<p>Lake Monowai is a large lake  in the southern part of Fiordland National Park, in New Zealand&#39;s South Island, 120 kilometres northwest of Invercargill. At an altitude of 180 metres in a long curved valley, the lake appears on maps shaped like a letter "U". The western part of the lake is set in beautiful mountainous country. It is drained in the northeast by the short Monowai River, which enters the Waiau River eight kilometres to the northeast.</p><br>
<h2>Power station</h2><br>
<p>One of the South Island&#39;s oldest hydroelectric stations is powered by the waters of the Monowai. It is located at the junction of the Waiau and Monowai Rivers and was opened in 1925.</p><br>
<p>Plans to raise the level of the lake to create more hydroelectric power were shelved by the Labour government of Norman Kirk in the 1970s, and an independent body, the Guardians of Lake Manapouri, Monowai, and Te Anau was created to oversee management of the lake levels (more information at Manapouri Power Station).</p><br>
<p>Rush Valley is a 30 mi long north-trending valley in the southeast of Tooele County, Utah. It lies adjacent and attached at the south of Tooele Valley; the separation point is the lowpoint of the valley at Rush Lake, and lies at the southeast of the small mountain massif causing the separation, South Mountain at 6,541 ft. The region of Rush Lake is a marsh region, fed by various streams from the mountain regions east and west.</p><br>
<p>A southern section of the Tooele Army Depot lies in the valley&#39;s center-northeast, at the southwest foothills of the Oquirrh Mountains.</p><br>
<h2>Valley description</h2><br>
<p>Rush Valley narrows to about 7 mi wide in the north, between the Stansbury Mountains west, and the Oquirrh Mountains east. The valley widens in the south, making two sections, a due-south section and a region to the southeast. The southern section contains the communities of Vernon and Faust, with Faust north, closer to the valley&#39;s center-south. Vernon is in flatlands fed by the Sheeprock Mountains or foothills, southwest, south and southeast.</p><br>
<p>The southeast valley section is 16 mi long from the Rush Valley center, and lies at the northwest of the East Tintic Mountains. A ridge north separates Rush Valley from Cedar Valley to the east. Lofgreen is in mountain foothills southwest, and Pehrson with Topliff are in lower elevation regions.</p><br>
<p>The two southern sections cover a width of about 15 mi, south of the valley center. The Rush Valley centerpoint is north of Faust, and the small James Walter Fitzgerald Wildlife Management Area.</p><br>
<h2>Access</h2><br>
<p>Utah State Route 36 (SR-36) transects the center of the valley, starting from a section at the northeast, from Tooele and Stockton. It turns and leaves the valley&#39;s southeast to meet the region of Eureka and Silver City in the East Tintic Mountains.</p><br>
<p>Utah State Route 73 (SR-73) joins SR-36 at the valleys center, after traversing the south of the Oquirrh Mountains, in the valleys southeast, (the north perimeter of the southeast section).</p><br>
<p>Utah State Route 199 (SR-199) enters the valley center from Dugway, and its canyon route through the west mountains is the dividing line between the Stansbury Mountains north, and the Onaqui Mountains south.</p><br>
<p>Lake Towada is the largest crater lake in Honshū island, Japan. Located on the border between Aomori and Akita prefectures, it lies 400 meters  above sea level and is 327 m  deep, drained by the Oirase river. With a surface area of 61.1 km², Towada is Japan&#39;s 12th largest lake, its bright blue color is due to its great depth. The lake is roughly circular, with two peninsulas extending from its southern shore approximately one-third into the center of the lake.</p><br>
<p>The lake is a popular tourist destination.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Lake Towada occupies the caldera of an active volcano, with large scale volcanic eruptions occurring approximately 55,000, 25,000 and 13,000 years ago. The most recent eruption left traces of pyroclastic flows as far away as the modern city of Aomori. The lake is a double caldera in that the inlet between its two peninsulas (called the “Nakaumi”) is the remnant of a secondary caldera which erupted and collapsed approximately 5400 years ago. The mountain continued to erupt well into the historical period, with the last recorded eruption occurring in 915 AD, devastating the surrounding area with pyroclastic flows, and covering most of the Tōhoku region of Japan with volcanic ash, leading to crop failures, climate change and famines.</p><br>
<p>The area around Lake Towada remained largely wilderness until towards the end of the Edo period, when the Nambu clan of Morioka Domain attempted large scale land reclamation projects at Sanbongihara (modern Towada) using the Oirase River for irrigation. In 1903, largely through the efforts of Wainai Sadayuki, princess trout were introduced into Lake Towada. The lake now also has rainbow trout, cherry salmon, carp, Carassius, Japanese eel. The surrounding forests are temperate deciduous, and are primarily Erman’s birch and Siebold’s beech.</p><br>
<p>The lake was selected by the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun and Osaka Mainichi Shimbun as one of the Eight Scenic Views of Japan in 1927. In 1936, the lake and surrounding areas became part of Towada National Park.</p><br>
<p>In 1953, in order to popularize the lake and the park, a sculpture of two women titled “The Maiden Statue” by Kōtarō Takamura was dedicated at the lakeshore as part of the park&#39;s 15th anniversary celebration. It was the last work by that noted sculptor.</p><br>
<p>A wartime Tachikawa Ki-54 aircraft of the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force which crashed in 1943 was found at the bottom of Lake Towada on 13 August 2010. It was recovered on September 5, 2012 and has been placed on display.</p><br>
<h2>Activities</h2><br>
<p>Located in the central area of Yasumiya is the lake&#39;s symbol, the Otome-no-Zo statue, located. From there excursion boats arrive and depart. In Utarube visitors can canoe or camp.</p><br>
<p>The Three Mountains of Dewa refer to the three sacred mountains of Mount Haguro, Mount Gassan and Mount Yudono, which are clustered together in the ancient province of Dewa . Holy to the Japanese Shinto religion and especially the mountain ascetic cult of Shugendo, Dewa Sanzan are a popular pilgrimage site visited by many, including famed haiku poet Matsuo Bashō.</p><br>
<p>The Haguro Five-story Pagoda is a recognised national treasure of Japan.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Dewa Sanzan mountains are particularly noteworthy as having the oldest history of mountain worship in Japan. The mountains were first opened as a religious centre over 1400 years ago in 593 by prince Hachiko, who was the first-born son of Emperor Sushun, the 32nd emperor of Japan and reigning emperor at the time. Prince Hachiko arrived in Dewa province in 593 after fleeing the Soga clan upon the assassination of his father. He then devoted the rest of his life to religious pursuits, eventually enduring difficult ascetic exercises and a period of penance, which led to his worship of Haguro Gongen, the deity of the mountain. Following this, the prince began worship at the Gassan and Yudono mountains, which led to the enshrinement of all three deities at the temple located on the summit of Mount Haguro.</p><br>
<p>Following the establishment of the Dewa Sanzan mountains as a center of ascetic religious beliefs, many people began to make yearly pilgrimages to the mountains to pay reverence, even arduously trekking thousands of miles to visit the shrines during the summer months. These pilgrimages held significance to many religions and the mountains served as a place of learning for various belief systems, but were most particularly important to shugendō. Several notable individuals made this pilgrimage to the Dewa Sanzan to include En no Gyōja, the founder of shugendō asceticism, as well as Kūkai, the founder of the Shingon Sect.</p><br>
<p>Following the Meiji Restoration in 1868, the Japanese government dissolved the pattern of Shintō-Buddhist amalgamation and Shintō was selected as the official state religion. Shugendō was adversely affected by this split and many shugendō priests returned to a secular life. Following the end of World War II however, shugendō was allowed to enjoy a status as a minor religious group. These changes in religious association also altered the designation of the shrines located on the Dewa Sanzan. Today, the shrines at Mount Haguro and Mount Yudono are designated as kokuhei shosha, while the shrine on Mount Gassan, Gassan Shrine is now considered a kanpei taisha.</p><br>
<h2>Significance in Japanese religion</h2><br>
<p>Folk religion has continued throughout the ages to be a very major force in the life of the Japanese people, particularly the aspect of the association between religious beliefs and practices with sacred mountains. This practice of mountain worship holds a significant place in Japanese beliefs and had become widespread throughout Japan’s history. It has been observed that nearly every high mountain top has had its own dedicated shrine at one point, with some receiving pilgrimages every year from thousands of worshippers. This collection of diverse phenomena linking religious activities and beliefs with sacred mountains is referred to as sangaku shinkō.</p><br>
<p>The Dewa Sanzan are very holy to both the religions of Shintō and Buddhism, but in particular are very significant and sacred to the shugendō religious system of beliefs, as they represent great spiritual significance. Mount Haguro, Mount Gassan, and Mount Yudono each have their own shrine, though the primary shrine itself, Dewa Shrine, is located at the summit of Mount Haguro. The primary shrine is unique in that it venerates all three sacred mountains.</p><br>
<p>Every year, mountain ascetic devotees known as yamabushi - which are laymen practitioners of shugendo - pay reverence to the Dewa Sanzan. Mount Haguro is significant in this role as it serves as the entryway to Mount Gassan and Mount Yudono.</p><br>
<p>Though Mount Haguro is the smallest of the three mountains, it is the only mountain of Dewa that is accessible all throughout the year, as heavy snowfall prohibits pilgrimage to the other two mountains of Dewa during the winter months. It is the most well known of the three mountains of Dewa both locally and internationally, as it serves as the location of the Haguro Five-story Pagoda, one of Japan&#39;s national treasures.</p><br>
<p>Mount Gassan is the tallest of the three sacred mountains and is well known for its natural scenery and beauty, as it plays host to a variety of rare alpine plants and other marsh vegetation.</p><br>
<p>Mount Yudono is viewed as being the heart of the three sacred mountains and is considered the most holy of ascetic disciplinary practice grounds. Many ascetics and yamabushi believe they have not completed their pilgrimage, and thus entered the holy land, until they have reached Mount Yudono. Mount Yudono is famous for its goshintai, a sacred object believed to be directly connected to a god. The shrine on Yudono is also revered as hallowed land which must be kept secret, and even today, photography and video recordings are prohibited.</p><br>
<p>Skiddaw Little Man also called Little Man is a fell in the English Lake District, it is situated four kilometres north of the town of Keswick and reaches a height of 865 m .</p><br>
<h2>Topography</h2><br>
<p>Little Man is often overlooked and disregarded as an independent and distinct fell due to its name which makes it sound like a minor top of its parent fell Skiddaw which in fact lies 1.5 kilometres to the north west. With a topographical prominence of 61 metres, Little Man qualifies comfortably as a Hewitt and Nuttall hill and is regarded as a separate fell by renowned mountain writers Alfred Wainwright and Bill Birkett. The fell is actually called Little Man on Ordnance Survey maps and by many guide books.</p><br>
<p>To the north and east Little Man is connected to the Skiddaw massif, Lonscale Fell being the nearest separate fell to the east, 2.5 kilometres away. To the south and the west the fell falls away steeply with fast flowing streams draining the fell into the River Derwent. Half a kilometre to the south east of the main summit lies a lower top called Lesser Man (815 metres), this is adorned with an unusual cairn consisting of rocks and old fence posts. A further half a kilometre to the south east of Lesser Man, on the other side of the bridleway from Keswick to Skiddaw, stands Jenkin Hill (735 metres), this flat-topped height being regarded as an outlier of Little Man.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>Geologically, Little Man consists of Skiddaw slate and the summit of the fell is made up of grassy patches within large areas of slate.</p><br>
<h2>Summit</h2><br>
<p>Little Man has one big advantage over Skiddaw in that its convex southern slopes make it a far better viewpoint than its higher neighbour. In fact the panorama from Little Man is regarded as one of the best in the national park taking in the valleys and lakes of northern Lakeland as well as all of the best-known fells of the district.</p><br>
<h2>Ascents</h2><br>
<p>Many people climb Little Man via the tourist path from Keswick on the way to the summit of Skiddaw. However, there are several better and more interesting but steep ascents from the hamlets of Millbeck and Applethwaite to the south of the fell. One of the routes from Millbeck is a scrambler&#39;s route up the steep south west Arête.</p><br>
<p>False Creek is a short inlet in the heart of Vancouver. It separates downtown from the rest of the city. It was named by George Henry Richards during his Hydrographic survey of 1856-63. Science World is located at its eastern end, with the Granville, Cambie, and the Burrard  Street bridges crossing False Creek. The Canada Line tunnel crosses underneath False Creek just west of the Cambie Bridge. It is one of the four major bodies of water bordering Vancouver along with English Bay, Burrard Inlet and the Fraser River. In 1986 it was the location of the Expo 86 World&#39;s Fair.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Human settlement in the Lower Fraser region (including present-day Vancouver; see Lower Mainland) began between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago, following the retreat of the Sumas Glacier at the end of the last ice age. The settlement by peoples now known as the Coast Salish predates the arrival of salmon in the river between 4,500 and 5,000 years ago, an occurrence that took place symbiotically with the emergence of Douglas fir, western hemlock, and western red cedar ecosystems between 4,000 and 5,000 years before the present day.</p><br>
<p>Contact between Europeans and the indigenous peoples of present-day Vancouver occurred in June 1792. By 1812, Halkomelem peoples had survived three large epidemics from foreign illnesses such as smallpox, introduced through trading routes, including a 1782 outbreak that killed two-thirds of the population. It has been estimated that shortly before the time of first contact and these epidemics, the indigenous population of the Lower Fraser was over 60,000.</p><br>
<p>An 1830 Hudson’s Bay Company census documented 8,954 indigenous inhabitants in the region, although the census was probably incomplete due to the omitting of an unknown number of settlements. As a result of epidemics, the population of the Tsleil-Waututh was reduced to 41 individuals by 1812, who invited the neighbouring Squamish to reside in Burrard Inlet.</p><br>
<p>Shortly thereafter, a group of Tsleil-Waututh led by Khatsalahnough, a leader from Lil’wat (near present-day Pemberton), occupied present-day False Creek. False Creek, which lies in Musqueam territory, was a shared waterway; in addition to the Tsleil-Waututh, the Squamish inhabited False Creek as well, occupying it year-round.</p><br>
<p>Prior to European settlement, False Creek extended as far east as what is now Clark Drive, With land reclamation extending into Burrard Inlet and False Creek for port and industrial uses, the landscape began to change dramatically. Once a vital source for Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam, and Squamish food supplies such as sea asparagus, berries, camas, oysters, clams, wild cabbage, and mushrooms, False Creek became polluted with sewage and toxic effluent from sawmills and other industries. As a result, one nickname for False Creek was “Shit Creek”.</p><br>
<p>In 1913, the Squamish residents of the Kitsilano Reserve, on the False Creek sandbar, were forced to relocate. According to Maracle, the settlement was burned down following the forced evacuation. In 1916, the sandbar on which this settlement was located was built into Granville Island to create new industrial land. In 1917, the eastern basin of False Creek was infilled to create land for the Canadian Northern Railway&#39;s Pacific Central Station; transcontinental railway terminals such as this helped earn Vancouver the moniker of "Terminal City". Talk of draining and filling the inlet to Granville Street continued into the 1950s, but that never occurred.</p><br>
<p>The False Creek area was the industrial heartland of Vancouver through to the 1950s, and was home to many sawmills and small port operations. As industry shifted to other areas, the vicinity around False Creek started to deteriorate. In 1960, BC Forest Products plant and lumber storage facility on the south side of False Creek caught fire in Vancouvers first-ever five-alarm blaze. Every piece of firefighting equipment and all of Vancouvers firefighters fought the blaze for hours, but the facility was totally destroyed.</p><br>
<p>The future of False Creek south was subsequently shaped by debates on freeways, urban renewal, and the rise of citizen participation in urban planning. Through the 60s, the ruling NPA city government and senior city bureaucrats had hatched a plan - with little or no public consultation - to run freeways through the city. In the same period, the City razed large portions of Strathcona under the aegis of urban renewal. A group of influential citizens formed The Electors Action Movement (TEAM) to oppose the freeway and to radically change the way decisions were made on land use. A key figure amongst these people was Walter Hardwick, a Geography professor at UBC who envisioned the retrofit of this brownfield industrial site into a vibrant waterfront mixed-use community.</p><br>
<p>First elected to City Council in 1968, Dr. Hardwick led the City&#39;s redevelopment team and helped secure the participation of the Federal Government which owned Granville Island. A major public involvement and co-design process followed which established public priorities for an accessible waterfront seawall; mixed-tenure housing including market condominiums, co-op and low-income housing and live-aboard marinas; and a vibrant waterfront market. These plans were formalized in a 1972 Official Development Plan. The form and mix of development were revolutionary for Vancouver at the time. A third of the site was set aside for housing at 40 units/acre with the balance converted to park, waterfront and community uses.</p><br>
<p>The North Shore of False Creek (NFC) was further transformed in the 1980s, as it took centre stage during Expo 86. Following Expo, the Province sold the NFC site to Li Ka-shing who brought ideas of a higher density waterfront community to the downtown peninsula. Vancouvers experience with South False Creek and the public participation that shaped it was key to developing NFC as a livable high-density community. For example, Ka-shings company wanted to develop "islands" of market condos on the waterfront but was soundly rebuffed by the public and by planners who favoured the extension of a 100% publicly accessible waterfront and seawall. The 1991 Official Development Plan enabled significant new density commensurate with the provision of significant public amenities including streetfront shops and services, parks, school sites, community centres, daycares, co-op and low-income housing. Since then, most of the north shore has become a new neighbourhood of dense housing (about 100 units/acre), adding some 50,000 new residents to Vancouver&#39;s downtown peninsula.</p><br>
<p>On December 1, 1998, Vancouver City Council adopted a set of Blueways policies and guidelines stating the vision of a waterfront city where land and water combine to meet the environmental, cultural and economic needs of the City and its people in a sustainable, equitable, high quality manner.</p><br>
<p>Southeast False Creek (SEFC) is the designation given to the neighbourhood bordered by Cambie, Main, West 2nd Avenue, and False Creek. The 2010 Olympic Village, for athlete housing and logistics of the Winter Olympics, is found in Southeast False Creek. The City of Vancouver has plans to see this neighbourhood developed into a residential area with housing and services for 11,000-13,000 people.</p><br>
<h2>Sports and recreation</h2><br>
<p>False Creek is a very popular boating area for many different activities including dragon boating, canoeing, kayaking, public ferries, charter ships, and visiting pleasure boats. It has 10 marinas with berths for 1500 watercraft and several paddling clubs or boat rental facilities. Since 1986, the creek has been the venue for the Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival and other paddling events.</p><br>
<h2>Transportation</h2><br>
<p>Aquabus and False Creek Ferries are two ferry companies that operate scheduled services daily to and from multiple points along False Creek. In addition to three bridges and multiple bus routes, False Creek can also be crossed via the Canada Line in a tunnel between Olympic Village Station on the South shore and Yaletown-Roundhouse Station to the North.</p><br>
<h2>Wildlife and the environment</h2><br>
<p>Several decades following the suspension of industrial activity in the area, a number of shore and seabirds such as cormorants, ducks, herons, kingfishers, owls, geese, crows, and gulls have returned, as well as harbour seals. In an unusual sighting, in May 2010 a grey whale entered False Creek and traversed its length before returning to the open waters of the Strait of Georgia.</p><br>
<p>Factors working against the further return of wildlife include residual industrial contaminants, spillage from the sewer overflow system into the creek, and the seawall that constrains much of the shoreline with little habitat value. The city has attempted to recreate the natural shoreline in some areas and is working to phase out the antiquated sewer overflow system.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture and urban planning</h2><br>
<p>The False Creek area is an eclectic group of neighborhoods with very different urban planning and architectural techniques/styles. The discrepancies between the north and south shores of False Creek are apparent from the built landscape but, as David Ley from the Geography department at UBC argues, these discrepancies are representative of the social, economic, and cultural movements from which they sprang. The Modern and Post-modern aesthetics that helped to shape western culture during the course of the last century were not wasted on architecture and urban planning either. These movements in art and culture had significant effects on the way people thought about and interacted with their environment and False Creek offers a good example of the disparate design elements and goals that characterize these respective approaches, and of the how the sequence of development changed in response to social pressures.</p><br>
<h3>South False Creek</h3><br>
<p>The south shore of False Creek has had quite a diverse history of land uses since its founding. South False Creek went from being an industrial park, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, to being the populous residential area that it is today. The development of this area, beginning anew in the 1970s, occurred at a critical time in Vancouver’s history when citizens were organizing support for a new picture of the city, one that broke away from the standardized utilitarian cities that were so popular in North America and, instead, pushed for a more livable and diverse built environment. This neighborhood, located on municipally and federally owned land, offered an opportunity for project leaders, often led by TEAM members, to create a new kind of space, what Ley calls a post-modern space. Architecture and urban planning that embrace diversity of design, human-scale proportions, open public spaces, historical and vernacular allusions, diverse demography and the trade of local goods reflect the post-modern goals of inclusion and tradition that were important to the project leaders behind South False Creek. The result is a medium-density area with a variety of architectural designs, ownership opportunities, recreational activities, and modes of transportation, which allows for easier mobility within the community and a more picturesque landscape to be enjoyed by residents and visitors alike. Bike paths, parks, unique three-story homes, a public market, and the intentional preservation of mountain-views, and other characteristics, distinguish the area of South False Creek as one of the earliest conscious attempts to create a more “livable” environment for Vancouverites rather than focusing on efficiency and profitability as modernists are often criticized for doing.</p><br>
<h3>North False Creek</h3><br>
<p>The north shore of False Creek, on the downtown peninsula, has undergone multiple stages of development since its purchase by the province from the Canadian Pacific Railway in the early 1980s. Before the BC Cabinet bought the land of North False Creek to begin development for Expo ’86, the land was used for industrial purposes, however, provincial leaders developed a plan to build a sports stadium (BC Place), commercial outlets, and high-density residences on the newly cleared land.McMordie, M.J. (1994). "Modern Architecture in Vancouver." Canadian Architect. 29(3):</p><br>
<p>22-27. The circumstances surrounding the initial development phase of the northern shore of False Creek – strong provincial government involvement, incorporation of corporate partners, the appointment of Arthur Erickson as a project leader, etc. – worked to set the development of the area on a path to modernism with the primary goal being economic profit. BC Place and the accompanying high-density residences and commercial retailers set North False Creek in stark contrast to its southern neighbor, but the differences are more significant than design alone. Yes, the standardized condominiums and streets of the downtown peninsula may offer a more functional or efficient landscape for the modern worker, but even more, this kind of landscape, with its adherence to rational, large-scale, technological spaces, works to keep residents and visitors within the economic dynamo of the city. Although the early development decisions continue to play a role in the experience of the built environment in North False Creek, however, new strides have been taken by the land’s new owner Li Ka-shing, in response to public concerns, to create a more livable and accessible space, although the high-density and mixed use characteristics of the landscape were maintained in this case.</p><br>
<p>The Oreti River is one of the main rivers of Southland, New Zealand, and is 170 km long. The river has been identified as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International because, for much of its length, it supports breeding colonies of black-billed gulls.</p><br>
<p>The Oreti has its headwaters close to the Mavora Lakes between Lake Te Anau and Lake Wakatipu, and flows south across the Southland Plains to its outflow into Foveaux Strait at the southeastern end of Oreti Beach. En route, it runs through the towns of Lumsden and Winton, before passing through the city of Invercargill, close to the river&#39;s estuary.</p><br>
<p>For the final part of the river&#39;s length, around the city of Invercargill and the river&#39;s estuary just south of the city, it is known as the New River, a name occasionally encountered to refer to the whole river. It shares this estuary with several smaller rivers, most notably the Waihopai River.</p><br>
<p>The Invercargill Rowing Club relocated to the river in 1958.</p><br>
<p>The Cumberland Gap is a narrow pass through the long ridge of the Cumberland Mountains, within the Appalachian Mountains, near the junction of the USA states of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee.</p><br>
<p>Famous in American colonial history for its role as a key passageway through the lower central Appalachians, it was an important part of the Wilderness Road and is now part of the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park.</p><br>
