<p>Dan , is a city mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, described as the northernmost city of the Kingdom of Israel, and belonging to the tribe of Dan. The city is identified with a tell located in northern Israel known as Tel Dan  in Hebrew, or Tell el-Qadi .</p><br>
<h2>Identification and names</h2><br>
<p>The American naval officer William F. Lynch identified Tell el Kadi as the site of ancient Dan in 1849. Three years later Edward Robinson made the same identification, and this identification is now securely accepted.</p><br>
<p>The Hebrew Bible states that prior to its conquest by the tribe of Dan the site was known as Laish with variant spellings within the Books of Joshua, Judges and Isaiah. In it is called Leshem which means "jewel".</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Dan is situated in Israel, in the area known as the Galilee Panhandle. To the west is the southern part of Mount Lebanon; to the east and north are the Hermon mountains. Melting snow from the Hermon mountains provides the majority of the water of the Jordan River, and passes through Dan, making the immediate area highly fertile. The lush vegetation that results makes the area around Dan seem somewhat out of place in the otherwise arid region around it. Due to its location close to the border with Syria and Lebanon at the far north of the territory which fell under the British Mandate of Palestine, the site has a long and often bitterly contested modern history, most recently during the 1967 Six-Day War.</p><br>
<h2>History and archaeology</h2><br>
<p>According to the archaeological excavations at the site, the town was originally occupied in the late Neolithic era (c 4500 BCE), although at some time in the fourth millennium BC it was abandoned, for almost 1,000 years.</p><br>
<h3>Bronze Age</h3><br>
<p>According to the Book of Judges: prior to the Tribe of Dan occupying the land, the town was known as Laysha ( and, לישה) or Laish (elsewhere Judges 18) - which root the Hebrew poets applied also to the lion (, and ). The Egyptians cursed Laish in the Execration Tablets; later, Tuthmosis III conquered the town "ra-wy-sa" along others.</p><br>
<p>Laish was allied with the Sidonians. This might indicate they were Phoenicians (Sidonians were Phoenicians from the city of Sidon), who may or may not have been Canaanite. The alliance offered little practical benefit due to the remoteness of Laish from Sidon, and the intervening Lebanon mountains. The town was also isolated from the Assyrians and Aram by the Hermon mountains; the Septuagint mentions that the town was unable to have an alliance with the Aramaeans. The masoretic text does not mention the Aramaeans, but instead states that the town had no relationship with any man - textual scholars believe that this is a scribal error, with adham (man) being a mistake for Aram.</p><br>
<p>According to Judges concerning Micah&#39;s Idol, the Tribe of Dan did not at that point have any territory to their name, and so, after scouting out the land, eventually decided to attack Laish, as the land around it was fertile, and the town was demilitarised. Most Biblical scholars now believe that the Tribe of Dan originated as one of the Sea Peoples, hence remaining on their ships in the early Song of Deborah, and not having Israelite land to their name, though conservative scholars argue that the Tribe of Dan migrated because they were forced out of their original lands by the Philistines.</p><br>
<p>The Bible describes the Tribe of Dan brutally defeating the people of Laish and burning the town to the ground, and then building their own town in the same spot. The narrative states that Laish subsequently became known as Dan, after the name of the tribe, and that it housed a sanctuary filled with idols, which remained in use until the time of captivity of the land and the time that the house of God ceased to be in Shiloh. Scholars think that the former refers to the Assyrian conquest of the Kingdom of Israel by Tiglath-pileser III in 733/732 BCE, and that the latter refers to the time of Hezekiah&#39;s religious reform; an alternative possibility, however, supported by a minority of scholars, is that time of captivity of the land is a typographic error and should read time of captivity of the ark, referring to the battle of Eben-Ezer, and the Philistine capture of the Ark, and that the ceasing of the house of God being in Shiloh refers to this also.</p><br>
<p>The excavators of Tel Dan uncovered a city gate made of mud bricks on top of megalithic basalt standing stones, estimated to have been built around 1750 BC. Its popular name is Abraham&#39;s Gate, due to the biblical story that Abraham traveled to Dan to rescue his nephew Lot. :</p><br>
<p>The gate was restored in the late 2000s, and has become a popular tourist attraction.</p><br>
<h3>Iron Age</h3><br>
<p>According to and, Jeroboam erected two golden calves as gods in Bethel and Dan. Textual scholars believe that this is where the Elohist story of Aarons Golden calf actually originates, due to opposition in some sections of Israelite society (including the Elohist themselves) to the seeming idol-worship of Jeroboam. However, some Biblical scholars believe that Jeroboam was actually trying to outdo the sanctuary at Jerusalem (Solomons Temple), by creating a seat for God that spanned the whole kingdom of Israel, rather than just the small space above the Ark of the Covenant in Jerusalem; the seat for God in the Jerusalem sanctuary was represented by a cherubim on either side, and so Jeroboam might have been using the calves to represent the sides of his seat for God - implying his whole kingdom was equal in holiness to the Ark.</p><br>
<p>Within the remains of the city wall, close to the entrance of the outer gate, parts of the Tel Dan Stele were found. The basalt stone bears an Aramaic inscription referring to one of the kings of Damascus; the excavators of the site believe that the king it refers to is Hazael (c 840 BCE), though a minority argue that it instead refers to Ben-Hadad(c 802 BCE). A small part of the inscription remains, with text containing the letters ביתדוד (BYTDWD), which some archaeologists agree refers to House of David (Beth David in Hebrew. In the line directly above, the text reads MLK YSRL&#39;, i.e. "King of Israel". Hebrew script from the era is vowel-less), which would make the inscription the first time that the name David has been found at an archaeological site dating before 500 BCE.</p><br>
<p>Dan suffered in the era of expansion by the Aramaeans, due to being the closest city to them in the kingdom of Israel. The several incursions indicated by the Book of Kings suggest that Dan changed hands at least four times between the Kingdom of Israel and Aramaeans, around the time that Israel was ruled by Ahab and the Aramaeans by Ben Hadad I, and their successors. Around this time, the Tel Dan stele was created by the Aramaeans, during one of the periods of their control of Dan. When the Assyrian empire expanded to the south, the kingdom of Israel initially became a vassal state, but after rebelling, the Assyrians invaded, the town fell to Tiglath-Pileser III in 733/732 BCE.</p><br>
<p>In 1992, in order to tidy up the site for presentation to visitors, a heap of debris was removed which dated from the time of the Assyrian destruction of the city by Tiglath-Pileser III in 733/2 BCE. A hitherto unknown earlier gateway to the city was uncovered. The entrance complex led to a courtyard paved with stone with a low stone platform. In the 9th century BCE, the podium was enlarged, and major fortifications were built, a city wall with buttresses and a complex gate. The podium was enlarged further in the 8th century BCE by Jeroboam II, then destroyed by Tiglath-Pileser III.</p><br>
<h2>Later periods</h2><br>
<p>During the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman periods, remains indicate that cultic activities continued around the podium (also known as "the High Place").</p><br>
<h2>Tel Dan Nature Reserve</h2><br>
<p>The Tel Dan Nature Reserve was first declared on 39 hectares surrounding the tel in 1974. 9 hectares were added to the reserve in 1989. The Dan River is one of the three water sources of the Jordan River that meet in the northern part of the Hula Valley.</p><br>
<p>Liberty Island is a federally owned island in Upper New York Bay in the United States, best known as the location of the Statue of Liberty. The island is an exclave of the New York City borough of Manhattan, surrounded by the waters of Jersey City, New Jersey. Long known as Bedloe&#39;s Island, it was renamed by an act of the United States Congress in 1956. In 1937, by Presidential Proclamation 2250 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, it became part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument and in 1966, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as part of Statue of Liberty National Monument, Ellis Island and Liberty Island.</p><br>
<h2>Geography and access</h2><br>
<p>According to the United States Census Bureau, the island has a land area of 59,558 square meters, or 14.717 acres, which is the property of the federal government. A pact between New York and New Jersey states that New York has control of the Island, but taxes go to New Jersey, and the power comes from Jersey City. Liberty Island is located in the Upper New York Bay surrounded by the waters of Jersey City, Hudson County, New Jersey. Liberty Island is one of the islands that are part of the borough of Manhattan in New York. The historical developments which led to this construction created the rare situation of an exclave of one state, New York, being situated in another, New Jersey.</p><br>
<p>The island is operated by the National Park Service, and since September 11, 2001, guarded by around-the-clock patrols of the United States Park Police Marine Patrol Unit. Liberty Island is 2,000 ft east of Liberty State Park in Jersey City and is 1.58 statute miles (2.6 kilometers) southwest of Battery Park in Lower Manhattan. Public access is permitted only by ferries from either of the two parks, which serve the national monument, also stopping at Ellis Island. Hornblower Cruises and Events, operating under the name Statue Cruises, holds the exclusive concession for ferry service to and from the island.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Great Oyster Island</h3><br>
<p>At the time of European colonization of the Hudson River estuary in the mid-17th century, much of the west side of Upper New York Bay contained large tidal flats which hosted vast oyster beds, a major source of food for the Lenape native people who lived there at the time. Several islands were not completely submerged at high tide. Three of them (later known as Bedloe&#39;s/Love/Liberty, Ellis, and Black Tom) were given the name Oyster Islands (oester eilanden) by the Dutch settlers of New Netherland, the first European colony in the Mid-Atlantic states. The oyster beds would remain a major source of food for nearly three centuries. Landfilling, started by the 1870s, particularly by the Lehigh Valley Railroad and Central Railroad of New Jersey, eventually obliterated the beds, engulfed one island and brought the shoreline much closer to the others.</p><br>
<h3>Bedloe's Island</h3><br>
<p>After the surrender of Fort Amsterdam by the Dutch to the British in 1664, the English governor Richard Nicolls granted the island to Captain Robert Needham. It was sold to Isaac Bedloe on December 23, 1667. The island was retained by his estate until 1732 when it was sold for five shillings to New York merchants Adolphe Philipse and Henry Lane. During their ownership, the island was temporarily commandeered by the city of New York to establish a smallpox quarantine station.</p><br>
<p>In 1746, Archibald Kennedy (later 11th Earl of Cassilis) purchased the island and a summer residence was established, along with construction of a lighthouse.</p><br>
<p>In 1753, the island is described in an advertisement (in which "Bedlows" had become "Bedloes", along with an alternate name of "Love Island") as being available for rental:</p><br>
<p>In 1756, Kennedy allowed the island to again be used as a smallpox quarantine station, and on February 18, 1758, the Corporation of the City of New York bought the island for £1,000 for use as a pest house.</p><br>
<p>When the British troops occupied New York Harbor in the lead-up to the American Revolutionary War, the island was to be used for housing for Tory refugees, but on April 2, 1776, the buildings constructed on the island for their use were burned to the ground.</p><br>
<h3>Fort Wood</h3><br>
<p>On February 15, 1800, the New York State Legislature ceded the island to the federal government, for the construction of a defensive fort to be built there (along with Governors Island and Ellis Island). Construction of a fort on the island in the shape of an 11-point star began in 1806 and was completed in 1811. Following the War of 1812, the star-shaped fortification was named Fort Wood after Lt. Col Eleazer Derby Wood who was killed in the Siege of Fort Erie in 1813. The granite fortification followed an 11-pointed star fort layout with mounting 24 guns. A larger fort mounting 77 guns was proposed under the third system of US fortifications but was not built.</p><br>
<p>By the time it was chosen for the Statue of Liberty in the 1880s, the fort was outmoded and obsolete, disused and its substantial stone walls were then used as the distinctive base for the Statue of Liberty given by the Third French Republic for the American 1876 centenary celebrations. It had become a part of the base for the Statue of Liberty after the island was first seen by the statue&#39;s sculptor. The National Park Service (which had been created in 1916) took over operations of the island in two stages: 2 acre in 1933, and the remainder in 1937. The military installation was completely removed by 1944.</p><br>
<h3>Statue of Liberty</h3><br>
<p>The statue, entitled Liberty Enlightening the World, was a gift from the people of France to mark the American Centennial. It was agreed that the Congress would authorize the acceptance of the statue by the President of the United States, and that the War Department would facilitate its construction and presentation.</p><br>
<p>The construction of the statue was completed in France in July 1884. The cornerstone was laid on August 5, 1884, and after some funding delays, construction of the pedestal was finished on April 22, 1886. The statue arrived in New York Harbor on June 17, 1885, on board the French frigate Isère, was stored for eleven months in crates waiting for its pedestal to be finished, and was then reassembled in four months. On October 28, 1886, the Statue of Liberty was unveiled by President Grover Cleveland. The name Liberty Island was made official by Congress in 1956.</p><br>
<h3>Museum</h3><br>
<p>On October 7, 2016, construction started on a new Statue of Liberty museum on Liberty Island. The new $70 million, 26,000 ft2 museum will be able to accommodate all of the islands visitors when it opens in 2019, as opposed to the current museum, which only 20% of the islands visitors can visit. The original torch will be relocated here, and in addition to exhibits relating to the statue&#39;s construction and history, there will be a theater where visitors can watch an aerial view of the statue. The museum, designed by FXFOWLE Architects, will integrate with the parkland around it. It is being funded privately by Diane von Fürstenberg, Michael Bloomberg, Jeff Bezos, Coca-Cola, NBCUniversal, the family of Laurence Tisch and Preston Robert Tisch, and Mellody Hobson and George Lucas. Von Fürstenberg heads the fundraising for the museum, and the project had garnered more than $40 million in fundraising as of groundbreaking.</p><br>
<h2>Jurisdictional disputes</h2><br>
<p>There have been a number of disputes regarding the jurisdictional status of Liberty Island.</p><br>
<h3>State dispute</h3><br>
<p>An unusual clause in the 1664 colonial land grant that outlined New Jerseys borders reads: "westward of Long Island, and Manhitas Island and bounded on the east part by the main sea, and part by Hudsons river" rather than at the river&#39;s midpoint, as was common in other colonial charters.</p><br>
<p>When the Province of New Jersey was separated from the Province of New York in 1674 it was argued that Staten Island belonged to the former. Then governor Edmund Andros directed that all islands in the bay that could be circumnavigated within 24 hours were part of New York. Captain Christopher Billopp sailed around it within the allotted time and was soon thereafter granted a manor at its southern tip. The border came to be understood as being along the shore of the Hudson River, the Upper New York Bay, the Kill Van Kull, and Arthur Kill.</p><br>
<p>In 1824 the City of New York attempted to assert a jurisdictional monopoly over the growing steam ferry service in New York Harbor in Gibbons v. Ogden. It was deemed by the court that interstate transport would be regulated by the federal government. This did not resolve the border issue. In 1830, New Jersey planned to bring suit, but the matter was resolved with a compact between the states ratified by US Congress in 1834 which set the boundary line between them as the midpoint of the shared waterways. This was later confirmed by the US Supreme Court in a 1908 case which also expounded on the compact.</p><br>
<p>In 1987, US Representative Frank J. Guarini and Gerald McCann, then mayor of Jersey City, sued New York City, contending that New Jersey should have dominion over Liberty Island because it is on the New Jersey side of the state line. By default, since the court chose not to hear the case, the existing legal status was unchanged. Portions of the island that are above water are part of New York, while riparian rights to all of the submerged land surrounding the statue belong to New Jersey. The southwestern section, 4.17 acre, of the island was created by land reclamation.</p><br>
<p>A 1997 United States Supreme Court decision involved such riparian rights around nearby Ellis Island. Being mostly constructed of artificial infill, New Jersey argued and the court agreed that the 1834 compact covered only the natural parts of the island, and not the portions added by infill. Thus it was agreed that the parts of the island made of filled land belonged to New Jersey while the original natural part belonged to New York. This proved impractical to administer and New Jersey and New York subsequently agreed to share jurisdiction of the entire island. This special situation only applies to Ellis Island and part of Shooters Island.</p><br>
<h3>Federal ownership</h3><br>
<p>Liberty Island has been owned by the federal government since 1801, first as a military installation and now as a national landmark. Statue of Liberty National Monument, Ellis Island and Liberty Island, listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1966, encompasses land in both states control of which is superseded by the United States. The undisputed boundary between New Jersey and New York is in the center of the Hudson River and the Upper New York Bay, with Liberty Island situated well on the New Jersey side of the water line with Liberty Island itself an exclave of the State of New York and a part of New York City, allowing the state and city of New York to retain sovereignty of Liberty Island, serve process there and collect sales tax from Liberty Island souvenir shops.</p><br>
<p>In response to a FAQ about whether the Statue of Liberty is in New York or New Jersey, the National Park Service, which oversees Liberty Island, cites the 1834 compact.</p><br>
<p>Question 127 on a naturalization examination piloted in 2006 asks "Where is the Statue of Liberty?" The U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services gives "New York Harbor" and "Liberty Island" as preferred answers, but notes that "New Jersey," "New York," "New York City," and "on the Hudson" are acceptable.</p><br>
<p>The Statue of Liberty itself is claimed as a symbol by both New York and New Jersey. It was featured on New York license plates from 1986 through 2000 and on a special New Jersey license plate celebrating Liberty State Park in Jersey City. The Statue is also seen on the New York State Quarter. The national monument was the symbol of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, still used by the Raritan Valley Line. (The Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal is nearby).</p><br>
<p>Though it is uninhabited, the United States Geological Survey includes it as part of New York&#39;s 10th congressional district. Both New York City and Jersey City have assigned the island lot numbers. Utility services, including electricity, water, and sewage, to Liberty and Ellis Islands are provided from the New Jersey side. Mail is delivered from Battery Park.</p><br>
<p>The Massif Central is an elevated region in the middle of southern France, consisting of mountains and plateaus. It covers approximately 15 percent of the country.</p><br>
<p>Subject to volcanism that has subsided in the last 10,000 years, these central mountains are separated from the Alps by a deep north-south cleft created by the Rhône River and known in French as the sillon rhodanien (literally "the furrow of the Rhône").</p><br>
<p>The region was a barrier to transport within France until the opening of the A75 motorway, which not only made north-south travel easier, but also opened up the Massif Central itself.</p><br>
<h2>Geography and geology</h2><br>
<p>The Massif Central is an old massif, formed during the Variscan orogeny, consisting mostly of granitic and metamorphic rocks. It was powerfully raised and made to look geologically younger in the eastern section by the uplift of the Alps during the Paleogene period and in the southern section by the uplift of the Pyrenees. The massif thus presents a strongly asymmetrical elevation profile with highlands in the south and in the east (Cévennes) dominating the valley of the Rhône and the plains of Languedoc and by contrast, the less elevated region of Limousin in the north-west.</p><br>
<p>These tectonic movements created faults and are maybe at the origin of the volcanism in the Massif Central (but the hypothesis is not proved yet). In fact, above the crystalline foundation, we can observe many volcanoes of many different types and ages: volcanic plateaus (Aubrac, Cézallier), stratovolcanoes (Mounts of Cantal, Monts Dore), and small, very recent monogenic volcanoes (Chaîne des Puys, Vivarais). The entire region contains a large concentration of approximately 450 extinct volcanoes. The strip of "Chaîne des Puys", running north to south and less than long, contains 115 of them. The Auvergne Volcanoes National Park is in the massif.</p><br>
<p>In the south, one remarkable region, made up of features called causses in French, consists of raised calcareous plateaus cut by very deep canyons. The most famous of these is the canyon of Tarn.</p><br>
<h2>Mountains</h2><br>
<p>Mountain ranges, with notable individual mountains, are (roughly north-to-south):</p><br>
<p>Chaîne des Puys</p><br>
<p>Puy de Dôme</p><br>
<p>Puy de Pariou</p><br>
<p>Puy de Lassolas</p><br>
<p>Puy de la Vache</p><br>
<p>Monts Dore</p><br>
<p>Puy de Sancy</p><br>
<p>Monts du Lyonnais</p><br>
<p>Pilat massif</p><br>
<p>Crêt de la Perdrix</p><br>
<p>Mounts of Cantal</p><br>
<p>Plomb du Cantal</p><br>
<p>Puy Mary</p><br>
<p>Forez</p><br>
<p>Pierre-sur-Haute</p><br>
<p>L&#39;Aubrac</p><br>
<p>Le Signal de Mailhebiau</p><br>
<p>Monts de La Margeride</p><br>
<p>Signal de Randon</p><br>
<p>Monts du Vivarais (Ardèche)</p><br>
<p>Mont Mézenc</p><br>
<p>Mont Gerbier de Jonc</p><br>
<p>Cévennes</p><br>
<p>Mont Lozère, the highest non-volcanic summit</p><br>
<p>Mont Aigoual, near Le Vigan, Florac</p><br>
<p>Monts de Lacaune</p><br>
<p>Montgrand</p><br>
<p>Monts de L&#39;Espinouse</p><br>
<p>Sommet de L&#39;Espinouse</p><br>
<p>Montagne Noire</p><br>
<p>Pic de Nore</p><br>
<h2>Plateaus</h2><br>
<p>Causse du Larzac</p><br>
<p>Plateau de Millevaches</p><br>
<p>Plateau de Lévézou</p><br>
<p>Causse du Comtal</p><br>
<p>Causse de Sauveterre</p><br>
<p>Causse de Sévérac</p><br>
<p>Causse Méjean</p><br>
<p>Causse Noir</p><br>
<p>Causse de Blandas</p><br>
<h2>Administration</h2><br>
<p>The following departments are generally considered as part of the Massif Central: Allier, Ardèche, Aude, Aveyron, Cantal, Corrèze, Creuse, Gard, Haute-Loire, Haute-Vienne, Hérault, Loire, Lot, Lozère, Puy-de-Dôme, Rhône, and Tarn.</p><br>
<p>The following regions are part of the Massif Central: Auvergne, Limousin. Part of the following regions are in the Massif Central: Languedoc-Roussillon, Midi-Pyrénées, and Rhône-Alpes.</p><br>
<p>The largest cities are Clermont-Ferrand, Limoges, and Saint-Étienne.</p><br>
<p>Peleș Castle  is a Neo-Renaissance castle in the Carpathian Mountains, near Sinaia, in Prahova County, Romania, on an existing medieval route linking Transylvania and Wallachia, built between 1873 and 1914. Its inauguration was held in 1883. It was constructed for King Carol I.</p><br>
<h2>Location</h2><br>
<p>The complex is northwest of the town of Sinaia, which is 48 km from Braşov and 124 km from Bucharest. Nestled in the southeastern Carpathian Mountains, the complex is composed of three monuments: Peleș Castle, Pelișor Castle, and the Foișor Hunting Lodge.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>When the King Carol I of Romania (1839–1914), under whose reign the country gained its independence, first visited the site of the future castle in 1866, he fell in love with the magnificent mountain scenery. In 1872, the Crown purchased 1,300 km&sup2; of land near the Piatra Arsă River. The estate was named the Royal Estate of Sinaia. The King commissioned the construction of a royal hunting preserve and summer retreat on the property, and the foundation was laid for Peleș Castle on 22 August 1873. Several auxiliary buildings were built simultaneously with the castle: the guards chambers, the Economat Building, the Foișor hunting lodge, the royal stables, and a power plant. Peleș became the worlds first castle fully powered by locally produced electricity.</p><br>
<p>The first three design plans submitted for Peleș were copies of other palaces in Western Europe, and King Carol I rejected them all as lacking originality and being too costly. German architect Johannes Schultz won the project by presenting a more original plan, something that appealed to the King&#39;s taste: a grand palatial alpine castle combining different features of classic European styles, mostly following Italian elegance and German aesthetics along Renaissance lines. Works were also led by architect Carol Benesch.</p><br>
<p>Paul Constantin, Universal Dictionary of Architects (Dicționar Universal al Arhitecților), București, Editura Stiințifică si Enciclopedică, 1986 p. 39. Later additions were made between 1893 and 1914 by the Czech architect Karel Liman, who designed the towers, including the main central tower, which is 66 m in height. The Sipot Building, which served as Limans headquarters during the construction, was built later on. Liman would supervise the building of the nearby Pelișor Castle (1889–1903, the future residence of King Ferdinand I and Queen Marie of Romania), as well as of King Ferdinands villa in the Royal Sheepfold Meadow.</p><br>
<p>The cost of the work on the castle undertaken between 1875 and 1914 was estimated to be 16,000,000 Romanian lei in gold (approx. US$ 120 million today). Between three and four hundred men worked on the construction. Queen Elisabeth of the Romanians, during the construction phase, wrote in her journal:</p><br>
<p>Construction saw a slight slowdown during the Romanian War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire in 1877–78, but soon afterwards the plans grew in size and construction was quite rapid. Peleș Castle had its official Royal Ball of Inauguration on 7 October 1883. King Carol I and Queen Elizabeth lived in Foişor Villa during construction, as did King Ferdinand and Queen Mary during the construction of Pelișor Castle. King Carol II was born at the castle in 1893, giving meaning to the phrase "cradle of the dynasty, cradle of the nation" that Carol I bestowed upon Peleș Castle. Carol II lived in Foișor Villa for periods during his reign.</p><br>
<p>After King Michael I&#39;s forced abdication in 1947, the Communist regime seized all royal property, including the Peleș Estate. The castle was opened as a tourist attraction for a short time. It also served as a recreation and resting place for Romanian cultural personalities. The castle was declared a museum in 1953. Nicolae Ceaușescu closed the entire estate between 1975 and 1990, during the last years of the Communist regime. The area was declared a "State Protocol Interest Area", and the only persons permitted on the property were maintenance and military personnel.</p><br>
<p>Ceauşescu did not like the castle very much and rarely visited. In the 1980s, some of the timber was infested with the Serpula lacrymans. After the December 1989 Revolution, Peleş and Pelişor Castle were re-established as heritage sites and opened to the public. Today, Foişor Castle serves as a presidential residence. The Economat Building and the Guard&#39;s Chambers Building are now hotels and restaurants. Some of the other buildings on the Peleș Estate were converted to tourist villas and some are now "state protocol buildings". In 2006, the Romanian government announced the restitution of the castle to former monarch Michael I. Negotiations soon began between the former king and the government of Romania, and have not concluded yet. The castle is on lease from the royal family to the Romanian state. Peleș Castle receives between a quarter and almost a half million visitors annually.</p><br>
<p>Throughout its history, the castle hosted some important personalities, from royalty and politicians to artists. One of the most memorable visits was that of Kaiser Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary on 2 October 1896, who later wrote in a letter:</p><br>
<p>Artists like George Enescu, Sarah Bernhardt, Jacques Thibaud and Vasile Alecsandri visited often as guests of Queen Elizabeth of Romania (herself a writer also known under the pen name of Carmen Sylva). In more recent times, many foreign dignitaries such as Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Muammar al-Gaddafi, and Yasser Arafat were welcomed at the castle.</p><br>
<p>The castle was featured in the 2009 film The Brothers Bloom. The exterior of the castle is used to represent a large estate in New Jersey, the home of an eccentric billionaire played by Rachel Weisz.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>By form and function, Peleş is a palace, but it is consistently called a castle. Its architectural style is a romantically inspired blend Neo-Renaissance and Gothic Revival similar to Schloss Neuschwanstein in Bavaria. A Saxon influence can be observed in the interior courtyard facades, which have allegorical hand-painted murals and ornate fachwerk similar to that seen in northern European alpine architecture. Interior decoration is mostly Baroque influenced, with heavy carved woods and exquisite fabrics.</p><br>
<p>Peleş Castle has a 3,200 m&sup2; floor plan with over 170 rooms, many with dedicated themes from world cultures (in a similar fashion as other Romanian palaces, like Cotroceni Palace). Themes vary by function (offices, libraries, armories, art galleries) or by style (Florentine, Turkish, Moorish, French, Imperial); all the rooms are extremely lavishly furnished and decorated to the slightest detail. There are 30 bathrooms. The establishment hosts one of the finest collections of art in Eastern and Central Europe, consisting of statues, paintings, furniture, arms and armor, gold, silver, stained glass, ivory, fine china, tapestries, and rugs. The collection of arms and armor has over 4,000 pieces, divided between Eastern and Western war pieces and ceremonial or hunting pieces, spreading over four centuries of history. Oriental rugs come from many sources: Bukhara, Mosul, Isparta, Saruk, and Smirna. The porcelain is from Sèvres and Meissen; the leather is from Córdoba. Perhaps the most acclaimed items are the hand-painted stained glass vitralios, which are mostly Swiss.</p><br>
<p>A towering statue of King Carol I by Raffaello Romanelli overlooks the main entrance. Many other statues are present on the seven Italian neo-Renaissance terrace gardens, mostly of Carrara marble executed by the Italian sculptor Romanelli. The gardens also host fountains, urns, stairways, guarding lions, marble paths, and other decorative pieces.</p><br>
<p>Peleș Castle shelters a painting collection of almost 2,000 pieces. Angelo de Gubernatis (1840–1913) was an Italian writer who arrived in 1898 in Sinaia as a guest of the Royal Family:</p><br>
<h2>Museum</h2><br>
<p>Public visits are made within guided tours.</p><br>
<p>One of the tours is limited to the ground floor, another adds the first floor and the complete tour includes the second floor. Admission is charged, and there is an additional photography fee. The visiting hours are from 9 am to 5 pm. Wednesday through Sunday. On Tuesdays the hours are 11 am to 5 pm. The castle is closed on Mondays. These visiting hours are subject to change by the Romanian Culture Ministry. The castle is closed in November each year for maintenance and cleaning.</p><br>
<p>The most notable grand rooms are:</p><br>
<p>Holul de Onoare (The Hall of Honour) was finished completely only in 1911, under the guidance of Karel Liman. It spreads over three floors. Walls are dressed in exquisitely carved woodwork, mostly European walnut and exotic timbers. Bas-reliefs, alabaster sculptures, and retractable stained glass panels complete the decor.</p><br>
<p>Apartamentul Imperial (The Imperial Suite) is believed to be a tribute to the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I, who visited the palace as a friend of the Romanian Royal Family. Hence, decorator Auguste Bembe preferred the sumptuous Austrian Baroque in style of Empress Maria Theresa. A perfectly preserved five-hundred-year-old Cordoban tooled leather wall cover is the rarest of such quality.</p><br>
<p>Sala Mare de Arme (The Grand Armory or The Arsenal) is where 1,600 of the 4,000 pieces of weaponry and armor reside. One of Europe&#39;s finest collection of hunting and war implements, timelined between 14th and 19th century, are on display. The king added pieces used in his victory against the Ottoman Turks during the War of Independence. Famous are the complete Maximilian armor for horse and rider and a 15th-century German "nobles only" decapitation broadsword. Also on display are a wide array of polearms (glaives, halberds, lances, hunting spears), firearms (muskets, blunderbusses, snaphaunces, flintlocks, pistols), axes, crossbows, and swords (rapiers, sabers, broadswords, and many others).</p><br>
<p>Sala Mică de Arme (The Small Armory) is where predominantly Oriental (mostly Indo-Persian, Ottoman and Arab) arms and armor pieces are on exhibit, many of them made of gold and silver, and inlaid with precious stones. Included are chainmail armor, helmets, scimitars, yataghans, daggers, matchlocks, lances, pistols, shields, axes, and spears.</p><br>
<p>Sala de Teatru (The Playhouse) is decorated in Louis XIV style, with sixty seats and a Royal Box. Architectural decoration and mural paintings are signed by Gustav Klimt and Frantz Matsch.</p><br>
<p>Sala Florentină (The Florentine Room) combines revived elements of the Italian Renaissance, mostly from Florence. Most impressive are the solid bronze doors executed in Rome; ateliers of Luigi Magni; and the Grand Marble Fireplace executed by Paunazio with Michelangelo motifs.</p><br>
<p>Salonul Maur (The Moorish Salon) was executed under the guidance of Charles Lecompte de Nouy, and is meant to embody elements of North-African and Hispanic Moorish style. Mother-of-pearl inlaid furniture, fine Persian Sarouk and Ottoman Isparta rugs, and Oriental weapons and armor are perhaps the most expressive elements. The salon has an indoor marble fountain.</p><br>
<p>Salonul Turcesc (The Turkish Parlor) emulates an Ottoman "joie de vivre" atmosphere—a room full of Turkish Izmir rugs and copperware from Anatolia and Persia. It was used as a smoking room for gentlemen. Walls are covered in hand-made textiles like silk brocades from the Siegert shops of Vienna.</p><br>
<p>In something remarkable in comparison to most recent-era royal families, the monarchs shared a bedroom.</p><br>
<h2>Present day</h2><br>
<p>A personal property of the Royal Family from the beginning, Peleș Castle was nationalized after King Michael abdicated and left the country following an agreement with the government dominated by communists. In 1997 the castle was returned to the Royal Family after a long judicial case that has been finalised in 2007. However, the former king expressed his desire that the castle should continue to shelter the Peleș National Museum, as well as being occasionally used for public ceremonies organised by the Royal Family.</p><br>
<p>On 10 May 2016, on the occasion of Romania&#39;s Independence Day marking 150 years of existence of the Romanian Royal Dynasty, the personal standard of Princess Margareta was flown on Peleș Castle, for the first time since 1947.</p><br>
<p>Volos  is a coastal port city in Thessaly situated midway on the Greek mainland, about 330 km north of Athens and 220 km south of Thessaloniki. It is the capital of the Magnesia regional unit. Volos is the only outlet to the sea from Thessaly, the country&#39;s largest agricultural region. With a population of 144,449 , it is an important industrial centre, while its port provides a bridge between Europe, the Middle East and Asia.</p><br>
<p>Volos is the newest of the Greek port cities, with a large proportion of modern buildings erected following the catastrophic earthquakes of 1955. It includes the municipal units of Volos, Nea Ionia and Iolkos, as well as smaller suburban communities. The economy of the city is based on manufacturing, trade, services and tourism. Home to the University of Thessaly, the city also offers facilities for conferences, exhibitions and major sporting, cultural and scientific events. Volos participated in the 2004 Olympic Games, and the city has since played host to other athletic events, such as the European Athletic Championships. Volos hosted the 7th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics from 27 July to 5 August 2013.</p><br>
<h2>Location</h2><br>
<p>Built at the innermost point of the Pagasetic Gulf and at the foot of Mount Pilio (Pelion, the land of the Centaurs). The city spreads in the plain on the foothills of Mount Pelion, bordering the town of Agria to the east and Nea Anchialos to the south west. Volos&#39; municipality includes both towns, along with many nearby villages, including Makrinitsa and Portaria.</p><br>
<p>Volos is a major commercial port of mainland Greece in the Aegean sea (after Piraeus and Thessaloniki), with connection by ferry and hydrofoil to the nearby Sporades Islands, which include Skiathos, Skopelos and Alonissos. There are also connections to Limnos, Lesvos, Chios and Skyros.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Antiquity</h3><br>
<p>Modern Volos is built on the area of the ancient cities of Demetrias, Pagasae and Iolcos. Demetrias was established by Demetrius Poliorcetes, King of Macedon. Iolkos, Iolcos or Iolcus, was the homeland of mythological hero Jason, who boarded the ship Argo accompanied by the Argonauts and sailed in quest of the Golden Fleece to Colchis. To the west of Volos lie the Neolithic settlements of Dimini, with a ruined acropolis, walls, and two beehive tombs dating to between 4000-1200 BC, Sesklo, with the remains of the oldest acropolis in Greece (6000 BC), and also the foundations of a palace and mansions, among its most characteristic examples of Neolithic civilisation.</p><br>
<h3>Byzantine era</h3><br>
<p>During the course of the 8th century, mainland Greece was subjected to numerous Bulgarian raids. At the end of the century, a large scale Bulgarian military expedition headed by the chieftain Akamir was launched from Belasica. The Bulgarians plundered Thessalia, from their encampment which was located between modern day Volos and Velestino. The Byzantines called those Bulgarians Velegizitas or Vielesti. Volos, Velestino, Zagora and many other placenames in Magnesia originate from that period and are of Slavic origin. The first reference to Golos (Greek: "Γόλος") comes from a Byzantine document dated to 1333, while Volos appears to be a later corruption of the term. Golos probably originated from the Slavic word gološ seat of administration, or perhaps from gol bald, naked, as the area has sparse vegetation. Two alternative theories allude to a Greek origin through the words βολή (throw), as fishermen threw their nets into the sea from that area, and βώλος (piece of land). In the 14 century Volos came under the control of Serbia, subsequent conquest by the Republic of Venice and the Catalans led to a large drop in the local population.</p><br>
<h3>Ottoman era</h3><br>
<p>Volos was held by the Ottoman Empire from 1393–1397 and the in 1403, and finally conquered in 1423. The Ottoman name of the city was قلز "Quluz&quot it marked the southern border of the Vilayet-i Rumeli-i Şarki. Later, it was a center of a kaza in the Sanjak of Tirhala, which was part of Jannina Vilayet.</p><br>
<p>At the beginning of the Greek Revolution, the provisional government of Greece claimed Volos as part of Greek national territory, but the Treaty of Constantinople (1832), which established a Greek independent state, set its northern boundary between Arta and Volos. However, Volos was incorporated into the Greek Kingdom in 1881.</p><br>
<h3>Modern Volos</h3><br>
<p>Volos is a relatively new city, beginning its strongest growth in the mid-19th century. The locality of its castle was previously known as Golos by Ottomans and locals, while Ano Volos was known as Gkolos.</p><br>
<p>After its incorporation into the Greek Kingdom from the Ottoman Empire in 1881, the town had a population of only 4,900, but grew rapidly in the next four decades as merchants, businessmen, craftsmen and sailors gravitated toward it from the surrounding area. In the 1920s a large influx of refugees to the settlement took place, especially from Ionia, but also from Pontus, Cappadocia and Eastern Thrace. In 1882, Andreas Syngros established the Privileged Bank of Epirus and Thessaly, which the National Bank of Greece acquired in 1899 after its founder&#39;s death. Volos was occupied by Ottomans on 8 May 1897, during the Greco Turkish War.</p><br>
<p>The city had a vibrant Jewish community in the early 20th century: from ca. 500 in 1896, it rose to ca. 2,000 in 1930, before falling drastically to 882 members in 1940, because of emigration to the great cities of Thessaloniki and Athens or abroad. During the Axis occupation of Greece, the prompt actions of the local chief rabbi, Moshe Pessach, and the Greek authorities, saved about 700 of the local Jewish community from deportation to the Nazi death camps.</p><br>
<p>Argovolos.jpgModern sculpture of Argo, the mythic ship of the Argonauts, at the port.</p><br>
<p>Ss. Constantine ^ Helen Orthodox Church - panoramio.jpgThe church of Saints Constantine and Helen at the seafront.</p><br>
<p>Volos port.jpgSunset from Volos port.</p><br>
<p>Volos is also well known for its assortment of mezedes and a clear, alcoholic beverage known as tsipouro.</p><br>
<p>A street in a sister city, Rostov-on-Don, bears the name Улица Греческого Города Волос (Street of the Greek City of Volos), weaving through a mix of early 20th century buildings with characteristic inner yards, tiered balconies and open iron stairs that lend the old Rostov its characteristic Mediterranean look.</p><br>
<h2>Administration</h2><br>
<p>The municipality Volos was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 9 former municipalities, that became municipal units:</p><br>
<p>Agria</p><br>
<p>Aisonia</p><br>
<p>Artemida</p><br>
<p>Iolcos</p><br>
<p>Makrinitsa</p><br>
<p>Nea Anchialos</p><br>
<p>Nea Ionia</p><br>
<p>Portaria</p><br>
<p>Volos</p><br>
<p>The municipality has an area of 385.614 km, the municipal unit 27.678 km.</p><br>
<h3>Province</h3><br>
<p>The province of Volos (Επαρχία Βόλου) was one of the provinces of the Magnesia Prefecture. Its territory corresponded with that of the current municipalities Volos, Rigas Feraios, South Pelion and Zagora-Mouresi. It was abolished in 2006.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Volos is the administrative centre of the Magnesia regional unit. Many of the city domains are separated through natural barricades, such as rivers.</p><br>
<p>Three main rivers/mountain torrents all rise from mount Pelion (with its peak at 1,610 m), crossing the city to create a unique urban geography, before ending in the Pagasetic Gulf flowing west. The Anavros river, famous for Jason&#39;s pass, divides the Nea Demetriada district from the rest of the urban area. Krausidonas is the major river passing through the city, and constitutes the natural lung of the urbanized area of Volos, as well as the boundary between the major municipalities of the metropolitan city, the municipalities of Volos and Nea Ionia. Xirias (Ξηριάς), is the largest torrent of the metropolitan urban area of Volos, and passes through the Nea Ionia municipal area.</p><br>
<h3>Climate</h3><br>
<p>Volos, having a Mediterranean climate, typically experiences neither particularly high nor extremely low temperatures throughout the year. Its climate is one of a low humidity, favourable for all kinds of activities. The Pelion mountain, with its own microclimate, affects the city&#39;s weather.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>Volos used to have plenty of old mansions, the majority of which was destroyed after the earthquakes in 1955. Nowadays, only some of them have been saved, restored and have a new, mainly public, use.</p><br>
<p>Volos rail station.jpgVolos Railway station, designed by Evaristo De Chirico.</p><br>
<p>Old Tsalapatas factory.jpgThe Rooftile and Brickworks Museum Tsalapatas in Volos.</p><br>
<p>The development of the new city coincided with the flourishing of neoclassicism. Public buildings conformed to this style and prestigious private buildings belonging to prosperous merchants were particularly sophisticated. Typical examples include:</p><br>
