<p>Tiga Island  is one of a group of small uninhabited islands in Kimanis Bay off the western coast of Sabah, Malaysia. The islands were formed on 21 September 1897, when an earthquake on Mindanao caused a volcanic eruption near Borneo. The island is 607 hectare in size and has a couple of active mud volcanos at the highest part of the island.</p><br>
<p>Tiga Island is one of the three islands that make up Tiga Island National Park. The Park Headquarters are on the island, comprising an office complex, and accommodation for the park staff and visiting scientists.</p><br>
<h2>Transportation</h2><br>
<p>Located 48 km south of Kota Kinabalu and the Tunku Abdul Rahman National Park, Tiga Island National Park is reached by driving the 140 km to Kuala Penyu, a small settlement on the tip of the Klias Peninsula.</p><br>
<p>From here it is another 18 km, or about 30 minutes, by boat. Another way of getting there is by chartering a speed boat from Kota Kinabalu and cruise to Tiga Island, or fly to Labuan and charter a speed boat from Labuan.</p><br>
<h2>In the media</h2><br>
<p>Tiga Island became well known through the Survivor television series. It was the setting of Survivor: Borneo, the first American season of the show. It was also the setting of the first seasons of the British shows. The island was also rumoured to be the setting of the upcoming third season of Australian Survivor. However, it was later revealed that Samoa would be used as the location for the series.</p><br>
<h2>Photo gallery</h2><br>
<p>The Old Man of Coniston is a fell in the Furness Fells in the English Lake District. It is 2,634 ft high, and lies to the west of the village of Coniston and the lake of the same name, Coniston Water. The fell is sometimes known by the alternative name of Coniston Old Man, or simply The Old Man. The mountain is popular with tourists and fell-walkers with a number of well-marked paths to the summit. The mountain has also seen extensive slate mining activity for eight hundred years and the remains of abandoned mines and spoil tips are a significant feature of the north-east slopes. There are also several flocks of sheep that are grazed on the mountain.</p><br>
<h2>Highest fell controversy</h2><br>
<p>The Old Man is the highest point in the historic county of Lancashire (administratively in Cumbria). This assertion rests upon its being higher than its near northern neighbour, Swirl How. There appears to be some doubt in the current literature over whether the height of Swirl How is 802 or 804 m, following resurveying. If modern measurement has not added 2 m to its rival then The Old Man of Coniston is the highest point in the Furness Fells, and the twelfth most prominent mountain in England.</p><br>
<h2>Topography</h2><br>
<p>The central part of the Coniston range can be likened to an inverted Y with Brim Fell at the connecting point of the three arms. The main spine of the ridge runs north over Swirl How and Great Carrs and south west to Dow Crag and the lower hills beyond. The third arm is a truncated spur, running only half a mile to the summit of the Old Man before tumbling away south eastward to the valley floor. This ridge end position gives the fell a sense of isolation and increased stature, with steep faces on three sides.</p><br>
<p>To the west is the deep trench containing Goat’s Water. This elongated tarn has a depth of about 50 ft. and contains trout and char. Enclosed by high ground, it has an outlet to the south through a field of boulders. This is one of the headwaters of Torver Beck, which passes a disused quarry near the Tranearth climbing hut, keeping the workings topped up via an artificial but extremely picturesque waterfall. The stream finally issues into Coniston Water to the south of Torver village.</p><br>
<p>The southern and eastern flanks of The Old Man are composed of rough ground, deeply pockmarked by slate quarries. One of these quarries, Bursting Stone, is still operating to produce an olive green slate. Across the southern slopes runs the Walna Scar Road. This was the original trade route between Coniston village and the settlements of the Duddon Valley and is a public restricted byway.</p><br>
<p>The first section rising steeply from Coniston is a metalled road, maintained partly to provide access to the quarry. This leads to a carpark at an altitude of 740 ft, a popular starting point for climbs. Beyond here motor vehicles are prohibited, but the track continues to its summit at 2,000 ft, crossing the ridge to the south of Dow Crag.</p><br>
<p>Coniston Old Man has no connecting ridges other than that to Brim Fell, but a discernible rib falls due east via Stubthwaite Crag and Crowberry Haws. Below the tourist route path, this rib climbs again to The Bell, a fine rocky top (1,099 ft) with excellent views of the lake and village.</p><br>
<p>Nestling beneath the northern face of The Old Man, and cradled between it and Raven’s Tor, is Low Water. This fine corrie tarn has been dammed in the past to provide water for the quarries, but all of its water now issues via a fine cascade of falls into the Coppermines Valley. This area, shared with the neighbouring fells of Brim Fell and Wetherlam, is heavily scarred by historic copper, nickel and cobalt mining, particularly in the latter half of the 19th century.</p><br>
<h2>Summit</h2><br>
<p>The summit of the fell carries a unique construction, a combined slate platform and cairn. The popularity of this climb has resulted in the resident sheep being quite tame, and they show no fear in rifling unwatched bags for food. The extensive view from the summit on a clear day includes much of the southern Lake District, Morecambe Bay, Blackpool Tower, Winter Hill in the Pennines, the Lancashire coast and the Isle of Man. Perhaps the highlight is the close-up view of Dow Crag.</p><br>
<h2>Ascents</h2><br>
<p>The fell is normally climbed from Coniston village via Church Beck and the mines. Alternatives include the south ridge and the path to Goat’s Water, both ascending from the Walna Scar Road. The carpark at the top of the metalled section provides a headstart for these routes. The Walna Scar Road can also be reached from Torver, or from Seathwaite in the Duddon Valley, although the latter results in an indirect climb via Dow Crag.</p><br>
<h2>Mining</h2><br>
<p>Coniston copper mines are reputed to be some of the largest copper mines in Britain, with a vertical distance of around 2,000 ft. On the Coniston Old Man itself, slate replaced copper, and over several hundred years, the Old Man Slate Quarries & Mines became some of the largest in England.</p><br>
<p>The Old Man slate quarries were believed to have started in the 12-13th centuries, although there is little evidence on site of this. By the 1500s the quarries, working a kind of volcanic slate silver-grey in colour, were well established. The earliest major working shortly after this period was probably at Low Water Quarry, where slate was prized in an opencast manner from cuttings near the summit, Scald Kop Quarry, where a large underground cavern was formed from slate extraction on the surface, and the Saddlestone Quarry, again consisting of two caves where slate had been quarried to form underground workings.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>The Old Man is within the outcrop of the Ordovician Borrowdale Volcanic Group. A band of the dacitic lapilli-tuffs of the Lag Bank Formation crosses the summit. The southern slopes show the volcaniclastic sandstones of the Seathwaite Fell Formation, while the rhyolitic tuffs of the Paddy End Member stretch from north of the summit toward the Coppermines.</p><br>
<h2>Influence</h2><br>
<p>The Old Man of Coniston is the inspiration for Kanchenjunga, the mountain Arthur Ransome&#39;s Swallows and Amazons climb in the Swallows and Amazons novel Swallowdale. The slate quarries and copper mines inspired Pigeon Post, a later novel in the same series.</p><br>
<p>The River Rivelin is a river in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England.</p><br>
<p>It rises on the Hallam moors, in north west Sheffield, and joins the River Loxley (at Malin Bridge). The Rivelin Valley, through which the river flows, is a three and a half mile long woodland valley which includes the popular Rivelin Valley Nature Trail that was created in 1967. The valley has farmland on its gentler upper slopes.</p><br>
<p>A relatively fast-flowing river (it drops 80 metres between Rivelin Mill Bridge and Malin Bridge), the Rivelin is fed by a constant release of water from the nearby moorland peat. Its flow was exploited for centuries as a power source, driving the water wheels of up to twenty industries (forges, metal-working and flour mills) along its course.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Roman times</h3><br>
<p>There is evidence of Roman occupation of the area which comes from tablets found in April 1761 on the Stannington side of the Rivelin Valley which record the granting of land to retiring Roman auxiliaries of the Sunuci tribe. Other evidence of Roman occupation comes from finds on Walkley Bank Road, which leads onto the ridge facing Stannington.</p><br>
<h3>Medieval times</h3><br>
<p>In medieval times the Rivelin valley was part of a large tract of land set aside by the Lords of Hallamshire for deer hunting. It was known as Rivelin Chase or Firth and covered thousands of acres on the western upland outskirts of the parish of Sheffield. In 1637 John Harrison after surveying the area declared that the firth had an area of 6,863 acre. 5,531 acre of this was within Sheffield Parish with the rest in the Parish of Bradfield. Until the 20th century the River Rivelin formed the north-western boundary of Sheffield.</p><br>
<h3>Industrial past</h3><br>
<p>The Valley possesses 21 artificially created ponds, testament to the twenty mills which were once present on the river. Though most of the mills and forges no longer exist, the ponds which used to feed them do, thanks to the support of the Rivelin Valley Conservation Group (RVCG) and Yorkshire Water. Some of the more famous mills (from west to east) are as follows:</p><br>
<h4>Rivelin Corn Mill</h4><br>
<p>The mostly westerly site, stands at the foot of Rails Road. This mill dates from 1600 when it was owned by Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury. By 1830 there were two waterwheels powering three grinding stones, however problems with the water supply in the summer meant that the mill was often not working at full capacity. The mill continued operating until the 1930s after which the buildings quickly fell into disrepair and were demolished in the early 1950s with a small car parking area now occupying the site. The dam wall was damaged in 1967 by dredging work and eventually collapsed in March 2001. The RVCG and Sheffield Council filled in the pond and created a new one nearby with a pond dipping platform. The official opening was on 17 May 2007.</p><br>
<h4>Wolf Wheel</h4><br>
<p>Was built around 1722 and had one of the largest wheels in the valley with a diameter of 15 ft. It was owned by the Windle brothers between 1818 and 1852 who used it for grinding knives and razors, after which it was sold to the Water Company. The mill was in regular use until 1918, but a survey in 1934 revealed that the internal machinery had been dismantled. The pond that served the Wolf Wheel is still in fine condition and has received much attention from the RVCG. It is one of four dams that are used by fishermen in the valley and surrounding wildlife includes Dragonfly&#39;s such as the common darter Sympetrum striolatum and the common hawker, Aeshna juncea. Other wildlife includes Kingfishers, great diving beetles and amphibians such as the common frog and palmate newt.</p><br>
<h4>Hind Wheel Mill</h4><br>
<p>This is oldest mill in the valley with a recorded date of 1581 when Thomas Hind, Robert Webster and John Swynden were the owners paying £1 per year rent. It was completely rebuilt around 1820 with production coming around 1930. In October 1936 "The Sheffield Daily Independent" reported that the building had completely disappeared. The present day Round Pond which served the mill is one of the most popular in the area being stocked with trout for anglers; the surrounding area has a large variety of wildlife and there is a picnic area.</p><br>
<h4>Nether Cut Wheel</h4><br>
<p>Situated near the "S" bend on the A6101, the Nether Cut was the last mill to work in the valley; it was still grinding scythes until 1939 and was not demolished until 1956. The mill suffered some unrest and damage during the Sheffield Outrages in 1874 for using non-union labour.</p><br>
<h4>Walkley Bank Tilt</h4><br>
<p>This began as a mill making cutlery around 1750. From 1762 it was a tilt forge making farming tools before becoming a wire mill in 1901. In the 1920s it was converted to electrical power. It was one of the last mills in the valley to close as it was still working in the 1950s. The area around the dam has been upgraded for recreational use with a small car park and bench seating. The dam is popular with anglers and has a large colony of waterfowl.</p><br>
<h4>Mousehole Forge</h4><br>
<p>Located close to Malin Bridge, the forge dates back to 1628 when it was known for iron smelting and bar production. However the forge became world-famous for producing anvils which were greatly commended and won a gold medal at The Great Exhibition of 1851. It is said that the anvil at Gretna Green was made by the Mousehole Forge. Production ceased in 1933 and part of the forge is now a private house.</p><br>
<h4>Grogham Wheel</h4><br>
<p>This was the last mill in the valley before the Rivelin&#39;s confluence with the River Loxley. It had two waterwheels, with the largest known as "Groggy" being the biggest in the valley. The mill ground files and cutlery and was the only one in the valley to be damaged by the Great Sheffield Flood due to the water backing up the valley. The mill stopped production in 1933 with the buildings being demolished in August 1935 for public safety.</p><br>
<h2>Rivelin Valley Road</h2><br>
<p>Rivelin Valley Road was built in 1907 between Malin Bridge and Rivelin Mill Bridge to connect with the main Sheffield to Manchester road, now the A57. Prior to this the valley had no road, just a series of cart tracks connecting the various industrial mills. The building of the road was proposed in 1905 by the local water board, which owned the land; the Duke of Norfolk also donated 4.5 hectares of his land in the area for the project. Work started in November 1905 and provided employment for 176 unemployed men. The unemployment rate was particularly high at the time and the opportunity to provide work was a contributing factor in making the decision to build the road. Raw materials for the construction of the road were provided by Clough Field quarry on the southern slopes of the valley below Crosspool. Over 700 lime trees were purchased from Dixon’s of Chester in 1906 at a cost of £147. The limes were planted to line the road for a distance of 3.5 mi, making it the second longest lime tree avenue in Britain. The road was opened on 1 September 1907, although work was not completed until June 1908. The final cost of construction was £30,000. Local people quickly christened the road "The New Road", a name which was still being used many years later. The success of the project in providing work for the unemployed prompted Sheffield Corporation to press ahead with plans to connect the new road with the Sheffield suburbs of Crookes and Walkley. Rivelin Valley Road is now designated as the A6101.</p><br>
<p>The valley was especially loved by the "corn law rhymer" Ebenezer Elliott. There is a rock by the side of Black Brook with his name carved on it where he was renowned to sit and appreciate nature. Elliott wrote the lyrical poem "Farewell To Rivelin" in honour of the valley, with the lines:</p><br>
<h2>Significant landmarks</h2><br>
<p>As well as industrial heritage, the valley is home to much wildlife, now protected by the Rivelin Valley Conservation Group. The upper part of the valley is flanked to the north by Rivelin Rocks. The rocks re-emerge three kilometres further down the valley above the Rivelin Hotel or "The Rivelin" on Tofts Lane. Behind the Hotel is the Mans Head Rock, a once well known rock formation shown on many postcards, now hidden by mature trees. This is the only public house in the rural part of the valley; the premises were formerly farm buildings before being converted into a pub. Another public house, The Holly Bush, is situated further down the valley, closer to Malin Bridge. One of the most distinguished buildings in the valley is the former King Edward VII Hospital, a Grade II listed building, the hospital closed in 1992 and has now been converted into apartments. St Michaels Cemetery, a Catholic burial ground is situated at the Malin Bridge end of the valley. Across the road from St. Michael&#39;s is the Rivelin Valley Park a small public recreation area which includes a cafe, playground and the Rivelin splash pools which were opened in July 2013 to replace the old outdated paddling pools.</p><br>
<p>The Rivelin Dams are two water storage facilities situated in the upper part of the valley just off the A57 road. They provide drinking water for the west and south-west areas of Sheffield. The lower reservoir was built in 1845; it has a surface area of 12 hectares and holds 115,000,000 gallons of water. The smaller upper reservoir was constructed in 1848; it has an area of four hectares and holds 48,400,000 gallons. The Rivelin Water Treatment Works are situated below the reservoirs.</p><br>
<h2>Proposed flood defence scheme</h2><br>
<p>In September 2014 Sheffield City Council announced plans to construct a dam wall in the valley at one of two possible locations to create a flood storage area. In either case the dam will be over 11 m high with a 4 m wide crest. It the scheme goes ahead, it will reduce the depth of water downstream by 1.5 m during heavy rain such as those that occurred in 2007 United Kingdom floods when parts of the city were flooded.</p><br>
<p>This proposal is likely to be highly controversial if goes ahead:</p><br>
<p>the water retaining area would cover and potentially destroy or damage ancient and unique structures that are part of Sheffield&#39;s industrial heritage. This includes a stone lined tunnel dating from the 17th century.</p><br>
<p>It would also flood allotment gardens and would require the river course to change as well as to have the span of the valley that includes the nature trail covered by the dam embankment. The culvert (a concrete tunnel - maybe barred) to take the river may have to be as long as 70 metres.</p><br>
<p>There is further debate about the contribution the Rivelin played in the floods of 2007 so the maths related to this scheme will be closely scrutinised by the very concerned public. (In the council consultation 60% of people expressing an opinion opposed this scheme - indeed it was the least popular area the council nominated).</p><br>
<p>Currently an extremely popular semi wild experience with a high level of accessibility, if this plan goes ahead there is likely to be serious opposition from the people of Sheffield.</p><br>
<p>The New Siberian Islands  are an archipelago in the Extreme North of Russia, to the North of the East Siberian coast between the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea north of the Sakha  Republic.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The first news about the existence of the New Siberian Islands was brought by a Cossack, Yakov Permyakov, in the beginning of the 18th century. In 1712, a Cossack unit led by M. Vagin reached the Great Lyakhovsky Island. At the beginning of the 19th century, the islands were further explored by Yakov Sannikov, Matvei Gedenschtrom and others.</p><br>
<p>In 1809–10 Yakov Sannikov and Matvei Gedenschtrom went to the New Siberian Islands on a cartographic expedition. Yakov Sannikov reported the sighting of a "new land" north of Kotelny in 1811. This became the myth of Zemlya Sannikova or Sannikov Land.</p><br>
<p>In 1886 Eduard von Toll, during his first visit to the New Siberian Islands, thought that he had seen an unknown land north of Kotelny Island. He guessed that this was the so-called Zemlya Sannikova.</p><br>
<p>Polar explorer and scientist Eduard Toll paid a further visit to this island group in the spring of 1892, accompanied only by one Cossack and three natives. He traveled over the ice in sleds drawn by dogs and reached the south coast of Great Lyakhovsky Island.</p><br>
<p>In September 2014, the Russian Navy re-established a Soviet era naval base which had laid abandoned since 1993.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The New Siberian Islands proper, or Anzhu Islands (острова Анжу, Sakha: Анжу арыылара), covering a land area of about 29,000 km², consist of:</p><br>
<p>Kotelny Island (о. Коте́льный) 11,700 km² and</p><br>
<p>Faddeyevsky Island (о. Фадде́евский) 5,300 km² Bunge Land (земля́ Бу́нге) 6,200 km² (occasionally submerged by sea) links Kotelny Island and Faddeyevsky Island. Very close to Bunge Land&#39;s northwestern coast lie two smaller islands:</p><br>
<p>* Zheleznyakov Island (Ostrov Zheleznyakova), right off the NW cape and east of it, Matar Island (Ostrov Matar). Both islands have a length of about 5 km.</p><br>
<p>Nanosnyy Island 76.283&deg;N latitude, 140.416&deg;E longitude is a small island located due north off the northern bay formed by Kotelny and Bunge. It is C-shaped and only 4 km in length, but its importance lies in the fact that it is the northernmost island of the New Siberian group.</p><br>
<p>Novaya Sibir (о. Но́вая Сиби́рь) 6,200 km²</p><br>
<p>Belkovsky Island (о. Бельковский) 500 km²</p><br>
<p>To the south and nearer to the Siberian mainland lie the Lyakhovskiye Islands (6,095 km²):</p><br>
<p>Great Lyakhovsky Island (о. Большо́й Ля́ховский) 4,600 km²</p><br>
<p>Little Lyakhovsky Island (о. Ма́лый Ля́ховский) 1,325 km²</p><br>
<p>Stolbovoy Island (о. Столбово́й) 170 km²</p><br>
<p>Semyonovsky Island (о. Семёновский) 0 km² (now submerged)</p><br>
<p>The small De Long Islands (228 km²) lie to the north-east of Novaya Sibir.</p><br>
<p>Jeannette Island (о. Жанне́тты)</p><br>
<p>Henrietta Island (о. Генрие́тты)</p><br>
<p>Bennett Island (о. Бе́ннетта)</p><br>
<p>Vilkitsky Island (о. Вильки́цкого)</p><br>
<p>Zhokhov Island (о. Жо́хова)</p><br>
<p>The New Siberian Islands are low-lying. Their highest point is Mt. Malakatyn-Tas on Kotelny island, with an elevation of 374 m.</p><br>
<p>The New Siberian Islands once formed major hills within the Great Arctic Plain that covered the northern part of Late Pleistocene "Beringia" between Siberia and Alaska during the Last Glacial Maximum (Late Weichselian Epoch). These islands represent the remains of about 1.6 million square kilometers of the formerly subaerial Great Arctic Plain that now lies submerged below parts of the Arctic Ocean, East Siberian Sea, and Laptev Sea. At this plain&#39;s greatest extent, sea level was 100–120 m below modern sea-level and the coastline lay 700 to 1000 kilometers north of its current position. This plain did not undergo extensive glaciation during the Late Pleistocene or the Last Glacial Maximum because it lay in the rain shadow of the Northern European ice sheet. During the frigid polar climate of the Last Glacial Maximum, 17,000 to 24,000 BC, small passive ice caps formed on the adjacent De Long Islands. Fragments of these ice caps remain on Jeannette, Henrietta, and Bennett Islands. Traces of former small slope and cirque glaciers in the form of buried ground ice deposits are preserved on Zhokhov Island. The sea submerged the Great Arctic Plain (except for the New Siberian and other isolated islands) within a relatively short time span of 7,000 years during the Early–Middle Holocene.Alekseev, M.N., 1997, Paleogeography and geochronology in the Russian eastern Arctic during the second half of the Quaternary. Quaternary International. vol. 41-42, pp. 11-15.</p><br>
<p>Anisimov, M.A., and V.E. Tumskoy, 2002, 32nd International Arctic Workshop, Program and Abstracts 2002. Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado at Boulder, pp 23-25.</p><br>
<p>Schirrmeister, L., H.-W. Hubberten, V. Rachold, and V.G. Grosse, 2005, 2nd International Alfred Wegener Symposium Bremerhaven, October, 30 - November 2, 2005.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>As noted by Digby and numerous later publications, this archipelago consists of a mixture of folded and faulted sedimentary and igneous rocks ranging in age from Precambrian to Pliocene. The Lyakhovsky Islands consist of a folded and faulted assemblage of Precambrian metamorphic rocks; upper Paleozoic to Triassic sandstones and shales; Jurassic to lower Cretaceous turbidites; Cretaceous granites; and ophiolites. The Anzhu Islands consist of a highly faulted and folded assemblage of Ordovician to Devonian limestones, dolomites, sandstones, shales, volcanoclastic strata, and igneous rocks; upper Paleozoic to Triassic sandstones and shales; Jurassic to lower Cretaceous turbidites; and upper Cretaceous to Pliocene sandstones and shales. The De Long Islands consist of early Paleozoic, middle Paleozoic, Cretaceous, and Neogene sedimentary and igneous (mostly basalt) rocks. These sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks are mantled by loose Pleistocene and Holocene sediments that range in thickness from a fraction of a meter to about 35 m.</p><br>
<p>Digby who had never visited the New Siberian Islands and relied upon anecdotes of traders and travelers and local folklore for their descriptions of them, and other articles were written by explorers and ivory hunters untrained in either geology or other sciences. Such statements have been shown to be fictional in nature by detailed studies of the geology of the New Siberian Islands by professional geologists, paleontologists, and other scientists.</p><br>
<h3>Ivory deposits</h3><br>
<p>As noted by Baron Eduard V. Toll in his account of the New Siberian Islands, sizable and economically significant accumulations of fossil ivory occur within them. The ivory, along with mammoth and other bones, are found in recent beaches, drainage areas, river terraces and river beds. The New Siberian Islands are unique in the burial and preservation of fossil ivory "...in such a wonderful state of preservation that the tusks so found cannot be distinguished from the very best and purest ivory." The abundant bones, even skeletons, of mammoth, rhinoceros, musk-ox, and other megafauna along with the mammoth ivory found in these islands are preserved by permafrost, in which they are encased. The permafrost periodically developed in Late Pleistocene loess, solifluction, pond, and stream sediments as they accumulated. The radiocarbon dating of bones, ivory, and plants; optically stimulated luminescence dating of enclosing sediments; and uranium-thorium dating of associated peats demonstrate that the bones and ivory, which are found within some of the New Siberian Islands, accumulated over a period of some 200,000 years. Radiocarbon dates obtained from the collagen of 87 mammoth tusks and bones collected from Faddeevsky, Kotelniy, and New Siberia islands ranged from 9470±40 BP to greater than 50,000 BP (C). Their "wonderful state of preservation" is the result of them having been frozen in permafrost since their burial.</p><br>
<h2>Climate</h2><br>
<p>The climate is arctic and severe. Snow cover is present for 9 months of the year.</p><br>
<p>Average temperature in January: −28 °C to −31 °C</p><br>
<p>Temperature in July: At the coasts icy Arctic water lets the temperatures stay relatively low. Average maximum temperatures from +8 °C to +11 °C and average minimum temperatures from -3 °C to +1 °C. In the interior of the islands the average maximum temperatures in July are +16 °C to +19 °C and average minimum temperatures +3 °C to +6 °C.</p><br>
<p>Precipitation: up to 132 mm a year</p><br>
<p>Permafrost and underground ice are very common. The surface of the islands is covered with Arctic tundra vegetation and numerous lakes.</p><br>
<p>The ocean surrounding the islands is covered with ice most of the year. During warm years, the ocean briefly opens for navigation July through October. During cold years, islands may remain ice-locked through the summer.</p><br>
<p>Polar night conditions are present November through February, and, conversely, the Sun remains above the horizon continuously during summer months.</p><br>
<h2>Photo gallery</h2><br>
<p>Yushan, also Mount Jade or Mount Yu, is the highest mountain in Taiwan at 3,952 m above sea level, giving Taiwan the fourth highest maximum elevation of any island in the world. The obsolete name of Mount Morrison is thought to have been named in honor of the 19th century missionary Robert Morrison. Today, the mountain is generally referred to as Yushan or Mt. Jade.</p><br>
<p>In the winter, Yushan is often capped with thick snow which makes the entire peak shine like stainless jade, hence its name. On July 21, 2009, Yushan was elected one of 28 finalists in the New7Wonders of Nature voting campaign. It even had held the top position in the “Mountains and Volcanoes” category on the list of first round voting of the 77 nominees ended on July 7, 2009.</p><br>
<p>Yushan and surrounding mountains belong to Yushan Range, which is part of Yushan National Park. The national park is Taiwan&#39;s largest, highest and least accessible national park. It contains the largest tract of wilderness remaining in Taiwan and is also valued for its pristine forests and faunal diversity, including many endemic species.</p><br>
<p>The highest point of Yushan Range, Yushan, is 3,952 m above sea level, and is the highest point in the western Pacific region outside of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Yushan was once in the ocean and raised to the current height because the Eurasian Plate slid over the neighboring Philippine Sea Plate.</p><br>
<p>The ocean waters off Taiwan&#39;s east coast are deep; in fact, submarine slopes plunge down to the Pacific Ocean at a grade of 1:10 and the ocean reaches a depth of more than 4,000 m about 50 km from the coast.</p><br>
<h2>Geography and geology</h2><br>
<p>The island of Taiwan is situated at the intersection of two tectonic plates – the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. Even as “recently” as the late Paleozoic (some 250 million years ago), the land here was still but a sedimentary seabed layered with silt and sand. As the two plates began pressing against each other, the land buckled, bent, and created the landscape – 165 mountains higher than 3,000 m above sea level on a relatively small island (38th largest in the world).</p><br>
<p>Yushan is also notable in containing the highest point on the Tropic of Cancer and the only point on that circle of latitude where there is any evidence of Quaternary glaciation. As recently as seventeen thousand years ago, permanent ice caps existed throughout Taiwan’s highest mountains and extended owing to the wet climate down to 2,800 m; whereas currently the nearest glaciers to the Tropic of Cancer are in Mexico on the Iztaccíhuatl volcano.</p><br>
<h2>Hiking</h2><br>
<p>With panoramic views, overlapping mountains, and deep, plunging valleys, Yushan National Park is well known for its scenery, sunrises, sunsets, geological features, and views of the clouds from above. Sea of clouds (Traditional Chinese: 雲海, Pinyin: yúnhǎi) often fill the valleys. Indisputably, Yushan itself is the focal point of the park.</p><br>
<p>Yushan is one of the favorites among Taiwanese mountain climbers. International peak baggers often combine a trip to Yushan along with trips to Gunung Kinabalu and Fuji to form an "Asian Trilogy" hiking experience.</p><br>
<p>Yushan has five main peaks with the Main Peak being the most popular:</p><br>
<p>Yushan Main Peak (玉山主峰), 3,952 m</p><br>
<p>Yushan Eastern Peak (玉山東峰), 3,869 m – 1.2 km from Main Peak</p><br>
<p>Yushan Northern Peak (玉山北峰), 3,858 m – 2.2 km from Wind Tunnel (風口)</p><br>
<p>Yushan Southern Peak (玉山南峰), 3,844 m – 3.1 km from Paiyun Lodge (排雲山莊)</p><br>
<p>Yushan Western Peak (玉山西峰), 3,467 m – 4 km from Paiyun Lodge (排雲山莊)</p><br>
<p>East, west, north, and south peaks surround the main summit. The east peak rises to a height of 3,869 m and is considered one of Taiwans Ten Major Summits (十峻). The south peak is a sharp pinnacle of black shale. The relatively accessible west side of Yushan is covered with thick forests. The north peak is part of a long, gently-rising ridge; this peak consists of two high points that resemble a camels humps. The North Peak is also home to Taiwan&#39;s highest permanently occupied building, the Yushan Weather Station, where the occasional visitors are given a warm welcome.</p><br>
<h2>Flora and fauna</h2><br>
<p>Taiwan, with the tropic of Cancer across the center of the island, has a climate between tropical and subtropical. The average temperature is 23.5 &deg;C. Here low elevation areas support evergreen broadleaved forests. As elevation increases, evergreen broadleaved forests are gradually replaced by deciduous forests and coniferous forests. At mountain peaks with alpine conditions, only mosses, liverworts and occasionally grasses can be found on the ground.</p><br>
<p>All of the above vegetation variations can be seen in the Yushan area from low foothills to high summits with an elevation difference of 3.6 km. Because of this wide climatic and vegetation variations, this environment nurtures the richest and most diversified wildlife in Taiwan. Preliminary investigations reveal that there are 130 species of birds, 28 species of mammals, 17 species of reptiles, 12 species of amphibians and 186 species of butterflies in Yushan National Park. In fact, Yushan is nicknamed "the ark" by academics who see it as a repository of Taiwans rare species. It is almost an encyclopedia of Taiwans ecological systems, a geological museum and an important habitat of one-third of Taiwan&#39;s endemic species, such as:</p><br>
<p>Formosan serow (台灣長鬃山羊)</p><br>
<p>Reeves&#39;s muntjac (台灣山羌)</p><br>
<p>Formosan black bear (台灣黑熊)</p><br>
<p>Formosan blue magpie (台灣藍鵲)</p><br>
<p>Formosan rock macaque (台灣獼猴)</p><br>
<p>Hemimyzon taitungensis (台東間爬岩鰍) and Varicorhinus tamusuiensis (Oshima) – Two unique fish species living in the Lekuleku River area.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Jade Mountain was first observed by westerners in 1857. W. Morrison, captain of the American freighter SS Alexander, sighted this mountain while departing from Anping Harbor, in what is now Anping, Tainan. He recorded this sighting in his naval log, and the mountain gained the name Mount Morrison in western literature.</p><br>
