<p>Riesco Island  lies at west of the Brunswick Peninsula, Chile. It is one of the largest islands in Chile, with an area of 5,110 km&sup2;. Its highest point is Mount Atalaya at 1,830 m. The island is bordered by two large piedmont embayments: Otway Sound and Skyring Sound. The narrow Fitzroy Channel connects both bodies of water and separates the island from mainland Patagonia. The island is separated from the southern part of the Muñoz Gamero Peninsula by another narrow channel, the Geronimo Channel.</p><br>
<p>Riesco Island hosts Chile&#39;s largest known coal reserves, with mining activities dating back to 1880. There were the mines Magdalena, Elena and Josefina. In 1940 Magdalena and Josefina produced 100,000 tons. It is thought to contain more than 300 million tonnes of low-quality coal in three deposits located in the colonized portion of the island: Río Eduardo, Elena and Estancia Invierno.</p><br>
<p>Numerous glaciers can be found on other parts of the island. In the northwest, an icefield is the source of 7 glaciers and Cerro Ladrillero has 12 glaciers on its slopes. In the southwestern portion of the island, Córdova Peninsula marks the eastern limit of the Strait of Magellan and is home to several mountain glaciers.</p><br>
<p>Siberut is the largest and northernmost of the Mentawai Islands, lying 150 kilometres west of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. A part of Indonesia, the island is the most important home for the Mentawai people. The western half of the island was set aside as the Siberut National Park in 1993. Much of the island is covered with rainforest, but is subject to commercial logging.</p><br>
<p>Smaller islands adjacent to Siberut include Karamajet and Masokut which lie in the Bungalaut strait at the south of the island.</p><br>
<p>The island is known for its range of primates, including the Kloss gibbon (Hylobates klossii), pig-tailed langur (Simias concolor), Mentawai langur (Presbytis potenziani) and Mentawai macaque (Macaca pagensis).</p><br>
<p>Siberut was affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake tsunami, but without any known loss of human life. One report stated that the island may have been raised up to two metres by the earthquake.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Siberut Island has a hot and humid tropical rainforest climate, with an annual rainfall of 4,000 mm. Temperatures range from 22 to 31 C, and humidity averages 81–85%. The east coast has many islets, bays and coral reefs, and is covered with mangrove forest extending up to 2 km wide before giving way to nipah forest. The west coast features mainly Barringtonia forests and is difficult to get to because of rough seas and steep cliffs. The hilly interior elevates to 384 m, with many streams eventually forming rivers in the sago-grove lowlands and swamp forests. There are also areas of dipterocarp primary forest.</p><br>
<h3>Biodiversity</h3><br>
<p>Siberut has been isolated from the mainland Sunda shelf since the Mid-Pleistocene. This isolation has led to a much biodiversity, with about 900 species of vascular plants and 31 mammal species. Sixty-five percent of mammals and fifteen percent of other animals are endemic at some taxonomic level, making Siberut unique. Of the 134 bird species found on Siberut, 19 are endemic at some taxonomic level.</p><br>
<p>There are four endemic primates: the bokkoi (Macaca pagensis), lutung Mentawai/joja (Presbytis potenziani siberu), bilou (Hylobates klossii) and simakobu (Simias concolor siberu).</p><br>
<h3>Environment</h3><br>
<p>Siberut was recognized as a biosphere reserve in 1981. In 1993, the western part of the island was designated as a national park, covering an area of 1,905 km&sup2;.</p><br>
<p>About 70% of the remaining forest outside the reserve is subject to logging concessions, some operative and others pending.</p><br>
<p>In 2001, UNESCO brought in a new phase of its Siberut Programme, with the intention of protecting the ecosystem through local development. This phase involves creating a partnership of local communities, conservation groups and local government, an approach which appears to be popular locally. However, poor governance and corruption has led to substantial illegal logging.</p><br>
<h2>Culture</h2><br>
<p>Some anthropologists believe that several thousand years ago, the Bataks of North Sumatra may have been the first to settle here. However, there are now substantial differences in culture and language among the inhabitants. The Swiss anthropologist, Reimar Schefold spent years among one of the Siberut groups, the Sakuddei.</p><br>
<p>In the west of the island, there is a tradition of communal long houses known as uma.</p><br>
<p>Buton , is an island in Indonesia located off the southeast peninsula of Sulawesi. It covers roughly 4,408 square kilometers in area, or about the size of Madura; it is the 129th largest island in the world and Indonesia&#39;s 19th largest in area.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>In the precolonial era, the island, then usually known as Butung, was within the sphere of influence of Ternate. Especially in the sixteenth century it served as an important secondary regional center within the Ternaten empire, controlling regional trade and collecting tribute to be sent to Ternate.</p><br>
