird was kept in captivity if it was able to fly. Zahl reported that the sanctuary already had a national profile, attracting 2000 visitors on holiday weekends, but the publication of his article gave it an international profile that enhanced its tourism potential and that of the South Coast.</p><br>
<p>The 1960s was a significant period of expansion for the sanctuary. In 1963 Griffiths was given a licence to enclose the road between the sanctuary and the creek, and a lease on the Scenic Reserve on the banks of Flat Rock Creek contiguous with the road. Around this time he installed a neon sign within the road licence area facing onto Flat Rock Creek, which was visible to travellers along the main road. In June 1964, a miniature railway was introduced. Built in Brisbane by James Jackson, the train hauled six passenger cars and operated on an eleven-inch gauge rail loop for 300 metres around the Tomewin Street site. Other elements of this expansion scheme included the construction of an octagonal-shaped Rock Shop (now known as the Spirit of the Outback shop), for which planning approval was given by the Gold Coast City Council in April 1964; and a butterfly display which is no longer extant. Both projects cost £1500. The Rock Shop showcased Griffiths&#39; passion for rock collecting and included the production of jewellery on site. He claimed it was the first of its type in Australia. The octagonal form of the Rock Shop was replicated in most of the buildings constructed at the sanctuary during the 1960s and into the 1970s, although the Rock Shop Annex constructed in 1965 did not adhere to this precept. Griffiths formed a number of companies during this time and began acquiring additional lands around his sanctuary under company title, including parcels in Tomewin Street opposite the sanctuary for car parking.</p><br>
<p>In the past, Queensland tourist attractions featuring animals and birds were mostly limited to zoos, such as :</p><br>
<p>Queensport Aquarium (1889–95)</p><br>
<p>Koombul Park near Cairns (early 1900s)</p><br>
<p>Brisbane Botanic Gardens (early 1900s – 1952)</p><br>
<p>Rockhampton Botanic Gardens (established 1905 and extant in 2009)</p><br>
<p>Hartley&#39;s Creek Crocodile Farm north of Cairns (1934 and still operational in 2009)</p><br>
<p>One of the earliest nature-based tourism ventures was The Jungle near Malanda on the Atherton Tableland in far north Queensland, which showcased indigenous flora and fauna and Aboriginal culture from 1920 until the 1970s. In south-east Queensland, the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary was established in 1927, in response to the last open season on koalas, which had yielded 500,000 skins.</p><br>
<p>On the South Coast, Alex Griffiths serendipitous establishment of the Currumbin Sanctuary in 1947 was the first tourism venture to showcase fauna in an essentially natural setting. Animal attractions at the Gold Coast have tended to concentrate on their entertainment or curiosity value – such as the small zoo and aquarium established at the rebuilt Surfers Paradise Hotel in 1936. The 1950s saw the establishment of Natureland Zoo at Coolangatta and Jack Evans erroneously named Pet Porpoise Pool at Snapper Rocks, featuring performing dolphins kept in captivity. Evans relocated to Tweed Heads in 1961. Marineland was established on The Spit at Southport in 1966 and Keith Williams Ski World relocated from Carrara to The Spit in 1970. In 1972 Williams renamed the attraction Sea World, introduced dolphins and Californian sea lions, and built a marine stadium, chairlift and other attractions. He purchased Marineland in 1976 and transferred marine life displays to Sea World. He also purchased Jack Evans Porpoise Pool business at this time. Marineland then became Bird Life Park. The only venture similar to the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary on the Gold Coast was David Fleay&#39;s Fauna Reserve at West Burleigh, which had a greater focus on scientific research.</p><br>
<p>In April 1968, Griffiths announced that in the next two years he planned to develop the sanctuary into a substantial wildlife attraction utilising 18.728 hectares of land on the western side of the highway, to which he acquired title in October 1968. The site was part of a former dairy and banana farm, and retained a number of artificial ponds or dams at the southern end, patches of subtropical rainforest in the north-western corner, and some transitional forest. Griffiths plans for the property included a two-mile extension of the miniature railway, and a large aviary encompassing mature trees for birds unable to survive in the wild. The chain of lagoons and ponds along a secondary watercourse to Flat Rock Creek would provide a habitat for water fowl. He also planned a new three-storeyed kiosk on the Tomewin Street site and employed architect Stephen Trotter of the firm Fulton Collin Boys Gilmour Trotter & Partners to prepare a design. He was also negotiating with the Main Roads Department to build a tunnel under the planned new four lane highway to link the two properties. In the late 1960s the Gold Coast City Council demonstrated its support for Griffiths work by constructing an illuminated fountain in Flat Rock Creek adjacent to the sanctuary, visible at night to passers by on the highway. It is understood that this structure is no longer extant.</p><br>
<p>The new Kiosk opened in March 1972, at a cost of about $120,000. It was a three-storey building made around a concrete frame with some stone wall facings, brick infill and large sliding doors, in an octagonal plan that reflected the approach taken to earlier structures on the site. The architect recalls that this plan geometry was intended to reference the individual chambers of a beehive (although these are hexagonal). With a central lift and stairs, the building had a basement housing service facilities; a main kiosk level that opened to both the street and to the lorikeet-feeding arena; and a mezzanine level used as a VIP lounge. The concrete tiled hipped roof had exposed timber framing on the interior and a large skylight at its apex.</p><br>
<p>In 1972 Hugh Sawrey (1919–1999), a Queensland-born artist who in the 1970s and 1980s developed a national reputation for his paintings depicting Australian outback life, was commissioned to paint a large mural in the main level of the Kiosk. By 1972 Sawrey kept a successful horse stud at Coomera on the Gold Coast, which he moved that year to Boonah and to Victoria in 1978. His was the inspiration behind of the establishment of the Australian Stockmans Hall of Fame and Outback Heritage Centre at Longreach, which opened in 1988, and he was a strong supporter of Alex Griffiths work at Currumbin.</p><br>
<p>Griffiths parents house and a neighbouring property, the former Currumbin Tea Gardens, were demolished for the construction of the new Kiosk. Griffiths then moved to another property that he owned in adjacent Teemangum Street – a small, early 1950s fibro cottage with an attached shop.</p><br>
<p>During the early 1970s negotiations continued on the construction of a tunnel under the Gold Coast Highway linking the existing sanctuary to the new Western Reserve. This was built in conjunction with the construction of a four lane highway and new Currumbin Creek Bridge, which opened in November 1974. Leases on the reserves on either side of Flat Rock Creek were secured and eventually a new Reserve for Parks and Recreation (R.579) was gazetted in December 1977. The road reserve between the sanctuary and the Flat Rock Creek leased land was closed in 1993, formally enlarging the sanctuary.</p><br>
<p>Between 1969 and 1973, Griffiths also acquired 17.8 hectares in the Currumbin Valley that he named Coolamon, an aboriginal word for carry basket, and also the name of the tree which is the floral emblem of the neighbouring Tweed Shire. Coolamon was used as a release area for rehabilitated fauna. It was also considered a possible venue for further educational purposes as it retained remnants of indigenous vegetation.</p><br>
<p>By the early 1970s facilities on the formally laid out site on Tomewin Street included: the original kiosk and fernery, the lorikeet-feeding arena, the Rock Shop and its annex, the new Kiosk, the miniature railway and its butterfly-roofed station shelter, a number of aviaries (including a Rainforest Aviary), a bakery, a mini-cars course, an aquarium, a collectors corner, and a childrens playground called Fairyland. This area was complemented by the more informally laid out Western Reserve which housed an array of indigenous fauna, some free ranging. One loop of the miniature railway existed around the southern part of the Western Reserve, travelling along Flat Rock Creek and crossing a chain of lagoons in order to showcase the water birds that frequented the site. There was a small siding (no longer extant) near the current Koala Junction Station. Visitation in 1973 was estimated at 600,000 per annum.</p><br>
<p>Around this time Griffiths sought to find an organisation to take on the management of the sanctuary, stating: "I wanted to make sure that on my death the Sanctuary would continue its work as a haven for wildlife... As you can see, I had to ensure that these creatures always had a safe place to come, even after I am gone." He began negotiations with the National Trust of Queensland with a view to gifting the sanctuary to them. This necessitated the drafting of legislation to allow the Trust to take over the property, which was assented to on 3 November 1976. The Currumbin Bird Sanctuary Act 1976 made provision for the Trust to wind up the companies set up by Griffiths to manage various aspects of the sanctuary. These were dissolved early in 1977 so that the sanctuary could operate as a commercial undertaking in its own right. The gifted properties were formally transferred to the Trust between 9 and 15 March 1978. As part of the new management structure, a Board of Advice was established to which Alex Griffiths was appointed Chairman for life. He stepped aside in favour of retired Governor of Queensland Sir Colin Hannah, who was then succeeded by Sir Sholto Douglas. In 1980 the Trust produced a comprehensive development plan with ambitious ideas for the redevelopment of the park, aimed at removing all unserviceable or outdated structures, particularly old aviaries, and adapting existing serviceable buildings. In late 1980 the Trust discontinued the Board of Advice, effectively negating Alex Griffith&#39;s role as an advisor to the sanctuary.</p><br>
<p>Both the Trusts need to operate the sanctuary as a commercial venture and Alex Griffiths desire to keep it as a fauna and flora reserve were embodied within the 1976 act, but Griffiths became increasingly estranged from the Trust and its management of the sanctuary. There were philosophical differences between his layman&#39;s perception of conservation, and the scientific approach which opposed artificial feeding of wildlife and the maintenance of exotic species. Griffiths had always kept exotic species at the sanctuary and continued to house peacocks at Coolamon, where he moved to live in a caravan from around Christmas 1982. During the 1980s he continued to invest in this property, installing three landscaped dams, a concrete weir and spillways, and a hardwood vehicular bridge.</p><br>
<p>The Trust pursued an active program of site development through the 1980s with the construction of a children&#39;s playground (1985–86), refurbishment of the Rainforest Aviary as the Rainforest Pool Aviary (1987), and construction of a Sub-Tropical Aviary (1988). In the 1990s a number of new facilities were constructed, including the Sir Walter Campbell Environmental Education centre, a new koala exhibit, the Koala Junction Kiosk, a freshwater crocodile display, a Tasmanian devil enclosure, four new cockatoo aviaries, and Flora Gully (which included rare and endangered species of plants). None of these elements is considered to be of cultural heritage significance for the purposes of this entry in the Queensland heritage register. At this period the Trust also made major renovations to the main administration building, extended the Kiosk to incorporate a shop and the nearby Honey House, and renovated two aviaries.</p><br>
<p>In 1995 the Trust adopted a long-term goal for the place: Currumbin Sanctuary was to be recognised nationally and internationally as a pre-eminent institution in the preservation and presentation of Australian indigenous fauna and flora, and in sustaining and promoting heritage-related values and ideas. The name was changed to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary to reflect this objective. 1996 visitation statistics showed 82,000 local, 96,000 interstate and 340,000 international visitors.</p><br>
<p>Alex Griffiths died on 29 July 1998. He had received numerous awards during his life: he became a Member in the Order of Australia in 1976; was awarded the Order of the White Cross for protection of wildlife in 1977; along with fellow Gold Coast environmentalist David Fleay was given "Freedom of the City" of the Gold Coast by Mayor Lex Bell in 1989; and received an Honorary Doctorate from Griffith University in 1995. In 1999 Gold Coast City Council named a nearby open space in Teemangum Street, Alex Griffiths Park.</p><br>
<p>The significance of the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary within its local context was recognised in the 1997 Gold Coast Urban Heritage and Character Study which stated: "The Currumbin Area is one of a particular character... Generally the area contains more natural vegetation that other areas of the coast due in part to the difficulty of building on the steep hillsides and in part to the presence of the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary – a long standing icon and landmark of the Gold Coast." Its significance in Queensland has been recognised recently through its inclusion in the Royal Automobile Club of Queenslands "150 must dos" as well as being voted one of the top 15 iconic Queensland locations as part of the States sesquicentenary celebrations (Q150). The sanctuary continues to draw tourists from around Australia and internationally. Visitation statistics for 2007–2008 indicate 148,000 local, 98,000 interstate and 150,000 international visitors. While local visitation has almost doubled in the past 12 years, international visitors numbers have dropped markedly, reflective of a general downturn in international tourists visiting the State.</p><br>
<p>Of the facilities existing at the time of Alex Griffiths&#39; gift to the Trust in 1976, only the Kiosk, Spirit of the Outback Store (former Rock Shop) and its annex, miniature railway (particularly its original circuit on the Tomewin Street site and its southernmost circuit on the Western Reserve), the refurbished Rainforest Pool Aviary, site of the lorikeet-feeding arena, and one small octagonal building (possibly a former bird hospital), remain. All of the properties retain significant remnant indigenous vegetation, which Griffiths retained as part of the concept of a flora reserve, and as a sheltering and breeding place for fauna.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>The extent of land included within the heritage boundary for the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary encompasses: all those freeholds gifted to the National Trust of Queensland in 1976 and transferred to it in March 1978; and a number of leaseholds along Flat Rock Creek and over the tunnel under the Gold Coast Highway. This comprises approximately 39.64 ha of freehold land and 5.16 ha of leasehold. The heritage boundary does not include freehold properties acquired by the Trust after March 1978.</p><br>
<p>The sanctuary lands that have been included within the heritage register boundary form two discrete areas:</p><br>
<p>the main sanctuary with its tourist facilities, located in the suburb of Currumbin on the Gold Coast</p><br>
<p>a property known as Coolamon situated just over nine kilometres to the south-west in the Currumbin Valley, adjacent to the Nicoll Scrub National Park.</p><br>
<p>Within the heritage boundary, only those facilities associated with Alex Griffith&#39;s management of the site are considered to be of cultural heritage significance for the purposes of this entry in the Queensland heritage register.</p><br>
<h3>The main sanctuary</h3><br>
<p>The main sanctuary sits to the south and south-west of the hill that surmounts Currumbin Point on the southern shore of Currumbin Creek, less than 300 metres from the coast. It is nestled within an area where the high-rise buildings that characterise development elsewhere on the Gold Coast are absent. The sanctuary lands here are intersected by the Gold Coast Highway, which runs north-west to south-east, and Tomewin Street, oriented south-west to north-east.</p><br>
<p>There are four identifiable areas within the main sanctuary:</p><br>
<p>three on the eastern side of the highway:</p><br>
<p>the original sanctuary site on the southern side of Tomewin Street</p><br>
<p>adjacent reserve lands around Flat Rock Creek (leased from the Gold Coast City Council)</p><br>
<p>a car park and picnic ground on the northern side of Tomewin Street</p><br>
<p>a substantial area of land to the west of the Gold Coast Highway, known as the Western Reserve.</p><br>
<p>A tunnel under the highway links the eastern and western sides of the main sanctuary.</p><br>
<h4>East of the highway and south of Tomewin Street</h4><br>
<p>The largest expanse of sanctuary land on the eastern side of the Gold Coast Highway is bordered to the north-west by Tomewin Street, to the south-west by Flat Rock Creek, to the north-east by houses and vacant allotments that front Teemangum Street, and to the south-east by a large residential unit development. It covers almost one and a half hectares. The northern end of this area contains the entrance to the sanctuary, leading to a formal complex of structures, miniature train lines and landscaping elements, including a number of facilities installed pre-1976. These include: the Spirit of the Outback Store or former Rock Shop and its annex (completed 1964 and 1965); the three-storeyed Kiosk building (completed 1972, extended 1989 and early 1990s); large sections of the miniature train line; a small fibrous-cement clad building in the south-east corner of the site; and the refurbished Rainforest Pool Aviary at the south-east corner of the Kiosk building. The present lorikeet-feeding arena occupies the same site and shares the same general arrangement employed by Alex Griffiths in his bird-feeding spectacles from at least the early 1950s.</p><br>
<p>The southern side of Tomewin Street forms the public face of the sanctuary, with parking and drop-off bays along its length being shaded by established trees, which are particularly dense towards the highway. The composite-frame, brick and steel sheet-roofed building that lines a significant part of this roadway behind the street trees is based around the 1972 Kiosk, which since completion had been the entry to the sanctuary. This building is organised around interlocking octagonal plan-forms. The entry used by visitors prior to Easter 2009 is now marked by a large pergola made with timber rafters spanning between the building and a steel semi-circular beam that is supported on two steel columns encased in fibreglass resembling tree trunks. A single glass door provides access via a set of stairs to the administration area. A further line of glass doors and windows completes this facade.</p><br>
<p>The largest and the most significant component of this building occupies the easternmost end and houses: a service zone in its basement; on its ground floor a cafe and Hugh Sawrey Room where the artist&#39;s large mural is located, toilets, and some conference accommodation to the north-east; and administration offices on the upper mezzanine level. Within this three-level structure is the 1972 octagonally planned Kiosk. It has an upper level surmounted by a hipped eight-panelled roof with a separate, raised clerestory section at the apex and small dormer windows in all but one of its panels, which was installed during the 1989 renovation. On its north-eastern side is a narrow verandah off the conference rooms. On the opposite side a large expanse of timber decking (1989) opens out from the cafe and allows visitors to eat under the trees and observe the adjacent lorikeet-feeding arena to the west.</p><br>
<p>The renovated Kiosk sits on a concrete slab, which supports a central concrete access core and the floor slabs for the main and mezzanine levels. The doors and windows are largely aluminium-framed. The eaves and its wide fascia panels are lined with narrow, stained timber boards. To the south and west a large timber-framed deck area wraps around this building, creating a transition zone between the cafe and its central servery and the lorikeet-feeding arena and entrance to the Spirit of the Outback store (former Rock Shop). It is raised off the ground by approximately one metre and is cutaway to allow for the growth of a number of trees, including a number of palms. A broad timber ramp provides access on the south-west corner into the heart of this sanctuary site.</p><br>
<p>Appended to the Kiosk in 1989 to the north-west is the former shop, which currently serves as the main entrance to the sanctuary and is planned around two partial octagons, one opening toward the street, and the other at the western end opening into the lorikeet-feeding arena. Further to the west along Tomewin Street, and also part of the 1989 Kiosk development project, is a stone-faced platform supporting a shade structure and some seating. Beyond these to the west is the Honey House, which has a room where the lorikeet food is prepared; and a large steel-framed aviary (Forest Fringe Aviary, 1990). These structures are not considered to be of significance.</p><br>
<p>Behind these structures, but still visible from Tomewin Street, is the lorikeet-feeding arena. It comprises a section of ground shaped like a rectangle with rounded ends and separated from the surrounding ground by a low steel fence. The largely flat surrounding surface falls to a drainage line inside this fence before levelling out in the centre. This drainage zone is concreted. Inside an outer ring of grass is a rockery. At either ends are the painted steel, lorikeet-feeding Ferris wheels, which were a signature of the early sanctuary and its bird-feeding displays. While these are later constructions they closely resemble those designed and used by Alex Griffiths. The area also has a few small trees, two clipped hedge shrubs and some other ground cover plantings within the arena. Beyond the narrow strip of concrete that falls outside the fence-line the ground is covered with artificial turf.</p><br>
<p>The lorikeet-feeding arena forms part of a larger internal open space that constitutes the visitor&#39;s first experience of the sanctuary and is bounded to the north-west and east by the structures already described. On its south-eastern side is the entrance to the octagonally planned Spirit of the Outback store (former Rock Shop, 1964). There are a number of mature trees in this area, including eucalypts, as well as some areas of lawn and paving concentrated around the decks to the cafe and leading to various connections on the edges of the space.</p><br>
<p>Adjacent to the Kiosk building, against the south-eastern boundary of the site, sits a large steel-framed and wire-mesh-enclosed aviary housing nocturnal birds and animals (pre-1970, refurbished in 1987 as the Rainforest Pool Aviary). This features a rock wall and small waterfall. A length of miniature train track runs through a fence opposite this aviary and up to the concrete block structure described earlier. This marks an earlier course of the miniature train line. The Spirit of the Outback store (former Rock Shop) is founded on a concrete slab with a sloping skirt around the entire building and expressed columns at each wall joint, which hide the downpipes. These consist of a concrete casing. It has a hipped roof clad in corrugated steel and walls faced with stone. Its wide fascia panels and eaves are lined with fibrous-cement sheeting. Inside there is a cathedral ceiling with fibrous-cement sheeting behind narrow timber rafters. The walls are also lined with fibrous-cement sheeting.</p><br>