<p>In 1900, during Japanese rule, two Japanese anthropologists, Torii Ryūzō and Ushinosuke Mori, became the first people to have been recorded ascending the mountain. They gave the mountain the name Niitakayama (新高山) or Mount Niitaka, literally the "New High Mountain", because it was even higher than Mount Fuji (by 176 m). In 1937, Niitakayama was designated part of the Niitaka (New Highest) Arisan National Park (新高阿里山国立公園).</p><br>
<p>Under its Japanese name, the mountain was used as the secret code to signal the carrier fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy to begin its attack against Pearl Harbor. The code was Niitakayama Nobore (literally "Climb the New High Mountain").</p><br>
<p>In 1966, under Republic of China rule and before democratization, a large bronze statue of Yu Youren was placed at the summit. The statue remained there until 1996 when it was cut down and thrown into a ravine by Taiwan independence activists.</p><br>
<p>In recent years, Yushan has played an important role in a new focus on Taiwan&#39;s identity. Because of its iconic status, Yushan has been chosen to be the background of the newly issued NT $1,000 dollar bills on July 20, 2005. Similarly, a newly found asteroid by Lulin Observatory of National Central University was named after Yushan on December 28, 2007.</p><br>
<h2>Climate</h2><br>
<p>Yushan has an alpine climate (Köppen ET). The tip of Yushan is usually covered with frost from November to March. Elevations above 2,000 m may sometimes see snow during the winter months, and there are four consecutive months of snow accumulation at places with elevations higher than 3,000 m. The first snow may appear in October and completely melts by May. Snow falls 24.3 days per year on average on Yushan, and the number is gradually decreasing.</p><br>
<p>Yushan receives around 3,600 mm of precipitation annually. It rains an average of 140 days per year, mostly between May and August. From May until the first part of June is plum rain season or monsoon season. Taiwan&#39;s typhoon season roughly falls between July and September. The peak month is in August, which sees 520 mm of precipitation on average, compared to 70 mm in December, the driest month.</p><br>
<p>Newhall Pass is a low mountain pass in Los Angeles County, California. Historically called Fremont Pass and San Fernando Pass, with Beale&#39;s Cut, it separates the Santa Susana Mountains from the San Gabriel Mountains. Although the pass was originally discovered in August 1769 by Catalan explorer Gaspar de Portolà, it eventually was named for Henry Newhall, a significant businessman in the area during the 19th century.</p><br>
<p>Newhall Pass links the San Fernando Valley to the Santa Clarita Valley and is a main entry to the Greater Los Angeles area. The pass is known for the massive Newhall Pass interchange and the historic San Fernando Tunnel.</p><br>
<p>In the pass weather can vary from triple digit heat in the summer to below zero occasionally in winter. Snow is possible in December to February but is very rare. This causes heavy traffic and also accidents. The pass also can have heavy flooding in La Niña and El Niño events. Wildfires occasionally will occur near the pass and close down the California State Route 14.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Newhall Pass was initially named Fremont Pass for General John C. Frémont, who was thought to have passed through it in 1847 on his way to sign the Treaty of Cahuenga, but he actually went slightly east of the pass on the El Camino Viejo.</p><br>
<h3>Lyons Station</h3><br>
<p>In 1853, a Los Angeles businessman, Henry Clay Wiley installed a windlass atop the Fremont Pass to speed and ease the ascent and descent of the steep Santa Clara Divide. He also built a tavern, hotel and stable nearby. In 1854, Wiley sold out to Sanford and Cyrus Lyon and it began to be called Lyons Station. At the same time Phineas Banning obtained the business of supplying Fort Tejon.</p><br>
<h3>Beale's Cut</h3><br>
<p>The steep pass was made easier to cross with a deep slot-like road cut by Charles H. Brindley, Andrés Pico, and James R. Vineyard, to whom the State of California awarded a twenty-year contract to maintain the turnpike and collect tolls. Thus, the "San Fernando Mountain," the most daunting obstacle along the Fort Tejon Road, the main inland route from Los Angeles to the north, was cut through. Butterfield Overland Mail, a stagecoach that operated mail between St. Louis, Missouri and San Francisco began using it directly.</p><br>
<p>In 1861, a landowner and surveyor named Edward Beale was appointed by President Abraham Lincoln as the federal Surveyor General of California and Nevada. Beale challenged General Picos loyalty to the new president and in 1863, Beale was awarded the right to collect the toll in the pass. Beale maintained rights to the cut for the next twenty years and so it became known as "Beales Cut."</p><br>
<p>Beale&#39;s Cut was eventually deepened to 90 ft. It lasted as a transportation passage in the neighborhood of present-day Newhall Pass until construction of the Newhall Tunnel was completed in 1910.</p><br>
<p>Beales Cut appeared in many silent western movies. The location became a favorite of movie producers like John Ford and D. W. Griffith. In Fords 1923 film Three Jumps Ahead American film actor Tom Mix is filmed jumping over the pass. John Ford used the location in at least four films over a twenty-year period beginning as early as 1917.</p><br>
<h3>Newhall Pass</h3><br>
<p>Newhall Pass is named after businessman Henry Newhall, whose land holdings formed the basis of the city of Santa Clarita. Newhall came to California from Saugus, Massachusetts during the California Gold Rush in 1850. Over time he purchased a number of properties in the state, the most significant being the 46,460 acre Rancho San Francisco in northern Los Angeles County. Within this territory, he granted a right-of-way to Southern Pacific through what is now Newhall Pass, and he also sold them a portion of the land, upon which the company built a town they named after him: Newhall. The first station built on the line he named for his hometown, Saugus. After his death in 1882 his family incorporated the Newhall Land and Farming Company.</p><br>
<p>Newhall Pass remains a main traffic route, as the Newhall Pass interchange of Interstate 5 (Golden State Freeway) and State Route 14 (Antelope Valley Freeway), as well as Sierra Highway, Foothill Boulevard, and San Fernando Road travel through the pass. The Sierra Highway crossing was once the Newhall Tunnel, built by Los Angeles County in 1910 to replace Beale&#39;s Cut.</p><br>
<h3>San Fernando Tunnel</h3><br>
<p>Metrolinks Antelope Valley Line and the Union Pacific Railroad (formerly Southern Pacific Railroad) go through the pass via the San Fernando Tunnel. The 6,940 ft took a year and a half to complete. Over 1,500 mostly Chinese laborers took part in the tunnel construction, which began at the south end of the mountain on March 22, 1875. Many of them had prior experience working on Southern Pacifics tunnels in the Tehachapi Pass. Due to the sandstone composition of the mountain that was saturated with water and oil, frequent cave-ins occurred and the bore had to be constantly shored up by timbers during excavation.</p><br>
<p>The initial location for the north end of the tunnel was near Lyons Station Stagecoach Stop, which was abandoned due to frequent cave-ins caused by oil soaked rock. The north end was moved a little further west towards the present town of Newhall, California. The north end of the tunnel excavation commenced in June 1875. Water was a constant problem during construction and pumps were utilized to keep the tunnel from flooding. Workers digging from both the north and south ends of the tunnel came face to face on July 14, 1876. The bores from each end were only a half inch out of line with dimensions of 22 ft high, 16.5 ft wide at the bottom and over 18 ft at the shoulders. Track was laid in place during the tunnel dig and was used to remove dirt and rock by horse pulled cars. The first train passed through the tunnel on August 12, 1876. On September 4 Charles Crocker notified Southern Pacific that the track had been completed on the route between San Francisco and Los Angeles.</p><br>
<p>Hume Lake is a reservoir in the Sierra Nevada, within Sequoia National Forest and Fresno County, central California.</p><br>
<p>It is on Tenmile Creek, which is a tributary of the Kings River, and adjacent to the unincorporated community of Hume.</p><br>
<p>The surface elevation of the lake is 1,585 m. It is accessible from California Route 180, via Forest Service road 30, and is about 50 mi east of Fresno, not far from the west entrance to Kings Canyon National Park.</p><br>
<p>The 87 acre lake lies behind the world&#39;s first concrete reinforced multiple arch dam, designed by John S. Eastwood and constructed in 1908 by the Hume-Bennett Lumber Company. During lumber operations, the lake stored logs for an adjacent mill and supplied water for a flume used to transport the cut lumber to Sanger, California.</p><br>
<p>Since the cessation of logging in 1924, Hume Lake has shifted from primarily industrial use and is now primarily used for recreation.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Formation of Hume Lake</h3><br>
<p>The Hume-Bennett Lumber Company was formed in 1905 when Thomas Hume and Ira B. Bennett purchased the Sanger Lumber Company. Little uncut lumber remained in the vicinity of the mill in the Converse Basin so a new location was sought closer to uncut stands of timber. This meant that the company would have to move deeper into the mountains. Tenmile Creek was the next tributary of the Kings River, 4 mi east of Converse Basin. The creek flowed through an area known as Long Meadow. This location was promising for the company because it could be converted into a reservoir that would serve two functions for the company. First, it would provide storage for logs cut from surrounding virgin groves. From this body of water, floating logs could be drawn into an adjacent mill to be cut. Second, the rough cut lumber could then be transported out of the mountains in a flume filled with water from the reservoir.</p><br>
<p>To create this reservoir, John S. Eastwood was hired in 1908 to construct a dam at Long Meadow.</p><br>
<p>The dam and reservoir survive today little changed from their original appearance in 1908. The dam stands 61 ft in height and extends 667 ft in length. The dam is founded on granite bedrock and consists of twelve 50 ft arches, which are supported by intervening buttresses on the downstream side. The height was set at 61 ft because of a tract of land not owned by Hume-Bennet along the reservoir&#39;s edge that would have been inundated by water if the dam had been built any higher. The water level was maintained at a level slightly lower than it typically is today, through the use of 5 x spillway openings in the dam structure, which have since been filled.</p><br>
<h3>The end of logging at Hume Lake</h3><br>
<p>Hume-Bennett thoroughly harvested the forests surrounding Hume Lake following completion of the dam, but paltry profits and a devastating fire in 1917 led to the end of logging operations. The fire completely destroyed the mill and surrounding facilities, with all logging ceasing by 1924. On April 8, 1935, the United States Forest Service purchased the entire operation and its holdings, including the dam and forest surrounding Hume Lake, incorporating it into the Sequoia National Forest.</p><br>
<h3>Dam Repairs</h3><br>
<p>From 1953 to 1954 The lake was drained for a safety inspection. During the inspection it was apparent the dam was unfit and the lake would remain empty. The board of Hume Lake Christian Camps approached the California Fish and Game Department suggesting the dam be resurfaced. A six-inch cement coating was applied to the front face of the dam. The repairs were complete in 80 days and the lake was refilled.</p><br>
<h2>In Pop Culture</h2><br>
<p>The 1922 film The Sawmill was filmed at Hume Lake.</p><br>
<h2>Current use</h2><br>
<p>Since its purchase by the Forest Service, Hume Lake has become a popular destination, providing a variety of recreational opportunities:</p><br>
<p>Camping at a United States Forest Service campground on the northern shore of the lake. The facility consists of 74 sites among four separate sections located at varying distances from the lake shore.</p><br>
<p>Hume Lake Christian Camps is the largest facility at the lake, which traces its origins to 1945, when the founders met in the nearby valley town of Dinuba to discuss plans for a Christian Bible camp. On January 9, 1946, 320 acre of lake shore property were purchased to create the camp, including the Hume Lake Hotel, store, service station, post office, 22 cottages, and 22 boats. Soon thereafter, in the summer of 1946, 670 campers and 15 volunteer staff attended conferences at Hume Lake. Since that first summer in 1946, more than 1,000,000 young people and adults have attended the camp for worship, religious studies, and recreation. Activities at the camps include: swimming, disc golf, boating, hiking, biking, paint balling, high ropes course, climbing wall, and a number of recreational games such as Kajabe Kan Kan. Facilities include a dining hall, clothing company, a snack shop, two coffee shops, the Froso (a carnival-themed restaurant), a post office, a gift shop, a recording studio, swimming pool, beach access with row boat and kayak rentals, several lodges, a security booth, and public washing machines.</p><br>
<p>Cabins available for private rental and private cabins owned by full-time and part-time residents</p><br>
<p>Boating (non-motorized)</p><br>
<p>Fishing The main fishing at Hume Lake consists of trout</p><br>
<p>Hiking</p><br>
<p>Swimming and related beach activities</p><br>
<p>Crystal Lake, the largest lake of this name in Michigan, is located near Lake Michigan in Benzie County about 25 miles  southwest of Traverse City and about 2 miles  northeast of Frankfort at {{coord|44|39|N|86|09|W|}}. It measures approximately 2.5 by 8 miles , and has a maximum depth of 165 feet . At 9,854 acre, it is Michigan&#39;s ninth largest inland lake. Up to and through the American Civil War years Crystal Lake was known as "Cap Lake" due to the frequent whitecaps visible on its surface. Crystal Lake is adjacent to the southern reaches of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.</p><br>
<p>In 1873, an effort was made to connect Crystal Lake with Lake Michigan via a channel. The lake level of Crystal Lake was higher than that of Lake Michigan and when the channel was opened, the water level in Crystal Lake dropped about 20 ft. Although the project was a failure, the lowering of the lake level uncovered sandy beaches, including the current public beach at Beulah.</p><br>
<p>The watershed that feeds Crystal Lake is very small, and fertilizer and sewage outflows are minimal, leading to the exceptionally clear and beautiful water that gives it its current name. The surface area of the lake is 35% of the total area of the drainage basin (land and water combined).</p><br>
<p>Siula Grande is a mountain in the Huayhuash mountain range in the Peruvian Andes. It is 6,344 m high and has a subpeak, Siula Chico, 6,260 m high.</p><br>
<h2>Touching the Void ascent</h2><br>
<p>In 1985 Siula Grande was climbed by Joe Simpson and Simon Yates. Their ascent was made famous by Simpson&#39;s book Touching the Void, which describes the ascent and subsequent harrowing descent of the mountain. The book was made into a film of the same title in 2003. Although they ascended the West face, and thereby became the first to reach the summit by that route, they chose to descend the North Ridge, the route of the first ascent and descent in 1936. This was made almost impossible by horrible weather which in turn caused Joe Simpson to fall and severely break his leg. All subsequent west face climbers have avoided the ridge and rappelled back down the face.</p><br>
<h2>First ascents list</h2><br>
<p>This is a partial list of first ascents by new routes made.</p><br>
<p>28 July 1936 North Ridge by and from Austria.</p><br>
<p>21 June 1966 fourth ascent, by Obster, Schulz and Manfred Sturm via the North ridge en route to Siula Chico</p><br>
<p>1985 West Face by Joe Simpson and Simon Yates</p><br>
<p>1999 Peru West Face Touching The Void (new route) by Carlos Buhler. Buhler&#39;s route followed the Yates/Simpson route for much of the ascent, and Buhler called it "Avoiding the Touch"</p><br>
<p>13 July 2001 "Southern Discomfort", south face by Michel van der Spek, Jay Burbee, and Jeremy Frimer</p><br>
<p>17 July 2001 Noches de "Juerga", west face</p><br>
<p>3 July 2002 Northeast Face, Los Rapidos by Slovenes Marjan Kovač and Pavle Kozjek</p><br>
<p>August 2002 Mammut Tracks, west face, by Rogier van Rijn and Eva Oomen</p><br>
<h2>Siula Chico</h2><br>
<p>Siula Chico is a subpeak about 6,260 m high separated from Siula Grande by an approximately 6,000 m col. Mountaineers considered the easiest route to its summit was via Siula Grandes summit and it was so climbed by Manfred Sturms 1966 expedition. Spanish alpinists Jordi Corominas and Oriol Baro made the first ascent of Chico&#39;s west face, and second ascent of the peak, in May 2007.</p><br>
<h2>Glaciers</h2><br>
<p>According to some researchers the glaciers between Siula Grande and Yerupaja show a broad increase in the number, size and frequency of crevasses, and bergschrunds. As a result, climbing routes used in the 70s are today considered impracticable.</p><br>
<p>The Simplon Pass   is a high mountain pass between the Pennine Alps and the Lepontine Alps in Switzerland. It connects Brig in the canton of Valais with Domodossola in Piedmont . The pass itself and the villages on each side of it, such as Gondo, are in Switzerland. The Simplon Tunnel was built beneath the vicinity of the pass in the early 20th century to carry rail traffic between the two countries.</p><br>
<p>The lowest point of the col, and the lowest point on the watershed between the basins of the Rhone and the Po in Switzerland lies in marshland about 500 m west of the Simplon Pass settlement at an altitude of 1,994 m.</p><br>
<p>Rotelsee is a lake located near the pass at an elevation of 2,028 m.</p><br>
<p>There are several great peaks around that can be climbed directly from the pass. These include Wasenhorn, Hubschhorn, Breithorn (Simplon), and Monte Leone.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>There had been a locally used passage through the mountains here for several centuries, but the pass acquired international significance during the Napoleonic occupation. Between 1801 and 1805 the Simplon Road was constructed by the engineer Nicolas Céard at the direction of the emperor in order to transport artillery pieces through the pass between the Rhône valley and Italy. Since then, the pass has been usable by post carriages, replaced early in the twentieth century by post buses.</p><br>
<p>The road was periodically improved and in 1950 the cantonal authorities created a plan whereby the pass could be kept open all through the year, and not closed to traffic between October and late April like most Alpine passes at this altitude. The improvements included several lengthy avalanche shelters along the more exposed stretches of road and the expansion of certain road tunnels to accommodate full size tourist coaches which were significantly taller than the post buses used for local passengers. In October 1970, a party of journalists was invited to inspect the improvements and it was announced that the necessary improvements had been implemented on 37 km of the 42.5 km between Brig in Valais and the Italian frontier at Gondo, that 110 of the 180 million Swiss francs budgeted to the project had been spent and that, while a further five years would be needed to complete all the projected improvements, the Simplon Pass could now be used safely all through the year.</p><br>
<p>The former Simplon département (the Swiss canton Valais) was named after the pass.</p><br>
<p>Hawk Woods is an old-growth forest located in central Athens County, Ohio, United States, outside the city of Athens. It comprises 106 acre 106 acres  of foothills in the Allegheny Plateau region. Of these 106 acres, about 85 acres  are in the area cited as old-growth forest. Adjacent to Strouds Run State Park, the woods now comprise a state nature preserve named the Dale & Jackie Riddle State Nature Preserve.</p><br>
<p>The preserve is owned and managed by the City of Athens. This Ohio public land was dedicated as a state nature preserve, in part because the Ohio Division of Natural Areas and Preserves donated $50,000 to the purchase price. The property was purchased for $550,000. The preserve is part of the city&#39;s east-side Strouds Ridge Preserve project, which to date includes about 325 acres (about 132 hectares) total.</p><br>
<p>As with many other areas in southeast Ohio, the preserve suffers from white-tail deer overpopulation. A deer exclosure was built to demonstrate the effects of grazing pressure from the deer.</p><br>
<p>The preserve is known to harbor the relatively rare gametophytic fern species, Trichomanes intricatum.</p><br>
<p>Lake Bosumtwi  is the only natural lake in Ashanti and Ghana. It is situated within an ancient impact crater that is about 10.5 km in diameter. It is about 30 km south-east of Kumasi the capital of Ashanti and is a popular recreational area. There are about 30 villages near crater lake Lake Bosumtwi, with a combined population of about 70,000 Ashanti people.</p><br>
<p>The Ashanti consider Bosumtwi a sacred lake. According to traditional belief, the souls of the dead come here to bid farewell to the god Asase Ya. Because of this, it is considered permissible to fish in the lake only from wooden planks. Among the fish species in the lake is the endemic cichlid Hemichromis frempongi, and the near-endemic cichlids Tilapia busumana and T. discolor.</p><br>
<h2>Impact crater</h2><br>
<p>The Lake Bosumtwi impact crater is 10.5 km in diameter, slightly larger than the present lake which is approximately 8 km across, and is estimated to be 1.07 million years old (Pleistocene period). There is a highly speculative theory that connects this event to the short-term Jaramillo geomagnetic reversal.</p><br>
<p>Depth of crater is approximately 380 m, but, if counted together with the depth of lake sediments - 750 m.</p><br>
<p>The crater has been partly eroded, and is situated in dense rainforest, making it difficult to study and confirm its origin by meteorite impact. Shock features such as shatter cones are largely overgrown by vegetation or covered by the lake. However, drilling of the crater&#39;s central uplift beneath the lake floor has recently provided an abundance of shocked materials for scientific study. Tektites, believed to be from this impact, are found in the neighbouring country of Ivory Coast, and related microtektites have been found in deep sea sediments west of the African continent.</p><br>
<h2>Climate history</h2><br>
<p>Before the asteroid hit, there was a lush rainforest filled with animals. The crater from the asteroid&#39;s impact filled with rainwater, so now there is a lake.</p><br>
<p>Periods of heavy rainfall filled the crater with water, causing the lake level to rise above the lowest points of the rim. Such periods are evidenced from fossils of fish found on hilltops. Water even flowed from the basin through an overflow channel. However, there were also times when the water level was so low that the rainforest entered the basin rendering the lake only a small pond. Such a period, according to legend and now proved by paleoclimate records, lasted until about 300 years ago (Shanahan et al. 2009).</p><br>
<h2>Human history</h2><br>
<p>The legends say that in 1648 an Ashanti hunter named Akora Bompe from the city of Asaman was chasing an injured antelope through the rainforest. Suddenly, the animal disappeared in a small pond. It was as if this body of water wanted to save the animal&#39;s life. The hunter never got the antelope, though he settled close to the water and started catching fish. This place he named “Bosomtwe”, meaning “antelope god”. This story suggests that at that time the lake level was very low. The large dead trees standing offshore in the lake also evidence this, for they are over 300 years old.</p><br>
<p>The following centuries saw several wars about the lake as both the Ashanti and the Akim clashed, each claiming the area. The Ashanti prevailed. Each village in the lake area has its own shrine or fetish grove. With the arrival of Christianity, some of people gave up former beliefs, though many continue to seek traditional help in bad times or against diseases.</p><br>
<p>The Abrodwum Stone is held to be the spiritual centre of the lake. Here, when there is such poor fishing it is considered a bad omen, the lake people sacrifice a cow. This act is celebrated in the presence of his majesty, the Ashanti king, the Asantehene himself. In the ceremony, the cow&#39;s innards are given to the stone and the rest is thrown into the lake. The crowd rushes into the water with cutlasses and axes to take their share of the meat. This is an event very much worth seeing. However, as such an omen depends on various factors, it is hardly predictable.</p><br>
<p>There is a traditional taboo against touching the water with iron and modern boats are not considered appropriate. The padua, a wooden plank requiring considerable skill to maneuver, is the legitimate method.</p><br>
<p>There are current environmental concerns, including overfishing and inadequate farming methods.</p><br>
<p>The growing population increased demand for fish. Excessive fishing led to steadily decreasing catches, forcing increased reliance on agriculture. As more and more of the hills are converted into farmland, exposing the surface to the heavy rainfalls, soil erosion becomes an ever-greater problem.</p><br>
<p>In addition there is the changing lake level. Many villages have been submerged several times forcing the people to move up the slopes or outside the basin. That is the origin of such double names as Pipie No.1 and Pipie No.2.</p><br>
<p>The lake is a popular resort area with local people for swimming, fishing and boat trips. The lakeside village of Amakom has a small hospital with a doctor residing on premise, called Lake Bosumtwi Methodist Clinic, providing emergency services by boat and 4x4 ambulance.</p><br>
<p>Mount Eisenhower  is a mountain in the Presidential Range in the White Mountains of New Hampshire approximately 4,760 ft high. Named after President Dwight D. Eisenhower, its summit offers a 360° view of New Hampshire&#39;s mountains. It is inaccessible by road.</p><br>
<p>The Crawford Path, carrying the Appalachian Trail, crosses the mountain near its summit. It separates from the summit loop trail at 4,400 ft, 0.3 mi south of the summit, and rejoins it 0.3 mi northeast of the summit, having made a net elevation gain of about 40 ft and reached a maximum on Eisenhower of about 4,520 ft.</p><br>
<p>The shortest trail route to the summit of Eisenhower is from a parking lot on Mount Clinton Road, to its westnorthwest, via primarily the Edmands Path. Several routes are available from points more or less southwest of it on Route 302; the most used of these (probably roughly equal in popularity to the Edmands route) is via the Crawford Path, starting from a parking lot on Mount Clinton Road, very near 302 and just north of the Highland Center in the Crawford Notch area. Mount Monroe lies on the ridge northeast of Mt. Eisenhower, and Mount Pierce to the southwest. All three of these peaks are included on the peak-bagging list of four-thousand footers in New Hampshire. Mount Franklin, an "unofficial" peak (not prominent enough to be included in the list), lies between Mount Eisenhower and Mount Monroe.</p><br>
<p>Fourth Connecticut Lake Trail is a public trail maintained by the http://www.nature.org/ Nature Conservancy that criss-crosses the international border between the United States and Canada  for 0.6 mi and ends in a loop around the Fourth Connecticut Lake in the United States. The Fourth Connecticut Lake Trail is one of the few international trails in North America. For US residents, identification and passports to Canada are not needed to go on the trail, since the trail starts on the US side of the international border and ends in the US, even though it does go into Canada.</p><br>
<h2>Hiking the trail</h2><br>
<p>The parking area for hikers is northeast of the U.S. border inspection building. The sign for the trail head is northwest of the U.S. border inspection building, and the trail begins just to its right (east). The trail has no cell phone coverage, requires some non-technical climbing, and starts at a good elevation, so one should be prepared even in summer.</p><br>
<p>The Kitzbühel Alps  are a mountain range of the Central Eastern Alps surrounding the town of Kitzbühel in Tyrol, Austria. Geologically they are part of the western slate zone .</p><br>
<h2>Location</h2><br>
<p>Two-thirds of the Kitzbühel Alps lie within the Austrian province of Tyrol, the remaining third is in Salzburg province. They are about 80 km long from east to west and 25 to 35 km wide. They extend from the Ziller valley and Tux Alps in the west to the Saalach river and Zell am See on Lake Zell (Zellersee) in the east. They are bordered to the south by the Zillertal Alps and the High Tauern mountain range on the other side of the Salzach River, on the north by the Inn River and the Northern Limestone Alps.</p><br>
<p>The boundary of the region runs along the Salzach valley via Zell am See, where the Salzach swings north, to Saalfelden. Its northern boundary runs from east to west from the Saalfelden basin along the valley of the Leoganger Ache to the Grießen Pass and from there through the Pillersee valley, Leukental and Sölllandl to Wörgl and Kufstein. Its northwestern boundary is formed by the valley of the Inn between Wörgl and Jenbach.</p><br>
<p>The Kitzbühel Alps are divided by the Kitzbüheler Ache into the Glemmtal Alps in the east (Salzburg) and the Kelchsau Alps in the west. The highest summit in the Kitzbühel Alps is the Kreuzjoch in the southwest of the mountain range northwest of Gerlos at 2558 metres above sea level. The general height of the peaks descends gradually from around 2500 m in the west to around 2000 m in the east. Other important summits are the Western Salzachgeier, the Kröndlhorn, the Großer Rettenstein, the Geißstein, the Wildseeloder, the Großer Beil, the Großer Galtenberg, the Kitzbühler Horn, the Hohe Salve, the Hahnenkamm and the Schmittenhöhe. Popular mountain destinations on the edge of the Inn valley are the Pölven and the Gratlspitz.</p><br>
<p>The Kitzbühel Alps are found in the regions of St. Johann in Tirol, Kitzbühel and its environs, Pillerseetal, Brixental, Wildschönau and Alpbach.</p><br>
<p>The Kitzbühel Alps Tourist Region only covers part of the geographiscal Kitzbühel Alps.</p><br>
<p>The Kitzbühel Alps have relatively few rugged mountain tops and are well suited to walking and skiing. There are several large ski resorts in the area both in the Tyrolean and Salzburg regions. The Dienten Mountains are a geologically-related extension of the mountains to the east. The Pinzgau Ridgeway (Pinzgauer Höhenweg) runs through both ranges in an east-west direction. Many ski route and the Saalach Valley Ridgeway (Saalachtaler Höhenweg) run through the Kitzbühel Alps.</p><br>
<h2>Neighbouring ranges</h2><br>
<p>The mountain ranges that surround the Kitzbühel Alps are:</p><br>
<p>Kaiser Mountains</p><br>
<p>Lofer Mountains</p><br>
<p>Leogang Mountains</p><br>
<p>Salzburg Slate Alps</p><br>
<p>Glockner Group</p><br>
<p>Granatspitze Group</p><br>
<p>Venediger Group</p><br>
<p>Zillertal Alps</p><br>
<p>Tux Alps</p><br>
<p>Brandenberg Alps</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>The Kitzbühel Alps belong to the greywacke zone and are mainly composed of slate and phyllites. The mountain top profiles and the cirques are relatively smooth; their slopes mostly green with numerous alpine meadows (Almwiesen). Nevertheless, rock formations of limestone and dolomite do occur e.g. on the Großer Rettenstein.</p><br>
<p>n the western part of the Kitzbühel Alps most of the valleys run in a north-south direction; in the east they are predominantly oriented east-west. The Alpine geographical reason for this is the striking longitundinal trench of the river Salzach. This so-called Tauern Northern Edge Fault (Tauernnordrand-Störung) played an important role during Alpine folding and even today forms a distinct landscape and geological boundary with the three-thousanders of the High Tauern.</p><br>
<p>The western border of the mountain range is, petrographically, less clear because here its transition to the Innsbruck quartz phyllites is not clear-cut. By contrast, in the northwest and north (Inn valley near Schwaz, Brixental and the Steinernes Meer) the difference between the gently folded slate and the limestone and dolomite rock of the Limestone Alps hits the observer in the eye.</p><br>
<p>The major rocks of the Kitzbühel Alps divide into two groups by age, the older rocks probably dating to the Ordovician period. For example, the deep underground complex of Wildschönau slate is quite uniform and has no fossils at all, just volcanic deposits. Above it lies weakly metamorphosed volcanic rock, up to 600 metres thick, made up of quartz porphyroids and tuff, mainly in the west (Hohe Salve, Hahnenkamm and Wildseeloder).</p><br>
<p>Over the porphyroids lie various horizontal beds of slate from the Silurian period that are often clayey-sandy on top. In the vicinity of Kitzbühel itself, Silurian limestones may also be found and, to the west, the grey, coarse-grained Schwaz dolomite which transitions towards the east, near Leogang, into Spielberg dolomite. Also represented is the post-Variscan period, with its Rotliegendes (red slates), and thick sandstones from the Permoskyth. All these successive layers of the greywacke zone were probably - together with those of the Northern Limestone Alps - overturned to the northern edge of the Alps during the time of Alpine orogeny from a region of deposition far to the south.</p><br>
<h2>Sports</h2><br>
<p>Their mainly gently rolling nature makes the Kitzbühel Alps suitable for alpine farming, hiking and skiing.</p><br>
<h2>Tourism</h2><br>
<p>The Kitzbühel Alps are a very popular tourist destination. In addition to innumerable managed Alpine pastures and inns, there is also a large number of mountain huts belonging to the various Alpine clubs.</p><br>