<p>Sultan Murhum, the first Islamic monarch on the island, is remembered in the name of the island&#39;s major harbor, Murhum Harbor, in Baubau.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Its largest town is Bau-Bau, where the Wolio and Cia-Cia languages are spoken. Major nearby islands include Wawonii (to the north), Muna and Kabaena (to the west) and Siumpu (to the southwest). The Tukangbesi Islands lie just to the east where Tukang Besi is spoken, and is separated by the Gulf of Kolowana Watabo (Teluk Kolowana Watabo).</p><br>
<p>Batuatas Island is to the south. Also the Bouton Passage(as it was known in the pre-Independence era) was an important inter-island navigational location of the northern Flores Sea.</p><br>
<h2>Ecology</h2><br>
<p>The island is largely covered by rainforest and is known for its wildlife. It is one of only two habitats of the anoa, a type of buffalo.</p><br>
<h2>People</h2><br>
<p>The languages spoken on Buton include Wolio, Cia-Cia, various dialects of Muna, Tukang Besi, Kumbewaha, Lasalimu, Kamaru, Pancana, Busoa, Taloki, Kulisusu and Kioko. The Indonesian language, the national language of Indonesia, is also widely used and taught in schools.</p><br>
<p>In 2009, the Cia-Cia tribe in Bau-Bau city began to use the Korean Hangul alphabet for their language, based on textbooks created by the Hunminjeongeum Society, a linguistic society in Seoul.</p><br>
<h2>Economy</h2><br>
<p>The island has a massive reserve of natural asphalt and several other minerals. Asphalt from Buton can be utilized as bitumen modifiers as well as a substitute to petroleum asphalt. As a result, it reduces the dependency on conventional fossil based resources.</p><br>
<h2>Administration</h2><br>
<p>Buton island is administered under three second level administrative divisions (Daerah Tingkat II): Bau-bau City, Buton Regency, and North Buton Regency.</p><br>
<p>However, the eponymous archipelago is administered under an additional three regencies: Muna Regency, Wakatobi Regency, and (part of) Bombana Regency.</p><br>
<p>Coats Island  lies at the northern end of Hudson Bay in the Kivalliq Region of Nunavut. At 5,498 km&sup2; in size, it is the 107th largest island in the world, and Canada&#39;s 24th largest island.</p><br>
<p>The island has areas of federal crown land and areas of private land owned by Inuit, however, the last permanent residents left in the 1970s. With no permanent settlements, the island is also the largest uninhabited island in the northern hemisphere south of the Arctic Circle. It was the last home of the Sadlermiut people who are widely believed to represent the Dorset culture.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Coats Island is 130 km long. It reaches a maximum elevation of 185 m above sea level. This high point occurs along the rocky northern perimeter between Cape Pembroke and Cape Prefontaine. The underlying rocks in this area are Precambrian metamorphics. Less than 5% of the island is more than 100 m above sea level. The southern half of the island is primarily low-lying muskeg and made up of Palaeozoic sedimentary rocks, such as limestone and sandstone.</p><br>
<h2>Fauna</h2><br>
<p>Since 1920, Coats Island has been designated a caribou reserve. After caribou were extirpated from nearby Southampton Island, the Coats herd was used to re-establish the Southampton herd. It is also known for its population of thick-billed murre. Two colonies of 30,000 birds occur along the cliffs at the rocky northern end. There are also significant concentrations of walrus at walrus haulouts at the base of cliffs or on offshore islands at the northern end of the island (one each at Cape Pembroke and Cape Prefontaine). These are visited regularly by Inuit from the hamlet at Coral Harbour, on Southampton Island, for harvesting.</p><br>
<p>Cape Pembroke is an Important Bird Area.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The first recorded sighting of Coats Island was by Thomas Button in 1612; he explored it further the following year. It received its name from William Coats, a sea captain for the Hudson&#39;s Bay Company. He visited the area periodically between 1727 and 1751.</p><br>
<p>In 1824, HMS Griper, under Captain George Francis Lyon, anchored off Cape Pembroke on Coats Island. The whalers then discovered a band of "Eskimos" who were said to have spoken a "strange dialect" and were called Sadlermiut. Since then, the Sadlermiut continued to establish contact with Westerners. However, as with many North American aboriginals, the Sadlermiut were often susceptible to Western diseases.</p><br>