<p>The 3-storeyed Hotel de France, with its impressive decorative murals (1894, Iasonos and K. Kartali Street)</p><br>
<p>Old Tobacco Factory of Matsaggos (1890)</p><br>
<p>Yellow Warehouse</p><br>
<p>The National Bank, formerly the Epirothessalian Bank (1895)</p><br>
<p>The Athens Bank (1903, today the library of University of Thessaly)</p><br>
<p>The Achillopouleion Hospital (1901)</p><br>
<p>The Archaeological Museum of Volos, Athanasakeio (1909)</p><br>
<p>The Agricultural Bank (1909, formerly the Kosmadopoulos Bank)</p><br>
<p>The Cinetheater Achillion (1925)</p><br>
<p>The Aegli Hotel, (1927), designed by Kassiopoulos</p><br>
<p>The Building of the Air-force High officials Club near Agios Konstantinos Park, believed to have been designed by Le Corbusier</p><br>
<p>The Bank of Greece (1935)</p><br>
<p>Municipal conservatory of Volos</p><br>
<p>The old factory of Tsalapatas</p><br>
<p>Tsikrikis Mansion</p><br>
<p>Kitsos Makris&#39; house(today Kitsos Makris Folklore Centre)</p><br>
<p>Volos Mayor House</p><br>
<p>The Railway Station of Volos, designed by Evaristo De Chirico</p><br>
<p>The Averofeian courts of Justice</p><br>
<p>The family houses of Kartalis, Glavanis, Kastemis, Saratsis</p><br>
<p>The Sarafopoulos Mansion (1927), today the Volos Club</p><br>
<p>The well preserved Regas house and its singular decorative murals, today the Lyceum of Greek women</p><br>
<h2>Districts</h2><br>
<h2>Education</h2><br>
<p>The city of Volos consists the administrative and academic centre of University of Thessaly, which was founded in 1984 and consists the most important centre of education in central Greece. The faculties of Engineering, Humanities and Social Sciences and Agricultural Sciences with twelve Departments are based in Volos, enforcing the academic, economic and cultural development of the city. The faculties are located in different places in the city. “Pedion Areos” Campus is used by the Departments of the School of Engineering, the School of Humanities and Social Sciences is located in the centre of the city, thus the School of Agricultural Sciences is based in a renovated building in Fytoko. In addition to Greek students, the city and the University attract many foreign students via Erasmus and other programmes.</p><br>
<p>Moreover, in the city there are 56 kindergartens, 51 primary schools, 18 junior high schools and 13 senior high schools.</p><br>
<h2>Economy</h2><br>
<p>Volos is one of the most industrialized provincial cities of Greece, because of its strategic location between the largest population centers of the country (Athens - Thessaloníki) and its port. Industry is intensely specialized in steel production and manufacturing. Three major steel producers (METKA, SIDENOR and Hellenic Steel Industry (Ελληνική Χαλυβουργία)) have production facilities in the industrial areas of Volos and nearby Almyros.</p><br>
<p>AGET - Hraklis, a member of the Lafarge group, operates one of the largest cement facilities in the world (with capacity exceeding 7,000,000 tn) with its own private port, next to the city. Volos is also active in the research sector, hosting the Institute of Bio-Economy and Agri-Technology (iBO), one of the five Institutes of the Center for Research and Technology – Hellas (CERTH).</p><br>
<h2>Port</h2><br>
<p>The port that lies upon ancient Iolkos where one of the most legendary sea. Here, at the safe port of the Pagasitikos bay, Jason built his trireme, Argo, and along with his oarsmen set course for Colhis bringing back and getting married to priestess Medea.</p><br>
<p>The new port was founded in 1893 and was the most significant element for the industrial development of the area. Today, Volos has the 3rd largest cargo port in Greece (after Piraeus and Thessaloniki), carrying agricultural and industrial products. In the past there was connection with Tartus in Syria.</p><br>
<p>Ferries and flying dolphins operate daily connecting Volos to Magnesia islands, Sporades (Skiathos, Skopelos, Alonissos). Moreover, many cruise ships use the port of Volos as a destination. During the summers of 2015 and 2016, more than 100 cruises arrived in Volos, carrying more than 100.000 visitors.</p><br>
<p>Volos 2w.jpgView of the port.</p><br>
<p>Ikarous Volos 20110707 b.jpgCargo ship at the harbour.</p><br>
<p>The Argo.jpgThe ship Argo, on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed from Iolcos to Colchis, as it has been reconstructed in port of Volos.</p><br>
<h2>International relations</h2><br>
<p>The city of Volos has always had a major role in the financial, economic, commercial and administrative matters of the region of Thessaly and Central Greece, due to the strategic position of the city&#39;s port, unique between Athens and Thessaloniki.</p><br>
<h3>International consulates</h3><br>
<p>Several European countries have established consulates in Volos including:</p><br>
<p>Italy</p><br>
<p>France</p><br>
<p>Belgium</p><br>
<p>Germany</p><br>
<p>Denmark</p><br>
<p>Netherlands</p><br>
<h3>Twin towns — sister cities</h3><br>
<p>Volos is twinned with:</p><br>
<p>- Antofagasta, Chile</p><br>
<p>- Batumi, Georgia</p><br>
<p>- Le Mans, France</p><br>
<p>- Pleven, Bulgaria</p><br>
<p>- Rostov-on-Don, Russia</p><br>
<p>- Smederevo, Serbia</p><br>
<h2>Culture</h2><br>
<p>The wider region of Volos is a place with great history, finding the first signals of culture in the Neolithic period. In the villages Sesklo and Dimini have been discovered the first findings of Neolithic culture in Europe.</p><br>
<p>Moreover, close to Volos there are the ancient Dimitrias, a town that was built by Dimitrios Poliorkitis in 294-2 AC. Today, the ancient theater of Dimitrias is saved. There are also the archaeological region of Goritsa hill, findings of Old-Christian period in Nea Anchialos and the wall of the old castle of Volos that someone can visit.</p><br>
<p>Volos consists a city with various greek trades, as the industrial development and the port conducted many people move in the city. The industrial and financial evolution of the city conducted in a cultural and social evolution too. In 1894, Volos acquired its Municipal Theater and in 1896 the Volos Gymnastic Club. In 1908, in Volos was founded the first Labor Union in Greece.</p><br>
<p>After 1922 with the Asia Minor Catastrophe, Volos received a large amount of people coming from the destroyed regions. This coexistence with the locals influenced deeply the culture of the city, making this influence visible in the food, music, sports, entertainment and social life of the city.</p><br>
<p>Nowadays, there is a plenty of museums and galleries spread in the city, but also in the wide region. Moreover, Volos consists one of the most attractive and touristic cities in Greece because of its physical attributes combining the Pagasetic Gulf with the Mount Pelion.</p><br>
<p>Volos is a candidate city for the European Capital of Culture in 2021.</p><br>
<h3>Museums and galleries</h3><br>
<p>Archaeological Museum of Volos</p><br>
<p>Volos Natural History Museum</p><br>
<p>Modern History Museum of Volos City</p><br>
<p>Thessaly Railway Museum, Railway Station of Volos</p><br>
<p>The Rooftile and Brickworks Museum N. & S. Tsalapatas, National Museum of Industrial History</p><br>
<h3>Cuisine</h3><br>
<p>One of the main characteristics and touristic specialities of Volos is the traditional drink tsipouro and the sea food that is served accompanying the drink.</p><br>
<p>Local specialities include:</p><br>
<p>Boubari</p><br>
<p>Spetsofai</p><br>
<p>Melachrini (dessert)</p><br>
<p>Spoon sweets</p><br>
<p>Tsipouro (drink)</p><br>
<h3>Sports</h3><br>
<p>Volos, taking advantage of its physical attributes by the sea, has a significant presence in Greek sport history in racing rowing (sport) and sailing (sport). Furthermore, Volos has two closed and one open swimming pools, presenting a long history in swimming and water polo. Moreover, Volos has many clubs and facilities in several sport such as football, basketball, volleyball, tennis. The most popular clubs, with great offer in sport and cultural history of the city and significant successes in football, are Olympiakos Volou and Niki Volou. The main clubs of Volos are shown below.</p><br>
<p>Volos uses to be one of the five cities that hosted the 2004 Summer Olympics.</p><br>
<p>Volos after 2004, has hosted in its facilities significant sports events such as 27th European Championship of Artistic Gymnastics in 2006, the FIBA Europeaan Championship of Young Men (2015) when Greece acquired the gold medal and the Final of Greek Football Cup in 2017.</p><br>
<h2>Transport</h2><br>
<p>All land transport reaches Volos, while the International Airport of Central Greece in Nea Anchialos links the city to international destinations, and the Port of Volos provides links to the islands, mostly the Sporades, as well as to some destinations in Pilio.</p><br>
<h3>Motorways</h3><br>
<p>Volos is linked through Greece&#39;s E75 Highway Axis (most often known as PATHE) with Northern and Southern Greece. Beyond this, the Axis E65 will be the gateway to Western Greece and the port of Igoumenitsa, through the plains of inner Thessaly; this part of the E65 motorway will be completed by 2012.</p><br>
<h3>Airport</h3><br>
<p>The city of Volos, along with the rest of Central Greece, is linked to the rest of Greece and Europe by the Nea Anchialos National Airport. The airport has the second longest commercial runway in Greece after Eleftherios Venizelos.</p><br>
<p>Volos is the first city in Europe to feature Seaplane Services through Argo Airways, which is based in Volos. The seaplanes connect Volos with Skiathos, Skopelos, Allonisos, Athens and Thessaloniki.</p><br>
<h3>Railway</h3><br>
<p>Volos&#39; railway station building was designed by Evaristo De Chirico soon after the liberation of Central Greece. Part of the station still functions in this picturesque 1884 structure, reminiscent of a stately home to some. The adjacent neoclassical building, built between 1900 and 1903 under Evaristo De Chirico, served as the administrative headquarters of the Thessaly Railways.</p><br>
<p>Today, the city is served by direct lines to the rest of Greece, and the railway complex houses facilities for train maintenance. Volos is directly linked with Athens once per day, with Thessaloniki twice per day, and with Larissa 15 times a day. In the past Volos was served by railway lines of three different gauges, the metre gauge line of Thessaly Railways to Kalampaka, the standard gauge line to Larissa and the gauge line to Pelion. Remnants of triple gauge lines still exist near the station. Currently, the Pelion railway line operates for touristic reasons every Saturday, Sunday and public holiday from mid-April to the end of October. The train runs every day during July and August.</p><br>
<h2>Notable people</h2><br>
<h3>Mythology</h3><br>
<p>Iason, mythological hero</p><br>
<p>Peleus, mythological hero</p><br>
<p>Chiron, centaur</p><br>
<h3>Modern</h3><br>
<p>Rigas Feraios, writer, political thinker and revolutionary(1757–1798)</p><br>
<p>Grigorios Konstantas, Greek scholar (1753–1844)</p><br>
<p>Anthimos Gazis, Greek scholar, philosopher (1758–1828)</p><br>
<p>Giorgio de Chirico, painter (1888–1978)</p><br>
<p>Vangelis, composer (1943)</p><br>
<p>Dimitrios Trichopoulos, medical doctor, Professor of Harvard School of Public Health</p><br>
<p>Georgios Kartalis, politician (1908-1957)</p><br>
<p>John Argyris, engineer (1913–2004)</p><br>
<p>Yorgos Foudoulis, musician and composer (1964)</p><br>
<p>Phaidon Gizikis, army officer and President of Greece during the junta (1917–1999)</p><br>
<p>Moshe Pesach, rabbi of Volos and Chief Rabbi of Greece</p><br>
<p>Lavrentis Mahairitsas, musician and songwriter (1956)</p><br>
<p>Yannis Kordatos, marxist historian (1891-1961)</p><br>
<p>Theophilos Hatzimihail, painter (1871–1934)</p><br>
<p>Kostas Papahristos, actor (1916–1995)</p><br>
<h3>Athletes</h3><br>
<p>Vasileios Polymeros, rower, olympic medalist (1976)</p><br>
<p>Nikolaos Skiathitis, rower, olympic medalist (1981)</p><br>
<p>Olga Vasdeki, triple jumper (1973)</p><br>
<p>Spyridon Vasdekis, long jumper (1970)</p><br>
<p>Paraskevi Tsiamita, triple, long jumper (1972)</p><br>
<p>Panagiotis Liadelis, basketball player (1974)</p><br>
<p>Athanasios Kostoulas, football player (1976)</p><br>
<p>Christos Volikakis, track cyclist (1988)</p><br>
<p>Adam Tzanetopoulos, football player (1995)</p><br>
<p>Cerro Maravilla is Puerto Rico&#39;s fourth highest peak at 1,205 m. It is located on the northern edge Barrio Anón in Ponce, close to the border with the municipality Jayuya, and is part of the Cordillera Central . It is known as El Cerro de los Mártires  and characterized as the most infamous peak in Puerto Rico, due to the 1978 Cerro Maravilla murders which took place here.</p><br>
<h2>Location and access</h2><br>
<p>The peak is located at the end of the 0.5 km-long Puerto Rico Highway 577, which is accessible via Puerto Rico Highway 143, traveling either westbound or eastbound. PR-143 is a secondary two-way, two-lane mountainous road that is relatively well traveled. The peak&#39;s coordinates are: 18&deg;9&prime;8.34&Prime;N latitude, 66&deg;33&prime;17.63&Prime;W longitude.</p><br>
<p>The height of the mountain makes for some interesting sights. For example, on clear days both the northern and southern coasts of the island can be appreciated simultaneously. In the winter season, the air is crisp and the temperature at night will usually fluctuate between the 40s and 60s degrees Fahrenheit. The chirping of the familiar "coquies" is prominent after nightfall.</p><br>
<h2>Cerro Maravilla incident</h2><br>
<p>The peak might be best known for being the place where two Puerto Rico independence activists were slain on July 25, 1978 in a police ambush (see Cerro Maravilla murders.) This controversy has since turned the mountain into a meeting point for supporters of the independence of the Puerto Rican Commonwealth to gather annually to remember the murdered activists and condemn the current colonial status.</p><br>
<h2>Climate</h2><br>
<p>The following table charts the climate at Cerro Marravilla throughout the year.</p><br>
<p>Indian Village is a historic, affluent neighborhood located on Detroit&#39;s east side, bound to the north and south by Mack Avenue and East Jefferson Avenue, respectively, along the streets of Burns, Iroquois, and Seminole. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>The district has a number of architecturally-significant homes built in the early 20th century. A number of the houses have been substantially restored, and many others well kept up. Bordering Indian Village to the west is West Village, with additional historic homes, townhouses and apartments.</p><br>
<p>Many of the homes were built by prominent architects, such as Albert Kahn, Louis Kamper and William Stratton, for some of the area&#39;s most prominent citizens, such as Edsel Ford. A lot of homes are very large, with some over 12,000 square feet (1,100 m²). Many have a carriage house, with some of those being larger than an average suburban home. Some of the houses also have large amounts of Pewabic Pottery tiles.</p><br>
<p>Indian Village has very active community organizations, including the Indian Village Association, Mens Garden Club & Womens Garden Club. The neighborhood hosts an annual Home & Garden Tour the first Saturday of June, a neighborhood yard sales in September, a holiday home tour in December, and many other community events. The neighborhood contains many historic homes including that of automotive entrepreneur Henry Leland, founder of Lincoln and Cadillac, who resided at 1052 Seminole St.</p><br>
<h2>Education</h2><br>
<p>Detroit Public Schools operates area public schools.</p><br>
<p>Residents are zoned to Nichols Elementary School, Marcus Garvey African Centered Academy K-8 for middle school, and Southeastern High School. On previous occasions Butzel Middle School served Indian Village.</p><br>
<p>Private schools serving Indian Village include the Benjamin E. Mays Male Academy, the Detroit Waldorf School and Detroit Friends School. Cornerstone Schools formerly operated the K-5 Iroquois Campus in Indian Village.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The National Archives Building, known informally as Archives I, is the original headquarters of the National Archives and Records Administration. It is located north of the National Mall at 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, Northwest, Washington, D.C.</p><br>
<p>The Rotunda entrance is on Constitution Avenue, while the research entrance is on Pennsylvania Avenue. A second larger facility, known as "Archives II" (or simply as "A2"), is located in College Park, Maryland.</p><br>
<h2>Exhibits</h2><br>
<p>It holds the original copies of the three main formative documents of the United States and its government: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. It also hosts an original version of the 1297 Magna Carta confirmed by Edward I.</p><br>
<p>These are displayed to the public in the main chamber of the National Archives, which is called the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom.</p><br>
<p>The National Archives Building also exhibits other important American historical documents such as the Articles of Confederation, the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, the Emancipation Proclamation, and collections of photography and other historically and culturally significant American artifacts.</p><br>
<p>Once inside the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom, there are no lines to see the individual documents and visitors are allowed to walk from document to document as they wish. Photography is not permitted in the National Archives Museum. Photography with natural light is permitted in research rooms.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Before the National Archives Building</h3><br>
<p>From its founding, the USA federal government has documented its policies and decisions, but for almost 150 years it had virtually no method or place to safeguard historically important records. During those years, officials occasionally decried federal neglect, or too often, fires destroyed important documents, reinforcing the need for an archives. By the end of the 19th century, a few architects had even submitted plans to the government for an archives or a hall of records. By the early 20th century an organized effort aimed at creating the National Archives began, but not until 1926 did Congress finally approve the National Archives Building.</p><br>
<h3>Planning stages</h3><br>
<p>That year, Congress authorized construction of the National Archives Building as part of a massive public buildings program designed to beautify the center of Washington, DC, and provide office space for the growing federal bureaucracy. This program led to the design and construction of buildings within the Federal Triangle. Secretary of the Treasury Andrew W. Mellon gave the responsibility for designing the Triangle grouping to a Board of Architectural Consultants. Louis A. Simon, the Supervisory Architect of the Treasury Department, drafted a preliminary design for the Archives, placing it along Pennsylvania Avenue between 9th and 10th Streets, NW.</p><br>
<p>In late 1927, preliminary drawings of the individual Triangle buildings were incorporated into a formal presentation of the entire project. The drawings became the basis for a three-dimensional scale model that was publicly unveiled in April 1929. The next month, after examining the model, the Commission of Fine Arts was highly critical of Simon&#39;s design for an archives. Commissioners suggested that the noted architect John Russell Pope be added to the Board of Architectural Consultants and that he design the National Archives. Pope was asked to join when the death of a board member created a vacancy.</p><br>
<p>Popes architectural vision transformed both the location and design of the National Archives Building. He successfully proposed relocating the Archives to the block between Seventh and Eighth Streets, a site he believed demanded a monumental building such as the National Archives. In place of Simons design, Pope&#39;s National Archives was to be a neoclassical temple befitting an institution dedicated to American history.</p><br>
<h3>Breaking ground</h3><br>
<p>Ground was broken for the National Archives on September 5, 1931, by the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Ferry K. Heath. By the time President Herbert Hoover laid the cornerstone of the building in February 1933, significant problems had arisen. Because the massive structure was to be constructed above an underground stream, 8,575 piles had been driven into the unstable soil, before pouring a huge concrete bowl as a foundation. Another difficulty arose over the choice of building materials. Both limestone and granite were authorized as acceptable, but construction began during the darkest days of the Great Depression, and suppliers of each material lobbied fiercely to have the government use their stone. Ultimately, as in the other Federal Triangle buildings, limestone was used for the exterior superstructure and granite for the base.</p><br>
<h3>Construction</h3><br>
<p>Constructing the National Archives was a mammoth task. Not only was the building the most ornate structure on the Federal Triangle, but it also called for installation of specialized air-handling systems and filters, reinforced flooring, and thousands of feet of shelving to meet the buildings archival storage requirements. The buildings exterior took more than 4 years to finish and required a host of workers ranging from sculptors and model makers to air-conditioning contractors and structural-steel workers.</p><br>
<h3>Completion</h3><br>
<p>In November 1935, 120 National Archives staff members moved into their uncompleted building. Most of the exterior work was complete, but many stack areas, where records would be stored, had no shelving for incoming records. Work also continued on the Rotunda and other public spaces. More significantly, earlier estimates about the need for future stack space proved to be quite insufficient. Almost as soon as Popes original design was complete, a project to fill the Archives interior courtyard began, doubling storage space from 374,000 square feet to more than 757,000 square feet.</p><br>
<p>John Russell Pope&#39;s vision of the Archives as a temple of history has been preserved through maintenance and periodic restoration work on the building since the mid-1930s. Over the years, however, more records filled the building and even the courtyard expansion proved to be inadequate. By the late 1960s, the building reached its storage capacity of 900,000 cubic feet and the agency began renting large amounts of storage and administrative space. The 1993 completion of a second National Archives building in College Park, Maryland, added 1.8 million square feet to the National Archives, providing the nation with the most modern archives facility in the world.</p><br>
<h3>Reencasement and renovation</h3><br>
<p>The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights have been displayed to the public in the Rotunda of the National Archives Building since 1952. That year National Bureau of Standards placed the documents into hermetically sealed encasements filled with inert helium gas, which the Bureau believed would preserve the Charters well into the next century. Since the 1952 installation, National Archives conservators have conducted regular visual inspections of the encased documents. Since 1987, these inspections have been greatly enhanced through the use of an electronic imaging monitoring system developed for NARA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.</p><br>
<p>In an electronic inspection of the documents in 1995, conservators noticed changes in the glass encasements of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Glass experts from Libby-Owens-Ford (the original manufacturer of the encasement glass) and the Corning Glass Museum determined that the case glass components were showing signs of deterioration. Both the glass experts and the National Archives Advisory Committee on Preservation recommended that the Charters be reencased within seven years (by 2002) to ensure the continued safety and preservation of the documents.</p><br>
<p>In July 2001, the Charters were taken off display in the Rotunda to be removed from their deteriorating cases. National Archives conservators removed the documents from their cases and analyzed their condition. Appropriate conservation measures were taken on each document and they have been installed in the new encasements, returning to public display in September 2003.</p><br>
<h3>Timeline</h3><br>
<p>Congress authorized construction in 1926.</p><br>
<p>Ground was broken on September 5, 1931.</p><br>
<p>President Herbert Hoover laid the cornerstone in February 1933.</p><br>
<p>First opened in 1935.</p><br>
<p>Completed in 1937.</p><br>
<p>A renovation was completed in late 2004.</p><br>
<p>Public display space expanded from 12,000 to more than 19,000 square feet in 2013.</p><br>
<h2>Warren Commission</h2><br>
<p>Investigating the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Warren Commission met formally for the first time on December 5, 1963 in a hearing room on the second floor of the National Archives Building.</p><br>
<p>Gdansk Bay or the Bay of Gdansk Zatoka Gdańska; Gduńskô Hôwinga; Гданьская бухта, Gdan&#39;skaja bukhta, and Danziger Bucht) is a southeastern bay of the Baltic Sea. It is named after the adjacent port city of Gdańsk in Poland and is sometimes referred to as the Gulf of Gdańsk.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The western part of Gdańsk Bay is formed by the shallow waters of the Bay of Puck. The southeastern part is the Vistula Lagoon, separated by the Vistula Spit and connected to the open sea by the Strait of Baltiysk.</p><br>
<p>The bay is enclosed by a large curve of the shores of Gdańsk Pomerania in Poland (Cape Rozewie, Hel Peninsula) and the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia (Sambian Peninsula). The coast of the bay features two very long sandspits, the Hel peninsula and the Vistula Spit. The first one defines the Bay of Puck, the latter one defines the Vistula Lagoon.</p><br>
<p>The maximum depth is 120 meters, and it has a salinity of 0.7%.</p><br>
<p>The major ports and coastal cities are Gdańsk, Gdynia, Puck, Sopot, Hel, Kaliningrad, Primorsk, and Baltiysk. The main rivers of Gdańsk Bay are the Vistula and the Pregolya. The bay receives the waters of the Vistula directly via three branches &mdash; the Leniwka, the Śmiała Wisła, and the Martwa Wisła &mdash; and indirectly via the Vistula Lagoon with two branches, the Nogat and the Szkarpawa.</p><br>
<h2>Nautic definition</h2><br>
<p>By nautic definition, the Bay of Gdańsk is much larger, including also the area of the Baltic Sea in front of the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and the Lithuanian coast.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The bayshore was the setting of a naval bombardment during the Invasion of Poland (1939), the first combat action of World War II.</p><br>
<p>The bay plays a pivotal role in the American animated television series Metalocalypse.</p><br>
<h3>Kursenieki</h3><br>
<p>While today the Kursenieki, also known as Kuršininkai are a nearly extinct Baltic ethnic group living along the Curonian Spit. In 1649 Kuršininkai settlement spanned from Memel (Klaipėda) to Danzig (Gdańsk). The Kuršininkai were eventually assimilated by the Germans, except along the Curonian Spit where some still live. The Kuršininkai were considered Latvians until after World War I when Latvia gained independence from the Russian Empire, a consideration based on linguistic arguments. This was the rationale for Latvian claims over the Curonian Spit, Memel, and other territories of East Prussia which would be later dropped.</p><br>
<p>Futuna  is an 80 km island with 5,000 people and max. elevation of 500 m in the Pacific Ocean, belonging to the French overseas collectivity  of Wallis and Futuna. It is one of the Hoorn Islands or Îles Horne, nearby Alofi being the other. They are both a remnant of an old extinct volcano, now bordered with a fringing reef.</p><br>
<p>On the island is the place (where the cathedral of Poi now stands) where Pierre Chanel was martyred in 1841, becoming Polynesia&#39;s only Catholic saint. Futuna takes its name from an endonym derived from the local futu, fish-poison tree.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The population is 4,871 (census of 2003), of which 2,991 reside in Alo and 1,880 in Sigave. Futuna&#39;s highest point is Mont Puke with 524 m, and the island has an area of 83 km², with 53 km² in Sigave and 30 km² in Alo (Alo).</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Futuna and Alofi were put on the European maps by Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire during their famous circumnavigation of the globe with the ship the Eendracht in 1616. After having come from Niuafoou, they suddenly changed their course from west to northwest and so stumbled on this island pair. They called it Hoorn Eylanden, after the city of Hoorn, Schouten&#39;s birthplace, which became Horne in both French and English. Wise from their earlier experiences, they started with a show of force to the natives who approached them, which resulted in a peaceful barter with coconuts, yams and hogs from one side and iron nails, beads and knives from the other. They found a beautiful bay, a natural harbour along the southwest coast of Futuna, which they called after the ship the Eendrachts baai (Unity bay). This must be the Anse de Sigave near Leava of today. They went ashore on to get water and met the king, who told his subjects that their guests were not to be disturbed by petty thieving. In this amiable way the Dutch were able to replenish their stocks. A few days later the king of the other island, Alofi, came to visit with 300 men. The two kings were extremely courteous to each other, and a big feast was prepared. A kava ceremony and umu were organised. Schouten and LeMaire were probably the first Europeans ever to witness these, and the description they gave still rings familiar tones nowadays.</p><br>
<p>Not having been bothered by thieving and hostilities, Schouten and LeMaire had the opportunity to study Futuna a little bit more carefully than the Niua islands. (They did not go to Alofi). But their description of the islanders is not flattering. Although they praise the men for being well proportioned, the women they found ugly, ill-shaped with breasts hanging down to their bellies as empty satchels. They all went naked and copulated in public, even in front of their revered king.</p><br>
<h2>Culture</h2><br>
<p>Two kings, elected from the local nobility every few years, rule the population in conjunction with French authorities. They are the king of Sigave, the western province, and the king of Alo, the eastern province including Alofi. Except for Poi all villages are along the southwest coast, and they are from west to east: Toloke, Fiua, Vaisei, Nuku, and Leava (capital with the wharf) in Sigave, and Taoa, Malae, Ono, Kolia and Vele (at the airstrip) in Alo.</p><br>
<p>As on Uvea, all Futunans are deeply religious Catholics and the number of churches, chapels and oratories is overwhelming. Although the island is closer to Tonga and farther from Sāmoa than Uvea, the vernacular and culture are more Sāmoan. The languages spoken are Futunan and French.</p><br>
<h2>Education</h2><br>
<p>There are six primary schools on Futuna. The island also has two junior high schools (collèges): Fiua de Sigave and Sisia dOno. Residents are served by a senior high school/sixth-form college, Lycée dEtat de Wallis et Futuna, on Wallis.</p><br>
<p>The Korean War Veterans Memorial is located in Washington, D.C.&#39;s West Potomac Park, southeast of the Lincoln Memorial and just south of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall. It commemorates those who served in the Korean War.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Korean War Veterans Memorial was confirmed by the USA Congress (Public Law 99-572) on April 20, 1986, with design and construction managed by the Korean War Veterans Memorial Advisory Board and the American Battle Monuments Commission.</p><br>
<p>The initial design competition was won in 1986 by a team of four architects from The Pennsylvania State University, but this team withdrew as it became clear that changes would be needed to satisfy the advisory board and reviewing agencies such as the Commission of Fine Arts. A federal court case was filed and lost over the design changes. The eventual design was by Cooper-Lecky Architects who oversaw collaboration between several designers.</p><br>
<p>Former President George H. W. Bush conduted the groundbreaking for the Memorial on June 14, 1993, Flag Day, and thus construction was started. The companies and organizations involved in the construction are listed on the memorial as: the Faith Construction Company, the Richard Sherman Company, the Cold Spring Granite Company, the Tallix Art Foundry and the Baltimore District of the US Army Corps of Engineers. The memorial was dedicated on July 27, 1995, the 42nd anniversary of the armistice that ended the war, by President Bill Clinton and Kim Young Sam, President of the Republic of Korea, to the men and women who served during the conflict. Management of the memorial was turned over to the National Park Service, under its National Mall and Memorial Parks group. As with all National Park Service historic areas, the memorial was administratively listed on the National Register of Historic Places on the day of its dedication.</p><br>
<h2>Design and construction</h2><br>
<h3>The Mural Wall</h3><br>
<p>The main memorial is in the form of a triangle intersecting a circle. Walls: 164 ft long, 8 in thick; more than 100 tons of highly polished "Academy Black" granite from California: more than 2,500 photographic, archival images representing the land, sea, and air troops who supported those who fought in the war are sandblasted onto the wall. The Mural was created by Louis Nelson, with photographic images sandblasted into it depicting soldiers, equipment and people involved in the war.</p><br>
<p>When reflected on the wall, there appear to be 38 soldiers, 38 months, and it is also representing the 38 parallel that separated the North and South Korea.</p><br>
<h3>19 stainless steel statues</h3><br>
<p>Within the walled triangle are 19 stainless steel statues designed by Frank Gaylord, each larger than life-size, between 7 ft and 7 ft tall; each weighs nearly 1,000 lb. The figures represent a platoon on patrol, drawn from each branch of the armed forces; fourteen of the figures are from the USA Army, three are from the Marine Corps, one is a Navy Corpsman, and one is an Air Force Forward Air Observer. They are dressed in full combat gear, dispersed among strips of granite and juniper bushes which represent the rugged terrain of Korea.</p><br>
<h3>United Nations Wall</h3><br>
<p>To the north of the statues and path is the United Nations Wall, a low wall listing the 22 members of the United Nations that contributed troops or medical support to the Korean War effort.</p><br>
<h3>Pool of Remembrance</h3><br>
<p>The circle contains the Pool of Remembrance, a shallow pool 30 ft in diameter lined with black granite and surrounded by a grove of linden trees with benches. The trees are shaped to create a barrel effect, which allows the sun to reflect on the pool. Inscriptions list the numbers killed, wounded, missing in action, and held as prisoners of war, and a nearby plaque is inscribed: "Our nation honors her sons and daughters who answered the call to defend a country they never knew and a people they never met." Additionally, right next to the numbers of American soldiers are those of the United Nations troops in the same categories.</p><br>
<p>In the south side of the memorial, there are three bushes of the Rose of Sharon hibiscus plant, South Korea&#39;s national flower.</p><br>
<p>A further granite wall bears the simple message, inlaid in silver: "Freedom Is Not Free."</p><br>
<h2>Korean War Veterans Memorial Foundation's Maintenance Fund</h2><br>
<p>On October 12, 2015, Samsung Electronics donated $1 million to the Korean War Memorial Foundation. The memorial used the donation for maintenance. According to William Weber, the chairman of the memorial foundation, "Most of the grouting need to be treated twice a year. And there isnt enough for all of that upkeep." In addition, on October 16, Samsung helped clean the memorial ground as part of the companys national day of service.</p><br>
<h2>Troop statistics</h2><br>
<p>Engraved on granite blocks near the water pool at the east end of the monument are the casualty statistics for the soldiers who fought in the war.</p><br>
<p>Dead — United States: 54,246, United Nations: 628,833</p><br>
<p>Wounded — United States: 103,284, United Nations: 1,064,453.</p><br>
<p>Captured — United States: 7,140, United Nations: 92,970.</p><br>
<p>Missing — United States: 8,177, United Nations: 470,267.</p><br>
<h2>United States postage stamp court case</h2><br>
<p>On February 25, 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled on appeal that the memorial-sculptor Frank Gaylord was entitled to compensation for a 37-cent postage stamp—which used an image of the sculpture—because he had not signed away his intellectual-property rights to the sculpture when it was erected. The appeals court rejected arguments that the photo was transformative.</p><br>
<p>In 2002, amateur-photographer and retired Marine John Alli was paid $1,500 for the use of one of his photographs of the memorial on a snowy day for the stamp, which sold more than $17 million worth of stamps. In 2006, sculptor Frank Gaylord enlisted Fish & Richardson to make a claim that the Postal Service had violated his Intellectual-property rights to the sculpture and therefore he should have been compensated. The Postal Service argued that Gaylord was not the sole sculptor (saying he had received advice from federal sources, who recommended that the uniforms appear more in the wind) and also that the sculpture was actually architecture. Gaylord won all of his arguments in the lower court except for one—the court ruled the photo was fair use and thus he was not entitled to compensation. Gaylord challenged the fair-use ruling and won the case on appeal.</p><br>
<p>The case could now either be appealed to the United States Supreme Court, or damages could be assessed by the United States Court of Federal Claims.</p><br>
<p>Gaylord had sought compensation of 10 percent of the sales.</p><br>
<p>Gaylord&#39;s original commission was $775,000.</p><br>
<p>On April 22, 2011, the US Court of Federal Claims awarded Gaylord $5,000.</p><br>
<p>On appeal, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated the order and remanded the case back to the US Court of Federal Claims. On September 20, 2013, the US Court of Federal Claims awarded Gaylord $684,844.94 in damages, including interest.</p><br>
<h2>National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day</h2><br>
<p>Each July 27 is "National Korean War Veterans Armistice Day."</p><br>
<p>Mount Yuelu is located on the west bank of the Xiang River in Changsha, Hunan, China. Its main peak and the highest point, Yunlu Peak, is about 300 meters above the sea level.</p><br>
<p>Mount Yuelu is noted for its many scenic spots, including Qingfeng Gorge, Aiwan Pavilion, Lushan Temple, Yunlu Palace, the White Crane Spring and the Flying Stone.</p><br>
<p>Qingfeng Gorge lies in the low area between Yuelu Academy and Lushan Temple. It holds Aiwan Pavilion, one of four famous pavilions in ancient China, the Sheli Tower, and the tombs of Huang Xing (Huang Hsing) and Cai E (Tsai E).</p><br>
<p>Aiwan Pavilion and was built in A.D.1792. Its original name is Red Leaf Pavilion, later changed based on a poem by Du Mu. Mao Zedong once played and studied here and the remaining tablet was written by Mao Zedong in the 1950s. Aiwan Pavilion is supported by four red poles. There is a tablet with the poem, "Qinyuanchun, Changsha" written by Mao Zedong.</p><br>
<p>Lushan Temple is located on the side of the mountain. It was built in A.D.268 and later destroyed and rebuilt several times. It was last rebuilt in the 1980s.</p><br>
<p>Yunlu Palace is a Taoist place. The history of Taoist activities in Mount Yuelu is quite long. Yunlu Palace was built in A.D.1478, and Mount Yuelu has been an active center since then.</p><br>
<p>The Flying Clock and Flying Stone are also famous attractions in Mount Yuelu. The Flying Clock hangs in a ginkgo tree near Yunlu Palace. Flying Stone lies under the Flying Clock.</p><br>
<p>The King Yu Tablet: On the Tablet there was carved an article with 77 Chinese characters, now difficult to distinguish. Under the Tablet is Yuji Brook. Yu was an ancient hero who conquered floods.</p><br>
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<p>The Lammermuirs  are a range of hills in southern Scotland, forming a natural boundary between Lothian and the Borders. The name literally means "lambs&#39; moor". Early forms include Lombormore, Lambremore, Lambermora and Lambirmor.</p><br>
<p>Spanning the counties of Selkirk, East Lothian, and Berwick, the Lammermuirs extend from the Gala Water to St Abb&#39;s Head, and offer a traditional site for sheep grazing. The hills are nowhere especially high, the highest points being Meikle Says Law at 535 m and the Lammer Law at 528 m; but steep gradients, exposure to the elements, and a lack of natural passes combine to form a formidable barrier to communications between Edinburgh and the Borders.</p><br>
<p>The hills are crossed by only one major road (the A68), which crosses the shoulder of Soutra Hill between Lauder and Pathhead, and is frequently closed by snow in winter. The main road linking Edinburgh to England (the A1) avoids the hills by following a circuitous route around the coast.</p><br>
<p>White Castle was an Iron Age hill fort, settled by the ancestors of the Votadini tribe.</p><br>
<p>Two ranges of hills in New Zealand, the Lammermoors and Lammerlaws are named after the Scottish hills.</p><br>
<p>Sir Walter Scott&#39;s novel The Bride of Lammermoor is set here. Scott lived at Abbotsford House, near Galashiels.</p><br>
<p>USS Cochino , a submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the cochino, a triggerfish found in the Atlantic. Her keel was laid down by Electric Boat Company of Groton, Connecticut. She was launched on April 20, 1945 sponsored by Mrs. M.E. Serat, and commissioned on August 25, 1945 with Commander W.A. Stevenson in command.</p><br>
<h2>Service history</h2><br>
<p>Cochino joined the U.S Atlantic Fleet, cruising East Coast and Caribbean Sea waters from her home port of Key West, Florida. On July 18, 1949, she put to sea for a cruise to Britain, and arctic operations. Her group ran through a violent polar gale off Norway, and the joltings received by Cochino played their part on August 25 in causing an electrical fire and battery explosion, followed by the generation of both hydrogen and chlorine gases.</p><br>
<p>Defying the most unfavorable possible weather conditions, Commander (later Rear Admiral) Rafael Celestino Benítez (1917–1999), commanding officer of Cochino, and his men fought for 14 hours to save the submarine, displaying seamanship and courage. But a second battery explosion on August 26 made "Abandon Ship" the only possible order, and Cochino sank. &#39;s crew rescued all of Cochinos men except for Robert Wellington Philo, a civilian engineer. Six sailors from Tusk were lost during the rescue.</p><br>
<p>Cochino is one of four United States Navy submarines to be lost since the end of World War II. The others are, and.</p><br>
<p>Mount Diablo is a mountain of the Diablo Range, in Contra Costa County of the eastern San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California. It is south of Clayton and northeast of Danville.</p><br>
<p>It is an isolated upthrust peak of 3,849 ft, visible from most of the San Francisco Bay Area. Mount Diablo appears from many angles to be a double pyramid and has many subsidiary peaks, the largest and closest of which is the other half of the double pyramid, North Peak, nearly as high in elevation at 3,557 ft and about a mile northeast of the main summit.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The summit is accessible by foot, bicycle, or motor vehicle. Road access is via North Gate Road or South Gate Road.</p><br>
<h3>Mount Diablo State Park</h3><br>
<p>The peak is in Mount Diablo State Park, a state park of about 20,000 acres. The park was the first public open space of a complexaccording to Save Mount Diablonow including 38 preserves, including nearby city open spaces, regional parks, watersheds, that are buffered in some areas with private lands protected with conservation easements. Preserved lands on and around Mount Diablo total more than 90,000 acres. The day use fee per vehicle for the park is by entrance way: $6 via Macedo Ranch (Danville) or Mitchell Canyon (Clayton), and $10 via South Gate Rd. (Danville) & North Gate Rd. (Walnut Creek) leading up Mount Diablo.</p><br>
<h3>Viewshed</h3><br>
<p>On a clear day the Sierra Nevada is plainly visible. The best views are after a winter storm; a snowy Sierra shows up better, and summer is likely to be hazy. Lassen Peak, 181 mi away, is occasionally just visible over the curve of the earth. Sentinel Dome in Yosemite National Park is visible, but Half Dome is hidden by the 8000-foot ridge at 37.755N 119.6657W. Eight bridges are visible, from west to east: San Mateo, Bay, Golden Gate, San Rafael, Carquinez, Benicia, Antioch, and Rio Vista.</p><br>
<p>Claims that the mountain&#39;s viewshed is the largest in the worldor second largest after Mount Kilimanjaroare ill founded. It does boast one of the largest viewsheds in the Western United States and played a key role in California history. Countless peaks in the state are taller, but Mount Diablo has a remarkable visual prominence for a mountain of such low elevation. Its looming presence over much of the bay area, delta, and Central Valley, and good visibility even from the Mother Lode, all key regions during the gold rush and early statehood, made it an important landmark for mapping and navigation. The summit is used as the reference datum for land surveying in much of northern California and Nevada.</p><br>