<p>Long used by Native Americans, the Cumberland Gap was brought to the attention of settlers in 1750 by Thomas Walker, a Virginia physician and explorer. The path was explored by a team of frontiersmen led by Daniel Boone, making it accessible to pioneers who used it to journey into the western frontiers of Kentucky and Tennessee.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The Cumberland Gap is one of many passes in the Appalachian Mountains but the only one in the continuous Cumberland Mountain ridge line. It lies within Cumberland Gap National Historical Park and is located on the border of present-day Kentucky and Virginia, approximately 0.25 mi northeast of the tri-state marker with Tennessee.</p><br>
<p>The area surrounding Cumberland Gap National Historical Park is composed of sedimentary rock, which is formed by the compaction of particles of gravel, sand, silt, mud, and carbonate minerals from the repetitive rise and fall of shallow seas. Scientists have dated this region to the Cambrian or Pennsylvanian period. The unique landscape seen today is a result of the uplift of sedimentary rock in conjunction with several million years of weathering and erosion. These features include narrow ridges, steep cliffs, overlooks, and natural gaps like the Cumberland Gap. The Cumberland Gap is now known as a wind gap since water no longer flows through it.</p><br>
<p>The V-shaped gap serves as a gateway to the west. The base of the gap is about 300 ft above the valley floor below even though the north side of the pass was lowered 20 ft during the construction of Old USA Route 25E. To the south the ridge rises 600 ft above the pass, while to the north the Pinnacle Overlook towers 900 ft above (elevation 2,505 ft).</p><br>
<p>Because it is centrally located in the United States, the region around Cumberland Gap experiences all four seasons. The summers are typically sunny, warm and humid with average temperatures in the mid to upper 90s F (30s C). In the winter months, January through March, temperatures range in the 30s to 40s F (0s C) and are generally mild with rain and few periods of snow.</p><br>
<p>The nearest cities are Middlesboro, Kentucky, and Harrogate, Tennessee.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>The gap was formed by the development of three major structural features: the Pine Mountain Thrust Sheet, the Middlesboro Syncline, and the Rocky Face Fault. Lateral compressive forces of sedimentary rocks from deep layers of the Earth&#39;s crust pushing upward 320 to 200 million years ago created the thrust sheet. Resistance on the fault from the opposing Cumberland Mountain to Pine Mountain caused the U-shaped structure of the Middlesboro Syncline. The once flat-lying sedimentary rocks were now deformed roughly 40 degrees northwest. Further constriction to the northwest of Cumberland Mountain developed into a fault trending north-to-south called the Rocky Face Fault, which eventually cut through Cumberland Mountain. This combination of natural geological processes created ideal conditions for weathering and erosion of the rocks.</p><br>
<p>However, the discovery of the Middlesboro impact structure has proposed new details in the formation of Cumberland Gap. Less than 300 million years ago a meteorite, "approximately the size of a football field", struck the earth, creating the Middlesboro Crater.</p><br>
<p>Without the Rocky Face Fault, it would have been difficult for pack-horses to navigate this gap and the gap in Pine Mountain near Pineville, and it would be improbable that wagon roads would have been constructed at an early date. Middlesboro is the only place in the world where coal is mined inside an astrobleme. Special mining techniques must be used in the complicated strata of this crater.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The passage created by Cumberland Gap was well-traveled by Native Americans long before the arrival of European-American settlers. The earliest written account of Cumberland Gap dates to the 1670s, by Abraham Wood of Virginia.</p><br>
<p>The gap was named for Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, son of King George II of Great Britain, who had many places named for him in the American colonies after the Battle of Culloden. The explorer Thomas Walker gave the name to the Cumberland River in 1750, and the name soon spread to many other features in the region, such as the Cumberland Gap. In 1769 Joseph Martin built a fort nearby at present-day Rose Hill, Virginia, on behalf of Walker&#39;s land claimants. But Martin and his men were chased out of the area by Native Americans, and Martin himself did not return until 1775.</p><br>
<p>In 1775 Daniel Boone, hired by the Transylvania Company, arrived in the region leading a company of men to widen the path through the gap to make settlement of Kentucky and Tennessee easier. On his arrival Boone discovered that Martin had beaten him to Powell Valley, where Martin and his men were clearing land for their own settlement – the westernmost settlement in English colonial America at the time. By the 1790s the trail that Boone and his men built was widened to accommodate wagon traffic and sometimes became known as the Wilderness Road.</p><br>
<p>Several American Civil War engagements occurred in and around the Cumberland Gap and are sometimes called Battle of the Cumberland Gap. In June 1862, Union Army General George W. Morgan captured the gap for the Union. In September of that year, Confederate States Army forces under Edmund Kirby Smith occupied the gap during General Braxton Bragg&#39;s Kentucky Invasion. The following year, in a bloodless engagement in September 1863, Union Army troops under General Ambrose Burnside forced the surrender of 2,300 Confederates defending the gap, gaining Union control of the gap for the remainder of the war.</p><br>
<p>It is estimated that between 200,000 and 300,000 migrants passed through the gap on their way into Kentucky and the Ohio Valley before 1810. Today 18,000 cars pass beneath the site daily, and 1,200,000 people visit the park on the site annually. The park features many hiking trails.</p><br>
<p>USA Route 25E passed overland through the gap before the completion of the Cumberland Gap Tunnel in 1996. The original trail was then restored.</p><br>
<h3>Historic district</h3><br>
<p>The gap and associated historic resources were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district on May 28, 1980.</p><br>
<h2>Biology and ecology</h2><br>
<h3>Plants</h3><br>
<p>Within the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park there are currently 855 known species of vascular plants identified, but that number is expected to increase with reports from National Park Service inventory and monitoring programs. There are 15 various vegetation communities throughout the park, with some of them in special locations, such as mountain bogs, low elevation wetlands, and rocky bluffs.</p><br>
<h3>Animals</h3><br>
<p>Of the current 371 species of animals within the park, 33 are mammals, 89 are birds, 29 amphibians, 15 reptiles, 27 fish, and 187 are insects. Visitors to the park can expect to see gray squirrels, white-tailed deer, cottontail rabbits, songbirds, hawks, snakes, turtles, and perhaps black bear or bobcat.</p><br>
<p>The Unadilla River in New York State flows 71 mi from south of Utica to the village of Sidney, where it flows into the Susquehanna River, which eventually empties into the Chesapeake Bay, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean.</p><br>
<p>Most of the length of the Unadilla forms the western border of Otsego County and the eastern borders of Chenango and Madison counties, all in New York. This border made up a significant portion of the Fort Stanwix Treaty Line of 1768. It was meant to establish the border for an Indian reserve, beyond which European-American settlers were not supposed to go. Settlers resented British efforts to control their movements, and continued to encroach on Native American territories.</p><br>
<h2>Branches</h2><br>
<p>The Unadilla has two branches which join at Unadilla Forks on the Otsego-Madison County border.</p><br>
<p>The main branch of the Unadilla starts at, at Miller&#39;s Mills in southwestern Herkimer County.</p><br>
<p>The West Branch Unadilla River starts a few miles north of Bridgewater in southeast Oneida County. This branch was known as Eghwagy Creek during the early 18th century.</p><br>
<h2>Tributaries</h2><br>
<p>The Unadilla&#39;s tributaries, from north to south, include:</p><br>
<p>Center Brook: from the west, at New Berlin</p><br>
<p>Wharton Creek: from the east, at New Berlin</p><br>
<p>Butternut Creek: from the east, near Mount Upton</p><br>
<p>Guilford Creek: from the west, north of Sidney</p><br>
<h2>Alternate names and spellings</h2><br>
<p>Unadilla has had various spellings and alternate names, particularly in the 18th century:</p><br>
<p>Che-on-a-dill-ha: Oneida dialect</p><br>
<p>Teyonadelhouogh: Gideon Hawley, Journey to Broome County, Oquaga (Onaheghgwage), 1753</p><br>
<p>Tiona-derha: Guy Johnson&#39;s 1768 map</p><br>
<p>Tienaderha: Guy Johnsons 1771 map and Southeirs 1779 map</p><br>
<p>Tianaderaha: Surveyor-General, Simeon De Witt&#39;s map c.1790</p><br>
<p>Tianaderha: Fort Stanwix Treaty of 1768</p><br>
<p>Tunadilla: Common spelling 18th century correspondence</p><br>
<p>Susquehannock: Vaughan&#39;s 18th century Chorographical Map</p><br>
<p>Lake Calhoun  is the largest lake in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and part of the city&#39;s Chain of Lakes. Surrounded by city park land and circled by bike and walking trails, it is popular for many outdoor activities. The lake has an area of 401 acre and a maximum depth of 87 ft.</p><br>
<h2>Lake and surrounding area</h2><br>
<p>The lake is part of the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway, connecting with Lake of the Isles on the northeast, Cedar Lake on the northwest, and Lake Harriet on the south. The trail system has a 3.4 mi trail around Lake Calhoun for bicyclists and skaters and a 3.2 mi trail around Lake Calhoun for pedestrians. Both of these trails connect to the larger trail system via connections to Lake of the Isles and Lake Harriet. In addition, the Midtown Greenway Trail is located just north of the lake and Lake Street. The lake itself is popular for canoeing, kayaking, and windsurfing, and it has three swimming beaches.</p><br>
<p>The three beaches are Calhoun North Beach on the north side of the lake, Calhoun 32nd Beach on the east, and Calhoun Thomas Beach on the south. There is Lake Calhoun Park and surrounding park land offers parking, picnicking, volleyball, and athletic fields. It is also home of sailing, hosting the Calhoun Yacht Club, the Lake Calhoun Sailing School, as well as local high school teams and the University of St Thomas Sailing Team.</p><br>
<p>A plaque on the east side of the lake commemorates the mission station built by Samuel and Gideon Pond where they created the first alphabet for the Dakota language at Cloudman&#39;s Village. On the west side is The Bakken, an old mansion with medicinal gardens and a library and museum devoted to medical electricity and the history of electromagnetism.</p><br>
<h2>Name</h2><br>
<p>The Dakota originally called the lake Mde Maka Ska (modern spelling Bde Maka Ska, pronunciation: Be-DAY Mah-KAH-Ska) meaning White Earth Lake, or White Bank Lake, a name that probably was given by the Ioway who inhabited the area until the 16th century. Another Dakota name for the lake may have been Mde Med&#39;oza, which was the name initially adopted by settlers, either as Lake Medoza or in translation as Loon Lake. The Dakota also called it Heyate Mde meaning "Set Back Lake (from the River)".</p><br>
<p>The United States Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun, sent the Army to survey the area that would surround Fort Snelling in 1817. Calhoun had also authorized the construction of Fort Snelling, one of the earliest Euro-American settlements in the state. The surveyors renamed the water body "Lake Calhoun" in his honor. The Fort Snelling Military Reservation survey map created by Lt. James L. Thompson in 1839 clearly shows the lake as bearing the name "Calhoun".</p><br>
<p>Calhouns legacy as a pro-slavery politician has led critics to question whether he is the best person to be honored. In 2011 the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board visited the issue. Their legal counsel concluded that the board could not legally change the name, as state law gives that power to the Commissioner of Natural Resources, and then only in the first 40 years after the name was designated. Following the Charleston church shooting in June 2015, a fresh drive to change the name started via an online petition. The Park Board indicated it would look into whether they could change the lakes name through state action, and in fall 2015 added the Dakota name to signage below the official name. and the Hennepin County commissioners approved it more narrowly. The change needs final approval at state, and federal level in order to go into effect.</p><br>
<p>There was also a proposal to rename the lake for Senator Paul Wellstone, who is buried in nearby Lakewood Cemetery.</p><br>
<h2>Fish</h2><br>
<p>The lake contains black crappie, bluegill, bowfin, common carp, hybrid sunfish, largemouth bass, northern pike, pumpkinseed, tiger muskellunge, walleye, white sucker, and yellow perch. Some fish consumption guideline restrictions have been placed on the lake&#39;s bluegill, crappie, largemouth bass, northern pike, walleye, and white sucker due to mercury and/or PFOS contamination.</p><br>
<p>In 1991, the then-Minnesota state record tiger muskellunge at 33 pounds 8 ounces was caught in the lake. The Minneapolis Park and Recreation website lists the lake as one of the best in the city for ice fishing walleye, northern pike, and crappies in winter.</p><br>
<p>The Aparima River, earlier known as Jacob&#39;s River, is one of the southward-flowing braided rivers of Southland, New Zealand.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>The Aparima has its headwaters in the Takitimu Mountains, south of Lake Te Anau, and flows south for 100 km before entering Foveaux Strait near Riverton at the north end of Oreti Beach. A Maori man lived at the mouth of the river who was called Jacob by local whalers, and &#39;Jacob&#39;s River&#39; was in early use for both the river and the settlement that established itself.</p><br>
<p>It is one of the rivers responsible for the large alluvial plain known as the Southland Plains. It has been identified as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International because it supports breeding colonies of the endangered black-billed gull.</p><br>
<p>The Gulf of Paria  is a 7,800 km&sup2; shallow  semi-enclosed inland sea located between the island of Trinidad  and the east coast of Venezuela. It separates the two countries with as little as 15 km separating them at its narrowest and 120 km at its widest points.The tides within the Gulf are semi-diurnal in nature with a range of approximately 1m. The Gulf of Paria is considered to be one of the best natural harbours on the Atlantic coast of the Americas. The jurisdiction of the Gulf of Paria is split between Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela with Trinidad and Tobago having control over approximately 2,940 km&sup2; and Venezuela the remainder.</p><br>
<p>It was originally named the Gulf of the Whale (Golfo de la Ballena) by Christopher Columbus, but the 19th Century whaling industry eliminated whales from the area and populations have never recovered. Cartographic sources of the late 18th century repeatedly refer to it as the Sad Gulf (Golfo Triste).</p><br>
<p>In the north, the gulf is connected to the Caribbean Sea through the Dragons Mouths (Bocas del Dragón) between the Paria Peninsula of Venezuela and the Chaguaramas Peninsula of Trinidad. In the south, the gulf is connected to the Atlantic through the Columbus Channel, also known as the Serpents Mouth (Boca del Serpiente), between the Cedros Peninsula and the Orinoco Delta.</p><br>
<h2>Oil and Natural Gas</h2><br>
<p>The Gulf of Paria lies entirely within the broad strike-slip plate boundary zone of the southeastern Caribbean. The structure of the Gulf consists of a complex set of transtensional basins superimposed on a fold-and-thrust belt (Serrania del Interior of eastern Venezuela). The petroleum of Trinidad has been generated by prolific Upper Cretaceous source rocks, time equivalent to the La Luna and Querecual formations in Columbia and Venezuela. These source rocks were then overlain by a thick succession of Paleogene deep water sediments (shales and deep water sandstones) and shallow marine siliciclastic reservoir rocks. The transpression due to the influence of the Caribbean plate created several sub-basins across the Trinidad area; each having distinctive petroleum systems. The hydrocarbon basins in Trinidad are Southern Basin, Columbus Basin, Carupano Basin, Central Range/Darrien Rdige Basin and the Caroni Basin and Gulf of Paria Pull-apart Basin.</p><br>
<p>The Caroni Basin is a Cenozoic basin bounded to the north by the El Pilar fault zone and the Northern Range fold-thrust belt and to the south by the Central Range fold-thrust belt. Its stratigraphy features a shallowing section from the Miocene which overlies Palaeocene and Lower Cretaceous deep water sediments. The Gulf of Paria is the western offshore extension of the Caroni basin. However its deformation is now extensional due to the right-stepping of the dextral El Pilar fault to the dextral Warm Springs fault. The Los Bajos fault separates the Gulf of Paria from the Southern basin sediments. Natural gas has been discovered in the onshore Caroni basin while in the Gulf of Paria, both oil and gas have been discovered.</p><br>
<h2>Fisheries</h2><br>
<p>The Gulf of Paria is a brackish water body - wet season salinities are below 23 ppt (parts per thousand) with extensive mangroves along the Venezuelan and Trinidadian coastlines. This body of water is basically a shallow sedimentary basin with a maximum depth of 0f 30m (16 fathoms) and a smooth substratum of fine mud with patches of shell debris and sand (Kenny and Bacon, 1981). These conditions lend itself to favourable fisheries conditions and the gulf itself is an important fishery(Heileman and Ramsaroop, 1990). The proximity of the Orinoco Delta to the Gulf suggests that these waters are strongly influenced by fluvial discharges from the Amazon and Orinoco River systems, with the intensity of these discharges varying with the seasons (van Andel and Postma, 1954; Gade, 1961). These rivers are thought to be important effectors of nutrient enhancing upwelling currents on the adjacent continental shelf and sources of primary and secondary productivity for the water around Trinidad, especially in the Gulf (Farbes, 1983). As such, Trinidad supports a more productive and diverse exploitable fish and invertebrate resource base than most of the Eastern Caribbean islands (Agard et al. 1996). The Gulf of Paria is the most important fishing ground for shrimp and finfish in Trinidad.</p><br>
<h2>Port and Logistics</h2><br>
<p>Major ports located within the Gulf of Paria basin include:</p><br>
<p>The Port of Port of Spain</p><br>
<p>Plipdeco&#39;s Port of Point Lisas</p><br>
<p>Pedernales in Venezuela&#39;s Delta Amacuro state</p><br>
<p>Oldendorff Carriers floating facility - Oldendorff Carriers has been operating a floating facility consisting of two cranes, within Trinidadian waters since 2012, for the purpose of transhipment of iron ore from Santana, Brazil to the Middle and Far East.</p><br>
<p>The Bounty Islands are a small group of 13 uninhabited granite islets and numerous rocks, with a combined area of 135 hectare, in the south Pacific Ocean that are territorially part of New Zealand. They lie about 670 km east-south-east of the South Island of New Zealand, and 530 km south-west of the Chatham Islands. The group is a World Heritage Site.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Captain William Bligh discovered the Bounty Islands en route from Spithead to Tahiti in 1788 and named them after his ship, HMS Bounty, just months before the famous mutiny. The location of the islands were only roughly marked on charts. In early 1866 Commander W H Norman of HMCS Victoria was tasked with determining more accurately their position. He reported them as being latitude 47ˈ50 South and longitude 179ˈ00 East. Captain George Palmer, during the search for the Matoaka placed the islands at 47ˈ46ˈ24 South 178ˈ56ˈ45 East. Palmer also annexed the islands for New Zealand.</p><br>
<p>During the 19th century the area were a popular hunting-ground for sealers. The islands were also searched from time to time for missing ships and crews, including those from the General Grant and the Matoaka.</p><br>
<p>The Hinemoa visited the islands in March 1886 and erected a depot for marooned sailors on the largest island. Captain Fairchild noted that there was no fresh water available on these islands. The depot was destroyed by the sea by the time the Stella visited the island in 1887. A new Admiralty chart 1022 was issued for the area in 1888, which took into account survey work undertaken by the Hinemoa.</p><br>
<p>In November 1891 the Hinemoa returned to the islands and built a fresh provisions storage.</p><br>
<h2>Flora and fauna</h2><br>
<p>Ecologically, the islands are part of the Antipodes Subantarctic Islands tundra ecoregion. Plants include Cook&#39;s scurvy grass. The group is home to an endemic spider, endemic insects & large numbers of seabirds.</p><br>
<h3>Important Bird Area</h3><br>
<p>The Bounty group has been identified as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International because of its significance as a breeding site for erect-crested penguins, Salvin&#39;s albatrosses and Bounty shags.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The whole chain is only 5 km across at its longest axis, and comprises three subgroups, the Main Group, the Centre Group, and the East Group. The total area is only 1.35 km&sup2;. The islands are at the antipodes of Bouillé-Ménard, in France (Pays-de-la-Loire).</p><br>
<p>The Main Group is the largest of the three groups, and is located in the northwest of the chain. It includes the groups largest island, Depot Island, which is around 700 metres in length and 400 metres across at its widest point. Proclamation and Tunnel Islands are separated from Depot Island by only a narrow cleft, and are joined to it at low tide. A small islet off the north coast of this groups Spider Island is the chain&#39;s northernmost point; the westernmost point is the western tip of Penguin Island.</p><br>
<p>The Centre Group is located some 1.5 to 2 kilometres to the southeast of the Main Group, and contains three main islands, arrayed in a north-south line. A smaller islet lies immediately to the west. The northernmost of the Centre Group, Funnel Island, contains the chains highest point, at 73 m above sea level. A further 1.5 kilometres to the east is the East Group, which is also arrayed roughly in a north-south line. The largest island in this group, Molly Cap, is the groups southernmost island, and contains the chains second-highest point, 70 m above sea level. This group contains two large islets and one small islet, along with several reefs and stacks, one of which is the easternmost point in the chain.</p><br>
<h3>Islands</h3><br>
<p>Main Group (47&deg;45&prime;S latitude, 179&deg;02&prime;E longitude):</p><br>
<p>Depot Island (largest in the group), named for the castaway depot on the island.</p><br>
<p>Dog Rock</p><br>
<p>Lion Island</p><br>
<p>Penguin Island</p><br>
<p>Proclamation Island</p><br>
<p>Ranfurly Island</p><br>
<p>Ruatara Island</p><br>
<p>Seal Rock</p><br>
<p>Skua Rock</p><br>
<p>Spider Island</p><br>
<p>Tunnel Island</p><br>
<p>Centre Group (47&deg;45&prime;45&Prime;S latitude, 179&deg;02&prime;40&Prime;E longitude):</p><br>
<p>Coronet Island</p><br>
<p>Funnel Island (main islet)</p><br>
<p>Prion Island</p><br>
<p>East Group (47&deg;46&prime;S latitude, 179&deg;04&prime;E longitude):</p><br>
<p>Con Island</p><br>
<p>Molly Cap (main islet)</p><br>
<p>North Rock</p><br>
<p>The Gulf of Naples , also called the Bay of Naples, is a roughly 15-kilometer-wide  gulf located along the south-western coast of Italy . It opens to the west into the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered on the north by the cities of Naples and Pozzuoli, on the east by Mount Vesuvius, and on the south by the Sorrentine Peninsula and the main town of the peninsula, Sorrento. The Peninsula separates the Gulf of Naples from the Gulf of Salerno, which includes the Amalfi coast.</p><br>
<p>The islands of Capri, Ischia and Procida are located in the Gulf of Naples. The area is a tourist destination, with the seaside Roman ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum at the foot of Mount Vesuvius (destroyed in the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius), along the north coast.</p><br>
<p>Along with the island of Ischia and gulfs of Pozzuoli and Gaeta, local waters are home to varieties of whales and dolphins including fin and sperm whales.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>It is said that The Roman emperor Caligula built a bridge of boats across the bay and rode across it in a chariot wearing the armor of Alexander the Great.</p><br>
<p>The Gulf of Naples hosted the sailing events for the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome.</p><br>
<p>According to information Mario Scaramella twenty nuclear torpedo sea mines were alleged by the International Atomic Energy Agency to have been laid on 10 January 1970, by a Soviet November class attack submarine, in the Gulf of Naples in a time of war to destroy or deny access to the US Sixth Fleet; they are believed to still be on the seabed.</p><br>
<p>Dusky Sound is a fiord on the southwest corner of New Zealand, in Fiordland National Park.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>One of the most complex of the many fiords on this coast, it is also one of the largest, 40 kilometres in length and eight kilometres wide at its widest point. To the north of its mouth is the large Resolution Island, whose Five Fingers Peninsula shelters the mouth of the sound from the northwest; along the east coast of the island, Acheron passage connects Dusky Sound with Breaksea Sound, to the north.</p><br>
<p>Several large islands lie in the sound, notably Anchor Island, Long Island, and Cooper Island. The upper reaches of the sound are steep-sided, and the high precipitation of the region leads to hundreds of waterfalls cascading into the sound during the rainy season. Seals and dolphins are often sighted in the sound&#39;s waters and occasionally visited by whales where the area especially nearby Preservation Inlet was one of earliest shore-based whaling ground for southern right whales, while humpback whales show sudden increases. The Seaforth River is the largest of many small rivers and creeks which flow into the sound.</p><br>
<h3>Important Bird Area</h3><br>
<p>The sound has been identified as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International because it is a breeding site for Fiordland penguins.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>It is believed that Māori occasionally camped by the sound&#39;s waters while hunting moa in pre-European times.</p><br>
<p>The inlet was first sighted by Europeans and Captain Cook noted its entrance during his first voyage to New Zealand in 1770. He named it Dusky Bay. On his second expedition he spent two months exploring the sound, and used it as a harbour, establishing workshops and an observatory. It is believed his crew brewed the first beer in New Zealand during his stay. He encountered some Maori with whom he had friendly relations. Later they seemed to have disappeared and it was speculated their countrymen had killed them, perhaps for the presents Cook gave them.</p><br>
<p>Cook saw the place as a good harbour for ships entering the Pacific from Europe by the shortest route, highlighting its maritime significance and overlooking its land-locked character. This gave it an unusual prominence in earliest European visits which disappeared as Europeans became more familiar with New Zealand&#39;s geography.</p><br>