<p>The area was confirmed to be an island by American whalers, who began visiting the area in the 1860s. By 1896, there were only 70 of Sadlermiut remaining. Then, in the fall of 1902, the British trading/whaling vessel named the Active had made a stop at Cape Low, Southampton Island. It is said that some of the Sadlermiut caught a disease, possibly an influenza, typhoid or typhus, from a sick sailor aboard the Active, which then spread to the entire community. By winter 1902-03, the entire Sadlermiut population had died as a result.</p><br>
<p>A Hudsons Bay Company trading post was maintained on the island from August 1920 to August 1924, and a number of Inuit families lived on the island during that period, some of whom had been brought from Baffin Island on boats. In 1921, an overturned fishermans dory covering two skeletons was found by Capt. George Cleveland on Coats Island which were alleged to be the remains of Captain Arthur Gibbons and one of his officers, survivors of the wreck of the American whaling schooner A. T. Gifford. The Canadian Government held a criminal investigation.</p><br>
<p>Hoste Island  is one of the southernmost islands in Chile, lying south, across the Beagle Channel, from Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego and west of Navarino Island, from which it is separated by the Murray Channel. Hoste Island has the southernmost trees on earth, Nothofagus antarctica. In Magellania, Jules Verne described an imaginary republic on the island.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>With an area of 4,117 km&sup2, Hoste is the second largest island of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, after Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. The western area of the island forms part of the Alberto de Agostini National Park. The most southern point of the island is the False Cape Horn, on the Hardy Peninsula. It has 5 peninsulas: Hardy, Cloué, Rous, Pasteur and Dumas.</p><br>
<p>Peninsula Hardy (sometimes called "Pen Hardy") is located at one of the most southerly extremes of South America. It is the southern landform which extends into the Drake Passage to make the Bahia Nassau. False Cape Horn (Spanish: Falso Cabo de Hornos) is located at the southern tip of this peninsula.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>French Scientific Mission to Cape Horn aboard the Frigate Romanche</h3><br>
<p>The island was explored by the French scientific expedition La Romanche in 1881-2.</p><br>
<h3>Tekenika</h3><br>
<p>As of 1894 the Stirling House, a prefab house built on behalf of the South American Mission Society, was reinstalled in Tekenika Bay, on the southeast coast of Hoste Island in order to avoid the abuses and crimes caused by the recent arrival of miners and diseases in Ushuaia. (Eventually the house was declared a National Monument and was moved to the lands of the Martin Gusinde Anthropological Museum in Puerto Williams).</p><br>
<p>There had already been unsuccessful attempts at cattle farming by the Chilean government, after which the island was abandoned. Well into the 20th century, a few Yaghan families lived on the island. These indigenous peoples vanished after contact with adventurers and fishermen. Since then, the island has remained virtually uninhabited. The 1992 census reported a population of six living in three houses in the Hoste census enumeration district, however some if not all this population could be located on one or more of the smaller islands nearby which also belonged to the same district.</p><br>
<h3>Operation Soberania</h3><br>
<p>In 1978, the island served as a station for Chilean warships during Operation Soberania.</p><br>
<p>Edgeøya, occasionally anglicised as Edge Island, is a Norwegian island located in southeast of the Svalbard archipelago; it is the third largest island in this archipelago. An Arctic island, it forms part of the Søraust-Svalbard Nature Reserve, home to polar bears and reindeer. Its eastern side is covered by an ice field. The island is 5,073 km&sup2; in area, making it the third largest in the Svalbard archipelago. The island is named after Thomas Edge , an English merchant and whaler. It is seldom visited today.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The history of Edgeøyas discovery has been a matter of dispute. Thomas Edge, writing in 1622, claimed the island was discovered by one of his ships in 1616. However, Joris Carolus, in a map published in 1614 and allegedly based on discoveries made by him the same year, shows what appears to be Edgeøyas south coast. Carolus showed the coastline split into two parts: "Onbekende Cust" (meaning "Unknown Coast" in Dutch) in the west, and "Morfyn" in the east. Islands are shown offshore of Morfyn. Martin Conway argued in 1901 that Carolus chart indicated he discovered Edgeøya, but, as Wielder points out, Conway was ignorant of a map (engraved in 1612) by the Dutch cartographer Petrus Plancius, which illustrated a coastline to the east of Spitsbergen. The coastline, indented, with islands offshore, was labelled "Gerrits Eylant". Wielder believed this to be the first record of Edgeøyas south coast.</p><br>