<h2>Cultural history</h2><br>
<p>Mount Diablo is sacred to many California Native American peoples; according to Miwok mythology and Ohlone mythology, it was the point of creation. Prior to European entry, the creation narrative varied among surrounding local groups. In one surviving narrative fragment, Mount Diablo and Reed&#39;s Peak (Mount Tamalpais) were surrounded by water; from these two islands the creator Coyote and his assistant Eagle-man made Native American people and the world. In another, Molok the Condor brought forth his grandson Wek-Wek the Falcon Hero, from within the mountain.</p><br>
<h3>Earliest names</h3><br>
<p>About 25 independent tribal groups with well-defined territories lived in the East Bay countryside surrounding the mountain. Their members spoke dialects of three distinct languages: Ohlone, Bay Miwok, and Northern Valley Yokuts. The Chochenyo-speaking Ohlone from Mission San Jose and the East Bay area, called the mountain Tuyshtak, meaning "at the dawn of time". Most of Mount Diablo, including its peak, was within the homeland of the early Volvon (sometimes spelled Wolwon, Bolbon or Bolgon), a Bay Miwok-speaking tribe, and as early as 1811, the mountain was called (in Spanish) "Cerro Alto de los Bolbones" (High Point of the Volvon) or sometimes "Sierra de los Bolgones". The Nisenan of the Sacramento Valley called it Sukkú Jaman, or as Nisenan elder Dalbert Castro once explained, "the place where dogs came from in trade".</p><br>
<p>A Southern Miwok name for the mountain was Supemenenu. It has also been suggested that another early Native American name for the mountain was Kawukum or Kahwookum, but there is no evidence to confirm the assertion. According to Indian historian Bev Ortiz and "Save Mount Diablo": "The name Kahwookum was made up in 1866 — with no real Native American connection — referred to the California Legislature&#39;s Committee on Public Morals, and tabled. It resurfaced as a real estate gimmick in 1916 with a supposed new translation, "Laughing Mountain", attributed without documentation to Diablo area Volvon Indians.</p><br>
<h3>Current name</h3><br>
<p>The conventional view is that the peak derives its name from the 1805 escape of several Chupcan Native Americans from the Spanish in a nearby willow thicket. The natives seemed to disappear, and the Spanish soldiers thus gave the area the name "Monte del Diablo", meaning "thicket of the devil." Monte was later misinterpreted by English speakers as mount or mountain. for one interpretation of the context of the Spanish attack on the Chupcan, see Milliken, Randall, (1995) A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1769-1810, Menlo Park, California:Ballena Press, pp.184-185, 241</p><br>
<p>General Mariano G. Vallejo, in an 1850 report to the California State legislature, gave this much romanticized story of the derivation of the name of Mount Diablo from its Spanish to Anglo form, related to the mountain and an evil spirit. Vallejos report could be interpreted to align with Guddes account. (Kyle, and Ortiz)</p><br>
<p>This name was later applied to Salvio Pachecos Rancho Monte del Diablo, the present-day site of the city of Concord. The names origin was misinterpreted by English-speaking newcomers to refer to the mountain rather than the settlement.</p><br>
<p>The name Monte del Diablo (‘Mount of the Devil’) appears on the "Plano topográfico de la Misión de San José" about 1824, where there was an Indian settlement at the approximate site of the present town of Concord. On August 24, 1828, the name was applied to the Monte del Diablo land grant for which Salvio Pacheco had petitioned in 1827.</p><br>
<p>One attribute that makes the name Mount Diablo appropriate is that the mountain glows red at sunset.</p><br>
<h4>Attempts to rename</h4><br>
<p>In 2005 Arthur Mijares from the neighboring town of Oakley, petitioned the federal government to change the name of the mountain, claiming it offended his Christian beliefs. Additionally, he claimed that Diablo is a living person, and so is banned under federal law. He initially suggested renaming the mountain Mount Kawukum, and later, Mount Yahweh. Other renaming suggestions by other individuals included Mount Miwok and Mount Ohlone, after local Indian tribal names. Finally he proposed Mount Reagan, but the board rejected it on the grounds that a person must be deceased for five years to have a geographic landmark named after them. Eventually, the USA Board on Geographic Names rejected the petitions, saying there was no compelling reason to change the name.</p><br>
<p>In summer of 2009 Mijares again proposed the name Mount Reagan to the United States Board of Geographic Names because Reagan was now an eligible recipient of a place name.</p><br>
<h3>Early uses</h3><br>
<p>In 1851 the south peak of the mountain was selected by Colonel Leander Ransom as the initial point &mdash; where the Mount Diablo Base and Mount Diablo Meridian lines intersect &mdash; for cadastral surveys of a large area. Subsequent surveys in much of California, Nevada and Oregon were located with reference to this point. Toll roads up the mountain were created in 1874 by Joseph Seavey Hall and William Camron (sometimes "Cameron"); Halls Mount Diablo Summit Road was officially opened on May 2, 1874. Camrons "Green Valley" road opened later. Hall also built the 16-room Mountain House Hotel near the junction of the two roads, a mile below the summit (2,500 foot elevation, operated through the 1880s, abandoned 1895, burned c. 1901). As far north as Meridian Road, on the outskirts of Chico, California, the summit was used as a reference point. The road is colinear with the summit, and is named for the meridian which intersects it.</p><br>
<p>An aerial navigation beacon, the Standard Diablo tower was erected by Standard Oil at the summit in 1928. The 10-million-candlepower beacon became known as the "Eye of Diablo" and was visible for a hundred miles.</p><br>
<h3>Parks and protection of land</h3><br>
<p>After initial legislation in 1921, the state of California acquired enough land in 1931 to create a small state park around the peak. Many improvements were carried out in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps but park expansion slowed in the 1940s through the 1960s. Significantly, botanist Mary Leolin Bowerman (1908–2005), founder of Save Mount Diablo in 1971, published her Ph.D. dissertation in 1936 at the University of California, Berkeley and then in 1944 the book, The Flowering Plants and Ferns of Mount Diablo, California. Her study boundaries became the basis for the state parks first map and for the parks eventual expansion, as well as the origin of many of the park&#39;s place names.</p><br>
<p>In 1954 KOVR erected its television transmitter tower on the mountain. One of the workers involved in the project said that parts of the tower were trucked up to the summit and assembled there. Based in Stockton, the station eventually became affiliated with ABC and was known for its popular "Toonytown" program hosted by Art Finley. With the completion of the mammoth television tower near Walnut Grove, KOVR moved its transmitter there and later relocated its studios to Sacramento.</p><br>
<p>This initial park has been greatly expanded over the years. Soon after Earth Day in 1971 the nonprofit organization "Save Mount Diablo" was created by co-founders Mary Bowerman and Art Bonwell, barely ahead of real estate developers. At the time, the state park included just 6,788 acres and was the only park in the vicinity of the mountain. In 2007 the state park totaled almost 20,000 acres, and with 38 parks and preserves on and around the mountain, Diablo&#39;s public lands total more than 90,000 acres. According to Save Mount Diablo there are actually 50 individual preserves on and around Mount Diablo, some conservation easements covering a single parcel, others expected to eventually be absorbed into larger nearby parks; as of December 2007, the organization recognizes 38 specific Diablo parks and preserves.</p><br>
<p>The State Park adjoins park lands of the East Bay Regional Park District, including Morgan Territory Regional Preserve, Brushy Peak Regional Preserve, Vasco Caves Regional Preserve, and Round Valley Regional Preserves. It also adjoins protected areas owned or controlled by local cities such as the Borges Ranch Historic Farm, the Concord Naval Weapons Station (now in the process of being converted to non military use), Indian Valley, Shell Ridge Open Space and Lime Ridge Open Spaces near city of Walnut Creek, and east to the Los Vaqueros Reservoir watershed, The new Marsh Creek State Park, and Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve, are among the open spaces stretching back to the north. In this way the open spaces controlled by cities, the East Bay Regional Park District, Mount Diablo State Park, and various regional preserves now adjoin and protect much of the elevated regions of the mountain, with significant exceptions in Arroyo del cerro, Curry Canyon, the Marsh creek region and on the northern slopes of North Peak, and in a number of inholdings surrounded by preserve land.</p><br>
<p>Park expansion continues on all sides of the mountain although its western boundaries are largely complete. Extensive development continues in the southwestern foothills and Tassajara region, such as the upscale development of Blackhawk and individual estates overlooking the Livermore Valley on Morgan Territory Road. Other large projects are proposed in the northern Black Diamond Mines and Los Medanos foothills, at the Concord Naval Weapons Station, and near Cowell Ranch State Park. Large scale development of other private parcels is restricted by city and county urban limit lines, by lack of water, excessive slope and sensitive resources including rare species. Smaller ranchette subdivisions continue to fragment and threaten many parcels and large areas of habitat.</p><br>
<h3>Map of protected lands</h3><br>
<p>In 2007 Save Mount Diablo published Mount Diablo, Los Vaqueros & Surrounding Parks, Featuring the Diablo Trail, the most accurate and up-to-date map of Mount Diablo&#39;s more than 90,000 acres of protected lands, including 100 access points, 520 mi of trail and 400 mi of private fire roads. Updated acreages and trail mileages were discussed in accompanying press materials and news articles.</p><br>
<h2>Natural history</h2><br>
<h3>Geology</h3><br>
<p>Mount Diablo is a geologic anomaly about 30 mi east of San Francisco. The mountain is the result of geologic compression and uplift caused by the movements of the Earths plates. The mountain lies between converging earthquake faults and continues to grow slowly. While the principal faults in the region are of the strike-slip type, a significant thrust fault (with no surface trace) is found on the mountains southwest flank. The uplift and subsequent weathering and erosion have exposed ancient oceanic Jurassic and Cretaceous age rocks that now form the summit. The mountain grows from three to five millimeters each year.</p><br>
<p>The upper portion of the mountain is made up of volcanic and sedimentary deposits of what once was one or more island arcs of the Farallon Plate dating back to the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, between 90 and 190 million years ago. During this time, the Farallon Plate was subducting beneath the North American continent. These deposits were scraped off the top and accreted onto the North American Plate. This resulted in the highly distorted and fractured basalt and serpentine of the Mount Diablo Ophiolite and metasediments of the Franciscan complex around the summit. East of the subduction zone, a basin was filling with sediment from the ancestral Sierra further to the east. Up to 60,000 feet (18,000 m) of sandstone, mudstone, and limestone of the Great Valley Sequence were deposited from 66 to 150 million years ago. These deposits are now found faulted against the Ophiolite and Franciscan deposits.</p><br>
<p>The summit area of Mount Diablo is made up of deposits of gray sandstone (graywacke), chert, oceanic volcanic basalts (greenstone) and a minor amount of shale. The hard red Franciscan chert is sedimentary in origin and rich in microscopic radiolaria fossils and seashells. In the western foothills of the mountain there are large deposits of younger sandstone rocks also rich in seashells, severely tilted and in places forming dramatic ridgelines. Mount Diablo is a double pyramid and some say it resembles a volcano (which it isn&#39;t).</p><br>
<p>Deposits of glassmaking-grade sand and lower-quality coal north of the mountain were mined in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but are now open to visitors as the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve. Guided tours of the sand mines and coal field are provided.</p><br>
<h3>Vegetation</h3><br>
<p>The parks vegetation is mixed oak woodland and savannah and open grassland with extensive areas of chaparral and a number of endemic plant species, such as the Mount Diablo manzanita (Arctostaphylos auriculata), Mount Diablo fairy-lantern (Calochortus pulchellus), chaparral bellflower (Campanula exigua), Mount Diablo birds beak (Cordylanthus nidularius), and Mount Diablo sunflower (Helianthella castanea). The park includes substantial thickets, isolated examples, and mixed ground cover of western poison oak. (It is best to learn the characteristics of this shrub and its toxin before hiking on narrow trails through brush and to be aware that it can be bare of leaves (but toxic to contact) in the winter.)</p><br>
<p>At higher altitudes and on north slopes is the widely distributed foothill pine (Pinus sabiniana). Knobcone pine (Pinus attenuata) may be found along Knobcone Pine Road in the southern part of the park. The park and nearby Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve mark the northern extreme of the range of Coulter pine (Pinus coulteri). This species may be seen along the Coulter Pine Trail near the north (Mitchell Canyon) entrance.</p><br>
<p>In 2005 the endangered species Mount Diablo buckwheat (Eriogonum truncatum), thought to be extinct since last seen in 1936, was rediscovered in a remote area of the mountain.</p><br>
<h3>Wildlife</h3><br>
<p>All vegetation, minerals and wildlife within the park are protected and it is illegal to remove such items or to harass any wildlife.</p><br>
<p>Commonly seen animals include coyote, bobcat, black-tailed deer, California ground squirrels, fox squirrels and grey foxes; many other mammals including mountain lions are present. It is a chief remaining refuge for the threatened Alameda whipsnake, California red-legged frog. Less common wildlife species include the reintroduced peregrine falcon, ringtail cats, and to the east American badgers, San Joaquin kit fox, roadrunners, California tiger salamander, and burrowing owls. There are also exotic (non-native) animals such as the red fox and opossum, the latter being North America&#39;s only marsupial.</p><br>
<p>In September and October male tarantula spiders can be seen (Aphonopelma smithi) as they seek a mate. These spiders are harmless unless severely provoked, and their bite is only as bad as a bee sting. More dangerous are black widow spiders, far less likely to be encountered in the open.</p><br>
<p>In the wintertime, between November and February, bald eagles and golden eagles are present. These birds are less easily seen than many raptors; golden eagles, particularly, fly at high elevations. Mount Diablo is part of the Altamont Area/Diablo Range, which enjoys the largest concentration of golden eagles anywhere. In recent years there have been credible sightings of California condors, which have been reintroduced at Pinnacles National Park, located to the south in the Gilroy-Hollister area.</p><br>
<p>Of special note as potential hazards are Northern Pacific rattlesnake. While generally shy and non-threatening, one should be observant and cautious of where one steps to avoid accidentally disturbing one. They are often found warming themselves in the open (as on trails and ledges) on cool, sunny days. Other wildlife to avoid include poison oak, hoptree, fleas, ticks and mosquitoes.</p><br>
<p>There has also been an increase in the mountain lion population in the larger region and one should know how to respond if these animals are encountered. Please see the mountain lion safety tips in the Mountain lion article.</p><br>
<h2>Facilities</h2><br>
<p>Entrance stations are located at the end of Northgate Road (in Walnut Creek) and Diablo Road (in Danville). The Danville entrance is also known as Southgate. If the entrance stations are not operating, park fees may be paid at the junction ranger station, where the two roads join.</p><br>
<p>From here the road reaches the summit of the mountain, where there is a visitors center housing an observation deck and natural history exhibits. From the elevation of the lower lot the Mary Bowerman Trail is a level wheelchair-accessible path and boardwalk with interpretive stations that extends part way around the mountain; a regular single track trail completes the loop. There are 520 mi of hiking and equestrian trails, some available for mountain biking.</p><br>
<p>Camping facilities are available within the park. There are numerous picnic sites. Pets are restricted and require proper documentation for rabies (not just a tag). Daytime visitors must exit the park by sunset except for special events. Some picnic spots may be reserved but most are available without reservation.</p><br>
<p>Alcohol is strictly forbidden in the park. Fires are allowed only during the wet season (generally December through April), and only in sanctioned fire pits. The park may be closed on windy days during the dry season due to extremely hazardous fire conditions.</p><br>
<p>Two additional entrances with parking for hikers are provided on the northwest side of the park at Mitchell Canyon and Donner Canyon. Mitchell Canyon provides easy access to Black Point and Eagle Peak. Donner Canyon provides hikers access to Eagle Peak, Mount Olympia, North Peak, and the popular Falls Trail, which features several seasonal waterfalls.</p><br>
<h2>Climate</h2><br>
<p>The National Weather Service maintains a weather station at Mount Diablo Junction, 2,170 feet (661 m) above sea level. The warmest month at the station is July with an average high of 85.2 °F (29.5 °C) and an average low of 59.6 °F (15.3 °C). The coolest month is January with an average high of 55.6 °F (13.1 °C) and an average low of 39.3° (4.1 °C). The highest temperature recorded there was 111 °F (43.9 °C) on July 15, 1972. The lowest temperature on record was 14 °F (-10 °C) on February 6, 1989, and on December 14, 1990. (The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the temperature dropped to 10 °F (-12.2 °C) at the summit on January 21, 1962.) Temperatures reach 90 °F (32.2 °C) or higher on an average of 36.0 days each year and 100 °F (37.8 °C) or higher on 3.3 days each year. Lows of 32 °F (0 °C) or lower occur on an average of 15.4 days annually.</p><br>
<p>Annual precipitation averages 23.96 in. The most precipitation recorded in a month was 13.54 in in February 1998. The greatest 24-hour precipitation was 5.02 in on January 21, 1972. The average annual days with measurable precipitation is 65.3 days.</p><br>
<p>Snowfall at Mount Diablo Junction averages 1.2 in each year. Prior to 2009, the most snowfall observed in a month was 17.0 in in April 1975; that same month saw 6.0 in in one day (April 4, 1975). The greatest snow depth was 3.0 in on January 27, 1972. Measurable snowfall does not occur every year, so the annual average days with measurable snowfall is only.5 days. Snow is more common in the upper reaches of the mountain. On December 7, 2009 Mount Diablo received a rare snow event of 18.0 in, receiving more in one day than what it normally receives in one year.</p><br>
<h3>Data-collecting note</h3><br>
<p>It is important to note that the weather station is positioned at only about 55 percent of the mountain&#39;s height, and temperature and snow levels are notably different at the upper reaches of the mountain, where more snow and lower temperatures may have occurred, but simply have not been recorded. Nearby Bay Area mountains, like Mount Hamilton, have their weather stations virtually at the maximum height of the mountain. This is why recorded snow levels on Mount Hamilton are much higher than the ones recorded at Mount Diablo Junction, even though the difference in height of Mount Hamilton and Mount Diablo is only about 400 ft.</p><br>
<p>Three conditions are measured at the actual summit, however: wind speed, wind direction and temperature; and are available by an automatic telephone voice response system. Recorded information concerning gate open times, road and pet restrictions, and events is available at another number. These numbers are posted at the park website.</p><br>
<h2>Art and literature</h2><br>
<p>Mount Diablo has inspired many artists and writers. Early work centered on exploration, surveying and was related to the rise and popularization of tourism in the Pacific west. Themes were suggested and heightened by early tourism promoters, the beginnings of the area&#39;s preservation and the rise of the environmental movement. The focus was accelerated by artists associated with the University of California, Berkeley, the California College of Arts, the actions of the organizations Save Mount Diablo and the Mount Diablo Interpretive Association, and area art centers, galleries, and museums. In modern times Mount Diablo art has been most strongly represented in plein aire painting, especially the group Artists for Action, and photography.</p><br>
<p>Representative work includes books and articles by classical writers such as William Brewer, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Alexandre Dumas, père, Bret Harte, and the Reverend Thomas Starr King, and modern ones such as Mark Allen Cunningham. Poets whose work features the mountain include Philip Lamantia, Andrew Schelling, and Helen Pinkerton.</p><br>
<p>Early painters include Thomas Almond Ayres, Eugene Camerer, W. H. Dougal, Eduard Hildebrandt, Charles Hittell, Edward Jump, William Keith, John Ross Key, Charles Koppel, Edward Lehman, Pascal Loomis, Henry Miller, Joseph Warren Revere, through Clarkson Dye and others, to modern painters such as Robert Becker, Frank J. Bette, Ruth Breve, Betty Boggess Lathrap, Paul Carey, Bob Chapla, Mary Lou Correia, Ellen Curtis, Pam Della, Susan Dennis, Warren Dreher, John Finger, Pam Glover, JoAnn Hanna, Peg Humphreys, Don Irwin, Jeanne Kapp, Geri Keary, Chris Kent, Paul Kratter, Eunice Kritscher, Fred Martin, Cathy Moloney, Shirley Nootbaar, Charlotte Panton, Greg Piatt, Kenneth Potter, Robin Purcell, Ocean Quigley, Don Reich, Mary Silverwood, Barbara Stanton, Bruce Stangeland, Marty Stanley, and even the recognized comic book painter Dan Brereton.</p><br>
<p>Photographers include Ansel Adams, Cleet Carlton, Alfred A. Hart, Scott Hein, Stephen Joseph, Don Paulson, Brad Perks, Robert Picker, Richard Rollins, David Sanger, Michael Sewell and Bob Walker.</p><br>
<p>The mountain has inspired musical artists ranging from the Kronos Quartet to commissioned works by the California Symphony. The pop-punk band The Story So Far, who are from the area, have a song titled Mt. Diablo.</p><br>
<p>The mountain&#39;s name is the source for the "Devils" part of the name of the Blue Devils Drum and Bugle Corps, a 17 time Drum Corps International world champion corps, founded and based in Concord, California since 1957.</p><br>
<p>David Brevik, head of Blizzard North, got the idea for the name of the Diablo game franchise from Mt. Diablo while living nearby.</p><br>
<h2>Famous residents</h2><br>
<p>Mount Diablo has been the home of a number of famous residents.</p><br>
<p>James "Grizzly" Adams was a frequent visitor and resident on Mount Diablo in the mid-1850s.</p><br>
<p>Robert Walter "Bob" Jones, the first professional baseball player from Contra Costa County, was born in the "Jones House" in Irish Canyon in 1889, a current acquisition project of Save Mount Diablo.</p><br>
<p>The Mount Diablo Ranch, or Diablo Ranch, was successively owned by Robert Noble Burgess (b. 1878 - d. 1965), who founded the community of Diablo and built the mountain&#39;s first auto roads, and millionaire Walter Paul Frick (aka W.P. Frick, b. 1875 - d. 1937), who lived in Diablo and was important in the creation of the State Park in 1931, including sale of six of the first seven parcels for the new park.</p><br>
<p>Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck grew up on Brubeck Ranch near the park&#39;s Northgate entrance.</p><br>
<p>The area for the 6,500 acre Blackhawk Farm, including the mountain&#39;s southern Black Hills, was acquired from Burgess and created by Ansel Mills Easton, the namesake uncle of photographer Ansel Adams. Eventually nearly two-thirds of the farm was added to Mount Diablo State Park. The remainder was developed as the community of Blackhawk by resident developer Ken Behring.</p><br>
<h2>Legends and folklore</h2><br>
<p>Mount Diablo has long been the site of numerous reports pertaining to cryptozoology, hauntings, mysterious lights, and various other Fortean phenomena (it is rumored that the name "Mount Diablo" is derived from the propensity for such weird events to be alleged at, or in the immediate vicinity, of the mountain). Phantom black "panthers" are seen with unusual frequency on the slopes of the mountain, as well as at the "Devil&#39;s Hole" region of the Las Trampas Regional Wilderness. As early as 1806, General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo (July 4, 1807 – January 18, 1890) reported an encounter with a flying, spectral apparition, while engaged in military operations against the Bolgones band of the Bay Miwok tribe. In 1873, a live frog was said to be found within a slab of limestone at a mine on Mount Diablo.</p><br>
<h2>Events</h2><br>
<p>Each Fall the male tarantulas of Mt. Diablo emerge from their burrows to seek mates. The Mt. Diablo Interpretive Association offers guided hikes to observe the migration. The "March of the Tarantulas" can begin as early as August and last through October.</p><br>
<p>Every year on December 7 the aircraft beacon atop the summit building is illuminated from sunset to dawn. A ceremony memorializing the attack on Pearl Harbor on this day in 1941 is held at the summit, with some of the few remaining survivors who are present. The public is welcome and visitors on this day should enter the park before 4:00 PM. General parking will be at the lower lot on these days, with a short uphill walk by trail or road to the summit. Visitors may leave later than usual &mdash; this is one of the few opportunities to view the sunset from the peak, weather permitting, without either an overnight stay or a hike to the summit from outside the gates.</p><br>
<p>Under cloudless conditions, more interesting than the sunset itself is the view of the progression of the mountain&#39;s shadow across the California Central Valley to the distant Sierra Nevada, finally appearing for a few moments above the horizon as a shadow in the post-sunset sky glow.</p><br>
<p>In April 1946, an Army C-45 transport plane crashed on the north side of the mountain, killing the pilot and co-pilot.</p><br>
<p>Save Mount Diablo sponsors many spring and fall schedules of events on the mountain, Spring on Diablo and Autumn on Diablo, as well as many other special events, including its anniversary event, Moonlight on the Mountain; Four Days Diablo, a trip on the Diablo Trail; the Mount Diablo Challenge, an annual hill climb to the summit with more than 1,100 cyclists each October; and the Mount Diablo Trail Adventure, combined 10k and half-marathon hikes and runs.</p><br>
<p>The park is popular in winter, when Bay Area residents can enjoy the rare experience of snowfall on the mountain. Snow occurs from the lower reaches of the park all the way to the peak, as was the case in February 2001 and February and March 2006. On Friday, March 10, 2006, an extremely cold storm moved into the region from the Gulf of Alaska, and noticeable amounts of snow fell in all regions of the Bay Area above 500 feet (152 m). The summit of the mountain received around six inches (15 cm) of snow at its peak, and the access roads were closed to automobiles at the 3,000 feet (914 m) mark due to the hazardous icy conditions above.</p><br>
<p>Occasionally there will be public access to astronomical observations made by a local astronomy club. This club was allocated a small parcel on the mountain and developed a permanent observatory at this location. The observatory has a computer-controlled telescope with a CCD camera.</p><br>
<h2>Mount Diablo Challenge bicycle race</h2><br>
<p>The Mount Diablo Challenge is a bicycle race held annually on the first Sunday in October and benefiting non-profit, Save Mount Diablo&#39;s land preservation programs. The race begins at the Athenian School at the base of the mountain and climbs 3,249 ft in 10.8 mi. The race typically draws between 800 and 1,100 riders each year who compete in a mass-start format. Bicycle riders of every age and ability are represented in the diverse field, from weekend enthusiasts to top professionals. Prizes are typically awarded to the top overall male and female finishers, along with several age-specific categories. The most coveted prize is the special "One-Hour" T-shirts, awarded to those who finish the climb in less than one hour.</p><br>
<h3>Course record</h3><br>
<p>The course record for the Mount Diablo climb currently stands at 43 minutes, 33 seconds, set on October 5, 2008, by Nate English (ZteaM) 4 days after breaking his thumb in a bike accident. He broke the 44 minutes, 58 seconds record, set in 2004 by former professional cyclist Greg Drake (Webcor Cycling Team) of Redwood City, California. The previous course record was set by former professional cyclist Mike Engleman (Coors Light Pro Cycling Team) in 1990 with a time of 45 minutes, 20 seconds.</p><br>
<p>The fastest woman&#39;s time recorded at the Mount Diablo climb was set in 2012 by Flavia Oliveira (48 minutes, 13 seconds).</p><br>
<p>Outside of the actual Mt Diablo Challenge each October, the climb is one of the more popular uploaded to Strava, with over 11000 attempts recorded as of mid 2014. The top 10 times listed there are all from the Tour of California, which has used Mt Diablo as a stage several times. The fastest time (41:39) as of July 2014 is held by professional Curaçaoan cyclist Marc de Maar set in May 2013.</p><br>
<h2>Seeing from the outside</h2><br>
<p>Mount Diablo is very viewable from many places in California from the foothills in The Sierra, to local vantage points. One local vantage point is Pleasant Hill&#39;s Dinosaur Hill Park.</p><br>
<p>Another view of Mount Diablo is visible from the summit of Mount Saint Helena.</p><br>
<p>The Blasket Islands  are an uninhabited group of islands off the west coast of Ireland, forming part of County Kerry.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The six principal islands of the Blaskets are:</p><br>
<p>Great Blasket Island (An Bhlascaod Mór)</p><br>
<p>Beginish (Beiginis)</p><br>
<p>Inishnabro (Inis na Bró)</p><br>
<p>Inishvickillane (Inis Mhic Uileáin)</p><br>
<p>Inishtooskert (Inis Tuaisceart)</p><br>
<p>Tearaght Island (An Tiaracht)</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>They were inhabited until 1953 by a completely Irish-speaking population, and today are part of the Gaeltacht. The inhabitants were evacuated by the government to the mainland on 17 November 1953 due to the declining population and harsh nature of life on the island. Many of the descendants currently live in Springfield, Massachusetts, and some former residents still live on the Dingle Peninsula, within sight of their former home.</p><br>
<p>The islanders were the subject of much anthropological and linguistic study around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries particularly from writers and linguists such as Robin Flower, George Derwent Thomson and Kenneth H. Jackson. Thanks to their encouragement and that of others, a number of books were written by islanders that record much of the islands&#39; traditions and way of life. These include An tOileánach (The Islandman) by Tomás Ó Criomhthain, Peig by Peig Sayers and Fiche Blian ag Fás (Twenty Years A-Growing) by Muiris Ó Súilleabháin.</p><br>
<p>The Blasket Islands have been called Next Parish America, based on the erroneous idea that the next parish west of the islands would be the United States. The actual next parish west of the Blasket Island would be located in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.</p><br>
<h2>Transport</h2><br>
<p>There is a ferry service that calls only to the Great Blasket and sails from Dunquin. This ferry service is mainly for day-trippers. People can also camp on the island overnight. Passengers are transferred to a RIB (Rubber Inflatable Boat) once the ferry gets close to the island, as there are no adequate landing facilities for a larger vessel.</p><br>
<p>Lough Neagh  is a large freshwater lake in Northern Ireland. It is the largest lake by area in the British Isles, with a surface area of 392 km&sup2;. It supplies 40% of Northern Ireland&#39;s water. Its main inflows are the Upper River Bann and River Blackwater, and its main outflow is the Lower River Bann. Its name comes. The lough is owned by the Earl of Shaftesbury.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>With an area of 392 km&sup2, it is the largest lake on the island of Ireland, the 15th largest freshwater lake within the European Union and is ranked 31st in the List of largest lakes of Europe. Located 20 mi west of Belfast, it is about 20 mi long and 9 mi wide. It is very shallow around the margins and the average depth in the main body of the lake is about 30 ft, although at its deepest the lough is about 80 ft deep.</p><br>
<h3>Hydrology</h3><br>
<p>Of the 4,550 km&sup2; catchment area, around 9% lies in the Republic of Ireland and 91% in Northern Ireland; altogether 43% of the land area of Northern Ireland is drained into the lough, which itself flows out northwards to the sea via the River Bann. As one of its sources is the Upper Bann, the Lough can itself be considered as part of the Bann.</p><br>
<p>Lough Neagh is fed by many tributaries including the rivers Main (34 mi), Six Mile Water (21 mi), Upper Bann (40 mi), Blackwater (57 mi), Ballinderry (29 mi) and Moyola (31 mi)</p><br>
<h3>Islands and peninsulas</h3><br>
<p>Coney Island</p><br>
<p>Coney Island Flat</p><br>
<p>Croaghan Flat</p><br>
<p>Derrywarragh Island</p><br>
<p>Kinturk Flat</p><br>
<p>Oxford Island (peninsula)</p><br>
<p>Padian</p><br>
<p>Ram&#39;s Island</p><br>
<p>Phil Roe&#39;s Flat</p><br>
<p>The Shallow Flat</p><br>
<p>Traad (peninsula)</p><br>
<h3>Towns and villages</h3><br>
<p>Towns and villages near the Lough include Craigavon, Antrim, Crumlin, Randalstown, Toomebridge, Ballyronan, Ballinderry, Moortown, Ardboe, Maghery, Lurgan and Magherafelt.</p><br>
<h3>Counties</h3><br>
<p>Five of the six counties of Northern Ireland have shores on the Lough (only Fermanagh does not), and its area is split among them. The counties are listed clockwise:</p><br>
<p>Antrim (eastern side and northern shore of the lake)</p><br>
<p>Down (small part in the south-east)</p><br>
<p>Armagh (south)</p><br>
<p>Tyrone (west)</p><br>
<p>Londonderry (northern part of west shore)</p><br>
<h3>Local government districts</h3><br>
<p>The area of the lake is split between four local government districts of Northern Ireland, which are listed clockwise:</p><br>
<p>3 Antrim and Newtownabbey, in the north-east</p><br>
<p>4 Lisburn and Castlereagh, in the east</p><br>
<p>6 Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon, in the south</p><br>
<p>9 Mid Ulster, in the west</p><br>
<h2>Uses</h2><br>
<p>Although the Lough is used for a variety of recreational and commercial activities, it is exposed and tends to get extremely rough very quickly in windy conditions.</p><br>
<h3>Water supply</h3><br>
<p>The lough is used by Northern Ireland Water as a source of fresh water. The lough supplies 40% of the region&#39;s drinking water. There have long been plans to increase the amount of water drawn from the lough, through a new water treatment works at Hog Park Point, but these are yet to materialise.</p><br>
<p>The lough&#39;s ownership by the Earl of Shaftesbury has implications for planned changes to state-run domestic water services in Northern Ireland, as the lough is also used as a sewage outfall, and this arrangement is only permissible through British Crown immunity. In 2012, it was reported that the Earl is considering transferring ownership of the Lough to the Northern Ireland Assembly.</p><br>
<h3>Navigation</h3><br>
<p>Traditional working boats on Lough Neagh include wide-beamed 16 to 21 ft clinker-built, sprit-rigged working boats and smaller flat-bottomed "cots" and "flats". Barges, here called "lighters", were used until the 1940s to transport coal over the lough and adjacent canals. Until the 17th century, log boats (coití) were the main means of transport. Few traditional boats are left now, but a community-based group on the southern shore of the lough is rebuilding a series of working boats.</p><br>
<p>In the 19th century, three canals were constructed, using the lough to link various ports and cities: the Lagan Navigation provided a link from the city of Belfast, the Newry Canal linked to the port of Newry, and the Ulster Canal led to the Lough Erne navigations, providing a navigable inland route via the River Shannon to Limerick, Dublin and Waterford. The Lower Bann was also navigable to Coleraine and the Antrim coast, and the short Coalisland Canal provided a route for coal transportation. Of these waterways, only the Lower Bann remains open today, although a restoration plan for the Ulster Canal is currently in progress.</p><br>
<p>Lough Neagh Rescue provides a search and rescue service 24 hours a day and has 3 stations, situated around the lough. These are at Antrim Ardboe and Kinnego Marinas, Kinnego being its headquarters and founding station. It is a voluntary service funded by the district councils bordering the Lough. Its members are highly trained and are a declared facility for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency which co-ordinates rescues on Lough Neagh.</p><br>
<h3>Bird watching</h3><br>
<p>Lough Neagh attracts bird watchers from many nations due to the number and variety of birds which winter and summer in the boglands and shores around the lough.</p><br>
<h3>Flora</h3><br>
<p>The flora of the north-east of Northern Ireland includes the algae: Chara aspera, Chara globularis var. globularis, Chara globularis var. virgate, Chara vulgaris var. vulgaris, Chara vulgaris var. papillata, Tolypella nidifica var. glomerata.Records of Angiospermae include: Ranunculus flammula var. pseudoreptans, Ranunculus auricomus, Ranunculatus sceleratus, Ranunculatus circinatus, Ranunculatus peltatus, Thalictrum flavum,Thalictrum minus subsp. minus, Nymphaea alba, Ceratophyllum demersum, Subularia aquatic, Erophila verna sub. verna, Cardamine pratensis, Cardamine impatiens, Cardamine flexuosa, Rorippa palustris, Rorippa amphibian, Reseda luteola, Viola odorata, Viola reichenbachiana, Viola tricolor ssp. Violoa tricolor ssp. curtissi, Hypericum androsaemum, Hypericum maculatum, Elatine hydropiper, Silene vulgaris, Silene dioica, Saponaria officinalis, Cerastium arvensis, Cerastium semidecandrum, Cerastium diffusum, Sagina nodosa, Spergularia rubra,Spergulaia rupicola, Chenopodium bonus-henricus, Chenopodium polyspermum</p><br>
<h3>Fishing</h3><br>
<p>Eel fishing has been a major industry in Lough Neagh for centuries. These European eels make their way from the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, some 4,000 mi along the Gulf Stream to the mouth of the River Bann, and then make their way into the lough. They remain there for some 10 to 15 years, maturing, before returning to the Sargasso to spawn. Today Lough Neagh eel fisheries export their eels to restaurants all over the world, and the Lough Neagh Eel has been granted Protected Geographical Status under European Union law.</p><br>
<p>Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney produced a collection of poems A Lough Neagh Sequence celebrating the eel-fishermen&#39;s traditional techniques and the natural history of their catch.</p><br>
<p>Other fish species in the lake include dollaghan —a variety of brown trout native to the lake, salmon, trout, perch and pollan; the latter was once abundant but it went into decline after WWII. Bream, gudgeon, pike and rudd are also found, but are less common.</p><br>
<h2>Mythology and folklore</h2><br>
<p>In the Irish mythical tale Cath Maige Tuired ("the Battle of Moytura"), Lough Neagh is called one of the 12 chief loughs of Ireland. The origin of the lake and its name is explained in an Irish tale that was written down in the Middle Ages, but is likely pre-Christian. According to the tale, the lake is named after Echaid (modern spelling: Eochaidh or Eachaidh), who was the son of Mairid (Mairidh), a king of Munster. Echaid falls in love with his stepmother, a young woman named Ébliu (Ébhlinne). They try to elope, accompanied by many of their retainers, but someone kills their horses. In some versions, the horses are killed by Midir (Midhir), which may be another name for Ébliu&#39;s husband Mairid. Óengus (Aonghus) then appears and gives them an enormous horse that can carry all their belongings. Óengus warns that they must not let the horse rest or it will be their doom. However, after reaching Ulster the horse stops and urinates, and a spring rises from the spot. Echaid decides to build a house there and covers the spring with a capstone to stop it overflowing. One night, the capstone is not replaced and the spring overflows, drowning Echaid and most of his family, and creating Loch n-Echach (Loch nEachach: the lake of Eochaidh or Eachaidh).</p><br>
<p>The character Eochaidh refers to The Daghdha, a god of the ancient Irish who was also known as Eochaidh Ollathair (meaning "horseman, father of all"). Ébhlinne, Midhir and Aonghus were also names of deities. Dáithí Ó hÓgáin writes that the idea of a supernatural being creating the landscape with its own body is an ancient one common to many pre-Christian cultures. A Gaelic sept called the Uí Eachach (meaning "descendents of Eochaidh") dwelt in the area and it is likely that their name comes from the cult of the god Eochaidh.</p><br>
<p>Another tale tells how the lake was formed when Ireland&#39;s legendary giant Fionn mac Cumhaill (Finn McCool) scooped up a chunk of earth and tossed it at a Scottish rival. It fell into the Irish Sea, forming the Isle of Man, while the crater left behind filled with water to form Lough Neagh.</p><br>
<p>The Château Frontenac is one of Canada&#39;s grand railway hotels, located in Quebec City, Quebec. It is operated as Fairmont Le Château Frontenac. Château Frontenac is situated at an elevation of 54 m. It was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1980. Prior to the building of the hotel, the site was occupied by the Château Haldimand, residence of the British colonial governors of Lower Canada and Quebec. The hotel is generally recognized as the most photographed hotel in the world, largely for its prominence in the skyline of Quebec City. The current hotel capacity is more than 600 rooms on 18 floors.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Château Frontenac was designed by American architect Bruce Price, as one of a series of "château" style hotels built for the Canadian Pacific Railway company (CPR) during the late 19th and early 20th centuries; the newer portions of the hotel—including the central tower (1924)—were designed by Canadian architect William Sutherland Maxwell. CPR&#39;s policy was to promote luxury tourism by appealing to wealthy travellers. The Château Frontenac opened in 1893, six years after the Banff Springs Hotel, which was owned by the same company and is similar in style.</p><br>
<p>The Château Frontenac was named after Louis de Buade, Count of Frontenac, who was governor of the colony of New France from 1672 to 1682 and 1689 to 1698. The Château was built near the historic Citadelle, the construction of which Frontenac had begun at the end of the 17th century. The Quebec Conference of 1943, at which Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and William Lyon Mackenzie King discussed strategy for World War II, was held at the Château Frontenac while much of the staff stayed nearby at the Citadelle.</p><br>
<p>Although several of Quebec City&#39;s buildings are taller, the landmark hotel is perched atop a tall cape overlooking the Saint Lawrence River, affording a spectacular view for several kilometers. The building is the most prominent feature of the Quebec City skyline as seen from across the Saint Lawrence.</p><br>
<p>The World War II Allies&#39; Quebec Conferences of 1943 and 1944 were held at the Château.</p><br>
<p>In 1953, this hotel was used as the filming location for Alfred Hitchcock&#39;s film I Confess, featuring Montgomery Clift and Anne Baxter.</p><br>
<p>In 2001, the hotel was sold to Legacy REIT, which is partially owned by Fairmont, for $185 million. When Canadian Pacific Hotels was renamed Fairmont Hotels and Resorts in 2001, the hotel became Fairmont Le Château Frontenac.</p><br>
<p>In 2011, the hotel was sold to Ivanhoé Cambridge, and work began on replacement of the main tower&#39;s copper roof, at the cost of $7.5 million. An image of the roof was printed on polypropylene safety netting and hung from scaffolding to hide the refurbishing project from view.</p><br>
<p>In 2016, the hotel was used as a filming location for the second most highest South Korean cable drama, Goblin: The Lonely and Great God.</p><br>
<h2>Legacy</h2><br>
<p>On June 14, 1993, Canada Post issued Le Château Frontenac, Québec designed by Kosta Tsetsekas, based on illustrations by Heather Price. The stamp features an image of the Château Frontenac, which was designed by architect Bruce Price in 1893. The 43¢ stamps are perforated 13.5 and were printed by Ashton-Potter Limited.</p><br>
<p>Timgad  was a Roman-Berber city in the Aurès Mountains of Algeria. It was founded by the Emperor Trajan around AD 100. The full name of the city was Colonia Marciana Ulpia Traiana Thamugadi. Trajan named the city in commemoration of his mother Marcia, eldest sister Ulpia Marciana, and father Marcus Ulpius Traianus.</p><br>