<p>Dusky was consequently used as a harbour by other European navigators and merchant ships in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. From 1792 it became a favoured site for seal hunters. Men landed by Captain William Raven from the Britannia in that year built the first European house in New Zealand and the first ship in Australasia, and the first European woman known to have been in New Zealand was recorded as a visitor in 1793. A group of 244 Europeans was stranded in Dusky Sound in 1795, which included two women, Elizabeth Bason and Ann Carey, the first known to have lived ashore. The last of this group left in 1797. The attention of the sealers moved to Bass Strait from 1798 but returned to New Zealand, at Dusky Sound, from 1802. In that year Captain Charles Bishop and George Bass in the Venus spent 14 days in Dusky Sound stripping iron from the hulk of Captain Bramptons old ship the Endeavour. The blacksmith converted the iron into axes which they then used in Tahiti to trade for pork before returning to Sydney by November 1802. Following this, in January 1803, George Bass asked Governor King of New South Wales for a fishing monopoly, from a line bisecting New Zealand from Dusky Sound to Otago Harbour extending south to include the subantarctic Islands. It was not granted, but it indicates the sealers area of interest and Dusky Sound&#39;s place in it. The Matilda under Captain Fowler was on this part of the coast in 1814 when six of his lascar (Indian) seamen absconded in an open boat. It seems it was at Dusky Sound they were set upon by Maori when three were killed and eaten and the others enslaved. One or more of them later lived in what is now the Dunedin district. Sealers continued to visit until the late 1820s when the second sealing boom faded.</p><br>
<p>An attempt was made in 1903 to construct a road from Dusky Sound to Lake Manapouri, but it was never completed, terminating abruptly on the western side of Loch Maree.</p><br>
<h2>Access</h2><br>
<p>Access to the sound is by sea or air only, with no roads reaching the coast at this point. However, the Dusky Track stretches to the upper reaches of the sound from lakes Manapouri and Hauroko.</p><br>
<p>Lake Iseo or Lago d&#39;Iseo or Sebino is the fourth largest lake in Lombardy, Italy, fed by the Oglio river.</p><br>
<p>It is in the north of the country in the Val Camonica area, near the cities of Brescia and Bergamo. The lake is almost equally divided between the Provinces of Bergamo and Brescia. Northern Italy is renowned for its heavily industrialised towns and in between there are several stunning lakes. Lake Iseo remains one of outstanding natural beauty, with its lush green mountains surrounding the crystal clear lake.</p><br>
<p>There are several medieval towns around the lake, the largest being Iseo and Sarnico. A notable tourism sector has emerged.</p><br>
<p>A road has been carved into the side of the mountains that travel to circumvent the entire lake.</p><br>
<p>In the middle of the lake is Monte Isola (or Montisola). There is easy access via the regular running lake ferries.</p><br>
<p>The Floating Piers, an art installation by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, was open to the public at Lake Iseo for 16 days in June and July 2016.</p><br>
<h2>Settlements</h2><br>
<p>Around the shore of the lake are some small towns:</p><br>
<p>Two smaller islands, Loreto and St. Paul, are privately owned.</p><br>
<p>Ogof Draenen  is, at 66 km , the longest cave system in Wales and the second longest in Great Britain behind the Three Counties System on the Cumbria/Lancashire/Yorkshire border.</p><br>
<p>The cave was known only as a small entrance on a steep hillside until several years of digging broke through into major passage development in October 1994. It was then explored at unprecedented speed to become the longest cave in Wales.</p><br>
<p>Draenen contains a variety of spectacular decorations and some huge passages (the War of the Worlds section is probably the second largest cave passage in Britain). Its large size and occasional complexity make the cave a challenge for even experienced cavers.</p><br>
<p>The cave is managed by the Pwll Du Cave Management Group.</p><br>
<p>The Vermont State House, located in Montpelier, is the state capitol of Vermont, in the United States. It is the seat of the Vermont General Assembly. The current Greek Revival structure is the third building on the same site to be used as the State House. Designed by Thomas Silloway in 1857 and 1858, it was occupied in 1859.</p><br>
<p>A careful restoration of the Vermont State House began in the early 1980s led by curator David Schütz and the Friends of the Vermont State House, a citizens&#39; advisory committee. The general style of the building is Neoclassical and Greek Revival and is furnished in American Empire, Renaissance Revival, and Rococo Revival styles. Some rooms have been restored to represent latter-19th-century styles including the "Aesthetic Movement" style.</p><br>
<p>Since 1994, Buildings and General Services Architect, Tricia Harper has been responsible for design and construction for the restoration and renovation project of the building and its grounds.</p><br>
<p>The Vermont State House is located on State Street on the western edge of downtown Montpelier, a block north of the Winooski River. Set against a wooded hillside (which was open pasture land earlier during much of its history), the building and its distinctive gold leaf dome are easily visible while approaching Montpelier, the smallest city to serve as capital of a USA state.</p><br>
<h2>History and architecture</h2><br>
<h3>Exterior facade and dome</h3><br>
<p>The current structure was designed by architect Thomas Silloway (1828–1910) amplifying the design of an earlier structure designed by Ammi B. Young, (1798–1874) later supervising architect of the USA Treasury. The first State House built in 1808 by Sylvanus Baldwin was replaced by the current Vermont Supreme Court Building completed in 1918.</p><br>
<p>The prior edifice, known as the "Second State House", was constructed on the same site between 1833 and 1838. Youngs structure was of a more reserved Greek Revival design based upon the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens. Gray Barre granite is used for the two-story cruciform design with a Doric portico and a low saucer dome echoing William Thorntons earliest design for the United States Capitol. Young&#39;s structure was almost entirely destroyed by a fire in January 1857. Silloway was able to salvage the Doric portico, as well as portions of the granite walls. Silloway added an additional bay of windows on each side of the central portico and increased the height of the dome (copper on a wood substructure) to its current level. This may have been done to imitate the increased height of the new Capitol dome in Washington designed by Thomas U. Walter which was being constructed during the same time.</p><br>
<p>The dome and roofs were originally painted a dark terracotta red to suggest Tuscan tile. The dome was not gilded until the early 20th century, when many states did so as a part of the Colonial Revival style. The dome is topped by a statue named Agriculture, a representation of Ceres, an ancient Roman goddess of agriculture. The original statue was carved by Vermont artist Larkin Goldsmith Mead, who also carved the large bust of Lincoln in the Hall of Inscriptions on the State Houses ground floor. The current statue is a replacement, and something of a piece of folk art, based on Meads original. It was carved in 1938 by then 87-year-old Dwight Dwinell, Sergeant-at-Arms (in Vermont this official position is similar in nature to the White House Chief Usher).</p><br>
<p>The Doric portico, the main ceremonial entrance, houses a granite statue of Ethan Allen. Ethan Allen was a founder of Vermont and commander of the Green Mountain Boys, an early Vermont military infantry active during the Vermont Republic, (1777–1791). The statue was carved by Aristide Piccini in 1941, to replace the original marble version carved by Larkin Goldsmith Mead in 1858. The architect Stanford White (1853–1906) considered Silloway&#39;s Vermont State House to be the finest example of the Greek Revival style in the United States.</p><br>
<h3>Interiors, furnishings, and decorative arts</h3><br>
<p>The State House contains two primary floors accessible by a pair of circular stairways opening into the ground-floor Cross Hall. An elevator is also available. The Entrance Hall is of the Greek Ionic order and flanked by portraits of Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Chester A. Arthur, both native to Vermont. The tall double front doors were painted and then coated with a metallic powder to appear as bronze in 1859. The Entrance Hall contains a portrait of Montpelier native Admiral George Dewey on the bridge of his flagship during the Battle of Manila Bay. The Vermont State House does not have a rotunda, the dome being located almost directly above the ceiling of Representatives Hall on the second floor. The principal public room is the Hall of Inscriptions, a Doric pilastered corridor featuring eight monumental marble tablets incised with quotations about the distinct nature of Vermonts culture and heritage. The tablets quote the Vermont Constitution, Ethan Allen, Calvin Coolidge, George Aiken, Warren Austin, and Dorothy Canfield Fisher among others. Each tablet features fourteen gilded stars, representing Vermonts fourteen counties, the state&#39;s fourteen years as an independent republic, and being the fourteenth state to join the federal Union. The four corners of each tablet feature a sheath of grain, a detail found in the Great Seal of Vermont, designed by Ira Allen.</p><br>
<p>The ceremonial office of the Governor of Vermont, used during legislative sessions for meetings and bill-signings, is located in the second-floor west wing of the building. The Executive Chamber has been restored to its 1859 appearance with pediment hooded windows supported by Italianate-style brackets, and gilded Rococo Revival drapery cornices. A Wilton style carpet colored crimson, azure blue and gold was rewoven as part of the restoration. The Vermont Governor&#39;s working office and private apartments are located nearby at The Pavilion, built in Second Empire style and located just east of the Vermont Supreme Court. Portraits of Vermont governors (including Howard Dean, who is shown in an idiosyncratic pose in a canoe amid a natural setting) are displayed through the first and second floors of the State House, the corridors of which are a sort of state portrait gallery, commemorating famous Vermonters.</p><br>
<p>The two chambers of the Vermont General Assembly are on the second floor. While both chambers have overhead visitors galleries accessible on a third-floor mezzanine, visitors are welcome to quietly enter and sit in the main floor of the chambers. Contrary to the tradition of decorating the upper house in red and the lower house in green, established by the House of Lords and House of Commons in the United Kingdom, Vermont reserves the state colors of green and gold for its upper house, the Vermont Senate. Red and gold is used for the Vermont House of Representatives which meets in Representatives Hall. A large plaster ceiling medallion in the center of the chamber in the form of a lotus with a center rosette of acanthus leaves hold a two-tiered electrified gasolier manufactured in Philadelphia by Cornelius and Baker. Each petal of the rosette weighs approximately 500 pounds. Brilliant axminster carpets have been recreated for both chambers based on old stereoscope views and small scraps found in an attic. On either side of the rostrum in Representatives Hall, are a series of connected elliptical-backed seats designed to fill the north wall of the chamber. The seats are upholstered and tufted in crimson and are used to seat members of the Vermont Senate during joint sessions of the General Assembly. The seats also accommodate the justices of the States supreme court for the Governor&#39;s State of the State address and the inauguration of governors. Citizens frequently occupy these seats when the House is in separate session, or for large public hearings.</p><br>
<p>The second floor of the west wing includes the Cedar Creek Room, a large reception room featuring a mural painted by Julian Scott in 1874. The mural nearly fills the south wall and depicts the Battle of Cedar Creek during the American Civil War. The painting highlights the contributions of Vermont troops in the battle. The room is illuminated by two stained glass skylights in the deeply coffered ceiling dating to 1859 when the room housed the State Library. At some time the skylight was broken, and the opening closed. In 1970, while doing renovation work, workers discovered the broken pieces neatly stacked in the attic above the room. The pieces were reassembled, conserved, and reinstalled during the mid-1980s. One window (shown at left) depicts the obverse of the coat of arms of Vermont, which is a more painterly armorial representation of the Great Seal of Vermont (reserved solely for embossing documents), the arms are topped by the head of a buck white-tailed deer and circled by branches of Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus). Pine badges were worn as an expression of Vermont identity by citizens while the state was a republic, and again during the American Civil War by Vermonts military regiments. The other skylight features the rarely seen reverse of the state coat of arms, a female personification of the state referred to as "Vermontannia." The wall stencils in the Cedar Creek Room are the original patterns, recreated based upon old photographs, and the colors were matched by paint analysis. It is seated among sheaths of corn and wheat, representing Vermonts agricultural history. This room is restored to its 1888 appearance when the room was converted from the State Library to use as a governor&#39;s reception room. The walls, and 20-foot ceilings are polychrome painted in a complex palette of tertiary colors: burnished copper, russet, salmon, and a deep blue-green with overlays of metallic stencilling. The style is largely of the Aesthetic Movement.</p><br>
<p>Most of the furnishings in the building date to the 1859 reconstruction of the State House, including the 30 black walnut chairs in the Vermont Senate chamber, still used for the same purpose today. Several American Empire-style sofas, a set of klismos chairs, carved black walnut Renaissance Revival-style chairs for the Senate President and House Speaker, and suites of Rococo Revival settées and chairs also date to the completion of Silloways reconstruction. The majority of the lighting fixtures in the building are original, restored and electrified ormolu gas chandeliers and wall sconces manufactured in Philadelphia by Cornelius and Baker during the 1850s. The large two-tiered, 26-light chandelier in Representatives Hall features sculptures of mythological figures, including a copy of Vermont sculptor Hiram Powers The Greek Slave, which became an abolitionist icon. Only the large portrait of George Washington, painted c. 1837 by George Gassner after Gilbert Stuart, which hangs above the speaker&#39;s chair in Representatives Hall, survived the fire of 1857.</p><br>
<h2>Use of the Vermont State House</h2><br>
<p>Vermonts reputation for popular government is represented by the State Houses nickname "the People&#39;s House." While its primary use is as the house of the legislative branch of Vermont government, it has from its beginnings also functioned as a living museum and state cultural facility.</p><br>
<p>The building is open to visitors with remarkably few restrictions whether the legislature is in session or not. The large Representatives Hall is used for evening concerts named "Farmers Nights" during winter months. During warmer weather, the public lawn on the south side is used for concerts by the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, municipal bands from around the state, marching regimental bagpipe tattoos, modern dance concerts, as well as to provide space for local residents to sit, eat, and play sports. Quilts, ceramics, photography and paintings by citizens periodically hang in the building&#39;s corridors, committee and caucus rooms, and dining room.</p><br>
<p>In recent years, each February 14 the columns of the portico and lawn are bedecked with red paper hearts by the so-called Valentine Phantom. Additionally, the public lawn and steps of the portico serve as a well-used platform for peaceful demonstrations, press conferences by various official and non-official groups, and for formally welcoming official visitors to the State of Vermont.</p><br>
<p>On June 12, 2013 Google added the Vermont State House to their Street View imagery.</p><br>
<p>The first Vermont State House (1808 wood engraving).jpgThe first Vermont State House, built in 1808 was designed by Sylvanus Baldwin</p><br>
<p>ABY2ndVSH.jpgCirca 1856 daguerreotype of the second state house showing Ammi B. Young&#39;s low "saucer" dome</p><br>
<p>Statehouseflag.JPGThomas Silloways dome is taller than Ammi B. Youngs low saucer dome. Ionic columns support the dome which was originally painted red to resemble Tuscan terracotta tile.</p><br>
<p>VSHc1870.jpgCirca 1870 stereograph view of the third state house showing Thomas Silloway&#39;s taller drum supported dome</p><br>
<p>The Keweenaw Waterway is a partly natural, partly artificial waterway which cuts across the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan; it separates Copper Island from the mainland. Parts of the waterway are variously known as the Keweenaw Waterway, Portage Canal, Portage Lake Canal, Portage River, Lily Pond, Torch Lake, and Portage Lake. The waterway connects to Lake Superior at its north and south entries , with sections known as Portage Lake and Torch Lake in between. The primary tributary to Portage Lake is the Sturgeon River.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The waterway was dredged in the 1860s, extending a small river previously used by natives for transportation and fishing. The effort was a joint venture between the United States government and several mining corporations. Legislation for construction of the canal was passed in 1861. This legislation created the Portage Lake & Lake Superior Canal Co. The company began construction of the canal in September 1868. The canal starts at the mouth of Boston Creek and continues on to Lake Superior.</p><br>
<p>The expanded canal allowed freighters to haul copper from the rich copper mines of the Keweenaw Peninsula out through Lake Superior to larger cities. It also enabled supply boats and freighters to reach the cities of Houghton and Hancock, which supplied goods to most of Michigans copper region. The expanded canal and shipping lane has a depth of 25 ft, deeper in some locations. As the waterway connects Lake Superior to itself, there are no locks needed. The local mines stamp mills dumped large quantities of stamp sand (containing traces of copper and chemical leaching agents) into the waterway, causing significant environmental damage near the sand dumps. Stamp mills on the waterway included the Old Atlantic, old Quincy, Pewabic, old Franklin, and the Isle Royale mills.</p><br>
<p>The area north of the waterway is known locally as Copper Island, because the waterway separates the northern part of the Keweenaw Peninsula from the mainland.</p><br>
<p>The only land route across the waterway is US 41/M-26 across the Portage Lake Lift Bridge.</p><br>
<h2>Tourism</h2><br>
<p>The Keweenaw Waterway is part of the Keweenaw Water Trail, a designated loop route (eliminating the need to spot two vehicles or obtain a shuttle) around and through the Keweenaw Peninsula for canoes and sea kayaks. It was established in 1995 and has been designated “A Superior Sports Port” by National Geographic Adventure Magazine. It is said the trail "exemplifies the Keweenaw Peninsula in the most literal sense." The Lake Superior coast line is craggy and varied, claimed to be comparable to Isle Royale, but without the ferry. Uninhabited wilderness, occasional nature preserves and parks, are interspersed with sheltered harbors that offer weary paddlers the option for a warm bed, hot meal and shower at a local inn. An average paddler can cover the route in six to eight days, but extra days should be planned "to compensate for being wind-bound." The circumnavigation of the Copper Island is on its way to becoming "Michigan’s top paddling destination." Shorter trips are possible.</p><br>
<p>Chew Valley Lake is a large reservoir in the Chew Valley, Somerset, England, and the fifth-largest artificial lake in the United Kingdom , with an area of 1,200 acres . The lake, created in the early 1950s and opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1956, provides much of the drinking water for the city of Bristol and surrounding area, taking its supply from the Mendip Hills. Some of the water from the lake is used to maintain the flow in the River Chew.</p><br>
<p>Before the lake was created, archaeological investigations were carried out that showed evidence of occupation since Neolithic times and included Roman artefacts. The lake is an important site for wildlife and has been designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Special Protection Area (SPA). It is a national centre for birdwatching, with over 260 species recorded. The lake has indigenous and migrant water birds throughout the year, and two nature trails have been created. The flora and fauna provide habitats for some less common plants and insects.</p><br>
<p>Some restricted use for recreational activities is permitted by the owner, Bristol Water, including dinghy sailing and fishing, primarily for trout.</p><br>
<h2>Location</h2><br>
<p>Chew Valley Lake is in the Chew Valley at the northern edge of the Mendip Hills, surrounded by meadows and woods and close to the villages of Chew Stoke, Chew Magna and Bishop Sutton. When it was built in the 1950s, its 1,200 acres (4.9 km²) were flooded with 4,500 million imperial gallons (20,000,000 m³) of water from the Mendip hills, with a catchment area of 14,000 acres (57 km²). It is shallow, with an average depth of 14 ft (4 m) at top level and a maximum depth of just 37 ft (11 m). It is fed by small rivers, and it flows into the River Chew for 17 miles (27 km) before it joins the Avon to head out to sea. The deepest part is near the dam and the outlet tower, where the steeply sloping shores of Walley Bank and the north shore result in depths of up to 20 ft (6 m). "Denny Island", above the surface throughout the year, is wooded and provides a habitat for wildlife.</p><br>
<p>The lake is owned and operated by Bristol Water, which created it in 1956 when the demand became too large for nearby Blagdon Lake. Working with the Avon Wildlife Trust, Somerset Wildlife Trust and other environmental groups, Bristol Water has encouraged various species of birds and plants, and created a venue for visitors.</p><br>
<p>It has two landscaped picnic areas. Facilities include a tea shop, with indoor and outdoor seating areas with a view of the lake, and information centre. There are a souvenir shop and small art gallery and two nature trails. The Grebe Trail is a hard-surfaced, all-weather path suitable for pedestrians, pushchairs and wheelchairs and covers a circuit 0.75 miles (1.2 km) long, starting and finishing at the wooded picnic area. The Bittern Trail is reached from the Grebe Trail by the footbridge over Hollow Brook. The grassy path is often waterlogged in winter, but there is a boardwalk over a short section. The trail runs along the east shore, visits an open bird hide and returns to the footbridge, making a 1-mile (1.5-kilometre) circuit. Bristol Water imposes conditions on visitors, particularly related to the areas where dogs are allowed.</p><br>
<h2>Access and transportation</h2><br>
<p>Access to the waterside is restricted in places to reduce the disruption to wildlife. Paths around the lake are generally flat and, where paths are surfaced, wheelchair access is possible.</p><br>
<p>Visitors are officially invited to use public transport, but overwhelmingly arrive by private car, encouraged by the provision of parking spaces. The "Chew Valley Explorer" bus route 672/674 provides access.</p><br>
<p>In 2002 a 1.9-mile (3-kilometre) safe cycle route, the Chew Lake West Green Route, was opened along the B3114 on the western part of the lake. It forms part of the Padstow to Bristol West Country Way, National Cycle Network Route 3. It has all-weather surfacing, providing a smooth off-road facility for ramblers, mobility-challenged visitors and cyclists of all abilities. It was funded by Bath and North East Somerset Council with the support of Sustrans and the Chew Valley Recreational Trail Association. Minor roads around the lake are also frequently used by cyclists.</p><br>
<p>Bristol Airport is approximately 10 miles (15 km) away. The nearest major road is the A368, which runs along the southern edge of the lake and provides access from Bath and Weston super Mare. The A37 and A38 are slightly further away, providing access from Bristol. Car parking is available at the visitor centre and Woodford Lodge, for which a charge is made, and a small amount of parking is available at points around the lake; some of these are restricted to those with fishing permits.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Excavations have also uncovered Roman remains, indicating agricultural and industrial activity from the second half of the first century to third century AD. The finds included a villa at Chew Park where wooden writing tablets (the first in the UK) with ink writing were found. The tablets were sent to the British Museum, but other Roman material is on display at the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery with the lake&#39;s other historical artefacts.</p><br>
<p>Further excavations around the village of Moreton, which has now been totally submerged, found evidence of a thriving community in medieval times and possibly the remains of the Nunnery of Santa Cruz. During the Middle Ages farming was the most important activity in the area covered by the lake, supported by four flour mills powered by the River Chew. Stratford Mill was demolished and re-erected in the grounds of Blaise Castle Museum, in north-west Bristol. The largest settlement was Moreton, which is listed in the Domesday Book and survived until the flooding of the lake, when the remains of the Moreton Cross were moved to Chew Stoke Parish Church. There is evidence of lime kilns, which were used in the production of mortar for the construction of local churches. Farming, both arable and dairy, continued until the flooding of the lake, with most households also keeping pigs. There were orchards for fruit production, including apples, pears and plums.</p><br>
<h3>Reservoir</h3><br>
<p>Plans for the building of the reservoir were under discussion before the Second World War, and an Act of Parliament submitted by the Bristol Waterworks Company was passed in 1939. Following this, farms were bought by the company and farmed by the previous owners as tenancies. Farms and buildings still remaining in private hands were acquired by compulsory purchase. The sanction for construction was given in 1949 and the contract awarded to A.E. Farr, who employed 300 people on the site. The main dam was stabilised by injecting concrete into the cracks in the bedrock. The core of the dam was made of puddled clay mixed with sand. This was the first time the gain in strength brought about by the use of sand drains had been quantified. The lake was inaugurated by Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by Prince Philip, with the unveiling of a commemorative stone and plaque, which can be seen from the dam, on 17 April 1956, although it was not full until 25 February 1958. Flowers were presented to the Queen at the opening of Chew Valley Lake by Judith Blair Brown, daughter of Kennedy Brown, who worked at Bristol Water Works at the time of construction of the lake.</p><br>
<p>During the storm of 10 July 1968, the lake gained an extra 471 million imperial gallons (2,140,000 m³) and rose 19 inches (480 mm) in under 12 hours. At one point worried Bristol police issued a warning that the dam might not hold, prompting localised evacuation of populated valley areas downstream including Pensford and Keynsham.</p><br>
<h2>Ecology</h2><br>
<p>The lake is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Special Protection Area (SPA) (Site Code: UK9010041) largely because of the diversity of species and habitats. Providing further protection, much of the area around the lake also falls within the Mendip Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).</p><br>
<p>The lake appears to have a higher sedimentation rate than would be expected in other similar reservoirs, being in the region of 100–150 t.km.yr.</p><br>
<h3>Geology</h3><br>
<p>The main geological outcrops around the lake are mudstone, largely consisting of red siltstone resulting in the underlying characteristic of the gently rolling valley landscape. Bands of sandstone from the Triassic period contribute to the undulating character of the area. There are also more recent alluvial deposits beside the course of the River Chew.</p><br>
<h3>Birds</h3><br>
<p>Over 260 species of birds have been recorded at Chew, an internationally important site for wintering and migrating wildfowl. From late July to February, up to 4,000 ducks (Anatidae) of twelve different species may be present, including internationally important numbers of northern shoveler (Anas clypeata) and gadwall (Anas strepera). Up to 600 great crested grebes (Podiceps cristatus) gather to moult on the lake in autumn. Data on bird species and their numbers on the lake, dating back to the first "ringing" in 1964, is available from the Chew Valley Ringing Station.</p><br>