<p>Schilder, an expert on Dutch cartography, said Carolus merely copied both coastlines from earlier charts, while he believed that Plancius had copied some names from a chart by Mouris Willemsz, unknown to Wielder, that was published in 1608 or earlier by Cornelis Claeszoon (British Library, London). Willemszs chart, which Schilder says shows Edgeøya labeled as "Groen Landt", doesnt show Edgeøya at all, but only shows a single coastline (not two) that is supposed to represent Spitsbergen. In fact, what appears to be Bjørnøya is shown to the southeast of Spitsbergen. Plancius had thus only created a duplicate Spitsbergen. Carolus, as well, made a duplicate Spitsbergen, as his Morfyn has an uncanny resemblance to Willemsz&#39;s Groen Landt. This would indicate that the island would not have been discovered until 1616, as claimed by Edge. A 1617 letter written between the English whalers proves that Europeans had discovered the island at least at that late of date, or earlier, as Edge claims.</p><br>
<p>Four Russian sailors were marooned on Edgeøya, or a small island off the coast of Edgeøya, from 1743 until September 1749. Three survived to tell an epic tale of survival. Author David Roberts wrote a book about his research on this story, Four Against The Arctic. He concluded, although not definitively, that the men were probably on a small island to the southeast of Edgeøya called Halvmåneøya, or Half Moon Island.</p><br>
<p>While no major settlement grew upon Edgeøya, whaling and walrus hunting were extensive industries in the area. Remains of these can be found offshore of Edgeøya, on Bölscheøya in the Thousand Islands group.</p><br>
<h2>Geography and ecology</h2><br>
<p>Edgeøya is located at geographical co-ordinates 77&deg;40&prime;N latitude, 22&deg;30&prime;E longitude. To the west lies Storfjorden, which separates Edgeøya from Spitsbergen. To the north, the sound known as Freemansundet lies between Edgeøya and Barentsøya. In the northeast, Olgastretet separates Edgeøya from Kong Karls Land. Minor island groups lay to the east (Ryke Yseøyane) and to the south (Thousand Islands). The islands south coast in indented by its largest fjord, Tjuvfjorden. The islands northernmost point is Kapp Heuglin, a cape named in August 1870 for the German explorer Theodor von Heuglin (1824–76), during the Heuglin-Zeil expedition.</p><br>
<p>Geologically, the island resembles central Spitsbergen, with Mesozoic rocks (specifically, Triassic shales with subordinate sandstones, with occasional diabase intrusions, and, in the southwest, strata from the Jurassic), the effects of glacial erosion, and appearance of polar ice caps. On the eastern side of the island is the large glacier of Edgeøyjøkulen.</p><br>
<p>Along with Barentsøya and some of the neighbouring islands, Edgeøya forms part of South East Svalbard Nature Reserve, established by the Norwegian government in 1973. There is a significant reindeer population, and the island is an important site for polar bear reproduction; moreover, the polar bear population in this Barents Sea area is a unique deme (unique genetic population).</p><br>
<h2>In popular culture</h2><br>
<p>Edgeøya is the setting for the novel The Solitude of Thomas Cave (2007), by Georgina Harding, in which the title character, on a wager, successfully over-winters on the island in 1616–17.</p><br>
<p>Roi-Namur is an island in the north part of the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Today it is a major part of the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site, hosting several radar systems used for tracking and characterizing missile reentry vehicles  and their penetration aids .</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Germany annexed the Marshalls in 1885 but did not put government officials on the islands until 1906, leaving island affairs to a group of powerful German trading companies. Under the Treaty of Versailles, Japan took over after World War I. They colonised the Marshalls extensively, developing and fortifying large bases on many of the islands.</p><br>
<p>Roi-Namur was the target of the USA 4th Marine Division in the Battle of Kwajalein, in February 1944. During the Japanese occupation, the two islands (Roi to the west (Marshallese: Ruot, ) and Namur to the east (Nim̧ur, )) were connected by a narrow neck of land and causeway. After the American occupation, US Navy SeaBees filled the area between the islands by December 1944; the two now joined islands are presently called Roi-Namur with a total area of about one square mile.</p><br>
<p>Roi-Namur was selected by DARPA as a host site for a series of radar experiments under the Project Defender umbrella, and Project PRESS in particular. These experiments intended to use radar means to distinguish an enemy RV from its penaids though the examination of the size, shape and velocity of the objects, as well as examining the wake they left in the upper atmosphere. By building on Roi-Namur, they were able to use the test shots being used by the US Army&#39;s Nike-X program installed on Kwajalein Island and Meck Island further to the south.</p><br>