<p>Alpenrose Hut</p><br>
<p>Neue Bamberger Hut</p><br>
<p>Bochumer Hut</p><br>
<p>Brechhornhaus (private)</p><br>
<p>Bürgl Hut (private)</p><br>
<p>Erich Sulke Hut</p><br>
<p>Erla Hut (private)</p><br>
<p>Fritz Hintermayr Hut (private)</p><br>
<p>Hochhörndler Hut (private)</p><br>
<p>Hochwildalm Hut</p><br>
<p>Kobinger Hut (private)</p><br>
<p>Oberland Hut</p><br>
<p>Pinzgau Hut (Friends of Nature)</p><br>
<p>Steinberghaus Inn (Gasthaus Steinberghaus)</p><br>
<p>Wildkogelhaus (private)</p><br>
<p>Wildseeloderhaus</p><br>
<p>Wolkensteinhaus</p><br>
<h2>Highest peaks</h2><br>
<p>Their highest peaks are concentrated to the south-western corner and reach rather modest 2,500 m, the highest being the Kreuzjoch at 2,558 metres above sea level. Roughly in the centre of the range lies the famous ski resort of Kitzbühel, the venue of the Hahnenkamm race, one of the most spectacular and well-known ski races in the world.</p><br>
<p>The highest summits in the range are (in order of height above the Adriatic):</p><br>
<p>Kreuzjoch, 2,558 m.</p><br>
<p>Torhelm, 2,494 m.</p><br>
<p>Salzachgeier, 2,469 m.</p><br>
<p>Aleitenspitze, 2,449 m.</p><br>
<p>Schafsiedel, 2,447 m.</p><br>
<p>Kröndlhorn, 2,444 m.</p><br>
<p>Großer Galtenberg, 2,424 m.</p><br>
<p>Geißstein, 2,366 m.</p><br>
<p>Großer Rettenstein, 2,362 m.</p><br>
<p>Großer Beil, 2,309 m.</p><br>
<p>Sonnenjoch, 2,287 m.</p><br>
<p>Wildkogel, 2,224 m.</p><br>
<p>Kleiner Rettenstein, 2,216 m.</p><br>
<p>Steinbergstein, 2,215 m.</p><br>
<p>Gamshag, 2,178 m.</p><br>
<p>Wiedersberger Horn, 2,127 m.</p><br>
<p>Wildseeloder, 2,119 m.</p><br>
<p>Schattberg, 2,097 m.</p><br>
<p>Brechhorn, 2,032 m.</p><br>
<p>Kitzbühler Horn, 1,996 m.</p><br>
<p>Schmittenhöhe, 1,965 m.</p><br>
<p>Wildkarspitze 1,961 m.</p><br>
<p>Gratlspitze, 1,899 m.</p><br>
<p>Schatzberg 1,898 m.</p><br>
<p>Hohe Salve, 1,828 m.</p><br>
<p>Roßkopf, 1,731 m</p><br>
<p>Hahnenkamm, 1,712 m.</p><br>
<p>Pölven, 1,595 m.</p><br>
<p>File:Salzachgeier.jpgThe Salzachgeier,</p><br>
<p>File:Kitzbüheler Alpen 17310050.jpgView from the Salzachgeier over the Kelchsau Alps</p><br>
<p>File:Kitzbühler-Horn.jpgThe Kitzbüheler Horn</p><br>
<p>File:Spielberghorn.jpgThe Spielberghorn from the east</p><br>
<p>Somerset Place is a former plantation near Creswell in Washington County, North Carolina, along the northern shore of Lake Phelps, and now a State Historic Site that belongs to the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Somerset Place operated as a plantation from 1785 until 1865. Before the end of the American Civil War, Somerset Place had become one of the Upper South&#39;s largest plantations.</p><br>
<p>In 1969, Somerset Place was designated as a State Historic Site. In 1986, descendants of African American slaves from Somerset Place planned a gathering known as Somerset Homecoming. The event inspired a book titled "Somerset Homecoming" written by the property&#39;s former manager Dorothy Spruill Redford, who retired in 2008.</p><br>
<p>Visitors can tour the 1830s period plantation house, the dairy, kitchen/laundry, kitchen rations building, smokehouse and salting house. The site features several reconstructed buildings for the plantation&#39;s slaves, including two homes and the plantation hospital; the grounds include stocks that were used to punish slaves.</p><br>
<p>The visitor center&#39;s exhibits display the history of the site and antebellum North Carolina. There is also a gift shop.</p><br>
<p>Nature trails lead to Pettigrew State Park, which adjoins the site.</p><br>
<p>Biltmore Estate is a large  private estate and tourist attraction near Asheville, North Carolina. Biltmore House, the main residence, is a Châteauesque-style mansion built by George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 and 1895 and is the largest privately owned house in the United States, at 178,926 ft&sup2; of floor space . Still owned by George Vanderbilt&#39;s descendants, it stands today as one of the most prominent remaining examples of the Gilded Age.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>In the 1880s, at the height of the Gilded Age, George Washington Vanderbilt II, youngest son of William Henry Vanderbilt, began to make regular visits with his mother, Maria Louisa Kissam Vanderbilt (1821–1896), to the Asheville, North Carolina, area. He loved the scenery and climate so much that he decided to create his own summer estate in the area, which he called his "little mountain escape", just as his older brothers and sisters had built opulent summer houses in places such as Newport, Rhode Island, and Hyde Park, New York. Vanderbilt named his estate Biltmore derived from "Bildt," Vanderbilts ancestors place of origin in Holland, and "More", Anglo-Saxon for open, rolling land. A portion of the estate was once the community of Shiloh. Vanderbilt bought almost 700 parcels of land, including over 50 farms and at least five cemeteries. A spokesperson for the estate said in 2017 that archives show much of the land "was in very poor condition, and many of the farmers and other landowners were glad to sell."</p><br>
<p>Construction of the house began in 1889 and continued well into 1896. In order to facilitate such a large project, a woodworking factory and brick kiln, which produced 32,000 bricks a day, were built onsite, and a three-mile railroad spur was constructed to bring materials to the building site. Construction on the main house required the labor of well over 1,000 workers and 60 stonemasons. Vanderbilt went on extensive buying trips overseas as construction on the house was in progress. He returned to North Carolina with thousands of furnishings for his newly built home including tapestries, hundreds of carpets, prints, linens, and decorative objects, all dating between the 15th century and the late 19th century. Among the few American-made items were the more practical oak drop-front desk, rocking chairs, a walnut grand piano, bronze candlesticks and a wicker wastebasket.</p><br>
<p>George Vanderbilt opened his opulent estate on Christmas Eve 1895 to invited family and friends from across the country, who were encouraged to enjoy leisure and country pursuits. Notable guests to the estate over the years included author Edith Wharton, novelist Henry James, ambassadors Joseph Hodges Choate and Larz Anderson, and Presidents William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson. George married Edith Stuyvesant Dresser in 1898 in Paris, France; their only child, Cornelia Stuyvesant Vanderbilt, was born at Biltmore in the Louis XV room in 1900, and grew up at the estate.</p><br>
<p>Driven by the impact of the newly imposed income taxes, and the fact that the estate was getting harder to manage economically, Vanderbilt initiated the sale of 87,000 acres (352 km²) to the federal government. After Vanderbilts unexpected death in 1914 of complications from an emergency appendectomy, his widow completed the sale to carry out her husbands wish that the land remain unaltered, and that property became the nucleus of the Pisgah National Forest. Overwhelmed with running such a large estate, Edith began consolidating her interests and sold Biltmore Estate Industries in 1917 and Biltmore Village in 1921. Edith intermittently occupied the house, living in an apartment carved out of the former Bachelors&#39; Wing, until the marriage of her daughter to John Francis Amherst Cecil in April 1924. The Cecils went on to have two sons who were born in the same room as their mother.</p><br>
<p>In an attempt to bolster the estate&#39;s financial situation during the Great Depression, Cornelia and her husband opened Biltmore to the public in March 1930 at the request of the City of Asheville, which hoped the attraction would revitalize the area with tourism. Biltmore closed during World War II and in 1942, 62 paintings and 17 sculptures were moved to the estate by train from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. to protect them in the event of an attack on the United States. The Music Room on the first floor was never finished, so it was used for storage until 1944, when the possibility of an attack became more remote. Among the works stored were the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington and works by Rembrandt, Raphael, and Anthony van Dyck. David Finley, the gallery director, was a friend of Edith Vanderbilt and had stayed at the estate.</p><br>
<p>After the divorce of the Cecils in 1934, Cornelia left the estate never to return; however, John Cecil maintained his residence in the Bachelors&#39; Wing until his death in 1954. Their eldest son George Henry Vanderbilt Cecil, occupied rooms in the wing until 1956. At this point Biltmore House ceased to be a family residence and has continued to be operated as a historic house museum.</p><br>
<p>Younger son William A. V. Cecil, Sr. returned to the estate in 1960 and joined his brother to manage the estate and make it a profitable and self-sustaining enterprise like his grandfather envisioned. He eventually inherited the estate upon the death of his mother, Cornelia, in 1976, while his brother, George, inherited the then more profitable dairy farm which was split off into Biltmore Farms. In 1995, while celebrating the 100th anniversary of the estate, Cecil turned over control of the company to his son, William A.V. Cecil, Jr. The Biltmore Company is privately held and of the 4,306.86 acres that make up Biltmore Estate, only 1.36 acres are in the city limits of Asheville, and the Biltmore House is not part of any municipality.</p><br>
<p>The estate was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1963, and remains a major tourist attraction in Western North Carolina with over 1 million visitors each year.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>Vanderbilt commissioned prominent New York architect Richard Morris Hunt, who had previously designed houses for various Vanderbilt family members, to design the house in the Châteauesque style, using French Renaissance chateaus that Vanderbilt and Hunt had visited in early 1889, including Château de Blois, Chenonceau and Chambord in France and Waddesdon Manor in England, as inspiration with their steeply pitched roofs, turrets and sculptural ornamentation. Hunt sited the four-story Indiana limestone-built home to face east with a 375-foot facade to fit into the mountainous topography behind. The facade is asymmetrically balanced with two projecting wings connecting to the entrance tower with an open loggia to the left side and a windowed arcade to the right which held the Winter Garden that was fashionable during the Victorian era. The entrance tower contains a series of windows with decorated jambs that extend from the front door to the most decorated dormer at Biltmore on the fourth floor. The carved decorations include trefoils, flowing tracery, rosettes, gargoyles, and at prominent lookouts, grotesques. The staircase is one of the more prominent features of the east facade, with its three-story, highly decorated winding balustrade with carved statues of St. Louis and Joan of Arc by the Austrian-born architectural sculptor Karl Bitter.</p><br>
<p>The south facade has the smallest dimensions for the house and is dominated by three large dormers on the east side and a polygonal turret on the west side. An arbor is attached to the house and is accessed from the library which is located on the ground floor. On the north end of the house, Hunt placed the attached stables, carriage house and its courtyard to protect the house and gardens from the wind. The 12,000-square-foot complex housed Vanderbilts prized driving horses and the carriage house opposite the stables stored his 20 carriages in addition to any of his guests carriages.</p><br>
<p>The rear western elevation is less elaborate than the front facade, with some windows not having any decoration at all. Two matching polygonal towers in the center are connected to the polygonal south turret by an open loggia that opens the main rooms of the house to the views of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. The loggia is decorated overhead with terracotta tiles set in a herringbone pattern. The self-supporting ceramic tile vault and arch system was used extensively inside and outside of Biltmore, and was patented by Rafael Guastavino, a Spanish architect and engineer, who personally supervised the installation. The limestone columns were carved to reflect the sunlight in aesthetically pleasing and varied ways per Vanderbilt&#39;s wish. The rusticated base is a contrast to the smooth limestone used on the remainder of the house.</p><br>
<p>The steeply pitched roof is punctuated by 16 chimneys and covered with slate tiles that were affixed one by one. Each tile was drilled at the corners and wired onto the attic’s steel infrastructure. Copper flashing was then installed at the junctions to prevent water from penetrating. The fanciful flashing on the ridge of the roof was embossed with George Vanderbilt’s initials and motifs from his family crest, though the original gold leaf no longer survives.</p><br>
<p>Biltmore House had electricity from the time it was built. With electricity less safe and fire more of a danger at the time, the house had six separate sections divided by brick fire walls.</p><br>
<p>Vanderbilt paid little attention to the family business or his own investments, and it is believed that the construction and upkeep of Biltmore depleted much of his inheritance.</p><br>
<h2>Interiors</h2><br>
<h3>First floor</h3><br>
<p>Biltmore has four acres of floor space and a total of 250 rooms in the house including 35 bedrooms for family and guests, 43 bathrooms, 65 fireplaces, three kitchens and 19th-century novelties such as electric elevators, forced-air heating, centrally controlled clocks, fire alarms, and a call-bell system. The principal rooms of the house are located on the ground floor. To the right of the marbled Entrance Hall, the octagonal, sunken Winter Garden is surrounded by stone archways with a ceiling of architecturally sculptured wood and multifaceted glass. The centerpiece is a marble and bronze fountain sculpture titled Boy Stealing Geese created by Karl Bitter. On the walls just outside the Winter Garden are copies of the Parthenon frieze. The Banquet Hall is the largest room in the house, measuring 42 feet wide and 72 feet long, with a 70-foot-high barrel-vaulted ceiling. The table could seat 64 guests surrounded by rare Flemish tapestries and a triple fireplace that spans one end of the hall. On the opposite end of the hall is an organ gallery that houses a 1916 Skinner pipe organ. Left unfinished with bare brick walls, the Music Room was not completed and opened to the public until 1976. It showcases a mantle designed by Hunt, and a large engraving by Albrecht Dürer called the Triumphal Arch commissioned by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. The mantle had been stored in the stable for over 80 years.</p><br>
<p>To the left of the entrance hall is the 90-foot-long Tapestry Gallery, which leads to the Library, featuring three 16th-century tapestries representing The Triumph of Virtue Over Vice. Elsewhere on the walls are family portraits by John Singer Sargent, Giovanni Boldini and James Whistler. The two-story Library contains over 10,000 volumes in eight languages, reflecting George Vanderbilt&#39;s broad interests in classic literature as well as works on art, history, architecture, and gardening. The second-floor balcony is accessed by an ornate walnut spiral staircase. The baroque detailing of the room is enhanced by the rich walnut paneling and the ceiling painting, The Chariot of Aurora, brought to Biltmore by Vanderbilt from the Palazzo Pisani Moretta in Venice, Italy. The painting by Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini is the most important work by the artist still in existence.</p><br>
<h3>Second floor</h3><br>
<p>The second floor is accessed by the cantilevered Grand Staircase of 102 steps spiraling around a four-story, wrought-iron chandelier holding 72 light bulbs. The Second Floor Living Hall is an extension of the grand staircase as a formal hall and portrait gallery, and was restored to its original configuration in 2013. Several large-scale masterpieces are displayed in the hall, including two John Singer Sargent portraits of Biltmores architect, Richard Morris Hunt, and landscaper, Frederick Law Olmsted, both commissioned for the home by Vanderbilt. Located nearby in the south tower is George Vanderbilts gilded bedroom with furniture designed by Hunt. His bedroom connects to his wife&#39;s Louis XV-style, oval-shaped bedroom in the north tower through a Jacobean carved oak paneled sitting room with an intricate ceiling.</p><br>
<p>The suite of rooms includes the Damask Room; the Claude Room, named after one of Vanderbilt&#39;s favorite artists, Claude Lorrain; the Tyrolean Chimney Room; and the most grand, the Louis XV Room, so named due to its architectural scheme and furnishings that were very popular in the late nineteenth century. The suite was restored and opened to the public for the first time in 100 years in 2011.</p><br>
<h3>Third and fourth floors</h3><br>
<p>The third floor has a number of guest rooms with names that describe the furnishing or artist that they were decorated with. The fourth floor has 21 bedrooms that were inhabited by housemaids, laundresses, and other female servants. Also included on the fourth floor is an Observatory with a circular staircase that leads to a wrought iron balcony with doorways to the rooftop where Vanderbilt could view his estate. Male servants were not housed here, however, but instead resided in rooms above the stable and complex.</p><br>
<h3>Bachelors' wing</h3><br>
<p>The Billiard Room is decorated with an ornamental plaster ceiling and rich oak paneling and was equipped with both a custom-made pool table and a carom table (table without pockets). The room was mainly frequented by men, but ladies were welcome to enter as well. Secret door panels on either side of the fireplace lead to the private quarters of the Bachelors’ Wing where female guests and staff members were not allowed. The wing includes the Smoking Room, which was fashionable for country houses, and the Gun Room, which held mounted trophies and displayed George Vanderbilt’s gun collection.</p><br>
<h3>Basement</h3><br>
<p>Guests of the estate could enjoy other activities that were found on the basement level, including an indoor 70,000-gallon (265,000-litre and 265-cubic meter) heated swimming pool with underwater lighting, one of the nations first bowling alleys installed in a private residence, and a gymnasium with once state-of-the-art fitness equipment. The service hub of the house is also found in the largest basement in the US, as the location for the main kitchen, pastry kitchen, rotisserie kitchen, walk-in refrigerators that provided an early form of mechanical refrigeration, the servants dining hall, laundry rooms and additional bedrooms for staff.</p><br>
<h2>Park and landscape</h2><br>
<p>Wanting the best, Vanderbilt envisioned a park-like setting for his home and employed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to design the grounds. However, Olmsted was not impressed with the condition of the 125,000 acres and advised for a park surrounding the house, establishing farms along the river and replanting the rest as a commercial timber forest, a plan to which Vanderbilt agreed. Gifford Pinchot and later Carl A. Schenck were hired to manage the forests, with Schenck establishing the first forestry education program in the USA, the Biltmore Forest School, on the estate grounds in 1898.</p><br>
<p>Another important aspect of the landscaping was the intentionally rustic three-mile (5 km) Approach Road that began at the brick quoined and pebbledash stucco Lodge Gate at the edge of Biltmore Village, and ended at the sphinx-topped stone pillars at the Esplanade. In between, the lane was densely filled with natural and uncultivated looking foliage and shrubbery to provide a relaxing journey for guests. Olmsted made sure to incorporate 75 acre of formal gardens that had been requested by Vanderbilt for the grounds directly surrounding the house. He constructed an Italian formal garden, a walled garden, a shrub and rose garden, fountains, and a conservatory with individual rooms for palms and orchids. There was also a bowling green, an outdoor tea room, and a terrace to incorporate the European statuary that Vanderbilt had brought back from his travels. At the opposite end of the Esplanade is the Rampe Douce, a graduated stairway zigzagging along a rough-cut limestone wall that leads to the grassy slope known as the Vista, topped with a statue of Diana, the goddess of the hunt.</p><br>
<p>Water features were an important aspect of Victorian landscaping and Olmsted incorporated two for the estate: the Bass Pond created from an old creek-fed millpond and the Lagoon. Each was used for guest recreation like fishing and rowing. To supply water for the estate, Olmsted engineered two reservoirs. One was a spring-fed man-made lake on nearby Busbee Mountain. The other was a man-made, brick-lined reservoir, located behind the statue of Diana in the Vista, at an elevation of approximately 266 feet above the Esplanade.</p><br>
<h2>Estate</h2><br>
<p>Vanderbilts idea was to replicate the working estates of Europe. He asked Hunt and Olmsted to design a village with architecturally compatible buildings and picturesque landscaping as a source of income through building rental, a place to help carry out philanthropic programs, and an easy point of access between the estate and the train station. The result was Biltmore Village. The village included rental cottages complete with plumbing and central heating, a post office, shops, doctors office, school, and a church, known today as the Cathedral of All Souls. Intending that the estate could be self-supporting, Vanderbilt set up scientific forestry programs, poultry farms, cattle farms, hog farms, and a dairy. His wife, Edith, also enthusiastically supported agricultural reform and promoted the establishment of a state agricultural fair. In 1901, the Vanderbilts provided financial assistance to Biltmore Industries, started by Biltmore Village resident Eleanor Vance, which taught young people how to make hand-carved furniture, woven baskets, homespun wool fabric, and more.</p><br>
<p>The estate today covers approximately 8,000 acres and is split in half by the French Broad River, overseen by The Biltmore Company, a trust set up by the family. The company is a large enterprise that is one of the largest employers in the Asheville area. Restaurants were opened in 1979 and 1987 as well as four gifts shops in 1993. The former dairy barn was converted into the popular Biltmore Winery in 1985. The AAA four-diamond 210-room Inn on Biltmore Estate opened in 2001, and in 2010, the estate debuted Antler Hill Village, as well as a remodeled winery, and connected farmyard.</p><br>
<h2>In other media</h2><br>
<p>The Biltmore Estate licenses its name and design elements to a line of housewares, linens, and luggage called "Biltmore For Your Home", marketed exclusively by Belk stores.</p><br>
<p>The house has been featured in "Empires of the Smoky Skies", a scenario in Sid Meiers Civilization V. The estate and its surrounding forest make up the setting of Robert Beattys 2015 middle-grade novel Serafina and The Black Cloak, and its sequels Serafina and the Twisted Staff, and Serafina and the Splintered Heart.</p><br>
<p>The grounds and buildings of Biltmore Estate have appeared in a number of major motion pictures and TV series:</p><br>
<p>Tap Roots (1948)</p><br>
<p>The Swan (1956)</p><br>
<p>The Pruitts of Southampton (1966)</p><br>
<p>Being There (1979)</p><br>
<p>The Private Eyes (1980)</p><br>
<p>A Breed Apart (1984)</p><br>
<p>Mr. Destiny (1990)</p><br>
<p>The Last of the Mohicans (1992)</p><br>
<p>Forrest Gump (1994)</p><br>
<p>Richie Rich (1994)</p><br>
<p>My Fellow Americans (1996)</p><br>
<p>Patch Adams (1998)</p><br>
<p>Return to the Secret Garden (2000)</p><br>
<p>Hannibal (2001)</p><br>
<p>One Tree Hill (2003)</p><br>
<p>The Clearing (2004)</p><br>
<p>The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012)</p><br>
<p>Hannibal (2015)</p><br>
<p>Fajada Butte is a butte in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, in northwest New Mexico.</p><br>
<p>Fajada Butte (Banded Butte) rises 135 meters above the canyon floor. Although there is no water source on the butte, there are ruins of small cliff dwellings in the higher regions of the butte. Analysis of fragments of pottery found on Fajada show that these structures were used between the 10th to 13th centuries.</p><br>
<p>The remains of a 95-meter-high, 230-meter-long ramp are evident on the southwestern face of the butte (Ford 1993, p. 478). The magnitude of this building project, without an apparent utilitarian purpose, indicates that Fajada Butte may have had considerable ceremonial importance for the Chacoan people.</p><br>
<h2>Sun Dagger site</h2><br>
<p>In 1977 the artist Anna Sofaer visited Chaco Canyon as a volunteer recording rock art. There she recorded petroglyphs on Fajada Butte at what is now called the Sun Dagger site, now perhaps the most famous site in Chaco Canyon, located at a southeastern facing cliff near the top of Fajada Butte. She noted three large stone slabs leaning against the cliff which channel light and shadow markings onto two spiral petroglyphs on the cliff wall. On her second visit she saw a "dagger of light" bisecting one of the spirals. At about 11:15 am. on the summer solstice a dagger-shaped light form pierces the larger of the two spirals (Sofaer, Zinser and Sinclair 1979, p. 285). Similar sun daggers mark the winter solstice and equinoxes At one extreme in the moon&#39;s eighteen- to nineteen-year cycle (the lunar minor standstill), a shadow bisects the larger spiral just as the moon rises; and at its other extreme, nine-and-a-half years later (the lunar major standstill), the shadow of the rising moon falls on the left edge of the larger spiral.(Sofaer, Sinclair and Doggett 1982, p. 43) In each case these shadows align with pecked grooves (Sofaer and Sinclair 1987, pp. 48 – 59). Due to the slabs settling, the "dagger of light" does not cross through the center of the spiral anymore during the summer solstice.</p><br>
<p>At two other sites on Fajada Butte, located a short distance below the Sun Dagger site, five petroglyphs are also marked by visually compelling patterns of shadow and light that indicate solar noon distinctively at the solstices and equinoxes (Sofaer and Sinclair 1987, p. 59). It has been noted, however, that these five noontime events are essentially the number one would expect by chance (McCluskey 1988, p. S69).</p><br>
<p>In the 1980s the National Park Service closed off access to the butte due to the delicate nature of the site and the damage and erosion caused by tourism.</p><br>
<p>Studies by Sofaer&#39;s Solstice Project suggest that the major buildings of the ancient Chacoan culture of New Mexico also contain solar and lunar cosmology in three separate articulations: their orientations, internal geometry, and geographic interrelationships were developed in relationship to the cycles of the sun and moon (Sofaer 2007, p. 225).</p><br>
<h3>Debate</h3><br>
<p>There are several issues surrounding this site. One is when the two spirals were pecked into the walls, some scholars suggesting it "postdates the height of the Chaco tradition. Another is its importance. Although other solar observatories constructed by the Pueblo people predict solar events by the movement of the light over a period of time, this one does not. It has also been suggested that it was not built but that those who made the inscriptions were using a convenient existing fall of rock (Kantner 2004, p.99).</p><br>
<p>Critics generally agree that the light and shadow phenomena at the site were intended to mark the arrival of the sun at the solstices and equinoxes (Carlson 1987, pp. 86-7; Zeilik 1985, p. S84). There is less agreement on the lunar phenomena; Zeilik found no ethnographic evidence for a concern with the lunar standstill cycle in the historic pueblos (Zeilik 1985, pp. S80-4). He also noted that contemporary pueblo horizon observations achieve greater precision than that possible using the sun-dagger site, leading him to conclude that the Sun Dagger site may have been a sun shrine, but would not have functioned well to regulate the solar calendar (Zeilik 1985, pp. S71, S77–S80).</p><br>
<p>The Banda Sea is a sea in the Maluku Islands of Indonesia, connected to the Pacific Ocean but surrounded by hundreds of islands, as well as the Halmahera and Ceram Seas. It is about 1000 km  east to west, and about 500 km  north to south.</p><br>
<h2>Extent</h2><br>
<p>The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) defines the Banda Sea as being one of the waters of the East Indian Archipelago. The IHO defines its limits as follows:</p><br>
<p>On the North The Southern limits of the Molukka Sea and the Western and Southern limits of the Ceram Sea.</p><br>
<p>On the East. From Tg Borang, the Northern point of Noehoe Tjoet Kai Besar, through this island to its Southern point, thence a line to the Northeast point of Fordata, through this island and across to the Northeast point of Larat, Tanimbar Islands ({{coord|7|06|S|131|55|E|display=inline}}), down the East coast of Jamdena Yamdena Island to its Southern point, thence through Anggarmasa to the North point of Selaroe and through this island to Tg Aro Oesoe its Southern point ({{coord|8|21|S|130|45|E|display=inline}}).</p><br>
<p>On the South. A line from Tanjong Aro Oesoe, through Sermata to Tanjong Njadora the Southeast point of Lakov Lakor, sic ({{coord|8|16|S|128|14|E|display=inline}}) along the South coasts of Lakov Lakor, Moa and Leti Islands to Tanjong Toet Pateh, the West point of Leti, thence a line to Tanjong Sewirawa the Eastern extremity of Timor and along the North coast as far as longitude 125° East.</p><br>
<p>On the West. From a point on the North coast of Timor in 125° East up this meridian to Alor Island, thence round the East point and along the North coasts of the Alor, Pantar, Lomblen and Adoenara Islands and thence across the Northern end of Flores Strait to Tanjong Serbete the Eastern extreme of Flores, thence a line from its Northern point ({{coord|8|04|S|122|52|E|display=inline}}) to Kalaotoa Island ({{coord|7|24|S|121|52|E|display=inline}}) and through the chain of islands lying between it and the South point of Pulo Salayar, through this island and across the Strait to Tanjong Lassa, Celebes ({{coord|5|37|S|120|28|E|display=inline}}), thence along the Southern limit of the Gulf of Boni and up the East coast of Celebes to Tanjong Botok ({{coord|1|04|S|123|19|E|display=inline}}).</p><br>
<h2>Islands</h2><br>
<p>Islands bordering the Banda Sea include Sulawesi to the west, Buru, Ambon Island, Seram, Aru Islands, Barat Daya Islands, to the Tanimbar Islands, the Kai Islands and Timor in the East. Although the borders of the sea are hazardous to navigation, with many small rocky islands, the middle of the sea is relatively open. Island groups within the sea include the Banda Islands. A number of islands in the Banda Sea are active volcanoes including Gunung Api and Manuk in the Banda Islands.</p><br>
<h2>Plate tectonic activities in Banda Sea</h2><br>
<p>The Banda arc is famous for its 180° curvature and is, in Timor, generally agreed to be the product of collision between a volcanic arc and the Australian continental margin. The Banda Sea occupies the main portion of the Banda Sea Plate. The southern margin of the sea consists of island arcs above subduction zones. To the east of the Sunda Trench is the Timor Trough which lies south of Timor, the Tanimbar Trough south of the Tanimbar Islands and the Aru Trough east of the Aru Islands. These trenches are the subduction zone of the Indo-Australian plate beneath the Banda Sea Plate, where the Indo-Australian Plate moves northwards. Fore-arc sediments progressively carried northwards by the Indo-Australian Plate have been folded and faulted forming Timor island. To the northeast lies Seram Island which overlies the subduction of the Bird&#39;s Head Plate of West Papua.</p><br>
<h2>Earthquakes</h2><br>
<p>Earthquakes are very frequent in the area, due to the confluence of three tectonic plates - Eurasian, Pacific and Indo-Australian plates.</p><br>
<p>*1938 Banda Sea earthquake</p><br>
<p>*2006 Banda Sea earthquake</p><br>
<h2>Ecology</h2><br>
<p>The Banda Islands, Tanimbar Islands, Kai Islands and other smaller islands in the Banda Sea have been designated as the Banda Sea Islands moist deciduous forests ecoregion, the eastern end of the Wallacea biogeographical region containing a mixture of plant and animal species from both Asia and Australasia. These islands are covered in mostly intact rain forest and home to a number of endemic plants and animals including twenty-one birds, a very high number for this small ecoregion. There are only twenty-two mammals on these islands including three endemics, the rare dusky pademelon (Thylogale brunii) and tomb bat (Taphozous achates), and an endangered mouse-eared bat, the Kei myotis (Myotis stalkeri). The birdlife is threatened by egg collectors and even more by cats and rodents that have been introduced to the islands. Yamdena in the Tanimbar Islands is an example of a large and fairly unspoilt habitat and is a protected area. The base for visiting these islands is by plane or ship from Ambon Island to the north, the largest of the Maluku Islands. The Banda and Kei Islands, although remote are visited by tourists for snorkelling and for their unspoilt beaches. Various cetacean species have been recorded including either or both blue and pygmy blue whalesSarah.</p><br>
<p>2015. http://smallgirlbigtravels.blogspot.jp/2015/11/sailing-through-banda-sea.html Sailing Through the Banda Sea. Small Girl Big Travels: Field Notes. Retrieved on September 24, 2017 and Omura&#39;s whales.</p><br>