<p>Numerous other birds can be seen, especially during the spring and autumn migration. Sand martins (Riparia riparia) arrive early and can usually be seen hawking over the water for insects in the second or third week of March. Flocks of tits (Paridae), swallows (Hirundinidae) and terns (Sternidae) can regularly be seen. Waders, such as lapwings (Vanellus vanellus), dunlin (Calidris alpina) and common snipe (Gallinago gallinago), are attracted to the muddy shores if the water level drops in autumn. By midwinter up to 55,000 gulls, mostly black-headed gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus) and common gull (Larus canus), may be roosting. Good numbers of reed warblers (Acrocephalus scirpaceus) and sedge warblers (A. schoenobaenus) nest in the fringing reeds, along with grebes (Podicipedidae) and Eurasian coots (Fulica atra).</p><br>
<p>Much of the management work carried out in the nature reserve is aimed at encouraging ducks to breed, and small numbers of tufted duck (Aythya fuligula), common pochard (Aythya ferina), common shelduck (Tadorna tadorna) and gadwall raise broods most years. Recent breeding successes also include water rail (Rallus aquaticus) and Cetti&#39;s warbler (Cettia cetti).</p><br>
<p>A wetland reserve has been created at Heron&#39;s Green Pool on the opposite side of the causeway to the lake. A shallow pool fringed with sedges (Cyperaceae), rushes (Juncaceae) and reedgrasses (Calamagrostis) and surrounded by lightly grazed, rough grassland may also prove attractive to snipe and lapwings.</p><br>
<h3>Fish</h3><br>
<p>In late summer large shoals of roach (Rutilus rutilus) and perch (Perca fluviatilis) fry congregate around the margins and weed beds, which are predated by the brown trout (Salmo trutta morpha fario) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Chew Valley also holds a large population of pike (Esox lucius), and fishing for these is permitted at certain times of the year.</p><br>
<h3>Insects</h3><br>
<p>Aquatic midges (Chironomidae) provide the highest proportion of the fly life of the lake. The trout (Salmonidae) will feed at the surface on these and water boatmen (Corixidae), and below the surface on the caddisfly (Trichoptera) larvae and pupae; they will also take the adult caddisflies when they emerge. Other aquatic fauna including daphnia and snails are also found in the lake. Large populations of dragonflies, including migrant hawker (Aeshna mixta) and significant numbers of ruddy darter (Sympetrum sanguineum), occur at the lake. Eleven species of wainscot moth make their home in the reed beds, including the nationally local brown-veined wainscot (Archanara dissoluta), twin-spotted wainscot (Archanara geminipuncta) and silky wainscot (Chilodes maritimus).</p><br>
<h3>Vegetation</h3><br>
<p>The lake is surrounded with fringing reedbeds, carr woodland and grassland, which are managed by Bristol Water. The water conditions are eutrophic with run off from local fields and streams. Open-water plant communities are rather sparse, largely comprising fennel pondweed (Potamogeton pectinatus), lesser pondweed (Potamogeton pusillus), opposite-leaved pondweed (Groenlandia densa) and water-crowfoot (Ranunculus spp.). On neutral soils around the reservoir, pepper-saxifrage (Silaum silaus), burnet-saxifrage (Pimpinella saxifraga) and devil&#39;s-bit scabious (Succisa pratensis) occur, and on calcareous soils fairy flax (Linum catharticum), dwarf thistle (Cirsium acaule) and salad burnet (Sanguisorba minor subspecies minor) are found.</p><br>
<p>The small and medium-sized fields around the lake are generally bounded by hedges and occasionally by tree belts and woodland, some of which date back to the most evident period of enclosure of earlier open fields which took place in the late medieval period. Mature oak (Quercus) and ash (Fraxinus excelsior) trees are characteristic of the area with occasional groups of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and chestnuts (Castanea sativa). Many elm (Ulmus) trees have been lost in this area, and dead/dying elms are also evident in the surrounding landscape.</p><br>
<p>Four areas of woodland containing 157 trees has been planted by The Life for a Life Charity around the lake on the Restaurant side, for the cremated remains of loved ones to be placed beneath them. These forests contain Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris), English oak (Quercus robur), rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) and the silver birch (Betula pendula).</p><br>
<h2>Leisure use</h2><br>
<p>The lake is used for a wide variety of leisure pursuits.</p><br>
<h3>Birdwatching</h3><br>
<p>During 2005–2006 Bristol Water started restoring two artificial islands. These are intended to provide safe nesting and roosting sites for a range of wildfowl. Permits to enter the reservoir enclosure and to use the access roads, paths and bird hides are available (for a fee) only to members of ornithological and naturalist societies recognised by Bristol Water. They can be obtained from Woodford Lodge and include conditions of use imposed by the owners.</p><br>
<h3>Sailing</h3><br>
<p>Chew Valley Lake Sailing Club has a sailing area, approximately 1.9 miles (3 km) long, for dinghy sailing. The lake is divided into two areas: a restricted summer area which is available during the fishing season (mid-March to mid-October), and the full area which can be used throughout the winter and on Sunday afternoons. The sailing area is marked out by lines of small white buoys. Racing marks are red buoys with flags, although large inflatable marks are used of open events.</p><br>
<p>The club can cater for fleets of over one hundred boats and it hosts large national events. Normal club racing has fleet starts for the following dinghy classes: Flying Fifteen (keelboat), Laser (dinghy), Solo (dinghy) and Topper (dinghy) as well as a handicap fleet run under the Portsmouth yardstick scheme. Five slipways enable easy launching. Off the water, the clubhouse facilities include large changing rooms, hot showers, hot food at the weekends, a bar and terrace overlooking the lake. The club caters for disabled people with facilities on both floors and a lift. Royal Yachting Association sailing courses are held at the club for members including race training, youth training, powerboat training, race officer training as well as more informal training run within each fleet.</p><br>
<h3>Fishing</h3><br>
<p>Seasonal day and afternoon bank fishing permits are available at Woodford Lodge. The restrictions imposed by Bristol Water mean that no fishing is allowed from the dams or stone embankments, the sailing club, in front of Stratford bird hide, in front of the picnic areas and in the nature reserve. There is a fleet of 32 motor boats for hire to fish.</p><br>
<p>Oinousses  or Egnousa ) is a barren cluster of 1 larger and 8 smaller islands some 2 km off the north-east coast of the Greek island of Chios and 8 km west of Turkey. Administratively the islands form a municipality within the Chios regional unit, which is part of the North Aegean region. The principal town of the islands and seat of the municipality is also called Oinousses. Oinousses has a small resident population, living primarily in the islands&#39; town of Oinoússes , and a recently built monastery. The town is centred on a square and a small port; it includes a school, several churches, a Naval high school and a maritime museum. The only other populated settlements are Kástron  and Aspalathrókampos .</p><br>
<p>The vast majority of the workforce of the island is engaged in seafaring, fishing and goat-herding.</p><br>
<p>The islands are noted as the origin of an unusual cluster of successful ship-owning families: the Lemos, Pateras, Hadjipateras, Kollakis and Lyras families. Whilst most of the families now live elsewhere most of the year, the islands and town are well maintained with a strong naval connection. Oinoussians abroad are noted for their successful entrepreneurial skills in the industrial transportation industry. Although the number of Oinoussian ship operating companies has fallen since their heyday in the 1960s they still maintain a formidable position in the industrial transportation industry.</p><br>
<h2>The islands of the complex</h2><br>
<p>The Oinousses Complex comprises the below islands. The largest is Oinousses or Egnoussa (14.3 km), the second largest is the islet Pasas or Panagia (2.5 km) and the third largest is the islet Vatos. The municipality has an area of 17.427 km.</p><br>
<p>Oinousses or Egnoussa (Οινούσσες)</p><br>
<p>Agios Panteleimon (Άγιος Παντελεήμων)</p><br>
<p>Archontoniso (Αρχοντόνησο)</p><br>
<p>Gadros (Γάδρος)</p><br>
<p>Gaidouronisos (Γαϊδουρόνησος)</p><br>
<p>Mallaropetra (Μαλλιαρόπετρα)</p><br>
<p>Monaftis (Μονάφτης)</p><br>
<p>Nisi Panagias (Νησί Παναγιάς)</p><br>
<p>Nisi Pittas (Νησί Πίττας)</p><br>
<p>Papapondikadiko (Παπαποντικάδικο)</p><br>
<p>Pasas or Panagia (Πασάς)</p><br>
<p>Pateroniso (Πατερόνησο)</p><br>
<p>Pontikonisi (Ποντικονήσι)</p><br>
<p>Prassonisia (Πρασονήσια)</p><br>
<p>Santa Panagia (Σάντα Παναγιά)</p><br>
<p>Vatos (Βάτος)</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<p>Mount Tasman  is New Zealands second highest mountain, rising to a height of 3,497 m. It is located in the Southern Alps of the South Island, four kilometres to the north of its larger neighbour, Aoraki / Mount Cook. Unlike Aoraki / Mount Cook, Mount Tasman sits on the South Islands Main Divide, on the border between Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park and Westland Tai Poutini National Park. It is the highest point in Westland District.</p><br>
<p>The Māori name (horo: to swallow; koau: shag or Phalacrocorax varius) is believed to refer to the swelling in the neck of a shag when it is swallowing a fish.</p><br>
<h2>Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park</h2><br>
<p>Mount Tasman is located in Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park in the Canterbury region, which was established in 1953 and along with Westland Tai Poutini National Park, Mount Aspiring National Park and Fiordland National Park forms one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.</p><br>
<p>The Tunga River   is a river in Karnataka state, southern India. The river is born in the Western Ghats on a hill known as Varaha Parvata at a place called Gangamoola. From here, the river flows through two districts in Karnataka - Chikmagalur District and Shimoga District. It is 147 km long and merges with the Bhadra River at Koodli, a small town near Shimoga City, Karnataka. The river is given the compound name Tungabhadra from this point on. The Tungabhadra flows eastwards and merges with the Krishna River in Andhra Pradesh.</p><br>
<p>The river is famous for the sweetness of its water and is considered to be the sweetest water in the world. There is a belief that " Thunga pana Ganga snana" which means we should drink the water of river thunga and take bath in river Ganga.</p><br>
<p>It has a dam built across it at Gajanur, and a larger dam has been built across the compound Tungabhadra river at Hospet.</p><br>
<h2>Religious centres</h2><br>
<p>Sringeri, on the banks of the Tunga, has several temples, the most important being the Śhāradā temple and the Vidyāśhankara temple.</p><br>
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<p>Casper Mountain is located at the north end of the Laramie Mountains overlooking Casper, Wyoming along the North Platte River. At a top elevation of 8,130 ft, the mountain rises approximately 3,000 ft above Casper.</p><br>
<h2>Recreation</h2><br>
<p>Casper Mountain is largely privately owned, however there are still several miles of trails for hikers.</p><br>
<p>There are many recreation opportunities on the mountain. Hogadon Ski Area is one of very few ski areas with a parking/entry point located above the resort. Although small, the ski area provides the largest source of winter entertainment on the mountain. Other winter activities include cross country skiing, snowshoeing, and snowmobiling. A small part of the cross country ski trails are lit at night, providing night skiing.</p><br>
<p>Summer activities on Casper Mountain include camping, hiking, and picnicing. The Braille Trail offers a short scenic hike, and is meant for those who are blind, but caters to everyone. The trail celebrated its 35th anniversary in 2010, and was visited by about 2,000 people. The area around the trail has picnic sites, and is popular during the summer. The trail is accessible on a road near the base of Tower Hill. Along with the Braille Trail, Casper Mountain has many other hiking trails. At the base of the mountain&#39;s north side, lies Garden Creek Falls. The Casper Rotary Club manages the trails around the area and in December 2010 began to renovate some of them in order to make them safer for hikers. The club plans to install low intensity lighting in the parking lot, to be powered by solar panels.</p><br>
<p>The mountain is also host to annual summer-solstice gathering at Crimson Dawn. This event, based upon childrens stories told by a local woman to her children in the 1930s and 40s, has grown into a local tradition, with hundreds of families migrating up the mountain to see actors re-enact tales of witches and warlocks. The area around the ranch is reported to be haunted by the woman.</p><br>
<p>Casper Mountain is also home to Beartrap Meadow, a large open space at the base of the road leading to the far east side of the mountain. Large parties have and continue to be held in the meadow. Beartrap Meadow also houses several campsites. Since 1994 Beartrap Meadow has hosted the Beartrap Summer Festival in late July or early August. It features bluegrass music and has included bands such as Ricky Skaggs, Earl Scruggs and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.</p><br>
<h2>Wildlife</h2><br>
<p>Wildlife on the mountain includes wild grouse, white tailed deer and elk, among other species native to Wyoming. Mountain lions have also been spotted on the mountain. On the west flank of the mountain in Jackson canyon, one of the largest migratory populations of bald eagles in the world take shelter during certain times of year.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>The southern side of the mountain is bordered by Muddy Mountain, which itself has many recreation opportunities.</p><br>
<h2>Broadcasting</h2><br>
<p>All of Caspers high powered television stations originate from towers on the mountain, as do a vast majority of the areas FM radio signals. A cross country ski area cuts right through an area known as Tower Hill (see pictures), where many of the towers are located.</p><br>
<p>Local, State and Federal agencies - BLM, Sheriff, Fire, EMS and Casper PD - operate sites on Casper mountain providing both analog and digital support for traditional radio systems as well as the WyoLink statewide trunking system. There are other commercial sites on the mountain as well, providing such services as Wireless ISP and Cell phones.</p><br>
<p>Local amateur radio operators also take advantage of the mountain. One of the more heavily used amateur repeaters is operated by the Casper Amateur Radio Club - W7VNJ.</p><br>
<h2>Fires</h2><br>
<p>Although the mountain has seen its fair share of fires, in August 2006 a large wildfire known as the Jackson Canyon Fire burned 11,496 acres (40 km²) on the western end of Casper Mountain,</p><br>
<p>In September 2012, the Sheep Herder Complex fire burned 15,887 acres, and consumed 37 residences and 23 outbuildings, according to InciWeb. The fire was 100 percent contained by September 16, 2012. The cause of the fire remains unknown.</p><br>
<p>The Shrine of the Grotto of the Redemption is a religious shrine located in West Bend, Iowa, in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sioux City. A conglomeration of nine grottos depicting scenes in the life of Jesus, the Grotto contains a large collection of minerals and petrifications and is believed to be the largest grotto in the world.</p><br>
<p>It is also "considered to be the world&#39;s most complete man-made collection of minerals, fossils, shells, and petrifications in one place." The total value of all the rocks and minerals which make up the Grotto is over $4,308,000. Over 100,000 people visit the Grotto each year.</p><br>
<p>The shrine includes a museum with precious and semiprecious stones from throughout the world, and photos and artifacts about the construction of the shrine.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Father Paul Dobberstein was a German immigrant ordained in 1897. He became critically ill with pneumonia and promised to build a shrine to the Virgin Mary if she interceded for him. After his recovery, he began stockpiling rocks and precious stones. Construction of the grotto began in 1912 and continued year round for 42 years.</p><br>
<p>Father Dobberstein used the knowledge and skills gained during construction of his first grotto honoring Our Lady of Lourdes, while training at St. Francis Seminary in St. Francis, Wisconsin. His method was to set fancy rocks and gems into concrete. In 1946, Father Louis Greving began helping Dobberstein with the construction. The grotto covered an area the size of a city block when Dobberstein died in 1954. Matt Szerensce helped work on the grotto until his retirement in 1959. Construction still continues and has been maintained by Deacon Gerald Streit since 1994.</p><br>
<p>Father Dobberstein&#39;s works inspired Mathias Wernerus (who also attended St. Francis Seminary) to build the Dickeyville Grotto in Dickeyville, Wisconsin, in 1930, thus starting the grotto building movement in America.</p><br>
<p>As of August 1, 2015, the grotto has been raised to the status of diocesan shrine by R. Walker Nickless, Bishop of Sioux City. This is the first Catholic religious shrine designated in the diocese.</p><br>
<h2>In popular culture</h2><br>
<p>The Grotto of the Redemption is featured in the David Lynch film The Straight Story.</p><br>
<p>Nisa  was an ancient city located near modern-day Bagir village, 18 km southwest of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. Nisa is described by some as the first seat of central government of the Parthians. It is traditionally assumed to be founded by Arsaces I  and was reputedly the royal necropolis of the Parthian kings, although it has not been established that the fortress at Nisa was either a royal residence or a mausoleum.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Nisa was a major trading hub in the Parthian Empire. Nisa was later renamed Mithradatkirt ("fortress of Mithradates") by Mithridates I of Parthia (reigned c. 171 BC–138 BC).</p><br>
<p>Nisa was totally destroyed by an earthquake, which occurred during the 1st decade BC.</p><br>
<h2>Excavations</h2><br>
<p>Excavations at Nisa have revealed substantial buildings, mausoleums and shrines, many inscribed documents and a looted treasury. Many Hellenistic art works have been uncovered as well as a large number of ivory rhytons, the outer rims (coins) decorated with Iranian subjects or classical mythological scenes.</p><br>
<p>The fortress at Nisa was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2007.</p><br>
<p>Sullivans Cove is on the River Derwent adjacent to the Hobart CBD in Tasmania.</p><br>
<p>It was the site of initial European settlement in the area, and the location of the earlier components of the Port of Hobart.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Cove was the initial landing site of what is now the city of Hobart. It was founded on 21 February 1804 by Lieutenant Governor David Collins, who travelled to the shore via what was then a rocky island named Hunter Island. The connection to the shore was developed and is now known as Hunter Street. The island now has a building directly above it.</p><br>
<p>Although the first European settlement in the state was further up the river at Risdon Cove by John Bowen a year earlier, that settlement was abandoned and relocated to join the Sullivans Cove settlers.</p><br>
<p>Collins named Sullivans Cove after John Sullivan, Permanent Under Secretary to the Colonies.</p><br>
<p>By 1916, several piers had been constructed: from north to south:</p><br>
<p>Ocean Pier (built 1914)</p><br>
<p>Queens Pier (originally Alexandra Pier, renamed in 1910)</p><br>
<p>Kings Pier (built 1910)</p><br>
<p>Argyle Street Pier (built 1875)</p><br>
<p>Elizabeth Street Pier (built 1866)</p><br>
<p>Franklin Pier</p><br>
<p>Brooke Street Pier (built 1820s, renovated 1879).</p><br>
<p>Ferry Pier</p><br>
<p>In 1933, the Argyle Street and Elizabeth Street Piers were replaced with a single concrete-reinforced structure at Elizabeth Street Pier.</p><br>
<p>In 1947 there was a proposal to replace Queens and Kings Pier with an extra wide pier, but this was never realised.</p><br>
<p>In 1948, Ocean Pier was destroyed by a fire.</p><br>
<p>Kings Pier was demolished and replaced with a marina for commercial and private craft, around 1970. This marina increased in size in 2003.</p><br>
<h2>Current</h2><br>
<p>Sullivans Cove holds large historical and sentimental value for the city. The cove area itself is now known as Macquarie Wharf and serves as the main port for the city. Many of the original buildings along the esplanade are still standing.</p><br>
<p>The University of Tasmania&#39;s School of the Arts building is based on Hunter Street.</p><br>
<p>A serviced apartment building, ZeroDavey, has drawn criticism for its Davey Street facade, being condemned by the local community as aesthetically unpleasing consisting of a grey concrete prefabricated wall with jarring blue metal ledges, as opposed to the rest of the building having a sandstone facade to blend with the heritage Hunter Street buildings next door.</p><br>
<p>During 2004 there has also been discussions about a proposal for a tourist tram from Sullivans Cove to the CBD, and possibly to North Hobart.</p><br>
<p>An international design competition was held for the Hobart waterfront in 2006. It attracted 280 entries from over 50 countries. Three winners were announced on January 26, 2007.</p><br>
<p>With the change in the cove&#39;s primary activity from a freight port to tourism and recreational uses, many of the sheds in the area have been either re-purposed or replaced – notably, all buildings keep the former gabled roof architecture. These buildings include:</p><br>
<p>Elizabeth Street Pier – restaurants, bar and function space</p><br>
<p>Princes Wharf Shed No. 1 – redeveloped as PW1 event space in 2011</p><br>
<p>Princes Wharf Shed No. 2 – replaced in 2012 as the University of Tasmania&#39;s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies centre</p><br>
<p>Macquarie Wharf Shed No. 1 – to be replaced in 2015 with a luxury hotel (under construction)</p><br>
<p>Macquarie Wharf Shed No. 2 – redeveloped in 2013 as MAC02 cruise ship terminal</p><br>
<p>Brooke Street Pier – replaced in 2014-15 with a ferry terminal/tourism transport hub</p><br>
<p>Additional development in the immediate area include a $100m redevelopment of Parliament Square, behind Parliament House.</p><br>
<p>The South Stradbroke Island , colloqually South Straddie, is an island that lies within Moreton Bay in the Australian state of Queensland, south of Brisbane and forms the northern end of Gold Coast. The 21 km by 2.5 km sized island is the smaller one of the two Stradbroke Islands and lies very close to the mainland. The island has hundreds of wild wallabies that are usually human orientated. They are also well known for stealing bread from tents and cabins, and joining campers at their fires.</p><br>
<p>One of more than 360 islands within Moreton Bay, the southern end of South Stradbroke Island fronts the Broadwater, and the tip marks the Gold Coast Seaway, only a matter of metres from the mainland at Southport Spit. In the northeast is Tipplers Passage which separates the island from many smaller islands within the bay closer to the mainland. The east coast borders the Coral Sea.</p><br>
<p>South Stradbroke Island consists mainly of sand dunes, remnant livistona rainforest and melaleuca wetlands. The island also has unique flora and fauna. The golden wallaby is endemic to the island and the agile wallaby, once more common to the region, has now retreated to the island.</p><br>
<p>The population of the island at the was 101, but the number of people on the island swells significantly during the holiday season.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>In the north the island is separated by the Jumpinpin Channel from the larger North Stradbroke Island. Before 1896 the island was part of the Stradbroke Island. In that year the island was separated by a storm from North Stradbroke Island. The new tidal channel caused large changes to the channels and islands within southern Moreton Bay. Coastal managers are concerned that eventually one day Jumpinpin may repair itself which may cause problems for tidal waterway management including fish stocks, dugong habitat, erosion and flooding.</p><br>
<p>Some land clearing for cattle grazing conducted in the early 20th century has occurred. During the 1950 to 1960s sand mining was conducted at the northern ocean beach area but reserves were limited. From the 1870s onwards the islands inner shores were used as camp grounds for holders of oystering licences. A small township called Moondarewa with 156 surveyed lots, was established at the islands southern tip. By 1953 the island&#39;s natural movement north had washed away most of the settlement. Also once located at the southern end was a small area of vine scrub rainforest that attracted significant bird-life.</p><br>
<p>In 2009, some filming was done on the island for the 2011 film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.</p><br>
<h2>Heritage listings</h2><br>
<p>South Stradbroke Island has a number of heritage-listed sites, including Dux Hut.</p><br>
<h2>Accommodation facilities</h2><br>
<p>The island is a tourist destination. There are numerous campsites including an anchorage for the Southport Yacht Club and Dux Campsite, owned by The Southport School. Tipplers was purchased by the Gold Coast City Council in 2009. Due to ongoing encroachment of the sand dunes, the Council-run Bedrooms Campsite was closed in 2013. The Council has three alternate campgrounds: Tipplers that accommodates up to 100 tents with gas BBQs, a childrens play area, and a kiosk that has basic camping supplies including ice and firewood; and North and South Currigee that together accommodates up to 80 tents with access to BBQs, a childrens play area, and a mini kiosk for basic camping supplies.</p><br>
<p>Couran Cove Island Resort is located on the north side of South Stradbroke Island Resort; located approximately forty minutes from Surfers Paradise, the Couran Cove Island Resort provides a range of quality accommodation options, fine dining and the opportunity to see native Australian animals in the forest. The resort was established by Ron Clarke and originally opened in 1998 as an eco-tourist resort. While the resort is not marketed as such now it does incorporate a number of environmental design features and technologies.</p><br>
<h2>Recreation</h2><br>
<p>An 1,800 hectare conservation park provides access to native wildlife. The park is suitable for hiking, rock climbing and ocean fishing.</p><br>
<p>Rittenhouse Square is the name of both a public park and the surrounding neighborhood that is referred to also as Rittenhouse or Rittenhouse Row in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The park is one of the five original open-space parks planned by William Penn and his surveyor Thomas Holme during the late 17th century.</p><br>
<p>Known as "the square," the park is widely considered one of the finest urban public spaces in the United States. The square cuts off 19th Street at Walnut Street and also at a half block above Manning Street. Its boundaries are 18th Street to the East, Walnut St. to the north, Rittenhouse Square West (a north-south boundary street), and Rittenhouse Square South (an east-west boundary street), making the park approximately two short blocks on each side.</p><br>
<p>The neighborhood is among the highest-income urban neighborhoods in the country. Together with Fitler Square, the Rittenhouse neighborhood and the square, comprise the Rittenhouse Fitler Historic District.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Originally called Southwest Square, Rittenhouse Square was renamed in 1825 after David Rittenhouse, a descendant of the first paper-maker in Philadelphia, the German immigrant William Rittenhouse. William Rittenhouse&#39;s original paper-mill site is known as Rittenhousetown, located in the rural setting of Fairmount Park along Paper Mill Run. David Rittenhouse was a clockmaker and friend of the American Revolution, as well as a noted astronomer; a lunar crater is named after him.</p><br>