<h2>Today</h2><br>
<p>Roi-Namur is home to an about 120 American and Marshallese employees of the Reagan Test Site.</p><br>
<p>The Roi side is the main housing area, with the retail and recreation facilities there. Activities on Roi-Namur range from a nine-hole golf course, saltwater swimming pool, scuba club, movie theater, volleyball, and basketball court. Roi hosts the Freeflight International Airport (Marshall Islands) with one runway for small planes that commute from Kwajalein bringing additional workers. Additional Marshallese daytime workers come via ferry from the island of Enniburr.</p><br>
<p>The Namur side is home to the ALCOR, ALTAIR, MMW and TRADEX radar tracking stations.</p><br>
<p>There is a small launch facility on Roi-Namur. Rockets launched here are usually sounding rockets that ascend beyond the atmosphere but have short ranges. There are crumbling remnants of Japanese blockhouses and pillboxes around Roi-Namur.</p><br>
<p>Hardknott Pass is a hill pass that carries a minor road between Eskdale and the Duddon Valley in the Lake District National Park, Cumbria, England. The tarmacked highway, which is the most direct route from the central Lake District to West Cumbria, shares the title of steepest road in England . It has a maximum gradient of 1 in 3 .</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>The pass takes its name from Hard Knott which is derived from the Old Norse harthr (hard) and knutr (craggy hill).</p><br>
<p>Note also that Canute (king of England Norway and Sweden) had a son called Hard Knutr.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>A single track road highway runs between Eskdale in the west to the edge of the neighbouring Wrynose Pass in the east. On the western side is Harter Fell and the remains of Hardknott Roman Fort (200 m above sea level).</p><br>
<p>The Hardknott Pass stands at a maximum elevation of 393 m. At the eastern end of the pass is Cockley Beck farmhouse, it was built in the 1860s and currently owned by the National Trust. The route from Hardknott leads eastward towards the Wrynose Pass and Ambleside.</p><br>
<p>The pass is described as one of the most challenging roads in Britain. A series of hairpin bends make visibility difficult in various places. Traffic ascending the pass have priority as advised by the Highway Code. The pass is often closed in winter due to ice that makes the route impassable for vehicles. The challenging 1 in 3 gradients make the route popular with cyclists. It is part of the annual Fred Whitton Challenge, a 112-mile ride around the Lake District.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>A road over the pass was built by the Romans around AD 110 to link the coastal fort and baths at Ravenglass with their garrisons at Ambleside and Kendal. The Romans called this road the Tenth Highway. The road fell into disrepair after the Romans left Britain in the early 5th century, although it remained as an unpaved packhorse route thereafter. The road was originally used entirely for military traffic, but following the Romans&#39; retreat from Britain was used to transport lead and agricultural goods. By the early Middle Ages, the road was known as the Waingate ("cart road") or Wainscarth ("cart pass"): there is an 1138 record of a party of monks traversing it in an oxcart.</p><br>
<p>Hardknott pass and its surrounding area fell with in the domain of the Lords of Millom, being situated between the headwaters of the Esk and Duddon. Grazing and hunting rights were given to the monks of Furness Abbey by the Lords of Millom in the 13th Century, which they held until the dissolution of the monasteries (1536-41).</p><br>
<p>In the 1880s an association of hoteliers, the English Lake District Association, financed improvements to the road in the hope of encouraging tourist excursions by carriage; by 1891 the scheme was judged to be "not the success that was anticipated". Nevertheless, the route had some popularity with cyclists and early motorists, with the Cyclists&#39; Touring Club 1911 Guide to North-West England describing the old coach road as "difficult going West, cruel coming East". The first motor vehicles were taken over the Hardknott and Wrynose passes, from the Eskdale side, in 1913.</p><br>
<p>In 1936, the Cumberland Highways Committee considered, and rejected, a proposal to make the pass more accessible to motors by laying down a new road surface and making other improvements. However, during the Second World War the War Office used the area for tank training completely destroying the existing road surface. After the war the wartime damage was repaired and tarmacked. A decade after the local government had rejected opening the highway to vehicles, the war&#39;s legacy had inadvertently created a direct route between Ambleside and Eskdale for the first time.</p><br>
<p>The courses of the Roman and modern roads are not identical. The Roman highway - on the western side - is to the north of the modern road and to the south on the eastern side of the pass.</p><br>