<p>A south-facing doorway in the former Rock Shop allows visitors into the sanctuary. To the immediate east of this doorway stands the annex built in 1965 to a rectangular plan but with similar materials. To the south-west of this is situated the main train station platform. To the south is the landing of an elevated timber walkway leading into the south-eastern corner of the site and then into the Green Cauldron enclosure, which sits near the site&#39;s southern boundary and incorporates at least two earlier building phases carried out after the early 1980s. The Green Guardian Theatre building (1990) sits between this structure and the main train platform. The last four structures are not considered of significance.</p><br>
<p>In the south-eastern corner of the site, visible only to visitors on the walkway, is a fibrous-cement clad building, likely to be one of the oldest structures on the site. It is octagonal in plan and has a concertinaed, hip and valley roof made with flat fibrous-cement sheets and barge boards individual to each roof face. Its walls are similarly clad. It has a number of aluminium-framed, sliding windows. The timber walkway area is shaded by a number of mature trees, which shelter this structure from potentially damaging hail and wind. It sits behind a high chain-wire and thatched fence.</p><br>
<p>To the west the site is bounded by a wide avenue of paving beside a screen of paperbarks (Melaleuca sp.) and gum trees (Eucalyptus sp.) lining the lorikeet habitat of Flat Rock Creek. Between it and the lorikeet-feeding arena are a number of enclosures housing koalas. To the east is the entrance to the Green Guardian Theatre (1990). Toward the north-west, the paved way leads to the concrete tunnel that joins the eastern and western sides of the sanctuary.</p><br>
<p>Two small residential allotments and a concreted laneway on Teemangum Street (the latter providing service access to the Kiosk building) are also included within the heritage boundary. A single-storeyed fibrous-cement clad house, where Alex Griffiths chiefly resided between 1971 and 1998, with an attached shop, sits on one of these allotments, but is not considered to be of cultural heritage significance for the purposes of this entry in the Queensland heritage register.</p><br>
<h4>East of the highway and north of Tomewin Street</h4><br>
<p>On the north-west side of Tomewin Street is a further area of sanctuary land totalling about 1.6 hectares. This contains the sanctuary&#39;s car parking facilities fronting Tomewin Street and adjacent to a commercial development on the west, and between the car park and a private hospital to the north, a large grassed and treed picnic area. There are some mature trees on the car park site, including a hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) at the entrance, paperbarks (Melaleuca sp.) and mature Moreton Bay figs (Ficus macrophylla).</p><br>
<h4>Reserves</h4><br>
<p>The reserve lands along Flat Rock Creek total about 5.13 ha. A number of lagoons exist here, and form a bird habitat.</p><br>
<p>There is a further leased reserve of just over 274m? for a tunnel under the Gold Coast Highway, linking the formally laid out eastern side of the main sanctuary with the more informally designed Western Reserve. The tunnel, constructed of reinforced concrete, is approximately 5m wide and 3m high, and accommodates a miniature train track and paved pedestrian pathway.</p><br>
<h4>Western Reserve</h4><br>
<p>The Western Reserve, totalling about 18.7 ha of heavily treed land on the western side of the Gold Coast Highway, supports a number of the sanctuarys key tourist attractions. Only those facilities associated with Alex Griffiths management of the site are considered to be of cultural heritage significance.</p><br>
<p>The site slopes steeply to the west and north from low-lying areas along the eastern and southern boundaries where Flat Rock Creek winds its way toward the ocean. Bounded by Currumbin Hill Conservation Park to the north-east, it is otherwise enclosed by residential allotments along the north-western ridge topped by Lansell Avenue and along the western and southern curve of Crest Avenue. It meets Thrower Drive in the north and borders Crest Drive where it forms a south-west-facing corner. The residences on the north-western side of Farrell Drive also border the sanctuary and the long thin lake or lagoon formed by Flat Rock Creek.</p><br>
<p>Emerging from the tunnel leading from the eastern side of the sanctuary, a miniature train line loops around the largely flat areas along Flat Rock Creek, dividing near a spot name Koala Junction to head north and south. Pathways lead visitors west from the tunnel through a vegetated zone on the northern side of the creek. Further west is a junction of paths and rail lines, to the south-west of which is the Koala Junction Kiosk and amenities block. These buildings are not considered to be of cultural heritage significance.</p><br>
<p>To the north of Koala Junction are a number of post-1976 structures, enclosures and animal displays, again not considered to be of cultural heritage significance. These include an early 1990s building that provides access to the Extreme Green Challenge on the slopes behind it to the west, and the animal displays in the north-western corner of this site. At the highest point on this side of the Western Reserve there is a timber-framed and decked lookout that can be accessed via steep stairs. It takes in a view of the ocean and some of the residential development on Currumbin Hill and to the south-east around Tugun. It is a structure planned for but not carried out by Alex Griffiths.</p><br>
<p>Paths wind back down the slope to the south-east and onto a path that passes three steel-tube-framed aviaries on its way down the slope. At the end of this path are the various other animal enclosures; again, these are not of heritage significance.</p><br>
<p>The area of land to the west of these paths and enclosures that borders the upper part of Crest Drive and Lansell Avenue is the most heavily treed, with a range of Australian indigenous species. Beyond it, in the south and south-western corners of the Western Reserve, are a series of small ponds or dams (extant when Griffiths purchased the land in 1968) along a watercourse that joins Flat Rock Creek from the west. The train line loops through this system of ponds, over a steel bridge reputedly installed by Griffiths after he had purchased this property. The paths lead along the southern edge of these lakes, under a number of mature trees, to a timber viewing platform and small tea-house building.</p><br>
<p>At the southern end of the Western Reserve, below the chain of artificially created ponds that lead into Flat Rock Creek, are a number of structures not considered to be of cultural heritage significance: three disused timber and concrete block aviaries; an amphitheatre consisting of stepped seating; a former cafe; and some animal enclosures.</p><br>
<h3>Coolamon</h3><br>
<p>Coolamon comprises four allotments, totalling almost 18 ha of land, located in the Currumbin Valley about halfway between the headwaters of Currumbin Creek and the ocean into which it drains, where Currumbin Creek Road turns toward the Queensland and New South Wales border about one and a half kilometres from the site to the south. Nicoll Scrub National Park adjoins the southernmost allotment to the south-east. There are two gated access points, one to the north, which follows an easement to the main body of the site, and another, the main entrance adjacent to a picnic ground in the south-west. The latter entrance is signed and comprises a steel-framed gate with chain-wire infill set within two tall steel posts and panels of ribbed metal sheeting, which provides access to a section of bitumen roadway. Elsewhere the site is fenced by chain-wire. Adjacent to this gate to the north-west is a toilet block overgrown by vegetation. Opposite this structure and across the roadway a grassed picnic area stretches toward the south. Beyond this are the remains of a timber bridge. A caravan sits at the southern end of the grassed area. Coolamon has in the recent past provided picnic facilities to visitors but currently only serves as a release area for birds and other native animals treated at the sanctuary&#39;s hospital (the latter is not located within the heritage boundary).</p><br>
<h2>Heritage listing</h2><br>
<p>Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 18 September 2009 having satisfied the following criteria.</p><br>
<p>The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland&#39;s history.</p><br>
<p>The Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, established by Alex Griffiths in 1947 as the Currumbin Bird Sanctuary, is important in demonstrating the evolution of nature-based tourism in Queensland. It is an early surviving attraction at the Gold Coast, Queensland&#39;s premiere tourism destination, and one of the earliest nature-based tourist facilities established in Queensland, evolving from a site of local interest and the public spectacle of lorikeet-feeding to an internationally recognised nature-based tourism attraction.</p><br>
<p>The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.</p><br>
<p>As an iconic Queensland tourist destination, Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary has had a strong association as an attractive nature-based tourism experience for the large community of Queenslanders who have visited the site since 1947, when the afternoon lorikeet-feeding spectacle was established by Alex Griffiths. The strength and endurance of this association are powerfully demonstrated by its featuring in tourism advertising since 1953 or earlier; by the widespread community support for the sanctuary demonstrated in 1956 when hundreds of people signed a petition objecting to proposed sandmining adjacent to it; by inclusion in the Royal Automobile Club of Queenslands "150 must dos" in Queensland in 2009; and being voted by the community as one of the top 15 iconic Queensland locations during the 2009 State sesquicentenary celebrations.</p><br>
<p>The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland&#39;s history.</p><br>
<p>Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary has a special association with the life work of Alex Griffiths who established the sanctuary in 1947 and remained involved in its ongoing management into the early 1980s, after gifting the sanctuary to the National Trust of Queensland (the Trust) in 1976. Important surviving elements of Griffiths&#39; pre-1976 tourism venture include: the Kiosk; the Spirit of the Outback Store (former Rock Shop) and its annex; an aviary; an early bird hospital; the site of the lorikeet-feeding arena; the concept of the miniature railway circuit and much of the original railway on both the Tomewin Street site and the Western Reserve; the tunnel beneath the Gold Coast Highway; the informally laid out Western Reserve; the bird habitat along Flat Rock Creek; and the bird-release property known as Coolamon.</p><br>
<h2>Awards</h2><br>
<p>In 2009 as part of the Q150 celebrations, the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for its role as a "location".</p><br>
<p>The McDonald Ranch House, also known as Trinity Site, in the Oscura Mountains of Socorro County, New Mexico, was the location of assembly of the world&#39;s first nuclear weapon. The active components of the Trinity test "gadget", a plutonium Fat Man-type bomb similar to that later dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, were assembled there on July 13, 1945. The completed bomb was winched up the test tower the following day and detonated on July 16, 1945 as the Trinity nuclear test.</p><br>
<p>The McDonald Ranch House was built in 1913 by Franz Schmidt, a German immigrant, and acquired by the McDonald family in the 1930s. The ranch was vacated by the McDonald family under protest in 1942, when the United States Army took over the land as part of the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range to use in training bomber crews during World War II.</p><br>
<p>The family hoped that the ranch would be returned after the war, but it was not, and in 1970, the Army announced that it would be kept permanently. The McDonald Ranch House was empty and deteriorating until 1982, when it was stabilized by the Army. In 1984 it was restored by the National Park Service to appear as it did on July 12, 1945. The site is now open to visitors twice a year, on the first Saturday in April and October.</p><br>
<h2>Early history</h2><br>
<p>The George McDonald Ranch House sits within an 85 by low stone wall. The house was built in 1913 by Franz Schmidt, a German immigrant, whose old house a mile away burned down in 1912.</p><br>
<p>The ranch house is a one-story, 1,750 ft&sup2; building. It is built of adobe, which was plastered and painted. An ice house is located on the west side, along with an underground cistern which stored rain water running off the roof. At one time, the north addition contained a toilet and bathtub, which drained into a septic tank northwest of the house. There is a large, divided water storage tank and a Chicago Aermotor windmill east of the house. The scientists and support people used the north tank as a swimming pool during the summer of 1945. South of the windmill are the remains of a bunkhouse and a barn which was part garage. Further to the east are corrals and holding pens. The buildings and fixtures east of the house have been stabilized to prevent further deterioration.</p><br>
<p>The ranch was vacated by the McDonald family under protest in 1942, when the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range took over the land to use in training bomber crews during World War II. Area lands were condemned and ranchers simply told to leave. The occupants were given the option of going to court or accepting a settlement, but had to leave in either case. The McDonalds chose to go to court, and were awarded about $60,000 for their patented land.</p><br>
<h2>Manhattan Project</h2><br>
<p>Vital Components are loaded at the old McDonald Ranch for the trip to the test site</p><br>
<p>The house stood empty until the Manhattan Project support personnel arrived in early 1945. The northeast room (the master bedroom) was designated the assembly room. Workbenches and tables were installed. To keep dust and sand out of instruments and tools, the windows were covered with plastic. Tape was used to fasten the edges of the plastic and to seal doors and cracks in the walls.</p><br>
<p>The plutonium hemispheres for the pit of the Trinity nuclear test "gadget" (bomb) were delivered to the McDonald Ranch House on July 11, 1945. Brigadier General Thomas F. Farrell, the Deputy Director of the Manhattan Project, signed for them, and handed them over to Louis Slotin, the head of the Pit Assembly Team. The active components of the bomb were assembled in the assembly room on July 13, 1945, The bomb was winched up the test tower the following day. The Trinity test occurred on July 16, 1945. A plutonium Fat Man-type bomb was detonated, similar to the bomb later dropped on Nagasaki.</p><br>
<p>The explosion only 2 mi away blew most of the home&#39;s windows out but did not significantly damage the structure; years of rain water intrusion through the roof were responsible for decades of subsequent deterioration. The barn roof was bowed inward by the blast and some of its roofing was blown away; it collapsed some time thereafter.</p><br>
<h2>1960s–1980s</h2><br>
<p>On December 21, 1965, the Trinity Site was declared a National Historic Landmark district, and, on October 15, 1966, the McDonald House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<p>The McDonalds had expected that the ranch would be returned after the war, but this did not occur. In the 1970s it was announced that the land would not be returned. Dave McDonald and his niece, Mary McDonald, staged an armed reoccupation of the ranch in protest in 1982.</p><br>
<p>The house stood empty and deteriorating until 1982. White Sands Missile Range commander United States Army Major General Niles J. Fulwyler, who had directed the restoration of the White Sands V-2 Launching Site, ordered the structure stabilized to prevent any further damage. Work was completed in 1984.</p><br>
<p>Fulwyler buried a 25-year time capsule describing the restoration. Its artifacts are now in display inside the home. On the back of a photograph of himself Fulwyler wrote:</p><br>
<h2>Access</h2><br>
<p>For many years the site was open on the first Saturday in April and October. Admission is free. There is a display on the Schmidt family in the house during each open house. In 2014, the White Sands Missile Range announced that due to budgetary constraints, the site would only be open once a year, on the first Saturday in April. In 2015, this decision was reversed, and two events were scheduled, in April and October.</p><br>
<p>Onekotan  is an uninhabited volcanic island located near the northern end of the Kuril Islands chain in the Sea of Okhotsk in the northwest Pacific Ocean. Its name is derived from the Ainu language for "large village”. It is the second largest island, after Paramushir, in the northern subgroup of the Kurils. It is administratively included in the Severo-Kurilsky District of Sakhalin oblast, Russia.</p><br>
<h2>Geography and geology</h2><br>
<p>Onekotan is roughly rectangular, with a length of 42.5 kilometers, and a width ranging from 11 kilometers to 17 kilometers. It has an area of 425 km&sup2</p><br>
<p>The island consists of two stratovolcanos connected by a relatively flat isthmus.</p><br>
<p>Krenitsyn -(Креницын; Japanese 黒石山; Kuroishiyama) with a height of 1,324 meters is the prominent caldera at the southern end of the island. This volcano was named after Captain Pyotr Krenitsyn of the Imperial Russian Navy. The mountain rises from a depth of from 600 to 900 meters, and contains a deep (369 meter) central caldera lake with a diameter of 7 kilometers, called Tao-Rusyr Caldera. The central peak of this "island within the island" is actually the highest point on Onekotan Island</p><br>
<p>Nemo -(влк Немо; Japanese 根茂山; Nemoyama) with a height of 1,019 meters is the peak to the north. It has two nested subsidiary calderas, with the cone of Nemo Peak rising in the southwest end of the youngest caldera and a crescent-shaped crater lake, named Lake Chernoye, partially filling the northeast part.</p><br>
<p>There are seven rivers on the island more than five kilometers long. The largest is the Ozernaya River (8 kilometers long) which flows from the southern part of the caldera of the Nemo volcano to the Sea of ​​Okhotsk. Almost the same length is the Kedrovka River, which flows from the central part of the island into the Pacific Ocean.</p><br>
<p>The climate of Onekotan is characterized by short, cool summers, high humidity, frequent fogs, and especially strong winds. However, the island&#39;s climate is generally considered to be mild oceanic with an average annual temperature of about + 4.0 ° C. Even in record cold winters, temperatures below -15 ° C were not observed.</p><br>
<p>Onekotan is separated from the neighboring islands by the Fourth Kuril Strait, Yevreinov Strait, and Krenitsyn Strait. The neighboring islands are Makanrushi, with a 1170 meters volcanic peak, is 28 kilometers to the northwest of Onekotan; and Kharimkotan, with a 1210 meter high volcano, is 15 kilometers to the southwest. Paramushir is located 53 kilometers to the northeast.</p><br>
<p>Onekotan still has an active volcano with the most recent eruption, in 1952, forming a small lava dome on the island&#39;s coast.</p><br>
<p>A bay on the eastern shore contains the remains of an abandoned settlement.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Onekotan, with a number of shallow bays and sandy beaching providing landing points, was inhabited by the Ainu prior to European contact. It appears on an official map showing the territories of Matsumae Domain, a feudal domain of Edo period Japan dated 1644, and these holdings were officially confirmed by the Tokugawa shogunate in 1715.</p><br>
<p>The island was surveyed by Russian geodesists and explorers Ivan Yevreinov and Fyodor Luzhin in 1720, and was subsequently, claimed by the Empire of Russia in 1736 after the Ainu inhabitants were converted to the Russian Orthodox Church; however Russian tax collectors encountered Japanese officials on the islands in 1744-45.</p><br>
<p>Sovereignty initially passed to Russia under the terms of the 1855 Treaty of Shimoda, but was returned to the Empire of Japan per the Treaty of Saint Petersburg in 1875 along with the rest of the Kuril islands. The island was formerly administered as part of Shimushu District of Nemuro Subprefecture of Hokkaidō. In 1884, the Ainu inhabitants were relocated by Japanese authorities to Shikotan.</p><br>
<p>During World War II, the island had a small Japanese garrison, which surrendered on August 25, 1945 without a fight.</p><br>
<p>After 1945, the island came under the control of the Soviet Union, and is now administered as part of the Sakhalin Oblast of the Russian Federation. A small garrison on the island was withdrawn in 2005.</p><br>
<h2>Flora and fauna</h2><br>
<p>There are chars in Lake Chyornoye, one of the two lakes on Onekotan, located at the northern end of the island.</p><br>
<p>In the spring and summer pigeon guillemot and Leach&#39;s storm petrel nest on the island.</p><br>
<p>Mammals found on the island include foxes and small rodents, with seals and sea lions on the coast.</p><br>
<p>The strong winds and harsh climate limit the growth of trees to small thickets of Krummholz formations of Siberian dwarf pine with a maximum height of 2-4 meters, mostly in gullies.</p><br>
<p>White Rock Lake is a reservoir located in north-east Dallas, Texas . The lake was formed by damming White Rock Creek, which today widens into the lake before continuing south out of the spillway and emptying into the Trinity River. The lake covers 1,254 acres  in the east Dallas community.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Before it was a lake, White Rock Lake was a collection of farms owned by the Daniel and Cox families. The first record of the Daniel family farm is in the Family Bible of Thomas Walker Daniel. He and his wife Frances Herndon Daniel seem to have moved to the White Rock area in the late 1830s and early 1840s. Daniel&#39;s son had a good friend during the civil war named Cox. When the war was over, the Cox family moved to land adjacent to the Daniel family. Together they had a joint family cemetery called the Daniel-Cox Cemetery. Other pioneer families such as the Humbards, the Glovers, Lavenders, McCommases, Coxes and Donagheys jointly maintained the cemetery.</p><br>
<p>Construction on White Rock Lake began in 1910 in response to a water shortage in Dallas. After the lake was completed in 1911, residential construction around the lake increased, and in the early 1930s the Dallas Park Board, with the help of the Civilian Conservation Corps, began developing the lakeshores into a municipal park. In 1943 the government used the barracks at Winfrey Point to house German prisoners of war who had served in Rommel&#39;s Afrika Corps. In 1992 White Rock Lake Park was a center of recreational activity for central Dallas, providing picnic areas and bicycle and jogging paths.</p><br>
<p>All that is left of the Daniel and Cox farms is the old "Daniel-Cox family cemetery." The Daniel family fell upon hard times and when the cemetery was renovated, the Cox family contributed funds to renovate the cemetery so the current sign reads "Cox Cemetery".</p><br>
<h2>White Rock Dam</h2><br>
<p>White Rock Dam was completed in 1911 as an earthen dam with a height of 47 feet, a length of 2550 feet at its crest, for storm water control and municipal water supply. With a maximum storage capacity of 39,400 acre-feet, the facility is owned and operated by the City of Dallas.</p><br>
<h2>Recreation</h2><br>
<p>After its function primarily as a water source was supplanted, White Rock Lake continued to serve as a recreational lake for both City of Dallas and suburban residents. From its earliest days, area residents wanting to get away from home constructed cabins on leased property along its shoreline. The Bonnie Barge, for example, was operated on the lake by Garland resident John H. Williams, Sr. from 1946 to 1956.</p><br>
<p>Although originally permitted, swimming was banned in September 1952 and a ban on motorized boats followed in 1958. Current recreational activities on the lake include kayaking, canoeing and standup paddleboarding, available by rental.</p><br>
<p>The lake is surrounded by White Rock Lake Park, which features a 9.33 mile (15 km) trail for hiking, running and bicycling, the Bath House Cultural Center and the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden. There are several fishing piers and sailing is permitted.</p><br>