<p>In the early nineteenth century, as the city grew steadily from the Delaware River to the Schuylkill River, it became obvious that Rittenhouse Square would become a highly desirable address. James Harper, a merchant and brick manufacturer who had recently retired from the United States Congress, was the first person to build on the square, buying most of the north frontage, erecting a stately townhouse for himself at 1811 Walnut Street (c. 1840). Having thus set the patrician residential tone that would subsequently define the Square, he divided the rest of the land into generously proportioned building lots and sold them. Sold after the congressman&#39;s death, the Harper house became the home of the exclusive Rittenhouse Club, which added the present facade in c. 1901.</p><br>
<p>From 1876 to 1929, Rittenhouse Square was home to several wealthy families including Philadelphia Railroad president, Alexander Cassatt; real estate owner, William Weightman; department store founder, John Wanamaker; and several others. Elegant architecture like churches and clubs were constructed by John Notman and Frank Furness. 1913 brought more changes to the Square&#39;s layout when the French architect, Paul Philippe Cret redesigned parts of the Square to resemble Paris and the French gardens. These redesigns include classical entryways and stone additions to railings, pools, and fountains. After World War II, Rittenhouse added to its architecture with modern apartments, office buildings, and condominiums due to the real estate boom. Residential Rittenhouse Square historically housed Victorian mansions but are now replaced with high-rise apartments to accommodate the residents that live there. Shopping has become a popular activity with store buildings taking place of the brownstones along the streets. Historic design remains in Rittenhouse Square today, with prominent buildings in Italianate and Art Deco styles.</p><br>
<p>Journalist and author Jane Jacobs wrote about Paul Philippe Crets additions to the park that remain there today. Rittenhouse Square has changed the least out of the Squares. Vacant lots were converted to apartments and hotels, and original mansions were replaced with apartments such as Claridge and Savoy. Jacobs focused on sharing two main ideas in Paul Crets redesign, intricacy and centering. Compared with the other four original squares in Philadelphia, Rittenhouse Square has survived proposed alterations that may have changed both its physical layout and character.</p><br>
<p>In the mid 1900s, conflicts between homosexual and heterosexual communities were common within Center City neighborhoods. Gay and lesbians were found commonly living around Rittenhouse Square and saw the park as a safety zone for camaraderie. For gay men, the park was used as a place to find other men. Hippies and pre-Stonewall gays were also part of their own groups there.</p><br>
<h2>Arts and culture</h2><br>
<p>Today, the tree-filled park is surrounded by high rise residences, luxury apartments, an office tower, a few popular restaurants, a Barnes & Noble bookstore, a Barneys, and a five-star hotel. Its green grasses and dozens of benches are popular lunch-time destinations for residents and workers in Philadelphia&#39;s Center City neighborhood, while its lion and goat statues are popular gathering spots for small children and their parents. The park is a popular dog walking destination for area residents, as was shown in the fictional film In Her Shoes. The Square was discussed in a favorable light by Jane Jacobs in her seminal work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities.</p><br>
<p>The beauty of the Park is due largely to the efforts of, a public-private partnership with Philadelphia Parks & Recreation. Landscaping, lighting, restoration of fountains and fencing—even the installation and stocking of doggie-bag dispensers—are all projects of the Friends of Rittenhouse Square. During 2013, the 100th anniversary of architect Paul Cret&#39;s redesign of the Square, the Friends of Rittenhouse Square are working to raise record funds for a lighting and preservation initiative. New security cameras have cut down on vandalism, park rangers have helped calm behavior in the Square, and damaged balustrades and stonework are undergoing extensive restoration.</p><br>
<p>The Rittenhouse Square neighborhood is also home to many cultural institutions, including the Curtis Institute of Music, the Ethical Society, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, the Rosenbach Museum & Library, Plays & Players, the Wine School of Philadelphia and the Civil War and Underground Railroad Museum. Delancey Place (Philadelphia) is a quiet, historical street lined with Civil War-era mansions and the setting for Hollywood movies, located only two blocks south of the square.</p><br>
<p>The Square is home to many works of public art. Among them is a base-relief bust of J. William White done by R. Tait McKenzie.</p><br>
<p>Rittenhouse Square hosts dozens of events throughout the year, including some of the city’s most popular happenings. Typically held in the beginning of May, the blockbuster attracts tens of thousands for a celebration of the season complete with food, shopping, live entertainment and more. In the fall, hundreds of artists from around the country “Circle the Square” during the traditional Rittenhouse Square Fine Art Show. During the holidays, hundreds pack the park for the official start of the season during the featuring more than 5,000 brilliant holiday lights. Held year round on Saturdays from 10:00am – 2:00pm, the farmer&#39;s market of Rittenhouse Square sells locally grown food from farmers across the region. organizes the event which crowds Walnut Street with market vendors on 18th and 19th Streets.</p><br>
<h2>Education</h2><br>
<p>Residents are in the catchment area for grades kindergarten through eight; all persons assigned to Greenfield are zoned to Benjamin Franklin High School. Previously South Philadelphia High School was the neighborhood&#39;s zoned high school.</p><br>
<p>The University of the Arts and Peirce College are both in the Rittenhouse Square neighborhood.</p><br>
<p>The Free Library of Philadelphia operates the Philadelphia City Institute on the first floor and lower level of an apartment complex at 1905 Locust Street; the apartment building is known as 220 West Rittenhouse Square.</p><br>
<h2>Transportation</h2><br>
<p>Rittenhouse Square is accessible via several forms of public transportation.</p><br>
<p>All SEPTA Regional Rail lines stop at Suburban Station, about six blocks north and east of the Square.</p><br>
<p>The PATCO Speedline, a rapid transit system connecting Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey stops at 16th St. & Locust St., 2 blocks east of the Square.</p><br>
<p>The SEPTA 9, 12, 21, and 42 buses westbound run along Walnut Street. The 17 runs northbound along 20th Street and southbound along 19th Street and Rittenhouse Square West and the 2 runs northbound along 16th Street and southbound along 17th Street.</p><br>
<p>The SEPTA Subway-Surface Trolley Lines have a station at 19th and Market Streets, two blocks north of the Square. The Walnut-Locust station on the Broad Street Subway is four blocks east.</p><br>
<p>The Julier Pass   is a mountain pass in Switzerland, in the Albula Range of the Alps. It connects the Engadin valley with the rest of Graubünden. At its summit, the pass crosses the watershed / drainage divide between the basins of the Rivers Rhine and Danube. The Julier Pass lies between Piz Lagrev and Piz Julier.</p><br>
<p>Remains of a Roman temple and cart tracks were found and illustrate its importance in Roman times.</p><br>
<p>The road constructed in the 1820s to replace the old Septimer Pass was well built and is still easily passable after moderate widening for normal cars and trucks. In some parts, areas were rebuilt in 2009 to reduce the number of serpentine turns. Winter use requires winter tires, as well as snow chains in extremely poor weather.</p><br>
<h2>Route</h2><br>
<p>Fort de Chartres was a French fortification first built in 1720 on the east bank of the Mississippi River in present-day Illinois, it was used as an administrative center for the province. Due generally to river floods, the fort was rebuilt twice, the last time in limestone in the 1750s in the era of French colonial control over Louisiana and the Illinois Country.</p><br>
<p>A partial reconstruction of the third and last fort, which was built of local limestone shortly before the end of French rule in the Midwest, is preserved in an Illinois state park four miles (6 km) west of Prairie du Rocher in Randolph County, Illinois. It is south of St. Louis, Missouri in the floodplain area that became known as the American Bottom. The site and its associated buildings were placed on the National Register of Historic Places and recognized as a National Historic Landmark on October 15, 1966, and it was named one of the contributing properties to the new French Colonial Historic District in 1974, along with other area French-influenced sites such as the Creole House, the Pierre Menard House, the Kolmer Site (a former Indian village), and the site of Fort Kaskaskia.</p><br>
<p>The name of the fort honored Louis, duc de Chartres, son of the Regent of France. The fort&#39;s stone magazine, which survived the gradual ruin that overtook the rest of the site, is considered the oldest building in the state of Illinois. The state historic site today hosts several large re-enactments at the fort of colonial-era civil and military life each summer.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>The French</h3><br>
<p>On January 1, 1718, the French government granted a trade monopoly to John Law and his Company of the West. Hoping to make a fortune mining precious metals, the company built a fort to protect its interests. The original wooden fort was built in 1718–1720 by a French contingent from New Orleans, led by Pierre Dugué de Boisbriand. When administration of the Illinois Country was moved from Canada to New Orleans, governance was transferred to the Company of the Indies. The fort was built to be the seat of government and to control the Indians of the region, particularly the Fox. The original fort was a palisade of logs with two bastions at opposite corners.</p><br>
<p>Within five years, flooding from the Mississippi had left the original fort in bad condition. Construction of a second fort further from the river, but still on the flood plain, began in 1725. This fort was also made of logs and had a bastion at each of the four corners.</p><br>
<p>The second wooden fort deteriorated somewhat less rapidly but by 1742 was in bad repair. In 1747 the French garrison moved to the region&#39;s primary settlement 18 mi to the south at Kaskaskia. The French debated where to rebuild the fort. When rule of the area reverted to the French crown in the 1730s, officials began to discuss construction of a stone fortress. The government in New Orleans wanted to move the garrison permanently to Kaskaskia, but the local commandant argued for a location near the original site.</p><br>
<p>The government decided to rebuild a fort in stone near the first forts rather than at Kaskakia. Construction began in 1753 and was mostly completed in 1756; however, construction continued at the site for another four years. The limestone fort had walls 15-ft (3 m)-high and 3-ft (1 m)-thick, enclosing an area of 4 acres (16,000 m²). The stone for construction was quarried in bluffs about two or three miles (4 km) distant and had to be ferried across a small lake.</p><br>
<h3>British rule</h3><br>
<p>In 1763 the Treaty of Paris was signed following the Seven Years&#39; War (French and Indian War) and the French transferred control of the Illinois Country east of the Mississippi to Great Britain. (Spain had been granted the western part of the Illinois Country—also known as Upper Louisiana—in the 1762 Treaty of Fontainebleau.) The stone fort had served as center of French administration of the region for only twenty years.</p><br>
<p>The British had difficulty getting a regiment to their newly acquired fort, but on October 10, 1765, a small detachment of the 42nd Royal Highland Regiment commanded by Captain Thomas Stirling took control of the fort and surrounding area. The 42nd was shortly replaced by the 34th Regiment. French Canadian settlers were ordered to leave or get a special license to remain. Many Canadien settlers moved to the more congenial culture of St. Louis. The 34th Regiment of Foot renamed the installation Fort Cavendish, after its colonel. However, the post was known as Ft. Chartres from 1768 on, after the 34th were replaced by the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment of Foot</p><br>
<p>18th (Royal Irish) Regiment under the command of Lt. Col. Wilkins. The British, abandoned the post in May 1772 when the majority of the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment was ordered back to Philadelphia. A small party under Capt Hugh Lord remained at Kaskaskia until May 1776.</p><br>
<h3>Ruin</h3><br>
<p>The Mississippi continued to take its toll after the fort was abandoned. In 1772 the south wall and bastion fell into the river. The remaining walls deteriorated, and visitors noted trees growing in them by the 1820s. Locals carted away stones for construction over the years. By 1900 the walls were gone. The only part of the original fort that remained was the stone building that had served as the powder magazine.</p><br>
<h3>Reconstruction</h3><br>
<p>The State of Illinois acquired the ruins in 1913 as a historic site and restored the powder magazine in 1917. The powder magazine is thought to be the oldest existing building in the state of Illinois. In the 1920s foundations of the fort&#39;s buildings and walls were exposed. In the late 1920s and through the 1930s, the US WPA rebuilt the gateway and two stone buildings.</p><br>
<p>A combination museum and office building, constructed in 1928 on the foundation of an original fort building, houses exhibits depicting French life at Fort de Chartres. The large stone "Guards House," reconstructed in 1936, contains a Catholic chapel furnished in the style of the 1750s, along with a priests room, a gunners room, an officer-of-the-day room, and a guard&#39;s room. Also on the grounds are an operating bake oven, a garden shed built of upright logs in French Colonial poteaux-sur-solle (French: "post on sill") construction, and a kitchen garden with raised beds of produce typical of French 18th-century Illinois.</p><br>
<p>Partial reconstruction of the forts walls on the original foundations followed in 1989. The frames of some additional buildings were erected as a display of the post-and-beam construction techniques used for the originals. Other buildings foundations and cellars were exposed for educational display as well.</p><br>
<p>Today the site has a museum and small gift shop. It plays host each June to a Rendezvous that is said to be one of the largest and oldest in the country celebrating frontier French and Indian culture.</p><br>
<p>The site is protected by modern levees, but the Mississippi River is still an occasional menace. The flood of 1993 breached the levee and sent waters fifteen feet deep to lap at the top of the walls.</p><br>
<p>Sierra de Gata  is one of the main mountain ranges in the Sistema Central, Spain. The highest point is Peña Canchera .</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The Sierra de Gata is located in the northwest of the province of Cáceres, which is in the autonomous community of Extremadura. It borders with Portugal on the west in the area of the Portuguese Serra da Malcata Natural Reserve.</p><br>
<p>Sierra de Gata is also the name of a comarca that includes of 20 municipalities located roughly in the same area as the mountains. The municipality of Moraleja is included in the Sierra de Gata comarca, even though it is geographically not in the mountainous area of the Sierra de Gata itself.</p><br>
<h3>Peaks</h3><br>
<p>The most important mountains of Sierra de Gata are (from West to East):</p><br>
<p>Mesas (1,265 m)</p><br>
<p>El Espinazo (1,330 m)</p><br>
<p>Jálama (1,492 m)</p><br>
<p>Jañona (1,367 m)</p><br>
<p>Bolla Chica (1,408 m)</p><br>
<p>Bolla (1,519 m)</p><br>
<p>Arrobuey (1,412 m)</p><br>
<p>La Corredera (1,456 m)</p><br>
<p>Peña Canchera (1,592 m)</p><br>
<p>Alpamayo  or Shuyturaju  is one of the most conspicuous peaks in the Cordillera Blanca of the Peruvian Andes. Alpamayo Creek originates northwest of it.</p><br>
<p>In July 1966, the German magazine "Alpinismus", published a photo of Alpamayo taken by American photographer Leigh Ortenburger accompanied by an article on a survey among mountaineering experts, who chose Alpamayo as "The Most Beautiful Mountain in the World".</p><br>
<h2>Climbing history and routes</h2><br>
<p>Most popular routes start from the village of Caraz, on the north of the Cordillera Blanca. A French-Belgian expedition including George and Claude Kogan claimed to have made the first ascent in 1951. After studying the photos in George Kogan&#39;s book The Ascent of Alpamayo, the German team of G. Hauser, F. Knauss, B. Huhn & H. Wiedmann came to the conclusion that the 1951 team did not reach the actual summit, thereby making their ascent via the north ridge in 1957 the first.</p><br>
<p>The most common climbing route, known as the Ferrari route, is situated on the southwest face of the mountain. It was opened in 1975 by a group of Italian alpinists led by Casimiro Ferrari. It is considered a difficult climb, demanding good crampon and ice-climbing technique. There are incomparable views of steep ice faces, penitentes, gigantic white walls and ridges like those of Huandoy Norte, Artesonraju and Huascaran Norte, similar to the finest of the Himalayan scenery. There are also at least six other alternative climbing routes, the second most popular being the Vasque-French route.</p><br>
<p>Tzanata  is an inland village in the southeast of Kefalonia, one of the Ionian Islands of Greece. It is part of the community of Poros within the Eleios-Pronnoi municipal unit. It is situated 3 km southwest of Poros, 25 km southeast of Sami and 36 km east of Argostoli.</p><br>
<p>Along with the neighbouring villages of Agia Eirini and Kampitsata, it is situated in a fertile plain south of the Atros hill. The village has a small school, community centre and community clinic; a sports stadium to serve the local area is slowly being completed. A mineral water spring (vrysi) fed from the ‘bottomless’ Avithos lake at Agios Nikolaos feeds a fountain in the plane tree sheltered square where the village festivals, served by souvlaki stalls and the adjacent taverna, are held in the summer months. Water from the surrounding mountains also feeds two reservoirs just outside the village, one completed in 2005 to feed the burgeoning summer demands of nearby Skala.</p><br>
<p>In 1991 archaeologist Lazaros Kolonas, excavating in the Broutzi area of Tzanata, discovered a tholos (beehive) tomb from the Mycenaean period measuring 6.80 meters in diameter. Despite a claim that it is the burial place of Odysseus, it is generally believed to be the tomb of earlier royalty, circa 1400 BC. Nevertheless, it is the most important historical find on Kefalonia to date. The site is signposted from the Tzanata-Poros road.</p><br>
<p>As the road to Poros enters the impressive Poros gorge, there is a rough vehicular track leading 4.5 km to Atros, the oldest monastery and surviving structure on Kefalonia.</p><br>
<h2>Transport</h2><br>
<p>Served by the fairly reliable, but infrequent, Argostoli – Poros bus.</p><br>
<h2>Population</h2><br>
<p>North Stradbroke Island , colloquially Straddie or North Straddie, is an island that lies within Moreton Bay in the Australian state of Queensland, 30 km southeast of the capital Brisbane. Before 1896 the island was part of the Stradbroke Island. In that year a storm separated it from South Stradbroke Island, forming the Jumpinpin Channel. The Quandamooka people are the traditional owners of North Stradbroke island.</p><br>
<p>At 275.2 km&sup2, it is the second largest sand island in the world. On the island there are three small towns, a number of lakes and beaches along most of the seaward coastline with rocky outcrops at Point Lookout. An Aboriginal presence on the island has been long and ongoing, resulting in a successful native title determination. Tourism is a major and growing industry on the island. The island has been the site for sand mining for more than sixty years. Tourism and currently mining are the island&#39;s main industries.</p><br>
<h2>Geography and ecology</h2><br>
<p>North Stradbroke Island is the second largest sand island in the world. North Stradbroke, South Stradbroke and Moreton Island act as a barrier between Moreton Bay and the Coral Sea.</p><br>
<p>The island is about 38 km long and 11 km wide with an area of circa 275 km&sup2; and a maximum elevation of 239 m. The climate of North Stradbroke Island is sub-tropical with warm, moist summers and mild winters. Average annual rainfall is 1,587 mm and mean annual maximum temperature is 25 &deg;C</p><br>
<p>The population of the island at the was 117, but the number of people on the island swells significantly during the holiday season. The island is only accessible by vehicular or passenger ferries leaving from Cleveland.</p><br>
<p>There are three townships on the island. Dunwich is the largest and has most of the islands services including a school, medical centre, local museum and the University of Queenslands Moreton Bay Research Station. Point Lookout (referred to locally as the point) is on the surf side of the island and is the major tourist destination in the holiday season. The third is Amity Point which is much smaller and a popular fishing spot on the island. Flinders Beach is a small settlement of mostly holiday houses located on the main beach between Amity and Point Lookout.</p><br>
<p>The whole of the island is part of the Redland City local government area, and is incorporated as part of Division 2. The two largest lakes on the island are Brown Lake and Blue Lake.</p><br>
<p>In January 2014, about 60% of the island&#39;s bushland was consumed by bushfires, later to regenerate.</p><br>
<h3>Beaches</h3><br>
<p>Five main beaches provide fishing, surfing and water opportunities on North Stradbroke Island. These are Main Beach which is 32 km long and good for surfing, Cylinder Beach which is a protected swimming beach with a smaller swell, Home Beach which is popular with swimmers, Frenchmans Beach/Deadmans Beach with rock pools but no lifesaving service and Flinders Beach which offers good swimming and beach camping. Main Beach is also the location of the entry to the Keyhole Track, which is one of the top 4WD tracks near Brisbane. The entrance is near Point Lookout to the south.</p><br>
<h3>Lakes, springs and wetlands</h3><br>
<p>North Stradbroke Island has over 100 freshwater lakes and wetlands and contains significant groundwater resources which are accessed by local communities and a sand mining company, Sibelco Australia. In addition, a significant volume of groundwater is exported to the mainland. While there is the potential for expanded groundwater use, because so little is known about groundwater-dependent water bodies and ecosystems any expanded groundwater use is suspended. Dependent ecosystems include freshwater and estuarine wetlands, mangrove and paperbark communities, and surface-water fauna. Many of the wetlands are places for threatened migratory wading birds, including 34 species listed by JAMBA and CAMBA Moreton Bay RAMSAR area, Marine, migratory (EPBC Act).</p><br>
<h4>Blue Lake</h4><br>
<p>Blue Lake, one of the largest lakes on the island, is protected within the Blue Lake National Park and is of cultural significance to the Quandamooka people of Stradbroke Island. It is a spring-fed lake relying on the stable aquifer feeding it. This stable hydrology means it has been untouched by climate change and appears to be in the same condition as it was 7,500 years ago. Blue Lake has been an important climate refuge for the freshwater biota of the region, and with appropriate management, the lake could continue relatively unchanged for hundreds, possibly thousands of years to come.</p><br>
<h4>Brown Lake</h4><br>
<p>Brown Lake is a perched lake which retains its water due to a layer of leaves lining the lake floor and is of cultural significance to the Quandamooka people of Stradbroke Island. The precipitated matter eventually forms an impermeable layer, preventing water from percolating to the watertable.</p><br>
<h4>Eighteen Mile Swamp</h4><br>
<p>The Eighteen Mile Swamp is the largest of its kind in the world and, in particular, is a fine and extensive representation of a coastal freshwater swamp. It is unusual for its size and dimensions (very long and narrow), covering 30 km&sup2; and is considered to be very young (500-6,000 years) compared with similar swamps. On 27 March 2011, the area was declared a national park, named Naree Budjong Djara National Park, My Mother Earth, by the Quandamooka people, the Traditional Owners of Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island), who are engaged in its joint management with the Queensland State government. The wetland is in close proximity to the extensive Enterprise Mine.</p><br>
<p>The 18-mile swamp is home to many endangered, rare species, including the threatened Cryptocarya foetida whose habitat is the notophyll vine forest found at the foot and lower slope of parabolic high dunes on the west of the wetland. These high dunes on the west of Eighteen mile swamp provide excellent examples of long parabolic dunes migrating across North Stradbroke island from the south-east to the north-west. This migration has buried earlier positions of the west coast escarpment to form complex hydrological systems with the ancient dunes. No comparative examples of the phenomenon are seen on Moreton and Fraser Islands.</p><br>
<h4>Myora Springs and Myora Creek Swamp</h4><br>
<p>Myora Springs is a unique wetland site on the North West side of North Stradbroke Island, of particular cultural significance to the Quandamooka people as a sacred gathering site, and is also a declared fish habitat area. Myora Springs is known to be essential habitat for the vulnerable water mouse (Xeromys myoides) and the endangered Swamp Orchid (Phaius australis).</p><br>
<h4>Lake Kounpee</h4><br>
<p>Another perched lake, Lake Kounpee was partially drained after sand mining operations breached the impervious layer in 1987. CRL spent over $300,000 in the 10 years following this in attempts to fix the damage, and now acknowledge they can not repair the damage to the lake – “turning a clear freshwater lake into a reedy waterhole”.</p><br>
<h4>Other lakes and wetlands</h4><br>
<p>Other perched lakes include Black Snake Lagoon, Ibis lagoon, Welsby Lagoon, Native Companion Lagoon and the ephemeral Tortoise Lagoon within Blue Lake National Park. Amity swamp suffered, in 1991, when up to 100,000 litres of diesel spilled from the sand mining company, Consolidated Rutile Limited. This was not reported until 1994, the same year CRL was awarded a commendation in the inaugural State Government Award for Environmental Excellence. It was not until 1997 that the incident was acknowledged in CRL&#39;s Annual Report stating that the spill was expected to be cleared by 1999 - eight years after it occurred. The sand mining company was never fined by the Department of Mines and Energy for these environmental incidents and continues operating.</p><br>
<p>Flinders Swamp and its drainage lines is home to the rare acid frog (Litotia cooloolensis) and the area includes habitats for relict populations of the burrowing skink (Anomalopus truncatus). The Keyholes are a series of clear, freshwater lakes at the northern end of the 18 Mile Swamp popular with visiting canoeists. As the Yarraman Mine is now operating close to these lakes, public access has been closed, as it is a prohibited mining area.</p><br>
<h2>Fauna</h2><br>
<p>North Stradbroke Island is home to rare, vulnerable, endangered and near threatened animals.</p><br>
<p>Examples include:</p><br>
<p>Migratory wading birds, including 34 species listed by JAMBA and CAMBA Moreton Bay RAMSAR area.</p><br>
<p>Crinia tinnula&#39; Wallum Froglet: These occur at Dunwich, Amity, Yarraman Lakes, Blue Lake, Eighteen Mile Swamp, Brown Lake, Amity Swamp, Tortoise Lagoon and Flinders Beach Wetlands.</p><br>
<p>Litoria cooloolensis Cooloola Sedge Frog: These occur at Eighteen Mile Swamp, north of the causeway, Brown Lake, Dunwich, Point Lookout, Tortoise Lagoon, Blue Lake, Welsby Lagoon and Yarraman Lakes. The population of L. cooloolensis on North Stradbroke Island has also been called Litoria sp. cf. cooloolensis (North Stradbroke Is) and may represent an unnamed species endemic to the island, as it is genetically distinct and has a different mating call from the other population of L. cooloolensis on the Sunshine Coast.</p><br>