<p>The Dahlak Archipelago  is an island group located in the Red Sea near Massawa, Eritrea. It consists of two large and 124 small islands. The pearl fisheries of the archipelago have been famous since Roman times and still produce a substantial number of pearls.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Only four of the islands are permanently inhabited, of which Dahlak Kebir is the largest and most populated. Other islands of the archipelago are Dhuladhiya, Dissei, Dohul (Dehil), Erwa, Harat, Harmil, Isra-Tu, Nahaleg, Nakura, Nora (Norah) and Shumma, although only Nora and Dohul are permanently inhabited, besides the main island. The islands are home to a diverse marine life and sea-birds, and attract an increasing number of tourists. Residents of the archipelago speak Dahlik, an Afro-Asiatic language of the Semitic branch, and maintain a traditional way of life including fishing and herding goats and camels. The islands can be reached by boat from Massawa and are popular with scuba divers and snorkellers.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>G.W.B. Huntingford has identified with the Dahlak archipelago a group of islands near Adulis called "Alalaiou" in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea which were a source of tortoise shell. According to Edward Ullendorff, the Dahlak islanders were amongst the first in the Horn of Africa to embrace Islam, and a number of tombstones in Kufic script attest to this early connection.</p><br>
<p>In the 7th century, an independent Muslim state emerged in the archipelago. However, it was subsequently conquered by Yemen, then intermittently by the Kingdom of Medri Bahri (Land of the Sea). In 1517 the Ottoman Turks conquered the islands and placed them under the rule of the Pasha at Suakin as part of the province of Habesh.</p><br>
<p>The Italian colony of Eritrea, formed in 1890, included the archipelago. However, during this time the islands were home to little except the Nocra prison camp operated by the Italian colonial forces.</p><br>
<p>After Ethiopia allied itself with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, following the rise of the Derg, the Dahlak Archipelago was the location of a Soviet Navy base. In 1990, Ethiopia lost control of the Dahlak Archipelago and the northern Eritrean coast to the Eritrean independence movement (EPLF) and by 1991 Ethiopia had lost control of all of Eritrea. Following the international recognition of Eritrean independence in 1993, the Dahlak Archipelago became a part of Eritrea.</p><br>
<h2>Ecology</h2><br>
<p>Some of the islands are fringed with mangroves and others with salt brush scrub. The coral reefs and shoals that surround the islands are rich in marine life, and many sea birds visit the area. Dolphins, dugongs, sharks and turtles can be seen as well as a great variety of invertebrates.</p><br>
<p>Rote Island  is an island of Indonesia, part of the East Nusa Tenggara province of the Lesser Sunda Islands. According to legend, this island got its name accidentally when a lost Portuguese sailor arrived and asked a farmer where he was. The surprised farmer, who could not speak Portuguese, introduced himself, "Rote".</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Rote lies 500 km northwest of the Australian coast and 170 km north of the Ashmore and Cartier Islands. The island is situated to the southwest of the larger island of Timor. To the north is the Savu Sea, and to the south is the Timor Sea. To the west is Savu and Sumba. The uninhabited Pamana (or Ndana) island, just south of Rote, with an area of 14 km², is the southernmost island of Indonesia. Along with some other nearby small islands, such as Ndao island, it forms the kabupaten (regency) of Rote Ndao Regency, which in 2010 decennial census recorded a population of 119,711. Rote island has an area of 1,200 km².</p><br>
<p>The main town, Ba&#39;a, is located on the northern side of the island. Rote has a good surf area in the south around the village of Nemberala.</p><br>
<h2>Transportation</h2><br>
<p>There is a daily ferry to the island from Kupang, the provincial capital on West Timor, which provides transport for local passengers and goods as well as tourists. The trip between Kupang and Ba&#39;a takes around two hours.</p><br>
<p>Wings Air operates daily flights between Rotes David Constantijn Saudale Airport and Kupangs El Tari International Airport. Flight time is about 30 minutes.</p><br>
<p>Rote consists of rolling hills, terraced plantations, acacia palm, savanna and some forests.</p><br>
<h2>Economy</h2><br>
<p>The Rotinese depend, like the Savunese, on the lontar palm for basic survival but also as a supplement to their income from fishing and jewelry making.</p><br>
<p>Agriculture is the main form of employment. Fishing is also important, especially in the eastern village of Papela (east of Londalusi in the map), which has led to disputes with Australia over the water between them.</p><br>
<h2>Tourist attractions</h2><br>
<p>Rote has many historical relics including fine antique Chinese porcelain, as well as ancient arts and traditions. Several prominent Indonesian figures were born in Rote. A popular music instrument, Sasando, is made of palm leaves.</p><br>
<p>In the eastern part of the island is a pond in Landu Village that has non-poisonous jellyfish. The pond also has a white sandy beach.</p><br>
<h2>Trivia</h2><br>
<p>The critically endangered Rote Island snake-necked turtle is endemic to Rote Island.</p><br>
<p>The US-born Australian scholar, Prof James J Fox, has written extensively about Rotinese culture.</p><br>
<p>Nusa_Manuk,_Sth_West_Rote.jpgThe Beach on Nusa Manuk (Manuk Island), South West Rote</p><br>
<p>The_Raja_of_West_Rote.jpgA Rote men wearing the ti&#39;i langga.</p><br>
<p>Rote drummer.jpgA Rotenese drummer with Traditional Hat</p><br>
<p>COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM De Radja van Korbafo Roti tussen twee lijfwachten in TMnr 10001756.jpgKorbafo chief with warriors, 1900.</p><br>
<p>UvA-BC 300.329 - Siboga - twee inheemse bewoners van het eiland Rotti (Roti).jpgTwo Rotenese (Koa Fola dan Besi Fola, 1812-1816)</p><br>
<p>The Gaithersburg Latitude Observatory is a historic astronomical observatory on DeSellum Avenue in Gaithersburg, Maryland. It was established in 1899 as part of a system of six International Latitude Observatories to precisely measure the wobble of the Earth&#39;s rotating axis. The observatory building and adjacent monuments were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989 as a testament to international scientific cooperation. The observatory was taken out of service in 1982 after automation eliminated the need for human observations; the property is now owned by the city.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Gaithersburg Latitude Observatory was one of six observatories &mdash; and one of the four original observatories built by 1899 &mdash; tracking the degree of "wobble" occurring on the earth’s north-south axis and resultant variation of latitude. The Observatory &mdash; along with observatories in Cincinnati, Ohio; Ukiah, California; Mizusawa, Japan; Charjui in Russian Turkestan; and Carloforte, Sardina, Italy &mdash; performed in concert to carry out a coordinated program of star observation designed to investigate and calculate the degree of earth “wobble” or latitude variation.</p><br>
<p>On the grounds of the Gaithersburg Latitude Observatory stands a plaque that reads:</p><br>
<p>A second portion of the observatory was constructed to house the Photographic Zenith Tube. The observers used the Photographic Zenith Tube to capture picture data using the Zenith telescope as a guide of alignment and star track. However, nothing now remains of this addition to the Gaithersburg Latitude Observatory.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Gaithersburg observatory was established as part of the International Polar Motion Service in 1899. The Gaithersburg observatory was built by Edwin Smith, chief of the Instrument Division of the USA Coast and Geodetic Survey, who had conducted similar measurements as a volunteer in 1891-92 from his home in Rockville, Maryland. During its operation twelve groups of stars were studied in the program, each group containing six pairs of stars. Each night, the station observed two of the star groups along a preset schedule and later compared the data against the measurements taken by the five sister stations. The station operated on this schedule until 1915, when it was temporarily closed as a result of economy measures. Operations resumed in 1932 and continued until 1982 when advances in computer technology and satellite observations rendered it obsolete, although data collected by the observatory over the years still has use to scientists, and has been applied to studies of polar motion, the physical properties of the Earth, climatology and satellite tracking and navigation.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>The Gaithersburg Latitude Observatory stands on the north side of DeSellum Avenue, just north of the Gaithersburg High School campus. The building measures 13 ft square with a small gable-roofed louvered entrance porch on the west side. There is a small shed-roofed addition on the east side. The structure rests on a mortar and fieldstone foundation. Each gable features a decorative wood five-pointed star. A metal ventilator is mounted over each half-section&#39;s roof, topped with similar metal star. A system of metal-capped wood rails allows the building to be pulled apart in the middle using ropes and pulleys. The halves operate independently. The structure is double-walled, with an inner frame of 4×4s sheathed with tongue-and-groove boards, separated by 9 in from the outer, louvered wall, also framed with 4×4s.</p><br>
<p>On the interior, a double floor surrounds a pyramidal concrete pier that supported the observing instruments. A 1½ story brick caretaker&#39;s house, built in 1947, is located 70 ft to the south; it is excluded from the landmark designation.</p><br>
<p>The site was extensively surveyed and documented to support its mission. The Meridian Mark Pier, about 200 ft to the south, was used to align the zenith telescope. Five Coast and Geodetic Survey monuments are on the property. The RM-1 monument has been used by NOAA for testing associated with the Global Positioning Satellite system.</p><br>
<p>The Turia or Túria  is a Spanish river which has its source in the Montes Universales in the mountain ranges of the northwesternmost end of the Sistema Ibérico, Teruel province. From its source to roughly the city of Teruel, it is called Guadalaviar river. It runs through the provinces of Teruel, Cuenca and Valencia, and discharges into the Mediterranean sea near the city of Valencia.</p><br>
<h2>Diversion Project</h2><br>
<p>The river is famous for its floods. The flood which occurred on 14 October 1957, known as the Great Flood of Valencia, flooded large part of the city of Valencia, and produced a great deal of damage to both life and property. To prevent this from happening in the future, a diversion project was devised (Plan Sur de Valencia), completed in 1969, and the river was divided in two at the western city limits. During floods, most of the water is diverted southwards along a new course that skirts the city, until it meets the Mediterranean. The old course of the river has been turned into a central green-space for the city, a cultural attraction known as the garden of the Turia.</p><br>
<p>Not unlike the LA River man-made diversion channel south of the city is often found dry, since water primary flows during periods of flooding. Under ordinary flow rates the waters are directed through irrigation channels to help cultivate the fertile plain of Valencia. Throughout history the water of the River Turia has been used to irrigate the region. In modern times, a complex network of irrigation has been created, with the main axis centred on the diversion project. Beyond irrigation, these channels also take runoff and surplus waters from the Turia to the wetlands and marshes around Valencia.</p><br>
<h2>Attractions Along the old Course</h2><br>
<p>The old riverbed is now a verdant sunken park that allows cyclists and pedestrians to traverse much of the city without the use of roads. The park, called the Garden of the Turia (Jardí del Túria/Jardín del Turia) boasts numerous ponds, paths, fountains, flowers, football pitches, cafés, artworks, climbing walls, an athletics track, a zen garden and more. The many bridges overhead carry traffic across the park.</p><br>
<p>Towards the parks eastern end is the Gulliver Park (Parc Gulliver/Parque Gulliver), a childrens adventure playground featuring a huge fibreglass model of Lemuel Gulliver tied to the ground with ropes. The model is constructed such that the ropes are climbable. In addition, Gullivers clothes form slides and ladders on which to play. Also towards the eastern end of the river course is the Valencian Music Palace (el Palau de la Música Valenciana). Marking the parks eastern extreme is Valencia&#39;s new City of Arts and Sciences.</p><br>
<p>Two Metrovalencia stations lie beneath the riverbed, with entrances on either bank: Túria and Alameda.</p><br>
<p>The Satpura Range is a range of hills in central India. The range rises in eastern Gujarat state running east through the border of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh to the east till Chhattisgarh. The range parallels the Vindhya Range to the north, and these two east-west ranges divide Indian Subcontinent into the Indo-Gangetic plain of northern India and the Deccan Plateau of the south. The Narmada River originates from north-eastern end of Satpura and runs in the depression between the Satpura and Vindhya ranges, draining the northern slope of the Satpura range, running west towards the Arabian Sea. The Tapti River originates in the eastern-central part of Satpura, crossing the range in the center and running west at the range&#39;s southern slopes before meeting the Arabian Sea at Surat, draining the central and southern slopes of the range. The Godavari River and its tributaries drain the Deccan plateau, which lies south of the range, and the Mahanadi River drains the easternmost portion of the range. The Godavari and Mahanadi rivers flow into the Bay of Bengal. At its eastern end, the Satpura range meets the hills of the Chota Nagpur Plateau.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>Satpura is originally derived from Sanskrit word "Shatpura" (Devnagari: शतपुरा), which means "Hundred Mountains."</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The eastern portion of the range receives more rainfall than the western portion, and the eastern range, together with the Eastern Ghats, constitute the eastern highlands moist deciduous forests ecoregion. The seasonally dry western portion of the range, together with the Narmada valley and the western Vindhya Range, are within the Narmada valley dry deciduous forests ecoregion.</p><br>
<p>The Narmada and the Tapti are major rivers that drain into the Arabian Sea. The Narmada originates in eastern Madhya Pradesh ( India) and flows west across the state, through a narrow valley between the Vindhya Range and spurs of the Satpura Range. It flows into the Gulf of Khambhat. The Tapi (also known as Tapti) follows a shorter, parallel course, between 80 and south of the Narmada, flowing through the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat to drain into the Gulf of Khambhat.</p><br>
<h2>Ecology</h2><br>
<p>Most of the Satpura range was heavily forested; but the area has been subject to gradual deforestation in recent decades, although significant stands of forests remain. These forest enclaves provide habitat to several at risk and endangered species, including the Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris), gaur (Bos gaurus), dhole (Cuon alpinus), sloth bear (Melursus ursinus), chousingha (Tetracerus quadricornis), and blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra).</p><br>
<p>However, Satpura is now famous for numerous tiger reserves. Once upon a time, it was ruled by wild Indian elephants and lions</p><br>
<p>Several protected areas have been earmarked in the area, including the Kanha, Pench, Gugamal and Satpura National Parks, Pachmarhi Biosphere Reserve, Melghat Tiger Reserve and the Bori Reserve Forest.</p><br>
<p>The Satpura Foundation, is a grass-roots organization that coordinates conservation efforts in the area, which continue to face challenges from development and infrastructure projects, logging and poaching.</p><br>
<h2>Tourism</h2><br>
<p>The national parks, hill stations, reserves and towns in the Satpura range attract hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.</p><br>
<p>Pachmarhi, a beautiful hill station in the range is located in Madhya Pradesh, has a range of attractions from its forests, animal reserve, rivers and rocky terrain. It is a popular destination for trekking, fishing and adventure activities.It is also known as Queen of satpura because of its mystic beauty.And became known destination for Bollywood film shootings.Highest point of satpura range Dhupgarh is located in Pachmarhi.</p><br>
<p>Satpura National Park is located in the district Hoshangabad of Madhya Pradesh. It gets its name from the Satpura ranges. It covers an area of 524 km&sup2;. Satpura National Park, and along with the adjoining Bori and Panchmarhi Sanctuaries, provides 1,427 km&sup2; of unique central Indian highland ecosystem.The terrain of the national park is extremely rugged and consists of sandstone peaks, narrow gorges, ravines and dense forests. Satpura National Park, being part of a unique ecosystem, is very rich in biodiversity. The animals here are the tiger, Indian leopard, sambar, chital, Bhedki, nilgai, four-horned antelope, chinkara, bison (gour), wild boar, wild dog, bear, black buck, fox, porcupine, flying squirrel, mouse deer, Indian giant squirrel, etc. There are a variety of birds. Hornbills and peafowl are common birds found here. The flora consists of mainly sal, teak, tendu, Phyllanthus emblica, mahua, bel, bamboo, and grasses and medicinal plants.</p><br>
<p>Kanha National Park is a national park and a tiger reserve near the range in Mandla and Balaghat districts of Madhya Pradesh, India. In the 1930s, Kanha area was divided into two sanctuaries, Hallon and Banjar, of 250 and 300 km. Kanha National Park was created on 1 June 1955. Today it stretches over an area of 940 km in the two districts Mandla and Balaghat. Together with a surrounding buffer zone of 1,067 km and the neighboring 110 km Phen Sanctuary it forms the Kanha Tiger Reserve. Madhya Pradesh Forest Department. Retrieved 14 April 2010. This makes it the largest national park in Central India. The park has a significant population of royal Bengal tiger, leopards, the sloth bear, barasingha and Indian wild dog. The lush sal and bamboo forests, grassy meadows and ravines of Kanha provided inspiration to Rudyard Kipling for his famous novel "Jungle Book."</p><br>
<p>Bori Wildlife Sanctuary, is located in Madhya Pradesh. Bori Wildlife Sanctuary includes India&#39;s oldest forest preserve, the Bori Reserve Forest, established in 1865 along the Tewa River. The sanctuary covers an area of 518 km&sup2, located in the northern foothills of the Satpura Range. It is bounded by the Satpura National Park to the north and east, and by the Tawa River to the west. The sanctuary, together with Satpura National Park and the Pachmarhi Sanctuary, forms the Pachmarhi Biosphere Reserve. The sanctuary is mostly covered in mixed deciduous and bamboo forests, part of the eastern highlands moist deciduous forests ecoregion. It is an important transition zone between the forests of western and eastern India. Dominant trees include teak (Tectona grandis), dhaora (Anogeissus latifolia), tendu (Diospyros melanoxylon), among others. Large mammal species include tiger, leopard, wild boar, muntjac deer, gaur (Bos gaurus), chital deer (Axis axis), sambar (Cervus unicolor), and rhesus macaques.</p><br>
<p>Bandhavgarh National Park, is one of the popular national parks in Madhya Pradesh located near satpura range in the Umaria district of Madhya Pradesh. Bandhavgarh was declared a national park in 1968, with an area of 105 km. The buffer is spread over the forest divisions of Umaria and Katni and totals 437 km. The park derives its name from the most prominent hillock of the area, which is said to be given by Hindu Lord Rama to his brother Lakshmana to keep a watch on Lanka (Ceylon). Hence the name Bandhavgarh (Sanskrit: Brother&#39;s Fort). This park has a large biodiversity. The density of the tiger population at Bandhavgarh is one of the highest known in India. The park has a large breeding population of leopards, and various species of deer. Maharaja Martand Singh of Rewa captured the first white tiger in this region in 1951. This white tiger, Mohan, is now stuffed and on display in the palace of the Maharajas of Rewa.</p><br>
<p>Pench National Park is situated to the south of the Satpura. It is named after the name of the river Pench which flows through this area. This is the 19th project tiger reserve in India and was declared so in 1992. It has tropical moist deciduous forest. Meandering through the park from north to south. It is located on the southern boundary of Madhya Pradesh, bordering Maharashtra, in the districts of Seoni and Chhindwara. Pench National Park, comprising 758 km&sup2, out of which a core area of 299 km&sup2; of Indira Priyadarshini Pench National Park and the Mowgli Pench Sanctuary and remaining 464 km&sup2; of the Pench national park is the buffer area. The area of the present tiger reserve has a glorious history. A description of its natural wealth and richness occurs in Ain-i-Akbari. Pench Tiger Reserve and its neighbourhood is the original setting of Rudyard Kipling&#39;s most famous work, The Jungle Book.</p><br>
<p>Amarkantak is a beautiful pilgrim town in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India. Also called "Teerthraj" (the king of pilgrimages), Amarkantak region is a unique natural heritage area and is the meeting point of the Vindhyas and the Satpuras, with the Maikal Hills being the fulcrum. This is where the Narmada River, the Sone River and Johila River emerge.</p><br>
<p>Chhindwara is one of the larger towns located in the Satpura range. It is situated on a plateau, surrounded by the lush green fields, rivers and sagaun trees. Chhindwara is surrounded by dense forest with diverse flora and fauna. Pench and Kanhan are two important rivers of Chhindwara. Chhindwara is an urban agglomeration and a municipality in Chhindwara district in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the administrative headquarters of Chhindwara District. Chhindwara is reachable by rail or road from adjacent cities Nagpur and Jabalpur. The nearest airport is in Nagpur (130 km); however, a small airport (air-strip) is available at Chhindwara for landing charter aeroplanes/helicopters. The population of the District is 2,090,306, with a population growth rate of 13% and a male-to-female sex ratio of 0.966. The literacy rate is 100%.</p><br>
<p>Toranmal is a hill retreat in Maharashtra. Its Gorakhnath Temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva and visited by thousands of devotees on Mahashivratri. Pilgrims often walk barefoot for days from surrounding areas in the Nandurbar district and across Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat to make the yatra to Toranmal through Shahada.</p><br>
<p>Chikhaldara is a famous hill retreat in Maharashtra is located in Satpura ranges in Amravati District. It is full natural beauty such rivers, big waterfalls, dense forest, rocks, mountains, trekking, cool and fresh air, with full of adventure. It has various viewing points such as Bhimkund waterfall, Devi point waterfall, Vairat point (highest point), Gavilgarh Fort, Prospect point, Mozari point, coffee garden, Panchbol point, etc. It is the only hill station in Vidharbha region of Maharashtra. Also it is the origin point of many river such as Pili, Chandrabhaga, Shahnoor, Bichhan, Sapan, Sipna, Dolar, Bholeshwari, etc.</p><br>
<p>Melghat Tiger Reserve is a tiger reserve located in northern part of Amravati District of Maharashtra State in India. The Tapti River and the Gawilgadh ridge of the Satpura Range form the boundaries of the reserve. In 1985 Melghat Wildlife Sanctuary was created. The Tapi river (also known as Tapti river) flows through the northern end of the Melghat Tiger Reserve, through a forest which lies within the catchment area of the river system. Many different kinds of wildlife, both flora and fauna, are found here. And there many river flowing through the reservoir such as Sipna river, Khurshi River, Dolar river, Garga River, Khapra River, etc.</p><br>
<p>Gugamal National Park is another national park located in Maharashtra and in Satpura range has an area of 1,673.93 km&sup2;. Built in 1974, this park is located in Chikhaldara and Dharni Tehsils of Amravati District, Maharashtra, India. It is part of Melghat Tiger Reserve. The forest in rugged and hilly area of Melghat is typical southern dry deciduous forest. This consist mainly of Tectona grandis, Ain, Tiwas, Aola, Lendia, Dhawada, Kusum are the important tree species. Bamboo is widely spread in the forests. There are some orchids and strobilanthes in the upper hills. The area is rich in medicinal plants. The area is rich in wild mammals including tiger, panther, sloth bear, wild dog, jackal, hyena, chousingha, sambar (largest deer) gaur, barking deer, ratel, flying squirrel, cheetal (a deer), nilgai, wild boar, langur, rhesus monkey, and macaque. Also found here are 25 types of fish and many varieties of butterfly. Crocodiles were re-introduced in a systematic manner in March 1990 and February 1991 in Siddu Kund in Gadga river near Dhakna and Hathikund in the Dolar river in the Gugamal National Park.</p><br>
<p>Muktagiri is a Jain pilgrimage centre, located on border of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra in India. It comes under Bhainsdehi tehsil of Betul district or Baitul district in Madhya Pradesh, India. It is 14 km away from Paratwada, Dist. Amravati, Maharashtra. Muktagiri is 7 km away from Kharpi village on Paratwada - Baitul road. Muktagiri is also called as Mendhagiri. There are 52 temples on the mountain, surrounding a beautiful waterfall. The waterfall is generally visible only when there is enough rainfall in the area. One can plan trip to Muktagiri between June to September to see the waterfall. A lot of monkeys can be seen near the 10th Temple – Bhagwan Sheetalnath temple – near which the waterfall is located. The 10th Temple is an ancient temple and is inside an ancient cave. The cave is prone to stonefall (which is generally said to happen only during night). Also, lot of honeybees are at a large distance from the cave. The 1st Temple, 10th Temple, 26th Temple and 40th Temple are the main temples.</p><br>
<p>Shoolpaneshwar Wildlife Sanctuary, covering 607.70 km&sup2, is located in Narmada district of Gujarat. It has 575 species of flowering plants, with vast patches of bamboo and it comprises a deciduous forest with semi-evergreen trees. Many type of animals like sloth bear, leopard, rhesus macaque, chausinga, barking deer, pangolin, herpetofauna, birds including Alexandrian parakeet are found here.</p><br>
<h2>Other</h2><br>
<p>is a Shivalik class frigate of the Indian Navy named for the range.</p><br>
<p>The Vindhya Range is a complex, discontinuous chain of mountain ridges, hill ranges, highlands and plateau escarpments in west-central India.</p><br>
<p>Technically, the Vindhyas do not form a single mountain range in the geological sense. The exact extent of the Vindhyas is loosely defined, and historically, the term covered a number of distinct hill systems in central India, including the one that is now known as the Satpura Range. Today, the term principally refers to the escarpment that runs north of and roughly parallel to the Narmada River in Madhya Pradesh, and its hilly extensions. Depending on the definition, the range extends up to Gujarat in the west, and Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in the east.</p><br>
<p>The Vindhyas have a great significance in Indian mythology and history. Several ancient texts mention the Vindhyas as the southern boundary of the Āryāvarta, the territory of the ancient Indo-Aryan peoples. Although today Indo-Aryan languages are spoken to south of the Vindhyas, the range continues to be considered as the traditional boundary between the northern and the southern nations. The former Vindhya Pradesh was named after the Vindhya Range.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology and names</h2><br>
<p>According to the author of a commentary on Amarakosha, the word Vindhya derives from the Sanskrit word "Vaindh" (to obstruct). A mythological story (see below) states that the Vindhyas once obstructed the path of the sun, resulting in this name. According to another theory, the name "Vindhya" means "hunter" in Sanskrit, and may refer to the adivasi (tribal) hunter-gatherers inhabiting the region.</p><br>
<p>The Vindhya range is also known as "Vindhyachala" or "Vindhyachal&quot the suffix achala (Sanskrit) or achal (Hindi) refers to a mountain. In the Mahabharata, the range is also referred to as Vindhyapadaparvata. The Greek geographer Ptolemy called the range Vindius or Ouindion, describing it as the source of Namados (Narmada) and Nanagouna (Tapti) rivers. The "Daksinaparvata" ("Southern Mountain") mentioned in the Kaushitaki Upanishad is also identified with the Vindhyas.</p><br>
<h2>Extent</h2><br>
<p>The Vindhyas do not form a single range in the proper geological sense: the hills collectively known as the Vindhyas do not lie along an anticlinal or synclinal ridge. The Vindhya range is actually a group of discontinuous chain of mountain ridges, hill ranges, highlands and plateau escarpments. The term "Vindhyas" is defined by convention, and therefore, the exact definition of the Vindhya range has varied at different times in history.</p><br>
<h3>Historical definitions</h3><br>
<p>Earlier, the term "Vindhyas" was used in a wider sense, and included a number of hill ranges between the Indo-Gangetic plain and the Deccan Plateau. According to the various definitions mentioned in the older texts, the Vindhyas extend up to Godavari in the south and Ganges in the north.</p><br>
<p>In certain Puranas, the term Vindhya specifically covers the mountain range located between the Narmada and the Tapti rivers; that is, the one which is now known as the Satpura Range. The Varaha Purana uses the name "Vindhya-pada" ("foot of the Vindhyas") for the Satpura range.</p><br>
<p>Several ancient Indian texts and inscriptions (e.g. the Nasik Prasasti of Gautamiputra Satakarni) mention three mountain ranges in Central India: Vindhya (or "Vindhya proper"), Rksa (also Rksavat or Riksha) and Pariyatra (or Paripatra). The three ranges are included in the seven Kula Parvatas ("clan mountains") of Bharatavarsha i.e. India. The exact identification of these three ranges is difficult due to contrasting descriptions in the various texts. For example, the Kurma, Matsya and Brahmanda Puranas mention Vindhya as the source of Tapti; while Vishnu and Brahma Puranas mention the Rksa as its source. Some texts use the term Vindhyas to describe all the hills in Central India.</p><br>
<p>In one passage, Valmiki&#39;s Ramayana describes Vindhya as being situated to the south of Kishkindha (Ramayana IV-46. 17), which is identified with a part of the present-day Karnataka. It further implies that the sea was located just to the south of the Vindhyas, and Lanka was located across this sea. Many scholars have attempted to explain this anamoly in different ways. According to one theory, the term "Vindhyas" covered a number of mountains to the south of the Indo-Aryan territories at the time Ramayana was written. Others, such as Frederick Eden Pargiter, believe that there was another mountain in South India, with the same name. Madhav Vinayak Kibe placed the location of Lanka in Central India.</p><br>
<p>The Barabar Cave inscription of Maukhari Anantavarman mentions the Nagarjuni hill of Bihar as a part of the Vindhyas.</p><br>
<h3>Present-day definition</h3><br>
<p>Today, the definition of the Vindhyas is primarily restricted to the Central Indian escarpments, hills and highlands located to the north of the Narmada River.</p><br>
<p>The western end of the Vindhya range is located in the state of Gujarat, near the state&#39;s border with Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, at the eastern side of the Gujarat peninsula. A series of hills connects the Vindhya extension to the Aravalli Range near Champaner. The Vindhya range rises in height east of Chhota Udaipur.</p><br>
<p>The principal Vindhya range forms the southern escarpment of the Central Indian upland. It runs roughly parallel to the Naramada river in the east-west direction, forming the southern wall of the Malwa plateau in Madhya Pradesh.</p><br>
<p>The eastern portion of the Vindhyas comprises multiple chains, as the range divides into branches east of Malwa. A southern chain of Vindhyas runs between the upper reaches of the Son and Narmada rivers to meet the Satpura Range in the Maikal Hills near Amarkantak. A northern chain of the Vindhyas continues eastwards as Bhander Plateau and Kaimur Range, which runs north of the Son River. This extended range runs through what was once Vindhya Pradesh, reaching up to the Kaimur district of Bihar. The branch of the Vindhya range spanning across Bundelkhand is known as the Panna range. Another northern extension (known as the Vindhyachal hills) runs up to Uttar Pradesh, stopping before the shores of Ganga at multiple places, including Vindhyachal and Chunar (Mirzapur District), near Varanasi.</p><br>
<p>The Vindhyan tableland is a plateau that lies to the north of the central part of the range. The Rewa-Panna plateaus are also collectively known as the Vindhya plateau.</p><br>
<h2>Elevation</h2><br>
<p>Different sources vary on the average elevation of the Vindhyas, depending on their definition of the range. MC Chaturvedi mentions the average elevation as 300 m. Pradeep Sharma states that the "general elevation" of the Vindhyas is 300–650 m, with the range rarely going over 700 m during its 1200 km extent.</p><br>
<p>The highest point of the Vindhyas is the Sad-bhawna Shikhar ("Goodwill Peak"), which lies 2,467 ft above the sea level. Also known as the Kalumar peak or Kalumbe peak, it lies near Singrampur in the Damoh district, in the area known as Bhanrer or Panna hills. Historical texts include Amarkantak (1000+ m) in the Vindhyas, but today, it is considered a part of the Maikal Range, which is considered as an extension of the Satpuras.</p><br>
<h2>Cultural significance</h2><br>
<p>The Vindhyas have a distinguished status in both mythology and geography of India. In the ancient Indian texts, the Vindhyas are seen as the demarcating line between the territories of the Indo-Aryans and that of the others. The most ancient Hindu texts consider it as the southern boundary of Aryavarta. The Mahabharata mentions that the Nishadas and other Mleccha tribes reside in the forests of the Vindhyas. Although the Indo-Aryan languages (such as Marathi and Konkani) spread to the south of Vindhyas later, the Vindhyas continued to be seen as the traditional boundary between the northern and the southern Indian nations.</p><br>