<p>The Bath House once served as a boathouse for several crew teams, including SMU. White Rock Boathouse (established in 1930) was originally used for motor boats, but was later adapted to house sculling boats. The Boathouse later went on to lease the old Filter Building and holding tanks from the former purification facility and converted them into what may be the largest boathouse worldwide. This building currently houses the boats for SMU, and White Rock Boathouse&#39;s own crew teams.http://whiterockrowing.org/</p><br>
<h2>Sailing</h2><br>
<p>The Corinthian Sailing Club was chartered in 1939 to promote the sport of sailing and sailboat racing in the Dallas area. The club focuses on racing with well attended Saturday and Sunday afternoon races, Wednesday evening "fun" races, club sponsored regattas held year round, and several major annual regattas. The club is nationally known for its excellent sailors and fine race management. CSC, located on beautiful White Rock Lake in Dallas, also sponsors many social activities, teaches adult sailing and supports an active juniors program.</p><br>
<p>The White Rock Boat Club was formed in 1961 as the brainchild of three members of the Corinthian Sailing Club. CSC was having a problem with tracking davit ownership and the price of davits escalated due to demand since the club had no control over prices. Two of the founders, the Oetkings, had also developed a fine catamaran called the Hellcat and had gone into production with growing sales, but they couldn&#39;t find davits at CSC. WRBC was constructed not only to supply reasonably priced davits, but to help sell Hellcats. The club sold davits to help pay for the construction of the club, with the provision that the club could buy the davit back if the owner left the club. The club has exercised this right and now owns and leases most of its davits. The club was constructed with a few differences from its present configuration as can be seen in the 1968 photo above. In order to promote organized class sailing, WRBC at one time limited the type of boats kept at the club to racing classes. In the 1970s, the following classes of sailboats were eligible for membership: Butterfly, Coronado 15, Flying Scot, Harpoon, Lido, Lone Star 13, MC Scow, M16 Scow, M20 Scow and Rebel. The club remains active on the lake today.</p><br>
<p>White Rock Lake is also home to the Southern Methodist University Sailing Club which uses the lake primarily as the team&#39;s practice water</p><br>
<h3>White Rock Marathon</h3><br>
<p>Many events are held at White Rock Lake, including the White Rock Marathon, which, for part of the course, runs around the lake. The White Rock Marathon is recognized as a top 10 marathon within the United States, and serves as a Boston Marathon qualifier. The primary beneficiary of the marathon is Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.</p><br>
<h2>Flora and fauna</h2><br>
<p>One of Dallas’ largest parks, White Rock Lake is home to hundreds of species of wildlife, dozens of varieties of trees, and more than 100 grass and plant species. Known as a jewel in the crown of the Dallas Park System, it is visited by over 1 million visitors a year.</p><br>
<p>Today, the park has an ecosystem that includes grasses, trees, flowers and wildlife that are indigenous to the North Texas area. Grasslands include black prairie grasses as well as more invasive species like Queen Anne’s Lace.</p><br>
<p>Wildflowers are planted in un-mowed areas and bloom in late spring. Photos can be taken especially off the East Lawther Trail and close to Mockingbird Lane.</p><br>
<p>Dozens of species of birds call White Rock Lake home. The ecosystem of the waterfront makes it a perfect nesting place for small and large water birds including herons, egrets, geese, ducks and pelicans, along with woodland birds such as owls, hawks and eagles. Some feral bird species may also be identified, including parakeets that feed near the trees right off the trail.</p><br>
<p>The wildlife at White Rock Lake is thriving. From squirrels and beavers to larger animals like coyotes, the lake is home to many animals that keep the park in balance. You can see many of these land animals near the Old Fish Hatchery.</p><br>
<p>The lake contains catfish, sunfish, crappie, carp, gar, and bass. A handful of reports in the early 1990s claim that Hagfish had been spotted in White Rock Lake as well.</p><br>
<p>Largemouth bass are found around structures like the reed beds, mouths of creeks, and up Dickson Branch.</p><br>
<h2>Folklore</h2><br>
<p>A well-known Dallas urban legend is the story of the Lady of White Rock Lake. White Rock Lake Park is reported to be haunted by the ghost of a twenty-year-old looking girl, described as wearing a water soaked 1930s evening dress, who usually appears at night along the roadside of East Lawther Drive. Witnesses claim the phantom asks to be taken to her home on Gaston Avenue in Dallas before disappearing in the car during the ride leaving a waterlogged car seat. Legend claims the woman to be a drowning victim from a boating accident in the 1930s. Reports of the ghostly encounters were published in Dallas-area newspapers in the 1960s.</p><br>
<p>This legend is said to have been the inspiration for the bluegrass song Bringing Mary Home, written by John Duffey of The Country Gentlemen. Their version of the song made the Billboard Country Chart in 1965. The song has since been recorded by many others, including Frankie Miller, Mac Wiseman, Red Sovine, Ricky Skaggs, and Daniel ODonnell. It is now regarded by many as a bluegrass standard. The legend was also the inspiration for Lakewood Brewing Companys second Legendary Series release, La Dame du Lac, a French farmhouse-style bière de garde.</p><br>
<p>Another Lake pastime popular with young adults was viewing The Submarine Races. When there were no curfews at the park, it became a popular spot for high schoolers wanting a deserted, yet beautiful spot for necking. Whether in a car or on a blanket, viewing The Submarine Races at White Rock Lake is still very popular.</p><br>
<p>The lake was shown on a map in the beginning of the TV show Cheaters.</p><br>
<p>Livadeia  is a town in central Greece. It is the capital of the Boeotia regional district. Livadeia lies 90 km north-west of Athens, 64 km west of Chalkida, 63 km south-east of Lamia, 44 km east-south-east of Amfissa, and 91 km east-north-east of Nafpaktos. The town lies some five kilometres  west of Greek National Road 3, to which it is linked by National Road 48.</p><br>
<p>The area around Livadeia is mountainous, with farming activities mainly confined to the valleys. The area has traditionally been associated with the production and processing of cotton and tobacco, as well as the cultivation of cereal crops and the raising of livestock.</p><br>
<p>Livadeia is home to Levadiakos FC, members of the Greek Superleague.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The municipality of Livadeia covers an area of 694.016 km&sup2, the municipal unit of Livadeia 166.691 km&sup2; and the community 139.614 km&sup2;.</p><br>
<h2>Municipality</h2><br>
<p>The municipality Livadeia was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 5 former municipalities, that became municipal units (constituent communities in brackets):</p><br>
<p>Chaironeia (Agios Vlasios, Akontio, Anthochori, Chaironeia, Profitis Ilias, Prosili, Thouri, Vasilika)</p><br>
<p>Davleia (Davleia, Mavroneri, Parori)</p><br>
<p>Koroneia (Agia Anna, Agia Triada, Agios Georgios, Alalkomenes, Koroneia)</p><br>
<p>Kyriaki</p><br>
<p>Livadeia (Lafystio, Livadeia, Romaiiko)</p><br>
<p>The community Livadeia consists of the following outlying settlements (besides the town itself): Agios Nikolaos Livadeias (pop: 25), Analypsis Livadeias (pop: 184), Elikon (pop: 43), Perachora (pop: 279), Stathmos (pop: 3), Tzimeika (pop: 25) and Tsoukalades (pop: 149).</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<h2>Antiquities</h2><br>
<p>Pausanias, writing in the 2nd century AD, reported that the original name of the city was Mideia, and that it took its name Lebadeia from Lebados of Athens, who moved the city from high to low ground, to its current location on the banks of the Herkyna river. The sacred protector of the city was the hero/god Trophonios, whose oracle, involving a harrowing descent into an underground chamber, was famous beyond the borders of Greece. At the springs of the Herkyna river are shallow grottos with niches and marble remnants said to be the site of the oracle. On the hill above is a small medieval castle, mostly the work of the Catalan Company during the 14th century, accessible by foot. Further west, commanding a dramatic view from the hill of Profitis Ilias, are the remains of a large temple of Zeus Basileus, perhaps begun in the 3rd century BC but never completed. The cathedral church of St. George houses an important relic, a head of St. George, translated to Venice in the 15th century but restored to Livadeia as a gesture of interfaith cooperation in 1999. In medieval times the river was lined by a series of water mills, one of which is preserved.</p><br>
<p>During the Byzantine times Livadeia, enters a period of decline, only in the 9th century some economic growth was depicted. During the Frankish Livadeia came back on track, then it passes in Catalan sovereignty. The Turkish domination begins in 1458,when economic and administrative privileges granted to residents, contribute to industry and trade.Today the city is the financial, industrial, commercial center of the law.Finally,Livadeia is also developed in craft, folk art and industry. An important source for the economy is also the tourism.</p><br>
<h2>Sports</h2><br>
<p>Livadeia hosts two sports club with presence in the higher national divisions, Levadiakos F.C. a football club and Livadeia B.C. (A.E. Livadeias) a basketball club.</p><br>
<h2>Sister Cities</h2><br>
<p>Livadiya, Crimea</p><br>
<p>Bachman Lake is a small freshwater lake located in the Love Field neighborhood of northwest Dallas, Texas . It covers in northwest Dallas and lies on the northwest boundary of Dallas Love Field in the airport&#39;s landing path. It was originally constructed in 1903 by damming Bachman Branch as a water source for Dallas, but it proved to be too small for their needs and was supplanted by White Rock Lake in 1911.</p><br>
<p>Today, Bachman Lake is used as a recreational area. The lake and its surrounding park are well-kept. The area surrounding the lake is currently a hot bed of new construction. The Shops at Bluffview is a 260,000 ft&sup2; upscale apartment, retail, restaurant and office development that is due for completion in 2008. There have been several 10,000 to 15,000 sf stylishly constructed retail centers built along the lake. At the Western end of the lake, DART Rail has begun construction on the new Orange line that will carry area residents to and from DFW airport. Bachman Station was opened as part of the Green Line&#39;s expansion in December 2010. A trail surrounds Bachman Lake and the lake is available for sailing and some fishing (the lake is stocked with catfish regularly - ).</p><br>
<p>The River Evenlode is a river in England which is a tributary of the Thames in Oxfordshire. It rises near Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire in the Cotswold Hills and flows south-east passing near Stow-on-the-Wold, Charlbury, Bladon, and Cassington, and its valley provides the route of the southern part of the Cotswold Line.</p><br>
<p>The River Evenlode passes through many villages and towns in Oxfordshire including Ascott-under-Wychwood, Chadlington and Charlbury. The river joins the Thames approximately one mile down river from Cassington on the reach above King&#39;s Lock 3 miles (5 km) north-west of Oxford.</p><br>
<p>The river is largely privately owned, used for fishing and other leisure activities. The Environment Agency has undertaken restoration work, as of 2008, to recover from the effects of excessive dredging. Powered craft are not allowed on the river. Hilaire Belloc commemorated the river in some of his poetry.</p><br>
<p>Igoumenitsa , is a coastal city in northwestern Greece. It is the capital of the regional unit of Thesprotia.</p><br>
<p>Igoumenitsa is the chief port of Thesprotia and Epirus, and one of the largest passenger ports of Greece, connecting northwestern Mainland Greece with the Ionian Islands and Italy. The city is built on easternmost end of the Gulf of Igoumenitsa in the Ionian Sea and primary aspects of the economy are maritime, transport, services, agriculture and tourism. The 670 km long Egnatia Highway, which serves northern Greece, terminates at Igoumenitsa, making it a popular starting point for tourists coming from Europe and ending point for trucks from Turkey.</p><br>
<p>Igoumenitsa features many shops, schools, offices and cargo storages, a Technological Educational Institute, a library, an archeological museum, several sport stadiums and tennis courses, a courthouse and a medical clinic. The Thesprotia Police Headquarters and the Municipal Sailing Club are located here. The city itself is built on the slopes of a forested mountain and expands perimetrically around the gulf.</p><br>
<p>The 2011 census recorded 25,814 inhabitants for the wider Municipality, of which 9,820 in the municipal unit of Igoumenitsa proper. Igoumenitsa is known for being surrounded by several forests and for its blue waters. The nearby Drepanos Beach is one of the longest sand beaches in the region, with a length of over 7 kilometers.</p><br>
<h2>Names</h2><br>
<p>Igoumenitsa is known by various names in different time periods. Igoumenitsa&#39;s original ancient name used to be Titani (Τιτάνη), Gitani, Gitana, and Goumani. During the medieval and Ottoman times, it was known as Grava (Γράβα) which means "cave". In 1938, after it became the capital city of the prefecture of Thesprotia, its name was changed to the current Igoumenitsa. The name is a derivation from the Greek word Igoumeni which means "commander; abbot". The name has been adopted as Gomenizza in Italian and as Gumenicë in Albanian.</p><br>
<h2>Municipality</h2><br>
<p>The present municipality Igoumenitsa was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 5 former municipalities, that became municipal units (constituent communities in brackets):</p><br>
<p>Igoumenitsa (Agia Marina, Agios Vlasios, Graikochori, Igoumenitsa, Kastri, Kryovrysi, Ladochori, Mavroudi, Nea Selefkeia)</p><br>
<p>Margariti (Eleftheri, Karteri, Katavothra, Margariti, Mazarakia, Mesovouni, Spatharaioi)</p><br>
<p>Parapotamos (Drimitsa, Geroplatanos, Koritiani, Parapotamos)</p><br>
<p>Perdika</p><br>
<p>Syvota (Argyrotopos, Faskomilia, Plataria, Syvota)</p><br>
<p>The municipality has an area of 428.353 km, the municipal unit 111.752 km.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>In ancient times Igoumenitsa was known as Titani, and was one of the most important towns of the Kingdom of Thesprotis during the 4th century BC, covering 28 hectares. The circumference of its walls was 2,400 metres. The walls had four gates. Internal walls, in the shape of a sickle, divided the city in half. Its most noteworthy tower, located at the top of the hill, was round, and is thought to have been a religious sanctuary. Excavations have revealed a theatre which seats 2,500 and ruins of two temples.</p><br>
<p>The city was a meeting place of the Epirote League (Livy 42.38.1). A spur near Philiates between the Kalamas River, the acropolis had a fine semicircular tower. A small theater, towers, and gateways which are still visible. The Kalamas may have been navigable to this point. The city was destroyed by the Romans in 167 BC and later on it was annexed into the Roman Empire. It was ruled by Ottoman Empire and was renamed as "Reşadiye" in 1909 honour of Mehmet V, Ottoman Sultan between 1909 and 1918. During Italo-Turkish War, Hamidiye torpedo boat was sunk by an Italian destroyer on December 30, 1912 in here.</p><br>
<p>After the liberation of the region from Ottoman rule during the Balkan wars in 1913, the city name was Grava, a name that stayed in use until 1938, when the town became head of the prefecture of Thesprotia and was then renamed to Igoumenitsa. The town was destroyed in 1944 during the Axis occupation of Greece and a new settlement grew up around the new ferry terminal in the 1950s and 1960s.</p><br>
<p>Following World War II, the Muslim Cham Albanian residents of Igoumenitsa were expelled to neighbouring Albania after large parts of them collaborated with the invading German forces.</p><br>
<h2>Traffic</h2><br>
<p>The Patras, Greece to Brindisi, Italy car–ferry ships of the Hellenic Mediterranean Lines (HML) stop at Igoumenitsa, before crossing the Adriatic Sea and vice versa, as well as the ships of Superfast Ferries, ANEK Lines and several other shipping companies, before going to Ancona, Bari or Venice in Italy, and vice versa. Frequent passenger and car ferries to and from Corfu.</p><br>
<p>The Egnatia Odos motorway, which was opened in 2009 and is part of the, has significantly enhanced the connection with Thessaloniki and Turkey and shortened the required travelling time from and to the Turkish border by several hours. Between Thessaloniki and the Turkish border, the road runs more or less parallel to the ancient Roman Via Egnatia.</p><br>
<h3>Ports</h3><br>
<p>Igoumenitsa features two ports. The Old Port and the New Port, which is the second busiest passenger port of Greece, after Piraeus, even surpassing the Ports of Iraklion and Patras which are now the thirst and fourth largest in the country.</p><br>
<p>The sea-lines going to and coming from Igoumenitsa are:</p><br>
<p>According to the draft strategy prepared by the relevant Ministry of Shipping (2012-2013) the port of Igoumenitsa becomes a "Connection Portal" not only of Greece with the rest of Europe, but of the whole of Europe with the Balkans, the Black Sea and the Middle East, through the development of combined transport (maritime-roads) directly and long-term (through the Egnatia railway), incorporating the railroad.</p><br>
<p>Until the beginning of the year 2012, the First Phase of the construction project of the New Port has been completed and progression to the Second Phase has begun in late 2013 and was completed by 2016, when the Third Phase of the constriction begun. With the completion of the First phase, Igoumenitsa has become a modern, large port in the Mediterranean Sea, able to serve passenger, commercial and tourist traffic. The completion of the Second Phase, enabled the port to serve large cruise ships. Also, the planned creation of a freight centre in a section within the port area, is estimated to greatly strengthen the commercial traffic and turn the city of Igoumenitsa into an international logistics centre.</p><br>
<p>Port traffic statistics as of 2012:</p><br>
<p>Igoumenitsa serves the 61.73% of the maritime traffic, the 67.49% of car traffic and the 55.08% of truck traffic annually.</p><br>
<h2>Population</h2><br>
<p>The population of Igoumenitsa population is 9.145 residents and the urban area (agglomeration) is 17.902. The population of Municipality of Igoumenitsa is 25.814 permanent citizens. Igoumenitsa&#39;s population grew rapidly in recent years, as result of the increased traffic in the region because of the New Port. The chart below shows the development of the population of Igoumenitsa and the broader urban area according to the data of the Greek Statistical Agency:</p><br>
<h2>Climate</h2><br>
<p>The average rainfall in Igoumenitsa is around 1,100 mm. By comparison in Athens it is only 380 mm; in Crete it is 640 mm, and in Ioannina 1,300 mm.</p><br>
<p>The temperature table are dated.</p><br>
<p>The water is safe for swimming between the months of May to November, that&#39;s only half a year. In 2005, the town had 65 rainy days, the summer had 4 rainy days with 10 hours of mix of sun and clouds each day. The last 25 years, the lowest temperature was -9 &deg;C and the highest was 43 &deg;C.</p><br>
<h2>Tourism</h2><br>
<p>Igoumenitsa is known for its green forests and blue crystal waters, and attracts many local tourists from the nearby regions, and especially from Italy. The city provides the possibility for walks, jogging on the beach or mountain, hiking, sports, boating or contact with nature. Also provides access to the beautiful sandy beaches of Drepanos and Makrygiali with crystal clear waters with a length of 7 km, with both of them being situated on the northwestern edge of the Gulf of Igoumenitsa. The archaeological museum with exhibits from historical times until the Byzantines period. In recent years, the city has become a growing cruise destination, as cruise station for visits to archaeological sites and natural beauties of Thesprotia but also the entire Ionian coast.</p><br>
<h3>Archeological Museum</h3><br>
<p>The archaeological museum of Igoumenitsa was opened in 2009 and is located on the north side, next to the Fire Department of the city. Consists of five main sections that showcase the history and culture of the region of Thesprotia from ancient times to the Byzantine period:</p><br>
<p>Archaeological-historical background, Settlements of historical times, Public Life, Private Life, Burial Customs.</p><br>
<h2>International relations</h2><br>
<h3>Twin towns &ndash; sister cities</h3><br>
<p>Igoumenitsa is twinned with:</p><br>
<p>Sarandë, Albania</p><br>
<p>Velbert, Germany</p><br>
<h3>Consulates and Diplomatic missions</h3><br>
<p>Igoumenitsa is host to the following foreign missions:</p><br>
<p>Germany, German Consulate</p><br>
<p>Karpenisi  is a town in central Greece. It is the capital of the regional unit of Evrytania. Karpenisi is situated in the valley of the river Karpenisiotis , a tributary of the Megdovas, in the southern part of the Pindus Mountains. Mount Tymfristos  lies directly to the north of the town, and the foothills of mount Kaliakouda are in the south. Karpenisi has a ski resort and is a popular destination, especially during winter. It is called Switzerland of Greece for the resemblance with the mountainous country and its beauty, atypical for a Mediterranean place.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Antiquity</h3><br>
<p>According to Homer, the first known inhabitants of northern Evrytania were the Dolopes, who took part in the campaign against Troy around 1100 BC. The ancient capital of the area was Oechalia, situated close to the city of Karpenisi. Ancient Evrytanians especially honored Artemis, the goddess of hunting and Odysseus for his ability to be cunning and inventive. There are two possible explanations for the origin of the name "Evrytania". The first is that is formed from the Greek word "ev" for "well" and the verb "chreo", for "flow" so that altogether the word "Evrytania" means the place where there is plenty of fresh and "well flown" water. The second explanation for the names origins, comes from the verb "evryo", meaning "stretching the cord of the bow", hence the name of the first king of the area, Evrytos, who was an excellent archer.</p><br>
<h3>Roman and Byzantine era</h3><br>
<p>In the Roman period, the area became better known, especially after the battle between the Roman and the Aetolian League (Greek) armies, in the location of "Kokalia", which ended in favour of the former. During the Byzantine times, the people of Evritania had the rare privileges of self-government and tax exemption. For this reason the northern part of the district was also called "Agrafa" (unwritten), because the residents were not listed in the Imperial tax registers.</p><br>
<h3>Ottoman era</h3><br>
<p>During the Ottoman rule of Greece, this area remained relatively free, especially the very remote areas in the mountains. For this reason, the population of the villages grew. During the 18th century a famous school was created here by Evgenios Yannoulis the Aetolian, a school which had a great contribution in awakening the ethnic consciousness of the nation. The Turks and Albanians raid the territory many times. However one of the turning points, at the historic site of Kefalovryso, on the night of 8 August 1823, was when General Markos Botsaris was killed by the Turkish army sent by the Sultan to stop the Greek Rebellion. The Greek troops won the battle and, although the great shock from the death of the hero at first, the soldiers were to fight more bravely from then after.</p><br>
<h3>Second World War</h3><br>