<p>Nannoperca oxleyana Oxleyan Pygmy Perch: There are two genetically distinct populations, east and west, but in very low abundance. The eastern population is at Eighteen Mile Swamp and Blue Lake, though only one specimen was collected there by McGregor et al. in 2008. The western population is at Little Canalpin Creek.</p><br>
<h2>Flora</h2><br>
<p>There are 780 plant species recorded for the island, 599 native and 181 introduced species. Of these 14 species are classified as threatened or near threatened species under the Queensland Nature Conservation Act 1992, two of them are endemic to the island.</p><br>
<p>Examples include:</p><br>
<p>Notophyll vine forest on parabolic high dunes: These occur on the foot and lower slope of high dunes on the west of Eighteen Mile Swamp, Swan Bay area and are the habitat for rare and threatened flora including Cryptocarya foetida.</p><br>
<p>Acacia baueri Bauer&#39;s Wattle: These occur in seasonally waterlogged sands in wallum areas such as Canalpin Swamp and Eighteen Mile Swamp.</p><br>
<p>Durringtonia paludosa Durringtonia: These occur in Myora Swamp and Eighteen Mile Swamp, and, in 1993 Bostock and Thomas recorded the first specimens on NSI since 1935.</p><br>
<p>Phaius australis Swamp Orchid: These occur at Flinders Beach Wetlands, Myora and Eighteen Mile swamps.</p><br>
<p>Thelypteris confluens Soft Swamp Fern: These occur found in permanently swamp areas associated with species of Baumea and Cladium at Flinders Beach Wetlands and Eighteen Mile Swamp.</p><br>
<p>Arthraxon hispidus Hairy-joint grass may no longer be present on the island.</p><br>
<p>Blandifordia grandiflora Christmas Bells</p><br>
<p>Eleocarpus difformis Underwater Spikerush</p><br>
<p>Goodenia arenicola</p><br>
<p>Olearia hygrophila Swamp Daisy</p><br>
<p>Persicaria elatior Smartweed</p><br>
<p>Phaius bernaysi Swamp Orchid likely to be a yellow colour form of P. australis, it is likely that no mainland populations remain of this colour form.</p><br>
<p>Pterostylis nigricans Brownhood Orchid</p><br>
<p>Schoenus scabripes Bog Rush</p><br>
<p>Thesium australe Toadflax</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Aboriginal name of the island is Minjerribah, but in 1827 Captain Henry John Rous, who had the title of Viscount Dunwich, commander of HMS Rainbow, the first British ship of war to enter Moreton Bay, named the island after his father the Earl of Stradbroke, the town after his title, the entrance channel after himself and Rainbow Beach after his ship. Three shipwrecked sailors, Thomas Pamphlett, John Finnegan and Richard Parsons, spent time on Stradbroke Island after they were washed ashore in 1823. The local Aboriginal people supplied them with food and shelter and even gave them a canoe to help them on their way. Before these three, Matthew Flinders called in at Stradbroke Island for fresh water and also mapped a large section of Moreton Bay. Flinders was impressed by the Stradbroke Aboriginal peoples health and hospitality. Well known local historian, Thomas Welsby, records an Aboriginal oral tradition that there was an even earlier contact with European shipwreck survivors who walked into one of the Aboriginal camps after their ship was wrecked on the ocean side of Stradbroke Island. This tradition states that one of the men was named Juan and the other Woonunga. In 1890 a member of the Campbell family, one of Stradbrokes oldest mixed blood families, told Welsby that the remains of the ship were still visible in the 18 Mile Swamp and that the remains were of English oak. This story gives rise to a local legend that the remains of a Spanish or Portuguese shipwreck known as the Stradbroke Island Galleon exist somewhere in the 18 Mile Swamp.</p><br>
<p>North Stradbroke Island&#39;s most famous local was Oodgeroo Noonuccal, formerly known as Kath Walker, the Aboriginal poet and native-rights campaigner. She was one of the prime movers of the movement that led to the 1997 landmark agreement between the local government council and the aboriginal people of the area that claimed rights over the island and parts of Moreton Bay.</p><br>
<h2>Indigenous inhabitants</h2><br>
<p>The indigenous Quandamooka people are made up of the Noonuccal, Goenpul and Ngugi tribes. Quandamooka is the Aboriginal name for Moreton Bay; however North Stradbroke Island is also inhabited by the Quandamooka people. The Federal Court determinations outline native title rights and interest over land and waters on and around North Stradbroke Island. According to the Redland City Council, the Quandamooka People&#39;s native title consent determinations cover the majority of North Stradbroke Island, Peel Island, Goat Island, Bird Island, Stingaree Island, Crab Island and the water surrounding Moreton Bay.</p><br>
<h2>Sand mining</h2><br>
<h3>History</h3><br>
<p>In 1949, Australian Consolidated Industries (ACI) commenced sand mining operations on North Stradbroke Island. Consolidated Rutile Limited (CRL), an Australian public company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, took over these sand mining operations in 1966 and operated two of Stradbrokes three sand mines. CRL sand mined mineral sands. From 2001, the third mine, a silica sand mine, has been operated by Unimin Australia Limited, part of mining multi-national SCR-Sibelco, a company privately owned by the Belgian Emsens family. In 1998, Iluka Resources Limited, a publicly listed Australian company, acquired majority interest in CRL. Unimin Australia Limited acquired Iluka Resources majority interest in CRL holdings in 2009, and, in December 2010, the company changed its name to Sibelco Australia (after its Belgian parent company). Iluka Resources remains the overseas selling agent for mineral sands from Sibelco Australias Enterprise and Yarraman mines.</p><br>
<p>Mining began in the 1950s on the beachfront and this caused minimal disruption to the environment. However, as mining moved into the interior of the island in the late 1960s and increased in scale and size in the 1970s, the impact on Stradbrokes ecosystem increased with Consolidated Rutile Limited (CRL) starting dredge-mining on Stradbrokes high dunes. There are several accounts from sand mining employees of unusual artifacts being found during dredging operations. Dredge mining involves levelling the high dunes and stripping vegetation to create the dredge pond and this dramatically changed the landscape of Stradbroke. The dredge is continually moving, leaving the tailings sand, so, although the mined dunes are revegetated and stabilised, the original ecology of the Island cannot be replaced.</p><br>
<p>In 1991, the Australian Government and sand mining companies ACI and CRL attempted to reach an agreement on surrender of some or parts of mining lease tenements to form a national park. Half of North Stradbroke Island was to become a national park in return for a guarantee that mining could continue for the life of several mines in high-grade areas. The agreement was not signed by either of the mining companies nor the Government and has lapsed.</p><br>
<h3>Current situation</h3><br>
<p>Sibelco Australia operates two sand mining sites on the island - Enterprise and Vance (the Yarraman mine closed in August 2015).</p><br>
<p>Mineral sands and silica sands at Vance mine, near Dunwich, are currently being mined from the surface. Rutile, zircon and ilmenite are dredged from the Enterprise Mine, southeast of Dunwich (and previously the Yarraman Mine, south of Point Lookout). Enterprise is the largest mine on the island and accounted for 60% of the island&#39;s production in 2011. It operates in close proximity to the Eighteen mile Swamp along a migrating dredge path with a buffer zone from the wetlands prescribed by the Queensland Government. Conservationists have expressed concern that these buffer zones, the smallest of which is 25 m, are inadequate to protect the RAMSAR listed wetlands from pollution and will fail to protect the waterways, citing evidence from the 1976 inquiry into sandmining on Fraser Island which found even 500 m buffer between areas mined and wetlands was ‘totally inadequate’.</p><br>
<p>In 2009, 500,000 t of minerals were being produced by mining about 50 million tonnes of sand. Sibelco Australia produces 500000 to 600000 t of sand annually (approximately one per cent of North Stradbroke Island&#39;s total sand). The silica extracted is used mainly in glass production, but also in digital tablets such as iPads. The mineral sands are used in paints, plastics, metals, cosmetics and biotechnological devices (such as prosthesis), both for domestic and international markets. A 2010 KPMG assessment, commissioned by Sibelco Australia, found 95% of revenue from NSI sand mining stays in the Australian community.</p><br>
<p>Under current Queensland Government legislation, the Enterprise mine is to close by 2019, and the Vance mine by 2025.</p><br>
<h3>Environmental and community concerns</h3><br>
<p>In 1991, up to 100,000 litres of diesel spilled from the sand mining company, Consolidated Rutile Limited into Amity wetlands. This was not reported until 1994, the same year CRL was awarded a commendation in the inaugural State Government Award for Environmental Excellence. It was not until 1997 that the incident was acknowledged in CRLs Annual Report stating that the spill was expected to be cleared by 1999 - eight years after it occurred. The sand mining company was never fined by the Department of Mines and Energy for these environmental incidents and continues operating. In 2008, CRL received the Premiers Environment Protection Agency Sustainability Award for Resources industries for its rehabilitation processes. The award is given to a company that demonstrates leadership in environmental practices and commitment to progressive rehabilitation and long-term sustainability.</p><br>
<p>At that time (according to the Stradbroke Island Management Organisation, an environmental watch-dog organisation) two-thirds of the island were covered by mining leases.</p><br>
<p>In late 2009, CRL, which became a subsidiary of Unimin Australia, itself a subsidiary of Sibelco, after being purchased from Iluka Resources, was charged with illegal sand mining after it was alleged to have sold sand extracted from the island, to the building industry for the production of glass without the correct permit. Sibelco appealed, on technical grounds, the Magistrate’s decision that it had a case to answer on the criminal charges for the illegal selling of sand. On 22 May 2014, the Court of Appeal heard the appeal and delivered its judgement, all on the same day. It dismissed Sibelco&#39;s appeal against criminal proceedings. The final day of this now five-year-long criminal trial was scheduled for 22 August 2014, in the Warwick Magistrates Court.</p><br>
<p>In another legal matter, the High Court of Australia ruled against Sibelco in June 2011 over a bid to sell sand to construction companies.</p><br>
<p>In 2009 it became public knowledge that the mining leases on North Stradbroke island had also expired for the areas of operation of the Enterprise and Yarraman Mines. This led to the June 2010 announcement by the then Premier Anna Bligh that sand mining on the island would be phased out by 2027 and the mined land and RAMSAR listed wetlands would become national park, eventually to cover 80% of the island. This proposal relied on renewing expired mining leases under the Mineral Resources Act.</p><br>
<p>The ensuing public discussion around future land use saw concern expressed by some residents as to the impact on the islands economy. and by conservationists who saw it as sand mining business as usual, as the non-renewal of expired leases would effectively end mining around 2014. Conservationists campaigned with the simple message that 2027 was, in fact, the forecast date for the exhaustion of the mineral deposits on NSI as already anticipated by the Enterprise and Yarraman mine operators, citing details from CRLs letter of 13 May 2009 to the Australian Securities Exchange that mineral sand mining as an economic force on the island would end by 2027. Sibelco Australia&#39;s</p><br>
<p>commercial interests benefited by continued access to the mineral sand deposits on the expired leases until 2027, and, in 2010, Sibelco Australia commissioned Synergies Economic Consulting to report on the economic effect of an earlier closure of sand mining on NSI. The consultant&#39;s report predicted an earlier closure of sand mining would prompt a rise in the price of ferry transport services, electricity services and fuel for the 2000 residents, with total employment on the island anticipated to drop by 30%.</p><br>
<p>Mining lease ML1117, the largest expired lease, contains the extensive Enterprise dredge mine, with a surface area of 1 km&sup2; and a depth of 100 m. The application process for the renewal of mining leases requires the Minister for Mines for the Queensland government to consider future land uses of the area covered by the expired mining lease, under special section 286A of the Mineral Resources Act. The Minister can not renew an expired lease if further mining would be inappropriate having regard to future uses of the land. Since it was last renewed in 1986, parts of ML1117 had been included in the national estate because of its high conservation value, These parties had publicly flagged they would certainly use that right, given the good prospects of overturning the lease renewal decision upon judicial review, and bringing about the cessation of sand mining on the island around 2014.</p><br>
<p>In response to the public debate, and to the very real likelihood that expired mining leases would not be successfully renewed under the Minerals Resources Act if proper regard was given to future land use, on 22 March 2011 then Premier Anna Bligh announced that the Enterprise Mine would continue the operating until 2019, the Yarraman mine would operate until 2015 and the silica mine until 2025.</p><br>
<p>Under the State Government&#39;s Stradbroke Island Sustainability and Protection Act 2011, 80% of the island will become national park by 2026. The national park will be jointly managed by the Quandamooka people under the. The State Government planned to develop tourism opportunities by creating new walking tracks, camping grounds and recreational facilities. However, economic modeling undertaken by consultants commissioned by Sibelco Australia, Synergies Economic Consulting, states the growth in labour demand from tourism expansion is not expected to be rapid. This was because, at the time of the report in 2011, there was an overall weakness in domestic tourism across Australia.</p><br>
<p>In January 2012, then state opposition LNP leader Campbell Newman announced that if elected his party would restore rights around mining leases to what they were and Sibelco Australia supported his electoral campaign by posting letters to voters by "mine supporters" without required disclosure, urging a vote for Campbell Newman. Sibelco belatedly obtained authorisation and in 2013 filed a disclosure revealing it had spent more than $90,000 on postage and printing. However, this election promise was not fulfilled, with no restoration of rights to citizens extinguished by the North Stradbroke Island Sustainability Act. Instead, in 2013 the LNP Government passed legislation that allows sand mining on the island for an extra 16 years from 2019 to 2035. For mining to continue past 2019 at the Enterprise sand mine, the lease owner (currently Sibelco) would have to apply for an extension in 2019 under the legislative amendments passed by the Newman government in November 2013. However, if the amendments are repealed by a future government before 2019, the mine will close on 31 December 2019, the closure date legislated by the government in April, 2011</p><br>
<p>The circumstances leading up to this legislative amendment were referred to Queenslands Crime and Misconduct Commission. On 6 June 2014 North Stradbroke Islands traditional owners, the Quandamooka people, initiated a legal challenge saying that the LNP Government&#39;s extension of mining contravened the Federal Native Title Act.</p><br>
<p>The public debate concerning sand-mining re-opened in late 2012 when conservationists and indigenous owners, the Quandamooka people of NSI, opposed to sand mining discovered that the Enterprise mine had commenced operation in 2004 without Federal government approval under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). As the Enterprise mine operates in close proximity to the RAMSAR protected wetlands, experts have advised that the mine is having significant impacts on the adjoining wetland as water used in the sand mines operation flows into these protected areas. The wetlands are part of complex hydrological systems forming art of the ancient dunes and the long term impacts on the wetlands are unknown. As of August 2013, Friends of Stradbroke Island Inc was preparing to take Sibelco Australia to the Federal Court, as the Federal Government had not taken any steps to enforce Sibelcos compliance with Australian environment protection laws.</p><br>
<h2>Community fund</h2><br>
<p>In 2011, Sibelco announced the formation of a new community fund, funded from the profits of sand mining - the Belgian family-owned mining company has made profits of approximately $1.5Billion dollars from its sand mining lease on Stradbroke Island. According to the fund, it "is the largest community investment ever made in the history of the Bay Islands". The fund is administered by an Advisory Board, constituted by two members from each of the island&#39;s townships and an executive chairperson. However, no Quandamooka people, who had their native title claim recognised in July 2011, after a 16-year proceeding, are members of the board of this community fund.</p><br>
<p>As at October 2017, there is no reference to the community fund on the Sibelco website.</p><br>
<p>Great Karimun  or just Karimun is one of the islands in the Riau Islands province of Indonesia, administratively part of Karimun Regency. It lies about 37 km southwest of Singapore, 54 km west of Batam, 24 km northeast of Rangsang Island and 32 km north of Kundur Island.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>In the past, Karimun was the destination of foreign traders and the Malay Kings. Stamford Raffles is believed to have considered Karimun island instead of Singapore when looking for a settlement.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The island&#39;s main city is Tanjung Balai Karimun., the regency of Karimun had a population of 272,985 with the majority of the people living in Great Karimun. Notable landmarks on the island include Mount Jantan, the beaches of Pelawan and Pongkar, and the Pongkar Waterfall.</p><br>
<h2>Economics</h2><br>
<p>The island has strategic geographical importance, as it is near the Straits of Malacca, an international shipping route. As the island is strategically located at the border of Singapore and Johor (in Malaysia), Karimun being a part of the Riau Islands also is included the SIJORI Growth Triangle partnership. SIJORI (Singapore-Johor-Riau Islands) Growth Triangle is a strategic partnership among Singapore, Johor and Riau Islands that combine the individual and collective strength to improve the subregion attractiveness to investors from both the region and international. SIJORI links the infrastructure, capital, expertise and rich culture of Singapore with the natural resources, lands and labour resources of Johor and Riau Islands.</p><br>
<p>However, due to the stronger ties between Singapore and Malaysia, Karimun is losing its economic attraction to Singaporean investments. Another reason for the loss in attractiveness is the lack of adequate infrastructure in Karimun, especially electricity supply and the lack of transparency in the government administration.</p><br>
<h2>Natural resources</h2><br>
<p>Due to large scale indiscriminate fishing activity near the island recently, fish stocks have been depleted, and thus the fishing businesses have declined considerably.</p><br>
<p>The main export of the island is its granite which is one of the best quality in the world.</p><br>
<p>Sand has also been constantly exported, mainly to Singapore for land reclamation. Indonesian has however limited sand exports over concerns with Singapore&#39;s reclamation projects, and banned them outright in the beginning of 2007. Singapore now faces a crisis with many upcoming building developments.</p><br>
<h2>Free Trade Zone</h2><br>
<p>On 29 June 2007 the Indonesian government conferred enclave Free Trade Zone status on Karimun; a move intended to address the issue of legal certainty for investors.</p><br>
<p>Under the plan Karimun will be turned into shipyard, metal, component, agricultural, and marine produce industrial development centres.</p><br>
<p>The Maruia River rises in the Spenser Mountains, travelling first to the southwest before turning north for the last 50 km of its length. In its upper reaches, the river&#39;s valley forms the western approach to the Lewis Pass, the northernmost of the three main mountain passes across the Southern Alps. Hot springs are to be found close to the river in its upper reaches, and the spa of Maruia Springs is located five kilometres to the west of the Lewis Pass, 50 km southeast of Reefton.</p><br>
<p>3 km east of Springs Junction, the Maruia River flows through the deep and narrow Sluice Box gorge. The river cuts through a band of marble amongst the otherwise predominant greywacke. The Sluice Box, at the junction with the Alfred River, separates the upper and middle section of the Maruia Valley. The area offers a Department of Conservation campsite and is the start of the Lake Daniell Track.</p><br>
<p>Further downstream, 8 kilometres southwest of Murchison, the Maruia Falls were created by the 1929 Murchison earthquake when a slip blocked the original channel.</p><br>
<p>The Grey River / Māwheranui is located in the northwest of the South Island of New Zealand. It rises in Lake Christabel, one of numerous small lakes on the western side of the Southern Alps,12 kilometres southwest of the Lewis Pass, and runs westward for 120 kilometres before draining into the Tasman Sea at Greymouth. The river was named by explorer Thomas Brunner in honour of New Zealand politician Sir George Grey. The official name of the river was changed to Grey River / Māwheranui in 1998 by way of the Ngai Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998. The Maori name for the river system and surrounding area is Māwhera, with Māwheranui being distinguished from the northern branch Little Grey River / Māwheraiti.</p><br>
<p>Numerous small rivers are tributaries of the Grey, and several of them also drain lakes. Notable among these are the Ahaura River and the Arnold River, the latter of which is the outflow of Lake Brunner, the largest lake of the northwest South Island. A small hydroelectric station is located on the river 25 kilometres upstream from the mouth of the river.</p><br>
<p>The Grey River&#39;s mouth is protected by a large sandbar, Greymouth bar, which is a notorious danger to shipping.</p><br>
<p>Raw sewage is discharged into the Grey River after heavy rainfall. Historically, sewage and stormwater from Greymouth, Cobden and Blaketown were discharged without treatment directly into the Grey River. Changes to the Grey District Council&#39;s wastewater schemes provide separation and treatment for sewage, except during periods of high rainfall, such as spring, when the capacity of the sewage treatment is exceeded.</p><br>
<p>Marshall Hall, Maryland is the site of the Marshall family mansion. It is now part of Piscataway Park operated by the National Park Service. Marshall Hall is located near Bryan&#39;s Road in Charles County, Maryland, next to the Potomac River, more or less across from Mount Vernon, Virginia, the home of George Washington. The home was one of the finest built on the Maryland shore of the Potomac in the early 18th century. The Marshall family were minor gentry and owned as many as 80 slaves by the early 19th century.</p><br>
<p>Soon after the Civil War, the site became a highly frequented picnic ground because of its proximity to Mount Vernon. Steamship lines, originally established to ferry tourists from Washington D.C. and Alexandria to/from Mount Vernon, discovered a new source of revenue in the park across from the historic estate. In the 1880s, the Mount Vernon and Marshall Hall Steamboat Company ran large ships between Washington, Alexandria, Mount Vernon and Marshall Hall: the round-trip fare at that time was $1, and included admission to Mount Vernon. Washingtonians fled the summer heat of the city for all sorts of events at the picnic grounds, from exclusive catered events to popular cultural events such as a swimming exhibition given by the daredevil Robert Emmet Odlum in the summer of 1878, seven years before his death at the Brooklyn Bridge. Marshall Hall later became one of the first amusement parks in the Washington, D.C., area in the 1890s, offering numerous "appliances of entertainment" (as one deed described them) for visitors who wanted to do more than picnic, many of them arriving by river boat. Starting in the 1870s, annual jousting tournaments took place at the site. New attractions were added throughout the 20th century, and gambling became a major draw for a while after World War II. Between 1949 and 1968, the Southern Maryland area offered the only legal slot machines in the United States outside of Nevada.</p><br>
<p>The National Park Service gained control of the park after Congress, acting upon a request from the Mount Vernon Ladies&#39; Association, mandated that the views from Mt. Vernon had to be protected and returned to something resembling the days when George Washington sat on his colonnaded porch and looked across the Potomac. The term "historic viewshed" was coined for this act of preservation. The Park Service tore down all vestiges of the amusement park in 1980, whose popularity had declined due to competition by much larger, newer parks. A fire destroyed much of the colonial house soon after. In January 2003, a truck driver slammed his rig through the remaining hulk. The damage done to the brick shell was repaired the following year.</p><br>
<p>Valley Forge National Historical Park is the site of the third winter encampment of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, taking place from December 19, 1777 to June 19, 1778. The National Historical Park preserves the site and interprets the history of the Valley Forge encampment. Originally Valley Forge State Park, it became a national historical park in 1976. The Park contains historical buildings, recreated encampment structures, memorials, museums, and recreation facilities.</p><br>
<p>The park encompasses 3,500 acre and is visited by over 1.2 million people each year. Visitors can see restored historic structures, reconstructed structures such as the iconic log huts, and monuments erected by the states from which the Continental soldiers came. Visitor facilities include a visitor center and museum featuring original artifacts, providing a concise introduction to the American Revolution and the Valley Forge encampment. Ranger programs, tours (walking and trolley), and activities are available seasonally. The park also provides 26 mi of hiking and biking trails, which are connected to a robust regional trails system. Wildlife watching, fishing, and boating on the nearby Schuylkill River also are popular.</p><br>
<h2>Historical encampment</h2><br>
<p>From December 19, 1777 to June 19, 1778, the main body of the Continental Army (approximately 12,000 troops) was encamped at Valley Forge. The site was chosen because it was between the seat of the Second Continental Congress in York, supply depots in Reading, and British forces in Philadelphia 18 mi away, which fell after the Battle of Brandywine. This was a time of great suffering for the army, but it was also a time of retraining and rejuvenation. The shared hardship of the officers and soldiers of the army, combined with Baron Friedrich von Steuben&#39;s professional military training program are considered key to the subsequent success of the Continental Army and marks a turning point in the Revolutionary War.</p><br>
<h2>Park history</h2><br>
<p>Valley Forge was established as the first state park of Pennsylvania in 1893 by the Valley Forge Park Commission (VFPC) "to preserve, improve, and maintain as a public park the site on which General George Washingtons army encamped at Valley Forge.". The area around Washingtons Headquarters was chosen as the park site. In 1923, the VFPC was brought under the Department of Forests and Waters and later incorporated into the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in 1971.</p><br>
<p>The park served as the location of the National Scout Jamboree in 1950, 1957, and 1964.</p><br>
<p>Valley Forge was designated a USA National Historic Landmark in 1961 and was listed in the initial National Register of Historic Places in 1966. The area covered by these listings goes outside what was the Valley Forge State Park boundaries to include four historic houses where the Marquis de Lafayette and other officers were quartered.</p><br>