<p>Skiathos  is a small Greek island in the northwest Aegean Sea. Skiathos is the westernmost island in the Northern Sporades group, east of the Pelion peninsula in Magnesia on the mainland, and west of the island of Skopelos.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The island has a north to southwestern direction and is about 12 km long and 6 km wide on average. The coastline is indented with inlets, capes and peninsulas. The southeast and southwest parts have gentler slopes and that is where most settlements and facilities are located. The terrain is more rugged on the north coast, with the highest peak at 433 m on mount Karafiltzanaka (39.1904&deg;N latitude, 23.4685&deg;E longitude).</p><br>
<p>The main town is Skiathos (pop. 4,883 in 2011), in the eastern part of the island. Other main settlements are Kalyvia (312), Troullos (158), Χanemos (143), Koukounaries (119), and Achladias (118).</p><br>
<p>The Municipality of Skiathos includes the islets of Tsougria, Tsougriaki, Maragos, Arkos, Troulonisi and Aspronisi. The municipality has an area of 49.898 km. They are scattered a few kilometres off the southeast coastline and are clearly visible from the town and the beaches. The island of Skopelos is visible from Skiathos with the more distant islands of Euboea and Skyros visible under very clear weather conditions.</p><br>
<p>The main paved road runs all along the southeastern stretch of the island with several narrow dirt roads branching off towards the interior and the northern coast. Farmland exists around all the major settlements on the island.</p><br>
<p>Despite its small size, Skiathos with its many beaches and wooded landscape is a popular tourist destination. It has over 60, mostly sandy, beaches scattered around the 44 km coastline. Some of these are Troulos, Vromolimnos, Koukounaries, Asselinos, Megali Ammos and Mandraki.</p><br>
<p>Much of the island is wooded with Aleppo Pine and a small Stone Pine forest at the Koukounaries location where there is a lagoon and a popular beach. The island&#39;s forests are concentrated on the southwest and northern parts, but the presence of pine trees is prevalent throughout the island.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>In Ancient times, the island played a minor role during the Persian Wars. In 480 BC, the fleet of the Persian King Xerxes was hit by a storm and was badly damaged on the rocks of the Skiathos coast. Following this the Greek fleet blockaded the adjacent seas to prevent the Persians from invading the mainland and supplying provisions to the army facing the 300 Spartans defending the pass at Thermopylae. The Persian fleet was defeated there at Artemisium and finally destroyed at the Battle of Salamis a year later. Skiathos remained in the Delian League until it lost its independence. The city was destroyed by Philip V of Macedon in 200 BC.</p><br>
<p>In 1207 the Ghisi brothers captured the island and built the Bourtzi, a small Venetian-styled fortress similar to the Bourtzi in Nafplio, on an islet just out of Skiathos Town, to protect the capital from the pirates. But the Bourtzi was ineffective in protecting the population and in the mid-14th century the inhabitants moved the capital from the ancient site that lay where modern Skiathos Town is to Kastro (the Greek word for castle), located on a high rock, overlooking a steep cliff above the sea at the northernmost part of the island. The island returned to Byzantine control in the 1270s, and remained in Byzantine hands until after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, when it passed to the Republic of Venice. Like the rest of the Northern Sporades, Skiathos was conquered by the Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa in 1538.</p><br>
<p>In 1704 monks from Athos built the Evangelistria Monastery, which played a part on the Greek War of Independence as a hide-out for Greek rebels. The first flag of Greece was created and hoisted in the Evangelistria Monastery in Skiathos in 1807, where several prominent military leaders (including Theodoros Kolokotronis and Andreas Miaoulis) had gathered for consultation concerning an uprising, and they were sworn to this flag by the local bishop.</p><br>
<p>After the War of Independence and demise of piracy in the Aegean, Kastro became less important. In 1830s, the island&#39;s capital was moved to the original site — where it still remains. Today, the ruins of Kastro are a tourist attraction.</p><br>
<p>During the 19th century Skiathos became an important shipbuilding centre in the Aegean due to the abundance of pine forests on the island. The pine woods of the island were then almost obliterated. This was brought to a halt though, due to the emergence of steamboats. A small shipwright remains north of Skiathos Town, which still builds traditional Greek caiques.</p><br>
<h2>Transport</h2><br>
<p>There is a regular boat service to the island and the rest of the Sporades islands with departures from Volos and Agios Konstantinos. The boats are operated mainly by Hellenic Seaways using its high-speed Flying Cat vessels as well as conventional ferries.</p><br>