<p>During the Second World War, when German and Italian troops occupied the country, the National Liberation Front (EAM) resistance movement established a government, the Political Committee of National Liberation (PEEA) in the village of Viniani in spring 1944 and it proclaimed elections for a National Council, which was convened in the village of Koryschades in May with representatives from all over the country. Throughout its history, due to warfare, Karpenisi has been ruined and rebuilt many times; the last act of destruction was carried out by Wehrmacht General Hartwig von Ludwiger in 1944 in an effort to annihilate the supposed center of EAM resistance.</p><br>
<h3>Modern Karpenisi</h3><br>
<p>This in an unremarkable market town in the middle of Roumeli, notable less for its own merits than for whats around it. The chief attraction, in fact, is the Karpenisi Ski Centre eight miles out of town on Mount Velouchi, perched nearly 6,000 feet above sea level at a spot called Diavolotopos – literally, Devils place. This centre has ten pistes, seven ski lifts, the requisite number of restaurants and first aid facilities, and a stunning view of a good part of the central Greek mountain tops. While far away from the sea and the popular tourist destinations of the islands of the Aegean and Ionian, Karpenisi has become an important ski and outdoor sports center.</p><br>
<h2>Municipality</h2><br>
<p>The municipality Karpenisi was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 6 former municipalities, that became municipal units:</p><br>
<p>Domnista (Ampliani, Domnista, Krikello, Mesokomi, Psiana, Roska, Stavloi)</p><br>
<p>Fourna (Fourna, Kleisto, Vracha)</p><br>
<p>Karpenisi (Agia Vlacherna, Agios Andreas, Agios Nikolaos, Fidakia, Kalesmeno, Karpenisi, Koryschades, Myriki, Papparousi, Pavlopoulo, Sella, Stefani, Stenoma, Voutyro)</p><br>
<p>Ktimenia (Agia Triada, Agios Charalampos, Chochlia, Domianoi, Petralona)</p><br>
<p>Potamia (Aniada, Chelidonas, Dermati, Karitsa, Klafsi, Megalo Chorio, Mikro Chorio, Mouzilo, Nostimo, Sygkrellos)</p><br>
<p>Prousos (Alestia, Aspropyrgos, Esochoria, Kastania, Katavothra, Prodromos, Prousos, Sarkini, Stavrochori, Tornos, Velota)</p><br>
<p>The municipality has an area of 948.570 km, the municipal unit 250.887 km.</p><br>
<h3>Mayor of Karpenisi</h3><br>
<p>Kostas Bakoyannis, 1 January 2011 – 31 August 2014</p><br>
<p>Nikos Souliotis, since 1 September 2014</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<h2>Sister cities</h2><br>
<p>Asheville, US</p><br>
<h2>Notable people</h2><br>
<p>Zacharias Papantoniou (1877–1940), writer</p><br>
<p>Ioannis Theodoropoulos, bronze medal in the pole vault 1896 Summer Olympics</p><br>
<p>Georgios Kondylis (1878–1936), General of the Greek army and Prime Minister of Greece</p><br>
<p>Charalambos Katsimitros (1886–1962), General of the Greek army who distinguished himself during the Greco-Italian War</p><br>
<p>Pavlos Bakoyannis (1935–1989),Greek politician and journalist</p><br>
<h2>Facts in Karpenisi</h2><br>
<p>Battle of Karpenisi (8 August 1823) during the Greek War of Independence</p><br>
<p>The Karkas mountain chain  is a mountain range which is located almost in central Iran. Having a northwest-southeast direction, it is stretched from Kashan to Ardestan for more than 100 kilometres. With an elevation of 3895 metres, the highest peak of the Karkas Mountains is Mount Karkas which is situated close to Natanz.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>Although in Persian karkas means vulture, it is possible that the name of this mountain chain is derived from the settlement activity of the ancient Kassites in the area, because in the ancient Assyrian language Kar-Kassi means "town or land of the Kassites" (modified interpretation after Roman Ghirshman, 1954).</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>The Karkas Mountains were formed mainly during the Eocene volcanism. Located in the Sahand-Bazman volcanic and plutonic belt, this mountain range is composed predominantly of the Eocene volcanic rocks of the Tertiary volcanism. Aside from the Tertiary igneous (plutonic and volcanic) rocks, there are also pyroclastic and sedimentary rocks. There is a Precambrian-Paleozoic basement in the central part of this mountain chain.</p><br>
<p>The Hooper–Lee–Nichols House is an historic Colonial American house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Initially constructed in 1685 and enlarged and remodeled many times thereafter, it is located at 159 Brattle Street in Cambridge. It is the second-oldest house in the city . The house is now headquarters for the Cambridge Historical Society, which provides tours several times a week.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The house was originally built in 1685 by Dr. Richard Hooper as a typical First Period farmhouse, although its ceilings were plastered, which was unusual for a modest house. When Hooper died in 1691, his wife took in boarders and the property then began to fall into disrepair. She in turn died in 1701, and the house continued its decline until 1716, when it was claimed by Hoopers son, Dr. Henry Hooper, who discharged the debts on his mothers estate. He purchased a second house, had it disassembled, moved to the site and reassembled, thereby doubling the size of the house. He also added a lean-to and rebuilt the chimney with cooking ovens. In 1733, he sold the house to Cornelius Waldo, who added a third story and began the process of converting the house to Georgian style.</p><br>
<p>Judge Joseph Lee bought the house in 1758, adding the enclosed entry porch and applying stucco to the west wall. Lee was a Loyalist and hence vacated his house during the first days of the American Revolution; he returned, however, in 1777.</p><br>
<p>In 1850, George and Susan Nichols rented the house and began to renovate it. They enlarged the rear and installed the roof balustrade, containing balusters once part of the chancel of Saint Paul&#39;s Cathedral in Boston. In 1916 Austin White, a relative of the Nicholses, removed the two-story rear of the house and rebuilt it to a full three stories. Finally in 1923 Frances Emerson was given the house by her father as a Christmas present. Her husband was for many years Dean of Architecture at MIT. She deeded the house to the Cambridge Historical Society, which came into possession of it in 1957. In the early 1980s, the Society made extensive restorations and stabilization of the structure. Additional major renovation work was performed in 2013.</p><br>
<p>The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.</p><br>
<p>Alvand or Alvand Kuh  is a subrange of the Zagros Mountains in western Iran located 10 km south of the city of Hamedan in Hamedan Province. With an elevation of 3580 metres, it is situated to the east of the Ghezel-Arsalan mountains. Aside from Mount Alvand, Kalagh-Laneh and Daem-Barf are among the famous peaks of this range.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>"Alvand" is a newer form of *Harvant, (from Indo-European &gt; Indo-Iranian root of *har), means "high", and vanta (akin to German "bund" and English bond, Persian and Kurdish "band," meaning "connected to" or "that of," "bound to" etc. Together, the compound stand for "That of height, grandeur, mighty." Also see Orontes River, the Orontids dynasty, "Alborz" Mountains and Mount "Elbrus" &lt; *arburz.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>The range consists mainly of intrusive rocks (Upper Cretaceous-Paleocene granite, granitoid and diorite) that were made in the Laramide orogeny in the Late Cretaceous-Early Paleocene. Mount Alvand is located in the Sanandaj-Sirjan geological and structural zone. Sanadaj-Sirjan was subjected to magmatism and metamorphism in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic. This section along with other Iranian microplates were separated from Gondwana in the Carboniferous (when magmatism was caused by rifting and the process of detachment) and moved northwards. From the Early Jurassic to the Middle Miocene Sandaj-Sirjan was adjacent to a subduction zone and there was magmatism because of the subduction zone which was situated in the south and south-west of this structural zone. Consequently, in the Late Cretaceous-Early Paleocene, Sanandaj-Sirjan region was subjected to the magmatism of the Laramide orogeny in the form of both volcanism and plutonism. Mount Alvand was formed as a result of the plutonism of this orogenic phase.</p><br>
<h2>History and religious significance</h2><br>
<p>Located in the range is the Ganj Nameh, a trilingual ancient inscription by kings Darius the Great and Xerxes I in the ancient languages Neo-Elamite, Neo-Babylonian, and Old Persian. Alvand and Damavand are holy mountains in Iran.</p><br>
<h2>Climate</h2><br>
<p>Mount Alvand is situated in a geographical location that has a Mediterranean climate with spring rains.</p><br>
<p>Elmwood, also known as the Oliver-Gerry-Lowell House, is a historic house and centerpiece of a National Historic Landmark District in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is known for several prominent former residents, including: Thomas Oliver , royal Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts; Elbridge Gerry , signer of the US Declaration of Independence, Vice President of the United States and eponym of the term "gerrymandering&quot and James Russell Lowell , noted American writer, poet, and foreign diplomat.</p><br>
<p>The house, originally on a 100-acre estate, was built in the Georgian style about 1767 by Thomas Oliver, scion of a wealthy merchant family in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Abandoned by the Loyalist Oliver at the outset of the American Revolutionary War, the property was confiscated by the state of Massachusetts. It was purchased by Elbridge Gerry, who used it as his family residence until his death in 1814. The house was sold by his heirs to the Lowell family, and was the birthplace and residence of James Russell Lowell for most of his life. During Lowell&#39;s ownership significant portions of the original estate were sold off, and his heirs sold the house to Arthur Kingsley Porter, a Harvard University professor. He bequeathed the property to the university, which now uses it as the official residence of its President.</p><br>
<p>Architecturally the house has retained most of its Georgian character, and has had only modest exterior additions and modifications. Although it was decorated in a Victorian style by the Lowells, Harvard restored the interior to a more traditional Georgian style when it took over the property. The house is not open to the public. In addition to the property owned by Harvard, the National Historic Landmark District encompasses the adjacent Lowell Park, a state-owned park which was once part of the original Oliver estate.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Oliver, Revolution, and Gerry</h3><br>
<p>The house now known as Elmwood was built about 1767 Olivers property extended from Fresh Pond in the north across the Charles River to what is now the Boston neighborhood of Brighton to the south, then part of Cambridge. It was not far from the 1759 mansion built by his brother-in-law John Vassall, now the Longfellow House–Washingtons Headquarters National Historic Site.</p><br>
<p>On September 1, 1774, pursuant to orders given by Governor Thomas Gage, British Army troops removed provincial gunpowder from a magazine in what is today Somerville. This activity caused a spontaneous rising of militia throughout the province amid rumors of actual violence that is known as the Powder Alarm. The next day Oliver was able to dissipate a crowd that formed in Cambridge (near present-day Harvard Square) by going to Boston, conferring with Gage, and reporting that no further military movements were planned. However, the crowd followed him home and compelled him to resign his office, which he did under protest. Oliver and his family shortly thereafter fled to Boston.</p><br>
<p>Early in the Siege of Boston that began after the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the house was occupied by troops that eventually became part of the Continental Army; one of the building&#39;s notable occupants during this time was Benedict Arnold, then in the Connecticut militia. After the Battle of Bunker Hill it was used as a hospital. When the British military evacuated Boston in March 1776, the Olivers, like many other Loyalists, traveled with them to Nova Scotia. Oliver eventually settled in Bristol, England, where he died in 1815.</p><br>
<p>The Massachusetts government confiscated Olivers property during the American Revolutionary War, and sold it in 1779 to Andrew Cabot. In 1787 Elbridge Gerry purchased the Cambridge estate, which became his home. In the aftermath of the XYZ Affair, for which Gerry was unjustly criticized, Elmwood was the scene of protests in which Gerry was burned in effigy. Gerry served as Governor of Massachusetts in 1810 and 1811; redistricting of the state in 1812 prompted the coining of the term "gerrymandering" to describe the practice of shaping legislative districts in partisan ways. In March 1813 Gerry took the oath of office as Vice President of the United States in the house; he died in 1814 in Washington, D. C. Gerry rented out large parts of the estate to tenant farmers. He sold and later repurchased land near the Charles River from a relative, who operated a landing and storehouse; the area (located near the present-day Eliot Bridge) became known as Gerrys Landing.</p><br>
<h3>Lowell family</h3><br>
<p>Ten acres, including the house, were purchased from the Gerry family in 1818 by Charles Russell Lowell, Sr. of the Lowell family. It was in this home that James Russell Lowell was born on February 22, 1819.</p><br>
<p>In the 1850s, Lowell dealt with many personal tragedies, including the sudden death of his mother and his third daughter, Rose. His personal troubles as well as the Compromise of 1850 convinced him to spend a winter in Italy after coaxing from William Wetmore Story. The trip was financed by the sale of land around Elmwood, and Lowell intended to sell off even further. Ultimately, 25 of the original 30 acre were sold to supplement Lowell&#39;s income. His personal troubles continued: his son Walter died while overseas, his wife Maria White Lowell died in October 1853, his father became deaf, and his sister Rebecca was deteriorating mentally such that she often went without speaking for weeks. He had difficulty coping and became a recluse at Elmwood for a time until an invitation to speak at the Lowell Institute resulted in a job offer at Harvard College. He accepted the job, with the request he be allowed to study abroad for a year first.</p><br>
<p>Lowell returned to the United States and began his duties at Harvard in the summer of 1856. Still grieving the loss of his wife, however, he avoided Elmwood, lodging instead in an area known as Professors Row on Kirkland Street in Cambridge along with his daughter Mabel and her governess Frances Dunlap. Lowell and Dunlap married in 1857. After the death of Lowells father in January 1861 due to a heart attack, he moved back to Elmwood with his family. Despite avoiding the home for so long, he was pleased to be back. He wrote to his friend Charles Frederick Briggs: "I am back again to the place I love best. I am sitting in my old garret, at my old desk, smoking my old pipe... I begin to feel more like my old self than I have these ten years". However, Elmwood&#39;s expenses drained him, with taxes at $1,000 a year. As early as 1867, he considered renting out Elmwood and moving into a smaller home elsewhere but never did. Instead, to ease his financial plight, he began to sell off land in 1870 until only two and a half acres remained.</p><br>
<p>Lowell remained at Elmwood for the remainder of his life, except during the period between 1877 and 1885 when he served as Minister to Spain and Great Britain. At Elmwood, he wrote some of his best-known works, including The Vision of Sir Launfal, The Biglow Papers, and A Fable for Critics, all published in 1848. It was Lowell who named the house "Elmwood". He mentions the home in some of his poetry:</p><br>
<p>Lowell&#39;s friend and fellow poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow also wrote a poem about the house called "The Herons of Elmwood".</p><br>
<p>In the summer of 1872, when Lowell traveled to Europe, he rented the house to Thomas Bailey Aldrich. Years later, in 1877, when Lowell was appointed Ambassador to Spain, he rented the home to the violinist Ole Bull. Shortly after Bulls death in 1880, the Norwegian poet, playwright, and novelist Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson was the guest of Bulls widow at Elmwood for three months. Upon Lowell&#39;s return to the United States in 1885, he stayed at Elmwood until his death. He died in the home on August 12, 1891.</p><br>
<h3>20th century to present</h3><br>
<p>After the death of James Russel Lowell the house was inherited and used seasonally first by his daughter Mabel the wife of Edward Burnett then by their children. Arthur Kingsley Porter purchased Elmwood and the remaining lands from the Lowell heirs in 1920. Porter, a Harvard professor, used the house as a private residence, but also taught some of his classes there and allowed students to use his extensive library. Under the terms of his will, the property was bequeathed to Harvard upon his death in 1933, although his wife was granted lifetime occupancy. She died in 1962, at which time Harvard took full control of the property.</p><br>
<p>After major renovations Elmwood was occupied by Franklin L. Ford, who served as Harvards Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for most of the 1960s. Acting President Derek Bok moved his family to its bucolic grounds in 1971 amid security concerns originating in student protest activity near the then-presidents residence on Quincy Street. The house has been the official residence of Harvard presidents since. It still houses portions of the Lowell library.</p><br>
<p>The Harvard-owned property and the adjacent state-owned Lowell Park were declared a National Historic Landmark District in 1966. Lowell Park was established in 1899 as a memorial to James Russell Lowell. It was paid for in part by private subscription and also with some public funds, and donated to the state in 1898. It was at first administered by the Metropolitan District Commission as part of the Charles River Reservation; the MDC&#39;s successor, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, is now responsible for the park.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>Although parts of Elmwood&#39;s interior have been altered, its exterior has not changed greatly over the years. It is a large, square, clapboarded structure in Georgian style with brick-lined walls and two chimneys. The floor plans on each floor are the same: two rooms on either side of a central hall housing a staircase. The windows on the first and second floors have decorative cornices, and a 19th-century balustrade surrounds the roof. The exterior entranceway is flanked by Tuscan pilasters supporting a classic entablature decorated with a frieze. Above the entablature is a large window with Ionic pilasters on either side, topped by a triangular pediment.</p><br>
<p>The building has had some modifications and additions, made principally during the Lowell ownership period. Additions housing more modern services and a library were added to the west side of the house, and first-floor windows in the front parlor and dining room were replaced with French doors. A one-story porch with balustraded roof deck was added on the north side of the house, and a terrace was installed on the south side. The Lowells decorated the house in a Victorian style; Harvard restored the building interior to an 18th-century style when it took over the property.</p><br>
<p>Košljun is a tiny island in Puntarska Draga bay off the coast of Krk, facing Punat, in the Adriatic Sea, Croatia. It is approximately 300 meters in diameter and covers an area of 6.5 hectares, but is rich in vegetation. The only inhabitants are a group of Franciscan monks living in St. Mary&#39;s Monastery.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The earliest known settlement on Košljun was a Roman villa rustica belonging to a landowner of the Roman settlement on Krk (Curicum). The next solid evidence of inhabitation is a written record from 1186 implying the existence of a Benedictine abbey built on its foundations. This was abandoned in 1447, and the Frankopans moved in Franciscans in their place. The present church was built by the Franciscans in 1480. The Benedictines remained on the island until the 15th century. After the death of the abbot Dominik, a Venetian priest held the title of Abbot of Košljun, and the island was abandoned.</p><br>
<p>A pair of Franciscan monks complained to the Pope that the monastery was sitting empty. At their request, the Benedictine monastery was abolished and the island of Košljun given to the Franciscans, whose monastery remains today.</p><br>
<h2>The collections</h2><br>
<p>By the jetty there is a statue of St. Francis with a wolf, a frequent iconographic motif for this saint. As well as the statue there is also a text written in Glagolitic over the main entrance to the monastery, "Mir i Dobro" (peace and well-being) which is also dedicated to St. Francis. In the monastery there is an ethnographic collection including articles used by farmers and fishermen on Krk from the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.</p><br>
<p>There is also a permanent exhibition of church artefacts housed in the old Benedictine church from the 12th century. As well as old masters (G. da Santacroce, F. Ughetto, Medulić and E. Jurič) the collection also includes works by more recent Croatian artists and sculptors such as: Dulčić, Bulić, Radauš, Orlić and Kršinić. The monastery also owns a rich library of some 15,000 books which contains a Jewish Bible from the 11th century, Glagolitic sermons and Ptolemy&#39;s Atlas, printed in Venice in 1511.</p><br>
<p>Mount Taylor is a prominent hill with an elevation of 856 m that is located between the Woden Valley, Weston Creek district and Tuggeranong Valley, in Canberra, within the Australian Capital Territory, Australia. Mount Taylor is part of the Canberra Nature Park and is surrounded by the suburbs of,, , and. There are walking tracks to the peak. While there is no public road access to the peak there is a fire trail up the mountain from the end of Waldock St, Chifley where there is also a car park and picnic tables. The fire trail  is normally closed to public vehicular access by locked gates, but the gates contain access points for walkers. The trail is especially popular with families and older walkers as it provides the easiest and most leisurely access to the peak. Originally a dirt road, it was partially sealed in 2009 on the steeper grades to make it safer for walkers and mountain bike riders.</p><br>
<h2>Facilities</h2><br>
<p>From the Tuggeranong (Kambah) side there is a popular foot trail up the mountain that can be accessed from an unsealed car parking area off Sulwood Drive. It is potholed and unsafe and numerous car accidents have occurred. This foot track up the mountain can also be accessed from Gouger St, Torrens. Unlike the fire trail, this is a properly constructed reinforced footpath, concrete mostly but packed clay and fine, compacted gravel in other places. This track is longer and generally steeper than the fire trail making it especially popular among fitness enthusiasts who incorporate running up and down the track into their training routines. Dog owners also use the track to exercise their pets. Part of the track follows the 750m contour line and there are rest benches along the way. It is very picturesque, passing through a heavily treed area near the summit and there are steps in this vicinity due to the steepness. Near the summit, the foot track from Tuggeranong merges into the sealed fire trail coming from the Woden side.</p><br>