<p>In 1976, Pennsylvania gave the park as a gift to the nation for the Bicentennial. The USA Congress passed a law, signed by President Gerald Ford on July 4, 1976, authorizing the addition of Valley Forge National Historical Park as the 283rd Unit of the National Park System.</p><br>
<h2>Features and facilities</h2><br>
<h3>Visitor Center</h3><br>
<p>The park features a visitor center, which acts as orientation for visitors to the site. The features of the center include a museum with artifacts found during excavations of the park, an interactive muster roll of Continental soldiers encamped at Valley Forge, ranger-led gallery programs and walks, a storytelling program, a photo gallery, a visitor information desk staffed by Park Rangers, Representatives from the Valley Forge Tourism and Convention Board, & Park Volunteers, and the Encampment Store for books and souvenirs. 90-minute Trolley tours of the park and bike rentals are available seasonally from this location. A short 18-minute film, "Valley Forge: A Winter Encampment" is shown in the park&#39;s theater next door.</p><br>
<h3>Headquarters buildings</h3><br>
<p>A key attraction of the park is the restored colonial home used by General George Washington as his headquarters during the encampment. Rehabilitation of the headquarters area was completed in summer 2009, and included the restoration of the old Valley Forge train station into an information center, new guided tours, new exhibits throughout the landscape, and the elimination of several acres of modern paving and restoration of the historic landscape. Quarters of other Continental Army generals are also in the park, including those of Huntington, Varnum, Lord Stirling, Lafayette, and Knox. Varnum&#39;s quarters is open on weekends during the summer.</p><br>
<h3>Reconstructed works and buildings</h3><br>
<p>Throughout the park there are reconstructed log cabins of the type thought to be used during the encampment. Earthworks, for the never needed defense of the encampment, are visible, including four redoubts, the ditch for the Inner Line Defenses, and a reconstructed abatis. The original redoubts and several redans on Route 23, Outer Line Drive, and Inner Line Drive were covered with sod to preserve them, but they are currently in need of further restoration. The original forges, located on Valley Creek, were burned by the British three months prior to Washingtons occupation of the park area. However, neither the Upper Forge site nor the Lower Forge site have been reconstructed. There are also several historical buildings that have not been made open to the public because of reasons such as their current state of disrepair. These include: Lord Stirlings Quarters, Knoxs Quarters, and the Von Steuben Memorial. Other historical buildings include the P.C. Knox Estate, Kennedy-Supplee Mansion and Potts Barn.</p><br>
<h3>Washington Memorial Chapel</h3><br>
<p>The Washington Memorial Chapel and National Patriots Bell Tower carillon sit atop a hill at the center of the present park. The chapel is the legacy of Rev. Dr. W. Herbert Burk. Inspired by Burks 1903 sermon on Washingtons birthday, the chapel is a functioning Episcopal Church, built as a tribute to Washington. Burk was also instrumental in the development of the park itself, including obtaining Washington&#39;s campaign tent and banner, which used to be on display in the Visitor Center, but now in the collection to be showcased in the new Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, starting in 2017. The chapel and attached bell tower are not technically part of the park, but serve the spiritual needs of the park and the community that surround it. The bell tower houses the DAR Patriot Rolls, listing those that served in the Revolutionary War, and the chapel grounds hosted the World of Scouting Museum.</p><br>
<h3>Memorial markers</h3><br>
<p>Sitting atop a hill at the intersection of the Outer Line of Defense with the Gulph Road, the National Memorial Arch dominates the southern portion of the park. It is dedicated "to the officers and private soldiers of the Continental Army December 19, 1777 – June 19, 1778." The arch was commissioned by an act of the 61st Congress in 1910 and completed in 1917. It is inscribed with George Washington&#39;s tribute to the perseverance and endurance of his army:</p><br>
<p>Visitors leaving the Visitor Center proceed along Outer Line Drive toward the arch. The drive is lined with large (~2 m high) memorial stones for each of the brigades, or "lines", that encamped there. Crossing Gulph Road at the arch, the drive proceeds through the Pennsylvania Columns and past the hilltop statue of Anthony Wayne on horse. More brigade stones line Port Kennedy Road.</p><br>
<h3>Mount Joy Observation Tower</h3><br>
<p>Atop Mount Joy, the highest elevation in the main park area, stood a steel observation tower. After a long climb up the steps, visitors were rewarded with a panoramic view of the Schuylkill and Great Valleys. The tower was closed in the 1980s due to deterioration, liability concerns, and the surrounding trees outgrowing the platform. The tower has since been removed, and it was shipped to a private area near Wellsboro, PA, where people can still climb it. The area where it stood is now only accessible by foot trail, the roads have been removed and the area is being given back to the woods.</p><br>
<h3>Trails</h3><br>
<p>There are 26 mi of hiking and biking trails within the park, such as the Valley Creek Trail and the River Trail. The main trail is the Joseph Plumb Martin Trail, which encircles 8.7 miles of the park. Portions of regional trails, including the Horse Shoe Trail and the Schuylkill River Trail, also run through the park. Detailed trail maps can be found at kiosks at trailheads, on the Park&#39;s website (www.nps.gov/vafo) and at the Welcome Center.</p><br>
<h3>Recreation</h3><br>
<p>The many trails in Valley Forge allow for different activities such as jogging, walking and biking. Other activities include horseback riding and canoeing/kayaking (though visitors must provide horses and boats). There are three picnic areas located on the site. In addition, Park Rangers dressed in Period Uniforms are stationed as the Muhlenburg Brigade Huts and Washington&#39;s Headquarters, ready to inform visitors about the historic events that happened on the site. The Valley Forge 5-Mile Revolutionary Run is also held in the park every April.</p><br>
<h2>Train station</h2><br>
<p>Near Washingtons Headquarters is the Valley Forge Train Station, now owned by the park. The station was completed in 1911 by the Reading Railroad and was the point of entry to the park for travelers who came by rail through the 1950s from Philadelphia, 23.7 mi distant. The station was restored in 2009 and is now being used as a museum and information center that offers visitors a better understanding of Washingtons Headquarters and the village of Valley Forge. Constructed of the same type stone as Washington&#39;s Headquarters, the building was erected on a large man-made embankment overlooking the headquarters site.</p><br>
<p>Near the Visitor Center is another station at Port Kennedy, on the same line. Also owned by the park, the station, both platforms and the former parking area are in a state of disrepair. Should the long-planned Schuylkill Valley Metro project come to fruition, this station could again connect the park to center city Philadelphia, Pottstown, and Reading with public transportation.</p><br>
<h2>Modern problems</h2><br>
<p>As a park in an increasingly urbanized area, Valley Forge faces problems including traffic, urban sprawl, and an overpopulation of white tail deer.</p><br>
<p>Valley Forge Park Road (PA Route 23), a heavily traveled two-lane commuter road, passes through the park and carries about six million vehicles per year of mostly commuter traffic. Efforts to divert the traffic have thus far been unsuccessful, owing to existing traffic volume on alternate routes. A consortium of local governments and state and federal agencies are working on approaches to traffic congestion throughout the area, particularly improvements to US 422.</p><br>
<p>In 2001, a privately held 62 acre tract of land within the authorized park boundaries was offered for sale. When the Park Service was unable to purchase it, it was sold to Toll Brothers, a real estate development company, for $2.5 million. It took a grass roots campaign to get the Federal Government to purchase the land from the developer two years later, for $7.5 million. In 2007, a non-profit organization – the American Revolution Center – purchased 78 acre of land within the park boundary with plans to construct a conference center, hotel, retail, campground and museum on the site. The National Parks Conservation Association and local citizens have sued Lower Providence Township over the zoning change that enabled this proposal. The two parties have come to an agreement, allowing NPS to keep the acres, and in exchange, has given the American Revolution Center the property of the former Visitor Center in Philadelphia, located at 3rd and Chestnut Streets, where it will build the Museum of the American Revolution.</p><br>
<p>An overpopulation of white tail deer has resulted in "changes in the species composition, abundance, and distribution of native plant communities and associated wildlife" in the park. In 2008 the National Park Service released a draft deer management plan and environmental impact statement for public review (open for public comment until 2/17/09). The intent of the controversial plan is to "support long-term protection, preservation, and restoration of native vegetation and other natural resources within the park." Hunting is expressly prohibited by the legislation that created the park, and action by Congress would be required before it could be sanctioned. Since the plan was put into place, natural habitats have been restored and vegetation not seen in the park for decades has begun to return.</p><br>
<p>The park also includes the site of the Ehret Magnesia Company, a former manufacturer of asbestos-insulated pipes. Pre-existing dolostone quarries were subsequently backfilled with asbestos-containing slurry waste materials. Those areas of the park are closed to visitors and an effort is underway at permanent remediation.</p><br>
<p>The Saco River is a river in northeastern New Hampshire and southwestern Maine in the United States. It drains a rural area of 1,703 square miles of forests and farmlands west and southwest of Portland, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean at Saco Bay, 136 mi from its source. It supplies drinking water to roughly 250,000 people in thirty-five towns; and historically provided transportation and water power encouraging development of the cities of Biddeford and Saco and the towns of Fryeburg and Hiram. The name "Saco" comes from the Eastern Abenaki word sɑkohki, meaning "land where the river comes out". The Jesuit Relations, ethnographic documents from the 17th century, refer to the river as Chouacoet.</p><br>
<h2>Course</h2><br>
<p>The river rises at Saco Lake in Crawford Notch in the White Mountains and flows generally south-southeast through Bartlett and Conway in Carroll County, New Hampshire before crossing into Oxford County, Maine.</p><br>
<p>Shortly after entering Fryeburg, Maine, the river branches into the "Old Course" Saco River and the more commonly used "Canal River". Constructed in the 1800s to be more convenient for farmers, the 6 mi long canal is 15 mi shorter than the old course and is now considered to be the official course for the river, as the upstream end of the old course is largely silted over. The two channels merge again near Lovell, Maine.</p><br>
<p>After running through six hydropower stations operated by NextEra Energy Resources (including Skelton Dam and Bonny Eagle Dam), the river enters York County, crosses under Interstate 95, and passes between Saco and Biddeford, where it is bridged by U.S. Route 1. It enters Saco Bay on the Atlantic with Camp Ellis in Saco on the north shore and Hills Beach in Biddeford on the south shore.</p><br>
<h2>Stream flow</h2><br>
<p>The United States government maintains two stream gauges on the Saco river. The first is at Conway, New Hampshire ({{coord|43|59|27|N|71|05|29|W}}) where the river&#39;s watershed is 385 square miles. Discharge (stream flow) here averages 962 cuft/s and has ranged from a minimum of 40 cuft/s to a maximum of 47,200 cuft/s. The second is at Cornish, Maine ({{coord|43|48|29|N|70|46|53|W}}) where the watershed is 1,293 square miles. Flow here averages 2,756 cuft/s and has ranged from a minimum of 244 cuft/s to a maximum of 46,600 cuft/s.</p><br>
<h2>Attractions</h2><br>
<p>The Saco is a popular recreational river, drawing an estimated 3,000 to 7,000 people per summer weekend, mostly on the stretch from Swan&#39;s Falls (a campground formerly maintained by the Appalachian Mountain Club and now maintained by the Saco River Recreation Council), to Brownfield, Maine.</p><br>
<p>There are many sand beaches along the Saco when not at flood stage and camping is allowed along some of these beaches for free. Misuse, including large quantities of garbage left behind by users and illegal fires, as well as discourtesy toward landowners, has led many beaches to be posted and monitored. A permit is required from the State of Maine for campfires along any unposted river beaches.</p><br>
<p>The Saco is a major attraction for canoeists. One area of the river, Walker&#39;s Rip, is a set of rapids that has caused less talented canoers to capsize, although it can be navigated successfully. Several canoeing rentals are available throughout the river&#39;s distance.</p><br>
<p>The Saco river is also famous for sport fishing, even though the number of fish in it has decreased tremendously throughout time.</p><br>
<h2>Problems</h2><br>
<p>Multiple violent and reportedly alcohol-related incidents in 2001 led to increased police patrols and efforts by livery companies, landowners, and government agencies to improve conditions.</p><br>
<p>Local legends have held that the river is subject to the Saco Curse of Squandro.</p><br>
<h2>Major tributaries</h2><br>
<p>Listed from source to mouth:</p><br>
<p>*Dry River</p><br>
<p>*Sawyer River</p><br>
<p>*Rocky Branch</p><br>
<p>*Ellis River</p><br>
<p>*East Branch Saco River</p><br>
<p>*Swift River</p><br>
<p>*Cold River</p><br>
<p>*Charles River</p><br>
<p>*Outlet, Kezar Lake</p><br>
<p>*Kezar River</p><br>
<p>*Shepards River</p><br>
<p>*Tenmile River</p><br>
<p>*Hancock Brook</p><br>
<p>*Ossipee River</p><br>
<p>*Little Ossipee River</p><br>
<p>The Kyffhäuser, sometimes also referred to as Kyffhäusergebirge, is a hill range in Central Germany, located on the border of the state of Thuringia with Saxony-Anhalt, southeast of the Harz mountains. It reaches its highest point at the Kulpenberg with an elevation of 473.4 m. The range is the site of medieval Kyffhausen Castle  and the 19th century Kyffhäuser Monument; it has significance in German traditional mythology as the legendary resting place of Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>The origin of the name has not been conclusively established. Kyffhäuser (formerly also Kiffhäuser) probably stems from the Low German word cuf, meaning "head" or "peak", and huse, "house". Other explanations refer to kiff, "quarrel" and the historic castles at the site.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The Kyffhäuser is a small Mittelgebirge located in the Kyffhäuserkreis district of Thuringia and the Mansfeld-Südharz district of Saxony-Anhalt, not far from the larger Harz range to the northwest. The range has a length of 19 km, from west to east, and a width of 7 km. The highest point at the Kulpenberg, with the Kulpenburg TV tower, is located near the village of Steinthaleben in Thuringia. The range borders on the Hainleite hill chain and the fertile Goldene Aue basin in the south. Large portions are protected as a nature park.</p><br>
<p>Some parts of the range on the western and southern slopes are karstified and bare of trees, covered by calcareous grassland. The area shaped by numerous sandstone quarries today is the site of a geopark, comprising the Kyffhäuser Monument, the Barbarossa Cave near Rottleben, the Kaiserpfalz at Tilleda, and the Bilzingsleben Paleolithic site. The Schlachtberg hill on the southeastern rim near Bad Frankenhausen was the site of the decisive Battle of Frankenhausen during the German Peasants&#39; War in 1525, commemorated in the monumental Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany by Werner Tübke.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The settlement of Tilleda, located below the northern rim of the range, was already mentioned as Dullide in the early 9th century in the Breviarium Sancti Lulli register of Hersfeld Abbey. A Kaiserpfalz at the site is attested by the 972 Marriage Charter of Empress Theophanu. Numerous stays of her husband Otto II, as well as by his successors Otto III, Conrad II, and Henry III are documented by deeds they issued here.</p><br>
<p>During the 11th century, Tilleda was superseded by a castle on the hill above the settlement that may have been erected by Emperor Henry IV during the Saxon Rebellion. His son Henry V inherited the quarrels and the castle was finally slighted by the Saxon Duke (and later Emperor) Lothair of Supplinburg in 1119. Lothair himself started the reconstruction in his later years and the Imperial Castle of Kyffhausen, one of the largest castle complexes in Germany, was completed under the Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick Barbarossa. Tilleda was last mentioned as an Imperial castle in 1194, when Frederick&#39;s son Henry VI reconciled here with the insurgent Welf duke Henry the Lion.</p><br>
<p>In 1698 Count Albert Anton of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt had a Baroque hunting lodge erected at the hamlet of Rathsfeld in the centre of the Kyffhäuser range. Last used as a residence by Prince Günther Victor of Schwarzburg after his abdication in 1918, it was turned into a recreation home of the Kyffhäuserbund veterans&#39; association in 1925. After World War II the remote site became a Young Pioneer camp and a training camp of the East German Gesellschaft für Sport und Technik; since German reunification, the empty premises have decayed.</p><br>
<h2>Kyffhäuser legend</h2><br>
<p>According to a king in the mountain legend, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who actually drowned on 10 June 1190 in the Göksu River near Silifke during the Third Crusade, is not in fact dead, but sleeps in a hidden chamber underneath the Kyffhäuser hills. He sits motionless at a stone table and his beard has supposedly grown so long over the centuries that it grew through the table. As in the similar legend of King Arthur, Barbarossa supposedly awaits his countrys hour of greatest need, when he will emerge once again from under the hill. The presence of ravens circling the Kyffhäuser summit is said to be a sign of Barbarossas continuing presence. Similar rapture legends refer to Emperor Frederick II or to Charlemagne sleeping in the Untersberg near Salzburg.</p><br>
<p>The Barbarossa myth was first documented in the late 17th century and later popularized by the Brothers Grimm and a poem written in 1817 by Friedrich Rückert. Frequently taken up by Romantic authors, and satirized in Germany. A Winters Tale by Heinrich Heine, it became the expression of the desire for the Old Empires re-emergence as a German nation state. When the Kyffhäuser Monument was built at the ruins of the Imperial Castle in 1890–1896, with a statue of Frederick Barbarossa and an Emperor William monument, the German Emperor William I was thought to have "laid to rest" Barbarossa by the 1871 unification of Germany.</p><br>
<h2>Today</h2><br>
<p>Today, the hills are a popular tourist site, featuring the restored medieval Reichsburg Kyffhausen complex, including a small museum and the castle well, at 176 m depth said to be "the deepest castle well in the world". The downhill Pfalz of Tilleda is an archaeological open-air museum and a stop on the scenic Romanesque Road.</p><br>
<p>The range is also the site of an annual touring car hillclimbing and of the Kyffhäuser-Berglauf cross country running competition. The range is a popular destination for hikers; the Kaiser Way leads across the Kyffhäuser northwards to the Harz mountains.</p><br>
<p>West Morava , is a river in Central Serbia, a 210 km-long longer headstream of the Great Morava, which it forms with the South Morava. It was known as Brongos in antiquity.</p><br>
<h2>Origin</h2><br>
<p>The West Morava originates in the Tašti field, east of the town of Požega, from the Golijska Moravica and Đetinja headstreams. In the field Đetinja receives from the left its main tributary, the Skrapež but less than a kilometer after the confluence, it meets the Golijska Moravica from the south, forming the West Morava. Since the proximity of the confluences of Đetinja, Skrapež and Golijska Moravica, some sources consider all three rivers to be direct headstreams of the West Morava. Following the direction of the course, the Đetinja is a natural headstream of the West Morava, but since Golijska Moravica is 23 km longer, the latter is considered as the main headstream. Measured from the source of the Golijska Moravica, the West Morava is 308 km long while the length of the West Morava proper is 210 km.</p><br>
<h2>Course</h2><br>
<p>Unlike the South and Great Morava&#39;s meridian (south-to-north) flow, the West Morava runs in an opposed, latitudinal (west-to-east) direction, dividing the region of Šumadija of the central Serbia from the southern parts of the country.</p><br>
<p>Due to the West Morava&#39;s direction, it flows between many mountains, regions and sub-regions:</p><br>
<p>between the regions of Zlatibor (Srbija) to the north and Dragačevo to the south; here it receives the Bjelica from the south and the small town of Lučani, center of Dragačevo, is located in the vicinity, south of the river.</p><br>
<p>between the Ovčar (north) and Kablar (south) mountains; the river here carved the Ovčar-Kablar Gorge; the West Morava is dammed in the gorge (which is called Serbian Mount Athos, due to many monasteries) and again right after it, so the artificial Ovčar-Kablar and Međuvršje lakes are formed.</p><br>
<p>between the Takovo region (north) and Jelica mountain and Goračići region (south); here is located the town of Čačak, the river is dammed again (Lake Parmenac) and receives many tributaries (mostly from the left: the Čemernica, Bresnička reka, Lađevačka reka); at this point, the river enters the low valley of Zapadno Pomoravlje, meanders and floods often, so from now on the major settlements will be further from the river (Goričani, Lađevci, Mrčajevci).</p><br>
<p>between the Kotlenik mountain and the Gruža region (north) and the Stolovi mountains (south); the town of Kraljevo and its suburbs of Adrani and Ratina are located south of the river, where the Ibar empties into the West Morava from the right; also from the right it receives the Tovarnica and from the left, the Gruža.</p><br>
<p>between the mountains of Gledićke planine (north) and Goč (south); the most famous Serbian spa, Vrnjačka Banja, its suburbs of Vrnjci and Novo Selo, the industrial town of Trstenik and the monastery of Ljubostinja are located in this section.</p><br>
<p>between the regions of Temnić (north) and Rasina (south); several large villages are located north of the river (Medveđa, Velika Drenova, Kukljin, Bošnjane, while the village of Globoder, town of Kruševac and its suburbs of Jasika, Pepeljevac, Parunovac and Čitluk are located south of it. North of the small town of Stalać, the West and Južna Morava meet and form the Great Morava.</p><br>
<h2>Economy</h2><br>
<p>The West Morava river valley, Zapadno Pomoravlje, is economically the most developed of all three Morava river valleys. With the valley of the Ibar, the West Morava has a huge potential in electricity production (the Ovčar (6 MW) and Međuvršje (7 MW) hydroelectric power plants). Water is also used for the irrigation and for the same purpose the artificial lake Parmenac is created on the river, thus helping the already fertile region (grains, orchards). Also, out of all three Morava rivers, the West Morava&#39;s valley is the most forested one.</p><br>
<p>The watershed of the West Morava is rich in ores, (the Ibar section most of all), and includes the mining of hard coal, magnesite, chromium, etc. As a result, the industry is very developed with a string of heavily industrialized towns: Užice, Požega, Čačak, Kraljevo, Trstenik and Kruševac. The traffic is also important for the economy as the whole of the river valley is a natural route for the both roads and railways connecting eastern, central and western Serbia.</p><br>
<h2>Characteristics</h2><br>
<p>Altogether, the West Morava receives 85 tributaries. The river used to be longer (319 km), but due to the regulation of the flow, it is shorter now.</p><br>
<p>The West Morava has an average discharge of 120 m³/s, but it is characterized by extreme fluctuations, which results in severe floods.</p><br>
<p>The West Morava drains an area of 15,849 km² (42,3% of the entire Great Morava watershed), belongs to the Black Sea drainage basin and it is not navigable. When melioration program began in 1966, it was projected that it will become navigable from Kruševac to Čačak.</p><br>
<p>Sankey tank , a manmade lake or tank, is situated in the western part of Bangalore in the middle of the suburbs of Malleshwaram, Vyalikaval and Sadashiva Nagar. The lake covers an area of about 15 hectare. At its widest, the tank has a width of 800 m</p><br>
<p>Sankey tank was constructed by Col. Richard Hieram Sankey (RE) of the Madras Sappers Regiment, in 1882, to meet the water supply demands of Bangalore. The tank was also known as Gandhadhakotikere, as the Government Sandalwood Depot used to be located near the lake.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Sankey reservoir was constructed in 1882 and the works cost Rupees 575000. It was linked to the Miller&#39;s tank and Dharmambudhi tank and was built as a safeguard against water shortages, such as that experienced in the Great Famine of 1876–78. The quality of water was not very good and when Lord Connemara, Governor of Madras visited in July 1888 it was commented upon by a local wit: "The men who are thrown off their horses and killed on the spot at Bangalore are the only ones that are allowed by doctors not to have died from drinking bad water".</p><br>
<h2>Threats</h2><br>
<p>The threats posed to the survival of the lake, which were also identified by the local people (morning joggers) using the lake, refer to:</p><br>
<p>Contamination of water with sewage flowing in from seven points, which are connected to storm water drains</p><br>
<p>Choked drains with garbage and sewage</p><br>
<p>Leaking sewage pipes connected to a public toilet at a park</p><br>
<p>Decrease in the biological oxygen demand and high BOD content due to sewage</p><br>
<p>Threats to fish and plants. During the tests conducted in 2001 also the DO was reported to vary from 3.7 to 8.1, BOD between 2 and 8 and the pH varied from 7.1 to 7.5.</p><br>
<p>Reduction number of ducks, fish and migratory birds due to polluted condition of the lake waters</p><br>
<h2>Restoration actions</h2><br>
<p>The tank was converted into a park by the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) and the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BMP) with funds provided by the Government of Karnataka. In addition, the following were also implemented.</p><br>
<p>Removing encroachments</p><br>
<p>Alum purification treatment to absorb toxic elements and germs</p><br>
<p>Nursery towards the north.</p><br>
<p>Paved Walkways</p><br>
<p>Landscaped parks</p><br>
<p>Special tank for idol immersion during Ganesh Chaturthi festival</p><br>
<p>Restoration of swimming pool</p><br>
<h2>Legal land encroachment tangle</h2><br>
<p>In 2004, local builders’ proposal to construct a multistory building in the Sankey tank bed was challenged by petitioners in the Karnataka Lok Adalat (Peoples Court, an adjunct of the High Court). But the Court was informed by the Bangalore Mahanagar Palike (BMP) that it had not sanctioned any plan for the proposed building and that it would take immediate action to prevent any such steps by the developer taken without a no-objection certificate from the Ministry of Environment and Forests.</p><br>