<p>Located in modern-day Algeria, about 35 km east of the city of Batna, the ruins are noteworthy for representing one of the best extant examples of the grid plan as used in Roman town planning. Timgad was inscribed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982.</p><br>
<h2>Toponymy</h2><br>
<p>In the former name of Timgad, Marciana Traiana Thamugadi, the first part - Marciana Traiana - is Roman and refers to the name of its founder, Emperor Trajan and his sister Marciana. The second part of the name - Thamugadi - "has nothing Latin about it". Thamugadi is the Berber name of the place where the city was built, to read Timgad plural form of Tamgut, meaning "peak", "summit".</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The city was founded ex nihilo as a military colony by the emperor Trajan around AD 100. It was intended to serve primarily as a bastion against the Berbers in the nearby Aures Mountains. It was originally populated largely by Roman veterans of the Parthian campaigns who were granted lands in return for years of service.</p><br>
<p>The city enjoyed a peaceful existence for the first several hundred years and became a center of Christian activity starting in the 3rd century, and a Donatist center in the 4th century.</p><br>
<p>In the 5th century, the city was sacked by the Vandals before falling into decline. In AD 535, the Byzantine general Solomon found the city empty when he came to occupy it. In the following century, the city was briefly repopulated as a primarily Christian city before being sacked by Berbers in the 5th century. During the Christian period, Timgad was a diocese which became renowned at the end of the 4th century when Bishop Optat became the spokesman for the Donatist movement. After Optat, Thamugadai had two bishops Gaudentius (Donatist) and Faustinus (Catholic)</p><br>
<p>The city saw a revival of activity after the Byzantine reconquest in the 6th century, but the Arab invasion brought about the destruction of Thamugadi, where occupation ceased definitively after the 8th century.</p><br>
<p>Because no new settlements were founded on the site after the 7th century, the city was partially preserved under sand up to a depth of approximately one meter. The encroachment of the Sahara on the ruins was the principal reason why the city is so well preserved.</p><br>
<p>After the Arab sacking in the 8th century the city disappeared from history until its excavation in 1881.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>Located at the intersection of six roads, the city was walled but not fortified.</p><br>
<p>Originally designed for a population of around 15,000, the city quickly outgrew its original specifications and spilled beyond the orthogonal grid in a more loosely organized fashion.</p><br>
<p>At the time of its founding, the area surrounding the city was a fertile agricultural area, about 1000 meters above sea level.</p><br>
<p>The original Roman grid plan is magnificently visible in the orthogonal design, highlighted by the decumanus maximus (east–west-oriented street) and the cardo (north–south-oriented street) lined by a partially restored Corinthian colonnade. The cardo does not proceed completely through the city but instead terminates in a forum at the intersection with the decumanus.</p><br>
<p>At the west end of the decumanus rises a 12 m high triumphal arch, called the Arch of Trajan, which was partially restored in 1900. The arch is principally of sandstone, and is of the Corinthian order with three arches, the central one being 11&#39; wide. The arch is also known as the Timgad Arch.</p><br>
<p>A 3,500-seat theater is in good condition and is used for contemporary productions. The other key buildings include four thermae, a library, and a basilica.</p><br>
<p>The Capitoline Temple is dedicated to Jupiter and is of approximately the same dimensions as the Pantheon in Rome. Nearby the capitol is a square church with a circular apse dating from the 7th century AD. Southeast of the city is a large Byzantine citadel built in the later days of the city.</p><br>
<h2>Library</h2><br>
<p>The Library at Timgad was a gift to the Roman people by Julius Quintianus Flavius Rogatianus at a cost of 400,000 sesterces. As no additional information about this benefactor has been unearthed, the precise date of the library&#39;s construction remains uncertain. Based on the remaining archaeological evidence, it has been suggested by scholars that it dates from the late 3rd or possibly the 4th century. The library occupies a rectangle 81 feet (24.69 meters) long by 77 feet (23.47 meters) wide. It consists of a large semi-circular room flanked by two secondary rectangular rooms, and preceded by a U-shaped colonnaded portico surrounding three sides on an open court. The portico is flanked by two long narrow rooms on each side, and the large vaulted hall would have combined the functions of a reading room, stack room, and perhaps a lecture room. Oblong alcoves held wooden shelves along walls that would likely have been complete with sides, backs, and doors, based on additional evidence found at the library at Ephesus. It is possible that free-standing bookcases in the center of the room, as well as a reading desk, might also have been present. While the architecture of the Library at Timgad is not especially remarkable, the discovery of the library is historically important as it shows the presence of a fully developed library system in this Roman city, indicating a high standard of learning and culture. While there is no evidence as to the size of the collection the library harbored, it is estimated that it could have accommodated 3,000 scrolls.</p><br>
<h2>World Heritage Site</h2><br>
<p>Timgad was inscribed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1982.</p><br>
<p>Mount Bromo , is an active volcano and part of the Tengger massif, in East Java, Indonesia. At 2,329 m it is not the highest peak of the massif, but is the most well known. The massif area is one of the most visited tourist attractions in East Java, Indonesia. The volcano belongs to the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park. The name of Bromo derived from Javanese pronunciation of Brahma, the Hindu creator god.</p><br>
<p>Mount Bromo sits in the middle of a plain called the "Sea of Sand" (Segara Wedi or Lautan Pasir), a protected nature reserve since 1919. The typical way to visit Mount Bromo is from the nearby mountain village of Cemoro Lawang. From there it is possible to walk to the volcano in about 45 minutes, but it is also possible to take an organised jeep tour, which includes a stop at the viewpoint on Mount Penanjakan (2,770 m) (Gunung Penanjakan). The viewpoint on Mount Penanjakan can also be reached on foot in about two hours.</p><br>
<p>Depending on the degree of volcanic activity, the Indonesian Centre for Volcanology and Disaster Hazard Mitigation sometimes issues warnings against visiting Mount Bromo.</p><br>
<h2>Activity</h2><br>
<h3>2004 eruptions</h3><br>
<p>Mount Bromo erupted in 2004. That eruptive episode led to the death of two people who had been hit by rocks from the explosion.</p><br>
<h3>2010 eruptions</h3><br>
<p>On Tuesday, 23 November 2010, 16.30 WIB (Western Indonesian Time), the Indonesian Centre of Vulcanology and Geology Hazard Mitigation (CVGHM) confirmed the activity status of Mount Bromo at "alert" due to increasing tremor activity and shallow volcanic earthquakes at the mountain. Concerns were raised that a volcanic eruption might be likely to occur. As a precaution local residents and tourists were instructed to remain clear of an area within a radius of three kilometres from the caldera and refugee encampments were erected. The area surrounding the Teggera caldera of Bromo remained off-limits for visitors throughout the remainder of 2010.</p><br>
<p>Bromo started to erupt ash on Friday 26 November 2010.</p><br>
<p>On 29 November 2010 Transport Ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan announced that Malang&#39;s domestic airport would be closed until 4 December 2010. Malang is a city of about 800,000 people is about 25 km (16 mi) west of Mount Bromo. Abdul Rachman Saleh Airport normally handles 10 daily domestic flights from the capital Jakarta. Government volcanologist Surono reported that the volcano was spitting columns of ash some 700 metres (2,300 feet) into the sky.</p><br>
<h3>2011 eruptions</h3><br>
<p>(Bromo volcano crater itself is not visible)</p><br>
<p>The Tengger Caldera was still active in late January 2011, the activity being characterised by fluctuating ongoing eruptions. On 23 January 2011 the Indonesian Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (CVGHM; Pusat Vulkanologi dan Mitigasi Bencana Geologi) reported that since 19 December 2010 volcanic ash and incandescent material had been thrown up by eruptive activity resulting in a heavy rain of material that fell around the crater. Continuous eruptions on 21 January caused a thin ash fall mainly in the village areas of Ngadirejo and Sukapura Wonokerto in Probolinggo district.</p><br>
<p>The impact of a heavy rain of volcanic ash from eruptions since 19 December 2010 resulted in disruption of normal activities. By early 2011 concerns were being raised about the effect upon the local economy and the potential for long-term environmental and health problems amongst the residents in the locality surrounding Mount Bromo. Due to high seasonal rainfall in January 2011 the potential for lahar and lava flow was raised due to the deposits of volcanic ash, sand and other ejected material that had built up. Seismic activity was dominated by tremor vibration and reports of visual intensity and sounds of eruption continued to be reported from the mountain monitoring facility, Bromo Observation Post. People living on the banks of the Perahu Ravine, Nganten Ravine and Sukapura River were alerted to the possibility of lava flows, especially when it was raining heavily in the area around Cemorolawang, Ngadisari and Ngadirejo. Eruptions and volcanic tremors were reported on 21 January and 22 January with activity subsiding on 23 January 2011. On 23 January 2011 at 6:00 am the alert status at Mount Bromo remained at Level III.</p><br>
<p>On 23 January 2011 an exclusion zone was recommended for communities living around Mount Bromo. Tourists and hikers were advised to not come within a radius of 2 km from the active crater. CVGHM stated that they expected warning signs to be installed stating the limit radius of 2 km from the crater. Operational caution was recommended for flights into and leaving Juanda International Airport IATA:SUB in Surabaya. CVGHM recommended the establishment of public areas for the provision of face masks and eye protection. CVGHM also issued a warning to residents to be cautious of ash buildup on roofs and other places that may give cause for collapse under the burden of ash.</p><br>
<p>Further eruptions and the issuing of aviation ash advisories on 27 January and 28 January 2011 led to concerns being raised regarding a volcanic ash plume, reported to be drifting eastward toward the air corridors used to access the Ngurah Rai International Airport IATA:DPS in Bali. Airport official Sherly Yunita was reported at the time as stating that concerns about visibility had prompted Singapore Airlines, Jetstar-ValueAir, Air France-KLM, Virgin Blue and Cathay Pacific to cancel several flights to Bali, 340 km to the east. SilkAir also cancelled flights on the 27 January between Singapore and Lombok, an island to the east of Bali. The Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre in Darwin, Australia released several Code Red Aviation Ash Advisories pertaining to Mount Bromo (Tengger Caldera), on 27 January. They indicated that ash was observed at altitudes up to 18,000 ft (FL180) extending 200 nautical miles to the south east of the caldera. In other ash advisories of that day the cloud was reported as at times having a 10 km/h drift, both to the east and to the south east.</p><br>
<h3>Deformation-late November 2010-late January 2011</h3><br>
<p>The Indonesian Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (CVGHM) reported on 13 January 2011, that deformation using tiltmeter measurements indicated an inflation at rate of 5 micro radians between 25 November 2010 and 14 December 2010 and a relatively stable since 15 December 2010 both on Radial Components and Tangential Components.</p><br>
<p>Deformation measurement using electronic distance measurement equipment compared observations at designated measuring points; POS-BRO, POS-KUR and POS-BAT during the period 25 November 2010 - 20 December 2010 with observations from the period 21 December 2010 - 30 December 2010 indicated the shortening of the distance from the POS-BAT, or inflation. Observations between 30 December 2010 to 23 January 2011 were reported as relatively stable.</p><br>
<h3>2015 eruption</h3><br>
<p>Mount Bromo has shown signs of increasing activity since early November, when the amount of smoke coming out of the crater intensified. By late November Mount Bromo began to eject ashes into the air. Indonesian Volcano Monitoring Bureau (PVBMG) issued a warning that forbade people from climbing Mount Bromo. Later the warning was extended into a 1 km exclusion zone, before eventually extended into wider range which virtually barred visitors from coming down into the caldera floor, which is popularly known as Sandsea.</p><br>
<h2>Culture</h2><br>
<p>On the fourteenth day of the Hindu festival of Yadnya Kasada, the Tenggerese people of Probolinggo, East Java, travel up the mountain in order to make offerings of fruit, rice, vegetables, flowers and sacrifices of livestock to the mountain gods by throwing them into the caldera of the volcano. The origin of the ritual lies in the 15th century legend where a princess named Roro Anteng started the principality of Tengger with her husband, Joko Seger. The couple were childless and therefore beseeched the assistance of the mountain gods. The gods granted them 24 children but stipulated that the 25th child, named Kesuma, must be thrown into the volcano as a human sacrifice. The gods&#39; request was implemented. The tradition of throwing sacrifices into the volcano to appease these ancient deities continues today and is called the Yadnya Kasada ceremony. Though fraught with danger, some locals risk climbing down into the crater in an attempt to recollect the sacrificed goods that they believe could bring them good luck.</p><br>
<p>On the sand plain, locally called Segara Wedi (lit. sand ocean), sits a Hindu temple called Pura Luhur Poten. The temple holds a significant importance to the Tenggerese scattered across the mountain villages, such as Ngadisari, Wonokitri, Ngadas, Argosari, Ranu Prani, Ledok Ombo and Wonokerso. The temple organises the annual Yadnya Kasada ceremony which lasts for about one month. On the 14th day, the Tenggerese congregate at Pura Luhur Poten to ask for blessings from Ida Sang Hyang Widi Wasa and the God of Mahameru (Mount Semeru). Then the crowd proceeds along the crater edges of Mt Bromo where offerings are thrown into the crater. The major difference between this temple and Balinese ones are the type of stones and building materials. Pura Luhur Poten uses natural black stones from volcanoes nearby, while Balinese temples are mostly made from red bricks. Inside this pura, there are several buildings and enclosures aligned in a mandala zone composition.</p><br>
<p>Babia Góra , or Babia hora , literally Old Wives or Witches Mountain, is a massif situated on the border between Poland and Slovakia in the Western Beskidy Mountains. The name is also applied to the culmination of the massif, Diablak , which is also the highest peak of this part of the Carpathian Mountains, at 1,725 m above sea level.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Babia Góra was first mentioned in the 15th century chronicle of Jan Długosz. It was first plotted on a map in 1558. Until the end of the 17th century most of the available information on the mountain came from folklore. According to folk tales, the mountain was the location of the witches&#39; sabbath. The first known ascent was made in 1782 by the court astronomer of King Stanisław August Poniatowski, Jowin Fryderyk Bończa Bystrzycki. The period of scientific investigations began in the second half of the 19th century.</p><br>
<h2>Nature</h2><br>
<p>Gentle from the south, steep from the north, Babia Góra is home to bear, lynx, wolf and other species; as well as alpine flora endemic at this altitude. The first attempts to protect the area were made in the 1930s. In 1933 the Nature Reserve of Babia Góra was established on the Polish side. Later, in 1954, the Babia Góra National Park (Babiogórski Park Narodowy) was established with an area of 17.04 km². In 1976 it became one of the first Biosphere Reserves in the world. For a long time Babia Góra National Park was the smallest of the Polish national parks. In 1997 it was enlarged to 33.92 km² and a buffer zone was created of 84.37 km². Within the park, 10.62 km² is under strict protection. There are calls for strengthening of cross-border cooperation with Slovakia to better protect the fragile environment of the mountain.</p><br>
<h2>Climate</h2><br>
<p>Babia Góra is sometimes nicknamed Matka Niepogód (Mother of Bad Weather). Located far from any other mountains of similar height that would provide a natural barrier, it is very susceptible to weather changes. Snow can remain on the northern slopes and in narrow gorges until summer. In May 2016, a climber was killed by lightning while attempting to descend the mountain when a thunderstorm approached.</p><br>
<h2>Tourism</h2><br>
<p>Tourism in the region of Babia Góra is quite a recent phenomenon. The first tourists in the 19th century were mainly intellectuals from nearby Cracow. Since then the village of Zawoja has developed into an important mountain resort. However, skiing facilities are very restricted due to the protected status of the area.</p><br>
<p>Although generally relatively easy to climb, Babia Góra can be reached by a more difficult yellow route called Perć Akademików (Academics Path). It was marked out by university scholars to examine the mountains unique flora. Today, despite (or perhaps because of) steep climbs, chains and metal steps fixed to the rocks along sections of the trail, it is very popular with tourists.</p><br>
<p>Hymettus, also Hymettos , is a mountain range in the Athens area of Attica, East Central Greece. It is also colloquially known as Trellós  or Trellóvouno ; the latter originates from the French "très long"  in awe of its winding length of 16km, as used by French travelers during the occupation of Greece by the Ottomans. In antiquity there was a sanctuary to Zeus Ombrios  on the summit with numerous offerings dating especially to the 8th-7th centuries BC; they are on the site of a military base and not currently accessible. There is also an ancient quarryman&#39;s hut on the western slopes of the mountain, one of two buildings in ancient Attica which preserves its roof.</p><br>
<p>The height is 1,026 m at Evzonas and the length is 16 km between Athens and the Saronic Gulf and 6 to 7 km from east to west. In the ancient times, the highest point was known as Mega Ymittos and the southern Elattona (Ελάττονα) and Anydro Ymitto (Άνυδρο Υμηττό) (today Mavrovouni (Μαυροβούνι meaning black mountain) and Kontra (Κόντρα)). It was noted for its thyme honey. Marble has been quarried since antiquity. The neighboring communities that surround the mountain are Athens, Zografou, Kaisariani, Vyronas, Ilissia (a region of Zografou), Ymittos, Ilioupoli, Argyroupoli, Elliniko, Glyfada, Voula and Vouliagmeni in the west, Varkiza, Vari, Markopoulo and Paiania to its east, and Papagou, Cholargos, Agia Paraskevi, Gerakas and Glyka Nera. Most of the forest is in the north, and much of the mountain is rocky, deforested, grassy and made out of limestone.</p><br>
<p>Major campuses of the University of Athens and the National Technical University of Athens (collectively called "University Town") are located on the west-facing slope, between the Motorway 64, a ring road connected with the Motorway 6, and the Athens urban sprawl. A transmitter park for several major TV and radio stations, along with military radar is located at the top of the mountain. Built up urban areas almost surround the entire mountain range. Access to the top of the mountain is restricted to authorized vehicles for maintenance of the towers.</p><br>
<p>Almost all of Athens, its eastern suburbs and the new airport can be seen from the mountain top along with the mountains of Parnitha to its northwest, Penteli to its north and Aegaleo to its west. The valley areas that create the lowest passes are to the south and one further south.</p><br>
<p>The mountain ranges features about six to seven landfills in the western part and another in the eastern part.</p><br>
<p>Raritan Bay is a bay located at the southern portion of Lower New York Bay between the USA states of New York and New Jersey and is part of the New York Bight. The bay is bounded on the northwest by New York&#39;s Staten Island, on the west by Perth Amboy, New Jersey, on the south by the Raritan Bayshore communities of Monmouth County, New Jersey, and on the east by Sandy Hook Bay. The bay is named after the Raritans, a branch of the Lenape tribe who lived in the vicinity of the bay for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Dutch colonists in the 17th century.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Archeological evidence suggests that humans were already in the region at the close of the Pleistocene. The early "Big Game Hunters" vanished, but the coastal regions were resettled by peoples accustomed to village-style living ("tidewater communities") that subsisted on hunting and gathering marine shellfish, and eventually, on agriculture. In pre-Columbian times "woodlands cultures" probably centered in the Ohio Valley became the dominant cultural influence in the region. Large shell middens were found around Raritan Bay and on Staten Island, a testament of the utilization of the bay for food by Algonquin Indian tribes (Lenapes) who occupied the area when early Colonialists arrived. Unfortunately, early settlers used these shell piles for road construction and field fertilizer. Tottenville was once well known for its roads paved with oyster shells.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>The Raritan River was perhaps the major drainage channel along the ice front throughout the Wisconsin glaciation (Stages 1, 2, 3 and 4). Prior to that time the region drained southward across the saddle between the Atlantic Highlands and the Newark Basin into the Delaware River Valley. This saddle area is a very broad flood plain that preserves river terrace gravels (Pensauken Formation) from the Sangemon Interglacial State (Stage 5), as well as older Pleistocene fluvial deposits (The Bridgetown Formation). During the lowstand in sea level caused by the Wisconsin glacier, the Raritan River carved back into its headlands and captured the major drainages from the Newark Basin.</p><br>
<p>As the Wisconsin glaciers melted, the Flandrian Transgression eventually flooded the deeper valleys of the Hudson, Raritan, and Arthur Kill. During warming at the end of the Pleistocene and Early Holocene, the area encompassing Raritan Bay changed from tundra to a landscape dominated by spruce and pine forests. These forests gradually gave way to the modern deciduous forest in the region by mid-Holocene time. Lagoons and bays in the area around Sandy Hook hosted oysters, hard and soft shell clams, lobsters, blue crabs, and a variety of other invertebrates common in bays in the region today. South of western Long Island, tidal flats and wetlands occupied the margins of a tidal estuary (now submerged by marine waters). Inner Raritan Bay began to fill about 2,500 years ago with large oyster beds forming along the estuarine tributaries. Sea level continued to rise about one foot per century. This rise in sea level has resulted in the landward migration of the shoreline (aided by storm-induced coastal erosion) as much as two miles in some portions of the coast since colonial times.</p><br>
<h2>Economy and ecology</h2><br>
<p>The bay supported a lucrative fishing and shellfish industry during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially oysters, which helped to support a stable population around the bay and aided, in part, to feed the flood of immigration. Stable communities continued to grow and change with new industries supporting a larger population base. Advances in methods of fishing and shellfish collecting resulted in overextraction of these resources from the bay. The peak of the fishing industry occurred in the late 1880s to 1910s.</p><br>
<p>Fishing and farming slowly gave way to industries including ship building, ceramics, chemicals and paint manufacturing, electrolytic copper refining, and petroleum refining. In the Keasbey, New Jersey area, large pits were dug to extract the clays for ceramics and bricks, and huge chemical dumps, fly ash piles, and landfills were created to accommodate the waste from the growing industrial empire. The building of shore management structures (dikes, groins, seawalls), the spraying of DDT (and other pesticides) to control the mosquito problem, the carving of ditches to drain wetlands, the filling of shore lowlands, the channelization of creeks, highway and sewer construction, neighborhood development, and a myriad point and non-point sources of household, automobile, industrial chemicals, and ocean dumping all contributed to growing toxicity of the bay.</p><br>
<p>For most of the 20th century, the shores of Arthur Kill have been home to the largest petroleum importing, refining, and storage facilities on Earth; as a consequence the estuary has been host to major and minor oil spills. In addition, Arthur Kill drains the area encompassing the second largest landfill on Earth (Fresh Kills). This landfill, and others along the Raritan River, provide an ample supply of leachate to the waterways. Chemical wastes cause stress and disruption of the life cycles of plankton, shellfish and other invertebrates, and the fish, birds, and other wildlife that they support.</p><br>
<p>The result has been ecological disaster. The bay approached sterile conditions at the peak of pollution and algal bloom-induced anoxia. Environmental actions from the 1970s to present have helped slowly bring back sea life, but current conditions pale to the wealth of marine resources of the past; certain species of fish and birds continue to decline, and the introduction of tenacious exotic species from around the world contribute to their decline. As a sign of optimism though, oysters are beginning to naturally reappear in the Hudson River after having vanished completely about the time of World War II.</p><br>
<p>Regional industrial overdevelopment and other pollution factors have raised PCB levels in the fish catch and prompted government recommendations against its routine consumption.</p><br>
<p>The bay is crossed by a dredged channel allowing commercial ships to enter the Arthur Kill.</p><br>
<h2>Aquatic species</h2><br>
<p>Raritan Bay&#39;s fish include striped bass, fluke, winter flounder, bluefish, tautog and weakfish. The crustacean species represented include the blue crab, fiddler crab, green crab, horseshoe crab and spider crab. Clams and mussels also live in Raritan Bay. The bay is a popular destination for recreational fishing due to its proximity to the densely populated areas of Central Jersey and New York City.</p><br>
<p>Burney Falls is a waterfall on Burney Creek, within McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park, in Shasta County, California.</p><br>
<p>The water comes from underground springs above and at the falls, which are 129 feet high, and provides an almost constant flow rate of 379 million litres per day, even during the dry summer months. Burney Creek is a tributary of the Pit River, with its mouth on the Lake Britton reservoir to the north.</p><br>
<p>The falls are an example of river drainage regulated by stratigraphically-controlled springs, and also of a waterfall formed by undercutting of horizontal strata.</p><br>
<p>The falls were called "the Eighth Wonder of the World" by President Theodore Roosevelt, and were declared a National Natural Landmark in December 1954.</p><br>
<p>Charnwood Forest is an upland tract in north-western Leicestershire, England, bounded by Leicester, Loughborough and Coalville. The area is undulating, rocky and picturesque, with barren areas. It also has some extensive tracts of woodland; its elevation is generally 600 ft  and upwards, the area exceeding this height being about 6,100 acre. The highest point, Bardon Hill, is 912 ft . On its western flank lies an abandoned coalfield, with Coalville and other former mining villages, now being regenerated and replanted as part of the National Forest. The M1 motorway, between junctions 22 and 23, cuts through Charnwood Forest.</p><br>
<p>The hard stone of Charnwood Forest has been quarried for centuries, and was a source of whetstones and quern-stones. The granite quarries at Bardon Hill, Buddon Hill and Whitwick supply crushed aggregate to a wide area of southern Britain.</p><br>
<p>The forest is an important recreational area with woodland walks, noted for their displays of bluebells in the early spring, rock climbing and hillwalking. Popular places with public access include Bardon Hill, Beacon Hill, Bradgate Park, Swithland Wood and the Outwoods and Stoneywell Cottage (National Trust ).</p><br>
<h2>Extent</h2><br>
<p>The area of hills and open land known as Charnwood Forest has no jurisdictional boundary. (The Borough of Charnwood covers roughly two thirds of Charnwood Forest, and the eastern half of the borough is not part of the forest). Furthermore, despite its name, Charnwood was never a royal forest, and was never subject to forest law. So although it is an ancient and well established locality, it has only recently been officially defined, by the Natural England national character area (NCA) process, which takes a somewhat wider definition than many previous attempts to define the area.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>Many of the craggy rocks of Charnwood Forest are of volcanic origin and are very old, dating back through 600 million years to Precambrian times. It was the site of the first ever recorded discovery of Charnia masoni, the earliest known large, complex fossilised species on record. It was discovered in 1957 by a local schoolboy named Roger Mason (thus masoni) who, with friends, was exploring a quarry near the Charnwood village of Woodhouse Eaves. The rocks of Charnwood Forest remain the only place in Western Europe where these Precambrian fossils have been found. Along the western edge of Charnwood Forest the rocks are mainly Precambrian igneous Diorites. These formed from molten lava deep within the sedimentary rocks, cooling slowly to produce hard, blocky rock with large crystals. This is extensively quarried for roadstone around Groby, Markfield and Whitwick, and is known as granite (formerly also called Markfieldite). The central area of the forest has older rocks still. These are sedimentary and are very variable in character, They were formed by material from volcanoes, settling in deep water, and it is in these beds that the fossils are found. Uplifting, tilting and erosion have produced the distinctive jagged exopsures found across the highest parts of Charnwood. On the eastern side, a much more recent series of rocks are found. Again igneous Diorites, that formed deep underground, but these are Ordovician, from a mere 450 million years ago. These are extensively quarried in the areas near Mountsorrel.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The earliest form of the name Charnwood is probably derived from cerne woda, from the Celtic carn, meaning cairn, and the Old English wudu, meaning wood. Some sources give cwern as the derivation, meaning a tool used to grind grain and other materials by hand. The area was a source of stone for these tools, called quern-stones.</p><br>
<p>Archeological evidence has shown that the area was inhabited as far back as the Neolithic period, approximately 4,000–2,000 BC. Beacon Hill is the site of a Bronze Age hill fort, dating from between 600 BC – 43 AD. This forms one of the last surviving visible features in the landscape known to the Coritani, the tribe who occupied most of the East Midlands area at the time of the Roman Conquest.</p><br>
<p>According to Domesday Book, there was only one settlement in Charnwood Forest in 1086, at Charley whose name would appear to come from the same root, with the suffix -ley denoting open land, rather than forest.</p><br>
<p>In the 200 years after the Norman conquest, newly created settlements took major areas of land out of the forest for use in agriculture. Quorn was established between 1086 and 1153, and all the land up to Woodhouse had been reclaimed from the forest by 1228.</p><br>
<p>There were comparatively few major changes in land use in the post Medieval period, until the demand for timber and charcoal for the early Industrial Revolution contributed to a further loss of woodland. By the end of the 18th century, most of the woodland had disappeared leaving large areas of moorland and pasture.</p><br>
<h2>In literature</h2><br>
<p>The area was the inspiration for "Charnwood Poems", a collection of poems by the author, playwright and poet Albert Francis Cross (1863–1940). It is also the setting for the speculative fiction novel "Some Kind of Fairy Tale" by Graham Joyce (2012), in which it is depicted as a possible portal to the realm of fairies.</p><br>
<h2>Wildlife and geological sites</h2><br>
<p>Charnwood Forest covers approx 67 square miles of Leicestershire, split over three local government districts: Charnwood Borough, North West Leicestershire District and Hinckley and Bosworth District. It includes a national nature reserve (NNR), 19 SSSIs (Some subdivided in the list of sites below), 4 GCR sites of international geological importance plus a further 6 GCR sites, 13 Regionally Important Geological Sites (RIGS), five local nature reserves (LNRs), seven Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust (LRWT) nature reserves, and 1 Woodland Trust woodland. 17 sites have open access to the public. Footpaths and bridleways give views and limited access to the other sites listed, and to the rest of the Charnwood Forest landscape. Over half of Charnwood Forest is included within the English National Forest. It is also crossed by two waymarked long distance walking routes – the Leicestershire Round and the Ivanhoe Way. The 45 sites listed here include sites with statutory wildlife or geological designations, plus other sites included in published lists of notable sites. On both the map and table, green denotes a site open to the public, amber denotes a site with limited access or restricted by permit or membership. Red denotes a site with no public access except by special arrangement with the owners.</p><br>
<p>Abbreviations used in the table:</p><br>
<p>National nature reserve (NNR). Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) (B=Biological, G=Geological). Geological Conservation Review (GCR)(I=of International importance). Regionally Important Geological Site (RIGS). Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust (LRWT). National Trust (NT). Local nature reserve (LNR).</p><br>
<p>Upper New York Bay, or Upper Bay, is the traditional heart of the Port of New York and New Jersey, and often called New York Harbor. It is enclosed by the New York City boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Staten Island and the Hudson County, New Jersey municipalities of Jersey City and Bayonne.</p><br>
<h2>Overview</h2><br>
<p>The Upper Bay is fed by the waters of the Hudson River (historically called the North River as it passes Manhattan), as well as the Gowanus Canal. It is connected to Lower New York Bay by the Narrows, to Newark Bay by the Kill Van Kull, and to Long Island Sound by the East River, which despite the name, is actually a tidal strait. It provides the main passage for the waters of the Hudson River as it empties through the Narrows. The channel of the Hudson as it passes through the harbor is called the Anchorage Channel and is approximately 50 feet deep in the midpoint of the harbor. A project to replace two water mains between Brooklyn and Staten Island which will eventually allowing for dredging of the channel to nearly 100 ft was begun in April 2012.</p><br>
<p>It contains several islands including Governors Island, near the mouth of the East River, as well Ellis Island, Liberty Island, and Robbins Reef which are supported by a large underwater reef on the New Jersey side of the harbor. The reef was historically one of the largest oyster beds in the world and provided a staple for the diet of all classes of citizens both locally and regionally until the end of the 19th century, when the beds succumbed to pollution.</p><br>
<p>Historically it has played an extremely important role in the commerce of the New York metropolitan area. The Statue of Liberty National Monument recalls the immigrant experience during the late 19th and early 20th century.</p><br>
<p>Since the 1950s, container ship traffic has been primarily routed through the Kill Van Kull to Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal, where it is consolidated for easier automated transfer to land conveyance. As a consequence, the waterfront industries of the Upper Bay experienced a decline leading to diverse plans for revitalization, though important maritime uses remain at Red Hook, Port Jersey, MOTBY, Constable Hook, and parts of the Staten Island shore. Liberty State Park opened in 1976. In recent years, it has become a popular site for recreation sailing and kayaking.</p><br>
<p>The harbor is traversed by the Staten Island Ferry, which runs between Whitehall Street at the southernmost tip of Manhattan near Battery Park (South Ferry) and St. George Ferry Terminal on Richmond Terrace in Staten Island near Richmond County Borough Hall and Richmond County Supreme Court. NY Waterway operates routes across the bay and through The Narrows to locations near Sandy Hook.</p><br>
<p>The Upper Bay supports a very diverse population of marine species, allowing for recreational fishing, most commonly for striped bass and bluefish.</p><br>
<p>The Clutha River / Mata-Au is the second longest river in New Zealand and the longest in the South Island. It flows south-southeast 338 km through Central and South Otago from Lake Wanaka in the Southern Alps to the Pacific Ocean, 75 km south west of Dunedin. It is the highest volume river in New Zealand, and the swiftest, with a catchment of 21,960 km&sup2, discharging a mean flow of 614 m3/s. The Clutha River is known for its scenery, gold-rush history, and swift turquoise waters. A river conservation group, the Clutha Mata-Au River Parkway Group, is working to establish a regional river parkway, with a trail, along the entire river corridor. The name of the river was changed to a dual name by the Ngai Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The ultimate source of the river is at the head of the Makarora River, close to the saddle of the Haast Pass, which flows into the northern end of Lake Wanaka. The southern end of the lake drains into the nascent Clutha close to Albert Town, where it is met by its first main tributary, the Hāwea River, the outflow of Lake Wanaka&#39;s twin, Lake Hāwea. It is also met here by the Cardrona River.</p><br>
<p>From here the river flows swiftly through the Upper Clutha Valley between ancient glacial terraces, negotiating a long section called the Snake before reaching a rare switchback feature called the Devil&#39;s Nook near the town of Luggate. The river soon narrows as it passes through the Maori Gorge at Queensberry. Shortly thereafter it is joined by another tributary, the Lindis, before widening as it enters Lake Dunstan, an artificial lake created behind the massive hydroelectric dam at Clyde.</p><br>
<p>Fifty kilometres south of Lake Wanaka, the Clutha reaches the town of Cromwell, which was substantially altered when the Clyde Dam project was commissioned in 1992. Here the river is joined by the waters of the Kawarau, which flows from Lake Wakatipu. Prior to the construction of the Clyde Dam, this river junction, known as the Cromwell Junction, was renowned for the difference in colour between the two rivers’ waters.</p><br>
<p>The river then flows southeast through the inundated Cromwell Gorge to Clyde and nearby Alexandra, where it is joined by the waters of the Manuherikia River. South of Alexandra the river widens again to form Lake Roxburgh, another artificial lake, behind the Roxburgh Dam, which was commissioned in 1956. The hydroelectric reservoir flooded the Roxburgh Gorge and several large rapids including the Molyneux Falls and the Golden Falls. The town of Roxburgh sits close to the river, 120 km downstream from Lake Wanaka.</p><br>
<p>From here the river continues southeast past the towns of Ettrick, Millers Flat, and Beaumont, before flowing through the Rongahere Gorge, which is admired for its native bush corridor and for the Birch Island native reserve. Beyond here, the river is met by the Tuapeka River at Tuapeka Mouth. At this point the river turns southward, before being met by its last major tributary, the Pomahaka River, which joins the Clutha 30 km from the coast. The river passes the town of Balclutha before widening into the Clutha delta which contains the large flat island of Inch Clutha. Here the river divides into two distributary branches, the Matau (northern), which flows past Kaitangata, and Koau (southern). Both branches flow into the Pacific Ocean at Molyneux Bay.</p><br>
<p>The Cluthas average discharge is estimated at 614 m3/s, comparable to many much larger rivers. This heavy flow, combined with the relatively small size of the river in global terms, makes the Clutha notoriously fast-flowing, and it is often listed as one of the worlds most swiftly flowing rivers, alongside Australia&#39;s Macleay and Fitzroy Rivers, the Amazon and Atrato Rivers in South America, and the Teesta River in the Himalaya. The highest recorded flow on the Clutha was during heavy storms in June 2015, peaking at 1,621 m3/s.</p><br>
<p>The waters of the Upper Clutha are clear turquoise, the result of glacial and snow-melt filtering when the water flows through Lake Wanaka. This is a rare characteristic for a high volume river. Below Cromwell, where the silt-laden Kawarau enters, the waters are less turquoise.</p><br>
<h3>Beyond the river's mouth</h3><br>
<p>Such is the nature of the geology of the New Zealand region that the true river tells only half the story of the Cluthas course. Beyond its mouth, a submarine canyon system extends for over 100 km into the South Pacific Ocean, eventually becoming the Bounty Trough. The canyon system bears a remarkable resemblance to the pattern of river and tributaries visible on land, so much so that many of the rivers which empty into the sea along the Otago coast can virtually be considered tributaries of the Cluthas submarine system. These rivers include the Tokomairaro, Taieri, Waikouaiti, Shag, and even the Waitaki. The quartz and schist geology of much of the Clutha River catchment leads to the river transporting white quartz material downstream and depositing this on coastal beaches. The general northerly current in the Pacific Ocean leads to this sand being transported and eventually deposited on beaches north to the Otago Peninsula and beyond. The Roxburgh Hydro Scheme provides a barrier to the transportation of this material which has been linked to the erosion of beaches further north, notably St. Kilda Beach and St. Clair Beach, Dunedin, and along the Coastal Road at Kakanui.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The upper reaches of the river once abounded in flightless moa, predated upon by the Haasts eagle. The river was known by the Māori as Mata-au, meaning current or eddy in an expanse of water. This name, now more frequently rendered as Matau, is still used for one of the two main channels of the Clutha delta. In the early days of European exploration there was at least one settlement of some 250-300 Māori close to the rivers banks. The river takes its European name from Cluaidh, the Scots Gaelic name for the River Clyde in Scotland which runs through Glasgow. During New Zealands early colonial history it was known as the Molyneux, that name given to it by Captain Cook. During early European settlement, a whaling station was established close to the rivers mouth, and during this period the sea was the source of almost all of the area&#39;s economy.</p><br>
<h3>Gold rush</h3><br>
<p>The river featured greatly in the Central Otago goldrush. The first major gold deposits in Otago were discovered around the Tuapeka River at Gabriel&#39;s Gully by Gabriel Read in 1861, and the following year large amounts of the precious metal were discovered close to the site of modern Cromwell.</p><br>
<p>By Christmas 1861, 14,000 prospectors were on the Tuapeka and Waipori fields. The gold rush was short-lived, with most of the alluvial gold played out by 1863, but prospectors continued to arrive, swelling to a maximum of 18,000 miners in February 1864.</p><br>
<h3>Floods</h3><br>
<p>The 1978 flood, in which rivers from the Oreti in the south to the Tokomairaro in the north breached their banks, led to the inundation of over 12,000 hectare of land and the loss of over 21,000 livestock. Towns and areas affected stretched from Makarora in the north to Invercargill in the south. The town of Wyndham was completely evacuated, and the towns of Balclutha, Milton and Mataura were seriously affected with many residents moved. The small settlement of Kelso on the banks of the Pomahaka River was completely abandoned and was not rebuilt once the waters subsided. At its peak, at 6.00 a.m. on the 15th, the Clutha&#39;s flow was measured at just over 4,500 m3/s.</p><br>
<p>A major flood in 1999 caused serious damage to river communities, especially Alexandra. The flooding in Alexandra was attributed to a rise in the riverbed, resulting from silt loading in the Roxburgh reservoir behind the Roxburgh Dam downriver from the town. The 1999 flood had significantly higher water levels in Alexandra than the 1878 flood, despite being only 80% of the volume of the latter.</p><br>