<p>Vindhyas appear prominently in the Indian mythological tales. Although the Vindhyas are not very high, historically, they were considered highly inaccessible and dangerous due to dense vegetation and the hostile tribes residing there. In the older Sanskrit texts, such as the Ramayana, they are described as the unknown territory infested with cannibals and demons. The later texts describe the Vindhya range as the residence of fierce form of Shakti (goddess Kali or Durga), who has lived there since slaying the demons. She is described as Vindhyavasini ("Vindhya dweller"), and a temple dedicated to her is located in the Vindhyachal town of Uttar Pradesh. The Mahabharata mentions the Vindhyas as the "eternal abode" of Kali.</p><br>
<p>According to one legend, the Vindhya mountain once competed with the Mount Meru, growing so high that it obstructed the sun. The sage Agastya then asked Vindhya to lower itself, in order to facilitate his passage across to the south. In reverence for Agastya, the Vindhya lowered its height and promised not to grow until Agastya returned to the north. Agastya settled in the south, and the Vindhya mountain, true to its word, never grew further.</p><br>
<p>The Kishkindha Kanda of Valmiki&#39;s Ramayana mentions that Maya built a mansion in the Vindhyas. In Dashakumaracharita, the King Rajahamsa of Magadha and his ministers create a new colony in the Vindhya forest, after being forced out of their kingdom following a war defeat.</p><br>
<p>The Vindhyas are one of the only two mountain ranges mentioned in the national anthem of India, the other being the Himalayas.</p><br>
<h2>Rivers</h2><br>
<p>Several tributaries of the Ganga-Yamuna system originate from the Vindhyas. These include Chambal, Betwa, Dhasan, Ken, Tamsa, Kali Sindh and Parbati. The northern slopes of the Vindhyas are drained by these rivers.</p><br>
<p>Narmada and Son rivers drain the southern slopes of the Vindhyas. Both these rivers rise in the Maikal hills, which are now defined as an extension of the Satpuras, although several older texts use the term Vindhyas to cover them (see Historical definitions above).</p><br>
<h2>Geology and paleontology</h2><br>
<p>The "Vindhyan Supergroup" is one of the largest and thickest sedimentary successions in the world.</p><br>
<p>The earliest known multicellular fossils of eukaryotes (filamentous algae) have been discovered from Vindhya basin dating back to 1.6 to 1.7 billion years ago. Shelled creatures are documented to have first evolved at the start of the Cambrian explosion of life, about 550 million years ago.</p><br>
<p>The Rangitikei River is one of New Zealand&#39;s longest rivers, 185 km long.</p><br>
<p>Its headwaters are to the southeast of Lake Taupo in the Kaimanawa Ranges. It flows from the Central Plateau south past Taihape, Mangaweka, Hunterville, Marton, and Bulls, to the South Taranaki Bight at Tangimoana, 40 km southeast of Wanganui. The river gives its name to the surrounding Rangitikei District.</p><br>
<p>In 1897 the river flooded and all six bridges over it were damaged or destroyed. The port at the mouth of the river was also washed away and never rebuilt.</p><br>
<p>The river is a popular leisure and recreation area for jetboating, white water rafting, kayaking and fishing, and includes public camp grounds along its banks, including Vinegar Hill, New Zealand. Its sheer vertical "paapa" (clay) cliffs (unique to this part of New Zealand) and deep canyons provide the perfect setting for adventure activities such as bungy jumps and flying fox rides. Part of the river was used as the Anduin River in Peter Jackson&#39;s movie The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.</p><br>
<p>Both rainbow and brown trout throughout the river system with fish in the upper reaches reaching trophy size (i.e. over 4.5 kg) with the average through the rest of the system being around 1.5 to 2 kg. Fish numbers are good throughout the system though there are fewer fish per kilometre in the upper reaches. This is made up for by the quality and size of the fish being larger in this section.</p><br>
<p>Roatán is an island in the Caribbean, about 65 km off the northern coast of Honduras. It is located between the islands of Útila and Guanaja, and is the largest of the Bay Islands of Honduras.</p><br>
<p>The island was formerly known as Ruatan and Rattan. It is approximately 77 km long, and less than 8 km across at its widest point.</p><br>
<p>The island consists of two municipalities: José Santos Guardiola in the east and Roatán, including the Cayos Cochinos, further south in the west.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The island rests on an exposed ancient coral reef, rising to about 270 m above sea level. Offshore reefs offer opportunities for diving. Most habitation is in the western half of the island.</p><br>
<p>The most populous town of the island is Coxen Hole, capital of Roatán municipality, located in the southwest. West of Coxen Hole are the settlements of Gravel Bay, Flowers Bay and Pensacola on the south coast, and Sandy Bay, West End and West Bay on the north coast. To the east of Coxen Hole are the settlements of Mount Pleasant, French Harbour, Parrot Tree, Jonesville and Oakridge on the south coast, and Punta Gorda on the north coast.</p><br>
<p>The easternmost quarter of the island is separated by a channel through the mangroves that is 15 metres wide on average. This section is called Helene, or Santa Elena in Spanish. Satellite islands at the eastern end are Morat, Barbareta, and Pigeon Cay. Further west between French Harbour and Coxen Hole are several cays, including Stamp Cay and Barefoot Cay.</p><br>
<h2>Location</h2><br>
<p>Located near the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef, the largest barrier reef in the Caribbean Sea (second largest worldwide after Australia&#39;s Great Barrier Reef), Roatán has become an important cruise ship, scuba diving and eco-tourism destination in Honduras. Tourism is its most important economic sector, though fishing is also an important source of income for islanders. Roatán is located within 40 miles of La Ceiba. The island is served by the Juan Manuel Gálvez Roatán International Airport and the Galaxy Wave Ferry service twice a day.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The pre-Columbian indigenous peoples of the Bay Islands are believed to have been related to either the Paya, the Maya, the Lenca or the Jicaque, which were the cultures present on the mainland. Christopher Columbus on his fourth voyage (1502–1504) came to the islands as he visited the neighbouring Bay Island of Guanaja. Soon after the Spanish began raiding the islands for slave labour. More devastating for Native American communities was exposure to Eurasian infectious diseases to which they had no immunity, such as smallpox and measles. No indigenous people survived the consequent epidemics.</p><br>
<p>Throughout European colonial times, the Bay of Honduras attracted an array of individual settlers, pirates, traders and military forces. Various economic activities were engaged in and political struggles played out between the European powers, chiefly Britain and Spain. Sea travellers frequently stopped over at Roatán and the other islands as resting points. On several occasions, the islands were subject to military occupation. In contesting with the Spanish for colonisation of the Caribbean, the English occupied the Bay Islands on and off between 1550 and 1700. During this time, buccaneers found the vacated, mostly unprotected islands a haven for safe harbour and transport. English, French and Dutch pirates established settlements on the islands. They frequently raided the Spanish treasure ships, cargo vessels carrying gold and silver from the New World to Spain.</p><br>
<p>During the War of the Austrian Succession (King Georges War in the US), a detachment of the British Army under Lt. Col John Caulfeild (spelt with the "e" before the "i") garrisoned the island from 1742 to 1749. The garrison was originally found from two companies of Goochs Virginia Regiment, but these were eventually amalgamated into Trelawney&#39;s 49th Foot (later the 1st Royal Berkshire Regiment).</p><br>
<p>In 1797, the British defeated the Black Carib, who had been supported by the French, in a battle for control of the Windward Caribbean island of St. Vincent. Weary of their resistance to British plans for sugar plantations, the British rounded up the St. Vincent Black Carib and deported them to Roatán. The majority of Black Carib migrated to Trujillo on mainland Honduras, but a portion remained to found the community of Punta Gorda on the northern coast of Roatán. The Black Carib, whose ancestry includes Arawak and African Maroons, remained in Punta Gorda, becoming the Bay Island&#39;s first permanent post-Columbian settlers. They also migrated from there to parts of the northern coast of Central America, becoming the foundation of the modern-day Garífuna culture in Honduras, Belize and Guatemala.</p><br>
<p>The majority permanent population of Roatán originated from the Cayman Islands near Jamaica. They arrived in the 1830s shortly after Britain&#39;s abolition of slavery in 1838. The changes in the labour system disrupted the economic structure of the Caymans. The islands had largely had a seafaring culture; natives were familiar with the area from turtle fishing and other activities. Former slaveholders from the Cayman Islands were among the first to settle in the seaside locations throughout primarily western Roatán. During the late 1830s and 1840s, former slaves also migrated from the Cayman Islands, in larger number than planters. Altogether, the former Cayman peoples became the largest cultural group on the island.</p><br>
<p>For a brief period in the 1850s, Britain declared the Bay Islands its colony. Within a decade, the Crown ceded the territory formally back to Honduras. British colonists were sent to compete for control. They asked American William Walker, a freebooter (filibuster) with a private army, to help end the crisis in 1860 by invading Honduras; he was captured upon landing in Trujillo and executed there.</p><br>
<p>In the latter half of the 19th century, the island populations grew steadily and established new settlements all over Roatán and the other islands. Settlers came from all over the world and played a part in shaping the cultural face of the island. Islanders started a fruit trade industry which became profitable. By the 1870s it was purchased by American interests, most notably the New Orleans and Bay Islands Fruit Company. Later the Standard Fruit and United Fruit companies became the foundation for modern-day fruit companies, the industry which led to Honduras being called a "banana republic".</p><br>
<p>In the 20th century, there was continued population growth resulting in increased economic changes and environmental challenges. A population boom began with an influx of Spanish-speaking Mestizo migrants from the Honduran mainland. Since the late 20th century, they tripled the previous resident population. Mestizo migrants settled primarily in the urban areas of Coxen Hole and Barrio Los Fuertes (near French Harbour). Even the mainlander influx was dwarfed in number and economic effects by the overwhelming tourist presence in the 21st century. Numerous American, Canadian, British, New Zealand, Australian and South African settlers and entrepreneurs engaged chiefly in the fishing industry, and later, provided the foundation for attracting the tourist trade.</p><br>
<p>In 1998, Roatán suffered some damage from Hurricane Mitch, temporarily paralysing most commercial activity. The storm also broke up the popular dive-wrecks Aguila and Odyssey.</p><br>
<h2>Demographics</h2><br>
<h3>Caracoles</h3><br>
<p>The Caracol people are an English-speaking people who have been established in Northern Honduras (specifically, the Bay Islands) since the early 19th century. They are chiefly of European and British-Afro-Caribbean descent. "Caracol" is Spanish for "conch, snail or shell", and relates the people of the Bay Islands to their unique environment and their seafaring culture. In its current usage, the term "caracol" refers to all people born in the Bay Islands region, and their descendants. The term "caracol" has also been deemed offensive by native Islanders and the term is only used by Spanish-speaking "mainland" Hondurans who have a long-standing rivalry with native Bay Islanders because of their differences in culture, language, beliefs and ideals. All native islanders regardless of race, creed or colour prefer the term "Islanders" when being referred to. The region of the Bay Islands encompasses the three major islands of Roatán, Útila and Guanaja, the Hog Islands as well as the smaller islands or cays. These people are also called "Islanders", especially locally.</p><br>
<p>English is the first language of native islanders regardless of race and Spanish is spoken second, whereas mainland Honduras is Spanish-speaking. It remains this way because of the islands&#39; past as a British colony with descendants of the British Isles. With the steady influx of mainland Hondurans migrating to the islands, Spanish language use has increased. Because of the tourism and cruise ship industry that supports the islands, English continues to be the first spoken and dominant language among all native island peoples. Over time, the form of English spoken by the Caracol has changed. The language differs mostly in morphology but also in pronunciation and accent and, to a lesser extent, in syntax and vocabulary, from the English of the other British Caribbean colonies, as evidenced by the usage of a wide variety of old standard English terms and words throughout the islands. They are similar enough to be mutually intelligible and understood throughout the entire Bay Islands. The language can also be learned, although it is not taught in the general sense, whilst the accent derives from the wide variety of expatriates living and working on the Islands from North America and Europe.</p><br>
<h2>Environment</h2><br>
<p>Roatán lies on the southern edge of the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, the 2nd largest barrier reef in the world. Reef systems are very delicate and have experienced massive damage and degradation worldwide. On Roatán, unchecked tourism development and an increased population are putting a strain on its natural resources. Deforestation, run-off, poorly managed waste treatment, and pollution are the main threats to the terrestrial and marine environments.</p><br>
<p>The capital city of Coxen Hole underwent a major reconstruction between the years of 2003 to 2005 adding new black water and septic lines as well as fresh water lines to accommodate the growing business sector and population. These lines are used in conjunction with the new water treatment plant and a waste management plant that recycles waste which are adjacent to the Roatán International Airport.</p><br>
<p>A similar project has been completed and now serving West End Village (the Island&#39;s tourism, social and diving hub) with even greater success than its predecessors. Although the project was initially met with some scepticism and anger at a tax hike proposed to help fund the project, it has turned out to be an overwhelming success with a new state of the art road, pumping station, sewer lines and drainage system. The project and its facilities are currently maintained and operated by ACME sanitation and solutions. It was not that long ago where "sanitation" was provided by hundreds of out-houses located at the ends of short boardwalks over the water. In the smaller communities, this "system" may be still in use.</p><br>
<p>The Roatán Marine Park was the main force behind introducing recycling to the Island as well as the popular "Coastal clean up" projects that have become very popular among schools, residents and expatriate communities on the Island. The Marine Park is led by a team of professional divers, marine biologists and oceanographers.</p><br>
<h2>Roatán Marine Park</h2><br>
<p>The Roatán Marine Park (RMP) is a grassroots, community-based, non-profit organization located on Roatán. The organization was formed in January 2005 when a group of concerned dive operators and local businesses united in an effort to protect Roatáns fragile coral reefs. Initially, the RMPs goal was to run a patrol program within the Sandy Bay-West End Marine Reserve (SBWEMR), to prevent over exploitation through unsustainable fishing practices. Over time, the organisation expanded the scope of their environmental efforts through the addition of other programs to protect Roatán&#39;s natural resources, including patrols and infrastructure, education, conservation and public awareness.</p><br>
<h2>Roatán Institute of Marine Science</h2><br>
<p>The Roatán Institute for Marine Sciences (RIMS) was established in 1989 with the primary objective being the preservation of Roatáns natural resources through education and research. RIMS is located in Sandy Bay, specifically in Anthonys key, in northwest coast of Roatán with over 30 miles of fringing and barrier reefs, seagrass beds, mangroves and shoreline. Over the past twenty five years, RIMS has established itself as a teaching institution and is visited by colleges as well as universities from abroad to study tropical marine ecosystems and the bottlenose dolphins.</p><br>
<h2>Conservation</h2><br>
<p>All reef systems throughout the Bay Islands are protected by the local and central government with help from charitable donations and those on the front line. Through local donations to the Marine Park and the many causes along with a concerted effort from the resorts on the island weekly clean-ups are undertaken to insure no metals or plastics litter the reef system and beaches as well as all major dive shops doing clean-ups on most of their daily dives. There are still obstacles to be defeated but the Islanders and expatriates living on the islands have taken a united stand to conserve and educate.</p><br>
<h2>Aviation</h2><br>
<p>The Juan Manuel Galvez International Airport (RTB) on Roatán is one of four airports able to receive international traffic that is in service in Honduras. The other airports in Honduras are the Ramon Villeda Morales International Airport (SPS) in San Pedro Sula, Toncontin International Airport (TGU) in Tegucigalpa, and Goloson International Airport in La Ceiba (LCE).</p><br>
<p>The island of Roatán airport has a terminal that is served with nonstop flights to Roatán from Houston, Atlanta, Miami, New York City (Newark International Airport), San Salvador and Milan. During the winter months, the island also receives flights to Roatán from Montreal and Toronto.</p><br>
<p>On 9 September 2011, EasySky started operations in Honduras, serving the mainland City of La Ceiba and the island of Roatán in the Western Caribbean using a Boeing 737-200.</p><br>
<p>The Chota Nagpur Plateau is a plateau in eastern India, which covers much of Jharkhand state as well as adjacent parts of Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar and Chhattisgarh. The Indo-Gangetic plain lies to the north and east of the plateau, and the basin of the Mahanadi River lies to the south. The total area of the Chota Plateau is approximately 65,000 km&sup2;.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>The name Nagpur is probably taken from Nagavanshis, who ruled in this part of the country. Chota is a corruption of the word small, a village in the outskirts of Ranchi, which has the remains of an old fort belonging to the Nagavanshis.</p><br>
<h2>Formation</h2><br>
<p>The Chota Nagpur Plateau is a continental plateau&mdash;an extensive area of land thrust above the general land. The plateau has been formed by continental uplift from forces acting deep inside the earth. The Gondwana substrates attest to the plateau&#39;s ancient origin. It is part of the Deccan Plate, which broke free from the southern continent during the Cretaceous to embark on a 50-million-year journey that was violently interrupted by the northern Eurasian continent. The northeastern part of the Deccan Plateau, where this ecoregion sits, was the first area of contact with Eurasia.</p><br>
<h2>Divisions</h2><br>
<p>The Chota Nagpur Plateau consists of three steps. The highest step is in the western part of the plateau, where pats, as a plateau is locally called, are 3000 to 3500 ft above sea level. The highest point is 3,819 ft. The next part contains larger portions of the old Ranchi and Hazaribagh districts and some parts of old Palamu district, before these were broken up into smaller administrative units. The general height is 2,000 ft. The topography in undulating with prominent gneissic hills, often dome-like in outline. The lowest step of the plateau is at an average level of around 1,000 ft. It covers the old Manbhum and Singhbhum districts. High hills are a striking part of this section - Parasnath Hills rise to a height of 4,480 ft and Dalma Hills to 3,407 ft. The large plateau is subdivided into several small plateaux or sub plateaux.</p><br>
<h3>Pat region</h3><br>
<p>The western plateau with an average elevation of 1,000 m above mean sea level merges into the plateau of Surguja district of Chhattisgarh. The flat topped plateaux, locally known as pats are characterized by level surface and accordance of their summit levels shows they are part of one large plateau. Examples include Netarhat Pat, Jamira Pat, Khamar Pat, Rudni Pat etc. The area is also referred to as Western Ranchi Plateau. It is believed to be composed of Deccan lava.</p><br>
<h3>Ranchi plateau</h3><br>
<p>It is the largest part of the Chota Nagpur Plateau. The elevation of the plateau land in this part is about 700 m and gradually slopes down towards south-east into the hilly and undulating region of Singhbhum (earlier Singhbhum district or what is now Kolhan division). The plateau is highly dissected. Damodar River originates here and flows through a rift valley. To the north it is separated from the Hazaribagh plateau by the Damodar trough. To the west is a group of plateaux called pat</p><br>
<p>There are many waterfalls at the edges of Ranchi plateau where rivers coming from over the plateau surface form waterfalls when they descend through the precipitous escarpments of the plateau and enter the area of significantly lower height. The North Karo River has formed a 17 m high Pheruaghaugh Falls at the southern margin of Ranchi plateau. Such falls are called scarp falls. Hundru Falls (75 m) on Subarnarekha River near Ranchi, Dassam Falls (39.62 m) on Kanchi River, east of Ranchi, Sadni Falls (60 m) on Sankh River (Ranchi plateau) are examples of scarp falls. Sometimes waterfalls of various dimensions are formed when tributary streams join the master stream from great height forming hanging valleys. At Rajrappa (10 m), the Bhera river coming over from the Ranchi plateau hangs above the Damodar River at its point of confluence with the latter. The Jonha Falls (25.9 m) is another example of this category of falls. In fact the Gunga River hangs over its master stream, Raru River (to the east of Ranchi city) and forms the said falls.</p><br>
<h3>Hazaribagh plateau</h3><br>
<p>The Hazaribagh plateau is often subdivided into two parts – the higher plateau and the lower plateau. Here the higher plateau is referred to as Hazaribagh plateau and the lower plateau as Koderma plateau. The Hazaribagh plateau on which Hazaribagh town is built is about 40 mi east by west and 15 mi north by south with an average elevation of 2,000 ft. The north-eastern and southern faces are mostly abrupt; but to the west it narrows and descends slowly in the neighbourhood.of Simaria and Jabra where it curves to the south and connects with the Ranchi Plateau through Tori pargana. It is generally separated from the Ranchi plateau by the Damodar trough.</p><br>
<p>The western portion of Hazaribagh plateau constitutes a broad watershed between the Damodar drainage on the south and the Lilajan and Mohana rivers on the north. The highest hills in this area are called after the villages of Kasiatu, Hesatu and Hudu, and rise fronting the south 600 ft above the general level of the plateau. Further east along the southern face a long spur projects right up to the Damodar river where it ends in Aswa Pahar, elevation 2,465 ft. At the south-eastern corner of the plateau is Jilinga Hill at 3,057 ft. Mahabar Jarimo at 2,185 ft and Barsot at 2,180 ft stand in isolation to the east, and on the north-west edge of the plateau Sendraili at 2,210 ft and Mahuda at 2,409 ft are the most prominent features. Isolated on the plateau, in the neighbourhood of Hazaribagh town are four hills of which the highest Chendwar rises to 2,810 ft. On all sides it has an exceedingly abrupt scarp, modified only on the south-east. In the south it falls almost sheer in a swoop of 2,200 ft to the bed of Bokaro River, below Jilinga Hill. Seen from the north the edge of this plateau has the appearance of a range of hills, at the foot of which (on the Koderma plateau) runs the Grand Trunk Road and NH 2 (new NH19).</p><br>
<h3>Koderma plateau</h3><br>
<p>The Koderma plateau is also referred to as the Hazaribagh lower plateau or as the Chauparan-Koderma-Girighi sub-plateau.</p><br>
<p>The northern face of the Koderma plateau, elevated above the plains of Bihar, has the appearance of a range of hills, but in reality it is the edge of a plateau, 800 ft from the level of the Gaya plain. Eastward this northern edge forms a well-defined watershed between heads of the tributaries of Gaya and those of the Barakar River, which traverses the Koderma and Giridih districts in an easterly direction. The slope of this plateau to the east is uniform and gentle and is continued past the river, which bears to the south-east, into the Santhal Parganas and gradually disappears in the lower plains of Bengal. The western boundary of the plateau is formed by the deep bed of the Lilajan River.The southern boundary consists of the face of the higher plateau, as far as its eastern extremity, where for some distance a low and undistinguished watershed runs eastward to the western spurs of Parasnath Hills. The drainage to the south of this low line passes by the Jamunia River to the Damodar.</p><br>
<h3>Damodar trough</h3><br>
<p>The Damodar basin forms a trough between the Ranchi and Hazaribagh plateaux resulting from enormous fractures at their present edges, which caused the land between to sink to a great depth and incidentally preserved from denudation the Karanpura, Ramgarh and Bokaro coalfields. The northern boundary of the Damodar valley is steep as far as the south eastern corner of the Hazaribagh plateau. On the south of the trough the Damodar keeps close to the edge of the Ranchi plateau till it has passed Ramgarh, after which a turn to the north-east leaves on the right hand a wide and level valley on which the Subarnarekha begins to intrude, south of Gola till the Singhpur Hills divert it to the south. Further to the east the Damodar River passes tamely into the Manbhum sector of lowest step of the Chotanagpur plateau.</p><br>
<h3>Palamu</h3><br>
<p>The Palamu division generally lies at a lower height than the surrounding areas of Chota Nagpur Plateau. On the east the Ranchi plateau intrudes into the division and the southern part of the division merges with the Pat region. On the west are the Surguja highlands of Chhattishgarh and Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh. The Son River touches the north-western corner of the division and then forms the state boundary for about 45 mi. The general system of the area is a series of parallel ranges of hills running east and west through which the North Koel River passes. The hills in the south are the highest in the area, and the picturesque and isolated cup-like Chhechhari valley is surrounded by lofty hills on every side. Lodh Falls drops from a height of 150 m from these hills, making it the highest waterfall on the Chota Nagpur Plateau. Netarhat and Pakripat plateaux are physiographically part of the Pat region.</p><br>
<h3>Manbhum-Singhbhum</h3><br>
<p>In the lowest step of the Chota Nagpur Plateau, the Manbhum area covers the present Purulia district in West Bengal, and Dhanbad district and parts of Bokaro district in Jharkhand, and the Singhbhum area broadly covers Kolhan division of Jharkhand. The Manbhum area has a general elevation of about 1,000 ft and it consists of undulating land with scattered hills – Baghmundi and Ajodhya range, Panchakot and the hills around Jhalda are the prominent ones. Adjacent Bankura district of West Bengal has been described as the “connecting link between the plains of Bengal on the east and Chota Nagpur plateau on the west.” The same could be said of the Asansol and Durgapur subdivisions of Bardhaman district.Recently a website launched for chotonagpur Manbhum-Singhbhum region specially with the mission to save wildlife and conserve the forest in plateau. Visit for a detail information and articles.</p><br>
<p>The Singhbhum area contains much more hilly and broken country. The whole of the western part is a mass of hill ranges rising to 3,000 ft in the south-west. Jamshedpur sits on an open plateau, 400 to 800 ft above mean sea level, with a higher plateau to the south of it. The eastern part is mostly hilly, though near the borders of West Bengal it flattens out into an alluvial plain. In the Singhbhum area, there are hills alternating with valleys, steep mountains, deep forests on the mountain slopes, and, in the river basins, some stretches of comparatively level or undulating country. The centre of the area consists of an upland plateau enclosed by hill ranges. This strip, extending from the Subarnarekha River on the east to the Angarbira range to the west of Chaibasa, is a very fertile area. Saranda forest is reputed to have the best Sal forests in Asia.</p><br>
<h2>Climate</h2><br>
<p>The Chota Nagpur Plateau has an attractive climate. For five to six months of the year, from October onward the days are sunny and bracing. The mean temperature in December is 73 &deg;F. The nights are cool and temperatures in winter may drop below freezing point in many places. In April and May the day temperature may cross 100 &deg;F but it is very dry and not sultry as in the adjacent plains. The rainy season (June to September) is pleasant. The Chota Nagpur Plateau receives an annual average rainfall of around 1,400 mm, which is less than the rainforested areas of much of India and almost all of it in the monsoon months between June and August.</p><br>
<h2>Ecology</h2><br>
<p>The Chota Nagpur dry deciduous forests, a tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests ecoregion, encompasses the plateau. The ecoregion has an area of 122,100 km&sup2, covering most of Jharkhand state and adjacent portions of Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, and Madhya Pradesh.</p><br>
<p>The ecoregion is drier than surrounding ones, including the Eastern Highlands moist deciduous forests that covers the Eastern Ghats and Satpura Range to the south, and the Lower Gangetic Plains moist deciduous forests in the lowlands to the east and north.</p><br>
<p>The plateau is covered with a variety of various habitats of which Sal forest is predominant. The plateau is home to the Palamau Tiger Reserve and other large blocks of natural habitat which are among the few remaining refuges left in India for large populations of tiger and Asian elephants.</p><br>
<p>Forests range from dry to wet and reach up to 25 m tall. The plateau is also swampy in some places and in other parts is covered with bamboo grasslands and shrubs such as Holarrhena and Dodonaea. The flora of the plateau is distinct from the wetter parts of India that surround it and includes a number of endemic plants such as Aglaia haslettiana and endangered plant species including Madhuca longifolia and Butea monosperma.</p><br>
<p>Tigers, Asian elephants, four-horned antelope (Tetracerus quadricornis), blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra), chinkara (Gazella bennettii), dhole wild dog (Cuon alpinus) and sloth bear (Melursus ursinus) are some of the animals found here while birds include the threatened lesser florican (Eupodotis indica), Indian grey hornbill and other hornbills.</p><br>
<p>More than half of the natural forest on the plateau has been cleared for grazing land and the scale of the mining operations on the plateau is disturbing to the movement and therefore the survival of wildlife including elephants and tigers.</p><br>
<h3>Protected areas</h3><br>
<p>About 6 percent of the ecoregion&#39;s area is within protected areas, comprising 6,720 km&sup2; in 1997. The largest are Palamau Tiger Reserve and Sanjay National Park.</p><br>
<p>Bhimbandh Wildlife Sanctuary, Bihar (910 km)</p><br>
<p>Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary, Jharkhand (630 km)</p><br>
<p>Gautam Buddha Wildlife Sanctuary, Bihar (110 km)</p><br>
<p>Hazaribagh Wildlife Sanctuary, Jharkhand (450 km)</p><br>
<p>Koderma Wildlife Sanctuary, Jharkhand (180 km)</p><br>
<p>Lawalong Wildlife Sanctuary, Jharkhand (410 km)</p><br>
<p>Palamau tiger Reserve, Jharkhand (1,330 km)</p><br>
<p>Ramnabagan Wildlife Sanctuary, West Bengal (150 km)</p><br>
<p>Sanjay National Park, Madhya Pradesh (1,020 km, a portion of which is in the Narmada Valley dry deciduous forests ecoregion)</p><br>
<p>Semarsot Wildlife Sanctuary, Chhattisgarh (470 km)</p><br>
<p>Simlipal National Park, Odisha (420 km)</p><br>
<p>Saptasajya Wildlife Sanctuary, Odisha (20 km)</p><br>
<p>Tamor Pingla Wildlife Sanctuary, Chhattisgarh (600 km)</p><br>
<p>Topchanchi Wildlife Sanctuary, Jharkhand (40 km)</p><br>
<h2>Minerals</h2><br>
<p>Chota Nagpur plateau is a store house of minerals like mica, bauxite, copper, limestone, iron ore and coal. The Damodar valley is rich in coal and it is considered as the prime centre of coking coal in the country. Massive coal deposits are found in the central basin spreading over 2,883 km&sup2;. The important coalfields in the basin are Jharia, Raniganj, West Bokaro, East Bokaro, Ramgarh, South Karanpura and North Karanpura.</p><br>
<p>Warm Lake is a 640 acre lake in Idaho, United States. It is located 26 mi east of Cascade in Valley County, at 5,298 ft above sea level. It is the largest natural lake in Boise National Forest.</p><br>
<p>The lake&#39;s abundance of wildlife makes it very popular for camping, fishing, and hunting. Large mammals present in the area include moose, mule deer, black bear, and elk. Large birds present in the area include bald eagles and osprey. The lake contains rainbow, brook, lake, and bull trout as well as mountain whitefish and Kokanee salmon.</p><br>