<p>The Lok Adalat ordered the Forest Department to repossess 0.52 hectare of land belonging to it from the real estate developers who had set out to build an apartment block there. The Lake Development Authority also recommended that no construction or development activity should be allowed within a distance of 100 m from lakes in order to ensure that the water bodies in the city are not encroached and their conservation and protection are not stalled. The Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) informed the court that the proposal of Abhishek Builders and Mantri Developers to build an 18–floor luxury apartment block near the Sankey Tank has been turned down as gross violations were noted under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act and the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act.</p><br>
<p>Little Traverse Bay is a small bay, 170 feet  deep, off Lake Michigan in the northern area of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. The cities of Harbor Springs and Petoskey are located on this bay.</p><br>
<p>Harbor Springs originated as L&#39;arbre de Croche, a French Jesuit mission village to serve the Odawa people bands in the area. After the British took over the territory, the village was renamed in English. The federally recognized Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians have their headquarters here. They have land here, and additional land and a gaming casino in Petoskey.</p><br>
<p>The Little Traverse Light marks the entrance at Harbor Springs to the smaller harbor within the bay.</p><br>
<p>After the Odawa bands in northern Michigan were persuaded to cede considerable lands to the United States, the Little Traverse Bay region was developed by Illinois land developers and resort founders, such as lawyers Henry Stryker, III and Henry Brigham McClure, and the Capps family of Jacksonville, Illinois and woolen mills fame. The Stryker, Capps, and McClure families were interconnected with the Jacob Bunn industrial dynasty of Chicago and Springfield, Illinois.</p><br>
<p>The bay has also been used as a refuge by Great Lakes freighters during severe weather.</p><br>
<h2>Recreation</h2><br>
<p>The bay has significant publicly accessible parkland on the waterfront, including in the cities of Petoskey and Harbor Springs, and in Petoskey State Park.</p><br>
<p>Little Traverse Bay is popular during the summer for boating, sailing and swimming by the numerous vacation communities on the bay, including Bay View, Wequetonsing, Bay Harbor, and Harbor Point. Many of these communities also provide sailing and swimming lessons.</p><br>
<p>The bay is the location of the annual Ugotta Regatta, hosted by the Little Traverse Yacht Club in Harbor Springs. Participants are often boat owners and crews who have sailed in the Chicago Yacht Club Race to Mackinac and Port Huron to Mackinac Boat Race, each held on one of the two weekends before.</p><br>
<p>Fort McClary is a former defensive fortification of the United States military located along the southern coast of Maine at Kittery Point. Built at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, it was used primarily throughout the 19th century to protect approaches to the harbor of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and the USA naval shipyard.</p><br>
<p>The property and its surviving structures, including a blockhouse dating from 1844, are now owned and operated by the State of Maine as Fort McClary State Historic Site.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Colonial period</h3><br>
<p>Coastal defenses on the site date to the late 17th century, when local shipbuilder William Pepperell (father to the more well-known William Pepperrell) acquired the property and erected crude defense works in 1689. (Prior to that the village was protected by Fort William and Mary at Portsmouth.) In 1715, during the lead-up to Father Rale&#39;s War, the Province of Massachusetts Bay voted to erect a permanent breastwork of six guns for the defense of the Piscataqua River. Some sources state that was in part to protect Maine (then part of Massachusetts) from "unreasonable duties" (basically, taxes) that the governor of New Hampshire was attempting to impose on nearby citizens of other colonies. The fort was also used to collect duties from Massachusetts citizens for its own upkeep. This fortification, known as Fort William, was transferred to the United States government in 1803; none of its features are known to survive.</p><br>
<h3>Revolutionary War</h3><br>
<p>The Pepperrells remained loyal to the British in 1775; their property including the fort was confiscated by local Patriot forces. In 1776 ammunition was provided for the fort&#39;s 9-pounder and 12-pounder cannon. The New Hampshire militia manned the fort until 1779.</p><br>
<h3>Second system period</h3><br>
<p>Fort McClary was officially established in 1808 as part of the second system of US fortifications, named for New Hampshire native Major Andrew McClary, an American officer killed in the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill. It consisted of a semi-elliptical lower battery of 9 or 10 guns and a shot furnace, and an upper battery near the present blockhouse, whose armament does not appear in references. The fort was used throughout the 19th century, most notably during the War of 1812, but saw no action.</p><br>
<h3>Third system and Civil War</h3><br>
<p>The fort was further expanded in the 1840s, probably a consequence of tensions with Great Britain over the disputed border between Maine and New Brunswick, which culminated in the bloodless Aroostook War and the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty. The blockhouse was built in 1844 near the former upper battery; this was the last blockhouse built at a fort in Maine, and probably one of the last in a US coastal fort. The fort saw active use during the American Civil War, at which time it achieved much of its present structure due to a rebuilding under the third system that was never completed. The fort was manned near the start of the war by the Maine Coast Guard and the Kittery Artillery company, and in 1864 was also manned by the Maine State Guard. Its Civil War garrison notably included the Vice President of the United States Hannibal Hamlin, who enlisted in Company A of the Maine State Guard as a private and served as a cook in the fort. Some subsequent citations, including a plaque at the fort, erroneously confuse his unit with the Maine Coast Guard. The fort saw little action during this conflict. A projected major rebuilding and expansion as part of the third system of fortifications began in 1863. The intent was to create a large five-sided fort with one or two tiers of cannon all around. However, only the seawalls of the two seaward fronts and one of the landward cannon bastions (with a granite magazine) were completed. The seawall was defended by a small caponier with rifle ports. Based on war experience, masonry forts were assessed as vulnerable to rifled cannon, and in 1867 funding was withdrawn from all masonry fort projects, leaving Fort McClary with few cannon positions. A large number of granite blocks remain at the fort to this day.</p><br>
<h3>Post Civil War to present</h3><br>
<p>In the 1870s the lower battery was rebuilt with three temporary gun positions for 10-inch Parrott rifles, but funding was again cut off with few other improvements. In the 1890s nine 15-inch Rodman smoothbore guns and seven carriages were stored at the fort, to be mounted in case of war. Three of the Rodmans were mounted as an emergency measure in the Spanish-American War of 1898. The fort was superseded by the construction of Fort Foster and new batteries at Fort Constitution under the Endicott Program by 1901. By the 1910s, most of the fort had fallen into disrepair and it was officially decommissioned in 1918. The State of Maine acquired most the property from the federal government in 1924, after which time it was managed as a park. Several of the dilapidated structures were demolished in the following decades. During World War II, surviving parts of the fort were used by civilian defense forces. In 1969 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<p>The surviving blockhouse and other structures were renovated in 1987. The 1844 blockhouse serves as a museum.</p><br>
<p>Toubkal or Tubkal  is a mountain peak in southwestern Morocco, located in the Toubkal National Park. At</p><br>
<p>4,167 m, it is the highest peak in the Atlas Mountains, Anti Atlas, North Africa and the Arab World. It is an ultra prominent peak located 63 km south of the city of Marrakesh, and is a popular destination for climbers.</p><br>
<h2>Tourism</h2><br>
<p>The first ascent by Europeans was on 12 June 1923 by the Marquis de Segonzac, Vincent Berger and Hubert Dolbeau, but the mountain may have been climbed before that date.</p><br>
<p>Trekkers usually approach the mountain from the road-end village of Imlil. Qualified guides can be hired, as well as porters, to carry equipment and food supplies higher into the mountains. For experienced mountaineers, guides are not required for the normal route, as it is a moderate hike and orientation is not a problem.</p><br>
<p>The normal route starts with an easy walk to the village of Aroumd. Past Aroumd a floodplain is crossed and the route follows the left slope of the valley southwards. The valley bends to the east to the tiny settlement of Sidi Chamharouch, which has grown around a Muslim shrine. At Sidi Chamharouch, the path leads over the stream and runs steeply uphill to the right side of the Isougouane valley, which leads to two stone-built refuges (old Neltner Refuge and new Refuge du Toubkal) that are often used as base camp at 3,207 m. It is possible to buy good meals in the Refuge du Toubkal. Tents can be pitched near the refuges for a small charge.</p><br>
<p>From that point a path crosses the stream, climbs a steep scree slope to the east and enters a valley (corrie), then climbs another steep slope to reach a col (TizinToubkal at 3,940m). At the col the route turns left (northwards) to the summit ridge of Jbel Toubkal. The 4,167m summit is crowned with a curious pyramidal metal frame and views take in most of the Atlas and Little Atlas Mountains.</p><br>
<p>The ascent during the summer (from May) is non-technical yet moderately difficult, only complicated by steep and slippery scree slopes and altitude sickness. Sturdy boots and proper (windproof) clothing are required, and trekking poles are helpful on the scree. An ice-axe may be needed on the remaining snowfields in the early summer. The ascent during the end of the winter and spring (February/March) is more difficult. Crampons are necessary to ascend through the snow and - in some cases - ice.</p><br>
<p>It is possible to climb the mountain in two days - first day up to the refuge (around seven hours), second day to the summit (around five hours) and back to Imlil (up to five hours).</p><br>
<p>In summer the mountains can be very dry, but are sometimes subject to storms. Although the temperature should remain above zero during the day, freezing conditions are possible over 3,500m. In winter the mountains are covered in snow and ice, and can be prone to avalanches. Skiing is possible as the snow can lie to considerable depth and cover many rocky slopes. Information about the state of the route can be obtained at Marrakech tourist offices or at Imlil.</p><br>
<p>The Old South Meeting House is a historic Congregational church building at the corner of Milk and Washington Streets in the Downtown Crossing area of Boston, Massachusetts, built in 1729. It gained fame as the organizing point for the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773. Five thousand or more colonists gathered at the Meeting House, the largest building in Boston at the time.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Church (1729–1872)</h3><br>
<p>The church was completed in 1729, with its 56 m (183 ft) steeple. The congregation was gathered in 1669 when it broke off from First Church of Boston, a Congregational church founded by John Winthrop in 1630. The site was a gift of Mrs. Norton, widow of John Norton, pastor of the First Church in Boston. The church&#39;s first pastor was Rev. Thomas Thatcher, a native of Salisbury, England. Thatcher was also a physician and is known for publishing the first medical tract in Massachusetts.</p><br>
<p>After the Boston Massacre in 1770, yearly anniversary meetings were held at the church until 1775, featuring speakers such as John Hancock and Dr. Joseph Warren. In 1773, 5,000 people met in the Meeting House to debate British taxation and, after the meeting, a group raided three tea ships anchored nearby in what became known as the Boston Tea Party.</p><br>
<p>In 1775, the British occupied the Meeting House due to its association with the Revolutionary cause. They gutted the building, filled it with dirt, and then used the interior to practice horse riding. They destroyed much of the interior and stole various items, including William Bradfords Of Plymouth Plantation (1620), a unique Pilgrim manuscript hidden in Old Souths tower.</p><br>
<p>Old South Meeting House was almost destroyed in the Great Boston Fire of 1872, saved by the timely arrival of a fire engine from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but the fire caused the city&#39;s residential districts to shift toward the Back Bay, away from the church. The congregation then built a new church building (the "New" Old South Church at Copley Square) which remains its home to this day. The Old South congregation returns to Old South Meeting House for services in its ancestral home once a year, on the Sunday before Thanksgiving.</p><br>
<h4>Ministers</h4><br>
<p>Thomas Thacher (1620–1678), minister 1670–1678</p><br>
<p>Samuel Willard (1640–1707), minister 1678–1707</p><br>
<p>Ebenezer Pemberton (1672–1717), minister 1700–1717</p><br>
<p>Joseph Sewall (1688–1769), minister 1713–1769</p><br>
<p>Thomas Prince (1687–1758), minister 1718–1758</p><br>
<p>Alexander Cumming (1726–1763), minister 1761–1763</p><br>
<p>Samuel Blair (1741–1818), minister 1766-1769</p><br>
<p>John Bacon (b.1737), minister 1772–1775</p><br>
<p>Joseph Eckley (1750–1811), minister 1779–1811</p><br>
<p>Joshua Huntington (1786–1819), minister 1808–1819</p><br>
<p>Benjamin B. Wisner (1794–1835), minister 1821–1832</p><br>
<p>Samuel H. Stearns (1801–1837), minister 1834–1836</p><br>
<p>George W. Blagden (1802–1884), minister 1836–1872</p><br>
<p>Jacob M. Manning (1824–1882), minister 1857–1872</p><br>
<h4>Notable congregants</h4><br>
<p>Samuel Adams</p><br>
<p>William Dawes</p><br>
<p>Benjamin Franklin</p><br>
<p>Samuel Sewall</p><br>
<p>Phillis Wheatley</p><br>
<h3>Museum (1877–present)</h3><br>
<p>Old South Meeting House has been an important gathering place for nearly three centuries. Renowned for the protest meetings held here before the American Revolution when the building was termed a mouth-house, this National Historic Landmark has long served as a platform for the free expression of ideas. Today, the Old South Meeting House is open daily as a museum and continues to provide a place for people to meet, discuss and act on important issues of the day. The stories of the men and women who are part of Old South’s vital heritage reveal why the Old South Meeting House occupies an enduring place in the history of the United States.</p><br>
<p>The museum and historic site is located at the intersection of Washington and Milk Streets and can be visited for a nominal sum. It is located near the State Street, Downtown Crossing and Park Street MBTA (subway) stations.</p><br>
<p>The Old South Meeting House is claimed to be the second oldest establishment existent in the United States. It is currently under consideration for local landmark status by the Boston Landmarks Commission.</p><br>
<h2>Images</h2><br>
<p>The Massachusetts State House, also known as the Massachusetts Statehouse or the New State House, is the state capitol and seat of government for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, located in the Beacon Hill/Downtown neighborhood of Boston. The building houses the Massachusetts General Court  and the offices of the Governor of Massachusetts. The building, designed by noted architect Charles Bulfinch, was completed in January 1798 at a cost of $133,333 , and has repeatedly been enlarged since. It is considered a masterpiece of Federal architecture and among Bulfinch&#39;s finest works, and was designated a National Historic Landmark for its architectural significance.</p><br>
<h2>Building and grounds</h2><br>
<p>The building is situated on 6.7 acres (27,000 m) of land on top of Beacon Hill in Boston, opposite the Boston Common on Beacon Street. It was built on land once owned by John Hancock, Massachusetts&#39;s first elected governor.</p><br>
<p>Before the current State House was completed in 1798, Massachusettss government house was the Old State House on Court Street. For the buildings design, architect Charles Bulfinch made use of two existing buildings in London: William Chamberss Somerset House, and James Wyatts Pantheon.</p><br>
<p>After the state of Maine separated from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and became a state in 1820, that state&#39;s capitol building was built with architectural influence of the Massachusetts Capitol building with a simplified Greek Revival influence.</p><br>
<p>A major expansion of the original building was completed in 1895. The architect for the annex was Bostonian Charles Brigham.</p><br>
<p>In 1917, the east and west wings, designed by architects Sturgis, Bryant, Chapman & Andrews, were completed.</p><br>
<p>In July 2016, Governor Charlie Baker proposed to the state legislature to sell 300 ft&sup2; of permanent easement on the west side of the State House lawn to a neighboring condominium. The land in question was once pasture owned by John Hancock and the easement would allow for the addition of au pair units.</p><br>
<h2>Dome</h2><br>
<p>The original wood dome, which leaked, was covered with copper in 1802 by Paul Revere&#39;s Revere Copper Company. Revere was the first American to roll copper successfully into sheets (for copper sheathing) in a commercially viable manner.</p><br>
<p>The dome was first painted gray and then light yellow before being gilded with gold leaf in 1874. During World War II, the dome was painted once again, this time black or gray (depending on the source), to prevent reflection during blackouts and to protect the city and building from bombing attacks. In 1997, at a cost of more than $300,000, the dome was re-gilded, in 23k gold.</p><br>
<p>The dome is topped with a gilded, wooden pine cone, symbolizing both the importance of Boston&#39;s lumber industry during early colonial times and of the state of Maine, which was a district of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts when the Bulfinch section of the building was completed.</p><br>
<h2>Statuary</h2><br>
<p>In front of the building is an equestrian statue of General Joseph Hooker. Other statues in front of the building include Daniel Webster, educator Horace Mann, and former US President John F. Kennedy. The statues of Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer are located on the lawns below the east and west wings.</p><br>
<h2>Inside the building</h2><br>
<p>The original red-brick Bulfinch building contains the Governor&#39;s offices (on the west end) with the Massachusetts Senate occupying the former House of Representatives Chamber under the dome. The Massachusetts House of Representatives occupies a chamber on the west side of the Brigham addition. Hanging over this chamber is the "Sacred Cod", which was given to the House of Representatives in 1784 by a Boston merchant. The Sacred Cod symbolizes the importance of the fishing industry to the early Massachusetts economy.</p><br>
<p>The second floor under the dome is decorated by murals painted by artist Edward Brodney. Brodney won a competition to paint the first mural in a contest sponsored by the Works Progress Administration in 1936. It is entitled "Columbia Knighting Her World War Disabled." Brodney could not afford to pay models, and friends and family posed. The model for Columbia was Brodney&#39;s sister Norma Brodney Cohen, and the model for the soldier on one knee in the foreground was his brother Fred Brodney. In 1938, he painted a second mural under the dome called "World War Mothers." The models were again primarily friends and family members, with sister Norma sitting beside their mother Sarah Brodney. The New York Times notes that the murals are relatively rare examples of military art with women as their subjects.</p><br>
<p>A staircase in front of the Bulfinch building leads from Beacon Street to Doric Hall inside the building. The large main doors inside Doric Hall are only opened on three occasions:</p><br>
<p>When the President of the United States or a foreign head of state visits.</p><br>
<p>When the Governor exits the building on his or her last day in office. This tradition is known as the Long Walk and begins when the Governor, alone, exits the Executive Chamber, walks down to the second floor, through Doric Hall, and out the main doors. He or she then descends the staircase, crosses Beacon Street, and enters Boston Common, symbolically rejoining the people of Massachusetts as a private citizen. The tradition has been interrupted during recent years. Governor William Weld descended the staircase on his last day in office July 29, 1997, meeting his successor then-Lt.Governor A. Paul Cellucci on the stairs. Four years later, then-Governor Cellucci was deprived of his symbolic chance to descend the State House steps because of ongoing renovations to the front of the building. Acting Governor Jane Swift elected to walk down the stairs with her family before departing for the Berkshire Mountains. On January 4, 2007, Deval Patrick chose to be sworn in on the staircase and give his inaugural address there, forcing outgoing Governor Mitt Romney to take the Long Walk the day before his last in office.</p><br>
<p>When a regimental flag is returned from battle. Since the regimental flags now return to Washington, D.C., this has not been done since the Vietnam War.</p><br>
<p>The Samuel Adams and Paul Revere time capsule is a metal box located in a cornerstone of the State House, placed there in the late 1700s and rediscovered in 2014. The contents include coins, newspaper clippings and other historical artifacts.</p><br>
<h2>In literature</h2><br>
<p>One of Boston&#39;s most enduring nicknames, "The Hub of the Universe", is from a remark by Oliver Wendell Holmes from his 1858 book The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table in which he mentions the State House (emphasis added):</p><br>
<h2>In movies</h2><br>
<p>In the 1982 film The Verdict, the State House interior is used as both a court house and hospital.</p><br>
<p>The State House is featured prominently in the 2006 film The Departed as a symbol of the antagonist, Colin Sullivan&#39;s, ambition.</p><br>
<h2>In video games</h2><br>
<p>In the 2013 game The Last of Us, both the interior and exterior of the building are depicted. It is required to go through the whole building, which has been partially destroyed.</p><br>
<p>The State House is featured in Fallout 4, a video game by Bethesda Softworks.</p><br>
<h2>Image gallery</h2><br>
<p>King&#39;s Chapel is an independent Christian unitarian congregation affiliated with the Unitarian Universalist Association that is "unitarian Christian in theology, Anglican in worship, and congregational in governance." It is housed in what was formerly called "Stone Chapel", an 18th-century structure at the corner of Tremont Street and School Street in Boston, Massachusetts. The chapel building, completed in 1754, is one of the finest designs of the noted colonial architect Peter Harrison, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 for its architectural significance.</p><br>
<p>Despite its name, the adjacent King&#39;s Chapel Burying Ground is not affiliated with the chapel or any other church; it pre-dates the chapel by over a century.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Kings Chapel cult was founded by Royal Governor Sir Edmund Andros in 1686 as the first Anglican Church in colonial New England during the reign of King James II. The original Kings Chapel was a wooden church built in 1688 at the corner of Tremont and School Streets, where the church stands today. It was situated on the public burying ground, now King&#39;s Chapel Burying Ground, because no resident would sell land for a church that was not Congregationalist (at the time, the Congregational church was the official religion of Massachusetts).</p><br>
<p>In 1749, construction began on the current stone structure, which was designed by Peter Harrison and completed in 1754. The stone church was built around the wooden church. When the stone church was complete, the wooden church was disassembled and removed through the windows of the new church. The wood was then shipped to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia where it was used to construct St. John&#39;s Anglican Church. That church was destroyed by fire on Halloween night, 2001. It has since been rebuilt. Originally, there were plans to add a steeple, although funding shortfalls prevented this from happening.</p><br>
<p>During the American Revolution, the chapel sat vacant and was referred to as the "Stone Chapel." The Loyalist families left for Nova Scotia and England, and those who remained reopened the church in 1782. It became Unitarian under the ministry of James Freeman, who revised the Book of Common Prayer along Unitarian lines in 1785. Although Freeman still considered King&#39;s Chapel to be Episcopalian, the Anglican Church refused to ordain him. The church still follows its own Anglican/Unitarian hybrid liturgy today. It is a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association.</p><br>
<p>Inside, the church is characterized by wooden columns with Corinthian capitals that were hand-carved by William Burbeck and his apprentices in 1758. Seating is accommodated by box pews, most of which were originally owned by the member families who paid pew rent and decorated the pews to their personal tastes. The current uniform appearance of the pews dates from the 1920s.</p><br>
<p>Music has long been an important part of Kings Chapel, which acquired its first organ in 1723. The present organ, the sixth installed in Kings Chapel, was built by C.B. Fisk in 1964. It is decorated with miters and carvings from the Bridge organ of 1756, and it is slightly below average in size compared with most mid-1900s European chapel organs. For forty-two years, the eminent American composer Daniel Pinkham was the organist and music director at King&#39;s Chapel. He was succeeded by Heinrich Christensen.</p><br>
<p>The King&#39;s Chapel bell, cast in England, was hung in 1772. In 1814 it cracked, was recast by Paul Revere, and was rehung. It is the largest bell cast by the Revere foundry, and the last one cast by Paul Revere himself. It has been rung at services ever since.</p><br>
<p>Within King&#39;s Chapel is a monument to Samuel Vassall, brother of the colonist William Vassall, a patentee of the Massachusetts Bay Company, and an early deputy of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Samuel Vassall of London was also named a member of the Company in its 1629 Royal Charter but never sailed for New England, instead remaining in London to tend to business affairs; his brother William frequently clashed with John Winthrop, and eventually removed himself to Scituate, Massachusetts.</p><br>
<p>The monument to Samuel Vassall, London merchant, mentions his resistance to King Charless taxes imposed on Tonnage and Poundage, especially as Parliament had refused the Kings request for a lifetime extension. Samuel Vassall subsequently represented London as a Member of Parliament (1640–1641), which restored some of Vassall&#39;s estate thought destroyed by the Crown. Ironically, later Vassalls in Massachusetts, including William Vassall for whom Vassalboro, Maine was named, turned Loyalist and fled to England during the American Revolutionary War.</p><br>
<h3>Ministers</h3><br>
<p>Robert Ratcliff, rector 1686-1689</p><br>
<p>Samuel Myles, rector 1689-1728 (d.1728)</p><br>
<p>Roger Price, rector 1729-1746</p><br>
<p>Henry Caner, rector 1747-1776</p><br>
<p>James Freeman, rector 1787-1836 (d.1836)</p><br>
<p>Samuel Cary, minister 1809-1815 (d.1815)</p><br>
<p>F.W.P. Greenwood, minister 1824-1843 (d.1843)</p><br>
<p>Ephraim Peabody, minister 1845-1856 (d.1856)</p><br>
<p>no regular minister 1856-1861</p><br>
<p>Henry Wilder Foote, minister 1861-1889 (d.1889)</p><br>
<p>no regular minister 1889-1895</p><br>
<p>Howard Nicholson Brown, minister 1895-1921</p><br>
<p>Harold Edwin Balme Speight, minister 1921-1927</p><br>
<p>John Carroll Perkins, minister in charge 1927-1931, minister 1931-1933</p><br>
<p>Palfrey Perkins, minister 1933-1953</p><br>
<p>Joseph Barth, minister 1953-1965 (d. 1988)</p><br>
<p>no regular minister 1965-1967</p><br>
<p>Carl R. Scovel, senior minister 1967-1999</p><br>
<p>Charles C. Forman, affiliate minister 1980-1998 (d. 1998)</p><br>
<p>Matthew M. McNaught, interim minister 1999-2001</p><br>
<p>Earl K. Holt, minister 2001-2009</p><br>
<p>Dianne E. Arakawa, interim minister 2009–2013</p><br>
<p>Joy Fallon, minister, 2013-</p><br>