<p>On the north face of the mountain is the zig-zag track to the summit (Mount Taylor Walking Track) which was constructed in 2007. This foot trail has signs containing historic photos and information about wildlife at each change of direction. After the first change of direction the track passes through a grove of Casuarina trees. Three quarters of the way along is a seat made of railway sleepers. Near the summit the track passes over a small rocky outcrop with natural steps made of rocks. This track replaced the almost vertical rough track up the mountain (The Richmond Fellowship Track) which was by far the most difficult route, remnants of which can still be seen from a distance. An attempt was made in the early 1990s to make that track safer as part of a project by long-term unemployed under the guidance of the Richmond Fellowship. Steps consisting of restraining planks of wood were installed and on the top step was a sign saying "You made it!" Unfortunately the track suffered bad erosion due to wet weather and the steep incline, and the steps became unsafe and a public liability risk with holes appearing. The zig-zag track is reinforced and far safer and, although longer, provides an easier and more leisurely walk to the summit.</p><br>
<p>There is a fourth track to the summit on the eastern face of the mountain. A less formed, rougher track and very steep proceeding almost vertically to the summit from the water supply reservoir on Hawker St, Torrens. Because of its steepness and challenge, many of the walkers who were disenfranchised when the Richmond Fellowship Track was closed in 2007 now use this track. About halfway along it passes near an area known as The Sandpit, an almost circular erosion gully which appeared after heavy rains in 1969. With the passage of time nature has reclaimed part of the area, but it can still be seen from a distance. Near the summit the track passes a power pole which was installed in the mid 1970s to provide electricity to the National Transmission Station on the summit.</p><br>
<p>At the top of Mount Taylor there is a trig point, a National Transmission Station to relay television and FM radio to the Tuggeranong valley and parts of Woden/Weston Creek, and also two bench seats and two panoramic maps, one facing Woden and the other facing Tuggeranong.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Mount Taylor was named after James Taylor, an early squatter in the district prior to 1829. An early map entitled Survey of part of the Morombidgee and Country South of Lake George by Surveyor White shows Taylors huts close to the site of Yarralumla homestead. Taylor was a son-in-law of Colonel George Johnston who commanded the New South Wales Corps, which deposed Governor William Bligh during the Rum Rebellion of 1808. Mount Taylor was originally named Taylors Hill but was renamed Mount Taylor during the early years of Canberra.</p><br>
<h2>Wildlife</h2><br>
<p>Mount Taylor is listed on the Register of the National Estate as the most prominent landmark in southern Canberra, and together with nearby Oakey Hill, Wanniassa Hills and Isaacs Ridge, is valued as a key part of the landscape of Canberra. It contains one of the most significant populations known of the nationally endangered Pink-tailed Legless Lizard, Aprasia parapulchella and a nationally endangered plant, the Small Purple-pea Swainsona recta. It also provides examples of two nationally endangered communities - Eucalyptus melliodora — E blakelyi woodland community, and the lowland temperate grassland community - plus a regionally significant vegetational transitional stage, between dry sclerophyll forest and woodland.</p><br>
<p>A Mount Taylor park care group was established in 1989. It assists in weed removal, monitors the bird population and provides guides to the reserve. Over 85 species of birds have been identified on the hill and nearby.</p><br>
<h2>Geology and geography</h2><br>
<p>Mount Taylor is elongated in the north-northwest direction. This is parallel with the general direction of the Murumbidgee River. A ridge extends northwards to Oakey Hill. This separates the Woden Valley from Weston Creek. Another ridge extends from the south east and curves around to the east forming Farrer Ridge. Drainage from the east goes into Yarralumla Creek in the Woden Valley. On the west and south side runoff goes into Village Creek in Kambah.</p><br>
<p>The rocks on Mount Taylor are from the Silurian age from 420 million years ago. They are acid volcanic rocks. On the top and western sides is a rock called ignimbrite. This was formed by massive volcanic explosions that ejected hot volcanic particles in the air that then fell to the ground. This collection of rocks is known as the Laidlaw Volcanics. On the northern slopes and lower eastern slopes the rock is rhyodacite. This is from the Deakin Volcanics. There is also a sill of porphyry intruded into the volcanic rocks on the east and south slopes. The rocks dip to the south west at an angle of 20°. This dip is perpendicular to the long extension of the mountain, showing that it is the strata in the rock that has determined the shape of the mountain.</p><br>
<h2>Human changes</h2><br>
<p>The Tuggeranong Parkway forms a boundary to the nature park in the northwest. Sulwood Drive forms the southwest and southern boundary of the park. In the east, houses have backyards backing onto the park in Torrens, Pearce, and Chifley. Waldock Street provides access to the north end of the mount.</p><br>
<p>High voltage power lines run around the west and south of the hill connecting the Lyons and Wanniassa substations. There is a horse riding trail along the back of Woden Valley, connecting to the horse holding paddock on the southeast ridge of Mount Taylor. There are several water supply reservoirs on the hill behind the suburbs. Following the Australia Day 1971 flood, a floodway was constructed at the base of the mountain above the boundary line to protect properties in Pearce and Torrens from flood waters. During the late 1960s and early 1970s while the original fences remained in place the former land holder in the Woden area prior to development was allowed to graze his sheep on part of the mountain. This practice ended when the mountain reserve became part of Canberra Nature Park.</p><br>
<p>Holy Ghost Catholic Church is a Catholic parish located within the city of Dubuque, Iowa, United States. It is part of the Archdiocese of Dubuque. The church, school, rectory, and convent were listed together as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The parish was formed in 1896 in response to a population explosion in the northern parts of Dubuque. Sacred Heart Church had been established in 1879, and a new large church capable of seating 1,100 was built in 1888. But within a few years church officials realized that even with a new building that Sacred Heart wasn&#39;t able to keep up with the growing population. In response Holy Ghost parish was formed.</p><br>
<p>A combination church and school structure was built at the 2900th block of what today is known as Central Avenue. Within a few years a large church building designed by Guido Beck was built just to the north of the old building.</p><br>
<p>In July 2001, Wahlert High School and all Dubuque Catholic Elementary Schools and the Catholic Early Childhood Centers, joined to become a system called Holy Family Catholic Schools. This resulted in the consolidation of and closure of several long time schools, including Holy Trinity, Nativity, Sacred Heart, St. Joseph Key West, St. Joseph The Worker, St. Marys, and St. Patricks.</p><br>
<p>Besides Holy Ghost, the other remaining elementary schools are Resurrection Elementary School, St. Anthony Elementary School, and St. Columbkille Elementary School.</p><br>
<p>Mount Cavendish is located in the Port Hills, with views over Christchurch, New Zealand and Lyttelton. It is part of the crater wall of the extinct volcano that formed Lyttelton Harbour. The Mount Cavendish Reserve displays some of the best examples of lava flow to be seen on the Port Hills.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Mount Cavendish was first transferred to the Crown for a Scenic Reserve in 1910, by the Morten Brothers. The mountain was first named Hill Morten in 1912 by Harry Ell, in recognition of the Morten family&#39;s gifts of land for the Summit Road and scenic reserves.</p><br>
<p>The name Mount Cavendish was first given to nearby Mount Pleasant (after which a suburb is now named) in 1848, but did not stick and the peak of Hill Morten was named Mount Cavendish after the Hon. Richard Cavendish of the Canterbury Association.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>It is 448 metres (1,470 feet) high and falls within the Mount Cavendish Scenic Reserve, which sits at the top of the Heathcote Valley, close to the northern entrance to the Lyttelton Road Tunnel.</p><br>
<p>Mount Cavendish is located approximately 10 km from Dyers Pass, and 4.7 km from Evans Pass via the Summit Road. On foot, it can be accessed via the Crater Rim Walkway or the Bridle Path (which connects Heathcote Valley and Lyttelton). Access is also via the Christchurch Gondola, which has its lower terminal located on Bridle Path Road, in Heathcote Valley. The gondola opened on 24 November 1992.</p><br>
<p>It was closed following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, not reopening until March 2013.</p><br>
<p>The California State Indian Museum is a museum in the state park system of California, United States, interpreting the diverse cultures of the indigenous peoples of California. It is located in midtown Sacramento. Just off of K street. The museum exhibits traditional items illustrating the varying cultures of the state&#39;s first inhabitants.</p><br>
<p>The native population of California, one of the largest and most diverse in the Western hemisphere, was made up of over 150 distinct tribal groups who spoke at least 64 different languages. Prior to the arrival of the first European explorers, the native population is estimated to have been in excess of 500,000 people.</p><br>
<h2>General information</h2><br>
<p>The State Indian Museum, opened in 1940, is located at 2618 K Street Sacramento, near the intersection of 26th and K Streets. Current exhibits depict three major themes of California Indian life: Nature, Spirit, and Family. Native peoples lived prosperously for thousands of years in what is now California. All of the exhibits and photographs on display in the museum are presented with respect for those who went before us on this land and continue to live in California communities today.</p><br>
<p>California Indian cultural items in the museum include traditional baskets (along with some of the smallest in the world), a redwood dugout canoe, ceremonial regalia, beadwork, and hunting & fishing tools—some of which are more than twenty-four hundred years old. There is also an exhibit depicting the life of Ishi, reputedly the last survivor of the Yahi tribe, illustrating how Native culture was powerfully impacted and forever changed when outsiders arrived.</p><br>
<p>Many Native people have donated photographs of family and friends for viewing in the museum. There is also a wall of photographs devoted to honoring California Elders, and a hands-on area where visitors have the opportunity to utilize Indian tools like the pump drill, used for making holes in shell beads, and the mortar & pestle, used for grinding acorns.</p><br>
<h2>Events</h2><br>
<p>All events are held at the State Indian Museum, unless otherwise noted.</p><br>
<p>Gathering of Honored Elders ~ June: This annual event is held to commemorate the contributions of Native Elders.</p><br>
<p>NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH - each November</p><br>
<p>Events are held each Saturday:</p><br>
<p>California Indian Basketweaving Demonstrations, Native Literature Showcase, Continuing Culture Workshops, Native Film Festival, and Indian Arts & Crafts Holiday Fair. Call the museum for information.</p><br>
<p>The San Francisco Mint is a branch of the United States Mint and was opened in 1854 to serve the gold mines of the California Gold Rush. It quickly outgrew its first building and moved into a new one in 1874. This building, the Old United States Mint, also known affectionately as The Granite Lady, is one of the few that survived the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake. It served until 1937, when the present facility was opened.</p><br>
<p>__TOC__</p><br>
<h2>Old Mint</h2><br>
<p>Within the first year of its operation, the San Francisco mint turned $4 million in gold bullion into coins. The second building, completed in 1874, was designed by Alfred B. Mullett in a conservative Greek Revival style with a sober Doric order. The building had a central pedimented portico flanked by projecting wings in an E-shape; it was built around a completely enclosed central courtyard that contained a well&mdash;the features that saved it during the fire of 1906, when the heat melted the plate glass windows and exploded sandstone and granite blocks with which it was faced. The building sat on a concrete and granite foundation, designed to thwart tunneling into its vaults, which at the time of the 1906 fire held $300 million, fully a third of the United States gold reserves. Heroic efforts by Superintendent of the Mint, Frank A. Leach, and his men preserved the building and the bullion that then backed the nations currency. The mint resumed operation soon thereafter, continuing until 1937.</p><br>
<p>In 1961 the Old Mint, as it had become known, was designated a National Historic Landmark. It also became a California Historical Landmark in 1974.</p><br>
<p>The given name of "The Granite Lady" is somewhat of a misnomer as most of the building is made from sandstone. While the base/basement of the building is made of granite, the entire external and upper stories are made of sandstone. The Granite Lady was a marketing term given in the 1970s that stuck.</p><br>
<p>The Old Mint was open to visitors until 1993. In 2003 the federal government sold the structure to the City of San Francisco for one dollar&mdash;an 1879 silver dollar struck at the mint&mdash; for use as a historical museum to be called the San Francisco Museum at the Mint.</p><br>
<p>In the fall of 2005, ground was broken for renovations that would turn the central court into a glass-enclosed galleria. In 2006 Congress created the San Francisco Old Mint Commemorative Coin, the first coin to honor a United States mint. The first phase of renovations were completed in 2011.</p><br>
<p>In 2014, the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society began raising money for the second phase, which would have included permanent exhibitions. In 2015, the City of San Francisco looked for a new tenant to renovate and program the space with Activate San Francisco Events being selected as an interim tenant. As the City&#39;s 2016 public re-opening event, continuing the tradition of a similar event from past years, on the first weekend in March, the Old Mint hosted a "San Francisco History Days" event with over sixty participating historic organizations. Until a new tenant is found, the Old Mint will continue to be used for special events, some open to the public. In April 2016, the California Historical Society agreed to undertake the restoration of the building and its preservation as a public space.</p><br>
<h2>New Mint</h2><br>
<p>The new Mint was opened in 1937. Beginning in 1955, circulating coinage from San Francisco was suspended for 13 years. In 1968, it took over most proof coinage production from the Philadelphia Mint, but continued striking a supplemental circulating coinage from 1968 through 1974. From 1975 to 2012, the San Francisco Mint has been used only for proof coinage, with the exception of the Susan B. Anthony dollar from 1979–81 and a portion of the mintage of cents in the early 1980s. The dollars bear a mintmark of an "S", but the cents are otherwise indistinguishable from those minted at Philadelphia (which bear no mintmarks, unlike those years&#39; proof cents from San Francisco and circulation cents from Denver). In 2012, the San Francisco mint started to mint circulation strike quarters in the America the Beautiful quarter series, marked with an "S" mintmark and only issued for collectors.</p><br>
<p>From 1962 to 1988, the San Francisco Mint was officially an assay office; the San Francisco Assay Office was granted mint status again on March 31, 1988. The San Francisco Mint is located at 155 Hermann Street, but only admits visitors on rare exception. On May 15, 1987, a limited number of people were allowed to tour the facility. This tour was advertised in the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper, with a phone number to call to reserve a spot.</p><br>
<h2>Commemoratives</h2><br>
<h3>San Francisco Old Mint Gold</h3><br>
<p>In 2006, the United States Mint released a gold five dollar commemorative coin which commemorates the 100th year after the old San Francisco mint survived an earthquake.</p><br>
<p>The mint also played a part in the city&#39;s recovery after the earthquake, providing shelter for many as it was one of the few buildings left standing.</p><br>
<p>The coin was minted as both a proof coin and an uncirculated coin, and is no longer available directly from the United States Mint. On June 15, 2006 President George W. Bush signed Public Law 109-230, legislation authorizing the production of the 2006 San Francisco $5 commemorative gold coin as well as its $1 silver counterpart. The production of the $5 denomination was limited to a maximum mintage of 100,000 coins, but separate mintage figures for each of the proof and uncirculated coins have not yet been released. The $1 silver version was limited to only 500,000 coins, both in proof and uncirculated products, but distinct mintage figures for both products has not been officially stated.</p><br>
<p>The obverse was designed by Christian Gobrecht and sculpted by Joseph Menna.</p><br>
<p>Features</p><br>
<p>Coin Finishes: proof, and uncirculated</p><br>
<p>Maximum Mintage: 100,000 - The final mintages were 16,938 uncirculated, and 47,275 proof.</p><br>
<p>United States Mint Facility: San Francisco (S)</p><br>
<p>Public Law: 109-230</p><br>
<h3>San Francisco Old Mint Silver</h3><br>
<p>In 2006, the United States Mint released a silver dollar commemorative coin which commemorates the 100th anniversary of the survival of the old San Francisco mint in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.</p><br>
<p>The mint also played a part in the city&#39;s recovery after the earthquake.</p><br>
<p>The coin was sold as both as a proof coin and an uncirculated coin, with a maximum coinage of 500,000 coins.</p><br>
<p>Features</p><br>
<p>This coin has a design of the old San Francisco mint on the obverse and a replica of the 1904 eagle design of Morgan silver dollars on the reverse.</p><br>
<p>Coin Finishes: proof, and uncirculated</p><br>
<p>Maximum Mintage: 500,000 (at the time)</p><br>
<p>United States Mint Facility: San Francisco (s)</p><br>
<p>Public Law: 109-230</p><br>
<p>Raung  is one of the most active volcanoes on the island of Java in Indonesia.</p><br>
<p>It is located in the province of East Java and has a 2 km and 500 m caldera surrounded by a grayish rim. The difference in color of the rim and the flanks of the volcanoes is caused by the rim’s lack of vegetation compared with the healthy and extensive vegetation on the flanks. Raung, standing almost 3,332 metres (10,932 ft) above sea level, is the tallest volcano of this cluster. Although the valleys between the major volcanoes boast fertile, ash-enriched soil for agriculture, available land is very limited. Raung contains centres constructed along a NE to SW line, with Gunung Suket and Gunung Gadung stratovolcanoes being located to the northeast and west, respectively.</p><br>
<p>Mount Raung can be seen from Lovina Beach, Singaraja, North Bali. The normal route climbing is through Bondowoso and Sumber Wringin.</p><br>
<p>Its earliest recorded eruption was in 1586 which resulted in fatalities; between 1586 and 1817 five more deadly eruptions were recorded.</p><br>
<h2>2015 Eruption</h2><br>
<p>The volcano started to display increased activity on 24 June 2015, and on 29 June 2015 began to eject material causing a dust cloud that resulted in warnings being issued to residents within a 3 km radius of the caldera, and causing disruption to flights in and out of nearby Bali.</p><br>
<p>According to Landsat images in early July 2015, there is a new lava pool on the mountain, giving the volcano two lava pools, including an older pool. This will likely delay the full eruption of the volcano for a short while. Currently the caldera is still sufficient to keep the lava inside.</p><br>
<p>From July 9, 2015, several airports throughout Indonesia—including on the popular holiday island of Bali and in Surabaya during Idul Fitri—were closed due to the ash being produced by the eruptions. The explosive ash emissions stopped during the afternoon of 14 August. It appears likely that the eruption has more or less come to an end.</p><br>
<p>Mount Raung Wikipedia.jpgRaung, September 2005</p><br>
<p>The Chandeleur Islands  are a chain of uninhabited barrier islands approximately 50 mi long, located in the Gulf of Mexico, marking the outer boundary of the Chandeleur Sound. They form the easternmost point of the state of Louisiana, United States and are a part of the Breton National Wildlife Refuge. They are an important migrating point for many birds on their way south, and are a prime marsh and forest wildlife area.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The islands were formed over two thousand years ago as the rim of the St. Bernard Lobe of the Mississippi River delta.</p><br>
<p>The islands were named when explorer, Pierre Le Moyne d&#39;Iberville, was sailing in search of the mouth of the Mississippi River along the Gulf Coast. He christened the islands on the eve of Fête de la Chandeleur—also known as Candlemas, a Christian feast day—on February 1, 1700.</p><br>
<p>The Breton National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1904 and includes all of the Chandeleur Islands in the Gulf of Mexico. The refuge is the second-oldest in the National Wildlife Refuge System.</p><br>
<p>Prior to destruction by a hurricane in 1915 there was a fishing settlement on the islands, and even earlier there had been farming on the islands. The Chandeleur Island Light, built in 1895, stood as a landmark and recognizable location for mariners at sea and pilots flying over the Gulf of Mexico. The islands were constantly eroded and changed by wave action, and most dramatically after the storm surges following hurricanes.</p><br>
<p>The islands have been generally shrinking and migrating landward since the late 19th century. A survey in the 1980s estimated that they would be in existence for about three more centuries. Before 1996, the seaward front of the islands lost about 20–30 feet of land each year, mostly replaced at the rear. From 1996 to 2004, the loss rate grew to about 300 ft per year. In 1998, Hurricane Georges destroyed the islands and left the lighthouse in the middle of the ocean, and the barrier islands only just recovered when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.</p><br>
<p>However, the combined effect of Hurricane Dennis and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 reduced the island to shoals or sub-surface formations, and toppled the Chandeleur Island Light. Powerful storms can produce changes that would otherwise have taken many years. A study released in 2006 by geologists from the University of New Orleans shows that the usual sand and sediment patterns that rebuilt the islands after big storms have not been restored since Katrina reworked the area. There is also evidence of unprecedented landslides on the seafloor on the side toward the Gulf of Mexico, potentially allowing stronger waves with greater erosional impact to reach the islands. Numerical models developed by other marine geologists indicate the islands could be mostly submerged within decades due to sea level rise, isolation from Mississippi River delta sediment, mud foundations, sediment transport issues, and damaging storms.</p><br>
<p>Llyn Brenig is a reservoir located in Wales, in the heart of the Denbigh Moors, at a height of 1200 feet, on the border between the counties of Conwy and Denbighshire. It is used to manage the flow in the River Dee as part of the River Dee regulation system which is designed to protect the water supply for North West England and north-east Wales, particularly Liverpool and its surrounding area.</p><br>
<h2>Construction and operation</h2><br>
<p>Construction began in 1973 and was completed in 1976. It has a capacity of 60 million m³ and was first filled in 1979. With a surface area of around 920 acre, it is the fourth largest lake in Wales, behind Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), Llyn Trawsfynydd and Lake Vyrnwy. The lake has a perimeter of some 9 mi.</p><br>