<p>There are two lodges at the lake, North Shore Lodge, which was established in 1936, and Warm Lake Lodge, which was established in 1911. The Forest Service operates three campgrounds around the lake.</p><br>
<p>Vis  is a small Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea. The farthest inhabited island off the Croatian mainland, Vis had a population of 3,617 in 2011. Vis has an area of 90.26 km&sup2;. The highest point of the island is Hum which is 587 m above sea level. The island&#39;s two largest settlements are the town of Vis on the eastern side of the island , and Komiža, on its western coast.</p><br>
<p>Once known for its thriving fishing industry in the late 19th and early 20th century, the main present-day industries on the island are agriculture and tourism. Vis town and Komiža are also seats of separate administrative municipalities which cover the entire island and nearby islets, which are both part of Split-Dalmatia County.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Vis was inhabited by the time of the Neolithic period. In the 4th century BC, the Greek tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysius the Elder, founded the colony Issa on the island. Later, it became an independent polis, and even minted its own money and founded its own colonies, the most notable of which was Aspálathos (the modern-day city of Split). In the 1st century BC, the island was held by the Liburnians. Its importance in the region ended with the first Illyro-Roman war (29-219 BC). Having sided with Pompeus during the period of civil struggles in Rome, became an "oppidum civium Romanorum" in 47 BC.</p><br>
<p>Until 1797, the island was under the rule of the Republic of Venice. During this time large settlements developed along the coastline (Comisa (now Komiža) and Lissa (now Vis)). Administratively, the island of Lissa was for centuries bound to the island of Lesina, now named Hvar. The Venetian influence is still recognizable in architecture found on the island, and some vocabulary of the Croatian dialect spoken locally are Venetian in origin.</p><br>
<p>After the short-lived Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, with Italian as the official language, the island was ruled by the Austrian Empire since 1814. It maintained its Italian name of Lissa. After the end of World War I, it was under Italian rule again in the period from 1918 to 1921, according to the provisions of the 1915 Treaty of London, before it was ceded to Kingdom of Yugoslavia as part of the 1920 Treaty of Rapallo.</p><br>
<p>The sea to the north of the island was the location of two battles:</p><br>
<p>on 13 March 1811, a small Royal Navy squadron under the command of Captain William Hoste, defeated a larger French squadron in the Battle of Lissa (1811)</p><br>
<p>on 20 July 1866, the smaller Austrian fleet, under Admiral Tegetthoff, attacked the Italian fleet, under Admiral Persano, defeating the larger Italian force and sinking the in the Battle of Lissa (1866).</p><br>
<h3>Second World War</h3><br>
<p>Vis was at one point the site of the general headquarters of Marshal Josip Broz Tito, the leader of the Yugoslav Partisan resistance movement. It was occupied by Italy between 1941 and 1943. It was liberated by the Partisans and held by a British flotilla in 1943–44. At the end of World War II the island returned to Yugoslavia. During the war the island was mined. Allied fighter planes were based at a small airfield that was also used for emergency landings of Allied bombers, including an American B-24 flown by George McGovern. No. 6 Squadron RAF extensively used the airfield as a forward operating base, flying Hawker Hurricane Mk IV aircraft, from May 1944 to February 1945.</p><br>
<p>During World War II, a crate of the Armed Services Editions of paperback books was dropped by parachute along with other supplies on to Vis Island off the coast of Yugoslavia. The books were then read aloud to the partisans by English speaking soldiers who translated the books as they read them.</p><br>
<p>Early in July 1944, the novelist Evelyn Waugh flew with Randolph Churchill from Bari, Italy, to Vis as part of the British military mission to Yugoslavia. There they met Marshal Tito. Waugh and Churchill returned to Bari before flying back to Yugoslavia to begin their mission, but their aeroplane crash-landed, both men were injured, and their mission was delayed for a month.</p><br>
<p>After the war, the Yugoslav People&#39;s Army used the island as one of its main naval bases. After Croatia became independent in 1991, its navy did not reclaim most of the facilities, and the many abandoned buildings are being used for civilian purposes. In 2008, 34 mines left over from World War II were cleared from the island.</p><br>
<h2>Economy</h2><br>
<p>The main industries on the island are agriculture (mainly viticulture), fishing, fish refining and tourism.</p><br>
<p>Around 20% of arable land on the island is covered with vineyards. Autochthonous vine species cultivated on the island are Plavac Mali, Kurteloška, and Vugava (the indigenous grape of what is now known as viognier).</p><br>
<p>The sea around Vis is rich with fish, especially blue fish (sardine, mackerel and anchovy). Komiža fishermen of the 16th century developed their own type of fishing boat, the falkuša which was used even in the second half of the 20th century because of its excellent features.</p><br>
<p>Atlit Yam is an ancient submerged Neolithic village off the coast of Atlit, Israel.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Atlit-Yam provides the earliest known evidence for an agro-pastoral-marine subsistence system on the Levantine coast. The site of Atlit Yam has been carbon-dated to be between 8900 and 8300 years old (calibrated dates) and belongs to the final Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period. Today, it lies between 8-12m (25-40 ft) beneath sea level in the Mediterranean Sea, in the Bay of Atlit, at the mouth of the Oren river on the Carmel coast. It covers an area of ca. 40,000 square meters (10 acres).</p><br>
<p>Underwater excavations have uncovered rectangular houses and a well. The site was covered by the eustatic rise of sea-levels after the end of the Ice age. It is assumed that the contemporary coast-line was about 1 km (a half-mile) west of the present coast. Piles of fish ready for trade or storage have led scientists to conclude that the village was abandoned suddenly. An Italian study led by Maria Pareschi of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Pisa indicates that a volcanic collapse of the eastern flank of Mount Etna 8,500 years ago would likely have caused a 10-storey (40 m or 130 ft) tsunami to engulf some Mediterranean coastal cities within hours. Some scientists point to the apparent abandonment of Atlit Yam around the same time as further evidence that such a tsunami did indeed occur.</p><br>
<h2>Archaeological findings</h2><br>
<p>Submerged settlements and shipwrecks have been found on the Carmel coast since 1960, in the wake of large-scale sand quarrying. In 1984, marine archaeologist Ehud Galili spotted ancient remains whilst surveying the area for shipwrecks. Remains of rectangular houses and hearth-places have been found, along with a well that currently lies 10.5 m (35 ft) below sea-level, constructed of dry-stone walling, with a diameter of 1.5 m (5 ft) and a depth of 5.5 m (20 ft) lower. The fill contained flints, artifacts of ground stone and bone and animal bones in two separate layers. The upper layer contained partly articulated animal bones, which were presumably thrown in after the well went out of use. Other round structures at the site may also be wells. Galili believes that the water in the wells gradually became contaminated with seawater, forcing the inhabitants to abandon their homes.</p><br>
<p>A stone semicircle, containing seven 600 kg (1,300 lb) megaliths, has been found. The stones have cup marks carved into them and are arranged around a freshwater spring, which suggests that they may have been used for a water ritual.</p><br>
<p>Ten flexed burials have been discovered, both inside the houses and in their vicinity. The skeletons of a woman and child, found in 2008, have revealed the earliest known cases of tuberculosis. Bone fish-hooks and piles of fish bones ready for trade or storage point to the importance of marine resources. The men are also thought to have dived for seafood as four skeletons have been found with ear damage, probably caused by diving in cold water. Anthropomorphic stone stelae have been found. The lithics include arrowheads, sickle-blades and axes.</p><br>
<p>An excavation was mounted by the University of Haifa on Oct 1, 1987. A complete human burial was discovered under 10m of water on Oct. 4th with the skeleton oriented in a fetal position on the right side in an excellent state of preservation. Subsequent carbon dating of plant material recovered from the burial placed the age of the site at 8000 +-200 years.</p><br>
<p>Animal bones and plant remains have also been preserved. Animal bones come mainly from wild species. The plant remains include wild grape, poppy and caraway seeds. Granary weevils indicate the presence of stored grain. Pollen analysis and the remains of marsh-plants indicates the local presence of swamps.</p><br>
<h3>Radiocarbon dating</h3><br>
<p>The settlement has been dated by three radiocarbon dates from submerged branches:</p><br>
<p>Snake Alley is a street located in Burlington, Iowa, once recognized by Ripley&#39;s Believe It or Not as the Crookedest Street in the World.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The physical limitations and steep elevation of Heritage Hill inspired the construction of Snake Alley in 1894. It was intended to link the downtown business district and the neighborhood shopping area located on North Sixth Street, of which Snake Alley is a one-block section. Three German immigrants conceived and carried out the idea of a winding hillside street, similar to vineyard paths in France and Germany: Charles Starker, an architect and landscape engineer; William Steyh, the city engineer; and George Kriechbaum, a paving contractor. The street was completed in 1898, but was not originally named Snake Alley, as it was considered part of North Sixth Street; some years later, a resident noted that it reminded him of a snake winding its way down the hill, and the name stuck.</p><br>
<p>The alley originally provided a shortcut from Heritage Hill to the business district. Bricks were laid at an angle to allow horses better footing as they descended. Unfortunately, riding horses back up the alley often resulted in a loss of control at the top; for this reason, even to this day, Snake Alley remains a one-way street, with all traffic heading downhill.</p><br>
<p>In the 1940s, writer Robert L. Ripley saw the street in person, and decided to add it to his Ripleys Believe It, Or Not! column, calling it "The Crookedest Street in the World". The idea was novel enough; however, San Franciscos Lombard Street beats it by several turns. The turns on Snake Alley are sharper though, giving it a total of 1100° of turning from end to end, where Lombard Street&#39;s straighter curves total only 1000°.</p><br>
<p>The alley is composed of limestone and blueclay bricks. The constantly changing slant from one curve to the next necessitated a complicated construction technique to keep the high grade to the outside. Snake Alley consists of five half-curves and two quarter-curves over a distance of 275 ft, rising 58.3 ft, a 21% grade, from Washington Street to Columbia.</p><br>
<p>The street is the site of an annual uphill bike race, the Snake Alley Criterium. There is also an art fair, the Snake Alley Art Fair, sponsored by the Art Guild of Burlington. There is also the annual Snake Alley Festival of Film where filmmakers from around the world gather to compete in the various categories for the awards.</p><br>
<p>The Brenta is an Italian river that runs from Trentino to the Adriatic Sea just south of the Venetian lagoon in the Veneto region, in the north-east of Italy.</p><br>
<p>During the Roman era, it was called Medoacus (Ancient Greek: Mediochos, Μηδειοχος) and near Padua it divided in two branches, Medoacus Maior (Greater Medoacus) and Medoacus Minor (Lesser Medoacus); the river changed its course in the early Middle Ages, and its former bed through Padua was occupied by Bacchiglione.</p><br>
<p>It is 174 km long and was first channelled in the 16th century when a long canal was built from the village of Stra to the Adriatic Sea, bypassing the Venetian lagoon. A branch of the Brenta, named Naviglio del Brenta, was left to connect directly Venice and Padua (which was a kind of second capital of the Venice Republic). It runs through Stra, Fiesso d&#39;Artico, Dolo, Mira, Oriago and Malcontenta to Fusina (which is part of the comune of Venice).</p><br>
<p>Starting in the 16th century, many large villas were built along the shores of the Naviglio del Brenta, and this inhabited area was subsequently named Riviera del Brenta. Three of these villas are open to the public: the massive baroque Villa Pisani in Stra, Villa Widmann-Foscari in Mira, and the Palladian building of Villa Foscari, also called "La Malcontenta". Villa Ferretti-Angeli in Dolo is also on the Riviera. Northwest of Padua, near the village of Piazzola sul Brenta, not far from the river, Villa Contarini is open. The Venetian aristocracy used to cruise along the canal on a type of boat known as a burchiello, while cargo was carried on traditional barges known as burci.</p><br>
<p>In Bassano del Grappa, the river is crossed by the Ponte Vecchio (Italian, meaning Old bridge), or Ponte degli Alpini (bridge of the Alpini), a covered bridge designed by Palladio in 1569. The bridge is pontoon-style and is built completely of wood. It was destroyed several times in its history, and was last rebuilt by the Alpini in 1948.</p><br>
<p>Dragon Island is a privately owned island off the northeast coast of New Zealand&#39;s Great Barrier Island, located 95 km to the northeast of Auckland. The island provides Harataonga Bay on Great Barrier Island with shelter from easterly and southeasterly winds by blocking the bay from Pacific storms. The island is in relatively calm water, sheltered by the larger Rakitu Island to the north. It was once farmed but is now unpopulated and has reverted to scrub.</p><br>
<p>Dragon Island is also a name sometimes given (quixotically) to a small island in the Mediterranean Sea, a little more than one km wide at its greatest extent, and about 4 km long, located just off the southwestern point of the island of Majorca, approximately 210 km due east of Valencia, Spain. This island comprises the Parc Natural Sa Dragonera. It is the island referred to as Dragon Island in chapter eight of the historical novel Master and Commander by Patrick O&#39;Brian.</p><br>
<p>There is also a Dragon Island in the fictional world of Narnia in the book The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.</p><br>
<p>The Ravi  is a transboundary river crossing northwestern India and eastern Pakistan. It is one of six rivers of the Indus System in Punjab region . The waters of Ravi are allocated to India under Indus Water Treaty.</p><br>
<p>Under the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, the waters of the Ravi and five other rivers are divided between India and Pakistan. Subsequently, the Indus Basin Project has been developed in Pakistan and many inter-basin water transfers, irrigation, hydropower and multipurpose projects have been built in India.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>According to ancient history traced to Vedas, the Ravi River was known as Iravati (also spelt Eeraveti; इरावती, परुष्णि)</p><br>
<p>The Ravi was known as Parushani or Iravati to Indians in Vedic times and as Hydraotes to the Ancient Greeks.</p><br>
<p>Part of the battle of the ten kings was fought on a River, which according to Yaska (Nirukta 9.26) refers to the Iravati River (Ravi River) in the Punjab.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The Ravi River, a transboundary river of India and Pakistan, is an integral part of the Indus River Basin and forms the headwaters of the Indus basin. The waters of the Ravi River drain into the Arabian Sea (Indian Ocean) through the Indus River in Pakistan. The river rises in the Bara Bhangal, District Kangra in Himachal Pradesh, India. The river drains a total catchment area of 14,442 km&sup2; in India after flowing for a length of 720 km. Flowing westward, it is hemmed by the Pir Panjal and Dhauladhar ranges, forming a triangular zone.</p><br>
<h3>River course</h3><br>
<p>The Ravi River originates in the Himalayas in the Multhan tehsil of Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, India. It follows a north-westerly course and is a perennial river.</p><br>
<p>Another major tributary that joins the Ravi River, just below Bharmour, the old capital of Chamba, is the Seul River from the northern direction. The valley formed by the river was also exploited for its rich timber trees. However, the valley has large terraces, which are very fertile and known as "the garden of Chamba". crops grown here supply grains to the capital region and to Dalhousie town and its surrounding areas. One more major tributary that joins the Ravi River near Bissoli is the Siawa. This river was also exploited for its forest resources, (controlled by the then Raja of Chamba) originating from the Jammu region. The valley is also formed by another major tributary that joins Seul River, the Baira-Nalla. Its sub-basin is in the Chamba district, located above Tissa. Baira drains the southern slopes of the Pir Panjal Range. The valley has an elevation variation between 5,321 m and 2,693 m.</p><br>
<p>Tant Gari is another small tributary that rises from the subsidiary hill ranges of the Pir Panjal Range east of Bharmour. The valley formed by this stream is U-shaped with a river bed scattered with boulders and glacial morainic deposits.</p><br>
<p>The main Ravi River flows through the base of Dalhousie hill, past the Chamba town. It is at an elevation of 2,807 ft (where a long wooden bridge existed to cross the Ravi River). It flows into the south-west, near Dalhousie, and then cuts a gorge in the Dhauladhar Range, before entering the Punjab plain near Madhopur and Pathankot. It then flows along the Indo–Pak border for 80 km before entering Pakistan and joining the Chenab River. The total length of the river is about 725 km.</p><br>
<p>Ujh River is another major tributary of the Ravi River. Its source is in the Kailash mountains at an elevation of 4,300 m, close to the Bhaderwah Mountains in Jammu district. After flowing for 100 km, it joins Ravi at Nainkot in Pakistan.</p><br>
<p>As the Ravi flows past Lahore in Pakistan (26 km below Amritsar in India) it is called "The river of Lahore" since that city is on its eastern bank. After passing through Lahore the river takes a turn at Kamlia and then debouches into the Chenab River, south of the town of Ahmadpur Sial. On its western bank is the town of Shahdara Bagh with the tomb of Jahangir and the Tomb of Noor Jahan.</p><br>
<p>According to satellite imagery studies carried out over a period of 20 years (between 1972–1973 and 1991–1993), the river coursing along the India–Pakistan border meanders substantially in the alluvial plains of the Amritsar and Gurdaspur districts of Punjab. This has resulted in successive damage in the Indian Territory as a result of the river changing its course towards India. The reason attributed to this change in the course of the river is massive river training structures/bunds constructed by Pakistan in its part of the river, close to the old course of the river. The shift in the course of the river is reported to be 4.8 km towards India.</p><br>
<p>In the trans-boundary Ravi River flowing from India to Pakistan, in urban areas of Lahore the pollution levels in the river discharge are reportedly very high, which is attributed to careless disposal of large amount of industrial and agricultural waste water and faulty drainage systems in both countries. A 72 km stretch of the Ravi River from Lahore Siphon to Baloki headworks indicates heavy contamination of the water and sediment with Cd, Cr, Pt and Cu. The river sediments are highly contaminated and have become secondary source for pollution of the river water, even though some control over unauthorised discharges into the river have been checked. Hence, measures to check metal re-mobilization from sediments into the river flows needs attention. The worst affected drainage is the Hadharaam drain, a tributary of the Ravi River. It is also a trans-border problem involving both India and Pakistan. A UNDP funded a special programme was launched in 2006 to address the issue in both countries.</p><br>
<h2>Vegetation</h2><br>
<p>The Ravi valley in its upper reaches has Deodar, walnut, Quercus ilex, mulberry, alder, edible pine (Pinus gerardiana), twisted cypress (Cupressus torulosa), chinar (Platanus orientalis), daphne papyracea, cedrela serata, and sisso, olive and kakkar (raus).</p><br>
<h2>Hydrology</h2><br>
<p>The waters of the Ravi River are allocated to India under the Indus Waters Treaty, signed by India and Pakistan. Within India, the river is under the jurisdiction of the riparian states of Punjab and Himachal and non-riparian states of Haryana, Kashmir and Rajasthan, but management is presided by the Supreme Court of India and the Ravi Beas Tribunal, set up in 1986 for the purpose.</p><br>
<p>On the Ravi River, the earliest project built was the Madhopur Headworks, in 1902. It is a run-of-the river project (no storage envisaged) to divert flows through the Upper Bari Doab Canal (also known as Central Bari Doab Canal) to provide irrigation in the command area of the then unified India. Doabas formed by the Ravi River are known as the Rechna Doab – between the Chenab and the Ravi River, and the Bari Doab or Majha – between the Ravi and the Beas River. Government of India has assessed the pre-partition use in India (Punjab) as 1,476,000 acre.ft.</p><br>
<p>The Hydropower potential of Ravi River system has been assessed as 2294 MW. The hydropower potential developed since the 1980s is through installation of Baira Suil Hydroelelectric Power Project of 198 MW capacity, the Chamera-I of 540 MW capacity commissioned in 1994, the Ranjitsagar Multipurpose Project (600 MW) completed in 1999 and the Chamera-II of 300 MW capacity in the upstream of Chamera-I commissioned in 2004.</p><br>
<p>The major multipurpose project (Irrigation, Hydropower, Flood Control, development of Fisheries, Tourism and so forth) built on the river is the Ranjit Sagar Dam (also known as Thein dam as it is in Thein village). The left bank is in Punjab and the right bank is in Jammu and Kashmir. It is located on the main stem of the Ravi River, about 24 km upstream of Madhopur Headworks (built during pre-partition time). The project is an outcome of the development plan conceived for the use of the waters of three eastern rivers allocated to India under the Indus Treaty, namely the Sutlej, the Beas and the Ravi, for irrigation, hydropower generation and other consumptive uses.</p><br>
<p>A proposal for building a storage dam on the Ravi River was initially planned in 1912, envisaging a 200 ft high dam. A committee later conducted a survey of the area, but it was not until 1954 that geologists fully inspected the project area. In 1957, a storage Dam was proposed on the Ravi River for irrigation purposes only. The power generation aspect was not considered then. It was only in 1964 that the project was conceived for multipurpose development and submitted to Government of India for approval. Finally, in April 1982, the project was approved for construction by the Government of India.</p><br>
<p>The project, as built now, has a 160 m high earth gravel shell dam with a gross irrigation potential of 348,000 hectare of land and power generation of 600 MW (4 units of 150 MW capacity each).</p><br>
<p>The geomorpohological setting of the river basin, which has a large number of terraces between Dhauladhar and Pir Panjal ranges, is attributed to the truly Himalayan characteristics of the river reflecting the "cis-Himalayan tectonic; structural, lithological and climatic conditions. Obviously it is different from the antecedent Indus and Sutlej".</p><br>
<h2>International water-sharing treaty</h2><br>
<p>The upper reaches of the main Indus River and its tributaries lie in India whereas the lower reaches are in Pakistan. Following the partition of India in August 1947, a dispute arose between India and Pakistan on sharing of the waters of the Indus River Basin. The dispute was resolved with the intervention of the World Bank and a treaty was signed in 1960 on sharing of the Indus waters between India and Pakistan.</p><br>
<p>The Indus System of Rivers comprises the three Western Rivers in the Indus, the Jhelum and Chenab together with three Eastern Rivers; the Sutlej, the Beas and the Ravi. To establish the ownership of these waters, an Indus Water Treaty was signed between India and Pakistan on 1 April 1960, under monitoring of the World Bank. The treaty, under Article 5.1, envisages the sharing of waters of the rivers Ravi, Beas, Sutlej, Jhelum and Chenab which join the Indus River on its left bank (eastern side) in Pakistan. According to this treaty, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, which constitute the eastern rivers, are allocated for exclusive use by India before they enter Pakistan. However, a transition period of 10 years was permitted in which India was bound to supply water to Pakistan from these rivers until Pakistan was able to build the canal system for utilisation of waters of Jhelum, Chenab and the Indus itself, allocated to it under the treaty. Similarly, Pakistan has exclusive use of the Western Rivers Jhelum, Chenab and Indus but with some stipulations for development of projects on these rivers in India. Pakistan also received one-time financial compensation for the loss of water from the Eastern rivers. Since 31 March 1970, after the 10-year moratorium, India has secured full rights for use of the waters of the three rivers allocated to it. The treaty resulted in partitioning of the rivers rather than sharing of their waters.</p><br>
<p>Under this treaty, the two countries also agreed to exchange data and co-operate in matters related to the treaty. For this purpose, treaty envisaged creation of the Permanent Indus Commission, with a commissioner appointed by each country. The Indus Waters Treaty is the only International treaty that has been implemented over the last 60 years with due diligence and sincerity by both India and Pakistan, in spite of many wars fought between the two countries (the treaty was not revoked either by India or Pakistan during the 1965 or the 1971 war).</p><br>
<h2>Interstate water dispute</h2><br>
<p>Even prior to the partition of India in August 1947, India had developed projects on the river Ravi and Beas River system. When the treaty was under debate, India had taken advance action to develop the three rivers, which were eventually allocated to it under the treaty. According to a directive of the Government of India, planning for development of the Ravi and Beas rivers was initiated concurrently with the treaty negotiations, which involved four riparian states of Punjab, PEPSU (this was merged with Punjab and subsequently Punjab was divided, and additionally the Haryana state was created), Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) within the ambit of the already developed Bhakra Nangal Dam project on the Sutlej River. A review of the flows in the two river systems revealed that prior to partition of the country and up to the time of the signing of the Indus Treaty, 3,130,000 acre.ft of water was used by major irrigation systems such as the Upper Bari Doab Canal System (1959) and the Lower Bari Doab Canal System (1915). The unused flow in the two river systems was assessed at 15,580,000 acre.ft, which was planned to be developed by the four states of J&K, PEPSU, Punjab and Rajasthan. However, with the merger of PEPSU with Punjab and subsequent bifurcation of Punjab into two states, a dispute arose on the allocation of Ravi and Beas waters for which a tribunal was set up under the Interstate River Water Disputes Act.</p><br>
<p>As a counter claim to the exclusive claims of Punjab, Haryana claims that a small part of Haryana state lying north in Panchkula district is part of Sutlej river basin area in addition to Punjab and Himachal Pradesh in India. Thus Haryana claims to be a riparian state of Indus river basin.</p><br>
<p>Following the reorganisation of the state of Punjab in 1966, Haryana State was created. This was followed by a notification by the Government of India dated 24 March 1976 allocating the surplus waters between Punjab and Haryana in due consideration of the powers conferred by Sub Section (I) of Section 78 of the Punjab Reorganization Act, 1966 (31 of 1966). The allocation was challenged in the Supreme Court by Haryana. A tripartite agreement followed on 31 December 1981, based on the revised mean annual flows from the flow series of 1921–60 assessed as 20,560,000 acre.ft—including prepartition use of 3,130,000 acre.ft and transit losses in the Madhopur Beas Link of 260,000 acre.ft—vis-a-vis the figure of 15,850,000 acre.ft assessed in earlier allocation, which was based on the flow series of 1921–45. The revised assessed surplus supplies of 17,170,000 acre.ft (from flow and storage) was allocated as:</p><br>
<p>However, the legality of this agreement was challenged by Punjab. This was followed by the Punjab accord signed by the then Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi and Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, President of the Shiromani Akali Dal, on 24 July 1985. This accord stipulated that</p><br>
<p>Following the above accord, Ravi & Beas Waters Tribunal (RBWT) came to be set up in April 1986, in pursuance of paragraphs 9.1 & 9.2 of Punjab Settlement (Rajiv-Longowal Accord, 1985) inter-alia to adjudicate the claims of Punjab and Haryana in Ravi-Beas waters. The Terms of Reference was set and also the time for submission of the report. The Tribunal submitted its report on 30 January 1987. However, the report was contested as Rajasthan also moved an application "seeking explanation and guidance regarding the report of this Ravi Beas waters Tribunal, 1987". The Tribunal is further examining the matter. It is yet to submit its further report to the Government on the pleas submitted by the party States and the Central Government also seeking explanation/guidance on its earlier report. In the mean time, a Presidential reference on Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, 2004 is pending before the Honorable Supreme Court. Hence, the further hearings of the Tribunal and its final report are now enjoined on the outcome of the Supreme Court hearing of the Presidential reference.</p><br>
<p>Punjab has not allowed the construction of the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal in its territory for transferring Haryana share of water from the Indus river basin. The SYL canal lying in Haryana was completed but idling for want of water from the Sutlej River. If Haryana is interested in getting its water share as per the agreements, it can construct the remaining canal via Himachal Pradesh area bypassing Punjab area totally by tapping water directly from the Bhakra Nangal reservoir located in Himachal Pradesh. The Minimum drawdown level of Bhakra Nangal reservoir and the topography in Himachal state is suitable for the SYL (refer Google earth). Additional water from Sutlej River is very much useful to augment drinking water supplies of ever expanding cities like Delhi, Gurgoan, Panchkula, Chandigarh, etc. in addition to meet the agriculture and industrial requirements in entire Haryana state.</p><br>
<p>Punjab is contemplating to construct 206 MW Shahpurkandi dam project hydro electric project on the Ravi river between Ranjitsagar dam and Madhopur head works. This stretch of the river is forming boundary between J & K state and Punjab state. Since Punjab had unilaterally exited from the earlier water sharing agreements, J & K state refused the project construction. Also J & K state is going ahead with the construction of Ravi canal originating from Basantpur to irrigate 133,000 acre of land in Jammu region. This canal would draw river water by pumping the water released downstream from the Rangitsagar reservoir for which J & K state is not required to take consent from Punjab as it is not bound by earlier river water sharing agreements.</p><br>
<h2>Interbasin water transfer</h2><br>
<p>Transfer of surplus water from one basin to another, termed as interbasin water transfer has been effectively implemented on the Ravi River. The surplus waters of the Ravi River have been transferred directly first to the Beas River through the Ravi-Beas Link. A further link from Beas River to the Sutlej River by the Beas Sutlej Link augments storage of the Bhakra reservoir in India.</p><br>
<p>Messatida  is a former municipality in Achaea, West Greece, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Patras, of which it is a municipal unit. The seat of the municipality was in Ovrya. It is located south of Patras city centre, and stretches from the urbanized plains near the Gulf of Patras to the Omplos hills in the east. The population was 13,852 in 2011. It has an area of 66.366 km².</p><br>
<p>Messatida was named after the ancient Achaean town Mesatis, according to local legend the place where Dionysus was reared.</p><br>
<h2>Population history</h2><br>
<h2>Subdivisions</h2><br>
<p>The municipal unit Messatida is subdivided into the following communities (constituent villages in brackets):</p><br>
<p>Kallithea (Kallithea, Ano Kallithea)</p><br>
<p>Krini (Krini, Agios Kostantinos)</p><br>
<p>Krystallovrysi</p><br>
<p>Ovrya</p><br>
<p>Petroto (Petroto, Mavromandila, Agia Paraskevi)</p><br>
<p>Saravali (Saravali, Agios Stefanos, Demenika, Kefalovryso, Bakari)</p><br>
<p>Thea (Thea, Lygies, Pavlokastro)</p><br>
<h2>Sport Clubs</h2><br>
<p>Fostiras Ovrias FC (football)</p><br>
<p>Achilleas Ovruas (football)</p><br>
<p>Atlas Ovruas (football)</p><br>
<p>Milon Ovruas (volleyball)</p><br>
<p>Phoenix Ovruas (basketball)</p><br>
<p>Achaios Saravali (football & Basketball)</p><br>
<p>Galini Demenika (basketball,Ping pong,Baseball,Football,Softball)</p><br>
<p>Krini 97&#39; (basketball)</p><br>
<p>A.O. Krini (football)</p><br>