<h2>Water usage</h2><br>
<p>There are two hydroelectric power stations, the Clyde Dam and the Roxburgh Dam, located on the river providing electricity to the New Zealand power grid. Other dams had been proposed in the past but the projects were cancelled.</p><br>
<p>Several Local Authorities along the Clutha River use it as a source for treatment plants to provide communities with potable water.</p><br>
<p>The Clutha also provides irrigation for stone fruit orchards around Cromwell, Alexandra, and Roxburgh, which provide apples, apricots, nectarines, cherries, and peaches. Several small vineyards are also found in the upper reaches of the river.</p><br>
<p>The spectacular scenery of Central Otago makes the upper Clutha a popular holiday destination, especially for adventure tourism. Jetboating, kayaking, rafting, riverboarding, and guided fishing occurs on the river, and waterskiing, tandem parachuting and parapenting operators are all to be found in the area. The upper Clutha is also used for multi-sports events, and Lake Dunstan is an important rowing venue. Several major ski courses are found close to the river. Curling is also played close to the Clutha in the harsh Central Otago winters.</p><br>
<p>Lake Wanaka is located in the Otago region of New Zealand, at an altitude of 300 metres. Covering an area of 192 km&sup2, it is New Zealands fourth largest lake, and estimated to be more than 300 m deep. Its name is Māori, a corruption of Oanaka .</p><br>
<p>Wanaka is a town on the lake with which it shares its name.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<h3>Geography</h3><br>
<p>Lake Wanaka lies at the heart of the Otago Lakes in the lower South Island of New Zealand. The township is situated in a glacier carved basin on the shores of the lake and is the gateway to Mt Aspiring National Park. Lake Hāwea is a 15-minute drive away, en route to the frontier town of Makarora, the last stop before the West Coast Glacier region. To the south is the historic Cardrona Valley, offering an alpine route to neighbouring Queenstown. Otago Geography</p><br>
<h3>Geology</h3><br>
<p>At its greatest extent, which is roughly along a north-south axis, the lake is 42 kilometres long. Its widest point, at the southern end, is 10 kilometres. The lake&#39;s western shore is lined with high peaks rising to over 2000 metres above sea level. Along the eastern shore the land is also mountainous, but the peaks are somewhat lower.</p><br>
<p>Wanaka lies in a u-shaped valley formed by glacial erosion during the last ice age, more than 10,000 years ago. It is fed by the Matukituki- and Makarora Rivers, and is the source of the Clutha River. Nearby Lake Hāwea lies in a parallel valley carved by a neighbouring glacier eight kilometres to the east. At their closest point (a rocky ridge called The Neck), the lakes are only 1,000 metres apart.</p><br>
<p>Numerous small islands (notably Ruby Island, Stevensons Island and Harwich Island) are to be found at the southern end of the lake, with some now serving as ecological sanctuaries, for example for buff weka in case of Stevensons Island. The only flat land around the lake is also to be found here, surrounding the outflow into the Clutha River. The towns of Wanaka and Albert Town are situated here.</p><br>
<h3>Climate</h3><br>
<h2>Human history</h2><br>
<h3>Exploration and settlement</h3><br>
<p>For Māori, the Wanaka area was a natural crossroads. The Haast Pass gave access to the West Coast and its pounamu; the Cardrona Valley led to the natural rock bridge "Whatatorere", which was the only place that the Kawarau River and Clutha River / Mata-Au could be crossed without boats. Native reeds were used to build boats that enabled a swift return downriver to the east coast.</p><br>
<p>The Cromwell basin supported a large population of moa, which were hunted to extinction about 500 years ago.</p><br>
<p>Until the early nineteenth century, Wanaka was visited annually by Ngai Tahu who sought pounamu in the mountains above the Haast River and hunted eels and birds over summer, returning to the east coast by descending the Clutha River / Mata-Au in reed boats.</p><br>
<p>Ngai Tahu use of the land was ended by attacks by North Island tribes. In 1836, the Ngati Tama chief Te Puoho led a 100-person war party, armed with muskets, down the West Coast and over the Haast Pass: they fell on the Ngai Tahu encampment between Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea, capturing 10 people and killing and eating two children. Although Te Puoho was later killed by the southern Ngai Tahu leader Tuhawaiki., Maori seasonal visits to the area ceased.</p><br>
<p>The first European to see the lake was Nathaniel Chalmers in 1853.</p><br>
<p>Guided by Reko and Kaikoura, he walked from Tuturau (Southland) to the lake via the Kawarau River. However he was stricken by dysentery, so his guides returned him down the Clutha in a reed boat.</p><br>
<p>By 1861, several sheep stations had been established in around the south end of the lake, and in 1862, the lake itself was surveyed in a whaleboat. The early European name was Lake Pembroke.</p><br>
<h3>Current use and tourism</h3><br>
<p>In addition to ongoing sheep farming, the lake is now a popular resort, and is much used in the summer for fishing, boating and swimming. The nearby mountains and fast-flowing rivers allow for adventure tourism year-round, with jetboating and skiing facilities located nearby.</p><br>
<p>Lake Wanaka was repeatedly mentioned in the movie Mission: Impossible III as a location the lead couple visited. It was the answer to Tom Cruise&#39;s question on the phone to verify the identity of his wife.</p><br>
<p>The cook and author Annabel Langbein owns a small estate at the side of the lake and filmed her series The Free Range Cook and Simple Pleasures here.</p><br>
<p>With Queenstown airport close by, tourism mirrors that of the surrounding areas.</p><br>
<h3>Conservation</h3><br>
<p>As one of the few lakes in the South Island with an unmodified shoreline, the lake is protected by special legislation, namely the Lake Wanaka Preservation Act of 1973. This established a Guardians of Lake Wanaka group, whose members are appointed by the Minister of Conservation, and advise on measures to protect the lake.</p><br>
<p>Oxygen weed (Lagarosiphon major), an aquarium plant and invasive species native to Southern Africa, has been a problem in the lake&#39;s ecosystem for some time. Attempts to eradicate the weed have not been successful yet. Substantial suction dredging operations have shown promise, but tend to miss isolated spots which then regrow into larger weed beds.</p><br>
<p>The Staten Island Greenbelt is a system of contiguous public parkland and natural areas in the central hills of the New York City borough of Staten Island. It is the second largest component of the parks owned by the New York City government and is maintained by the city&#39;s Department of Parks and Recreation and the Greenbelt Conservancy, a not-for-profit organization that works in partnership with NYC Parks to care for the Greenbelt and raise funds for its maintenance and programs.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>The administrative headquarters of the Greenbelt and Greenbelt Conservancy are located at the entrance to High Rock Park (one of the many parks within the system) with a street address of 200 Nevada Avenue in the Egbertville neighborhood; in June 2004 a second facility, known as the Greenbelt Nature Center, was opened approximately 0.75 mi away, at 700 Rockland Avenue. The Greenbelt Conservancy, which works in partnership with the NYC Parks Department, is a membership organization offering year-round nature-themed events for young people and adults.</p><br>
<p>The Protectors of Pine Oak Woods, a citizen organization committed to the conservation and preservation of remaining natural area on Staten Island has, since the early 1970s, carried on the mission of its predecessor, SIGNAL. Today the "Protectors" continue the tradition of organizing people concerned about the island’s fragile and threatened wilderness via lobbying and naturalist led hikes.</p><br>
<p>A researchable archive of planning, legal, public relations, and other documents related to the Staten Island Greenbelt, its ecology and history, is housed at the library of the College of Staten Island, a campus of the City University of New York.</p><br>
<h3>Geology</h3><br>
<p>Containing an extensive system of connected trails and covering 2,800 acre, its forested hills run the length of Staten Island&#39;s midsection while wetlands and kettle ponds fill much of the low-lying areas. Four hundred and ten feet above sea level, Todt Hill is the highest elevation south of Maine along the Eastern Seaboard. This and other surface features are the result of glacial activity from the Pleistocene epoch; the metamorphic and igneous rocks below the surface – schist, sandstone, serpentine, magnetite, iron oxide – are the result of tectonic activity from the much earlier Paleozoic era and volcanic activity from subsequent geologic eras.</p><br>
<h3>Wildlife</h3><br>
<p>The Greenbelt is one of the most biologically diverse places in New York City. It is home to several species of amphibians; such as the eastern redback salamander, the green frog, the American bullfrog, and the grey tree frog; reptiles; such as the eastern garter snake, the eastern box turtle, and the northern water snake, as well as New York&#39;s state reptile, the common snapping turtle. On occasion northern "black" racer and eastern milksnakes are reported here. Both species are threatened elsewhere on Staten Island due to habitat destruction due to development. The Greenbelt provides year-round habitat native mammals like the gray squirrel, eastern chipmunk, eastern cottontail, and the white-tailed deer. Permanent bird residents include the blue jay, northern cardinal, downy woodpecker, and black-capped chickadee, while northern flickers and other migrants use the Greenbelt as a stopover on seasonal migration routes. Raptors such as Cooper&#39;s hawks, redtail hawks, and great horned owls also call the greenbelt home. The waterways are rich in fish life, and such species found here include the largemouth bass, bluegill, green sunfish, brown bullhead, black crappie, yellow perch, chain pickerel, as well as several darter species.</p><br>
<h2>Early settlement</h2><br>
<p>The native Lenni-Lenape, who inhabited the island centuries before the arrival of the Dutch, reportedly dubbed Staten Island Aquehonga Monocknong or "the place of bad woods" perhaps because of the spirits they believed dwelled there. Then, as today, the boulder-littered moraines were covered with many species of trees: oak, hickory, maple, beech, as well as lesser quantities of birch, sweet gum, ash, black walnut, wild cherry, and tulip. Below the canopy of this sub-climax forest grew dogwood, ironwood, spicebush, blackberry, wild grape, Virginia creeper, and sassafras, along with royal and cinnamon ferns, skunk cabbage, lady slipper, and trout lilies in the wetter areas.</p><br>
<p>Within the oak-mulch enriched soil that has been laid down over millennia, arrowheads have been found. These finds attest to both the Leni-Lenape’s subsistence on and unsuccessful defense of their home, which contained the natural resources that made it so attractive to first Dutch and then British colonizers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Its forested hills, strategically located between and above the Raritan Bay and the New York Harbor, offered timber for ship building, iron ore for the production of cannonballs, and a staging ground for British troops during the War for Independence.</p><br>
<p>In the 1800s, several centuries after European settlers had come to, named, deforested, and farmed large portions of Staten Island, travelers of a different sort arrived. Henry David Thoreau - in his furthest journey from his native Massachusetts – came for one year in 1843 in order to tutor the nephews of his friend and fellow transcendentalist, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Some years later, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, famed for his design of urban parks throughout the U.S., settled for a time on a 130 acre experimental farm overlooking the Raritan Bay, which he called Tosomock Farm. After 10 years, he and his new bride left the island only to return later in his life. After Olmsted left Tosomock Farm, farmer Erastus Winan bought it, renaming it "The Woods of Arden", which stands today at 4515 Hylan Boulevard, near Woods of Arden.</p><br>
<h2>Proposal for a park</h2><br>
<p>In 1871, in his capacity as consultant to the Staten Island Improvement Commission, Olmsted made the following proposal for Staten Island:</p><br>
<p>Other proposals on behalf of preserving wilderness on Staten Island were put forward in subsequent years. William T. Davis, a naturalist born on the island, believed:</p><br>
<p>When Davis, along with local historian Charles Leng, coauthored a history of Staten Island in 1896, they wrote:</p><br>
<p>Just one year later, at an 1897 public hearing on the topic of land preservation in Albany, the state’s capital, Staten Island farmer Erastus Winan stated:</p><br>
<h2>Parkway plan</h2><br>
<h3>Original plan</h3><br>
<p>During the first half of the 20th century, several proposals for Staten Island parks and parkways were drafted first by the Borough of Staten Island and then by the City of New York. During the early 1960s, though then-Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority chairman Robert Moses revealed plans for what is now the Korean War Veterans Parkway, a parkway that would connect Brooklyn with New Jersey, traversing the island from the soon to be opened Verrazano-Narrows Bridge on the island’s North Shore to the Outerbridge Crossing on the southern shore of Staten Island. This original route of the proposed "Richmond Parkway" would have bisected the swath of land on whose behalf Olmsted had pleaded including what is today Fresh Kills, William T. Davis Wildlife Refuge, Reed’s Basket Willow Swamp, Willowbrook and High Rock Park.</p><br>
<p>The 4.8 mi parkway route going through the area has been de-mapped despite occasional proposals for its revival due to steadily increasing highway congestion on Staten Island. None of these proposals, however, have received any significant support from either the island’s elected officials or residents. The parkway ends at the Greenbelt&#39;s southwestern edge, at Richmond Avenue and Arthur Kill Road, near the Fresh Kills Park.</p><br>
<h3>Opposition</h3><br>
<p>Conservation activists, given immediacy by the Federal Highway Act and hope in the person of President John F. Kennedy’s Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall, mobilized in opposition to these plans. They first saved High Rock Girl Scout Camp, the acreage of which had originally been a part of Pouch Boy Scout Camp, including Orbach Lake, to the north. With a $35,000 grant from the State of New York it was bought from the Boy Scouts and established as Camp High Rock for Girls. For thirteen years, the camp served girl scouts from throughout the five boroughs of New York City. However, in 1964, the Girl scout Council of Greater New York secretly decided to sell the camp to a developer for $1,000,000. Upon learning about this sale, the New York City Parks Department and the State of New York, with the help of the Open Lands Foundation, raised over $1,300,000 to buy back the land from the developer, thus creating High Rock Park.</p><br>
<p>Then, on November 22, 1965, the Staten Island Citizens Planning Committee (SICPC), which had begun in 1954 as an ad hoc committee of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Staten Island, issued the first of many position papers beginning by invoking Olmsted’s plea for a linear park; it concluded by presenting an alternate parkway plan that would spare what has come to be known as the Staten Island Greenbelt, a term proposed by landscape architect, Bradford Greene, one of the group’s founding members. Greene was familiar with this policy or land use designation from previous work he had been involved with in Maryland. At the helm of the SICPC, an all-volunteer organization, were several "off-islanders" – young professionals who had moved to Staten Island’s North Shore area in the 1950s largely because of the quality of life promised by the open space that still existed. In addition to Bradford Greene, there were Terrence Benbow and Frank Duffy, both attorneys practicing in Manhattan; Robert Hagenhofer, a graphic designer; George Pratt, director of the Staten Island Institute of Arts & Sciences; and New York Times staff writer Alan Oser. Summoning their many and diverse talents, their strategy involved developing and advocating for an alternate route in the press, before public officials, and, when necessary, the courts.</p><br>
<p>One year into the SICPC’s legal fight against the original route of the Richmond Parkway, the Staten Island Greenbelt Natural Areas League (SIGNAL), spearheaded by another resident-journalist, John G. Mitchell, formed as a vehicle for rallying community opposition to the highway construction. From 1966 until the early 1970s, SIGNAL organized thousands of citizens and elected officials (including Planning Commissioner Eleanor Guggenheimer, Parks Commissioner Thomas Hoving, Mayor John V. Lindsay, and U.S. Senator Jacob Javits) to participate in annual winter walks through the highland forests, tracing the route of the proposed (and already mapped) highway route. These two citizen organizations and their combined strategies of lobbying, public relations, and grassroots organizing challenged Robert Moses, who had been thwarted by community efforts only twice before: In 1956, mothers who frequented Manhattan’s Central Park with their young children successfully had stopped a proposed parking lot expansion by challenging Moses in court. Two years later, when Robert Moses proposed the construction of a sunken boulevard which would have sped traffic through the middle of the famed Washington Square Park, the Joint Committee to Stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway led by Jane Jacobs, defeated him again.</p><br>
<h3>Work continues</h3><br>
<p>In spite of opposition, road work began in 1965 on what became known as "Section 1". In 1966 Volmer Associates were hired by the city of New York to describe alternate routes to Section 1. They were proposed, studied, and debated by New York state and city officials, creating contention and divisions even within these governmental units. While travel distance between the island’s bridges was on paramount concern to the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, the City Park Department, led by August Hecksher, commissioned the planning firm Wallace, McHarg, Roberts and Todd. Ian McHarg, a Glasgow born landscape architect, who had stated in his much studied book Design with Nature that engineer road builders were "gouging and scarring the landscape without remorse," headed up the landmark study.</p><br>
<p>Having pointed out that a method for displaying and factoring social values into highway design and planning had not been developed, McHarg set about creating just that. Long before GIS technology was available, McHarg used data rich maps and overlays which allowed planners to visually understand how social values – historic, residential, economic, recreational, scenic, ecological factors – synergistically interacted with and potentially impacted upon human activity, including road building. Using map transparencies he and his colleagues produced the commissioned report with a recommendation stating that the route to the west of what is today the Greenbelt, was the "least social cost corridor."</p><br>
<p>Under duress from developers who were eager to begin building homes adjacent to the roadway, the Greenbelt&#39;s erstwhile supporters, Mayor John Lindsay and Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, publicly backed a compromise route. In response, the two citizen organizations were willing to stop at nothing to preserve what John Mitchell, in one of his writings, referred to as "a fine patch of wild". With their combined memberships behind them, the officers of the SICPC and SIGNAL sought injunctive relief in New York State Supreme Court, which meant suing both Lindsay and Rockefeller. The court decision found for the plaintiffs. The citizen planners and conservationists were victorious. The area was earmarked as one of two Special Natural Features Districts in the City of New York, and between 1972 and 1974 the urbanist Peter Verity (now of PDRc) prepared for the New York City Planning Commission the strategic and detailed documentation to support this designation.</p><br>
<h3>Remaining parts</h3><br>
<p>When the work was halted by the city, excavations were used to construct what is now known as "Moses Mountain," a rise adjacent to the Manor Road - Rockland Avenue interchange. Other remnants of construction can be seen from the Staten Island Expressway between the Clove Road and Bradley Avenue exits, which are referred to as the abandoned bridges. They are a little west of the Petrides School Complex. This abandoned interchange was removed as part of a $140 million overhaul of the Expressway.</p><br>
<h2>1980s expansion</h2><br>
<p>In 1982, 25 acre of city-owned land, which heretofore had belonged to the New York City Farm Colony, were added to the Greenbelt; this tract is located on the north side of Rockland Avenue, from Brielle Avenue almost to Forest Hill Road. In 1984, the Staten Island Greenbelt was officially recognized by the city, becoming one of the largest natural areas within the five boroughs of New York City and the second largest park in the city, behind Pelham Bay Park.</p><br>
<p>The Baths of Caracalla  in Rome, Italy, were the city&#39;s second largest Roman public baths, or thermae, likely built between AD 212  and 216/217, during the reigns of emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla. They were in operation until the 530s and then fell into disuse and ruin.</p><br>
<p>However, they have served as an inspiration for many other notable buildings, including the Baths of Diocletian, Basilica of Maxentius, the original Pennsylvania Station (New York) and Chicago Union Station. Art works recovered from the ruins include famous sculptures such as the Farnese Bull and the Farnese Hercules.</p><br>
<p>Today the Baths of Caracalla are a tourist attraction.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Construction – 216–235</h3><br>
<p>Construction of the baths was probably initiated by emperor Septimius Severus and completed during the reign of his son, Caracalla. They were inaugurated in AD 216. The baths were located in the southern area of the city, Regio XII, where members of the Severan family commissioned other construction works: the via nova leading to the baths and the Septizodium on nearby Palatine Hill.</p><br>
<p>For work to have been mostly completed in the time of Caracalla, workers would have had to install over 2,000 t of material every day for six years in order to complete it between 211 (when Severus died) and 216.</p><br>
<p>Work on additional decorations continued under Caracalla&#39;s successors Elagabalus and Severus Alexander. The baths were likely mostly finished by 235. Later renovations were conducted under Aurelian (after a fire) and by Diocletian. Under Constantine the Great the caldarium was modified.</p><br>
<p>The building was heated by a hypocaust, a system of burning coal and wood underneath the ground to heat water provided by a dedicated aqueduct. The baths were free and open to the public.</p><br>
<h3>5th century – destruction in 9th century</h3><br>
<p>The baths were fully functional in the 5th century when they were referred to as one of the seven wonders of Rome. Olympiodorus of Thebes mentions a capacity of 1,600. This is interpreted to refer to the maximum number of simultaneous visitors, as the daily capacity is thought to have been 6,000 to 8,000 bathers.</p><br>
<p>The baths remained in use until the 6th century. In 537 during the Gothic War, Vitiges of the Ostrogoths laid siege to Rome and severed the city&#39;s water supply. Shortly thereafter the baths were abandoned. Located too far away from the still populated area of Rome, the baths were mostly disused but in the 6th and 7th centuries were apparently used for the burials of pilgrims who died after being cared for in the nearby Xenodochium of Saint Nereo and Saint Achilleo. Some simple tombs from this era have been found inside the bath area.</p><br>
<p>Popes Adrian I, Sergius II and Nicholas I may have had some work done on the aqueduct through the 9th century.</p><br>
<p>The earthquake of 847 destroyed much of the building, along with many other Roman structures.</p><br>
<h3>12th century – 19th century – other uses</h3><br>
<p>At least since the 12th century the baths were used as a quarry for construction materials, and of decorative pieces to be reused in churches and palaces ( e.g. in Pisa Cathedral and Santa Maria in Trastevere).</p><br>
<p>During the 14th century, the area was used as vineyards and gardens. In the mid-16th century Pope Paul III had excavations conducted in the area during the construction of his new villa. In 1545-7 many large statues, made of marble and bronze, were recovered from the ruins. Later during the 16th century, the pope granted the area to the Roman Seminary of the Jesuits, it was used as a playground for children. Philip Neri may have brought children from his oratory here – he is believed to have commissioned the fresco Madonna supported by an angel still located in the natatio.</p><br>
<p>Between the 16th and 18th century interest in the structure was rekindled and several famous architects made drawings of the ruins (Andrea Palladio, Giovanni Battista Falda, Giambattista Nolli and Giuliano da Sangallo).</p><br>
<p>The aqueduct serving the baths was in use up to the 19th century. The Aqua Antoniniana aqueduct, a branch of the earlier Aqua Marcia also worked on under Diocletian, was specifically built to serve the baths.</p><br>
<h3>Modern times – excavation and restoration</h3><br>
<p>In 1824, excavations at the baths were conducted by Count Egidio di Velo, whose findings included the mosaics showing athletes now at the Vatican Museums. Further work followed by Luigi Canina in the frigidarium (until the mid-19th century) and then by Battista Guidi (1860–7).</p><br>
<p>From 1866 to 1869 restoration work in the central part of the complex revealed a torso of Hercules, porphyr columns and figure-adorned capitals. In 1870 the area became the property of the Italian government and Pietro Rosa conducted excavations in the eastern palaestra. In 1878/9, Giuseppe Fiorelli discovered mosaics in the caldarium and western palaestra.</p><br>
<p>From the early 20th century, excavations expanded into the outer areas of the complex and downward, revealing the subterranean passages, including a mithraeum (see below). Systematic work on the galleries, started in the 18th and 19th centuries, resumed after 1901. On the eastern side more work was done in the late 1930s, when an opera stage was installed in the caldarium. Except for some sketches no documentation of these restorations survives.</p><br>
<p>Further restoration work took place in the 1980s, when thick vegetation and illegally built houses in the area were cleared away. The southern wall with its cisterns, the southwestern library and the octagonal hall known as the Temple of Jupiter were restored at that point. In 1998-9, the opera stage was dismantled and modern visitor facilities were added to the baths. They reopened to the public in 2001.</p><br>
<p>The baths were the only archaeological site in Rome to be damaged by an earthquake near L&#39;Aquila in 2009. They were again damaged, though minor, in August 2016 by an earthquake in central Italy.</p><br>
<h2>Cultural impact</h2><br>
<p>The Baths of Caracalla (and especially the central frigidarium) had a significant impact on the architecture of many later buildings. In Roman times, these included the Baths of Diocletian and the Basilica of Maxentius.</p><br>
<p>In the 19th and early 20th century, the design of the baths was used as the inspiration for several modern structures, including St George&#39;s Hall in Liverpool and the original Pennsylvania Station (demolished in 1963) in New York City.</p><br>
<p>The main halls of Penn Station and Chicago Union Station made use of direct copies of the frigidarium&#39;s architecture.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<h3>Overview</h3><br>
<p>The bath complex covered approximately 25 hectare. The complex is of rectangular shape, measuring 337 by 328 meters. Its construction involved the moving of a substantial amount of earth, as parts of the nearby hills had to be removed or leveled into platforms. Several million bricks were used in the construction. The baths contained at least 252 columns, 16 of which had a height of over 12 meters.</p><br>
<p>Water was carried to the baths by the then newly constructed acqua nova Antoniniana from the major acqua Marcia. The exact path of the aqueduct supplying the baths is not known as only a few segments have been discovered. The aqueduct connected to the southern side of the baths were it filled 18 cisterns. These in turn were connected by lead pipes with the baths proper.</p><br>
<p>The baths followed the "great Imperial baths" blueprint for Roman baths. They were more a leisure centre than just a series of baths. Besides being used for bathing, the complex also offered facilities for taking walks, reading/studying, exercise and body care. The main building stood in the centre with no connections to the surrounding walls, which housed the cisterns, two symmetrical libraries (south), two large exedras (east and west) and tabernae (shops) to the north. The surviving library measures 38 by 22 meters. Between the outer wall and the central complex were gardens (xystus).</p><br>
<p>The axis of the baths was laid out in a northeast to southwest fashion to make use of the sun&#39;s heat. The caldarium faced southwest, the frigidarium northeast. Overall, the bath area was arranged along a single linear axis. However, dressing rooms and palaestra were arranged symmetrically on both sides of the building, giving easier access and facilitating the flow of people in and out of the thermal area, thus increasing the number of potential users of the baths.</p><br>
<p>The bath main building was 214 x 110 meters and the height to the top of the roof line was 44 meters (145 ft.); it covered 6.5 acres and could hold an estimated 1,600 bathers.</p><br>
<h3>Interior</h3><br>
<p>The "baths" were the second to have a public library within the complex. Like other public libraries in Rome, there were two separate and equal sized rooms or buildings; one for Greek language texts and one for Latin language texts. The surviving library had three walls covered by niches (a total of 32) that housed the books. A larger niche in the middle of the southern wall likely contained a statue. A masonry ledge in front of the three other walls probably served as a bench. The floor is made from marble.</p><br>
<p>The baths consisted of a central frigidarium (cold room) measuring 58by24 m under three groin vaults 32.9 m high, a double pool tepidarium (medium), and a circular caldarium (hot room) 35 m in diameter, as well as two palaestras (gyms where wrestling and boxing were practiced). The northeastern end of the bath building contained a natatio or swimming pool. The caldarium had seven pools, the frigidarium four, the tepidarium two. Next to the caldarium were saunas (laconica).</p><br>
<p>The central room was the frigidarium, whose high roof was supported by eight giant columns made from Egyptian granite. Walls and floor were made from marble. The hall served a dual purpose: It was a meeting place and transition area for visitors heading for other parts of the bath. It also housed the cold baths, in the form of four pools, two of which were connected to the tepidarium and two of which communicated with the natatio via some waterfalls. In the middle of the frigidarium was another circular pool (now at the Archaeological Museum at Naples) surrounding a fountain. It was flanked by two additional brick pools.</p><br>
<p>The caldarium was a circular room with marble floors and topped by a dome of almost 36 meters diameter, close to the size of the Pantheon&#39;s dome. The weight of the dome was carried by just eight masonry pillars. Between them were glass windows that helped heat the large room (and reduced the weight of the walls). Its seven pools measured 9.5 m by 5 m (depth of 1 m). Only six of these remain. The seventh was replaced by a small apse during the restoration by Constantine.</p><br>
<p>The Olympic-sized natatio pool measured 50 m by 22 m. The walls rose to more than 20 m and the northern façade was structured by three huge columns made from grey granite. Between those columns were niches on several levels which housed ornamental statues.</p><br>
<p>The natatio was roofless with bronze mirrors mounted overhead to direct sunlight into the pool area. The entire bath building was on a raised platform 6 m high to allow for storage and furnaces under the building.</p><br>
<h3>Subterranean features</h3><br>
<p>Discovered in 1912 by Ettore Ghislanzoni, the mithraeum at the baths is considered the largest documented gathering space for the worshippers of Mithra, the Persian god in vogue with the military and mostly lower class men, in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. The mithraeum was approximately 23 m long and 10 m wide with a cross-vaulted ceiling. It can be only roughly dated by the two main events associated with the baths: the mithraeum was created after the complex was completed circa AD 217 and it was probably no longer in use when the aqueduct supplying the complex was cut in the 530s.</p><br>
<p>The floor of the main room was covered with a black and white mosaic. Benches lined the walls. A fresco portraying Mithra (or a torch bearer) is on the western wall. The only other ornamentation was a marble block, roughly carved into the shape of a snake. In the floor near the entrance a circular pit was found covered with a marble slab, with a terracotta bowl containing the remains of staves of wheat. A rectangular hole in the floor gives access to a small tunnel that runs under the center of the main hall into an adjoining room, where there is an entrance/exit with staircase. This, a unique feature in a mithraeum, has been controversial. Most scholars view this as a fossa sanguinis, a ritual pit over which the bull at the center of the Mithraic mythology was slaughtered, bathing one or more initiates in its blood. Others think it was used as a sort of stage trap door allowing a person to stage a surprising entry into the room.</p><br>
<p>In a nearby room, a statue of Aphrodite Anadyomene was found in 1912. It is now located in the Museo Nazionale Romano at the Baths of Diocletian.</p><br>
<p>Apart from housing the mithraeum, the subterranean tunnels served to heat the baths and as sewers for the outflow of water. They were also used to store the fuel for the furnaces – which are estimated to have burned around 10 tons of wood per day. Storage capacity had been estimated at more than 2,000 tons of wood.</p><br>
<p>Overall, these tunnels ran for hundreds of meters underneath the main structure. They were lit by skylight-type windows that allowed the air to circulate, thus keeping the stored wood from rotting.</p><br>
<p>An underground water mill was excavated beginning in 1912. First thought to be medieval in origin it is now considered to date to Antiquity. It may have been a part of the original workings of the baths. Fire damage indicates it was burned in the 3rd century, but rebuilt with some alterations.</p><br>
<h3>Dimensions</h3><br>
<h4>Principal dimensions</h4><br>
<p>Precinct maximum: 412x393 m</p><br>
<p>Internal: 337x328 m</p><br>
<p>Central Block overall: 214x110 m</p><br>
<p>Natatio (swimming pool): 54x23 m</p><br>
<p>Frigidarium: 59x24 m, height of 41 m</p><br>
<p>Caldarium: 35 m, height of 44 m</p><br>
<p>Internal courts: 67x29 m</p><br>
<h4>Quantities of materials</h4><br>
<p>Pozzolana: 341,000 m&sup3</p><br>
<p>Quick lime: 35,000 m&sup3</p><br>
<p>Tuff: 341,000 m&sup3</p><br>
<p>Basalt for foundations: 150,000 m&sup3</p><br>
<p>Brick pieces for facing: 17.5 million</p><br>
<p>Large Bricks: 520,000</p><br>
<p>Marble columns in Central block: 252</p><br>
<p>Marble for columns and decorations: 6,300 m&sup3</p><br>
<h4>Estimated average labour figures on site</h4><br>
<p>Excavation: 5,200 men</p><br>
<p>Substructure: 9,500 men</p><br>
<p>Central Block: 4,500 men</p><br>
<p>Decoration: 1,800 men</p><br>
<p>The 12 m columns of the frigidarium were made of granite and they weighed close to 100 t.</p><br>
<h2>Works of art</h2><br>
<p>The baths were originally ornamented with high quality sculptures, estimated to have numbered more than 120. Despite their location in one of the city&#39;s working class areas, of all the antique baths in Rome the Baths of Caracalla were found to have contained the most lavish assortment of statues. Although many were destroyed in the Middle Ages to make lime, beginning in the 16th century under Pope Paul III Farnese, sculptures were excavated from the area to serve as decorations in newly built palazzi.</p><br>
<p>Among the well-known pieces recovered from the Baths of Caracalla are the Farnese Bull (probably from the eastern palaestra) and Farnese Hercules (from the frigidarium), now in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples; others are in the Museo di Capodimonte there. One of the many statues is the colossal 4 m statue of Asclepius.</p><br>
<p>Two granite tubs from the frigidarium were taken to Piazza Farnese where they still serve as fountains, made by Girolamo Rainaldi. A granite column from the natatio was taken to Florence by Cosimo I de&#39; Medici in Piazza Santa Trinita. It is now known as the Column of Justice.</p><br>
<h2>Use as a cultural venue</h2><br>
<h3>Opera and concerts</h3><br>
<p>The central part of the bath complex (the caldarium) was the summer home of the Rome Opera company from 1937 to 1993. In 2001, use of the venue by the opera resumed but it now uses a temporary movable stage outside of the main structure, which reduces the stress on the antique ruins.</p><br>
<p>It is also a concert venue, having achieved fame as the venue and backdrop for the first Three Tenors concert in 1990.</p><br>
<h3>Sporting</h3><br>
<p>The area was used for the Rome Grand Prix four times between 1947 and 1951.</p><br>
<p>At the 1960 Summer Olympics, the venue hosted the gymnastics events.</p><br>
<h2>Visiting</h2><br>
<p>The extensive ruins of the baths have become a popular tourist attraction. The baths are open to the public for an admission fee. Access is limited to certain areas/walkways to avoid additional damage to the mosaic floors.</p><br>
<p>Corktown is a historic district located just west of Downtown Detroit, Michigan. It is the oldest extant neighborhood in the city. The current boundaries of the district include I-75 to the north, the Lodge Freeway to the east, Bagley and Porter streets to the south, and Rosa Parks Boulevard  to the west. The neighborhood was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.</p><br>
<p>The Corktown Historic District is largely residential, although some commercial properties along Michigan Avenue are included in the district. The residential section is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is designated as a City of Detroit Historic District. The neighborhood contains many newer homes and retains some original Irish businesses.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Great Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s resulted in extensive Irish migration to the United States and Canada. By the middle of the 19th century, they were the largest ethnic group settling in Detroit. Many of these newcomers settled on the west side of the city; they were primarily from County Cork, and thus the neighborhood came to be known as Corktown. By the early 1850s, half of the population of the 8th Ward (which contained Corktown) were of Irish descent. Historically, the neighborhood was roughly bounded by Third Street to the east, Grand River Avenue to the north, 12th Street to the west, and Jefferson Avenue/Detroit River to the south.</p><br>
<p>By the Civil War, German immigrants had begun making inroads into the Corktown neighborhood. Many immigrants had come from German provinces after the revolutions of 1848. By the turn of the century, the original Irish population had diffused through the city, and new immigrants, notably Mexican and Maltese, moved into this older housing. As the century progressed, migrants from the American South, both black and white, were lured by the jobs in the automobile industry and also went to the city. By the middle of the 20th century, the area of Corktown was reduced through urban renewal schemes, the building of light industrial facilities, and the creation of the Lodge Freeway and Fisher Freeway.</p><br>
<h2>Revitalization</h2><br>
<p>On May 21, 2006 the United Irish Societies Irish Plaza was dedicated as a "memorial for past and present members of the Irish community, and the starting point for the St. Patrick&#39;s Parade for present and future generations to come."</p><br>
<p>On June 30, 2015, Quicken Loans announced the opening of its new state-of-the-art, 66,000-square-foot Technology Center in Corktown, at 1401 Rosa Parks Blvd. The new facility was to feature two 10,000-square-foot server rooms in addition to training, office, meeting, and technical support space. Half of the data center, including one server room, will be occupied by the Quicken Loans’ technology team. An equal-sized 33,000 square foot portion of the building, including the second 10,000 square-foot server room, is available for lease.</p><br>
<p>On February 2, 2016, the Detroit Police Athletic League announced the development of its new headquarters and youth sports facility at the old Tiger Stadium site at Michigan and Trumbull avenues in Corktown, and plans to break ground there in early April. The new PAL facility will be an L-shaped building on the Cochrane and Michigan Avenue sides of the site, leaving the historic playing field open. PAL intends to install a synthetic surface at the site rather than maintain natural grass there, as artificial turf is cheaper to maintain and more adaptable for a multi-sport facility planned for daily use. Opposite the PAL facility across the playing field, a $37-million mixed-use development, The Corner, by Larson Realty is expected to break ground In early 2017. It will create residential, retail and commercial space along the Trumbull and Michigan Avenue sides of the property. Together these two projects will completely redevelop the 10-acre site of the old Tiger Stadium.</p><br>
<p>On September 3, 2016, the new Trumbull & Porter boutique hotel, formerly known as the, Corktown Inn, opened after more than a $10 million renovation of the building.</p><br>
<p>On May 8, 2017, Soave Enterprises broke ground on Elton Park, a $150 million, multi-phase, mixed-used development. The first phase will have 151 apartments, and 13,400 square feet of retail space, and is expected to be completed by late summer 2018. The project will include the redevelopment of the Checker Cab Building, and new construction. When completed Elton Park is planned to have 420 apartments and 30,000 square feet of retail space on a 4.5-acre site, at the northwest corner of Eighth and Elizabeth streets.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The original buildings in Corktown are Federal-style detached homes and rowhouses built by Irish settlers. A worker&#39;s row house circa 1840 is located on Sixth Street and is one of the oldest existing structures in the city of Detroit. In later years, modestly sized Victorian townhouses with Italianate, Gothic, and Queen Anne elements were constructed in the district.</p><br>
<h2>Education</h2><br>
<p>Residents are zoned to Detroit Public Schools. Residents are zoned to Owen at Pelham and King High School.</p><br>
<p>The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit operates the Most Holy Trinity School in Corktown. It is one of the four remaining Catholic grade schools in the city.</p><br>
<h2>Notable residents</h2><br>
<p>Sheila Cockrel, former Detroit City Council member</p><br>
<p>Dia , also pronounced locally Ntia , is an uninhabited island off the northern coast of the Greek island of Crete. The island is approximately 7 nautical miles north of Heraklion. Administratively, Dia is part of the community of Elaia within the municipal unit of Gouves, Heraklion regional unit, by the municipality of Elias.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The island was formerly known as Standia, by juncture loss in the phrase στήν Δία.</p><br>
<p>It was the principal port of Crete for centuries.</p><br>
<h2>Islet morphology</h2><br>
<p>The islet looks like a giant lizard when viewed from the city of Heraklion. There is also a legend that a giant lizard tried to destroy the island of Crete, but Zeus turned it in to stone with a thunderbolt, thus creating the island.</p><br>
<h2>Mythology</h2><br>
<p>The island is visible from Crete&#39;s capital city of Heraklion, as it would have been in the time of the Minoan kingdom, from the capital of Knossos. Because of this, it was sometimes identified as the island that Theseus escaped to after killing the Minotaur.</p><br>
<h2>Environmentally protected</h2><br>
<p>On Dia there are a number of protected creatures including: the snail Albinaria retusa, the lizard Podarcis erchardii schiebeli, the wild rabbit Oryctolagus cuniculus cnossius, and Eleonora&#39;s falcon, known as mavropetritis in Greek. Dia is part of the European Network of Nature (Natura) 2000 and is a protected hunting ground. There are also a number of protected plants such as Carlina diae.</p><br>
<h2>Ancient port</h2><br>
<p>In 1976, Jacques Cousteau carried out underwater exploration around Dia and found the remains of an ancient port in the waters between Heraklion and Dia.</p><br>