<p>The catchment of the reservoir is very significantly over-reservoired. This means that the reservoir cannot fill from its own catchment within one annual hydrological cycle. When the reservoir level is drawn down, it can take several years for it to completely re-fill again. Llyn Brenig is therefore only used during drought conditions when the capacity of Llyn Celyn and Llyn Tegid are no longer predicted to be capable of maintaining the flow in the River Dee.</p><br>
<h2>Archaeology</h2><br>
<p>During construction of the lake, a number of Bronze Age artifacts were found, as was a camp used by Mesolithic hunter/gatherers. This has been dated by radiocarbon analysis of the charcoal from their fires to around 5700 BC. There are a number of archaeological trails around Llyn Brenig; the relics visible include a ring cairn (a Bronze Age burial mound), and several barrows.</p><br>
<p>A visitor centre to the south of the lake displays a lot of archaeological information about the area.</p><br>
<h2>Watersports</h2><br>
<p>A number of watersports take place on the lake, including sailing, fishing, and canoeing. The only power craft allowed on the lake are those used by fishermen, Rangers&#39; patrol boats and sailing club safety craft. In 1990 it was selected as the only Welsh reservoir used for the World Fly Fishing Championships.</p><br>
<p>Gonâve Island  is an island of Haiti located west-northwest of Port-au-Prince in the Gulf of Gonâve. It is the largest of the Hispaniolan satellite islands. The island is an arrondissement  in the Ouest and includes the communes of Anse-à-Galets and Pointe-à-Raquette. The indigenous Taínos called the island Guanabo.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Made up of mostly limestone, the reef-fringed island of Gonâve is 60 km long and 15 km wide and covers an area of 743 km&sup2;. The island is mostly barren and hilly with the highest point reaching 778 m. The island receives between 800 mm to 1,600 mm of rain a year, higher elevations representing the latter figure.</p><br>
<p>The barren, dry nature of the soil has long prevented agricultural development on the island and kept the population lower than it otherwise might have been. During the colonial period, the island was uninhabited by colonists, which led the indigenous Taínos to seek refuge there after early battles with the Spanish. Runaway slaves in the French period, too, sometimes sought out the island for a place to hide from their owners on the mainland. Overgrazing and over-exploitation of water resources affect the island&#39;s current residents.</p><br>
<h2>Administrative Division</h2><br>
<p>La Gonâve arrondissement is divided into two communes: Anse-à-Galets and Pointe-à-Raquette. These are further subdivided into eleven sections and two towns (villes). The towns are Anse-à-Galets and Pointe-à-Raquette, named after their respective communes. Anse-à-Galets is the largest settlement on the island with an estimated 2015 population of 52,662 of the island&#39;s total population of 87,077.</p><br>
<h2>Water scarcity</h2><br>
<p>In 2005, following a particularly drastic drought, the Mayor of Anse-à-Galets formed the Water Platform, composed of service groups working on the island. Current participants include the Mayors of Anse-à-Galets and Pointes a Racquette, the Deputy, Justice of the Peace, World Vision, Concern WorldWide, Sevis Kretyen, the Alleghany Weslyen Church, the Methodist Church, and many others. The Water Platform acts as a focal point for activities on the island, providing a coordination point for the multitude of groups working on La Gonâve.</p><br>
<h3>Assistance efforts</h3><br>
<p>The members of the Water Platform have been working to address the water needs of the island by capping springs, building rainwater catchment cisterns, building water systems and drilling wells. Dozens of rainwater catchment cisterns and wells have been drilled on the island as an effort to bring water relief to the residents of the island.</p><br>
<p>2002 - 2004 Funded construction of a school providing first through sixth grade education and construction of a medical clinic providing free medical, dental and vision services for Haitians</p><br>
<p>In 2010 Coordinated relief efforts after the January 12th earthquake. $250,000 was raised for this relief project. Medical supplies, building supplies, 150 tons of rice and beans and a backhoe were purchased. Aid was shipped to La Gonâve via a leased vessel and delivered directly to La Gonâve in early March 2010. The aid shipment fed 50,000 people for one month.</p><br>
<p>there are over 70 water wells fully functional on the island</p><br>
<p>The drilling of more wells on the island has been planned for the near future.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>In 1926, USA Marine Corps Sergeant Faustin E. Wirkus (1897-1948) was proclaimed by the residents of the island as King Faustin II. His "reign" lasted until 1929, when he returned to the United States.</p><br>
<p>In the mid-1980s, British singer Cliff Richard recorded a song La Gonave for relief aid for the people of the island.</p><br>
<p>The docks of the island were damaged by the 2010 Haiti earthquake of 12 January 2010. In the wake of the damage, supplies have been airlifted in to the 1,800-foot dirt strip.</p><br>
<h3>"Fierté gonavienne" Disaster</h3><br>
<p>On September 8, 1997, a ferry from La Gonâve to the Montrouis on the Haitian mainland sank with hundreds of passengers aboard. It is considered the worst disaster in Haitian maritime history since the "Neptune" accident in 1993.</p><br>
<h2>Sports teams</h2><br>
<p>Roulado - professional football club</p><br>
<h2>Media</h2><br>
<p>Radio Zetwa 96.1 Fm PDG: Stevens Desrosier</p><br>
<h2>Notable natives and residents</h2><br>
<p>Faustin E. Wirkus - King of La Gonâve (Faustin II)</p><br>
<p>Queen Timemenne of La Gonâve</p><br>
<p>Poole Bay is a bay in the English Channel, on the coast of Dorset in southern England, which stretches 16km from Sandbanks at the mouth of Poole Harbour in the west, to Hengistbury Head in the east. Poole Bay is a relatively shallow embayment and consists of steep sandstone cliffs and several &#39;chines&#39; that allow easy access to the sandy beaches below. The coast along the bay is continuously built up, and is part of the South East Dorset conurbation, including parts of the towns of Poole, Bournemouth and Christchurch. The bay is often erroneously referred to as Bournemouth Bay, because much of it is occupied by Bournemouth.</p><br>
<p>Measures to prevent coastal erosion have been deployed throughout the 20th century. Concrete seawalls and groynes allowed the construction of homes and roads on the clifftops, but prevented natural supply of sand and gravel to the shore. From 1970 to 2000 over 1.5 million m³ of sand was used to replenish the beaches at Bournemouth and Poole. Many of the beaches along Poole Bay were replenished during the winters of 2005 and 2006 with 1.1 million m³ of sand dredged from Poole Harbour and 700,000 m³ of sand dredged from a Licensed Area off the Isle of Wight. In 2015 a 17-year £43.7million project was approved to protect the beaches from further erosion over the next century. The plans involve replacing the groynes and adding new ones and replenishing the beaches with 210,000 cubic metres of sand and gravel every three years.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>The area of Poole Bay was predominantly created during the Pleistocene period, when the Solent river ran across the whole of South East Dorset and West Hampshire, out past the Isle of Wight The solid geology of the cliffs, and the seabed beneath Poole Bay, is composed of rocks of the Tertiary Bracklesham Group, consisting of a sequence of fine, medium and coarse sands. At Hengistbury Head there are younger rocks of the Bartonian group, forming an outlier. The Barton Clay here is made up of a series of sands and interbedded clays, with four distinct bands of ironstone nodules. These formations dip eastwards and are cut out by a north-west to south-east trending fault. This defines the eastwards boundary of Christchurch Ledge, which is a seawards continuation of the resistant ironstone strata exposed in Hengistbury Head.</p><br>
<p>Mitchelstown Castle, the former home of the Irish Earls of Kingston, was located in the north County Cork town of Mitchelstown in Ireland.</p><br>
<h2>15th to 18th century</h2><br>
<p>White Knights, Dark Earls is to date the most extensive published account of Mitchelstown Castle, which was the biggest neo-Gothic house in Ireland. A castle was first built at Mitchelstown in the 15th century by the White Knights of Mitchelstown, from whom, through marriage, it passed to the King family, Barons and Earls of Kingston. James, 4th Baron Kingston, extensively refurbished and modernised the castle in the 1730s. After his death in 1761, the castle passed to his granddaughter, Caroline Fitzgerald. She married her cousin Robert King, Viscount Kingsborough, who was, from 1797, the 2nd Earl of Kingston. The Kingsboroughs demolished most of the old Mitchelstown Castle in the 1770s and incorporated what remained into a new Palladian mansion, described as a house with wings.</p><br>
<h2>19th century</h2><br>
<p>In 1823, after his succession, their son, George, 3rd Earl of Kingston, demolished the Palladian house and replaced it with a new castle designed by James and George Richard Pain. It had 60 principal and 20 minor bedrooms, a 100 ft gallery, three libraries, morning room, dining room (which could seat 100 guests at one sitting) and various other facilities.</p><br>
<p>Mitchelstown Castle was the biggest neo-Gothic house in Ireland, cost £100,000 to build and became the fashion statement of its time. It inspired other major Irish castles, such as Strancally Castle (County Waterford) and Dromoland Castle for Lord Inchiquin.</p><br>
<p>The 100,000-acre Mitchelstown estate ran into considerable financial difficulties, which, after the Great Famine of 1845–51, forced its owners to sell 70,000 acre in the Landed Estates Court. Further difficulties arose as a result of internal family squabbling, legal disputes and the Land War of the 1880s, in which the estate played a prominent part.</p><br>
<h2>20th century</h2><br>
<p>In June 1922, the castle was forcibly occupied by the Irish Republican Army. Then owner, William Downes Webber (second husband of Anna, Dowager Countess of Kingston), his relatives and servants were evicted to houses in nearby King Square. Over the next few weeks the castle was held by republicans, who appeared to be preparing it for some kind of siege. However, in early August, the contents of the building were stolen by some republicans, including paintings by Thomas Gainsborough and William Beechey, as well as silver, furniture, wall hangings, and mantlepieces.</p><br>
<p>On 12 August 1922, Mitchelstown Castle was burned on the orders of a local republican leader, whose father and grandfather had been middlemen on the Kingston estate. At the same time, the military barracks at Fermoy, Mallow, Mitchelstown and Kilworth were burned, as well as the military hospital in Fermoy, Mitchelstown workhouse, Mitchelstown RIC barracks and the railway viaduct in Mallow.</p><br>
<p>Afterwards, William Downes Webber sought compensation from the Irish Free State totalling £149,000 for rebuilding and £18,000 for contents. He intended to rebuild if sufficient compensation was provided. After his death in 1924, Colonel W.A. King-Harman pursued the claim in the Irish courts. Judge Kenny, in the Irish High Court in 1926, stated that the destruction of Mitchelstown Castle had been an act of wanton destruction which had no military purpose. He awarded £27,500 for the building and the entire £18,000 requested for the contents. Most of this was used to build replacement properties in Dublin as King-Harman decided that the award was too small a sum to rebuild the castle.</p><br>
<p>The stones of Mitchelstown Castle were subsequently sold to the Cistercian monks of Mount Melleray Abbey, County Waterford, who used them to build a new abbey.</p><br>
<p>In the 1940s, Mitchelstown Co-operative Agricultural Society built a milk processing factory on the site of the castle, which it had purchased together with some of the demesne lands that surrounded it. The site is now owned by Dairygold Co-op. The coats of arms of Mitchelstown Castle are now held by a local writer and will be erected in Mitchelstown&#39;s new public library, which will also have a special section devoted to local history and especially Mitchelstown Castle and its owners.</p><br>
<h2>People</h2><br>
<p>The proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft was governess there to the children of the household, including Margaret King, later Countess Mount Cashell, to whom Percy Bysshe Shelley dedicated his poem, A Sensitive Plant.</p><br>
<p>Other notable members of the King family included Viscount Kingsborough, author of Antiquities of Mexico.</p><br>
<p>Famous guests at Mitchelstown Castle included George Bernard Shaw, Arthur Young, Elizabeth Bowen and Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau.</p><br>
<p>Gauḍa, Gaur, or Gour, also known as Lakhnauti, is a ruined city on the Indo-Bangla border, most of the former citadel is located in present-day the Malda district of West Bengal, India, while a smaller part is located in Nawabganj District of Bangladesh. This city was on the east bank of the Ganges river, 40 km downstream from Rajmahal, 12 km south of Malda. Howeverver, the current course of the Ganges is far away from the ruins.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Lakshmanavati or Lakhnauti gathered prominence during the Sena dynasty, with the name of the city, often attributed to the Sena king Lakshman Sena. Prior to the accession of the Sena dynasty, Gauda region was under the control of the Pala dynasty and, in all probability, Karnasuvarna, the capital of Shashanka, served as the administrative headquarter. For example, the Khalimpur copperplate inscription of Dharmapal, refers to the monarch as Gaudeshwar (lord of Gauda). It is possible that, the Sena dynasty, that supplanted the Pala dynasty in Bengal proper (and to Gauda region) felt the need for a new administrative capital, to reduce the Pala influence. It is possible that the process might have been started by Vijay or Ballal Sena – but given the final shape by Lakshmana Sena. In fact Lakshmanasena had the administrative capital at Lakhnauti while a lesser capital (more likely a retreat in his later days) at Nadia. It was in the later capital, possibly less defended, that he was surprised by Ikhtiyar-ud-din Mohammad ibn Bakhtiyar Khalji.</p><br>
<p>The area was known as Gauḍa (ablate of Sankrit guḍa, meaning sweet or molasses or root) at the time was under the rule of famous Bengali kings such as Shashanka. In the 7th century Gopala by a democratic election in Gauḍa became the first independent Buddhist king of Bengal and founded the Pala Empire. The Pala dynasty ruled for nearly four centuries between the mid to late 8th century to 12th century CE. The Palas were often described by opponents as the Lords of Gauḍa. It was also a prosperous city during the Sena dynastys rule in Bengal. However, its most well documented history begins with its conquest in 1198 by the Muslims, who retained it as the chief seat of their power in Bengal for more than three centuries. Around the year 1350, the Sultans of Bengal established their independence, and transferred their seat of government to Pandua (q.v.), also in Malda district. To build their new capital, they plundered Gauḍa of every monument that could be removed. When Pandua was in its turn deserted (1453), Gauḍa once more became the capital under the name Jannatabad; it remained so as long as the Muslim kings retained their independence. In 1565 Sulaiman Khan Karrani, a Pashtun ruler, abandoned it for Tanda, a place somewhat nearer the Ganges. Gauḍa was sacked by Sher Shah in 1539, and was occupied by Akbars general Munim Khan in 1575, when Daud Khan Karrani, the last of the Afghan dynasty, refused to pay homage to the Mughal emperor. This occupation was followed by an outbreak of the plague and course change of the Ganges, which completed the downfall of the city. Since then it has been little better than a heap of ruins, almost overgrown with jungle.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Gauḍa is located at 24&deg;52&prime;N latitude, 88&deg;08&prime;E longitude near the India-Bangladesh international border. It has an average elevation of 22 m. Gauḍa lies in the Eastern bank of the rivers Bhagirathi and Pagla.</p><br>
<h2>Historical measurements and statistics</h2><br>
<p>The city in its prime measured 7 1/8 km. from north to south, with a breadth of 1 to 2 km. With suburbs it covered an area of 20 to 30 km²., and in the 16th century the Portuguese historian Faria y Sousa described it as containing 1,200,000 inhabitants. The ramparts of this walled city (which was surrounded by extensive suburbs) still exist; they were works of vast labour, and were on the average about 40 ft high, and 180 to 200 ft thick at the base. The facing of masonry and the buildings with which they were covered have now disappeared, and the embankments themselves are overgrown with dense jungle. The western side of the city was washed by the Ganges, and within the space enclosed by these embankments and the river stood the city of Gauḍa proper, with the fort containing the palace in its south-west corner. Radiating north, south and east from the city, other embankments are to be traced running through the suburbs and extending in certain directions for 30 or 40 m. Surrounding the palace is an inner embankment of similar construction to that which surrounds the city, and even more overgrown with jungle. A deep moat protects it on the outside. To the north of the outer embankment lies the Sagar Dighi, a great reservoir, 1600 yd. by 800 yd., dating from 1126.</p><br>
<p>The fort or you can say the city was made by Great Gaur Rajputs or Pala Dynasty, great warriors who fought very well. They ruled all the Bengal and present some area of Bangladesh.</p><br>
<p>Fergusson in his History of Eastern Architecture thus describes the general architectural style of Gauḍa:</p><br>
<h2>Notable structures</h2><br>
<p>The Eunuchs&#39; mosque, in the ancient suburb of Firozpur, has fine carving, and is faced with stone fairly well preserved. The Tantipar mosque (1475–1480) has beautiful moulding in brick, and the Lotan mosque of the same period is unique in retaining its glazed tiles. The citadel, of the Muslim period, was strongly fortified with a rampart and entered through a magnificent gateway called the Dakhil Darwaza (1459–1474). At the south-east corner was a palace, surrounded by a wall of brick 66 ft high, of which a part is standing. Near by were the royal tombs. Within the citadel is the Kadam Rasul mosque (1530), which is still used, and close outside is a tall tower called the Firoz Minar (perhaps signifying tower of victory). There are a number of Muslim buildings on the banks of the Sagar Dighi, including, notably, the tomb of the saint Makhdum Shaikh Akhi Siraj (died 1357), and in the neighbourhood is a burning ghat, traditionally the only one allowed to the use of the Hindus by their Muslim conquerors, and still greatly venerated and frequented by them. Many inscriptions of historical importance have been found in the ruins.</p><br>
<h2>Archaeological preservation, restoration and excavation</h2><br>
<p>The monuments of Gour are now looked after by the Archaeological Survey of India. The brick work of several monuments have been restored, though none to its early perfection or completeness. The ASI is also carrying out excavations of a mound about a kilometre from the Chikha building within the Baisgaji Wall where remains of a palace are turning up.</p><br>
<h2>Exhibitions on Gour</h2><br>
<p>A permanent artefact and photographic exhibition highlighting the major monuments of Gour and the restoration work undertaken by the ASI is being held at the Metcalfe Hall, Kolkata. Among the exhibits are also some fine specimens of brick moulding and glazed tiles from Gour.</p><br>
<h2>Transport</h2><br>
<p>Several maxis (a type of small bus), taxis, buses are available from Rathbari More, State Bus Stand, Private Bus Stand (near Atul Market). Gour (station name Gour Malda) can be reached by train from Malda Town and New Farakka.</p><br>
<p>There is an AC tourist bus service available for Gauḍa and rest of the city&#39;s historical sites. The AC tourist bus departs from Malda Tourist Lodge.</p><br>
<p>The Mother Orange Tree is the oldest living orange tree in Northern California. The California Historical Landmark is currently located at 400 Glen Drive in Oroville, California.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Originally planted in Bidwell&#39;s Bar near the Bidwell Bar Bridge, the tree is a Mediterranean sweet orange Citrus × sinensis cultivar. The citrus rootstock was brought from Mazatlán, Mexico on a shipping vessel. The two-year-old orange tree, which was a novelty in Northern California at the time, was purchased in 1856 by Judge Joseph Lewis in the city of Sacramento and planted at the western approach to the bridge.</p><br>
<p>As the years passed and the tree flourished, growing to a height of over 60 feet (18 m), it was a favorite attraction of miners. They would sample its fruit and save seeds to plant in the dooryards of their cabins. On average, it yielded about 600 pounds (273 kg) of oranges that ripened between February and May each year.</p><br>
<h2>Transplanting</h2><br>
<p>The tree has been transplanted twice: once in 1862 to avoid flooding of the Feather River; and a second time in 1964 during the construction of Oroville Dam when it was moved to the California State Park Headquarters in Oroville. James Edward Huse, a crane operator with Bigge construction was chosen to move the Mother Orange in 1964 due to his ancestors involvement in transporting the tree originally.</p><br>
<p>The tree&#39;s survival proved that the citrus industry could thrive in the colder climate of Northern California, encouraging many people to grow oranges in the area around Oroville, although the vast majority produced in the region are of the navel orange variety instead.</p><br>
<h2>Recent events</h2><br>
<p>In 1998, a severe frost struck and the tree stopped bearing fruit for a number of years. As a result of the frost, decay fungus entered the trunk and hollowed it out. To ensure preservation of the tree, propagation experts at the University of California, Riverside successfully cloned the tree in 2003 and three clones were brought to Oroville for planting. The tree has since resumed fruit production.</p><br>
<p>The California Historical Landmark commemorative plaque for the bridge may be found near the tree.</p><br>
<p>Philipsburg Manor House is a historic house in the Upper Mills section of the former sprawling Colonial-era estate known as Philipsburg Manor. Together with a water mill and trading site the house is operated as a non-profit museum by Historic Hudson Valley. It is located on US 9 in the village of Sleepy Hollow, New York.</p><br>
<p>Although an English-deeded tract, it is listed by some sources with the patroonships of New Netherland since it incorporated part of that previously owned by Dutch Jonkheer Adriaen van der Donck.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The manor dates from 1693, when wealthy Province of New York merchant Frederick Philipse was granted a charter for 52,000 acre along the Hudson River by the British Crown. He built a facility at the confluence of the Pocantico and Hudson Rivers as a provisioning depot for the family Atlantic sea trade and as headquarters for a worldwide shipping operation. For more than thirty years, Frederick and his wife Margaret, and later his son Adolph shipped hundreds of African men, women, and children as slaves across the Atlantic.</p><br>
<p>By the mid 18th century, the Philipse family had one of the largest slave-holdings in the colonial North. The family seat of Philipsburg Manor was Philipse Manor Hall in Yonkers</p><br>
<p>The manor was tenanted by farmers of various European backgrounds, and operated by enslaved Africans. (In 1750, twenty-three enslaved men, women, and children lived and worked at the manor.)</p><br>
<p>At the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, the Philipses supported the British, and their landholdings were seized and auctioned off. The manor house was used during the war, most notably by British General Sir Henry Clinton during military activities in 1779. It was there that he wrote what is now known as the Philipsburg Proclamation, which declared all Patriot-owned slaves to be free, and that blacks taken prisoner while serving in Patriot forces would be sold into slavery.</p><br>