<p>Skiathos International Airport is at the northeast of the island next to a lagoon and a lowland isthmus separating the island from the peninsula of Lazareta. As of summer 2011, Skiathos airport is served by Olympic Air flights from both Athens and Thessaloniki, while foreign airlines provide charter flights from a range of airports in European countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Italy, Cyprus and Scandinavian countries. During the winter 2013/14, work began to expand the airport, with a runway extension and increased hard standing for parked aircraft.</p><br>
<p>The modern major road runs along the eastern and southern coast. Narrower roads, some paved and some dirt, reach the interior and the northwest coastline. There is regular, and during tourist season, very frequent bus transit from the main town to the Koukounaries beach in the southwest.</p><br>
<p>There are three bus routes on the island. The core route is from the main town to Koukounaries beach which travels along the south coast of the island. There are in total 26 bus stops, with Koukounaries Beach being the last stop, number 26. This route operates a fleet of five coaches as frequently as five times an hour during the summer peak season throughout the day, but is significantly reduced during the winter. The second route departs from Skiathos Town, to the Monastery of Evangelistria at an hourly daily schedule and the third bus route to Xanemos on the north coast with up to six round trips daily, both operated using mini-buses.</p><br>
<h2>Sites of interest</h2><br>
<h3>Sites of interest in the town</h3><br>
<p>Church of Panaghia Limnià, built in 1838</p><br>
<p>Church of Tris Ieràrches</p><br>
<p>Bourtzi Peninsula</p><br>
<p>Papadiamantis House - Museum</p><br>
<h3>Sites of interest in the island</h3><br>
<p>Holy Monastery of Evangelistria</p><br>
<p>Old Monastery of Panaghia Ekonistria</p><br>
<p>Old Monastery of Panaghia Kechrià</p><br>
<p>Byzantine Church of Christ (in the Castle)</p><br>
<h3>Beaches</h3><br>
<p>Koukounaries Beach</p><br>
<p>Lalaria</p><br>
<p>Banana beach</p><br>
<h2>Notable residents</h2><br>
<p>Alexandros Papadiamantis (1851–1911) writer</p><br>
<p>Richard Romanus, actor</p><br>
<p>Marineland of Florida , one of Floridas first marine mammal parks, is billed as "the worlds first oceanarium". Marineland functions as an entertainment and swim-with-the-dolphins facility, and reopened to the public on March 4, 2006 . In 2011, the park was purchased by the Georgia Aquarium for a reported 9.1 million USA dollars.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Beginnings</h3><br>
<p>Marineland was first conceived by W. Douglas Burden, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, Sherman Pratt, and Ilya Andreyevich Tolstoy (grandson of Leo Tolstoy) as an oceanarium that could be used to film marine life. A site was selected on the Atlantic Ocean south of St. Augustine, eventually known as the town of Marineland. The site of Marineland is within a 20,000 acre grant given to London barrister Levett Blackborne in 1767. The well-connected Blackborne, grandson of Sir Richard Levett, Lord Mayor of London, never settled his grant (nor even visited Florida), and eventually Blackborne&#39;s plantation was regranted to John Graham, a Georgia Loyalist fleeing the Revolutionary War. Ultimately, the land that is today Marineland was broken up over the years into smaller parcels.</p><br>
<p>Financing and construction presented challenges as Marineland was the first attempt at capturing and sustaining sea creatures. These challenges were overcome. Construction and engineering were carried out Arthur Franklin Perry Co. of Jacksonville. On June 23, 1938, "Marine Studios" (the name "Marineland of Florida" would later be adopted) began operations with its main attraction a bottlenose dolphin. Unexpectedly, over 20,000 tourists clogged Highway A1A to visit the new attraction. For many decades Marineland consisted of not only the oceanariums but several amenities including a motel (Marine Village Court, Marineland Motel and Quality Inn/Marineland); Dolphin Restaurant and Moby Dick Lounge; Periwinkle Snack Bar and Sandpiper Snack Bar; Marineland Marina; plus fruit shop and gift shop; and a pier at the north end of the facility. A Texaco service station was adjacent to the Periwinkle Snack Bar, and Greyhound Bus Lines stopped regularly during its St. Augustine to Daytona Beach run.</p><br>
<p>The total property area consisted of 125 acre sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway. Originally planned for the St. Augustine area, residents of that community did not look favorably on the attraction being located there; thus the new site south of Matanzas Inlet was chosen.</p><br>