<p>Filfla is a small, mostly barren, uninhabited islet 5 km south of Malta, and is the most southerly point of the Maltese Archipelago. Filflu , a small rocky islet some 102 m southwest of Filfla, has the southernmost point of Malta. The name is believed to come from felfel, the Arabic for a peppercorn.</p><br>
<h2>Environment</h2><br>
<p>Filfla has an area of just 6 hectare and is a crumbling flat-topped limestone plateau surrounded by 60 m high cliffs. Three species of seabirds breed on the islet: the European storm petrel (with an estimated 5000 - 8000 pairs), Cory&#39;s shearwater (c. 200 pairs) and yellow-legged gull (c. 130 pairs). The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International, principally because of the storm petrel colony. A type of wall lizard (Podarcis filfolensis ssp. filfolensis) and door snail (Lampedusa imitatrix gattoi) are endemic to Filfla. A large wild leek, growing up to 2 m high, also occurs. Access to Filfla is only possible for educational or scientific purposes and visitors must get prior permission from the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The island of Filfla was possibly sacred to the neolithic inhabitants of Malta, who built the temples of Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra on the Maltese coast opposite the islet. The Ħamrija Tower, one of 13 watchtowers that Martin de Redin built around the coast of Malta, as well as a memorial to Walter Norris Congreve, one of Malta&#39;s British governors, who was buried at sea in the channel between Filfla and Malta, are also located nearby on mainland Malta facing Filfla.</p><br>
<p>The only known permanent structure on the island was a chapel built inside a cave in 1343, which was destroyed by an earthquake in 1856 that also sank part of the island. A map of Malta dating back to 1798 shows a fort, a lighthouse and a monastery with a chapel on Filfla.</p><br>
<p>Until 1971 the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force used the island for target practice, and spent cartridges from these bombardments can still be found on Filfla today. It became a bird reserve in 1980. The Filfla Natural Reserve Act, enacted in 1988, provided for further restrictions on access and use, including a prohibition on fishing within one nautical mile (1.9 km) around the island due to the possibility of encountering unexploded ordnance.</p><br>
<p>Maltese Government notice 173 of 1990 once again permitted fishing within the one mile zone.</p><br>
<p>Filfla was invoked in a territorial dispute over the continental shelf between Libya and Malta. The case was adjudicated by the International Court of Justice in 1985 essentially by ignoring the islet from the calculations.</p><br>
<p>The Barcoo River in western Queensland, Australia rises on the northern slopes of the Warrego Range, flows in a south-westerly direction and unites with the Thomson River to form Cooper Creek. The first European to see the river was Thomas Mitchell in 1846, who named it Victoria River, believing it to be the same river as that named Victoria River by J. C. Wickham in 1839. It was renamed by Edmund Kennedy after a name supplied by local Aborigines.</p><br>
<p>The waters of the river flow towards Lake Eyre in central Australia while those of rivers further east join the Murray-Darling basin and reach the sea in South Australia. The river forms a boundary between outback Australia and the "Far Outback&quot legend has it that west of the Barcoo there is very little in the way of civilisation.</p><br>
<p>Tributaries include the Alice River, Torrens, Landsborough and Towerhill Creeks. Towns situated on the banks of the Barcoo River include Blackall, Isisford, Tambo and Retreat. The southern boundary of Welford National Park is marked by the Barcoo River and Isisford Weir has been constructed on the Barcoo.</p><br>
<h2>Barcoo grunter</h2><br>
<p>The Barcoo grunter, also known as jade perch (scortum barcoo), is a native Australian freshwater fish found in the eastern Northern Territory rivers of Limmen, Roper, Macarthur; the Barkley Basin, and between the Gilbert River in Northern Queensland and the Lake Eyre drainage of central Australia. Barcoo Grunter is an excellent food fish, and is often farmed in intensive grow-out ponds or tanks in aquaculture.</p><br>
<h2>Disease</h2><br>
<p>The river, or at least the district, also gives its name to several diseases, once widespread in outback Australia but now largely unknown. One is "Barcoo rot", a skin disease, perhaps similar to "desert sore", characterised by crusted impetiginous skin sores and occurring in association with heat, dirt, minor traumas and a diet chronically deficient in fresh fruit and vegetables. A second is "Barcoo fever" in which the sufferer experiences fever, nausea and vomiting which was exacerbated by the sight or smell of food, and constipation. This disease, once common in the outback, has also vanished. It may have been due to drinking water contaminated by cyanobacterial (blue-green algal) toxins. Provision of more reliable food supplies and safer sources of water in the "far Barcoo" may explain why these diseases have now all but disappeared.</p><br>
<p>The name also appears in the phrase "the Barcoo salute" – brushing the ever-present bush flies from the face with either hand.</p><br>
<h2>Literary references</h2><br>
<p>The Barcoo is mentioned in some poems of Banjo Paterson.</p><br>
<p>Examples are in the second stanza of Saltbush Bill and the first stanza of A Bush Christening.</p><br>
<p>The Bōsō Peninsula is a peninsula that encompasses the entirety of Chiba Prefecture on Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It forms the eastern edge of Tokyo Bay, separating it from the Pacific Ocean. The peninsula covers approximately 5,034 km&sup2;.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>The Bōsō Peninsula is defined by the Pacific Ocean to its east and south, Tokyo Bay to the west, and the Edo and Tone rivers to the north. Mount Atago in Minamibōsō and Kamogawa is the highest point on the peninsula with an altitude of 408.2 m. From south to north the Bōsō Hill Range gives way to the Shimōsa Plateau, which covers much of the area of northern Chiba Prefecture, and ends in the lower areas around the Tone River.</p><br>
<p>The northern and western parts of the Bōsō Peninsula are highly urbanized. The Shimōsa Plateau and the coastal lowlands and interior river valleys are chiefly used for rice cultivation. The western coast of the peninsula is home to the Keiyō Industrial Zone, which ranges from Urayasu on the border of Tokyo in the northwest of the peninsula to Futtsu to the south. The Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line, a bridge-tunnel across Tokyo Bay, connects Kisarazu with the city of Kawasaki in Kanagawa Prefecture. The northeast of the peninsula is home to Suigo-Tsukuba Quasi-National Park, which spans across both Ibaraki and Chiba prefectures, and much of the remainder of the eastern coast of the peninsula is designated as Minami Bōsō Quasi-National Park.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>The peninsula gets its name and kanji from the former provinces that were located there: Awa (安房), Kazusa (上総) and Shimōsa (下総). The Japan Meteorological Agency refers to the west and east coasts of the peninsula as Uchibō (内房) and Sotobō (外房) respectively.</p><br>
<p>The Ruwer is a river in Germany with a length of 46 km. It is a right tributary of the Moselle. The valley of the Ruwer is a part of the Moselle wine-growing region near Trier in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It is famous for its Riesling wines, see Ruwer , and, prior to 1 August 2007, the Moselle region used to be known as Moselle-Saar-Ruwer.</p><br>
<p>In the lower Ruwer valley are the villages of Waldrach, Kasel, Mertesdorf, Eitelsbach and Ruwer.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Roman city of Trier (Augusta Treverorum) was supplied with water by the Roman Ruwer Aqueduct, which delivered up to 25,000 cubic metres per day.</p><br>
<p>In A.D. 371, the Ruwer was mentioned by the Roman poet, Ausonius, in his poem, Mosella as follows: "The Ruwer turns the corn-grinding millstones in giddy whirls and draws the shrieking saws through smooth marble blocks."</p><br>
<h2>Tributaries</h2><br>
<p>Other tributaries of the Ruwer include the Apfelbach, Borgraben, Eitelsbach, Gusterather Waschbach, Kundelbach, Labach, Moertschelbach, Rimperterbach, Wenigbach, Wenzelbach and the Wilzenburger Waschbach.</p><br>
<h2>Mills</h2><br>
<p>There are, or were, several water mills in the Ruwer region:</p><br>
<p>Alte Mühle Kell am See,</p><br>
<p>Mühlscheider Hof in Kahlbach,</p><br>
<p>Schillingen Mill Lehbach,</p><br>
<p>Niederkell Mill,</p><br>
<p>Unterste Mühle at Burkelsbach,</p><br>
<p>Saw mill at Burkelsbach,</p><br>
<p>Waldweiler Mill,</p><br>
<p>Niederzerfer Mill on the Ruwer,</p><br>
<p>Hauser Mill on the Ruwer,</p><br>
<p>Mill at Großbach in Zerf,</p><br>
<p>Kramesmühle Hentern,</p><br>
<p>Hentern Mill,</p><br>
<p>Lampaden Mill at Reiperter Bach,</p><br>
<p>Benrath Mill at Klinkbach,</p><br>
<p>Burg Heid Mill,</p><br>
<p>Hinzenburg Mill,</p><br>
<p>Heddert Mill on the Rauruwer,</p><br>
<p>Little Geizenburg Mill,</p><br>
<p>Pluwiger Hammer,</p><br>
<p>Mill at Enterbach,</p><br>
<p>Raulsmühle near Lonzenburg,</p><br>
<p>Mill in Sommerau and another mill,</p><br>
<p>Korlingen Mill,</p><br>
<p>Herrgottsmühle (Morscheid Mill),</p><br>
<p>Studentenmühle,</p><br>
<p>Lichtenthalsmühle,</p><br>
<p>Schleifmühle at the Riveris mouth in Waldrach,</p><br>
<p>Schmelzmühle Waldrach, Schneidemühle Riveris, Feilensmühle Riveris, Osburger Mühle## on the Riveris,</p><br>
<p>Alte Dorfmühle Waldrach (Scherfsmühle),</p><br>
<p>Ölmühle,</p><br>
<p>Welschmühle Waldrach,</p><br>
<p>Mills in Kasel,</p><br>
<p>Karlsmühle Mertesdorf, Reisenmühle,</p><br>
<p>Grünhäuser Mill,</p><br>
<p>Hüstermühle Trier-Ruwer,</p><br>
<p>Lambertysmühle, Felsenmühle,</p><br>
<p>etc.</p><br>
<h2>Biology</h2><br>
<p>In and by the Ruwer live numerous rare and protected species, such as the bullhead, dipperl, purple emperor butterfly and the kingfisher.</p><br>
<p>Until the 1940s, salmon were still caught in the Ruwer.</p><br>
<p>Lamanai  is a Mesoamerican archaeological site, and was once a major city of the Maya civilization, located in the north of Belize, in Orange Walk District. The sites name is pre-Columbian, recorded by early Spanish missionaries, and documented over a millennium earlier in Maya inscriptions as Lamanain. Lamanai is renowned for its exceptionally long occupation spanning three millennia, beginning in the Early Preclassic Maya period and continuing through the Spanish and British Colonial periods, into the 20th century. Unlike most Classic-period sites in the southern Maya lowlands, Lamanai was not abandoned at the end of the 10th century AD.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Lamanai was occupied as early as the 16th century BC. The site became a prominent centre in the Pre-Classic Period, from the 4th century BC through the 1st century CE. In 625 CE, "Stele 9" was erected there in the Yucatec language of the Maya. Lamanai continued to be occupied up to the 17th century AD. During the Spanish conquest of Yucatán Spanish friars established two Roman Catholic churches here, but a Maya revolt drove the Spanish out. The site was subsequently incorporated by the British in British Honduras, passing with that colony&#39;s independence to Belize. Also the British has settled in Lamanai and made a sugar mill.</p><br>
<h2>Site description</h2><br>
<p>The vast majority of the site remained unexcavated until the mid-1970s. Archaeological work has concentrated on the investigation and restoration of the larger structures, most notably the Mask Temple, Jaguar Temple, and High Temple. The summit of this latter structure affords a view across the surrounding jungle to a nearby lagoon, part of New River.</p><br>
<p>A significant portion of the Temple of the Jaguar Masks remains under grassy earth or is covered in dense jungle growth. Fully excavated, it would be significantly taller than the High Temple. In the jaguar temple there is a legend that you can find an ancient spear called the heart of the jaguar, even though the temple got his name from the jaguar masks on each side.</p><br>
<p>The Maya ruins of Lamanai once belonged to a sizable Mayan city in the Orange Walk District of Belize. "Lamanai" comes from the Maya term for "submerged crocodile", a nod to the toothy reptiles who live along the banks of the New River. Lamanai Belize jungle brims with exotic birds and hydrophilic iguanas. There is evidence on Mayan life that dates from about 1500 B.C. through Postclassic (A.D. 950-1544) and Spanish colonial times (A.D. 1544-1700)</p><br>
<h3>Chau Hiix</h3><br>
<p>Nearby ancient Mayan site of Chau Hiix presents evidence of a very long continuous occupation from Early Preclassic (ca 1200 BC) to Late Post Classic (ca 1600 AD). It lies between Lamanai and Altun Ha, another site further to the east.</p><br>
<p>It is positioned on Western Lagoon near its outlet into Spanish Creek. Chau Hiix is 15 km east of Lamanai, and is accessible by waterways travel. Altun Ha lies another 25 km further to the east. The material culture of Chau Hiix shows close ties with both Lamanai and Altun Ha, as well as evidence of interaction with centers in Petén Basin.</p><br>
<p>There are considerable ancient irrigation works at Chau Hiix, so it was probably an agricultural community supplying food for Lamanai.</p><br>
<p>Earliest cultural activity at Chau Hiix has been traced to the early Middle Preclassic Swasey phase (ca 1000-500 BC)</p><br>
<h2>Copper artifacts and their significance at Lamanai</h2><br>
<p>Among the many important aspects of Postclassic and early Spanish colonial period Maya life at Lamanai is shown by the presence of significant numbers of copper artifacts. Copper indicates broader trade relations in the southern Maya lowlands, and as a reflection of technological change, the history of metal artifact use at Lamanai is an invaluable element in the reconstruction of Postclassic and early historical dynamics. The archaeological contexts of copper objects recovered at Lamanai beginning, with the appearance of metal at the site by around A.D. 1150.</p><br>
<p>The archaeological contexts in which copper objects have been recovered at the ancient Maya site of Lamanai in northern Belize have great significance in that these objects served great purpose for the residents of the community during Postclassic time that dates from A.D. 950-1544. Nearly all of the copper objects found at Lamanai are distinctly Mesoamerican in form and design and based on metallurgical analyses it appears that manufacturing technologies were distinctly Mesoamerican as well. The presence of production materials and mis-cast pieces along with the results of chemical compositional and micro structural analysis support the idea that the</p><br>
<p>Mayans at Lamanai were engaged in the on-site production of copper objects by late pre- Columbian times.(cite scott article). Objects are classified and examined in the contexts, forms, styles, uses, and sources of copper objects dating from the Buk ceramic phase, which coincides with the Early Postclassic period (A.D. 950-1200).</p><br>
<p>There were copper objects recovered at Lamanai beginning, with the appearance of metal at the site by around A.D. 1150. The term "copper" is used to describe the metal found at the site but, all of the copper artifacts found at Lamanai were alloyed with other metals such as tin or arsenic and could technically be considered bronze (Hosler 1994: 210-213).</p><br>
<p>The number and variety of copper objects recovered at Lamanai indicate that, as a new commodity with remarkably unique aural and visual properties, metal artifacts played an important role for at least some members of Postclassic and later contact period society. Masson notes that "metal was probably the most highvalued luxury good in this region of the Postclassic Maya world" (2003: 279). The inclusion of copper bells, elaborate rings, and button like ornaments in Early and Middle Postclassic elite burials shows that at least some residents of the site displayed such items in certain social and ritual settings. Copper bells worn during performances acted as auditory reminders of the high social standing of those who displayed them, and the lustrous copper finger rings and elaborate clothing ornaments served as visual indicators of elevated status.</p><br>
<h2>Trade</h2><br>
<p>Trade was an essential component of Mesoamerican life in the Postclassic period and the Maya were active participants in a vast macro regional trade network. The movement of commodities as well as information and ideas into interior areas of the peninsula was facilitated by canoe travel along the coast and the extensive river systems in Belize. The importation of finished copper objects into the Maya area during Postclassic times was made possible by a vibrant, well-established exchange network that included Lamanai and a number of smaller Postclassic sites in northern Belize</p><br>
<p>Lamanais key location on the New River Lagoon provided the sites inhabitants with access to a variety of Mesoamerican trade goods throughout of the site&#39;s 3500-year occupation. Copper objects such as bells, rings, and tweezers not only had great economic value but were also highly charged symbolic objects whose sounds and colors made them particularly important for use in ritual performances and as ornaments reflecting social status. More copper artifacts have been recovered at Lamanai than at any other site in the ancient Maya world. To date, a total of 187 copper artifacts have been excavated, including bells, rings, tweezers, various clothing ornaments, pins, axes, chisels, needles, and fish hooks.</p><br>
<h2>Burials</h2><br>
<p>Lamanai copper objects all were found associated with elite burials except for one object found in a cache and one found in a midden. Copper objects were found in six of the 97 burials excavated in these two structures.</p><br>
<h2>Copper metallurgy</h2><br>
<p>Evidence for onsite copper metallurgy at Lamanai consists of ingots, pigs, blanks, sheet pieces, mis-cast objects, and casting debris. Pigs are the product of pouring remainder metal from a cast out to cool; in contrast to ingots, pigs are usually not formed into standardized or even semi-standardized shapes or sizes.</p><br>
<p>The discussion of the forms and styles of copper artifacts from Lamanai follows Pendergast&#39;s (1962) typology of metal artifacts in Mesoamerica. This classification is based on the division of objects into one of three major functional categories: utilitarian objects, objects of personal adornment, and ceremonial objects Dating of these metal artifacts is based primarily on their association with stylistically diagnostic ceramic forms. (Pendergast 1962: 521).</p><br>
<h2>Jaguar Temple, Mask Temple and High Temple</h2><br>
<p>At the site there is structure that dates back to AD 625. The Jaguar Temple, named for its boxy jaguar decoration; the Mask Temple, adorned by a 13-foot stone mask of an ancient Maya king; and the High Temple, offering visitors a panoramic view from its summit.</p><br>
<p>The most interesting features at the structure are two masks that decorate the west facade of the temple. The masks are on two levels on the south side of a central stairway, on the lower level the masks more than 15 feet high.It represents a rather humanized face and is bordered by decorative elements. The headdress of the mask represents a crocodile. These masks are construed of stone armature covered with thick stucco into which the details are carved. The masks date to the late fifth to the early sixth century. At lamanai, ceremonialism was strongly developed, providing evidence of ruling authority with tight control over the populace.</p><br>
<p>At the large temple there was a single ball court, where an offering had been placed under its giant central marker. A lidded bowl contained 100g of crystalline hematite, 19 g of cinnabar in a miniature vessel, and other objects such as jade, shell, and pearl, all atop of a pool of mercury. Previously mercury had been found at Copan, Quirigua, and at Kaminaljuyo and lake Amtitlan, but not in such large quantity. This large amount of mercury found at the site of Lamanai had been probably collected for ritual use. Ceramics were also found at the site and gradually adopted new styles. Unfortunately, by the end of the Classic period, the norm here for burial custom was to smash vessels prior to interment.</p><br>
<h2>Archaeological investigations</h2><br>
<p>The first detailed description of the ruins was made in 1917 by Thomas Gann. Archaeological excavations at the site began in 1974 under David M. Pendergast of the Royal Ontario Museum, which continued through 1988. Further excavations and restoration work is being conducted. The ruins are being excavated by a team from the nearby villages of Indian Church and San Carlos. The current project is co-directed by Dr. Elizabeth Graham (Institute of Archaeology, University College London) and Dr. Scott Simmons (University of North Carolina at Wilmington). Since 2006 research at the site has been directed mostly towards artifact analysis. Major excavations will resume when funding for more artifact processing, analyses and storage is acquired.</p><br>
<h2>Modern site and tourism</h2><br>
<p>Lamanai is accessible to tourists by organized day boat trips from Orange Walk Town along the New River, or by dirt and gravel road through the Mennonite area of Shipyard. A small museum exhibits local artifacts and provides a historical overview. Tourist facilities and small shops are available.</p><br>
<p>Lake Strom Thurmond, also known as Clarks Hill Lake, is a reservoir at the border between Georgia and South Carolina in the Savannah River Basin. It was created by the J. Strom Thurmond Dam during 1951 and 1952 by the USA Army Corps of Engineers near the confluence of the "Little River" and the Savannah River. At 71,000 acre, it is the third-largest artificial lake east of the Mississippi River, behind the Kentucky Lake on the Tennessee River and Lake Marion on the Santee River. The J. Strom Thurmond Dam is located upstream from Augusta, Georgia.</p><br>
<p>The Thurmond Lake and Dam is one of the southeast&#39;s largest and most popular public recreation lakes. The dam Built by the USA Army Corps of Engineers between 1946 and 1954 but the lake was filled during 1951 and 1952 as part of a flood control, hydropower, and navigation project. Its legally authorized purposes now include recreation, water quality, water supply, and fish and wildlife management. Each year, millions of people utilize the many public parks, marinas, and campgrounds conveniently located around the lake to pursue a variety of outdoor recreational experiences -making Thurmond one of the 10 most visited Corps lakes in the nation.</p><br>
<p>Thurmond Lake is a man-made lake bordering Georgia and South Carolina on the Savannah, Broad, and Little Rivers. The lake is created by the J. Strom Thurmond Dam located on the Savannah River 22 mi above Augusta Georgia and 239.5 mi above the mouth of the Savannah River. The lake extends 39.4 mi up the Savannah River, 29 mi up the Little River in Georgia, and 6.5 mi up the Broad River in Georgia, and 17 mi up the Little River in South Carolina, at normal pool elevation of 330 mean sea level, Thurmond Lake comprises nearly 71,100 acres (287 km²) of water with a shoreline of 1,200 mi. The entire Thurmond “Project” contains 151,000 acres (611 km²) of land and water.</p><br>
<p>J. Strom Thurmond Lake and Dam is the first Corps of Engineers project to be built in the Savannah River Basin. Hartwell Lake and Dam the second project built in the basin was completed in 1963, and a third project, Richard B. Russell Lake and Dam was completed in 1985. Together these three lakes form a chain of lakes that is 120 mi long. Congress authorized Thurmond Lake in 1944 and construction began in 1946. The project was completed in 1954 at a cost of $79 million.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Originally the project was to be called “Clarks Hill Dam”. The “s” at the end of “Clarks” was omitted due to a clerical error in the original Congressional Authorization, and the project became “Clark Hill Dam”. The authorization document outlined the plan of development for the basin with authorized purposes of power production, incidental flood control, and navigation. Later, recreation, water quality, water supply, and fish & wildlife management were added as authorized purposes. After that the dam was renamed “Clarks Hill Dam”.</p><br>
<p>The 1966 Flood Control Act authorized the building of Trotters Shoals Lake and Dam on the Savannah River between Clarks Hill Lake and Hartwell Lake. This lake was later renamed to commemorate a late senator from Georgia, Richard B. Russell who was very important in supporting the building of dams on the river. This created a movement to rename Clarks Hill Lake after J. Strom Thurmond, the longest-serving senator in US history, who was from Edgefield on the South Carolina side of the lake. This movement gained support due to the senator&#39;s great popularity in the area, and in 1988 the project was congressionally renamed “J. Strom Thurmond Dam and Lake at Clarks Hill”</p><br>
<h2>Renaming of lake</h2><br>
<p>Until 1988, the lake was called Clarks Hill Lake, after the nearby South Carolina town of Clarks Hill, and the Revolutionary War hero Elijah Clarke, whose burial place, on the grounds of Georgia&#39;s Elijah Clark State Park, is on the western shore of the lake. In 1987, however, Representative Butler Derrick of South Carolina introduced a bill before Congress to rename the lake after Strom Thurmond, the long-time Senator from South Carolina.</p><br>
<p>The bill passed through Congress and local Georgia residents were quite angry the next year when they discovered that the lake had been renamed after a South Carolina politician. In response, a group of Georgia legislators, led by Representative Doug Barnard, Jr. (who was, ironically, the only Georgia co-sponsor of the original 1987 bill) introduced a bill to rename the lake as "Clarks Hill" once again. That bill, however, was unsuccessful, and the name remained unchanged. Following the name change by the Federal government, on April 4, 1989 the State of Georgia legislature passed House Resolution No. 115 making "Clarks Hill" the official state name for both the dam and associated reservoir. Accordingly, Georgia&#39;s map still refers to the lake as Clarks Hill.</p><br>
<p>To this day, many residents of Georgia (as well as South Carolina), including most of those who live nearby, refer to the lake by its original name. Another noteworthy point is that man-made Lake Russell, the lake north of Clarks Hill along the Savannah River, was named after Richard B. Russell, Jr., Georgia&#39;s noted USA Senator and former governor, in the same 1987 bill.</p><br>
<p>Narragansett Bay is a bay and estuary on the north side of Rhode Island Sound covering 147 mi , 120.5 mi  in Rhode Island. The Bay forms New England&#39;s largest estuary, which functions as an expansive natural harbor and includes a small archipelago. Small parts of it extend into Massachusetts.</p><br>
<p>There are more than 30 islands in the Bay; the three largest ones are Aquidneck Island, Conanicut Island, and Prudence Island. Bodies of water that are part of Narragansett Bay include the Sakonnet River, Mount Hope Bay, and the southern, tidal part of the Taunton River. The bay opens on Rhode Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean; Block Island lies less than 20 miles (32 km) southwest of its opening. Narragansett Bay can be seen on NOAA Chart 13221.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>"Narragansett" is derived from the southern New England Algonquian word Naiaganset "(people) of the small point of land".</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Narragansett Bay comprises an area of about 147 mi. The watershed has seven river sub-drainage basins, including the Taunton, Pawtuxet, and Blackstone Rivers, and they provide freshwater input at approximately 2.1 billion gallons per day. River water inflow has a seasonal variability, with the highest flow in the spring and the minimum flow in early fall.</p><br>
<p>The bay is a drowned river valley estuary which is composed of the Sakonnet River valley, the East Passage river valley, and the West Passage river valley. The bathymetry varies greatly among the three passages, with the average depths of the East, West, and Sakonnet River passages being 121 ft, 33 ft, and 25 ft respectively. Narragansett Bay is a ria that consists of a series of flooded river valleys formed of dropped crustal blocks in a horst and graben system that is slowly subsiding between a shifting fault system.</p><br>
<p>Providence is Rhode Island&#39;s capital and largest city and sits at the northernmost arm of the bay. Many of Providence&#39;s suburbs are also on the bay, including Warwick and Cranston. Newport is located at the south end of Aquidneck Island on the ocean, and is the home of the United States Naval War College, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, and a major United States Navy training center. The city of Fall River, Massachusetts is located at the confluence of the Taunton River and Mount Hope Bay, which form the northeasternmost part of Narragansett Bay. The southwest side of the bay includes the seaside tourist towns of Narragansett and Wickford. Quonset Point, south of Warwick, gives its name to the Quonset hut. Roger Williams University is located in Bristol, Rhode Island overlooking the Bay.</p><br>
<h2>Oceanography</h2><br>
<h3>Tidal patterns</h3><br>
<p>Tides in the watershed are measured at six stations: Providence, Fall River, Quonset Point, Conimicut Light, Prudence Island, and Newport. In shallow water, sound waves are used to measure water height by precisely measuring the travel time of the waves. In deeper water, tides are measured with pressure-sensing tide gauges that are placed on the ocean floor to measure water height.</p><br>
<p>The bay&#39;s tides are semi-diurnal, meaning that the region experiences two high and low tides daily. The tides range in height from 3.6 ft at the bay&#39;s mouth, and 4.6 ft at its head. The difference in water depth between high and low tide averages to about 4 ft. The lunar, semi-diurnal M2 tide occurs at a period of 12.42 hours, with two tides occurring in the watershed every 24 hours and 50 minutes. The watershed&#39;s neap and spring tides occur every 14.8 days. In Narragansett bay, the tides show a distinct double-peak flood during high tide and single peak ebb during low tide.</p><br>
<h3>Water circulation patterns</h3><br>
<p>The movement of water within a system is its circulation. Estuaries are given a classification depending on the pattern of their circulations. The circulation classification can be well-mixed, partially mixed, salt wedge, or Fjord-type. For Narragansett, the circulation is mostly well-mixed; however, the Providence River does show some vertical stratification.</p><br>
<p>Narragansett Bay circulation is made up of forces provided by the winds, tides, and changes in water density within the watershed. Its circulation is the result of the flow of fresh water at the head interacting with salt water at the point where the bay meets the open ocean. Residence time of water due to the circulation of Narragansett Bay is 10–40 days, with an average of 26 days. Tidal mixing is the dominant driver of circulation patterns in the bay, where currents can reach up to 2.5 feet per second. Non-tidal currents such as the flow of low salinity water at the surface out of the bay and high salinity deep water into the bay contribute to a current of about 0.33 feet per second.</p><br>
<p>Winds also drive circulation patterns in the bay. In the winter, winds come from the northwest, helping move water towards the bay&#39;s mouth; in the summer, they are out of the southwest and move water towards the head of the bay. Wind-driven waves of over 4.25 ft also help mix surface waters.</p><br>
<p>Density-driven forces are the third factor affecting circulation. Fresh water inflow comes from natural sources such as atmospheric precipitation and inflow from the many rivers that feed into the watershed, and man-made sources such as water treatment plants. Fresh and saltwater mixing results in a salinity range in the bay of 24 ppt in the upper Providence River area to 32 ppt at the mouth of the bay.</p><br>
<p>The bay&#39;s currents and circulation patterns greatly influence the sediment deposits within the region. The majority of the sediments within the bay are fine-grained material such as detritus, clay-silt, and sand-silt-clay. Scientists have been able to identify 11 types of sediment that range from course gravels to fine silts. The bay&#39;s currents deposit fine materials through the harbors of the lower and middle sections of the bay, and the coarse, heavy materials are deposited in the lower areas of the bay where the water velocities are higher.</p><br>
<h2>Early history</h2><br>
<p>The first visit by Europeans to the bay was probably in the early 16th century. At the time, the area surrounding the bay was inhabited by two different Indian tribes: the Narragansetts occupied the west side of the bay, and the Wampanoags lived on the east side, occupying the land east to Cape Cod.</p><br>
<p>It is accepted by most historians that first contact by Europeans was made by Giovanni da Verrazzano, an Italian explorer who entered the bay in his ship La Dauphine in 1524 after visiting New York Bay. Verrazzano called the bay Refugio, the "Refuge". It has several entrances, however, and historians can only speculate as to the exact route of his voyage and the location where he laid anchor, along with a corresponding uncertainty over which tribe made contact with him. Verrazzano reported that he found clearings and open forests suitable for travel "even by a large army". Dutch navigator Adriaen Block explored and mapped the bay in 1614, and nearby Block Island is named in his honor.</p><br>
<p>The first permanent Colonial settlement was established in 1636 by Roger Williams, a former member of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He was friends with Narragansett sachem Canonicus, who provided him with land on which to build Providence Plantations. Around the same time, the Dutch established a trading post approximately 12 miles (20 km) to the southwest which was under the authority of New Amsterdam in New York Bay. In 1643, Williams traveled to England and was granted a charter for the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. He also wrote a dictionary of the Narragansett language which was published in England that same year.</p><br>
<p>The Gaspee Affair was an important naval event which moved the thirteen colonies toward the American Revolution. It occurred in Narragansett Bay in 1772 and involved the capture and burning of the British war ship Gaspee. The American victory contributed to the eventual start of the war at the Battles of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts three years later. The event is celebrated in Warwick as the Gaspee Days Celebration in June which includes burning the ship in effigy.</p><br>
<p>Roger Williams and other early colonists named the islands Prudence, Patience, Hope, Despair, and Hog. To remember the names, colonial school children often recited the poem: "Patience, Prudence, Hope, and Despair. And the little Hog over there."</p><br>
<h2>Water properties and phytoplankton distribution</h2><br>
<p>Narragansett Bay is divided into two passages by Conanicut Island, east and west. Its average depth is 30 ft. Surface temperatures vary seasonally from about 30° to 70°. Surface salinity remains between 24.5 ppt and 31 ppt. There is relatively high salinity water coming from the sea at the bottom and there is a seaward movement of fresher water in the surface.</p><br>
<h2>Rivers</h2><br>
<p>* Blackstone River, Woonsocket, Cumberland, Lincoln, Central Falls & Pawtucket, RI</p><br>
<p>* Seekonk River, Pawtucket, East Providence & Providence, RI</p><br>
<p>* Ten Mile River, Pawtucket & East Providence, RI</p><br>
<p>* Moshassuck River, Providence, RI</p><br>
<p>* Woonasquatucket River, Providence, RI</p><br>
<p>* Providence River, Providence, Cranston, East Providence & Barrington, RI</p><br>
<p>* Pawtuxet River, Cranston & Warwick, RI</p><br>
<p>* Potowomut River, aka Greene River, Warwick & North Kingstown, RI</p><br>
<p>* Quequechan River, aka Quiquechan River, Fall River, MA</p><br>
<p>* Barrington River, Barrington, RI</p><br>
<p>* Palmer River, Barrington & Warren, RI</p><br>
<p>* Warren River, Warren & Barrington, RI</p><br>
<p>* Taunton River, Tiverton, RI & Fall River, MA</p><br>
<p>* Sakonnet River, Tiverton, Little Compton, Portsmouth & Middletown, RI</p><br>
<p>* Kickemuit River, Warren & Bristol, RI</p><br>
<h2>Navigable bays, harbors, coves and rivers</h2><br>
<p>West Passage—heading north</p><br>
<p>* Franklin Hollow, Jamestown</p><br>
<p>* Dutch Island Harbor, Jamestown</p><br>
<p>* Sheffield Cove, Jamestown</p><br>
<p>* The Hummocks Cove, North Kingstown</p><br>
<p>* The Narrows, North Kingstown</p><br>
<p>* Bissel Cove, North Kingstown</p><br>
<p>* Duck Cove, North Kingstown</p><br>
<p>* Wickford Harbor, North Kingstown</p><br>
<p>* Allen Harbor, North Kingstown</p><br>
<p>* Hope Island Cove, North Kingstown</p><br>
<p>* West Passage between Patience & Prudence Islands</p><br>
<p>* Sheep Pen Cove, Patience Island</p><br>
<p>* Coggeshell Cove, Prudence Island</p><br>
<p>* Potowomut River, aka Greene River, North Kingstown & Warwick</p><br>
<p>* Greenwich Bay, Warwick & East Greenwich</p><br>
<p>* Greenwich Cove, East Greenwich</p><br>
<p>* Apponaug Cove, Warwick</p><br>
<p>* Buttonwoods Cove, Warwick</p><br>
<p>* Brush Neck Cove, Warwick</p><br>
<p>* Warwick Cove, Warwick</p><br>
<p>Providence River—heading northwest then southeast</p><br>
<p>* Old Mill Cove, Warwick</p><br>
<p>* Occupessatuxet Cove, Warwick</p><br>
<p>* Passeonkquis Cove, Warwick</p><br>
<p>* Pawtuxet Cove, Warwick & Cranston</p><br>
<p>* Stillhouse Cove, Cranston</p><br>
<p>* Providence Harbor, Providence & East Providence</p><br>
<p>* Seekonk River, Providence, Pawtucket, East Providence</p><br>
<p>* Pawtucket River, Pawtucket</p><br>
<p>* Omega Pond, East Providence</p><br>
<p>* Watchemoket Cove, East Providence</p><br>
<p>* Bullock Cove, East Providence & Barrington</p><br>
<p>* Allins Cove, Barrington</p><br>
<p>* Smith&#39;s Cove, Barrington</p><br>
<p>* Warren River, Barrington & Warren</p><br>
<p>* Barrington River, Barrington</p><br>
<p>* One Hundred Acre Cove, Barrington</p><br>
<p>* Palmer River, Barrington, Warren & Swansea, Massachusetts</p><br>
<p>* Belcher Cove, Warren</p><br>
<p>* Usher Cove, Bristol</p><br>
<p>East Passage—going south</p><br>
<p>* Bristol Harbor, Bristol</p><br>
<p>* Mill Pond, Bristol</p><br>
<p>* Walker&#39;s Cove, Bristol</p><br>
<p>* Potter Cove, Prudence Island</p><br>
<p>* Cranston Cove, Jamestown</p><br>
<p>* Potter Cove, Jamestown</p><br>
<p>* East Ferry, Jamestown</p><br>
<p>* Fort Cove, Jamestown</p><br>
<p>* West Cove, Jamestown</p><br>
<p>* Hull Cove, Jamestown</p><br>
<p>* Coggeshall Cove, Portsmouth</p><br>
<p>* Little Harbor, Melville, Portsmouth</p><br>
<p>* Coddington Cove, Middletown & Newport</p><br>
<p>* Coasters Harbor, Newport</p><br>
<p>* Newport Harbor, Newport</p><br>
<p>* Brenton Cove, Newport</p><br>
<p>* Castle Hill Cove, Newport</p><br>
<p>Mount Hope Bay</p><br>
<p>* Church Cove, Bristol</p><br>
<p>* Bristol Narrows, Bristol & Warren</p><br>
<p>* Kickemuit River, Bristol & Warren</p><br>
<p>* Chase Cove, Warren</p><br>
<p>* Hog Island Cove, Bristol</p><br>
<p>Sakonnet River—going south</p><br>
<p>* The Hummocks, Portsmouth</p><br>
<p>* The Cove, Portsmouth</p><br>
<p>* Blue Bill Cove, Portsmouth</p><br>
<p>* Old Orchard Cove, Portsmouth</p><br>
<p>* Long Neck Cove, Portsmouth</p><br>
<p>* Quaket River, Tiverton</p><br>
<p>* Nannaquaket Pond</p><br>
<p>* Sapowet Cove, Tiverton</p><br>
<p>* Fogland Cove, Tiverton</p><br>
<p>* Church Cove, Little Compton</p><br>
<p>Pawcatuck River—heading upriver</p><br>
<p>* Little Narragansett Bay, Westerly</p><br>
<p>* The Kitchen Cove, Westerly</p><br>
<p>* Watch Hill Cove, Westerly</p><br>
<p>* Potter Cove, Westerly</p><br>
<p>* Colonel Willie Cove, Westerly</p><br>
<p>* Babcock Cove, Westerly</p><br>
<p>* Mastuxet Cove, Westerly</p><br>
<p>* Thompson Cove, Westerly</p><br>
<p>South Coast—from west to east</p><br>
<p>* Pettaquamscutt River, aka Narrow River, South Kingstown, Narragansett & North Kingstown</p><br>
<p>* Mackerel Cove, Jamestown</p><br>
<p>* Goose Neck Cove, Newport</p><br>
<p>* Sheep Point Cove, Newport</p><br>
<p>* Easton Bay, Newport & Middletown</p><br>
<p>* Sachuest Bay, Middletown</p><br>
<p>* Sakonnet Harbor, Little Compton</p><br>
<h2>Mystery wreck</h2><br>
<p>During a routine survey of Narragansett Bay in 2004, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ship Rude discovered a previously unknown wreck. The ship is steel hulled; its bow is 36 feet below the surface, and it appears to have sunk some time after 1949. The shipping lane used by ships in the bay had to be rerouted safely away from the wreck, and the Coast Guard has since marked the location with a lighted buoy. Divers speculate that it may have been a Navy ammunition ferry, a privately owned ferry, or some vessel involved in a collision.</p><br>
<p>Mount Rokkō is the name of a range of mountains in southeastern Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan.</p><br>
<h2>Outline</h2><br>
<p>There is no single mountain or peak called "Rokkō," although the highest peak of the mountains is called Rokkōsan-Saikōhō, (literally, the highest peak of the Rokkō Mountains) and the area to the south is known as the Rokkō area. The mountains run approximately east-west from Sumaura Kōen Park in western Kobe to Takarazuka, and the length of the range is about 56 km. The highest point is 931m. It also includes Mount Maya, Mount Kabutoyama, Mount Iwahara and Mount Iwakura.</p><br>
<p>Today, the Rokkō mountain area is a centerpiece of a popular sightseeing and hiking area for people in the metropolitan Kansai region. Mt. Rokkō is a symbol of Kobe as well as Osaka.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Arthur Hasketh Groom opened the first golf course in Japan, Kobe Golf Club, on Mt. Rokko in 1903.</p><br>
<h2>Points of interest</h2><br>
<p>Rokkō Alpine Botanical Garden</p><br>
<p>Nunobiki Herb Garden</p><br>
<p>Nunobiki Falls</p><br>
<h2>Trivia</h2><br>
<p>For many years, lenses made by the Minolta Camera Company were designated as "Rokkor", named after the mountains near Osaka, where the company was headquartered.</p><br>
<h2>Access</h2><br>
<p>Rokkō Sanjō Station of Rokkō Cable Line</p><br>
<p>Kinenhidai Bus Stop of Hankyu Bus</p><br>
<p>Hoshi no Eki Station of Maya Cable</p><br>
<p>Fort Myer is the previous name used for a USA Army post next to Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia, and across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. Founded during the American Civil War as Fort Whipple, the post merged in 2005 with the neighboring Marine Corps installation, Henderson Hall, and is today named Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>In 1861, the land that Fort Myer would eventually use was part of the Custis-Lee Family Plantation that Robert E. Lee and his wife Mary Custis Lee owned and lived at when not stationed elsewhere. After the Civil War began, the State of Virginia seceeded, Lee resigned his commission, and they evacuated the Mansion. The Plantation was confiscated by the United States Government and included a Freeman&#39;s Village and began use as a cemetery for the Union dead: eventually becoming Arlington National Cemetery.</p><br>
<p>Fort Myer was established as Fort Whipple, after Brevet Major General Amiel Weeks Whipple, who died in May 1863, during the Civil War. It had a perimeter of 658 yards, and places for 43 guns. Whipple Field was named in his honor.</p><br>
<p>On Feb. 4, 1881, the post was renamed for Brigadier General Albert J. Myer, who established the Signal School of Instruction for Army and Navy Officers there in 1869. Since then it has been a Signal Corps post, a showcase for the US Armys cavalry, and, since the 1940s, home to the US Armys elite ceremonial units — The US Army Band ("Pershings Own") and the US Armys 3rd Infantry Regiment ("The Old Guard").</p><br>
<p>The National Weather Service was originated there by General Albert J. Myer in 1870.</p><br>
<p>Fort Myer was the site of the first flight of an aircraft at a military installation. Several exhibition flights by Orville Wright took place there in 1908 and 1909. On September 18, 1908 it became the location of the first aviation fatality, as Lt. Thomas Selfridge was killed when on a demonstration flight with Orville, at an altitude of about 100 ft, a propeller split, sending the aircraft out of control. Selfridge suffered a concussion in the crash and later died, the first person to die in powered fixed-wing aircraft. Orville was badly injured, suffering broken ribs and a leg.</p><br>
<p>Quarters One on Fort Myer, which was originally built as the garrison commander&#39;s quarters, has been the home of the Chief of Staff of the United States Army since 1908 when Major General J. Franklin Bell took up residence. It has been the home of every succeeding Chief of Staff, except for General John J. Pershing.</p><br>
<p>The first radio telecommunications NAA was at Fort Myer in 1913. The US Navy built "The Three Sisters" which were three radio towers that established the first communication across the sea to Paris, France in 1915.</p><br>
<p>During World War I, Fort Myer was a staging area for a large number of engineering, artillery, and chemical companies and regiments. The area of Fort Myer now occupied by Andrew Rader Health Clinic and the Commissary were made into a trench-system training grounds where French officers taught the Americans about trench warfare.</p><br>
<p>General George S. Patton Jr., who was posted at Fort Myer four different times, started the charitable "Society Circus" after World War I. He ultimately was Post Commander and commanded the 3rd Cavalry Regiment that was stationed at Fort Myer from the 1920s to 1942 when the regiment was sent to Georgia to get mechanized.</p><br>