<p>Named a National Historic Landmark in 1961, the farm features a stone manor house filled with a collection of 17th- and 18th-century period furnishings, a working water-powered grist mill and millpond, an 18th-century barn, a slave garden, and a reconstructed tenant farm house. Costumed interpreters re-enact life in pre-Revolutionary times, doing chores, milking the cows, and grinding grain in the grist mill.</p><br>
<p>Agia Efthymia  is a village in the regional unit of Phocis, Greece. It is part of the municipality of Delphi, located on the foothill of Mount Giona, in the district of Parnassida in Central Greece.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Classical antiquity</h3><br>
<p>The history of Agia Efthymia can be traced back to ancient Greece, when the town was named Myonia and/or Myania. Myonia is attested by classical sources as a polis, thus it must have been a political community, one of the principal of the ancient Greek tribe of Locrians, in the region of Ozolian Locris. Ruins of the ancient defence town walls have been preserved up to now, in and around the village, as well as remains of an ancient cemetery. In 338 BC, Myonia was sacked by Philip II of Macedon along with Amfissa, because Ozolian Locrians had illegally cultivated part of the Crissaean plain which belonged to Delphi. A treaty between Myonia and Hypnia has been published, as well as a decree of Delphi in honor of a citizen of Myonia, both dating from the 2nd century BC.</p><br>
<p>The Myonians are also mentioned by Thucydides in his work History of the Peloponnesian War. Eurylochus, the Spartan general, had to pass through the land of the Ozolian Locrians on his road to Naupactus. For this reason and because he also wanted to detach the Amfissians from Athens, Eurylochus sent a herald to Amfissa as long as he had arrived at Delphi. The Amfissians, who were alarmed at the hostility of the Phocians, gave hostages to him and induced the other Locrian cities to do the same; the first of them were their neighbours, the Myonians, who held the most difficult of the passes.</p><br>
<p>Pausanias, in his work Description of Greece, refers to Myonia as a town farther inland from Amfissa and above it, thirty stades away. The town was lying upon a hill, and it had a grove and an altar sacred to the gods called Meilichioi, the sacrifices to whom were offered at night and the rule was to consume the meat on the spot before sunrise. Beyond the city, there was a precinct of Poseidon, called Poseidonium, with a temple of the god in it, but the statue had disappeared before the author&#39;s time. In another book of the same work, Pausanias mentions that there was a bronze-plated shield in the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, adorned with paintings on the inner side, and along with the shield there were a helmet and greaves. An inscription on the armour said that they were "dedicated by the Myanians as first fruits to Zeus". He concludes that the Myanians were the same folk as the Myonians of the Locrian mainland, as he remembered the reference to the latter by Thucydides, and says that the letters on the shield were a little distorted, a fault due to the antiquity of the votive offering.</p><br>
<p>There had been some confusion during the 19th and early 20th century in identifying the original location of ancient Myonia, mainly due to Pausanias&#39; description of the location of the ancient town. Nevertheless, several historians and specialists on the geography of ancient Greece have identified Myonia with the modern village of Agia Efthymia, so there is no doubt about it anymore. Louis Robert, in his work Études épigraphiques et philologiques, places Myonia at Agia Efthymia, as well as The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, Alfred Philippson, and the editors of Inscriptiones Graecae, Günther Klaffenbach and Johannes Kirchner. William Martin Leake arrives at the same conclusion and locates Myonia at Agia Efthymia on the road from Salona to Galaxidi, contradicting William Smith, who locates it on the road from Amfissa to Gravia in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography.</p><br>
<h3>Ottoman era</h3><br>
<p>During the Ottoman occupation of Greece, Agia Efthymia held a leading role in the region of Parnassida and had one of the only three schools in Phocis, established by the teacher and monk Nikodimos Kavassilas, who was born in Agia Efthymia in 1595. He became principal of the School of Varnakova in 1648 until his death in May 1652, leaving interesting spiritual writings.</p><br>
<p>The disobedient character and resistance of the local people against the Ottoman Empire were strong and admirable. Agia Efthymia was a center of armatoloi. Around 1705 the leader was Katsonis, uncle of the hero Lambros Katsonis, who was nicknamed "Vrykolakas" meaning vampire, because until his death in 1740, he was so much feared by the Ottoman Turks that they left the whole territory to his jurisdiction in order to free themselves from him. The famous Greek writer Andreas Karkavitsas had dedicated to Vrykolakas a whole story called The Exarch.</p><br>
<p>Until 1821 and the Greek War of Independence, eleven massive attempts for independence took place on the Greek side, one of them headed by the Bishop of Salona, Philotheos Charitopoulos, who was born in Agia Efthymia. He, together with captain Kourmas, formed an alliance with Venetian army and navy, trying to overthrow the Ottoman domination when he was killed in the battlefield.</p><br>
<p>The man who took charge after Charitopoulos&#39; death was his son-in-law, Kostas Zacharias, nicknamed "Konstantaras". His achievements were sung in popular folk songs. The poet Kostas Krystallis wrote the story Captain Konstantaras, in which he referred to the fact that Konstantaras killed his only left son - his other two sons had been killed by the Ottomans - with his own hands because he dishonored his family while he had been living on the island of Agios Konstantinos, opposite of Itea, where he had been sent to attend the local school. Konstantaras died in 1755 and his jurisdiction was shared to his three - second in command - men.</p><br>
<p>The tradition of the local fighters was continued by the famous fighter Astrapogiannos, who was also born in Agia Efthymia and his real name was Giannos Zacharis. Astrapogiannos was praised by popular folk songs too and the poet Aristotelis Valaoritis was inspired by Astrapogiannos&#39; last moments after he was wounded. He wrote the poem Astrapogiannos in 1867, in which he praises the friendship between Astrapogiannos and his lieutenant, Lambetis. There was also a popular Greek film produced in 1970, titled O Astrapogiannos, dedicated to the fighter.</p><br>
<p>Other revolutionaries from Agia Efthymia who are popular in the local folk tradition are Arapogiorgos, the guerilla chief during 1750–1760, Mitros Dedousis around 1770, Georgios and Giannis Karaplis by the end of the 18th century. During the Greek War of Independence, several fighters from the village were distinguished, taking part in some of the most important battles like the battle of Gravia, the battle of Vassilika and the battle of Alamana. Among them Ioannis Kalpouzos and his son Anagnostis Kalpouzos, with the latter being killed during the battle in the region of Alamana, where he fought along with Athanasios Diakos, which made the first king of Greece Otto honor Kalpouzos family by visiting them in Agia Efthymia.</p><br>
<h3>Modern history</h3><br>
<p>In the history of modern Greece, many Agioefthymiotes are recorded to have taken part in the struggles against foreign powers. During the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 three men were killed in the battlefield, while in the Balkan Wars, thrirteen men from Agia Efthymia lost their lives in the lines, two of which had come from the United States where they had previously migrated. Nine people died during World War I and ten at the Greek campaign to Asia Minor in 1919-1922.</p><br>
<p>During World War II, Agia Efthymia suffered heavily from the Axis Powers as thirty-seven people were directly shot to death by the conquerors while the total loss of people numbered 120 individuals. On April 25, 1941, the village was bombed and its cathedral, dedicated to the "Birth of Theotokos", was damaged. On April 9, 1943, the troops of Fascist Italy burned the largest part of the village, including the church of Agios Efthymios, and in August 1944 the troops of Nazi Germany burned the rest of it. According to official data 365 out of the total 423 houses of the village were totally burnt and 20 partially. The State recognized the sacrifice of the Agioefthymiotes and in 2000 Agia Efthymia was included in the list of "Towns and Villages of Martyrdom" and a monument for the people who died in World War II was erected at the entrance of the village.</p><br>
<h2>Origin of the name</h2><br>
<p>The ancient name of the village was Myonia (Μυωνία, Μυονία), also referred to as Myania (Μυανία), and it was held until 1580, slightly altered to Mynia (Μυνιά). The name is said to come from the word mys (μυς) which means muscle, due to the brawniness of the men in the town.</p><br>
<p>According to the Chronicle of Galaxidi, compiled by a monk named Efthymios in 1702, a huge earthquake in 1580 destroyed several towns in Phocis like Salona (Amfissa), Galaxidi, Lidoriki and Mynia. The desperate residents of the latter left the village and went to the mountain above it crying. There an old man with a long beard appeared and told them to return to their village and not to fear because he would protect them. This old man was believed to be Saint Euthymius and actually he is always portrayed with a long beard. The residents returned to the village, rebuilt their houses and gave the name of the saint to their community, Agia Efthymia. Additionally they built a church dedicated to him.</p><br>
<p>It is interesting that Agia Efthymia is feminine and not the name of the old man. Besides there is no female saint in christianity with this name. The prevalent explanation of why the village was named Agia Efthymia instead of Agios Efthymios, is that the inhabitants might attempt to match the name of their village Mynia, which is feminine, with the feminine name Efthymia. Indeed, nowadays this seems very sensible since the residents call their village Aithymnia which sounds very close to the ancient name Mynia.</p><br>
<h2>Archaeological finds</h2><br>
<p>In the region have been discovered 4th century coins, which depict on the front side a head of Demeter with a peplos and a wreath made of wheat whereas the rear side depicts Apollo seated, holding a branch of laurel and holding a lyre. The inscriptions bear the name of the Amphictyony.</p><br>
<p>In 1928 at the site Kazas were discovered two iron swords within two graves, as well as lances and javelins and a bronze helmet of the 6th century BC, located in the Archaeological Museum of Amphissa. They present affinities with similar objects from Macedonia and northern Greece in general, a fact which may sho the Doric origin of the Locrians and the route followed by the Dorians during their descent to southern Greece.</p><br>
<h2>Modern village</h2><br>
<p>The village is situated on the foothill of Mount Giona, the highest mountain of Southern Greece, on the site that the ancient town existed. It is about 8.5 km SW of the prefecture&#39;s capital, Amfissa, to which it is connected by the recently reconstracted GR-48. Agia Efthymia is also close to some popular destinations of Greek and foreign travellers: the famous archeological site of Delphi, the coastal towns Itea and Galaxidi, Parnassos Ski Center.</p><br>
<p>The residents engages mainly in agriculture, with products like the popular olives of the region, pastoralism, building, while many of them work in the bauxite mines. During the 19th and 20th century, Agia Efthymia was one of the largest villages in Parnassida and the whole of Phocis. Now the population of the village has reduced to 597 residents according to the census of 2001, although the people originating from it who visit and live there during the year, especially in summer, increase the number to more than 1,000. The drift of its population from 1821 to 2001:</p><br>
<h2>Culture</h2><br>
<p>Today there is the "Union of the Athens, Piraeus and Environs Agioefthymiotes", founded in 1957 by descendants of the village&#39;s people who live in Athens, which keeps its society in the Greek capital close to Agia Efthymia and publishes a newspaper which goes to around 1,600 households in and outside of Greece. In 1921 the "Agioefthymiotes Myonia - Mutual Support Society" was established in New York City by the local numerous society of immigrants from Agia Efthymia.</p><br>
<p>Giannis Skarimpas, a popular writer, was born and raised in Agia Efthymia, descended from a well-known local family which had taken part in the Greek War of Independence. Each year the society of the village organizes a series of cultural events called "Skarimpeia", dedicated to the writer. Ioanna Glymi, a professional painter who had taken part in various contests in Paris, also descended from Agia Efthymia and left to the community approximately 100 of her paintings. Other distinguished people who descended from the village were the hero of the Greek War of Independence Astrapogiannos, the painter Georgios Kalamaras and - as it is said -the popular folkloric personality Maria Pentagiotissa.</p><br>
<p>Zantmans Rock is located 34 mi to the west of Lands End, Cornwall, and 6 mi west from the Isles of Scilly. Viewed from a distance, it is barely visible on the surface of the waters. It is 2 mi north of Bishop Rock Lighthouse, and about 0.25 mi northeast of the Crim Rocks.</p><br>
<p>The name "Zantman&#39;s Rock" is recorded on an Admiralty chart of 1860: before then, it appears not to have been distinguished from the Crim Rocks a short distance to the southwest. Several legends attempt to explain the name of the rock, one of which involves a Dutchman being shipwrecked and finding himself in the unlikely position of clinging on to the rock.</p><br>
<p>Zantmans Rock has been the cause of at least one famous shipwreck: that of the Susanna, on 14 August 1913. The wreckage still lies on the southwestern side of Zantmans Rock.</p><br>
<p>Agattu  is an island in the Near Islands in the western end of the Aleutian Islands. With a land area of 85.558 square miles Agattu is one of the largest uninhabited islands in the Aleutians. It is the second largest of the Near Islands, after Attu Island. It is volcanic and considerably mountainous. The treeless island has a tundra-like terrain which reaches a peak of 2,073 ft above sea level. Its length is 19.7 km and width is 30 km.</p><br>
<p>Agattu has seven large seabird colonies, and an estimated population of 66,000 birds. About 1% of the global population of red-faced cormorants and tufted puffins nest on the island. Other inhabitants include rock sandpiper, red-necked phalarope, gray-crowned rosy finch and snow bunting. Aleutian cackling geese were reintroduced to the island after foxes were eliminated from the island in the 1970s. The elimination of the foxes on the island also made it possible for conservationists to reintroduce the Evermann&#39;s rock ptarmigan. In 2006 there were reports of at least 25 breeding pairs of the ptarmigan on the island.</p><br>
<h2>Inhabitants</h2><br>
<p>Archeological excavations have discovered evidence and remains of Aleuts living on Agattu Island as early as 760 BCE. Based on the number of simultaneously inhabited archeological sites on the island, experts have estimated that the pre-contact population may have reached 500-1000 individuals. By the 1760s, all Near Islanders had moved into a single village on Attu Island. During World War II, the villagers of Attu were interned in Japan and at war&#39;s end the survivors were resettled on Atka Island.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>Agattu is unique among the volcanic Aleutian Islands in being composed almost entirely of well-bedded sedimentary rocks. These rocks were clearly deposited in water and are composed chiefly of amorphous silica and fine detritus derived from a volcanic terrain. Igneous rocks are sparsely represented by intrusions of porphyry, diabase, and trap. The entire island has been heavily glaciated.</p><br>
<p>The ruins of the ancient Canaanite city of Kedesh  are located 3 km northeast of the modern Kibbutz Malkiya in Israel on the Israeli-Lebanese border.</p><br>
<p>Kedesh was first documented in the Book of Joshua as a Canaanite citadel conquered by the Israelites under the leadership of Joshua. Ownership of Kedesh was turned over by lot to the tribe of Naphtali and subsequently, at the command of God, Kedesh was set apart by Joshua as a Levitical city and one of the Cities of Refuge along with Shechem and Kiriath Arba (Hebron).</p><br>
<p>In the 8th century BCE, during the reign of Pekah king of Israel, Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria took Kedesh and deported its inhabitants to Assyria.</p><br>
<p>Later, during the 5th century BCE, Kedesh may have become the capital for the Persian-controlled and Tyrian-administrated province of the Upper Galilee.</p><br>
<p>In 259 BCE Kedesh was mentioned by Zenon, a traveling merchant from Egypt.</p><br>
<p>Between 145 BCE and 143 BCE, Kedesh (Cades) was overthrown by Jonathan Maccabeus in his fight against Seleucid king Demetrius II Nicator.1 Maccabees 11:63-74 (text)</p><br>
<p>It remains abandoned. From 1997 to 2012, Tel Kedesh was excavated by a team from the University of Michigan&#39;s Kelsey Museum of Archaeology in conjunction with the University of Minnesota, focusing in 2010 and 2012 on the Persian and Hellenistic Administrative Building.</p><br>
<p>According to Jewish tradition, Deborah the prophetess, Barak the son of Abinoam and Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, as also Heber, were buried near the spring beneath the town of Kedesh.</p><br>
<h2>Other</h2><br>
<p>In the Book of Judges, the great oak tree in Zaanaim is stated to be near Kedesh, though this verse could be a reference to a second Tel Kedesh, located 3 km to the south of Megiddo, within the territory of the Israelite tribe of Issachar.</p><br>
<p>The Slovak Karst  is one of the mountain ranges of the Slovenské Rudohorie Mountains in the Carpathians in southern Slovakia. It consists of a complex of huge karst plains and plateaus. Since 1973 it was a protected landscape area. On 1 March 2002 Slovak Karst National Park was declared. It is also a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and part of it forms UNESCO World Heritage site Caves of Aggtelek Karst and Slovak Karst.</p><br>
<h2>Characteristics</h2><br>
<p>The highest peak is Jelení vrch at 947 m AMSL. Important rivers are the Slaná (Sajó), the Štítnik and the Turňa. The Slovak Karst lies in the north temperate zone and has a continental climate with four distinct seasons. The area is composed of several layers of Mesozoic limestone and dolomite, beneath which there is non-permeable sandstone, limestone and slate. The plains are covered by oak-hornbeam forests, the hills by oak forests and the karst pits by spruce forests. Beech forests are in the northern parts.</p><br>
<p>The plains (plateaus) have many karst formations, such as karst pits with diameters of up to 250 m and depths of about 45 m, conical hills, blind and half-blind valley and dales. The subterranean karst is known for its deep vertical abysses, such as:</p><br>
<p>Čertova diera (literally Devil&#39;s Hole; depth: 186 m)</p><br>
<p>Brázda (181 m)</p><br>
<p>Malá železná priepasť (Little Iron Abyss; 142 m)</p><br>
<p>Diviačia priepasť (Boar Abyss; 122 m)</p><br>
<p>Some of the abysses are collapsed, especially the Silická ľadnica (Silica Ice Abyss; 110 m)</p><br>
<p>The region is best known for its many caves, out of which the Domica Cave, Ochtinská Aragonite Cave (Ochtinská aragonitová jaskyňa), Gombasek Cave (Gombasecká jaskyňa) and Jasovská Cave (Jasovská jaskyňa) are open to the public. Other noteworthy caves are Krásnohorská Cave (Krásnohorská jaskyňa) and Hrušovská Cave (Hrušovská jaskyňa).</p><br>
<p>The region also includes karst lakes. The largest lake is Jašteričie jazero (literally Lizard Lake), "Gyükerréti-tó" in Hungarian.</p><br>
<p>The Slovak Karst also features rare plants, for example:</p><br>
<p>Erythronium dens-canis (a relict from the Tertiary period)</p><br>
<p>Onosma tornensis (endemic)</p><br>
<p>Sesleria heufleriana (endemic)</p><br>
<p>Dianthus lumnitzerii (endemic)</p><br>
<p>and rare animals, for example:</p><br>
<p>Eastern imperial eagle (Aquila heliaca)</p><br>
<p>Short-toed eagle (Circaetus gallicus)</p><br>
<p>Lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni)</p><br>
<h2>Subdivision</h2><br>
<p>Parts (from the west to the east):</p><br>
<p>Jelšavský kras (literally Jelšava Karst)</p><br>
<p>Koniarska planina (Koniarska Plain)</p><br>
<p>Plešivská planina (Plešivská Plain)</p><br>
<p>Silická planina (Silická Plain)</p><br>
<p>Turnianska planina (Turnianska Plain); see also Turňa</p><br>
<p>Horný vrch (Upper Mountain)</p><br>
<p>Dolný vrch (Lower Mountain)</p><br>
<p>Zádielska planina (Zádielska Plain)</p><br>
<p>Jasovská planina (Jasovská Plain)</p><br>
<p>The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is the primary cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, headed by Most Rev. Kevin Carl Rhoades. The parish was established in 1836, making it the oldest in Fort Wayne. The church was erected in 1860.</p><br>
<h2>Information</h2><br>
<p>The original church on what is now Cathedral Square was St. Marys church (separate to the present-day St. Mary church in Fort Wayne), opened between 1834 and 1835. In 1840, Rev. Louis Mueller began construction on a new church, the Cathedral of St. Augustine. St. Augustines served as the church until a fire destroyed it in 1859. In 1859-1860, Rev. Julian Benoit erected a third church and named it the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, in honor of the Blessed Virgin. The Cathedral building still stands today, maintained through various renovations over the decades, the most recent by Schenkel and Sons, Inc.</p><br>
<p>The Cathedral grounds, called the Cathedral Square, includes the Chancery of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, MacDougal Chapel, Cathedral Center for C.C.D. classes (formerly the Cathedral Boys School), and the Rectory (the priests&#39; residence), and the grave of the last Miami Indians chief, Joseph Richardville. Recently, the Cathedral Museum housed in the basement of MacDougal Chapel and diocesan offices located in the Cathedral Center were moved to a new location a few blocks north of Cathedral Square.</p><br>
<p>It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.</p><br>
<h2>Current staff</h2><br>
<p>Pastor - Rev. Msgr. Robert C. Schulte. He has been the rector of the church and Vicar-General of the diocese since 1999.</p><br>
<p>Associate pastors - Rev. Fr. Dale Bauman and Rev. Fr. Fernando Jimenez</p><br>
<p>Mar Chiquita  or Mar de Ansenuza is an endorheic salt lake located in the northeast of the province of Córdoba, in central Argentina. The northeast corner of the lake also extends into southeastern Santiago del Estero Province. It is the largest of the naturally occurring saline lakes in Argentina. The lake is located in parts of five departments in the two provinces.</p><br>
<p>The lake is in the Argentine Espinal ecoregion.</p><br>
<p>It occupies the southern part of a depression that measures about 50 miles/80 km (north&ndash;south) by 28 miles/45 km (east&ndash;west). Its surface area varies considerably, given its shallow depth (about 10 m), and ranges between 2000 and 6000 km² (1242 and 3728 mi²).</p><br>
<p>Mar Chiquita is fed primarily by the saline waters of the Dulce River, coming from Santiago del Estero in the north after being joined by the Saladillo River. The lands around the lower course of the Dulce and Mar Chiquita are wetlands, populated by a large biodiversity (especially aquatic birds). From the southwest the lake receives the flow of the Primero/Suquía and the Segundo/Xanaes rivers, as well as several streams; these inflows vary greatly from dry to rainy seasons. The salinity of Mar Chiquita is quite variable, with measured extremes ranging from 250 g/l in times of low water levels to around 40 g/l in very humid years, such as in the decade following 1977, when record rainfall flooded much of Miramar, Córdoba.</p><br>