<p>A.O. Thea (football)</p><br>
<p>A.O. Kalithea (football)</p><br>
<p>Galaxias Demenika (basketball)</p><br>
<p>Ikaros Petroto (football)</p><br>
<p>The Falkland Sound  is a sea strait in the Falkland Islands. Running southwest-northeast, it separates West and East Falkland.</p><br>
<h2>Name</h2><br>
<p>The sound was named by John Strong in 1690 for Viscount Falkland, the name only later being applied to the archipelago and its two largest islands. The Spanish name "Estrecho de San Carlos" refers to the ship San Carlos which visited in 1768; confusingly the English name "San Carlos Water" is a much smaller inlet on East Falkland - and gives its name to San Carlos, Port San Carlos and the San Carlos River.</p><br>
<p>Captain John Strong of the Welfare made the first recorded landing on either of the main islands (West and East Falkland) on 29 January 1690, at Bold Cove (near Port Howard) just off Falkland Sound.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Islands in the Falkland Sound include Narrows Island, Great Island, the Tyssen Islands and the Swan Islands. Eddystone Rock is at the northern end of the Sound; the Arch Islands are at the southern end.</p><br>
<p>Settlements on it include Ajax Bay, Port San Carlos and San Carlos on East Falkland and Port Howard and Fox Bay on West Falkland.</p><br>
<p>Inlets and bays on the Sound include: Fox Bay, Port Howard (West Falkland); Grantham Sound, San Carlos Water, Ruggles Bay (East Falkland)</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>About 400 million years ago the land that became the Falkland Islands and Antarctica&#39;s Ellsworth Mountains, which had been part of Gondwana, broke from what is now Africa and drifted westwards relative to Africa. During the mid-Jurassic period (about 170 million years ago) the land fragment that was to become East Falkland and the land fragment that was to become West Falkland rotated about 120° relative to each other. As a result, the fold lines in West Falkland run almost south-west to north-east, parallel to the Sound. Those in the northern part of East Falkland run east-west, forming the eastern part of northern entrance to the Sound and bordering on the northern banks of San Carlos Water. The boundary between these two land fragments, the Falkland Sound Fault, lies close to and parallel with the western shore of the Sound. Lafonia (the southern half of East Falkland), which is a much newer formation, has no folds.</p><br>
<p>It is believed that at times during the Pleistocene era, the seabed was some 46 m lower than the present time&ndash;sufficient for the sound to be bridged.</p><br>
<p>Monte Pascoal is a mountain to the south of the city of Porto Seguro, in the state of Bahia, Brazil.</p><br>
<p>According to history, it was the first part of land viewed by Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, allegedly the first European to arrive in Brazil, in 1500. It was described as a tall, rounded mountain arising from the ocean.</p><br>
<p>Monte Pascoal is a national symbol to Brazilians and gives its name to a national park, Parque Nacional do Monte Pascoal. The name "Pascoal" refers to "Páscoa" (Portuguese for "Easter"), as the sighting of the mount happened around the date of that festival.</p><br>
<p>It is one of the locations where the old growth Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica) remains, and has been preserved.</p><br>
<p>Percé Rock  is a huge sheer rock formation in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence on the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec, Canada, off Percé Bay. Percé Rock appears from a distance like a ship under sail. It is one of the world&#39;s largest natural arches located in water and is considered a geologically and historically rich natural icon of Quebec. It is a major attraction in the Gaspesie region.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>The massive rocky cliff is called by several names, such as le Rocher Percé, Pierced Rock, Pierced Island, Split Rock or Percé Rock. The name is attributed to the pierced rock that formed an arch 15 m high on its seaward southern end, as though a needle had cut through the rock. It was named Percé ("pierced rock") by Samuel de Champlain in 1607, in reference to the holes he had seen in the massive block of limestone, which over the years has become a major attraction in the region of Quebec.</p><br>
<h2>Legend</h2><br>
<p>The Percé Rock, described as "the monstrous giant; pierced through by an immense eye, now green, now gray, now blue or violet, according to the moods of the sea", is linked in legend to a young man of a noble French family.</p><br>
<p>Another version of the legend, which is also narrated by the local people of Percé town, is that they see the rock in the shape of a "phantom" during storms and hence call it "Le Génie deľisle Percé". This, however, could be interpreted to mean that the vapoury clouds that engulf the "vast flocks of water fowl" could give such an impression when viewed from a distance.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Percé Rock is part of the range of cliffs, bays and hills on the SW side of Mal Bay, which are formed of reddish-gold limestone and shale. It is linked to mainland (at Rue du Mont Joli) by a sandbar at low tide. The Bay of Perce is situated between this rock and the High Head. There is a reef to the SW of Percé Rock, about 0.5 mi away from the shore. The town of Percé is located on the shores of the bay. Its main industry is fishing.</p><br>
<p>The rock formation has about 150 fossil species. In Bonaventure Island where the park is situated, conglomerates from the Carboniferous period of more than 310 million years are recorded.</p><br>
<p>Next to the rock is Bonaventure Island, and together they form Parc national de l&#39;Île-Bonaventure-et-du-Rocher-Percé (Bonaventure Island and Percé Rock National Park), founded in 1985, which covers an area of about 5.8 km&sup2;. The tip of the Gaspé Peninsula has five geological formations, and Percé Rock is the only one located within the park. The park extends over a 2 km stretch of the coastline, and exhibits a wide variety of flora and fauna. It is a migratory bird sanctuary for the northern gannet, and has over 110,000 nesting birds, the second largest in the world. (The Municipal website of Percé mentions that the population of northern gannets is 121,000, which exceeds the figures mentioned for the archipelago of St Kilda in Scotland)- From May to December, some species of blue whale, humpback whale, minke whale or fin whale can be seen along the coast near Percé, Bonaventure Island and Forillon National Park.</p><br>
<p>At low tide, the rock is approachable on foot. The rock and the bird colony in Bonaventure Island is about a 75-minute trip from Percé by boat. Visits to the rock are restricted to the period from May 28 to October 12. During such visits, park guides provide information on beach creatures, the geology of Percé Rock, also called the "cathedral of limestone that rose from the Equator", and the fossils found there. The rock mass is a monolith estimated at 5 million tonnes. It has been inferred that at the current erosion rate (about 300 tonnes of mass per year lost to the action of water and wind), it will disappear in about 16,000 years. In view of its tendency to collapse, it is dangerous to venture close to the rock on foot during low tide. The top of the rock is not accessible. Snowy gannets, silvery gulls, black cormorants and other species of birds perch there.</p><br>
<p>An interpretation centre in Percé, housed in Le Chafaud, an elegant restored building, has a thematic exhibition titled "Un rocher, une île, un parc national", meaning "one rock, one island, one national park", which recounts the bird life, marine life, geology, history and ecosystem of the park and the rock.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>Percé Rock is a massive siliceous limestone stack formation, with sandstone and siltstone veins, with steep rock faces on all sides. It is 433 m long, 90 m wide, and 88 m high at its highest point. It is described as a narrow bluff emerging out of the sea, "resembling a bleached supertanker from some angles". For four hours at a time during low tide, the water recedes from a wide spit that allows the rock itself to be visited.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Percé Rock&#39;s huge limestone formation is geologically dated to the Devonian period of more than 400 million years ago (375 million years is also mentioned). However, Percé Rock is only a small component of the large areas of Devonian rocks that occupy the interior that were first mapped in 1844 by Sir William Edmond Logan, known as the father of Canadian geology. Fossils in such rocks show a variety of animal and plant communities from both terrestrial and marine habitats from the Devonian period. The Percé Rock contains 150 species of different fossils such as brachiopod, trilobites, dalmanites, corals and marine worms from the Devonian period.</p><br>
<p>Originally, the Percé Rock was inferred as connected to the main land. When Jacques Cartier, the first colonist arrived here in 1534, he reported three arches in the massive rock formation. In time, two of the arches disappeared, with the last one collapsing on June 17, 1845, leaving a separated pillar. In early 1900s, enchanted by the beauty of the Percé Rock, travellers started visiting the area of Gaspe, Percé and Bonaventure Island.</p><br>
<h2>In popular culture</h2><br>
<p>Percé Rock is a major tourist attraction in Quebec, with picturesque views of the rock from both Percé and nearby Bonaventure Island.</p><br>
<p>French surrealist poet André Breton (1896–1966) visited Gaspé in October 1944 and recorded his impressions of the visit in Arcanum 17, "a hymn of hope, renewal, and resurrection". The name of the poem stands for the 17th tarot card in the Major Arcana, called the Star, which symbolizes a woman pouring lunar forces into a mundane world and represents negative connotations of loss or abandonment of hope or bright prospects. During the visit, Breton was attracted to the Percé Rock and drew inspiration from it. In contrast to his unhappy personal life in war-torn Europe, the Rock provided him with the inspiration and reminder that "nature renews herself and that death is only transitory." He called Percé Rock a "razor blade rising out of the water, an image very imperious and commanding, a marvelous iceberg of moon stone... to a distracted observer though to a common man it is just but a resting place of birds".</p><br>
<p>Bedford Basin is a large enclosed bay, forming the northwestern end of Halifax Harbour on Canada&#39;s Atlantic coast. It is named in honour of John Russell, 4th Duke of Bedford.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Geographically, the basin is situated entirely within the Halifax Regional Municipality and is oriented northwest-southeast, measuring approximately 8 kilometres long and 5 kilometres wide, surrounded by low hills measuring up to 160 metres (525 feet) in elevation, although most elevations range up to 30–60 m (100–200 ft).</p><br>
<p>The basin is quite deep with some areas measuring several dozen metres in depth; the good holding ground (mud) on the basin floor make it an ideal protected anchorage. The basin&#39;s geologic history can be traced to the Wisconsin Glaciation when it, along with "The Narrows", formed part of the pre-historic Sackville River valley.</p><br>
<p>The basin contains the following sub-basins:</p><br>
<p>Bedford Bay, in the extreme northwest.</p><br>
<p>Birch Cove, on the western shore.</p><br>
<p>Fairview Cove, in the extreme southwest.</p><br>
<p>Wrights Cove, on the eastern shore.</p><br>
<p>Bedford on the northwestern corner takes its name from the basin, while Dartmouth sits on its eastern shore and Rockingham occupies the majority of the western shore. Africville Park is situated on the southern shore near the entrance into The Narrows.</p><br>
<h2>Secure convoy assembly</h2><br>
<p>The basin came to international prominence during the First and Second World Wars when the German navy began to use submarines as an offensive weapon against Allied shipping. Canada&#39;s prominent role in the First World War led to Halifax being chosen as the primary logistic port for resupplying Western Europe. The protected waters of Bedford Basin allowed the Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy to assemble convoys consisting of hundreds of merchant ships in relative security while torpedo nets kept German submarines at bay.</p><br>
<h2>Shoreline development</h2><br>
<p>The lands surrounding the basin are heavily developed with the only significant greenspace remaining being along the northeastern shore of the basin where a significant blast buffer zone surrounds Canadian Forces Ammunition Depot Bedford (CFAD Bedford); this is the Royal Canadian Navy&#39;s weapons magazine for its Atlantic fleet, known as Maritime Forces Atlantic (MARLANT).</p><br>
<p>The south shore of the basin at Fairview Cove hosts one of Halifaxs two container terminals as well as Nova Scotias largest railway yard, Rockingham Yard, operated by Canadian National Railway (CN).</p><br>
<p>The east shore of the basin hosts Burnside Industrial Park, the largest industrial park in HRM, as well as a bulk gypsum terminal at Wright&#39;s Cove and the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (which also derives its name from the basin) situated near the entrance to The Narrows.</p><br>
<p>The entire western shore to the head of the basin is fronted by a mix of residential/commercial and institutional developments.</p><br>
<p>Gran Sasso dItalia  is a mountain located in the Abruzzo region of central Italy. The Gran Sasso forms the centrepiece of the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park which was established in 1993 and holds the highest mountains in continental Italy south of the Alps and is part of the Apennines, the mountain range that runs the entire length of the Italian Peninsula. Teramo and LAquila are the nearest cities to the Gran Sasso, while Assergi, at the base of the mountain, is the nearest village; Rome is 132 km by road.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The three main summits of the Gran Sasso are Corno Grande (shown here), which at 2,912 m is the highest peak in the Apennines, nearby Corno Piccolo and Pizzo Intermesoli, which is separated from the other two peaks by Val Maone, a deep valley. Corno Grande and Corno Piccolo&#39;s ash coloration come from their limestone and dolomite composition. The peaks are snow-covered for much of the year though the snow cover appears to be less each decade. Corno Piccolo is referred to as, "The Sleeping Giant". This is due to the appearance of a profile of a reclined face. This view of Corno Piccolo is evident when viewing the mountain from Pietracamela, a small town near Prati di Tivo, on the north side of the mountain. Corno Grande and Corno Piccolo with their rough vertical walls provide serious rock climbers with challenges.</p><br>
<p>Situated below the peak of the Corno Grande is the Calderone glacier, until 2009 the southernmost known glacier in Europe; deglaciation has significantly reduced the glacier&#39;s size. Glaciologists now question whether the glacier will survive past 2020.</p><br>
<p>The mid- to lower slopes of the Gran Sasso are grazed in spring, summer and autumn by large flocks of sheep guarded by Maremmano-Abruzzese sheepdogs as well as herds of cattle and semi-wild horses. The pastures are covered with field grasses and meadowland wildflowers. The park is also the habitat for diverse wildlife from rare species such as the Apennine wolf, the Marsican bear, wildcat and the Abruzzo chamois (Rupicapra pyrenaica ornata), a variety of chamois at the very edge of extinction but now making a comeback in the park through a joint effort by WWF Italia and the park administration. Other species of wildlife include wild boar, foxes, grass snakes such as Orsini&#39;s viper, and a wide variety of bird life including golden eagles, peregrine falcons, goshawks, ortolan buntings, rock sparrows, crested larks, red-backed shrikes and downy pipits.</p><br>
<p>At the northern base of Corno Piccolo is Prati di Tivo, a ski village. To the east of Corno Grande and Corno Piccolo lies Campo Imperatore, a 27 km and 8 km high plain or plateau at about 2,000 m height. Campo Imperatore is home to Italy&#39;s oldest continuously operating commercial ski area (connected to Fonte Cerreto via cable car).</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>A hotel midway on the top of Campo Imperatore is where the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was imprisoned from August until September 1943 when he was freed by a Nazi commando operation. The plateau is also the site of the Campo Imperatore station of the Rome Observatory, from which the Campo Imperatore Near-Earth Object Survey and other astronomical studies are carried out. At the southern edge of Campo Imperatore and within the bounds of the national park are three medieval hill towns once ruled by the Medicis; Calascio, which sits before the ancient fortress ruin of Rocca di Calascio, Santo Stefano di Sessanio and Castel Del Monte.</p><br>
<p>The name Gran Sasso means "Great Stone".</p><br>
<p>In 2005, a 2,424 m peak previously named "The Gendarme" was renamed "John Paul II Peak" on what would have been Pope John Paul II&#39;s 85th birthday. He had visited the Gran Sasso many times, saying it reminded him of the mountains of his native Poland.</p><br>
<p>In January 2017 an avalanche on the Gran Sasso near Farindola killed several people.</p><br>
<h2>Science</h2><br>
<p>In 1984, a 10 km two-lane highway tunnel carrying the A24 autostrade, the Traforo del Gran Sasso, was bored through the Gran Sasso Massif. In 1995, a second parallel tunnel was completed. Construction of the tunnel included an underground particle physics laboratory at Assergi, the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso or Gran Sasso National Laboratory. The first large experiments there started in 1989.</p><br>
<p>The laboratory is composed of three large underground chambers, sometimes referred to collectively as the third tunnel and lies beneath 1,400 m of rock. Construction of the laboratory and second tunnel faced fierce opposition from Italian and international environmental groups including Pro Natura, LIPU and Club Alpino Italiano as well as the World Wildlife Federation and WWF Italia, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. Environmentalists noted that the nuclear physics laboratory would lie on or near two major and highly active seismic faults, that construction of the tunnels would interfere with a major aquifer, and that construction waste would degrade an environmentally sensitive and significant area. The underground laboratory, which opened in 1989, with its low background radiation is used for experiments in particle and nuclear physics, including the study of neutrinos, high-energy cosmic rays, dark matter, nuclear decay, as well as geology, and biology. The laboratory employs over 700 scientists from twenty different countries. Many credit the opposition created by the tunnel and laboratory construction with galvanizing the Italian environmental movement and leading to the very creation of the Parco Nazionale del Gran Sasso in 1991. In recent years, the laboratory has itself begun promoting preservation of the Gran Sasso environment.</p><br>
<p>The LNGS was the destination of the neutrinos involved in the faster-than-light neutrino anomaly publicly announced in September 2011.</p><br>
<p>In the summer of 2014 the facility was instrumental in confirming previous theories about the suns main source of energy when proton-to-proton fusion-produced neutrinos were detected and measured virtually at the suns core.</p><br>
<h2>Tourism</h2><br>
<p>The Gran Sasso is located in the Gran Sasso e Monti della Laga National Park. Running through this nature preserve is a portion of the Italian State Highway 80 (SS80), known as the Grand Highway of the Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park ("Strada maestra del Parco").</p><br>
<p>While frequented by skiers in winter, and mountain climbers and hikers in other seasons, the Gran Sasso is remarkably free of tourists despite its proximity to Rome and the events of the Gran Sasso raid that took place there in 1943. This is especially true in summer with most Italians preferring beach vacations and foreign visitors more likely to visit the mountains of northern Italy.</p><br>
<p>Pope John Paul II loved to secretly ski at Gran Sasso where he would retire often and pray at the church of San Pietro della Ienca. When he died Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, gave the local Abruzzo community some of the late pontiff&#39;s blood as a token of the love he had felt for the mountainous area.</p><br>
<p>The Shrine of Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows at Isola del Gran Sasso d&#39;Italia with average of 2 million visitors per year is one of the 15 most visited sanctuaries in the world.</p><br>
<p>Acclaimed international movies shot at Gran Sasso include Jean-Jacques Annauds The name of the Rose, Arnold Schwarzeneggers Red Sonja, Ladyhawke, King David, Keoma and The Barbarians.</p><br>
<h2>Points of interest</h2><br>
<p>Alpine Botanical Garden of Campo Imperatore</p><br>
<p>Didyma  was an ancient Greek sanctuary on the coast of Ionia. It contained a temple and oracle of Apollo, the Didymaion. In Greek didyma means "twin", but the Greeks who sought a "twin" at Didyma ignored the Carian origin of the name. Next to Delphi, Didyma was the most renowned oracle of the Hellenic world, first mentioned among the Greeks in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. Its establishment preceded literacy and even the Hellenic colonization of Ionia. Mythic genealogies of the origins of the Branchidae line of priests, designed to capture the origins of Didyma as a Hellenic tradition, date to the Hellenistic period.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The ruins of Didyma are located a short distance to the northwest of modern Didim in Aydin Province, Turkey, whose name is derived from the ruins.</p><br>
<p>Didyma was the largest and most significant sanctuary on the territory of the great classical city Miletus. To approach it, visitors would follow the Sacred Way to Didyma, about 17 km long. Along this route were ritual waystations, and statues of male and female members of the Branchidae family, as well as animal figures. Some of these statues, dating to the 6th century BC, are now in the British Museum, taken by the British archaeologist Charles Newton in the 19th century.</p><br>
<h2>Names</h2><br>
<p>Greek and Roman authors laboured to refer the name Didyma to "twin" temples—not a feature of the site—or to temples of the twins Apollo and Artemis, whose own cult center at Didyma had then only recently been established. Also, as Wilamowitz suggested, there may be a connection to Cybele Dindymene, the "Cybele of Mount Dindymon". Excavations by German archaeologists have uncovered a major sanctuary dedicated to Artemis, with the key ritual focus being water.</p><br>
<p>The 6th century Didymaion, dedicated to Apollo, enclosed a smaller temple that was its predecessor, which archaeologists have identified. Its treasury was enriched by gifts from Croesus.</p><br>
<p>Apollo was worshipped in nearby Miletus under the name Delphinius (the same name was also used at Delphi). At Didyma, he was worshipped as Didymeus (Διδυμευς). His other names in the area were Philesios, and Carinus (Καρινος).</p><br>
<h2>The Branchidae</h2><br>
<p>Until its destruction by the Persians in 494 BC, Didymas sanctuary was administered by the family of the Branchidae, who claimed descent from an eponymous Branchos, a youth beloved of Apollo. The priestess, seated above the sacred spring, gave utterances that were interpreted by the Branchidae. Both Herodotus and Pausanias dated the origins of the oracle at Didyma before the Ionian colonization of this coast. The Branchidae were expelled by Darius Persians, who burned the temple in 493 BC and carried away to Ecbatana the archaic bronze statue of Apollo, traditionally attributed to Canachus of Sicyon in the 6th century; the spring dried up, it was reported, and the archaic oracle was silenced. Though the sanctuaries of Delphi and Ephesus were swiftly rebuilt, Didyma remained a ruin until the first steps of restoration were undertaken in 334 BC. Callisthenes, a court historian of Alexander, reported that the spring began once more to flow after Alexander passed through, but there had been a complete break in the oracles personnel and tradition. Inscriptions, including inquiries and responses, and literary testimony record Didymas role as an oracle, with the "grim epilogue" of Apollos supposed sanction of Diocletians persecution of Christians, until the closing of the temples under Theodosius I.</p><br>
<p>After his capture of Miletus in 334 BC, Alexander the Great reconsecrated the oracle and placed its administration in the hands of the city, where the priest in charge was annually elected. About 300 BC, Seleucus I Nicator brought the bronze cult image back, and the Milesians began to build a new temple, which, if it had ever been completed, would have been the largest in the Hellenic world. Vitruvius recorded a tradition that the architects were Paeonius of Ephesus, whom Vitruvius credited with the rebuilding of the Temple of Artemis there, and Daphnis of Miletus. The peripteral temple was surrounded by a double file of Ionic columns. With a pronaos of three rows of four columns, the approaching visitor passed through a regularized grove formed of columns. The door usually leading to a cella was replaced by a blank wall with a large upper opening through which one could glimpse the upper part of the naiskos in the inner court (adyton). The entry route lay down either of two long constricted sloping passageways built within the thickness of the walls and giving access to the inner court, still open to the sky but isolated from the world by the high walls of the cella. This was the location of an ancient spring, the naiskos—which was itself a small temple, containing in its own small cella the bronze cult image of the god—and a grove of laurels, sacred to Apollo. The inner walls of the cella were articulated by pilasters standing on a base the height of a man (1.94 m). Turning back again, the visitor saw a monumental staircase that led up to three openings to a room whose roof was supported by two columns on the central cross-axis. The oracular procedure so well documented at Delphi is unknown at Didyma and must be reconstructed on the basis of the temple&#39;s construction, but it appears that several features of Delphi were now adopted: a priestess and answers delivered in classical hexameters. At Delphi, nothing was written; at Didyma, inquiries and answers were written; a small structure, the Chresmographion featured in this process; it was meticulously disassembled in the Christian period.</p><br>
<p>The annual festival held there under the auspices of Miletus was the Didymeia; it was made a Panhellenic festival in the beginning of the 2nd century BC.</p><br>
<p>Pausanias visited Didyma in the later 2nd century AD. Pliny reported the worship of Apollo Didymiae, Apollo of Didymus, in Central Asia, transported to Sogdiana by a general of Seleucus and Antiochus whose inscribed altars there were still to be seen by Pliny&#39;s correspondents. Corroborating inscriptions on amphoras were found by I. R. Pichikyan at Dilbergin.</p><br>
<p>Clement of Alexandria quotes Leandrios saying that Cleochus, grandfather of the eponymous founder Miletus, was buried within the temple enclosure of Didyma.</p><br>
<h2>Modern investigations</h2><br>
<p>When Ciriaco de&#39; Pizzicolli visited the spot in 1446, it seems that the temple was still standing in great part, although the cella had been converted into a fortress by the Byzantines, but when the next European visitor, the Englishman Dr Pickering, arrived in 1673, it had collapsed. The Society of Dilettanti sent two expeditions to explore the ruins, the first in 1764 under Richard Chandler, the second in 1812 under William Gell. The French "Rothschild Expedition" of 1873 sent a certain amount of architectural sculpture to the Louvre, but no excavation was attempted until Emmanuel Pontremoli and B. Haussoullier were sent out by the French Schools of Rome and Athens in 1895. They cleared the western façade and the prodomos, and discovered inscriptions giving information about other parts which they left still buried.</p><br>
<p>German excavations made between 1905 and 1930 revealed all of the incomplete new temple and some carved fragments that belonged to the earlier temple and to associated statues. In 1979 came the biggest discovery by the German Archaeological Institute. On the left wall of the adyton, small very thin scratched lines were discovered. A closer examination brought the first ancient blueprint of a temple back to life. Starting just after the entrance on an area of 200 m&sup2; were the blueprints and a roughly calculated estimate. The discovery and interpretation made by Lothar Haselberger led to some important information about the planning and the building phase of the Apollo Temple, notably that, in addition to meticulous use of geometry in scribing the profiles of mouldings, the architect permitted himself some intuitive adjustments, guided, but not bound, by the strict obligations imposed on him by the traditional geometry of the design; he transcended these self-imposed rules whenever his aesthetics demanded. Today it is known that three different contractors worked until the end. All three had the responsibility to get the material on site, place the stones, and do the first refinement. After that, a small part was left on every placed block, a small cachet with a special sign of the contractor which indicated that this particular block was not yet paid for. Further on, the inscriptions led to the information that one column would have taken 20,000 workdays to complete by one mason. There were more masons working per column, but just for the sake of calculation: the daily income of a stonemason was 2 drachmas, which is the cost of approx. 8.6 grams of silver. With that information one can calculate the bare craftsmanship cost of one column, which was 20,000 workdays × 8.6 grams of silver, equalling the equivalent cost of 172 kg of silver.</p><br>
<p>Lake Melville is a saltwater tidal extension of Hamilton Inlet on the Labrador coast in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Comprising 3,069 square kilometres, and stretching 140 kilometres inland to Happy Valley-Goose Bay, it forms part of the largest estuary in the province, primarily draining the Churchill River and Naskaupi River watersheds. Both Lake Melville and Hamilton Inlet are encircled by mountains, with primary settlements at Happy Valley-Goose Bay, North West River, and Sheshatshiu. A ferry service runs on Lake Melville and Hamilton Inlet, connecting a number communities including Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Rigolet and Cartwright. Lake Melville was named for Viscount Melville , a prominent British politician.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Lake Melville it situated in central Labrador. To the south are the Mealy Mountains while another inlet (Double Mer) is located to the north. The Churchill River flows into the southwest point of Lake Melville. Lake Melville extends further inland between the communities of North West River and Sheshatshiu and these extensions are known as "Little Lake" and "Grand Lake". The Naskaupi River flows into Grand Lake.</p><br>
<p>Lake Melville is served by the Trans-Labrador Highway network. Route 500 spans from the mouth of the Churchill River at Happy Valley-Goose Bay to Labrador West while Route 510 goes from Happy Valley-Goose Bay to Blanc-Sablon where a ferry can be taken to Newfoundland. Route 520 is a paved highway on the west coast of Lake Melville connecting Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Sheshatshiu and North West River. Rigolet and Mud Lake are the only 2 communities in the region that can&#39;t be reached by road.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The area around Lake Melville was historically inhabited by the Inuit and the Innu. It is believed that Labradors Inuit migrated to Labrador from Baffin Island in search of Europeans (the Norse are thought to have landed at Baffin Island around 1000 AD). At the end of the Seven Years War, New France (including Labrador) was ceded to Great Britain. The British decided to develop a cod fishery in Labrador. The fishermen (who mostly came from Newfoundland), often married Inuit women and thus created the "Inuit-Metis". In 1824, the population around Lake Melville was 326 which consisted of 160 Inuit, 60 half-Inuit, 90 European settlers, and 16 Canadian settlers.</p><br>
<p>The economy around Lake Melville was historically based around the fishery and fur. Fish and fur prices plummeted with the stock market crash beginning in 1929, weakening the meager though meaningful subsistence-based economy. Construction of an air base at Goose Bay in 1941 and radar installations along the coast offered Southern Inuit their first wage employment. Today, the town of Happy Valley-Goose Bay is one of the largest communities in Labrador and the tenth-largest community in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.</p><br>
<h3>Lower Churchill Project</h3><br>
<p>Woodcliff Lake is the name of a reservoir in Woodcliff Lake and portions of Hillsdale and Park Ridge, in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. It was created circa 1903 by damming the Pascack Brook and is also fed by the Bear Brook which joins the Pascack at the reservoir. The creation of the lake led what had been the Borough of Woodcliff to change its name to Woodcliff Lake, to match the name of the new reservoir. The reservoir is owned by Suez North America, a private utility.</p><br>
<p>The reservoir has a capacity of approximately 871 e6USgal of water. Water released into the Pascack Brook flows downstream into the Oradell Reservoir. When the water levels become low, the old stone bridge over the Pascack Brook becomes visible just south of the causeway.</p><br>
<p>Several species of fish inhabit the reservoir including largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, carp, pumpkinseed, bluegill, brown and yellow bullheads, as well as large schools of both yellow and white perch. Fishing is restricted to those with a valid New Jersey Fishing License and a Watershed Permit obtained by payment of a yearly fee to the owner of the reservoir, United Water. Numerous waterfowl including various species of ducks and heron also live on and around the reservoir.</p><br>