<p>In late 2001, troops, deployed in response to the September 11th attacks, were bivouacked at Fort Myer. These troops were under Operation Noble Eagle. These included both active and National Guard Military Police units from around the nation. In 2005 the last remaining deployed responders were demobilized.</p><br>
<p>As a result of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission initiative to create more efficiency of efforts, the Army’s Fort Myer and the Marines’ Henderson Hall became the first Joint Base in the Department of Defense. Joint Base Myer–Henderson Hall (JBMHH) consists of military installations at Fort Myer, Virginia, Crystal City, The Pentagon, Fort McNair, the District of Columbia, and Henderson Hall – Headquarters Marine Corps, Virginia. These installations and departments serve over 150,000 active duty, DoD civilian, and retired military personnel in the region.</p><br>
<h2>Commemorative</h2><br>
<p>The fort was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1972, for its well-preserved concentration of cavalry facilities and officers&#39; quarters, and for its importance in military aviation history. On September 1, 1970, the United States Postal Service issued its first day cover of a postcard celebrating the 100th anniversary of Weather Services at Fort Myer.</p><br>
<p>On June 13, 2011, the first book written about this US Army Post was published, Images of America: Fort Myer, which contains a newly found, first-time published note from Abraham Lincoln which established the connection with General Whipple.</p><br>
<p>Mount Putuo is an island southeast of Shanghai, in Zhoushan prefecture of Zhejiang province, China. It is a renowned site in Chinese Buddhism, and is considered the bodhimanda of the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara . Mount Putuo is one of the four sacred mountains in Chinese Buddhism, the others being Mount Wutai, Mount Jiuhua, and Mount Emei .</p><br>
<p>Mount Putuo lies in the East China Sea and incorporates the beauty of both mountain and sea. Its area is approximately 12.5 square kilometers and there are numerous famous temples. Every year on February 19, June 19, and September 19 of the Chinese lunar calendar, it welcomes millions of people for the celebration of the birth of Guanyin.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Mount Putuo has been a pilgrimage site for over a thousand years. After the Tang dynasty, Mount Putuo became a center of Guanyin worship. Traditionally there were three main temples: The Puji si (, founded 10th cent.), the Fayu si (, founded 1580 CE), and the Huiji si (, founded 1793 CE). The site has received numerous renowned visitors over the ages, including the then 20-year-old future Chan-master Yinyuan Longqi (Japanese: Ingen), who came to the site in 1612, while looking for his father, who had disappeared fifteen years earlier. The modern scholar-monk Taixu spent several years in solitary retreat at a small hermitage on Putuo.</p><br>
<h2>Temples</h2><br>
<p>Putuo is covered with many temples and monasteries, both large and small. All are under the directive of the Chinese Buddhist Association. Many monks and nuns from all over the country, and abroad, go to great lengths to live and practice there. Today, there are more than 30 major temples located at Mount Putuo, including the Puji Temple, Fayu Temple and Huiji Temple.</p><br>
<p>In addition to these monasteries, there is the Institute of Buddhism, one of the largest Buddhist academic institutes in China.</p><br>
<h2>Other features</h2><br>
<p>33m tall statue of the Guanyin at Zizhulin</p><br>
<p>Two major beaches - Hundred Step Beach and Thousand Step Beach. Hundred Step Beach charges for entry and has facilities such as deckchairs and parasols, and activities such as a banana boat and quad bikes.</p><br>
<p>The only surviving specimen of Putuo hornbeam, a critically endangered species.</p><br>
<h2>Transport</h2><br>
<p>Many of the Zhoushan Islands are now linked by bridges. This means that Putuoshan can easily be reached by bus from Shanghai and Ningbo. The bus terminates at Shenjiamen Bus Station. From the Banshengdong Wharf on the Shenjiamen waterfront it is a 10-minute ride by fast ferry (22rmb) to Putuoshan. In Shanghai, the Nanpu Bridge Bus Station, Shanghai Stadium Sightseeing Bus Center and Shanghai South Long Distance Bus Station have several departures daily to Shenjiamen (4–5 hours, 138rmb). In Ningbo, the North and South bus stations both have regular daily departures to Shenjiamen (2–3 hours, 60rmb).</p><br>
<p>There are two flights daily from Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai to Putuo Airport which is only 3 kilometres from Shenjiamen. (approx 800rmb).</p><br>
<p>The ferry services mentioned below are still available but the bus services now provide a greater level of convenience and comfort.</p><br>
<p>Putuoshan can be reached by boat from the major cities of Ningbo and Shanghai. It will take approximately an hour by boat to reach the wharf at Ningbo, from where a bus transports passengers to Ningbo city centre. There are two boats linking Putuoshan and Shanghai. One departs in the evening and travels overnight, arriving in the early morning; the other leaves early in the day from a wharf outside of Shanghai city centre but takes less than two hours.</p><br>
<p>A number of minibuses link the major tourist areas. There are no taxis and traffic is usually limited to buses.</p><br>
<h2>Weather</h2><br>
<p>It is an Asian warm-temperate moist climate (Cfa) and has four distinct seasons. It has plenty of rain and fog. The average temperature of whole year is 16.1 &deg;C. The coldest month is January, average temperature is 5.4 &deg;C. The hottest month is August, temperature is 27.0 &deg;C. It has typhoon season on July, August and September. The average speed of wind is 4.2 to 5.7 m/s.</p><br>
<p>The Mount Putuo has all-year-round travel seasons, but in regard to when and where to get on the island, tourists should be careful and check the weather forecast beforehand.</p><br>
<p>The Pregolya or Pregola  is a river in the Russian Kaliningrad Oblast exclave.</p><br>
<h2>Overview</h2><br>
<p>It starts as a confluence of the Instruch and the Angrapa and drains into the Baltic Sea through Vistula Lagoon. Its length under the name of Pregolya is 123 km, 292 km including the Angrapa. The basin has an area of 15,500 km². The average flow is 90 m³/s.</p><br>
<p>Eulers Seven Bridges of Königsberg problem was based on the rivers bridges in Königsberg, now Kaliningrad.</p><br>
<p>A possible ancient name by Ptolemy of the Pregolya River is Chronos, although other theories identify Chronos as a much larger river, Nemunas.</p><br>
<h2>Cities and towns</h2><br>
<p>Chernyakhovsk</p><br>
<p>Znamensk</p><br>
<p>Gvardeysk</p><br>
<p>Kaliningrad</p><br>
<h2>Tributaries</h2><br>
<p>Pissa</p><br>
<p>Lava/Łyna</p><br>
<p>Angrapa</p><br>
<p>Instruch</p><br>
<p>The Laptev Sea  is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the northern coast of Siberia, the Taimyr Peninsula, Severnaya Zemlya and the New Siberian Islands. Its northern boundary passes from the Arctic Cape to a point with co-ordinates of 79°N and 139°E, and ends at the Anisiy Cape. The Kara Sea lies to the west, the East Siberian Sea to the east.</p><br>
<p>The sea is named after the Russian explorers Dmitry Laptev and Khariton Laptev; formerly, it had been known under various names, the last being Nordenskiöld Sea (мо́ре Норденшёльда), after explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld. The sea has a severe climate with temperatures below 0 °C (32 °F) over more than 9 months per year, low water salinity, scarcity of flora, fauna and human population, and low depths (mostly less than 50 meters). It is frozen most of the time, though generally clear in August and September.</p><br>
<p>The sea shores were inhabited for thousands of years by indigenous tribes of Yukaghirs and then Evens and Evenks, which were engaged in fishing, hunting and reindeer husbandry. They were then settled by Yakuts and later by Russians. Russian explorations of the area started in the 17th century. They came from the south via several large rivers which empty into the sea, such as the prominent Lena River, the Khatanga, the Anabar, the Olenyok, the Omoloy and the Yana. The sea contains several dozen islands, many of which contain well-preserved mammoth remains.</p><br>
<p>Major human activities in the area are mining and navigation on the Northern Sea Route; fishing and hunting are practised but have no commercial significance. The largest settlement and port is Tiksi.</p><br>
<h2>Extent</h2><br>
<p>The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Laptev Sea as follows:</p><br>
<p>On the West. The eastern limit of Kara Sea Komsomolets Island from Cape Molotov to South Eastern Cape; thence to Cape Vorochilov, Oktiabrskaya Revolutziya Island to Cape Anuchin. Then to Cape Unslicht on Bolshevik Island. Bolshevik Island to Cape Yevgenov. Thence to Cape Pronchisthehev on the main land (see Russian chart No. 1484 of the year 1935).</p><br>
<p>On the North. A line joining Cape Molotov to the Northern extremity of Kotelni Island ({{coord|76|10|N|138|50|E|region:RU_dim:300000|name=Northern extremity of Kotelni Island}}).</p><br>
<p>On the East. From the Northern extremity of Kotelni Island – through Kotelni Island to Cape Madvejyi. Then through Malyi Island Little Lyakhovsky Island, to Cape Vaguin on Great Liakhov Island. Thence to Cape Sviatoy Nos on the main land.</p><br>
<p>Using current geographic names and transcription this definition corresponds to the area shown in the map.</p><br>
<p># The sea&#39;s border starts at Arctic Cape (formerly Cape Molotov) on Komsomolets Island at {{coord|81|13|N|95|15|E|dim:300000_region:RU|name=Arctic Cape}} and connects to Cape Rosa Luxemburg (Mys Rozy Lyuksemburg), the southeastern cape of the island.</p><br>
<p># The next segment crosses Red Army Strait and leads to Cape Vorochilov on October Revolution Island and afterwards through that island to Cape Anuchin at {{coord|79|39|37|N|100|21|22|E|dim:300000_region:RU|name=Cape Anuchin}}.</p><br>
<p># Next, the border crosses Shokalsky Strait to Cape Unslicht at {{coord|79|25|04|N|102|31|00|E|dim:300000_region:RU|name=Cape Unslicht}} on Bolshevik Island. It goes further through the island to Cape Yevgenov at {{coord|78|17|N|104|50|E|dim:300000_region:RU|name=Cape Evgenov}}.</p><br>
<p># From there, the border goes through Vilkitsky Strait to Cape Pronchishchev at {{coord|77|32|57|N|105|54|4|E|dim:300000_region:RU|name=Cape Pronchishchev}} on the Tamyr peninsula.</p><br>
<p># The southern boundary is the shore of the Asian mainland. Prominent features are the Khatanga Gulf (estuary of the Khatanga river) and the delta of the Lena River.</p><br>
<p># In the east, the polygon crosses the Dmitry Laptev Strait. It connects Cape Svyatoy Nos at {{coord|72.7|N|141.2|E|dim:300000_region:RU|name=Svyatoy Nos}} with Cape Vagin at {{coord|73|26|0|N|139|50|0|E|dim:300000_region:RU|name=Cape Vaguin}} in the very east of Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island.</p><br>
<p># Next, the Laptev Sea border crosses Eterikan Strait to Little Lyakhovsky Island (aka Malyi Island) at {{coord|74.0833|N|140.5833|E|dim:300000_region:RU|name=Little Lyakhovsky Island}} up to Cape Medvezhiy.</p><br>
<p># Finally, there is a segment through Kotelny Island to Cape Anisy, its northernmost headland {{coord|76|10|N|138|50|E|dim:300000_region:RU}}.</p><br>
<p># The last link reaches from there back to Arctic Cape.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The Lena River, with its large delta, is the biggest river flowing into the Laptev Sea, and is the second largest river in the Russian Arctic after Yenisei. Other important rivers include the Khatanga, the Anabar, the Olenyok or Olenek, the Omoloy and the Yana.</p><br>
<p>The sea shores are winding and form gulfs and bays of various sizes. The coastal landscape is also diverse, with small mountains near the sea in places. The main gulfs of the Laptev Sea coast are the Khatanga Gulf, the Olenyok Gulf, the Buor-Khaya Gulf and the Yana Bay.</p><br>
<p>There are several dozens of islands with the total area of 3,784 km&sup2;, mostly in the western part of the sea and in the river deltas. Storms and currents due to the ice thawing significantly erode the islands, so the Semenovsky and Vasilievsky islands (74°12"N, 133°E) which were discovered in 1815 have already disappeared. The most significant groups of islands are Severnaya Zemlya, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Vilkitsky and Faddey, and the largest individual islands are Bolshoy Begichev (1764 km), Belkovsky (500 km), Maly Taymyr (250 km), Stolbovoy (170 km), Starokadomsky (110 km), and Peschanyy (17 km). (see Islands of the Laptev Sea)</p><br>
<p>More than half of the sea (53%) rests on a continental shelf with the average depths below 50 m, and the areas south from 76°N are shallower than 25 m. In the northern part, the sea bottom sharply drops to the ocean floor with the depth of the order of 1 km (22% of the sea area). There it is covered with silt, which is mixed with ice in the shallow areas.</p><br>
<h2>Climate</h2><br>
<p>The climate of the Laptev Sea is Arctic continental and, owing to the remoteness from both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is one of the most severe among the Arctic seas. Polar night and midnight sun last about 3 months per year on the south and 5 months on the north. Air temperatures stay below 0 °С 11 months a year on the north and 9 months on the south. The average temperature in January (coldest month) varies across the sea between -31 &deg;C and -34 &deg;C and the minimum is -50 &deg;C. In July, the temperature rises to 0 °С (maximum 4 °С) in the north and to 5 °С (maximum 10 °С) in the south, however, it may reach 22–24 °С on the coast in August. The maximum of 32.7 &deg;C was recorded in Tiksi. Strong winds, blizzards and snow storms are common in winter. Snow falls even in summer and is alternating with fogs.</p><br>
<p>The winds blow from south and south-west in winter with the average speed of 8 m/s which subsides toward the spring. In summer, they change direction to the northerly, and their speed is 3–4 m/s. Relatively weak winds result in low convection in the surface waters, which occurs only to the depth of 5–10 meters.</p><br>
<h2>Ice</h2><br>
<p>The Laptev Sea is a major source of arctic sea ice. With an average outflow of 483,000 km per year over the period 1979–1995, it contributes more sea ice than the Barents Sea, Kara Sea, East Siberian Sea and Chukchi Sea combined. Over this period, the annual outflow fluctuated between 251,000 km in 1984–85 and 732,000 km in 1988–89. The sea exports substantial amounts of sea ice in all months but July, August and September.</p><br>
<p>Ice formation starts in September on the north and October on the south. It results in a large continuous sheet of ice, with the thickness up to 2 m in the south-eastern part of the sea as well as near the coast. The coastal sheet ends at the water depth of 20–25 m which occurs at several hundred kilometers from the shore, thus this coastal ice covers some 30% of the sea area. Ice is drifting north to this coastal band, and several polynyas are formed by the warm south winds around there. They have various names, such as the Great Siberian Polynya, and can stretch over many hundreds kilometers. The ice sheet starts melting in late May-early June, creating fragmented ice agglomerates on the north-west and south-east and often revealing remains of the mammoths. The ice formation varies from year to year, with the sea either clear or completely covered with ice.</p><br>
<h2>Hydrology</h2><br>
<p>The sea is characterized by the low water temperatures, which ranges from -1.8 &deg;C in the north to -0.8 &deg;C in the south-eastern parts. The medium water layer is warmer, up to 1.5 °С because it is fed by the warm Atlantic waters. It takes them 2.5–3 years to reach the Laptev Sea from their formation near Spitsbergen. The deeper layer is colder at about −0.8 °С. In summer, the surface layer in the ice-free zones warms up by the sun up to 8–10 °С in the bays and 2–3 °С in the open sea, and remains close to 0 °С under ice. The water salinity is significantly affected by the thawing of ice and river runoff. The latter amounts to about 730 km and would form a 135 cm freshwater layer over the entire sea; it is the second largest in the world after the Kara Sea. The salinity values vary in winter from 20–25‰ (parts per thousand) in the south-east to 34‰ in the northern parts of the sea; it decreases in summer to 5–10‰ and 30–32‰ respectively.</p><br>
<p>Most of the river runoff (about 70% or 515 km/year) is contributed by the Lena River. Other major contributions are from Khatanga (more than 100 km), Olenyok (35 km), Yana (greater than 30 km) and Anabar (20 km), with other rivers contributing about 20 km. Owing to the ice melting season, about 90% of the annual runoff occurs between June and September with 35–40% in August alone, whereas January contributes only 5%.</p><br>
<p>Sea currents form a cyclone consisting of the southward stream near Severnaya Zemlya which reaches the continental coast and flows along it from west to east. It is then amplified by the Lena River flow and diverts to the north and north-west toward the Arctic Ocean. A small part of the cyclone leaks through the Sannikov Strait to the East Siberian Sea. The cyclone has a speed of 2 cm/s which decreases toward the center. The center of the cyclone drifts with time that slightly alters the flow character.</p><br>
<p>The tides are mostly semi-diurnal (rise twice a day), with the average amplitude of 0.5 m. In the Khatanga Gulf it may reach 2 m because of the funnel-like shape of the gulf. This tidal wave is then noticeable up to the unusually long distance of 500 km up to the Khatanga River – the tidal wave is damped at much shorter distance in other rivers of the Laptev Sea.</p><br>
<p>The seasonal variations of the sea level are relatively small – the sea level rises up to 40 cm in summer near the river deltas and lowers in winter. Wind-induced changes are observed all through the year, but are more frequent in autumn when the winds are strong and steady. In general, the sea level rises with northern and lowers with southern winds, but depending on the area, the maximum amplitude is observed for a specific wind direction (e.g. western and north-western in the south-eastern part of the sea). They average amplitudes are 1–2 m and may exceed 2.5 m near Tiksi.</p><br>
<p>Owing to the weak winds and shallow waters, the sea is relatively calm with the waves typically within 1 m. In July–August waves up to 4–5 m are observed near the sea center, and they may reach 6 m in autumn.</p><br>
<h2>History and exploration</h2><br>
<p>The coast of the Laptev Sea was inhabited for ages by the native peoples of northern Siberia such as Yukaghirs and Chuvans (sub-tribe of Yukaghirs). Those tribes were engaged in fishing, hunting and reindeer husbandry, as reindeer sleds were essential for transportation and hunting. They were joined and absorbed by Evens and Evenks around the 2nd century and later, between 9th and 15th centuries, by much more numerous Yakuts. All those tribes moved north from the Baikal Lake area avoiding confrontations with Mongols. Whereas they all practiced shamanism, they spoke different languages.</p><br>
<p>Russians started exploring the Laptev Sea coast and the nearby islands some time in the 17th century, going through the rivers emptying into the sea. Many early explorations were likely unreported, as indicated by finding of graves on some islands by their official discoverers. In 1629, Siberian Cossacks went through the Lena River and reached its delta. They left a note that the river flows into a sea. In 1633, another group reached the delta of Olenyok.</p><br>
<p>By 1712, Yakov Permyakov and Merkury Vagin explored the eastern part of the Laptev Sea and discovered Bolshoy Lyakhovsky Island. However, they were killed on the way back from their expedition by mutineering team members. In 1770, the merchant Ivan Lyakhov revisited the islands and then asked a government permission to commercially develop their ivory resources. Catherine II granted the permission and named the islands after Lyakhov. While exploring the area in the 1770s, Lyakhov described several other islands, including Kotelny, which he named so after a large kettle (котёл – kotel) left there by previous visitors. He also established first permanent settlements on those islands.</p><br>
<p>In 1735, Russian explorer of Siberia Vasili Pronchishchev sailed from Yakutsk down the Lena River on his sloop Yakutsk. He explored the eastern coast of the Lena delta, and stopped for wintering at the mouth of the Olenyok River. Unfortunately many members of his crew fell ill and died, mainly owing to scurvy. Despite these difficulties, in 1736, he reached the eastern shore of the Taymyr Peninsula and went north surveying its coastline. Pronchishchev and his wife succumbed to scurvy and died on the way back. Maria Pronchishcheva Bay in the Laptev Sea is named after the wife of Pronchishchev.</p><br>
<p>During the 1739–1742 Great Northern Expedition, Russian Arctic explorer and Vice Admiral Dmitry Laptev described the sea coastline from the mouth of the Lena River, along the Buor-Khaya and Yana gulfs, to the strait that bears his name, Dmitry Laptev Strait. As part of the same expedition, Dmitry&#39;s cousin Khariton Laptev&#39;s led a party that surveyed the coast of the Taimyr Peninsula starting from the mouth of the Khatanga River.</p><br>
<p>Detailed mapping of the coast of the Laptev Sea and New Siberian Islands was performed by Pyotr Anjou, who in 1821–1823 traveled some 14,000 km over the region on sledges and small boats, searching for the Sannikov Land and demonstrating that large-scale coastal observations can be performed without ships. Anzhu Islands (the northern part of New Siberian Islands) were named after him. In 1875, Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld was the first to travel across the whole sea on a steamship Vega.</p><br>
<p>In 1892–1894, and again in 1900–1902, Baron Eduard von Toll explored the Laptev Sea in the course of two separate expeditions. On the ship Zarya, Toll carried out geological and geographical surveys in the area on behalf of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences. In his last expedition Toll disappeared off the New Siberian Islands under mysterious circumstances. sizable and economically significant accumulations of perfectly preserved fossil ivory in recent beaches, drainage areas, river terraces and river beds within the New Siberian Islands. The later scientific studies demonstrated that the ivory accumulated over a period of some 200,000 years.</p><br>
<h3>Naming</h3><br>
<p>The Laptev Sea changed its name several times. It was apparently known as the Tartar Sea (Татарское мо́ре) in the 16th century, as the Lena Sea (Ленское мо́ре) in the 17th century, as the Siberian Sea (Сибирское мо́ре) in the 18th century and as the Icy Sea (Ледовитое мо́ре) in the 19th century. It acquired its name as Nordenskjold Sea (мо́ре Норденшельда) in 1893. On 27 June 1935, the sea finally received its current name after the cousins Dmitry Laptev and Khariton Laptev who first mapped its shores in 1735–1740.</p><br>
<h2>Flora and fauna</h2><br>
<p>Both flora and fauna are scarce owing to the harsh climate. Vegetation of the sea is mostly represented by diatoms, with more than 100 species. In comparison, the number of green algae, blue-green algae and flagellate species is about 10 each. The phytoplankton is characteristic of brackish waters Rare vascular plants include species of Cerastium and Saxifraga. Non-vascular plants include the moss genera Detrichum, Dicranum, Pogonatum, Sanionia, Bryum, Orthothecium and Tortura, as well as the lichen genera Cetraria, Thamnolia, Cornicularia, Lecidea, Ochrolechia and Parmelia.</p><br>
<p>Permanent mammal species include ringed seal (Phoca hispida), bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus), harp seal (Pagophilus groenlandicus), walrus (Odobenus rosmarus), collared lemming (Dicrostonyx torquatus), Arctic fox (Alopex lagopus), reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) wolf (Canis lupus), ermine (Mustela erminea), Arctic hare (Lepus timidus) and polar bear (Ursus maritimus), whereas beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) visit the region seasonally. The walrus of the Laptev Sea is sometimes distinguished as a separate subspecies Odobenus rosmarus laptevi, though this attribution is questioned. There are several dozens species of birds. Some belong to permanent (tundra) species, such as snow bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis), purple sandpiper (Calidris maritima), snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus) and brent goose and other make large colonies on the islands and sea shores. The latter include little auk (Alle alle), black-legged kittiwake (Rissa tridactyla), black guillemot (Cepphus grylle), ivory gull (Pagophila eburnea), uria, charadriiformes and glaucous gull (Larus hyperboreus). Amont other bird species are skua, sterna, northern fulmar, (Fulmarus glacialis), ivory gull (Pagophila eburnea), glaucous gull (Larus hyperboreus), Ross&#39;s gull (Rhodostethia rosea), long-tailed duck (Clangula hyemalis), eider, loon and willow grouse (Lagopus lagopus). There are 39 fish species, mostly typical of braskish environment; the major ones are grayling and Coregonus (whitefishes), such as muksun (Coregonus muksun), broad whitefish (Coregonus nasus) and omul (Coregonus autumnalis). Also common are sardine, Arctic cisco, Bering cisco, polar smelt, saffron cod, polar cod, flounder and Arctic char and inconnu.</p><br>
<p>In 1985, the Ust-Lena Nature Reserve was established in the delta (from устье – ust, meaning delta) of the Lena River with an area of 14,300 km. In 1986, New Siberian Islands were included into the reserve. The reserve hosts numerous plants (402 species), fishes (32 species), birds (109 species) and mammals (33 species).</p><br>
<h2>Human activities</h2><br>
<p>The coast of the sea is shared by the Sakha Republic (Anabarsky, Bulunsky District and Ust-Yansky districts) on the east and Krasnoyarsk Krai (Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District) of Russia on the west. The coastal settlements are few and small, with the typical population of a few hundred or less. The only exception is Tiksi (population 5,873), which is the administrative center of the Bulunsky District.</p><br>
<h3>Fishery and navigation</h3><br>
<p>Fishery and hunting have relatively small volume and are mostly concentrated in the river deltas. Data are available for the Khatanga Bay and deltas of the Lena and Yana rivers from 1981 to 1991 which translate into about 3,000 tonnes of fish annually. Extrapolated, they give the following annual estimates (in thousand tonnes) by species: sardine (1.2), Arctic cisco (2.0), Bering cisco (2.7), broad whitefish (2.6), Muksun (2.4) and others (3.6). Hunting sea mammals is only practiced by native people. In particular, walrus hunting is only allowed by scientific expeditions and local tribes for subsistence.</p><br>
<p>Despite freezing, navigation is a major human activity on the Laptev Sea with the major port in Tiksi. During Soviet times, the Laptev Sea coastal areas experienced a limited boom owing to the first icebreaker convoys plying the Northern Sea Route and the creation of the Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route. The route was difficult even for icebreakers – so Lenin (pictured) and her convoy of five ships were trapped in ice in the Laptev Sea around September 1937. They spent an enforced winter there and were rescued by another icebreaker Krasin in August 1938. The major transported goods were timber, fur and construction materials.</p><br>
<p>After the break-up of the Soviet Union commercial navigation in the Siberian Arctic went into decline in the 1990s. More or less regular shipping is to be found only from Murmansk to Dudinka in the west and between Vladivostok and Pevek in the east. Ports between Dudinka and Pevek see next to no shipping at all. Logashkino was abandoned in 1998 and is now a ghost town.</p><br>
<h3>Mining</h3><br>
<p>In the 1930, deposits of coal, oil and salt were discovered around the Nordvik Bay. In order to explore them in the extreme Arctic conditions, a Gulag penal labor camp was established in Nordvik. Drilling revealed only small, shallow oil pockets in connection with salt structures with little commercial significance. However the salt was extracted on a large scale by means of forced laborers in a penal colony. From the 1930s onwards Nordvik became an important source of salt supply for the northern fisheries. Although the original prospects for oil at Nordvik did not materialize, experience was gained in the exploration for hydrocarbons within the continuous permafrost zones. This experience proved invaluable in the later exploration and exploitation of the massive oil and gas fields of Western Siberia. The penal colony was closed and its traces erased in the mid-1940s right before Americans arrived in Nordvik as allies of the Soviet Union.</p><br>
<p>In 2017, Rosneft found oil in the Laptev Sea at its Tsentralno-Olginskaya-1 well.</p><br>
<p>In the Anabar District of Sakha, in the village of Mayat there is one of the northernmost diamond mines. There are also tin and gold mines in the Ust-Yansky District.</p><br>
<h3>Research</h3><br>
<p>The meteorological station of Tiksi has been renovated in 2006 (for example, it has internet connection and security cameras with a wireless interface) and has become part of the Atmospheric Observatory program of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration agency. The program aims at long-term, systematic and thorough measurements of clouds, radiation, aerosols, surface energy fluxes and chemistry in the Arctic. It is based on four Arctic stations at one of the world&#39;s northernmost settlements, namely Eureka and Alert in Canada (in particular, Alert is the northernmost permanently inhabited place on Earth, only 817 km from the North Pole), Tiksi in Russia, and Barrow in Alaska.</p><br>
<h2>Pollution</h2><br>
<p>The water pollution is relative low and mostly originates from the numerous plants and mines standing on the Lena, Yana and Anabar rivers. Their waste is contaminated with phenols (0.002–0.007 mg/L), copper (0.001–0.012 mg/L) and zinc (0.01–0.03 mg/L) and is continuously washed down the rivers into the sea. Another regular polluter is the coastal Urban-type settlement of Tiksi. Occasional petrol spills occurred due to navigation and petrol mining. Another major contaminant is associated with floating and sunken wood in the sea, due to decades of rafting activities. As a result, the phenol concentration in the Laptev Sea is the highest over the Arctic waters.</p><br>
<p>Laptev sea sunset.JPG|Laptev Sea. Sunset.</p><br>
<p>Laptev sea ice hummocks.JPG|Laptev Sea. Ice hummocks.</p><br>
<p>Laptev sea.JPG|Hivus-10 hovercraft on Laptev Sea</p><br>
<p>The Hog&#39;s Back is a part of the North Downs in Surrey, England, that lies between Farnham in the west and Guildford in the east.</p><br>
<h2>Name</h2><br>
<p>Compared with the main part of the Downs to the east of it, it is a narrow elongated ridge, hence its name.</p><br>
<p>Jane Austen, in a letter to her sister Cassandra dated Thursday 20 May 1813 from her brothers house in Sloane Street, wrote of her journey to London in a curricle via "the Hogs-back" and said</p><br>
<p>This shows that it was known as the Hogs Back by Jane Austens time. However, the medieval name for the ridge was Guildown (recorded first in 1035 where it was the site of the abduction of Prince Alfred of Wessex by Earl Godwin and then in the Pipe Rolls for 1190 and onwards) but this name is no longer in use. However, the name Guildown is evoked by Guildown Road, a residential road which climbs the southern side of the ridge on the southwestern fringes of Guildford.</p><br>
<p>The Guild- element of Guildown is the same as that found in Guildford, meaning "gold". Various explanations have been suggested for the relationship between the names of Guildown and Guildford. Guildown may be an abbreviation of Guildford Down ("the Down by Guildford"). Guildford is the point where the River Wey cuts through the Hog&#39;s Back. Alternatively, both Guildown and Guildford may derive independently from a gold-coloured feature; either the yellow flowers of the marsh marigold or the gold-coloured (sandy) soil of the hillside, Guildford translates literally as gold ford after the golden coloured sandy soil at the Ford in the River Wey.</p><br>
<h2>Position</h2><br>
<p>The Hog&#39;s Back has a minimum prominence (drop) of 55 metre, reaching 154 m above sea level, the 24th highest hill in Surrey.</p><br>
<p>Along its course are half panoramas north and south separated by less than viewable from paths alongside the road which runs along the Hog&#39;s Back (the A31).</p><br>
<p>The view north includes many towns and villages, including Ash and Aldershot which on a clear day reaches to London, as far as Canary Wharf, Tower 42, The Gherkin, Wembley Arch and Heathrow Airport. The view to the south is unspoilt and has been designated an area of outstanding natural beauty as well as a site of special scientific interest. These views extend to Hindhead and the Devil&#39;s Punchbowl.</p><br>
<h2>Road</h2><br>
<p>The road along the Hog&#39;s Back is ancient, since its raised position offered travellers a vantage point and also kept them above the thick ancient woodland of the valleys on either side. It was part of the ancient ridgeway which runs from Wiltshire down to the east coast of Kent.</p><br>
<p>It was also part of the road from London to Winchester (as it still is). Although there is very little archaeological evidence in support, it has been suggested that a Roman road ran from London to Winchester and that, at this point, it passed, either over the Hog&#39;s Back or perhaps a little to the north (e.g. Roman Surrey, David Bird, 2004). Research on this is continuing.</p><br>
<p>According to the Victoria County History of Surrey (volume 3, published 1911, p 374, s.v. Wanborough), the road over the Hog&#39;s Back was "the Via Regia of early deeds and Hundred Rolls".</p><br>
<p>What is now designated the A31 along the Hog&#39;s Back originally formed part of a road leading directly from Winchester into Guildford High Street and from there into London. However, the modern A31 adopts a slightly less direct and less steep approach to the High Street, and reorganisation of central Guildford into a roundabout road system centred on the Friary Centre (named after the medieval Dominican Friary there) has also broken up this direct stretch of road at the point that it reaches Guildford.</p><br>
<p>When the idea of the Pilgrims Way to Canterbury was popularised in the nineteenth century, a route over the southern slopes of the Hogs back, parallel with the ridgeway and running through Seale and Puttenham, was incorporated in its course. In order to avoid the A31, however, the Pilgrims Way does not run along the top of the Hogs Back.</p><br>
<p>The Hog&#39;s Back stretch of the A31 is now a dual carriageway, but the two directions of the road are separated by a central area of trees, some of them very old. The original road ran along the stretch now occupied by the lanes running from Guildford to Farnham, i.e. from east to west. The other two lanes, running from west to east, which are a little below the high point occupied by the original carriageways, were added in the early 1970s.</p><br>
<h2>Archaeology and Seven Ditches</h2><br>
<p>Roughly midway along the ridge of the Hog’s Back between Farnham and Guildford (OS grid reference SU911483), the human remains of at least six skeletons were discovered in 1935 when ground was being dug for a new water pipe. They were buried less than a yard from the then-northern edge of the road (now part of the central grass verge between the two carriageways). One of them was buried prone and another showed signs of having originally been bound or trussed, and scholars now believe that they were criminals buried here after execution at different times over an extended period (Reynolds in 2005; Briggs in 2010). Their burial place was at the meeting point of the parishes of Wanborough, Seale (originally Farnham) and Puttenham, which were each in the different hundreds of Woking, Farnham and Godalming respectively. It is suggested by Rob Briggs that an elevated site at the junction of different hundreds and parishes was probably a site of general assembly and he identifies it with the place name Seven Ditches, found in the charter of King Caedwalla of Wessex confirming Farnham to the Bishop of Winchester (following the original grant by King Edward the Elder in 909 AD) (Latin “vii dican”); and also in a feoffment defining the Shoelands estate in about 1210 (Latin “Seuedic”); and also in the plea rolls of the 1263 Surrey Eyre, noting the hanging of one Robert de la Felde of Send at (Latin) “Seinedik”, translated Sendike or Seven Ditches.</p><br>
<h2>Notable buildings</h2><br>
<p>On the north side of the Hogs Back near the turn off to the village of Seale formerly stood a mansion known as Poyle Hill Lodge. This was once one of the Admiralty semaphore stations because of its high vantage point. In 1935 it became the Hogs Back Hotel, initially owned by the Guildford Friary Brewery, and it remains a hotel, now officially known as the Hog&#39;s Back Hotel and Spa, Farnham.</p><br>
<p>On the south side of the Hog&#39;s Back, a little to the east of Poyle Hill, another large mansion was built in 1873 called Great Down, attributed to Robert Kerr. This was demolished in about 1950, but the parkland and other associated buildings, such as a lodge and stables, remain.</p><br>
<p>Also on the south side is Greyfriars House, a Grade II* listed Arts and Crafts style mansion built in 1896 by the renowned architect Charles Voysey. It is now a boutique wedding venue.</p><br>
<p>The Hogs Back Brewery is an independent real ale brewery based in Tongham, which is a village just below the Hog&#39;s Back.</p><br>
<p>The Hogs Back Cafe is in a layby on the Guildford to Farnham (westbound) carriageway of the A31 along the Hogs Back, between the turn offs to Puttenham and Seale. It is popular with lorry drivers, who use the cafe and toilets during the day. The hillside adjacent to the A31 layby was a popular site for dogging (viewing or participating in sexual relations in a public place), but recently (2012–13) Guildford police and local residents are curbing these practices.</p><br>
<p>Towards Guildford, on the east side of the Hog’s Back, lie Down Place and Blackwell Farm. The manor of Down Place was demolished in 1963, all that remains today of the estate are the stables where is established Hogs Back Books, the children’s book publisher.</p><br>
<p>Once associated with the manor as one of the first model farm in Surrey, Blackwell Farm is now a place of controversies since the University of Surrey, its owner, announced its plan to build a "Garden Neighbourhood" as part of Guildford Borough Council&#39;s local plan consultation.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>The Hogs Back is formed of chalk of Cretaceous age, laid down in shallow seas from the deposition of the calcium carbonate skeletons of micro-organisms. The Hogs Back is the surface representation of a monoclinal fold, where once horizontal chalk beds have been folded into a steeply dipping, almost vertical position. To the north of the ridge lies the London Clay, and to the south the clays of the Wealden Group. The chalk is more resistant to weathering than the flanking clays, leading to the ridge&#39;s prominence over the surrounding terrain.</p><br>
<p>The Hog&#39;s Back gives its name to the geomorphological landform known as a Hogback, a generic term used to describe a long narrow ridge or series of hills with a narrow crest and steep slopes of nearly equal inclination on both flanks.</p><br>
<h2>In popular culture</h2><br>
<p>The Hog&#39;s Back is mentioned in:</p><br>
<p>Richard Thompson&#39;s song MGB-GT.</p><br>
<p>The Freeman Wills Crofts detective novel The Hog&#39;s Back Mystery (1933)</p><br>
<p>Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.</p><br>
<p>The Adventure of Johnnie Waverly, an episode in season one of the TV Series, Agatha Christie&#39;s Poirot.</p><br>
<p>The Paul Temple radio detective story, Paul Temple and the Gilbert Case.</p><br>
<p>Karpathos  is the second largest of the Greek Dodecanese islands, in the southeastern Aegean Sea. Together with the neighboring smaller Saria Island it forms the municipality of Karpathos, which is part of the Karpathos regional unit. Because of its remote location, Karpathos has preserved many peculiarities of dress, customs and dialect, the last resembling those of Crete and Cyprus. The island has also been called Carpathus in Latin, Scarpanto in Italian and Kerpe in Turkish.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The island is located about 47 km southwest of Rhodes, in the part of the Mediterranean which is called the Carpathian Sea (Carpathium Mare). The Sea of Crete, a sub-basin of the Mediterranean Sea, has its eastern limit defined by the island of Karpathos. Karpathos&#39; highest point is Mt. Lastos, at 1,215 m. Karpathos comprises 10 villages. Pigadia (official name Karpathos), the capital and main port of the island, is located in the southeast of the island. The capital is surrounded by the villages of Menetes, Arkasa, Aperi, Volada, Othos, and Pyles. In the north Mesochori, Spoa and Olympos. There are two ports, in Karpathos and in the north of the island next to Olympos named Diafani.</p><br>
<p>The island Saria was once united with Karpathos, but an earthquake divided them. Saria preserves many important antiquities.</p><br>
<h3>Climate</h3><br>
<p>The weather station of Karpathos alongside Ierapetra holds Greece&#39;s highest annual mean temperature, 20.1 &deg;C (1950–1960, 1970–1975).</p><br>
<h2>Municipality</h2><br>
<p>The present municipality Karpathos was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 2 former municipalities, that became municipal units:</p><br>
<p>Karpathos</p><br>
<p>Olympos</p><br>
<p>The municipality has an area of 324.800 km, the municipal unit 219.924 km.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The island of Karpathos was in both ancient and medieval times closely connected with Rhodes. Its current name is mentioned, with a slight shift of one letter, in Homers Iliad as Krapathos (οἳ δ ἄρα Νίσυρόν τ εἶχον Κράπαθόν τε Κάσον τε). Apollonius of Rhodes, in his epic Argonautica, made it a port of call for the Argonauts travelling between Libya and Crete (Κάρπαθος: ἔνθεν δ οἵγε περαιώσεσθαι ἔμελλον). The island is also mentioned by Virgil, Pliny the Elder, and Strabo.</p><br>
<p>The Karpathians sided with Sparta in the Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE and lost their independence to Rhodes in 400 BCE. In 42 BCE, the island fell to Rome. After the division of the Roman Empire in 395 CE, the island became part of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.</p><br>
<p>Of its Christian bishops, the names are known of Olympius, who was a supporter of Nestorius, Zoticus (in 518), Mennas (in 553), Ioannes, Leo (in 787), and Philippus (in 879). In the 14th century, the island was a see of the Latin Church, four of whose bishops bore the name Nicolaus. No longer a residential bishopric, Karpathos (in Latin Carpathus) is today listed by the Catholic Church as an archiepiscopal titular see.</p><br>
<p>In 1304, Karpathos was given as fief to the Genoese corsairs Andrea and Lodovico Moresco, but in 1306 it fell to Andrea Cornaro, a member of the Venetian Cornaro family. The Cornaro controlled Karpathos until 1538, when it passed into the possession of the Ottoman Turks.</p><br>
<p>During the Greek War of Independence from 1821 to 1822, the island rebelled, but afterwards it fell again under the Ottoman rule. In 1835, Sultan Mahmud II conceded to the island the privilege of the Maktu tax system; that is, the tax was calculated as an annual lump sum, and not on an household basis. The Ottoman rule ended on 12 May 1912, when the Italians occupied the island, together with the whole Dodecanese, during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-12. On that day, sailors from the Regia Marina ship Vittorio Emanuele and the destroyer Alpino landed in Karpathos. With the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, Karpathos joined the other islands of the Dodecanese in the Italian possession of the Italian Aegean Islands, and was ceded by Italy to Greece with the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947. The island formally joined the Kingdom of Greece on 7 March 1948, together with the other Dodecanese islands.</p><br>
<p>In the late 1940s and 1950s, due to the economic problems after World War II, a number of Karpathians emigrated to the USA eastern seaboard cities;. Karpathos today has a significant Greek-American constituency who have returned to their island and invested heavily. Inhabitants of the mountains to the north are more traditional.</p><br>
<h2>Transportation</h2><br>
<p>Karpathos Island National Airport, with its relatively large runway, is located on the south side (Afiartis area). Karpathos is connected to neighboring islands and to the mainland via ferries and airplanes. The ferries provide transport to and from Piraeus (via Crete and Rhodes). Scheduled domestic flights connect the island with Rhodes, Kasos, Crete and Athens daily. Additionally, charter flights from various European cities are frequently scheduled during the high season (April–October).</p><br>
<p>Within the island, cars are the preferred mode of transportation. The port, the airport, the main villages and other popular locations are connected by an adequate system of municipal roads, most of which are paved. During the summer months, small private boats depart from Pigadia to various locations daily, including Olympos (via Diafani) and some inaccessible beaches. Fixed-rate taxis (agoraia) and municipal buses are also available all year long.</p><br>
<h2>Population</h2><br>