<p>There are several islands in the lake, the most important one being the Médano Island. Mar Chiquita is slowly diminishing in volume due to increased evaporation and elevation of its bottom, and is ultimately bound to turn into a salt flat. The lake was formerly home to a growing tourism industry, and was the site of the Gran Hotel Vienna, a luxurious, lakefront establishment which functioned from 1945 to 1980, and has been the center of numerous mysteries and controversies.</p><br>
<p>The Gymea Bay is a bay on the upper estuarine Port Hacking River, fed by the Coonong Creek in southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia</p><br>
<h2>Location and features</h2><br>
<p>The bay, the locality, suburb of and the adjacent suburb of Gymea, were named after the Gymea Lily Doryanthes excelsa, a tall perennial (up to 6m) that is prevalent in the area. The plant was called "Gymea" by the local Eora people and became the inspiration for the suburb&#39;s name, by government surveyor W.A.B. Geaves in 1855. The Gymea Lily has been adopted as a symbol of the area and features on the crest of many local organisations. Development in the area has eradicated most of these lilies but some can still be found, a few kilometres south in the Royal National Park.</p><br>
<h2>Recreation</h2><br>
<p>Gymea Bay is home to the heritage-listed Gymea Bay Baths, at the shore of Gymea Bay Baths Reserve at the intersection of Gymea Bay Road and Ellesmere Road. Gymea Bay Amateur Swimming Club has been using the baths for over 40 years. The bay and Port Hacking estuary are used extensively for watersports such as wakeboarding and water skiing.</p><br>
<p>Gymea Bay 3.JPGGymea Bay Baths</p><br>
<p>Gymea Bay 4.JPGGymea Bay</p><br>
<p>Gymea Bay 1.JPGGymea Bay</p><br>
<p>The Dolans Bay is a cove on the Burraneer Bay adjacent to the lower estuarine Hacking River of Port Hacking in southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia.</p><br>
<h2>Location and features</h2><br>
<p>With a catchment that drains a small number of the most southern suburbs of the Sutherland Shire, Dolans Bay is located as a small cover off Burraneer Bay, near where the Hacking River and Port Hacking estuary meet Gunnamatta Bay and empty into Bate Bay. The bays catchment area is bound by Port Hacking to the south, Buraneer Bay sub-catchment to the east and north, and Little Turnell Bay sub-catchment to the southwest, and Gannons Bay and Great Turnell Bay sub-catchments to the west. The bay is surrounded by the suburbs of to the north, and to the southwest, and to the west at the bays junction with the estuary.</p><br>
<p>Houses overlook the bay and some line the water&#39;s edge together with boatsheds. Boats are moored in the bay, which provides protection from the southerly wind. Burraneer Bay features a private marina and slipway with full repair facilities. Notable residents that have lived in the area surrounding Dolans Bay include cricket players Ricky Ponting and Glenn McGrath.</p><br>
<p>Dolans Bay was named after a land owner in the area called Dominick Dolan. In 1858 Mary and Andrew Webster paid 108 pounds and 15 shillings plus a yearly peppercorn quit rent for their land in this area. The Websters sold their land to Dominick Dolan in 1863.</p><br>
<p>The Emeryville Shellmound, in Emeryville, California, is a sacred burial site of the Ohlone people, a once-massive archaeological shell midden deposit . It was one of a complex of five or six mounds along the mouth of the perennial Temescal Creek, on the east shore of San Francisco Bay between Oakland and Berkeley. It was the largest of the over 425 shellmounds that surrounded San Francisco Bay.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>From 800B.C. groups of Native Americans called the Ohlone or Costanoans lived at this spot by the Bay. The Bay Area region was divided into several dialect-speaking groups, the most advanced society among them called the Chochenyans who resided in the Alameda county region. Emeryville was believed to have been their capital. Originally reported as over 60 ft high and some 350 ft in diameter, the shellmound constituted a small hill, and was physically linked to several adjacent mounds by extensive lower-lying midden deposits. Its peak likely provided sweeping views of the Bay and the Golden Gate.</p><br>
<p>Archaeologists believe that Native Americans constructed the Shellmound which was largely made up of shellfish and animal remains, the remnants of millions of meals consumed at the site by the prehistoric residents. The shells they threw aside from their catches of shellfish eventually covered some hundreds of thousands of square feet, marked by several cones. Evidence indicates that the site was a large village, occupied from at least 2800 years ago to 400 years ago. It was also used by Native Americans as a resting-place for their dead. The site was recognized as an archaeological deposit from the time of the first historically recorded settlement of the East Bay, and was subjected to one of the earliest archaeological excavations in the United States. When the University of California excavated this site in 1902, and again in the 1920s, they found that the mound consisted mostly of clam, mussel, and oyster (predominantly Olympia Oyster) shells, with a plentiful mixture of cockleshells.</p><br>
<p>A large amusement park operated on the site from the 1870s through 1924. The park contained a racetrack, two dance halls, bars, a carousel, bowling alley, and a world class shooting range where national competitions were regularly held. In the early 1900s, the racetrack was also the site of public demonstrations of lighter-than-air and heavier-than-air flying machines. One of the dance pavilions was actually located atop the shellmound, providing a fantastic view of the bay for party-goers. At the time, Shellmound Park was quite an attraction, and was a popular destination for many people from all over the San Francisco Bay Area. With the passage of prohibition in the 1920s, the number of visitors fell off dramatically and the park fell into decline and was sold.</p><br>
<p>The site of the shellmound contained a large industrial plant site from 1924 through 1999, which was demolished by the City of Emeryville Redevelopment Agency in 1999. During the course of demolition, workers at the site rediscovered remnants of the Emeryville Shellmound, a prehistoric Ohlone Indian habitation site, long thought destroyed by the building of the industrial plant in 1924. Despite protest, construction continued, and the artifacts and remains were covered over once again.</p><br>
<p>Photos of the leveling of the Emeryville Shellmound in 1924 certainly suggest this destruction. However, the small size of construction equipment in the 1920s and the different construction techniques used at that time meant that there was far less destruction of the native ground surface than modern construction methods typically inflict. In fact, the disturbance of underlying soils was far less extensive and complete than might have been expected. In 1999, during the removal of the industrial plant, archaeologists were called to the site and it was determined portions of the Emeryville Shellmound still were intact there. The site is currently occupied by the Bay Street Shopping Center along with a small park in memorial to the shellmound.</p><br>
<p>The site of the Shellmound is now a California Historical Landmark (#335).</p><br>
<h2>Nineteenth and twentieth century disturbance</h2><br>
<p>Beginning in the mid-to-late 19th century, fill material was deposited over and in the vicinity of the Emeryville Shellmound. The purpose of this deposition was to facilitate industrial development of this locale. By the early-to-middle 20th century substantial heavy industry was in place principally in the form of the Judson Steel company manufacturing facility and P.I.E. trucking terminals. These developed uses were atop a layer of fill material measuring three to eight feet in depth above the native soil, shellmound and bay mud; the fill itself derived from construction wastes from San Francisco including debris from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Some of the wastes also included waste paints, numerous heavy metals and certain petroleum hydrocarbons.</p><br>
<p>By the 1980s redevelopment planning for the Emeryville Shellmound vicinity was underway, consisting of planning by private interests and the city of Emeryville. In 1989 Earth Metrics prepared a remedial action plan to assess and remediate soil and groundwater contamination in the vicinity of the Emeryville Shellmound. These studies found elevated concentrations of lead, zinc and certain other heavy metals as well as petroleum hydrocarbons such as benzene and toluene. Most of the contamination was found in the upper fill layers and did not penetrate into the shellmound itself. Substantial amounts of contaminant removal, including many people buried there centuries ago, was conducted prior to area redevelopment. In addition, archeologists found a large number of burials in the piling headings during construction. Many believe that hundreds of burials remain beneath the project that was built.</p><br>
<p>Opposition to the redevelopment of the moundsite was widespread. It included native people, preservationists, anthropologists and others from the region and around the state. Many articles were written in newspapers, magazines and newsletters supporting the preservation of the shellmound remnants and its designation as a sacred site. A documentary movie was made called Emeryville Shellmound, the movie. Despite this, Emeryville City Council voted to replace the 19 acre site with Bay Street Shopping Mall. Bitter feelings remain that the mall should not have been built, that the mitigating memorial to the mound was insignificant, that the mall was and is an insult to the Ohlone people. On Black Friday (day after Thanksgiving), native people gather there to protest and inform shoppers about the history and importance of Emeryville Shellmound.</p><br>
<p>Weißkugel  or Weißkogel is the second highest mountain in the Ötztal Alps and the third highest mountain in Austria. Featuring many glaciers, it lies on the border between Austria and Italy. The easiest way to climb it is over its southern side.</p><br>
<p>The ascent by Joseph Anton Specht from Vienna, guided by Leander and Nicodem Klotz from Vent in 1861, was and is usually considered the first. However, personal notes of Archduke John of Austria about his excursion over the Niederjoch from Vent to Schnals in the summer of 1846, made public in 1903, suggest that his guides, Johann Gurschler and Josef Weitthalm from Schnals, had climbed the mountain the previous summer.</p><br>
<p>According to the second ascensionist, Douglas Freshfield, it has one of the best views in the Tyrol. Though not easily picked out among the mountains, its peak can be seen from Venice.</p><br>
<p>The Peralta Home, at 561 Lafayette Avenue in San Leandro was the first brick house built in Alameda County. It was constructed in the Spanish Colonial style in 1860 for Ignacio Peralta, early San Leandro Spanish settler, by W.P. Toler .</p><br>
<p>A.C. Peachey purchased the house from Rafaela Sanchez Peralta (Igancio&#39;s widow) on May 18, 1875. Immediately thereafter Peachey added a large wood extension at the back of the brick house. Technically a -story building, the old Peralta house had its main reception rooms on the second story. Peachey continued this emphasis on the second story in his additions, treating the ground floor as a basement.</p><br>
<p>The house remained in the Peachey family for thirty-four years. Between 1909 and 1926, it went to Daniel and C.L. Best. Eventually in November 1926, it was purchased by the Alta Mira Club, who are still the current owners. One of the more interesting of 19th-century houses in San Leandro, it has additional historic associations with the large and land-rich Peralta family, who were pioneers of the area. Peralta&#39;s father, Luís María Peralta, received the Rancho San Antonio land grant from Spanish Governor Don Pablo Vicente de Solá on October 20, 1820.</p><br>
<p>The house is a California Historical Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NPS-78000654).</p><br>
<p>Zard Kuh  is a sub-range in the central Zagros Range, Iran.</p><br>
<p>With an elevation of 4221 metres, the Zardkuh is located in the Zagros Mountains in the Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province of Iran. The Karun and also Zayanderud rivers start in the Zagros mountains near the Zardkuh. There are small glaciers on the mountain owing to the relatively high precipitation, which are the only glaciers in the subtropics outside the Himalayas, Andes and Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt</p><br>
<p>Geologically, the Zardkuh is situated in the Sanandaj-Sirjan geologic and structural zone of Iran and is mainly made of Cretaceous limestone.</p><br>
<p>The famous early documentary Grass captures on film the Bakhtiari tribe&#39;s amazing crossing of Zard-Kuh barefoot in the snow with 50,000 people and 500,000 animals.</p><br>
<p>Bazman  is a stratovolcano in a remote desert region of Sistan and Baluchestan Province in south-eastern Iran. A 500-m-wide crater caps the summit of the dominantly andesitic-dacitic volcano, the flanks of which are covered by monogenetic centres especially to the northwest. Bazman is a geologically young volcano which was made in the Quaternary, with the oldest dated rocks being 11.7 million years old and the youngest 0.6 million years. Although no historic eruptions have been reported from Bazman, it does contain fumaroles. Thus Bazman may be regarded as dormant, rather than extinct. Its satellite cones have been the source of basaltic lava flows.</p><br>
<p>Bazman volcano is part of a volcanic arc in southeastern Iran, the Makran volcanic arc. At this arc, shallow subduction has generated an arc of volcanic activity which includes Bazman, Taftan and Koh-i-Sultan volcanoes. Bazman has been affected by heavy erosion. The flanks of the volcano are covered with debris coming from the volcano. A Cretaceous pluton is also associated with Bazman and has been investigated for the possibility of mining.</p><br>
<h2>Geography and geology</h2><br>
<p>Bazman is also known as Kuh-i-Zindeh ("Mountain of the Living One"), after a saint, Khizr-as-Sallam. Yet another name is Kuh-i-Naushada, although they are sometimes considered to be separate mountains. The mountain was climbed in 1896 by Percy Sykes and Brazier Creagh; By 1906 its volcanic nature was known to geologists. It is located 420 km away from the Arabian Sea, and 120 km northnorthwest of Bampur.</p><br>
<h3>Regional setting</h3><br>
<p>Iran contains two major mountain ranges, the Alborz in northern Iran and Zagros in western Iran. Each range is associated with a major suture zone, the Alborz-Kopeh Dag and the Bitlis-Zagros sutures respectively. These mountain chains surround Central Iran, in whose southern part lies the Lut block and Bazman. Tectonically, southern central Iran does not follow the typical Alpide geological patterns insofar as faults are rare and the folds in the crust are broad. The Bazman area is covered by volcanic rocks of Tertiary age. The foreland of the mountain massifs such as the Bazman massif are affected by tectonic subsidence. A major Tertiary volcanic belt, analogous to the Indonesian volcanic arc, crosses Iran behind the Zagros.</p><br>
<p>South of Bazman volcano lies the broad Jaz Murian depression. To the south of this depression the Makran area separates the Arabian sea from inner Iran. The Makran area is geologically subdivided into the Inner Makran series which includes ophiolitic melange and the Coastal Makran Series. A phase of subduction commenced in the Pliocene-Pleistocene, probably after earlier phases of subduction. This subduction has resulted in the formation of a volcanic complex including Bazman that stretches 150 km east-west and reaches a width of 100 km, as well as earthquake activity including the 1945 Makran earthquake, but overall earthquake activity in the Makran is low, probably due to the effect of sediments in the trench. A large accretionary prism formed directly behind the trench, in the trench the subduction occurs at a pace of 2 cm/yr. There is no evidence of a Wadati–Benioff zone beneath the Makran. Bazman has been grouped with Taftan volcano also in Iran and Koh-i-Sultan in Pakistan, of which only Taftan is considered active. This arc is over 600 km away from the trench, indicating that the subduction is very shallow. Within this arc, Bazman is located at the edge between the actual subduction and the continental collision zone. Bazman is also considered part of a 1,700 km long volcanic belt named the Sahand-Bazman belt that extends from northwest to southeast and is accompanied by Cenozoic volcanic rocks including plutons. Bazman is sometimes considered to be part of a volcanic complex with the neighbouring Shahsavaran volcanic field.</p><br>
<h3>Local setting</h3><br>
<p>Bazman is one among about nine volcanic centres in Iran that have had Quaternary eruptions. Other volcanoes are Damavand which is also Asias highest volcano, Taftan, Qaleh Hasan Ali, Sabalan and Sahand volcanoes. Most of these volcanoes are part of a volcanic belt named Dokhtar-Urmiah. With the exception of reports of possible lava flows at Taftan, none of these volcanoes have been reportedly active during historical times. Older volcanic activity within this belt has generated a number of porphyry deposits.</p><br>
<p>Bazman volcano is 11,500 ft high, rising high above the surrounding terrain, and has steep slopes. At the top of the volcano lies a summit crater. This crater is well conserved and it has a diameter of 500 m. On the north flank, a northbound lava flow with prominent levees that eventually splits into a northwestern and northeastern arm was discharged by a steep lava cone. Other viscous lava flows have been erupted from satellite cones. The volcano is constructed on top of the Lut block, which reaches a thickness of 40 km. Quaternary sediments are buried beneath Bazman&#39;s eruption products. The Moho beneath Bazman is approximately 48 - deep. The area around Bazman is remote.</p><br>
<p>A field of monogenetic volcanoes is found northwest of Bazman. These include broad and shallow craters with diameters of 800 m with pyroclastic rocks, cryptodomes with diameters of up to 3 km and heights of 75 m, scoria cones reaching a height of 300 m with lava flow fields and individual lava flows. The varying state of erosion of these volcanoes indicates they formed over many millennia; some have been worn down to their feeding dykes.</p><br>
<p>Bazman has no recorded historical eruptions but fumarolic activity has been reported, as well as ongoing surface deformation. Bazman is considered to be occasionally smoking. Hot springs containing iron and sulfur are other signs of ongoing volcanism; Bazman has been considered a potential site for development of geothermal energy, with a surface area of 8,356 km&sup2;. In 1960, Bazman together with Taftan was considered a volcano with sporadic historic activity, while a different report in 1975 considered the volcano extinct. Potassium-argon dating of basalts from the volcano has yielded ages of 4.6 and 0.6 million years ago. These dates were obtained on the monogenetic cones; zircons directly from Bazman rocks are dated 7.5 ± 0.1 and 5.9 ± 0.2 million years ago by uranium-lead dating, along with other ages of 8–6 million years ago from other zircons around Bazman. A third date is of 11.7 million years ago. Another report in 1981 suggested that isotopic ages also indicate historic activity.</p><br>
<p>Bazman volcano is constructed by dacite, but andesite has also been mentioned. Minor amounts of rhyolite have also been reported. Overall rock samples range from basalt to rhyolite in composition and are mostly of calc-alkaline composition. The satellite cones have erupted olivine-containing basalts. The mountain&#39;s flanks are covered by a layer of detritus, burying most of the flanks to over 2,135 m of altitude. Most of this detritus is erosional in nature, but pyroclastic rocks created by explosive activity and hot avalanches of extruded lava also contribute. 120 m thick olivine basalt found in the Jaz Murian depression may also come from Bazman. Basalt has also been found at one cryptodome. North of Bazman, andesites of Miocene-Eocene age are partly buried beneath the volcano. Carboniferous and Permian metamorphic rocks form the oldest basement at Bazman.</p><br>
<p>Petrological analysis at the monogenetic volcanoes around Bazman has indicated porphyritic basalts containing clinopyroxene, olivine and plagioclase, with an isolated report of hornblende. The rocks have medium content, lower than that of Taftan and Koh-i-Sultan. This may reflect differences in the subduction beneath Bazman and the other two volcanoes. Composition data are typical of volcanic island arc rocks, with some samples have element ratios more akin to ocean island basalts. Lithosphere modified by the subduction may be the origin of the magmas that formed the monogenetic cones. On the basis of its composition, the environmental conditions under which one of the samples formed have been estimated, the temperature being 1,400 &deg;C and a minimum depth of about 76 km.</p><br>
<p>A mining area is associated with Bazman and more precisely with Paleozoic-Mesozoic rocks including a 70 million years old granite pluton. This late Cretaceous pluton is localized south of Bazman volcano. According to other reports its rocks are also exposed on the northern side of Bazman. Various hydrothermal and skarn alterations have generated mineral deposits that include silver, gold, copper, lead, magnesium, molybdenum, and zinc, and minor amounts of tungsten and possibly of vanadium. The Chahnali epithermal gold deposit is close to the volcano.</p><br>
<p>The area of Bazman is affected by rain erosion. Sheet floods such as those that occurred in 1976 are principal agents. Together with other kinds of erosion such as frost and salt weathering, these have formed a pediplain terrain with inselbergs being left, especially where harder rocks are found. Pebbles eroded from Bazman have been transported to the terrains of the Jaz Murian depression south of Bazman. The effects of this erosion have mantled the volcano with debris locally known as "dasht", reaching distances of over 30 km from the vent. With the exception of the Ziyarat valley on Bazman&#39;s southern flank, the area around Bazman is arid and uninhabited.</p><br>
<p>Shir Kuh or Shirkuh  is a high peak  in the central part of Iran about 40 km south-west of the city of Yazd in Yazd Province.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>"Shir Kuh" or "Shirkuh" is formed of two words: "sher" in Middle Persian or "shir" in Modern Persian means "lion", and "kof" in Middle Persian or "kuh" in Modern Persian means "mountain". So, in Persian "Shir Kuh" could mean (the) "Lion Mountain".</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>Geologically, Shir Kuh is made chiefly of Jurassic granite surrounded by Cretaceous rocks. It is located almost in the vicinity of the Sahand-Bazman volcanic arc, a volcanic arc that was formed during the Tertiary and mainly in the Eocene volcanism. Shir Kuh consists mainly of intrusive rocks (Jurassic granite) that were made in the Late Cimmerian orogeny in the Late Jurassic. This mountain is located in the Sanandaj-Sirjan geological and structural zone. Sanadaj-Sirjan was subjected to magmatism and metamorphism in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic. This section along with other Iranian microplates were separated from Gondwana in the Carboniferous (when magmatism was caused by rifting and the process of detachment) and moved northwards. From the Early Jurassic to the Middle Miocene Sandaj-Sirjan was adjacent to a subduction zone and there was magmatism because of the subduction zone which was situated in the south and south-west of this structural zone. Consequently, in the Late Jurassic, Sanandaj-Sirjan region was subjected to the magmatism of the Late Cimmerian orogeny in the form of both volcanism and plutonism. Shir Kuh was formed as a result of the plutonism of this orogenic phase.</p><br>
<h2>Climate</h2><br>
<p>Having a high elevation, Shir Kuh and its neighbourhood have a cold mountain climate although the region is placed in a location that is surrounded by a hot semi-desert climate.</p><br>