<p>The reservoir may be crossed at two points, either by a narrow road over the dam, originally Dam Road and changed to Church Road with a church was built at the Pascack Road entrance, or a higher traffic county road over a causeway, Woodcliff Avenue. On the eastern side of the reservoir is the New Jersey Transit Pascack Valley Line, with the Woodcliff Lake station stop at Woodcliff Avenue.</p><br>
<p>On March 11, 2003, Governor of New Jersey Jim McGreevey visited the nearby Lake Tappan reservoir and proposed protecting it, Woodcliff Lake and their tributaries with Category 1 water purity status.</p><br>
<p>Patara , later renamed Arsinoe , was a flourishing maritime and commercial city on the south-west coast of Lycia on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey near the modern small town of Gelemiş, in Antalya Province. It is the birthplace of St. Nicholas, who lived most of his life in the nearby town of Myra .</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Possessing a natural harbour, Patara was said to have been founded by Patarus, a son of Apollo. It was situated at a distance of 60 stadia to the southeast of the mouth of the river Xanthos. Patara was noted in antiquity for its temple and oracle of Apollo, second only to that of Delphi. The god is often mentioned with the surname Patareus. Herodotus says that the oracle of Apollo was delivered by a priestess only during a certain period of the year; and from Servius we learn that this period was the six winter months. It seems certain that Patara received Dorian settlers from Crete; and the worship of Apollo was certainly Dorian. Ancient writers mentioned Patara as one of the principal cities of Lycia. It was Lycia&#39;s primary seaport, and a leading city of the Lycian League, having 3 votes, the maximum.</p><br>
<p>The city, with the rest of Lycia, surrendered to Alexander the Great in 333 BC. During the Wars of the Diadochi, it was occupied in turn by Antigonus and Demetrius, before finally falling to the Ptolemies. Strabo informs us that Ptolemy Philadelphus of Egypt, who enlarged the city, gave it the name of Arsinoe (Arsinoë) after Arsinoe II of Egypt, his wife and sister, but it continued to be called by its ancient name, Patara. Antiochus III captured Patara in 196 BC. The Rhodians occupied the city, and as a Roman ally, the city with the rest of Lycia was granted its freedom in 167 BC. In 88 BC, the city suffered siege by Mithridates IV, king of Pontus and was captured by Brutus and Cassius, during their campaign against Mark Antony and Augustus. It was spared the massacres that were inflicted on nearby Xanthos. Patara was formally annexed by the Roman Empire in 43 AD and attached to Pamphylia.</p><br>
<p>Patara is mentioned in the New Testament as the place where Paul of Tarsus and Luke changed ships. The city was Christianized early, and several early bishops are known; according to Le Quien, they include:</p><br>
<p>Methodius, more probably bishop of Olympus</p><br>
<p>Eudemus, present at the Council of Nicaea (325)</p><br>
<p>Eutychianus, at the Council of Seleucia (359)</p><br>
<p>Eudemus, at the Council of Constantinople (381)</p><br>
<p>Cyrinus, at the Council of Chalcedon (451)</p><br>
<p>Licinius, at the Synod of Constantinople (536)</p><br>
<p>Theodulus, at the Photian Council (879)</p><br>
<p>Nicholas of Myra was born at Patara in ca. 280. He is believed to have died on December 6, 343. Archaeological investigation of his remains at Basilica di San Nicola in Bari, Italy, show that he suffered persecution under the Emperor Diocletian, who exiled and imprisoned him, including a broken nose. After his release, Nicholas attended the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325. Over the years, stories of his miracles involving rescuing children and working for the poor spread to other parts of the world. He became known as the protector of children and sailors and was associated with gift-giving, especially to children. He was a popular saint in Europe until the time of the Reformation in the 1500s, a religious movement that led to the creation of Protestantism, which turned away from the practice of honoring saints. St. Nicholas, however, remained an important figure in Holland, where his feast day was celebrated with the giving of gifts to children who behaved well. Dutch immigrants brought St. Nicholas, known to them as Sint Nikolaas or by his nickname Sinter Klaas, and traditions of his feast day to their colonies in America. He became popularised in America as Santa Claus and his gift-giving day moved from December 6 to Christmas, in line with traditions of other European countries of a figure who accompanies the baby Jesus to give gifts to good children.</p><br>
<p>Patara is mentioned among the Lycian bishoprics in the Acts of Councils (Hierocl. p. 684). The Notitiae Episcopatuum mention it among the suffragans of Myra as late as the thirteenth century.</p><br>
<p>The city remained of some importance during the Byzantine Empire as a way-point for trade and pilgrims. During the wars between the Turks and the Byzantines, the city was largely abandoned. With the demise of the bishopric as a residential see, Patara became a titular see and is included as in the Catholic Church&#39;s list of such sees.</p><br>
<h2>Ruins</h2><br>
<p>The name Patara is still attached to the numerous ruins of the city. These, according to the survey of Capt. Francis Beaufort, are situated on the sea-shore, a little to the eastward of the river Xanthus, and consist of a theatre excavated in the northern side of a small hill, a ruined temple on the side of the same hill, and a deep circular pit, of singular appearance, which may have been the seat of the oracle. The town walls surrounded an area of considerable extent; they may easily be traced, as well as the situation of a castle which commanded the harbour, and of several towers which flanked the walls. On the outside of the walls there is a multitude of stone sarcophagi, most of them bearing inscriptions, but all open and empty; and within the walls, temples, altars, pedestals, and fragments of sculpture appear in profusion, but ruined and mutilated. The situation of the harbour is still apparent, but it is a swamp, choked up with sand and bushes. The theatre was built in the reign of Antoninus Pius; its diameter is 265 feet, and has about 30 rows of seats. There are also ruins of thermae, which, according to an inscription upon them, were built by Vespasian.</p><br>
<h2>Excavation history</h2><br>
<p>In 1993 a Roman milestone was unearthed at Patara, the Stadiasmus Patarensis. It is a monumental pillar on which is inscribed in Greek a dedication to Claudius and an official announcement of roads being built by the governor, Quintus Veranius Nepos, in the province of Lycia et Pamphylia, giving place names and distances, essentially a monumental public itinerarium. The pillar is on display in the garden of the Antalya Museum.</p><br>
<p>The site is currently being excavated during two summer months each year by a team of Turkish archaeologists. At the end of 2007, all the sand had been cleared from the theatre and some other buildings, and the columns on the main street had been partially re-erected (with facsimile capitals). The excavations have revealed masonry in remarkable condition.</p><br>
<h2>Tourism</h2><br>
<p>Apart from its ancient ruins, Patara is also famous for the 18 km-long Patara Beach, which is situated on the Turkish Riviera.</p><br>
<p>Gezer, or Tel Gezer  is an archaeological site in the foothills of the Judaean Mountains at the border of the Shfela region roughly midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It is now an Israeli national park. In the Hebrew Bible, Gezer is associated with Joshua and Solomon.</p><br>
<p>It became a major fortified Canaanite city-state in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. It was later destroyed by fire and rebuilt. The Amarna letters mention kings of Gezer swearing loyalty to the Egyptian Pharaoh. Its importance was due in part to the strategic position it held at the crossroads of the ancient coastal trade route linking Egypt with Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia, and the road to Jerusalem and Jericho, both important trade routes.</p><br>
<h2>In the Bible</h2><br>
<p>Gezer is listed in the Book of Joshua as a Levitical city, one of ten allotted to the Levite children of Kehoth - the Kohathites (Joshua, ch. 21). Discoveries related to biblical archaeology include: a probable Canaanite high place with ten monumental megaliths (up-ended stones, each of which is called a masseba or matseva, plural massebot/matsevot; such are found elsewhere in Israel, but the Gezer massebot are the most impressive examples); a double cave beneath the high place, but predating and not connected to it; 13 inscribed boundary stones, making it the first positively identified biblical city; a six-chambered gate similar to those found at Hazor and Megiddo; and a large Canaanite water system comprising a tunnel going down to a spring, similar to those found in Jerusalem, Hazor and Megiddo.</p><br>
<h2>Location</h2><br>
<p>Gezer was located on the northern fringe of the Shephelah region, approximately thirty kilometres northwest of Jerusalem. It was strategically situated at the junction of the Via Maris, the international coastal highway, and the highway connecting it with Jerusalem through the valley of Ayalon, or Ajalon.</p><br>
<p>Verification of the identification of this site with biblical Gezer comes from bilingual inscriptions in either Hebrew or Aramaic, and Greek, found engraved on rocks several hundred meters from the tell. These inscriptions from the 1st century BCE read "boundary of Gezer" and "of Alkios" (probably the governor of Gezer at the time).</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Bronze Age</h3><br>
<h4>Early Bronze Age</h4><br>
<p>Inhabitants of the first settlement at Gezer, toward the end of the 4th millennium BCE, lived in large rock-cut caves.</p><br>
<p>In the Early Bronze Age, an unfortified settlement covered the tell. It was destroyed in the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE and abandoned for several hundred years.</p><br>
<h4>Middle Bronze Age</h4><br>
<p>In the Middle Bronze Age (first half of the 2nd millennium BCE), Gezer became a major city, well fortified and containing a large cultic site.</p><br>
<p>The Canaanite city was destroyed in a fire, presumably in the wake of a campaign by the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III (ruled 1479–1425 BC). The oldest known historical reference to the city is to be found on an inscription of conquered sites at Thutmose&#39;s temple at Karnak.</p><br>
<p>The Tell Amarna letters, dating from the 14th century BCE, include ten letters from the kings of Gezer swearing loyalty to the Egyptian pharaoh. The city-state of Gezer (named Gazru in Babylonian) was ruled by four leaders during the 20-year period covered by the Amarna letters. Discoveries of several pottery vessels, a cache of cylinder seals and a large scarab with the cartouche of Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III attest to the existence of a city at Gezer&#39;s location in the 14th century BCE - one that was apparently destroyed in that century - and suggest that the city was inhabited by Canaanites with strong ties to Egypt.</p><br>
<p>The tell was surrounded by a massive stone wall and towers, protected by a five meter high earthen rampart covered with plaster. The wooden city gate, near the southwestern corner of the wall, was fortified by two towers.</p><br>
<p>Cultic remains discovered at the site were a row of ten large standing stones, known as massebot, oriented north-south, the tallest of which was 3 meters high, with an altar-type structure in the middle, and a large, square, stone basin. The exact purpose of these megaliths is still debated, but they may have constituted a Canaanite "high place" from the Middle Bronze Age, ca. 1600 B.C.E.</p><br>
<h4>Late Bronze Age</h4><br>
<p>In the Late Bronze Age (second half of the 2nd millennium BCE) a new fortification wall, four meters thick, was erected. In the 14th century BCE, a palace was constructed on the high western part of the tell. Toward the end of the Bronze Age, the city declined and its population diminished. Gezer is mentioned in the victory stele of Merneptah, dating from the end of the 13th century BCE.</p><br>
<h3>Iron Age</h3><br>
<p>In 12th-11th centuries BCE, a large building with many rooms and courtyards was situated on the acropolis. Grinding stones and grains of wheat found among the sherds indicate that it was a granary. Local and Philistine vessels attest to a mixed Canaanite/Philistine population.</p><br>
<h4>Tiglath-Pileser III and the Neo-Assyrian period</h4><br>
<p>The Neo-Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III put Gezer under siege between the years 734 and 732 BC. The city was probably captured by the Assyrians at the end of the campaign of Tiglath-Pileser III to Canaan. A reference to Gezer may have appeared in a cuneiform relief from the 8th-century BCE royal palace of Tiglath-Pileser III at Nimrud. The siege may have been the one depicted on a stone relief at the royal palace in Nimrud, where the city was called Gazru. Nimrud itself was destroyed in 2016 by the "islamic state" cult and those artifacts were lost or destroyed.</p><br>
<p>Recent archaeological excavation at the site reveals that not long after the city fell into Assyrian hands it became an Assyrian administrative center.</p><br>
<h3>Hellenistic period</h3><br>
<p>During the Hellenistic period, Gezer was fortified by Maccabees and was ruled by the independent Jewish Hasmonean dynasty.</p><br>
<h3>Post-Hellenistic periods</h3><br>
<p>Gezer was sparsely populated during Roman times and later times, as other regional population centers took its place.</p><br>
<h3>Crusader period</h3><br>
<p>In 1177, the plains around Gezer were the site of the Battle of Montgisard, in which the Crusaders under Baldwin IV defeated the forces of Saladin.</p><br>
<h3>Ottoman and modern periods</h3><br>
<h2>Bible: the sack of Gezer</h2><br>
<p>According to the Hebrew Bible, the only source for the event, the Sack of Gezer took place at the beginning of the 10th century BCE, when the city was conquered and burned by an unnamed Egyptian pharaoh, identified by some with Siamun, during his military campaign in Palestine. This anonymous Egyptian pharaoh then gave it to King Solomon as the dowry of his daughter. Solomon then rebuilt Gezer and fortified it. The biblical story of the Israelite conquest of Canaan under their leader Joshua mentions a certain "king of Gezer" who had gone to help his countrymen in Lachish, where he met his death.</p><br>
<p>The Bible states:</p><br>
<h3>Identifying the pharaoh</h3><br>
<p>The only mention in the Bible of a pharaoh who might be Siamun (ruled 986–967 BC) is the text from 1 Kings quoted above, and we have no other historical sources that clearly identify what really happened. As shown below, Kenneth Kitchen believes that Siamun conquered Gezer and gave it to Solomon. Others such as Paul S. Ash and Mark W. Chavalas disagree, and Chavalas states that "it is impossible to conclude which Egyptian monarch ruled concurrently with David and Solomon". Professor Edward Lipinski argues that Gezer, then unfortified, was destroyed late in the 10th century (and thus not contemporary with Solomon) and that the most likely Pharaoh was Shoshenq I (ruled 943–922 BC). "The attempt at relating the destruction of Gezer to the hypothetical relationship between Siamun and Solomon cannot be justified factually, since Siamuns death precedes Solomons accession."</p><br>
<h2>Archaeology</h2><br>
<h3>History of excavation</h3><br>
<p>Archaeological excavation at Gezer has been going on since the early 1900s, and it has become one of the most excavated sites in Israel. The site was identified with ancient Gezer by Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau in 1871. R. A. Stewart Macalister excavated the site between 1902 and 1909 on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund. Macalister recovered several artifacts discovered several constructions and defenses. He also established Gezer&#39;s habitation strata, though due to poor stratigraphical methods, these were later found to be mostly incorrect (as well as many of his theories). Other notable archaeological expeditions to the site were made by Alan Rowe (1934), G.E. Wright, William Dever and Joe Seger between 1964 and 1974 on behalf of the Nelson Glueck School of Archaeology in the Hebrew Union College, again by Dever in 1984 and 1990, as well as the Andrews University.</p><br>
<p>Excavations were renewed in June 2006 by a consortium of institutions under the direction of Steve Ortiz of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS) and Sam Wolff (Israel Antiquities Authority). The Tel Gezer Excavation and Publication Project is a multi-disciplinary field project investigating the Iron Age history of Gezer.</p><br>
<p>The first season of the Gezer excavations concluded successfully and revealed some interesting details. Among other things, is a discovery of thick destruction layer that may be dated to the destruction of Siamun (1 Kings 9:16).</p><br>
<p>In 2011 BorderStone Press launched a "Research Israel" project in cooperation with the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS) to participate in the dig and to document and publish a book on the findings.</p><br>
<p>In July of 2017, archaeologists discovered skeletal remains of a family of three, one a child wearing earrings, believed to have been killed during an Egyptian invasion in the 13th-century BCE. An amulet, various scarabs and cylinder seals were also found on the site. The amulet bears the cartouches —or official royal monikers— of the Egyptian Pharaohs Thutmose III and Ramses II.</p><br>
<h3>"Gezer calendar"</h3><br>
<p>One of the best-known finds is the Gezer calendar. This is a plaque containing a text appearing to be either a schoolboys memory exercises, or something designated for the collection of taxes from farmers. Another possibility is that the text was a popular folk song, or childs song, listing the months of the year according to the agricultural seasons. It has proved to be of value by informing modern researchers of ancient Middle Eastern script and language, as well as the agricultural seasons.</p><br>
<h3>Canaanite city gate, wall</h3><br>
<p>In 2013 the NOBTS team launched a side effort to preserve the ancient Canaanite mudbrick gate and complex near the water system.</p><br>
<h3>Israelite city gate, wall</h3><br>
<p>In 1957 Yigael Yadin identified a wall and gateway very similar in construction to remains excavated at Megiddo and Hazor as Solomonic; they have since been identified as dating from the early Israelite kingdom, some centuries later.</p><br>
<h3>Canaanite water tunnel</h3><br>
<p>In 2010 a team from NOBTS launched an effort to clear a massive water tunnel, discovered first by Macalister over a hundred years earlier. Macalister never fully excavated the tunnel because a strong storm blew debris back into the tunnel and he considered it too expensive and time-consuming to re-excavate the site. The NOBTS effort to re-clear and examine the tunnel has been chronicled in multiple sources including the Biblical Archaeology Review and the Baptist Press. In 2011 Professor Dennis Cole, archaeologist Dan Warner and engineer Jim Parker from NOBTS, led another team in an attempt to finish the effort. In just two years the teams removed approximately 299 tons of debris from the ancient water system.</p><br>
<p>In 2010, the team removed approximately 1,040 cubic feet (39 cubic yards – 29 cubic meters) of debris (approximately 50 percent rock and 50 percent dirt), equating to approximately 68 tons. In 2011 the team removed approximately 3,560 cubic feet (132 cubic yards- 101 cubic meters), equating to approximately 231 tons.</p><br>
<p>In 2012 the Gezer team uncovered a large open cavern at the bottom of the water system. Said Dr. Warner "Opening the cave is something we have been working toward for three summers wondering if it even existed...It gave me a rush. Once inside it gave us a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, but we are not done by a long shot."</p><br>
<p>In 2013 the NOBTS team launched a side effort to preserve the ancient Canaanite mudbrick gate and complex near the water system. In the water system "ost of the first two weeks of the dig were spent searching for the bottom step and cleaning Macalister&#39;s causeway. Tons of debris and rocks were removed in the process. When the bottom step was located and the causeway area clear, the team excavated three probes in the pool area. Each of the pool probes reached a depth of more than six feet before the end of the season and the bottom of the pool was discovered in only one probe (Eastern probe) — the one just below the bottom step of the water shaft."</p><br>
<h3>Boundary stones</h3><br>
<p>13 boundary stones have been identified at the site, probably dating from the Late Hellenistic period (1st century BCE), the most recent having been found by archaeologists from SWBTS. See also Gezer#Location.</p><br>
<h2>Temple of Amun</h2><br>
<p>One fragmentary but well-known surviving triumphal relief scene from the Temple of Amun at Tanis believed to be related to the sack of Gezer depicts an Egyptian pharaoh smiting his enemies with a mace. There can be no doubt that the person shown on this relief was Siamun as the eminent British Egyptologist, Kenneth Kitchen, stresses in his book, On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Siamun appears here "in typical pose brandishing a mace to strike down prisoners(?) now lost at the right except for two arms and hands, one of which grasps a remarkable double-bladed axe by its socket." The writer observes that this double-bladed axe or halberd has a flared crescent-shaped blade which is close in form to the Aegean influenced double axe but is quite distinct from the Canaanite double-headed axe which has a different shape that resembles an X. Thus, Kitchen concludes Siamuns foes were the Philistines who were descendants of the Aegean-based Sea Peoples and that Siamun was commemorating his recent victory over them at Gezer by depicting himself in a formal battle scene relief at the Temple in Tanis. More recently Paul S. Ash has put forward a detailed argument that Siamuns relief portrays a fictitious battle. He points out that in Egyptian reliefs Philistines are never shown holding an axe, and that there is no archaeological evidence for Philistines using axes. He also argues that there is nothing in the relief to connect it with Philistia or the Levant.</p><br>
<p>At 3,255 feet, Sgùrr Alasdair is the highest peak of the Black Cuillin, and the highest peak on the Isle of Skye and in the Inner Hebrides. Like the rest of the range it is composed of gabbro, a rock with excellent grip for mountaineering. It is named for Alexander Nicolson, who made the first recorded ascent in 1873. Prior to this the mountain had been locally known as Sgurr Biorach.</p><br>
<h2>Ascent</h2><br>
<p>As with other hills of the Cuillin, a head for heights and scrambling ability are needed to attain the summit. The least technical route follows a feature known as the "Great Stone Chute", a scree gully that leads up from the corrie of Coire Lagan to a col just below the main ridge. From this col, a pleasant scramble (Grade 2 standard) up the well scratched east ridge leads to the narrow summit.</p><br>
<p>Other routes require scrambling ability or rock climbing; while there are rock climbs directly up the flanks, the only other way of reaching the summit via a ridge is the south-west ridge, a Grade 3 scramble that begins up a scratched chimney which can be accessed from the summit of Sgùrr Sgumain or from Coir a Ghrunnda; there is also a slightly easier route from the top of this chimney directly up a shallow gully on the south face. The summit of Sgùrr Alasdair can be attained by a short detour (from Sgùrr Theàrlaich) off the main ridge by climbers undertaking the full traverse of the Cuillin ridge, or by those following the circuit of Coire Lagan.</p><br>
<p>The Forest of Bere is a mixed-use partially forested area immediately north of Fareham, Portsmouth and Roman Road, Havant and includes a small part of the South Downs National Park It is featured in the TV series Vikings episode Eye for an Eye.</p><br>
<p>The former uninterrupted forest is today a mix of woodland, open space, ponds, streams, heathland, farmland and downland interspersed by minor villages and the major settlements of Waterlooville (with Cowplain) and Eastleigh (with Chandlers Ford). It provides countryside access to the residents of South-East Hampshire having a number of paths and bridleways for walking and cycling. In particular in the southern portion, towards the area south of the Queen Elizabeth Country Park in the 20th century conifer plantations have been planted.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>In the 13th and 14th centuries two royal forests formed a greater forerunner of the later vestigial forest between the New forest and the Sussex border. North of Southampton between the rivers Test and Itchen was the Royal Forest of Bere Ashley. North of Portsmouth; between the river Meon and Bedhampton was the Royal Forest of Bere Portchester.</p><br>
<h2>Woodland habitats and contiguous Country Parks</h2><br>
<p>Listed from east to west, excluding small copses and coppices</p><br>
<p>Southleigh Forest</p><br>
<p>Staunton Country Park</p><br>
<p>The Holt with Stein Wood and Havant Thicket</p><br>
<p>Bells Copse</p><br>
<p>Outhills Copse with Stakehills Coppice and Beech Wood</p><br>
<p>Bushy Lease with Neville&#39;s Park and Littlepark Wood</p><br>
<p>The Queen&#39;s Inclosure in Waterlooville</p><br>
<p>Newlandsmoor Coppice with Malins Coppice, Drivetts Coppice, Portland Coppice, Potwall Coppice, Broomground Coppice and Greathunt Coppice</p><br>
<p>Dunsland Coppice with Wards Coppice and Fareham Garden (wood that adjoins above group)</p><br>
<p>Sawyer&#39;s Wood</p><br>
<p>Creech Woods</p><br>
<p>Place Wood</p><br>
<p>Mitchelland Copse</p><br>
<p>Stroud Coppice</p><br>
<p>Hipley Copse</p><br>
<p>Waltonheath Plantation with Ashlands Plantation and Staplecross Copse</p><br>
<p>Goathouse Copse with Russell Copse and Kiln Wood</p><br>
<p>Grub Coppice with Mill Coppice</p><br>
<p>West Walk (one of the largest woods) (with Lowerfield Copse and Upperfield Copse)</p><br>
<p>Dirty Copse with Great Holywell Copse</p><br>
<p>Mill Copse with Hoegate Commons, The Purlieu and Huntbourn Wood</p><br>
<p>Orchard Copse with Birching Copse</p><br>
<p>Close Wood and Bishop&#39;s Wood</p><br>
<p>Shaftesbury Copse, Aylesbury Copse with Ravens Wood, Birchfield Copse, Dash Wood, Dandy Copse and Fiddlers Green</p><br>
<p>Mushes Coppice with Everitts Coppice, Stonyfield Copse, Flagpond Copse, Sagers Moor, Dimmocks Moor, Ridge Copse, Blackmoor Copse, Waterclose Copse and Sawpit Copse</p><br>
<p>Brook Wood with Horse Wood, Hallwood Copse, Mansfield High Wood, Hole Copse and Silford Copse</p><br>
<p>Jacobs Croft, Hangmans Copse, Blacklands Copse, Birch Row, Alder Moor, Maids&#39; Garden Copse and Botley Row (wood that adjoins above group)</p><br>
<p>Gull Coppice and Bushy Land, in Swanwick</p><br>
<p>Wellspring Copse with Swanwick Wood</p><br>
<p>Manor Farm Country Park with Dock Copse, Catiland Copse, Vantage Copse and Durncombe&#39;s Copse</p><br>
<p>Netley Common with Dumbleton&#39;s Copse</p><br>
<p>Telegraph Woods with Beacon Hill Woodland Park</p><br>
<p>Hog Wood with Milkmeads Copse, Vocus Copse, High Wood and/in Itchen Valley Country Park</p><br>
<p>Home Wood with Smithys Wood, Coxs Rough, Hut Wood, Marshalls Rows, Spring Copse and Chilworth Common</p><br>
<p>Otterbourne Park Wood and Pitmore Copse</p><br>
<p>Home Copse, Long Copse and Rownhams Plantation</p><br>
<p>The woods that cover most of Cranbury Park</p><br>
<p>Windmill Copse</p><br>
<p>Hocombe Plantation with Trodds Copse</p><br>
<p>Broadgate Plantation</p><br>
<p>Ampfield Wood with Neville&#39;s Copse, Amprield Plantation and Hursley Forest</p><br>
<p>Vyšehrad  is a historic fort located in the city of Prague, Czech Republic. It was built, probably in the 10th century, on a hill over the Vltava River. Situated within the castle is the Basilica of St Peter and St Paul, as well as the Vyšehrad Cemetery, containing the remains of many famous people from Czech history, among them Antonín Dvořák, Bedřich Smetana, Karel Čapek, and Alphonse Mucha. It also contains one of Prague&#39;s oldest surviving buildings, the Rotunda of St Martin from the 11th century. The oldest buildings in Prague are located within Prague Castle. The Basilica St. Martin, which was built from 900-950, and the Church of the Virgin Mary, which was built in the year 870.</p><br>
<p>Local legend holds that Vyšehrad was the location of the first settlement which later became Prague, though thus far this claim remains unsubstantiated.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>When the Přemyslid dynasty settled on the current site of Prague Castle, the two castles maintained opposing spheres of influence for approximately two centuries. Like this the second seat of the Czech sovereigns was established on a steep rock directly above the right bank of the Vltava river, in the 10th century. The zenith of Vyšehrad was during the second half of the 11th century, when Vratislav transferred his seat from Prague Castle, and the original fort was remodelled as a complex comprising a sovereign&#39;s palatial residence, church and seat of the chapter. The period of growth ended around 1140 when Prince Soběslav moved his seat back to Prague Castle.</p><br>
<p>When Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV began to build the Prague Castle in its current dimensions in the early 14th century, the deteriorating castle Vyšehrad was abandoned as a royal home. Later the whole complex was renewed by Charles IV and new fortifications, with two gates and a royal palace were built, while the palace of Saints Peter and Paul awaited repair. At the beginning of the Hussite Wars, Vyšehrad was conquered and ransacked by the Hussites in 1420 and then again in 1448 by the troops of King George of Poděbrady. The castle was then abandoned and became ruined. It underwent a renovation in the 17th century, when the Habsburg Monarchy took over the Czech lands after the Thirty Years&#39; War and remodelled it in 1654 as a Baroque fortress, turning it into a training centre for the Austrian Army, and later incorporated into the Baroque era city walls around Prague.</p><br>
<p>The present form of Vyšehrad as a fortified residence, with powerful brick ramparts, bastions and the Tábor and Leopold gates, is a result of Baroque remodelling. The Cihelná brána (Brick gate) is an Empire-style structure, dating from 1841. The main part of the Špička Gate, parts of the Romanesque bridge, and the ruined Gothic lookout tower known as Libušina lázeň (Libuše&#39;s Bath) are the only fragments that have been preserved from the Middle Ages. The Romanesque rotunda of St. Martin dates from the second half of the 11th century. The 11th century of Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, which dominates Vyšehrad, was remodelled in the second half of the 14th century and again in 1885 and 1887 in the Neo-gothic style. Vyšehrad and the area around it became part of the capital city in 1883. The area is one of the cadastral districts of the city.</p><br>
<p>By the twenty-first century, Vyšehrad has become a public park that is a popular site for recreation and celebrations. For example, it is a popular place for Czechs to celebrate New Year&#39;s Eve.</p><br>
<p>The Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent at 15 South 7th Street between Market and Ranstead Streets in Center City, Philadelphia was founded in 1938 to be Philadelphias city history museum. The museum occupies architect John Havilands landmark Greek Revival structure built in 1824–26 for the Franklin Institute. The Museum operates as a city agency as part of Philadelphia&#39;s Department of Recreation.</p><br>
<p>The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 1, 1979.</p><br>
<h2>Founding</h2><br>
<p>The museum was established through the efforts of Philadelphia Mayor S. Davis Wilson, Frances Wistar, president of the Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks, and A. Atwater Kent, radio pioneer and inventor. In 1938 Wilson and Wistar approached Kent to purchase the Franklin Institute building, which the Institute had vacated in 1933, and create a history museum for the City of Philadelphia. They were joined in their efforts by the president of the University of Pennsylvania, the director of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and the president of the Franklin Institute. Kent agreed, and purchased the building as a gift for the city with three conditions: It was to be dedicated to the history of Philadelphia; was to be named for Kent; and be open to the public free of charge. (In 1994, a City Ordinance allowed the museum to charge an admission fee.)</p><br>
<p>After three years of renovations carried out by the Works Progress Administration, the Atwater Kent Museum was formally dedicated on April 19, 1941.</p><br>
<h2>Collection</h2><br>
<p>Today, the Museum houses more than 80,000 objects related to Philadelphia and regional history, including an estimated 10,000 17th- to 20th-century artifacts from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania art and artifact collection, 1700 Quaker-related items from Friends Historical Association Collection, and collections reflecting Philadelphia manufacturing, the 1876 Centennial Exposition, toys and miniatures, and radio broadcasting. It also houses a collection of 321 The Saturday Evening Post covers illustrated by Norman Rockwell and published in Philadelphia by the Curtis Publishing Company. The museums main gallery features the worlds largest map of Philadelphia.</p><br>
<p>Highlights from the permanent exhibitions include the boxing gloves of Joe Frazier, the desk of George Washington, a drinking glass owned by Benjamin Franklin, and a wampum belt allegedly given to William Penn by the Lenape.</p><br>
<p>In August 2011, the museum galleries were closed to the public for ongoing renovations. The museum reopened on September 22, 2012.</p><br>