<p>The island&#39;s 2011 census population was 6,181 inhabitants. This number more than doubles in the summer months as many Karpathian expatriates come to the island for their vacation with their families. Also, taking into consideration the number of tourists that visit, there can be up to 20,002 people on the island during the summer months. The population density is greatest during the 15th of August due to the Panagias festival (Assumption of Mary), which is considered the most important festival on the island. Individuals travel from around the world to attend the festival and view the many traditions that still remain on the island.</p><br>
<h2>Beaches</h2><br>
<p>The beaches of Karpathos island can be divided into four large groups: the beaches on the east coast are smaller and gravelly but without wind; the beaches of the southern part of the island, near the airport, area made of fine white sand; the sandy beach on the west coast are the most exposed to the Meltemi and they are only available in low wind conditions; the beaches of the north of the island, accessible only by sea and partly by a jeep.</p><br>
<p>East Coast: Amoopi, Karpathos Beach, Achata, Kato Latos (reachable only by foot), Kyra Panagia, Apella, Agios Nikolaos (Spoa).</p><br>
<p>South Coast - Damatria, Diakoftis, Devils Bay, Agriopotamos (nude beach).</p><br>
<p>West Coast - Lefkos beach, Mesohori Finiki, Arkasa Leucadius.</p><br>
<p>North Coast - Diafani, Vananda, Forokli</p><br>
<p>Mount Parnitha  is a densely forested mountain range north of Athens, the highest on the peninsula of Attica, with an elevation of 1,413 m, and a summit known as Karavola . Much of the mountain is designated a national park, and is a protected habitat for wildfowl, first created in 1961. The summit is located 18 km N of Acharnae and about 30 km N of Athens, while the mountain covers approximately 250 km² of land. Other peaks include Mavrovouni , Ornio , Area , Avgo or Avgho , and Xerovouni .It also has two shelters Mpafi and Flampouri. The name of the mountain dates back to ancient times, when it was under the ancient demes of Acharnae and Decelea.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Towns surrounding the mountain include Aspropyrgos, Fyli, Acharnes, Varymbombi, Thrakomakedones, Dekeleia, Avlona and Agios Stefanos as well as the settlement of Agios Merkourios. The highway GR-1 (E75) surrounds the northern and eastern part of the mountain along with the Cephissus river, while the Attiki Odos motorway (GR-6) runs to its south. The mountain offers panoramic views of the mountains northeast of Parnitha, Penteli to the east, the Ymittos to the southeast, the Aigaleo to the south and another to the west; from its summit, one can also see the Thriasian Plain, the Saronic Gulf including the islands of Salamina, Aigina and the North, the South Euboean Gulfs and island of Euboea, and most of central and northern Greater Athens. The view during clear days can extend to northern Boeotia and the Peloponnese.</p><br>
<p>The mountain was also affected by several major blizzards, including two in 2005 and 2006, stranding cars and closing roads, as well as the cable car.</p><br>
<h2>Ecology</h2><br>
<p>Forests of Aleppo Pine cover all slopes beneath 1,000 m altitude, and are often threatened by forest fires, such as occurred in 2005 and 2007. Above 1,000 m it is covered principally in Greek Fir, grasses and shrubbery, and beneath 300 m mainly farmlands and suburban housing to the east. About 1,000 species of plants can be found on the mountain, including crocus and tulips, and the mountain also provides a native habitat to its red deer (Cervus elaphus), which were known in ancient times. After the traumatic fire in 2007 (see below), they are even more scarce. Several large mines lie to the northwest, and the ore from them was shipped to a nearby factory in industrial areas.</p><br>
<h2>Historical monuments and places of interest</h2><br>
<p>Parnitha has many places with archaeological interest. Most usual ancient buildings in Parnitha are the fortresses. In antiquity, many fortresses had been built on the mountain, for the Athenian defense opposite the Boeotians and others enemys from the north. Today some fortresses kept in good condition such as the Phyle fortress, built at a height of 687 meters in the west of Parnitha. Other notable fortresses are the Panakton, in the area of Dervenochoria and Eleutherae fortress near Mount Cithaeron. Notable monument of later periods is the Monastery of Kleiston. It is a Byzantine monastery dated from 13th century. It is mentioned by Pope Innocent IV in 1209 with the name Monastery of Kyras. Southeast of Parnitha, inside a dense forest, Tatoi Palace is located. It was the palace of Greek royal family and it was built in 19th century. Today it is abandoned.</p><br>
<p>Parnitha has also natural monuments. The cave of Panas is located on the west slopes of the mountain at a height of 750 meters. It was worship site in antiquity. Near the cave there is the steep gorge of Gouras and the gorge of Keladonas river. Beautiful site of the mountain is Beletsi Lake. It is located on the east slopes of the mountain, near Afidnes and it is important place for migratory birds.</p><br>
<h2>Modern facilities</h2><br>
<p>A casino, the Mont Parnes Casino, is located near the top of the mountain and is served by a suspended cable car. Two shelters are also located on Parnitha, the most known of which is Mpafi. A series of trails are found around the mountain as well as forest roads, and also on the mountain is Athens&#39; second transmitter, broadcasting radio and television since the mid-1950s, across the range of television channels from ERT, ANT1, Mega, Alter and more, to satellite, including Super Sport, Seven X and Filmnet, and a multitude of radio including ERA Radio, Klik FM, ANT1 Radio, Ciao FM, Rhythmos, Super Sport FM, Top FM and others. The supporting road connection was paved in the mid-20th century.</p><br>
<h2>2007 wildfire</h2><br>
<p>Parnitha suffered extensive damage from a wildfire on Thursday, June 28, 2007 around the morning and noon hours, continuing for several days and burning approximately 56 km² of land; one of the worst recorded wildfires in the prefecture after that of Penteli. The magnitude of the devastation was unforeseen. A smaller fire had, however, taken place in the 1960s.</p><br>
<p>The fire consumed forests in two prefectures. Firefighters, helicopters, and planes were brought into action across the mountain area and its edges fighting the enormous blaze,which took days to contain. It spread rapidly with the help of intense winds, and intensified into the northwestern edges of Greater Athens, including both Ano Liosia and towns and villages such as Fyli, near Thrakomakedones, Pyli and both Skoura and Schimatari north of the mountain. From Athens, inhabitants could see the mountainside burning throughout the night. In Schimatari in Boeotia, it ruined several acres of forest and businesses. The fire claimed an 80% proportion of the rare Greek Fir and Aleppo Pine forest, 150 animals of the red deer population (an endangered species), birds, and other rare animals. The remains of the green firs and pines are sporadically located around its edges. The smoke from the massive destruction formed a line that traveled east over Attica, southern Euboea, Chios, to the edge of Turkey, at a distance of approximately 350 km.</p><br>
<p>On June 30, the fire was mostly contained and warnings of new ones were reduced, as only a few fires were slowly burning sporadically in separate parts of the mountain. The main blaze was completely put out on July 1. At the edges of the burnt parts, several fires slowly continued to burn in sections after June 30, with a slow expansion.</p><br>
<p>Scientists estimate the area&#39;s recovery time may be as long as a century. They predict the effect of the loss will only begin to be felt in the coming years; the air may become a little stale and the already known problems of air pollution and smog in Athens may reappear and intensify. Temperatures could also rise and flooding may become a problem for several years. The Ministry of Environment is currently considering a conclusive reforestation program, while many citizens plan to march on the streets of Athens to express their disapproval of the handling of the situation. More recently, forestation has been underway, and the government will be receiving tens of thousands of trees to be planted around the mountains, most of them from outside the country.</p><br>
<p>Investigations are still underway as to the fire&#39;s cause. One scenario suggests a transformer belonging to a major power line exploded due to overuse and overheating by the 47C heatwave, some days prior to the fire. Another holds that this was one of the many arson attacks that have claimed forested land in Greece over recent decades.</p><br>
<h2>Bibliography</h2><br>
<p>Parnes. In: Der Kleine (Parnitha) Pauly 1972</p><br>
<p>The Imperial Valley lies in California&#39;s Imperial County. It is located in southeastern Southern California, and is the site of an urban area largely centered on the city of El Centro. The Valley is bordered by the Colorado River to the east and, in part, the Salton Sea to the west. Farther west lies the San Diego and Imperial County border. To the north is the Coachella Valley region of Riverside County, which together with Imperial Valley form the Salton Trough, or the Cahuilla Basin, also the county line of Imperial and Riverside counties, and to the south the international boundary with the USA state of California and Baja California.</p><br>
<p>The culture of the area blends those of the United States and Mexico, due to its regional history and geographic location along the international border. The Imperial Valley economy is based on agriculture.</p><br>
<p>Imperial Valley was so named by the Imperial Land Company, in hopes of attracting settlers. Having done that it is now the home of the El Centro metropolitan area and also an economic center of California&#39;s government defined "South Border". Locally, the terms "Imperial Valley" and "Imperial County" are used synonymously.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The Imperial Valley extends southward for 50 mi from the southern end of the Salton Sea into Mexico. Part of a trough stretching from the Coachella Valley to the Gulf of California, it is almost entirely below sea level—235 ft below at the edge of the Salton Sea. Its hot desert climate is characterized by daily temperature extremes. It was once part of the Gulf of California, from which it was cut off by the dam-like deposits of the Colorado River Delta Fan as it carved out the Grand Canyon. Bordered by sand dunes and barren mountains, it was uninhabited until 1901, when the Imperial Canal was opened and diverted Colorado River water into the valley through Mexico. Flood-waters in 1905–07 destroyed the irrigation channels and created the Salton Sea now filled by the New River and irrigation run-off. The rivers in the southern part of the Salton Sea river basin flow south to north.</p><br>
<p>The valley is bordered by the Colorado River to the east and, in part, the Salton Sea to the west. Farther west lies the border with San Diego County and to the south the international boundary between the US state of California and Baja California, Mexico. To the north is the boundary with Riverside County and the Coachella Valley, which with the Imperial Valley form the "Cahuilla Basin" or the "Salton Trough".</p><br>
<h3>Climate</h3><br>
<p>The Imperial Valley often has summer temperatures well over 100 &deg;F, but from late October until mid-April the temperature is relatively mild and can sometimes even reach low temperatures not expected in a desert. During winter months the Valley averages more than eight hours of sunshine a day, receiving the most sunlight of any place in the United States.</p><br>
<p>Historically, the lowest minimum temperature ever recorded in the Imperial Valley was 16 &deg;F on January 22, 1937. The highest maximum temperature ever recorded was 121 &deg;F on July 28, 1995. The lowest maximum temperature was 42 &deg;F, recorded on January 24, 1949, and the highest minimum temperature was 92 &deg;F on June 30, 1946. The highest monthly mean temperature was 95.9 &deg;F, recorded in August 1969 and the lowest mean temperature was 42.3 &deg;F in February 1939.</p><br>
<p>The 85-year average annual rainfall is 2.93 in with June being the driest month. The only recorded snowfall in the Valley occurred on December 12, 1932. Snow began falling at 8:45 p.m. and by 5 a.m. the next day 2.5 in had been recorded. In the southwest portion of Imperial Valley, 4 in of snow was reported that day. This was the only snowfall of record to cover the entire valley.</p><br>
<h2>Population</h2><br>
<p>The El Centro Metropolitan Area is home to 163,972 residents, according to a 2008 US Census estimate, and encompasses the whole Imperial County. The area is in the far southeast region of the State of California. Major population centers are Brawley, Calexico, and El Centro, which is the county seat.</p><br>
<p>Imperial County had the largest percentage increase in population in California between 2008 and 2009 in the state, according to the California Department of Finance. The county had a population growth rate of 2.2 percent between July 1, 2008, and July 1, 2009. The county’s growth rate has consistently been one of the top 10 out of 58 counties in California for the past six years. Last year’s growth rate was 2.43 percent.</p><br>
<p>El Centro is the largest industrial center of the Imperial Valley, being the center of shipping exports as well as being home to retail, transportation, wholesale, and agricultural industries. There are also two international border crossings nearby for commercial and noncommercial vehicles. The city&#39;s population was 37,835 at the 2000 census. The 2006 population is 40,563. The city is 50 ft below sea level and the largest city in the United States below sea level. Fifty percent of the jobs in El Centro come from the service and retail sector.</p><br>
<h3>Regions</h3><br>
<p>Imperial Valley can loosely categorize its cities and communities into three regions: the Salton Beach Towns, Desert Cities, and the El Centro area (urbanized Imperial). The Salton Sea Beach Towns have the smallest cities but were resorts in their heyday and have since shrunk in population and size due to the current state of the Salton Sea. The cities and communities of the desert region are outliers in that they are away from urbanized Imperial and tend to be smaller in population than the cities surrounding El Centro. Cities of the El Centro area tend to be larger than those of the desert and Salton regions.</p><br>
<h3>Imperial Valley cities</h3><br>
<h4>Cities over 10,000 population</h4><br>
<p>Brawley</p><br>
<p>Calexico</p><br>
<p>El Centro (county seat)</p><br>
<p>Imperial</p><br>
<h4>Cities under 10,000 population</h4><br>
<p>Calipatria</p><br>
<p>Holtville</p><br>
<p>Westmorland</p><br>
<h4>Towns over 1,000 population</h4><br>
<p>Desert Shores</p><br>
<p>Heber</p><br>
<p>Niland</p><br>
<p>Salton City</p><br>
<p>Seeley</p><br>
<h4>Towns under 1,000 population</h4><br>
<p>Bombay Beach</p><br>
<p>Ocotillo</p><br>
<p>Palo Verde</p><br>
<p>Salton Sea Beach</p><br>
<p>Winterhaven</p><br>
<h3>Urban areas of the region</h3><br>
<p>The El Centro, CA MSA is a multicore metropolitan region containing several urban areas. While most urban areas are located in the metropolitan area, the Yuma, AZ CA-AZ urban area spills over into Winterhaven. Populations are from the USA Census Bureau.</p><br>
<h2>Economics</h2><br>
<p>Imperial County’s economy consists predominantly of government, agriculture, and retail trade that represents approximately 70% of total county employment. Government services account for over one-third of total employment. Agriculture accounts for one-fourth of jobs with major crops of alfalfa, lettuce, sugar beets and carrots. Retail growth has been experienced due to increased population in the Imperial and Mexicali Valleys. In 2005, the Imperial Valley Mall opened, attracting shoppers from the Valley area, including residents and tourists across the border from Mexicali, greatly contributing to the county’s retail sales.</p><br>
<h3>Tourism</h3><br>
<p>Tourism is considered the secondary industry of the Imperial Valley. Many visitors come to the area to visit the Salton Sea (California&#39;s largest inland lake, which serves as a dumpout point for the overflow and drainage from the IID canal system and ditch drainage) and the Algodones Dunes. The New River and the Alamo River flow from the border city of Mexicali northward to the Salton Sea.</p><br>
<p>Another popular destination is the Salton Sea mud pots and volcanoes. These mud pots and volcanoes are located in an open field on the eastern side of the Salton Sea. The mud is just above ambient temperature and you can walk right up to the vents. However, this is a natural system and temperatures will vary. Caution is advised. The location is host to a number of gray cones reaching heights of six feet (2 m) and depressions filled with bubbling mud. These features are the result of the geothermal activity in the area.</p><br>
<p>Off-roading on ATV&#39;s is another popular activity during the winter months. Heber Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area is located south of El Centro and is primarily an off-roading destination. The valley sand dune recreation area draws hundreds of thousands of off-road enthusiasts on good weekends. Bird-watching is a popular activity, with abundant natural habitat and rare species. The Imperial Valley has an array of excellent golf courses for all levels. Golf courses are in Holtville, Brawley and El Centro.</p><br>
<h3>Sites of interest</h3><br>
<h4>Fort Yuma</h4><br>
<p>Fort Yuma is located on the banks of the Colorado River in Winterhaven, California. First established after the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848, it was originally located in the bottoms near the Colorado River, less than 1 mi below the mouth of the Gila River. It was to defend the newly settled community of Yuma, Arizona on the other side of the Colorado River and the nearby Mexican border. In March 1851 the post was moved to a small elevation on the Colorado&#39;s west bank, opposite the present city of Yuma, Arizona, on the site of the former Mission Puerto de Purísima Concepción. This site had been occupied by Camp Calhoun, named for John C. Calhoun, established in 1849. Fort Yuma was established to protect the southern emigrant travel route to California and to attempt control of the warlike Yuma Indians in the surrounding 100 mi area.</p><br>
<h4>Blue Angels</h4><br>
<p>NAF El Centro is the winter home of the USA Navy Flight Demonstration Squadron, The Blue Angels. NAF El Centro historically kicks off the Blue Angels&#39; season with their first air show, traditionally held in March.</p><br>
<h4>Imperial Valley Expo & Fairgrounds</h4><br>
<p>The Imperial Valley Expo & Fairgrounds is home to the California Mid-Winter Fair and Fiesta, which is the local county fair. It is also home to the Imperial Valley Speedway, a 3/8 mi race track.</p><br>
<h4>Algodones Sand Dunes</h4><br>
<p>The name Algodones Dunes refers to the entire geographic feature, while the administrative designation for that portion managed by the Bureau of Land Management is the "Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area" (sometimes called the "Glamis Dunes"). The Algodones Sand Dunes are the largest mass of sand dunes in California. This dune system extends for more than 40 mi along the eastern edge of the Imperial Valley agricultural region in a band averaging 5 mi in width. A major east-west route of the Union Pacific railroad skirts the eastern edge. The dune system is divided into 3 areas. The northernmost area is known as Mammoth Wash. South of Mammoth Wash is the North Algodones Dunes Wilderness established by the 1994 California Desert Protection Act. This area is closed to motorized use and access is by hiking and horseback. The largest and most heavily used area begins at Highway 78 and continues south just past Interstate 8. The expansive dune formations offer picturesque scenery, a chance to view rare plants and animals, and a playground for ATV and off-roading enthusiasts. The dunes are also popular in film-making and have been the site for movies such as Return of the Jedi.</p><br>
<h4>Colorado River</h4><br>
<p>The Colorado River is a popular destination for water sports including fishing, boating, water-skiing, and jet-skiing. The Colorado River is a river in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico, approximately 2,330 km long, draining a part of the arid regions on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains. The natural course of the river flows from north of Grand Lake, Colorado into the Gulf of California. For many months out of the year, however, no water actually flows from the United States to the gulf, due to human consumption.</p><br>
<h4>Salvation Mountain</h4><br>
<p>Salvation Mountain (location 33&deg;15&prime;14.9&Prime;N latitude, 115&deg;28&prime;21.4&Prime;W longitude) is a colorful artificial mountain north of Calipatria, California, near Slab City. It is made from adobe, straw, and thousands of gallons of paint. It was created by Leonard Knight to convey the message that "God Loves Everyone". Mr. Knight refused substantial donations of money and labor from supporters who wished to modify his message of universal love to favor or disfavor particular groups.</p><br>
<h4>Anza-Borrego Desert State Park</h4><br>
<p>Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, portions of which are located in Imperial County, is the largest state park in California. 500 mi of dirt roads, 12 wilderness areas and miles of hiking trails provide visitors with an unparalleled opportunity to experience the wonders of the Colorado Desert. The park is named after Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza and the Spanish name borrego, or bighorn sheep. The park features washes, wildflowers, palm groves, cacti and sweeping vistas. Visitors may also have the chance to see greater roadrunners, golden eagles, kit foxes, southern mule deer and Peninsular bighorn sheep, as well as desert iguanas, chuckwallas, and sidewinders.</p><br>
<h4>Fossil Canyon and Painted Gorge</h4><br>
<p>Located near Ocotillo, California in the Coyote Mountains, Fossil Canyon and the surrounding area is a great place for rock hounding and fossil hunting. The fossils here are not dinosaurs, but ancient shells, coral, and oysters from the Miocene epoch when the area was underwater.</p><br>
<p>The Painted Gorge, located on the eastern side of the Coyote Mountains, consists of sedimentary, metamorphic and igneous rocks. Heat and movement over time has created fantastic shapes and colors. Oranges, reds, purples, and mauves mixed with browns and blacks create a palette of color as the sun illuminates and plays shadows upon this geologic wonder.</p><br>
<h4>Imperial NWR</h4><br>
<p>The Imperial National Wildlife Refuge protects wildlife habitat along 30 mi of the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California, including the last un-channeled section before the river enters Mexico. The river and its associated backwater lakes and wetlands are a green oasis, contrasting with the surrounding desert mountains. It is a refuge and breeding area for migratory birds and local desert wildlife.</p><br>
<h4>Sonny Bono Salton Sea NWR</h4><br>
<p>The Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge is located 40 mi north of the Mexican border at the southern end of the Salton Sea in California’s Imperial Valley. Situated along the Pacific Flyway, the refuge is the only one of its kind, located 227 ft below sea level. Because of its southern latitude, elevation and location in the Colorado Desert, the refuge experiences some of the highest temperatures in the nation. Daily temperatures from May to October generally exceed 100 &deg;F with temperatures of 116-120 &deg;F recorded yearly.</p><br>
<h4>Mexicali</h4><br>
<p>The border city of Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico, offers big-city amenities like museums, a zoo, a sports convention center, and an international airport. Visitors cross by foot or car from Calexico, California in the United States every day. Restaurants and taco stands, pharmacies, bars and dance clubs are part of the draw for the citys tourists. Many shops and stalls selling Mexican crafts and souvenirs are also located in walking distance from the border. Also many residents from California, Arizona and Nevada look for medical and dental services in Mexicali, because they tend to be less expensive than those in the United States. Mexicos drinking age of 18 (vs. 21 in the United States) makes it a common weekend destination for many high school and college-aged Southern Californians. The town was near the epicenter of the 2010 Baja California earthquake (on Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010).</p><br>
<h3>Agriculture</h3><br>
<p>Although this region is in the Colorado Desert section of the Sonoran Desert, with high temperatures and low average rainfall of 3 in per year, the economy is heavily based on agriculture due to irrigation, which is supplied wholly from the Colorado River via the All-American Canal. Thousands of acres of prime farmland have transformed the desert into one of the most productive farming regions in California with an annual crop production of over $1 billion. Agriculture is the largest industry in the Imperial Valley and accounts for 48% of all employment. An environmental cost is that, south of the canal, the Colorado River no longer flows above ground at all for much of the year into Mexico.</p><br>
<p>A vast system of canals, check dams, and pipelines carry the water all over the valley, a system which forms the Imperial Irrigation District, or IID. The water distribution system includes over 1,400 mi of canal and with 1,100 mi of pipeline. The number of canal and pipeline branches number roughly over a hundred. Imported water and a long growing season allow two crop cycles each year, and the Imperial Valley is a major source of winter fruits and vegetables, cotton, and grain for USA and international markets. Alfalfa is another major crop produced in the Imperial Valley. The agricultural lands are served by a constructed agricultural drain system, which conveys surface runoff and subsurface drainage from fields to the Salton Sea, which is a designated repository for agricultural runoff, with environmental considerations not yet solved.</p><br>
<p>All-American Canal</p><br>
<p>All-American Canal Bridge</p><br>
<p>Alamo Canal</p><br>
<p>Coachella Canal</p><br>
<p>Imperial Irrigation District</p><br>
<p>Imperial Land Company</p><br>
<p>California Development Company</p><br>
<h2>Renewable energy</h2><br>
<p>Imperial Valley has become a "hot-bed" of renewable energy projects, both solar and geothermal. This is driven in part by Californias mandate to generate 33% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, the valleys excellent sun resources, the high unemployment, its proximity to large population centers on the coast, and large tracts of otherwise unusable desert land.</p><br>
<p>Much of the land suitable for green energy is owned by the federal government (Bureau of Land Management). As of April 2008, the BLM has received 163 applications to build renewable energy projects on 1,600,000 acre in California, "almost all of them are planned for the Imperial Valley and the desert region north of the valley." Stirling Energy Systems is currently building one of the world&#39;s largest solar thermal plants, 10 square miles with 38,000 "sun catchers," it will power up to 600,000 homes once it is fully operational by around 2015. CalEnergy currently runs a geothermal plant that generates 340 megawatts, enough power for 300,000 homes, and could tap into more for up to 2.5 million homes.</p><br>
<p>In addition, in 2012 Synthetic Genomics bought an 81 acre site in the Imperial Valley to produce algae fuel with their engineered algae strains, as well as other algae products such as food.</p><br>
<h2>Demographics</h2><br>
<p>The Imperial and Mexicali Valleys share a common international bond of both American and Hispanic cultures. On the USA side, the majority of residents are of Mexican-American or Latino heritage, while the Mexican side has been greatly influenced by American culture by the USA for many decades. The entire valley has multi-racial representation of Africans, Europeans, east and south Asians, and Native Americans.</p><br>
<p>As of the census of 2000, there were 142,361 people, 39,384 households, and 31,467 families residing in the county. The population density was 34 people per square mile (13/km²). There were 43,891 housing units at an average density of 10 per square mile (4/km²). The racial makeup of the county was 49.4% white, 4.0% black or African American, 1.9% Native American, 2.0% Asian, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 39.1% from other races, and 3.7% from two or more races. 72.2% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. 65.7% spoke Spanish and 32.3% English as their first language.</p><br>
<p>There were 39,384 households out of which 46.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 57.7% were married couples living together, 17.1% had a female householder with no husband present, and 20.1% were non-families. 17.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 8.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 3.33 and the average family size was 3.77. In the county the population was spread out with 31.4% under the age of 18, 9.9% from 18 to 24, 30.4% from 25 to 44, 18.2% from 45 to 64, and 10.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females there were 109.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 111.4 males.</p><br>
<h3>Politics</h3><br>
<p>Imperial County is a Democratic stronghold in Presidential, Congressional, and local elections. The last Republican to win a majority in the county was George H. W. Bush in 1988.</p><br>
<p>On November 4, 2008, Imperial County voted 69.7% for Proposition 8, which amended the California Constitution to ban same-sex marriages, showing more support for the proposition than any other strongly Democratic county.</p><br>
<p>Imperial County is in. In the state legislature, the county is in, and.</p><br>
<p>The median income for a household in the county was $31,870, and the median income for a family was $35,226. Males had a median income of $32,775 versus $23,974 for females. The per capita income for the county was $13,239. About 19.4% of families and 22.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 28.7% of those under age 18 and 13.6% of those age 65 or over.</p><br>
<h2>Education</h2><br>
<h3>Schools in the Imperial Valley</h3><br>
<p>The Imperial Valley has many schools to offer education; high schools, middle/junior high school, elementary schools, and college. Central Union High School, Southwest High School, Calexico High School Holtville High School, Imperial High School, and Brawley Union High School are some of the high schools Imperial Valley has to offer. Imperial Valley College, located in Imperial, California, and SDSU Imperial Valley Extension, located in Calexico, California, are the colleges the Imperial Valley has to offer. The valley also offers a partnership between the local community college, Imperial Valley College, and SDSUs extension which offers a four-year bachelors degree for students in the area. The program was formally named imperial Valley Partnership University. This partnership was intended to provide students in the valley the opportunity to stay within the area while being able to acquire a bachelors degree for an affordable price without having to transfer to a distant four-year university. The program hosted its first cohorts in the Fall of 2012 and since then has offered various academic programs such as Criminal Justice, History, Liberal Studies, Psychology, Public Administration, and Spanish. Imperial Valley University Program, respectably known as IVUP, has not only offered affordable education and the opportunity to stay local for students in the Imperial Valley, but it has also provided priority registration, scholarship opportunities, and the ability to use resources from both the IVCs and SDSU&#39;s campuses. IVUP continues to expand in each academic term and actively does outreach throughout different high schools in the valley by performing presentations and one-on-one interviews with students who express interest.</p><br>
<h2>Transportation</h2><br>
<h3>Major highways</h3><br>
<p>Interstate 8</p><br>
<p>State Route 7</p><br>
<p>State Route 78</p><br>
<p>State Route 86</p><br>
<p>State Route 98</p><br>
<p>State Route 111</p><br>
<p>State Route 115</p><br>
<h3>Public transportation</h3><br>
<p>Greyhound Lines</p><br>
<p>Imperial Valley Transit</p><br>
<p>Yuma County Area Transit</p><br>
<p>Amtrak</p><br>
<h3>Airports</h3><br>
<p>Imperial County Airport is the main airport in the county. It is primarily a general aviation airport with limited commercial flight service. The major nearby airport is the San Diego International Airport.</p><br>
<h2>Culture</h2><br>
<p>Robert A. Heinlein&#39;s science fiction short story "Water Is for Washing" (Argosy, November 1947) was based on the premise that an earthquake had catastrophically shattered the range of deposits separating the Imperial Valley from the Gulf of California, precipitating a tidal wave moving north to transiently drown these lowlands. At the beginning of the story, Heinlein uses the character of a bartender in El Centro to establish the danger of the quake and inundation:</p><br>
<p>Youve heard about the 1905 flood, when the Colorado River spilled over and formed the Salton Sea? But dont be too sure about quakes; valleys below sea level don&#39;t just grow—something has to cause them. The San Andreas Fault curls around this valley like a question mark. Just imagine the shake-up it must have taken to drop thousands of square miles below the level of the Pacific.</p><br>
<p>Heinlein&#39;s perspective character is a traveling businessman who had picked up two chance-encountered children and a vagrant while driving frantically to higher ground, and the dramatic arc centers on the efforts of the men to survive and save the youngsters from drowning.</p><br>
<p>Due to its desert environment and proximity to Los Angeles, California, movies are sometimes filmed in the sand dunes outside the agricultural portions of the Imperial Valley. These have included</p><br>
<p>American Sniper</p><br>
<p>Return of the Jedi</p><br>
<p>Independence Day</p><br>
<p>Stargate</p><br>
<p>The Scorpion King</p><br>
<p>Patriot Games</p><br>
<p>Into the Wild</p><br>
<p>The Men who Stare at Goats</p><br>
<p>La Bamba</p><br>
<p>The original Flight of the Phoenix (1965) was filmed outside of Holtville.</p><br>
<p>The Tom Cruise movie Losin&#39; It (1983) was filmed in Calexico.</p><br>
<p>Additionally, portions of the 2005 film Jarhead were filmed here because of its similarity to the desert terrain of Iraq. Mountains that were visible in the background during filming were digitally removed during postproduction.</p><br>
<h2>Notables</h2><br>
<p>Cher, entertainer</p><br>
<p>Mike Mohamed, NFL linebacker</p><br>
<p>Edith Summers Kelley, author</p><br>
<p>Sergio Romo, MLB pitcher</p><br>
<p>Rudy Seánez, former MLB pitcher</p><br>
<p>Robert Thomas, NFL linebacker</p><br>
<p>The Grand Canal  is the southernmost of a pair of canals that connect Dublin, in the east of Ireland, with the River Shannon in the west, via Tullamore and a number of other villages and towns, the two canals nearly encircling Dublin&#39;s inner city. Its sister canal on the Northside of Dublin is the Royal Canal. The last working cargo barge passed through the Grand Canal in 1960.</p><br>
<h2>Branches</h2><br>
<p>Main line to Grand Canal Harbour near St. James&#39;s Gate</p><br>
<p>Most of the route is now used by the Luas. While this section was in use, the canal from Crumlin to the Liffey in Ringsend, which forms part of the current main line, was considered to be a branch.</p><br>
<p>Naas/Corbally</p><br>
<p>Navigable to Naas, but a low bridge prevents access to Corbally</p><br>
<p>Barrow, joining the River Barrow at Athy</p><br>
<p>Milltown feeder</p><br>
<p>The Mountmellick Line, which left the Barrow Line at Monasterevin and passed through Portarlington (abandoned)</p><br>
<p>Blackwood feeder (abandoned)</p><br>
<p>Lough Boora feeder (abandoned)</p><br>
<p>Edenderry</p><br>
<p>Kilbeggan (abandoned)</p><br>
<p>Ballinasloe (starting on the far side of the River Shannon from Shannon Harbour; abandoned and now used by Bord na Móna industrial railway)</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The idea of connecting Dublin to the Shannon was proposed as early as 1715, and in 1757 the Irish Parliament granted Thomas Omer £20,000 to start construction of a canal. By 1759 he reported that 3 km in the Bog of Allen and 13 km of canal from the River Liffey near Sallins towards Dublin were complete. By 1763 he had completed 3 locks and 6 bridges towards Dublin and was concentrating on establishing a water supply from the Morell River near Sallins. At this point the Corporation of Dublin realised that the canal could be used to improve the water supply to the city, and put up the money to complete the canal into the city. But when the canal was filled, the banks gave way and the city didn&#39;t obtain its water. By 1768, £77,000 had been spent on the project and little more was forthcoming.</p><br>
<p>In 1772 the Grand Canal Company was established by a group of noblemen and merchants, including public subscription, to ensure the future of the canal and to tackle the biggest barrier to the canal, the Bog of Allen. This was a new venture for canals. The company invited John Smeaton and his assistant William Jessop to Ireland for two weeks to advise them. Smeaton made a recommendation to skirt round the bog but to build the canal at the full height, in contrast to Omer&#39;s efforts which attempted to drain parts of the bog and build at a lower level. This was to prove an expensive mistake, although he also advised reducing the generous locks that Omer had built (42m by 6 m / 137 ft by 20 ft) to 18m by 4m (60 ft by 14 ft), which would bring about considerable savings in the total cost of the canal.</p><br>
<p>The canal from Sallins was finally opened to traffic in 1779 and a twice-weekly passenger service from Sallins to Dublin started in 1780. The canal was extended to Robertstown in 1784, including the Leinster Aqueduct across the Liffey, constructed by Richard Evans, and to a junction with the River Barrow at Athy by 1791. The circular line through Dublin from Portobello to Ringsend, where large docks adjacent to the Liffey were constructed, was started in 1790 and opened in 1796. The company had by then turned its attention to completing the link with the Shannon. Getting across the Bog of Allen took more than five years of struggle under the guidance of Jessop, who attempted to use walls of clay to support the walls of the canal. Though the canal was opened to Daingean (then Philipstown) in 1797, serious breaches occurred and Jessop was forced to abandon this method. The continuation to the Shannon then continued under the leadership of John Killaly, who succeeded in crossing another bog by carrying out drainage works for several years before construction. The work was substantially completed in 1803, but because of leakages and a dry summer the official opening had to be delayed until April 1804. The canal had taken 47 years to build, advancing at a rate of 7.7 cm (3 inches) per day.</p><br>
<p>The whole work had cost in the region of £877,000 and it was some years before it began to make a profit, although regular dividends had been paid to shareholders. Trade increased from 100,000 tons in 1800 to double that in 1810. Revenues from passenger boats also increased to £90,000 by that date. (The novel The Kellys and the O&#39;Kellys (1848) by Anthony Trollope includes a description of a tedious journey by passenger flyboat from Portobello to Ballinasloe.) But the long saga had prompted a rival venture, the Royal Canal, which started construction in 1790 and was finally opened in 1817 after the government had stepped in to resolve disputes between the two compa</p><br>
<h2>Route</h2><br>
<p>The Grand Canal begins in Grand Canal Dock at the River Liffey, and continues through to the River Shannon. It passes through Ringsend and traverses the southside, delineating the northern extremities of Ballsbridge, Ranelagh, Rathmines, Harolds Cross and Crumlin. This section, known as the Circular Line, has seven locks. The path of the original main line, which serviced the Grand Canal Harbour, the City Basin (reservoir) and Guinness brewery, can be seen at Inchicore. Most of the route of this line now runs alongside the Red Luas Line.</p><br>
<p>From Suir Road Bridge, the lock numbering starts again at 1 as the canal heads west through the suburbs of Dublin West and into Kildare. At Sallins the Naas/Corbally branch diverts southwards, while the Grand Canal continues west passing Caragh, Prosperous and Robertstown, its highest point. Just outside Sallins, the canal passes over the River Liffey at the Leinster Aqueduct. Just east of Robertstown is the location where the Blackwood Feeder used to join the canal, whilst just to the west can be found the busiest junction on the canal where the Old Barrow Line, Milltown Feeder and the entrances to the Athy & Barrow Navigation meet. Further west, the canal passes Edenderry, Tullamore and Rahan before it reaches the Shannon at Shannon Harbour in County Offaly. In total the main line of the canal is 131 km with 43 locks, five of which are double locks.</p><br>
<h2>Disasters</h2><br>
<p>In December 1792, there was a major accident on the Grand Canal. A passage boat left Dublin bound for Athy. It seems that one hundred and fifty people, many of them drunk, forced their way onto a barge, in spite of the captain warning them that the boat would capsize if they did not leave. Near the eighth lock, five men, four women and two children drowned when the boat capsized. The rest of the passengers escaped.</p><br>
<p>On the evening of Saturday, 6 April 1861 in Portobello Harbour, a horse-drawn bus, driven by Patrick Hardy, had just dropped a passenger on the canal when one of the horses started to rear. The horses backed the bus through the wooden rails of the bridge. The bus, horses and six passengers inside the bus, plunged into the cold waters and were drowned. The conductor was able to jump clear and the driver was pulled from the water by a passing policeman.</p><br>
<h2>Ownership</h2><br>
<p>Until 1950 the Grand Canal Company had ownership of the canal, when the transferred the canal to Córas Iompair Éireann. This situation continued until the gave it to the Office of Public Works. Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, a new all-Ireland body called Waterways Ireland was established in 1999 and assumed responsibility for most inland navigable waterways including the Grand Canal.</p><br>
<h2>Grand Canal Way</h2><br>
<p>The Grand Canal Way is a 117 km long-distance trail that follows the towpath of the canal from Lucan Bridge, near Adamstown, to Shannon Harbour. It is typically completed in five days. It is designated as a National Waymarked Trail by the National Trails Office of the Irish Sports Council and is managed by Waterways Ireland. At Robertstown, the Grand Canal Way intersects with the Barrow Way, which follows the Barrow Line extension to the canal to Athy for part of its route. There is also an 8.5 km long greenway between the 3rd Lock at Inchicore and the 12th Lock at Lucan, which opened in June 2010.</p><br>
<p>Tanagra  is a town and a municipality north of Athens in Boeotia, Greece. The seat of the municipality is the town Schimatari. It is not far from Thebes, and it was noted in antiquity for the figurines named after it. The Tanagra figurines were a mass-produced, mold-cast and fired type of Greek terracotta figurines produced from the later fourth century BCE, primarily in Tanagra.</p><br>
<h2>Government</h2><br>
<p>The municipality Tanagra was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 4 former municipalities, that became municipal units:</p><br>
<p>Dervenochoria</p><br>
<p>Oinofyta</p><br>
<p>Schimatari</p><br>
<p>Tanagra</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Ancient</h3><br>
<p>Pausanias mentions in Tanagras location the ancient city of Graea, eponymous of the Graikoi, a Boeotian tribe whose name gave rise to the Latin Graecus "Greek". Homer, while reciting the Boeotian forces in the Iliad s Catalogue of Ships, provides the first known reference to the Boeotian city of Graea.</p><br>
<p>Tanagra&#39;s alternative name was Poimandria, after its founder Poimandros, who took part in the Trojan campaign.</p><br>
<p>It was the site of two Battles of Tanagra, in 457 BC and 426 BC.</p><br>
<p>The Boeotian League under Tanagra led forth "the Boeotians" against the Athenian invaders at Oenophyta, 62 days after the battle of Tanagra (See Battle of Oenophyta)</p><br>
<h3>Modern</h3><br>
<p>In the early 2000s, a military plane which was on a training flight crashed on the runway during bad weather. There were no survivors.</p><br>
<p>On Sunday 18 September 2005, the Archangelos air show, the largest ever organized in Greece, took place in Tanagra. It attracted a crowd of more than 200,000.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The municipality has an area of 461.023 km, the municipal unit 122.527 km, the community 27.814 km. Tanagra is located SE of Thiva and Arma, SW of Schimatari and NW of Agios Thomas. Farmlands surround the rest of Tanagra, and the Asopus River along with the Parnitha mountains to the south.</p><br>
<h2>Demographics</h2><br>
<h2>Economy</h2><br>
<p>Since 1956, the 114th Combat Wing of the Hellenic Air Force has been based at Tanagra Air Force Base. The base is one of Greece&#39;s largest military bases. Its runway is about 3 km in length.</p><br>
<h2>Transport</h2><br>
<p>Tanagra can be accessed by GR-1 in the north and by a provincial road linking Thiva (Thebes) in the west.</p><br>
<p>Tanagra is served by two interchanges, a partial southbound exit, a northbound entrance to the northwest and an almost-full to the east, serving access to highways 44 and 77 to the island of Euboea. Its service road lies to the south and is linked with the southeast bypass and to the military base.</p><br>