<p>Having the grandson of Leo Tolstoy involved in the project helped Marineland become a very fashionable destination in its early days, prompting writers Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, John Dos Passos, and Ernest Hemingway to visit Moby Dicks Bar located there. Ms. Rawlings was married to Norton Baskin who at one time (1950s/early 1960s) was the operator/manager of the Dolphin Restaurant/Moby Dick Lounge. The parks facilities were very popular with tourists and also used for numerous movies, including Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) and Revenge of the Creature (1955). Trained dolphins became an additional attraction in the early 1950s as Marineland became one of Floridas major attractions, attracting over 900,000 visitors per year with peak attendance in the mid-1970s. The opening of Walt Disney World Resort in 1971 gave a major boost to the attractions annual attendance. However, Sea World&#39;s entry into the Florida market eventually had a very negative impact on Marineland from the late 1970s through the 2009. Many publications erroneously note the peak attendance as having been 300,000. The break-even admission point was actually 400,000, however, even during the 1950s.</p><br>
<h3>Decline</h3><br>
<p>Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney who was the major stockholder of the private company opted to sell the marine park in the mid-1980s to a group of St. Augustine businessmen. With declining attendance, bad management and other issues, the group was unable to meet their loan payments and the attraction was again put on the market. Ownership change was the norm from that point.</p><br>
<p>Eventually the maintenance demands of the old park became too costly for the real estate investment group who owned it at that time. The facility began to sink into disrepair as the owners desperately sought a buyer. Finally, through a convoluted deal involving junk bonds, the property was sold. The buyers planned to build time-share condominiums on most of the ocean hammock land but were unable to bring the plan to fruition. This effort resulted in bankruptcy for the buyers. In addition, the already-strapped oceanarium had been reconfigured as a non-profit foundation as part of the sale and was responsible for its own sustenance as well as repayment of the bond issue. Needed monies were not invested in repairs, and the shabby condition of the park offended even the most loyal fans. With no direct ownership, no funding, and the financial burden of bond interest payments, employees were left to cope with equipment failures, no marketing, loss of credit, bounced paychecks, government inspections and the custodianship of the marine mammals, fish and birds. During this era, many devoted individuals and businesses contributed materials and services to help employees keep the place going. In the end, the foundation repaid the bondholders pennies on the dollar, a large part of Marineland&#39;s dolphin population was sold off to Orlando, and the current owner came in and picked up the pieces.</p><br>
<h3>Rebirth</h3><br>
<p>Hurricanes Floyd and Irene in 1999 forced the park to close for two months. In 2003, all of the park buildings west of Highway A1A were demolished leaving only the original structures along the Atlantic Ocean. In 2004, the park closed completely for renovations, and reopened on March 4, 2006.</p><br>
<p>During the renovations the original 1938 Circular Oceanarium (400,000 usgal) and Rectangular Oceanarium (450,000 usgal) were demolished. The age of the original Dolphin Show at Marineland ended as the park reopened as a hands-on educational facility. Future plans for the area include a condominium development on former park lands. The rest of the old Marineland property wound up in the hands of Flagler County and now make up the River to the Sea Preserve one of the County&#39;s many parks.</p><br>
<p>With a gift from Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney of slightly more than 3 acre of land together with his donation of about half of the total constructions costs, on January 30, 1974 the University of Florida opened the Whitney Marine Laboratory adjacent to Marineland. This laboratory&#39;s purpose was the experimental study of marine animals but it was separate from the lab that was once operated by Marineland. Marine Studios through their Research Facility contributed greatly to the understanding of porpoises thanks to Arthur McBride, Forrest Wood and other marine biologists. The staff at Marineland was a "first responder" for hundreds of whale strandings along the southeastern Atlantic Coast during its existence.</p><br>
<p>Three bottlenose dolphins were born at the newly constructed Dolphin Conservation center in July 2008, two males and one female. The calves were named in November 2008.</p><br>
<p>In January 2011, Marineland was sold again and is currently being operated as a subsidiary of Georgia Aquarium.</p><br>
<p>The facility, now named Marineland Dolphin Adventure, offers several dolphins encounters, educational programs, and conducts research to help care for marine life in human care and in the wild.</p><br>
<h3>Dolphins</h3><br>
<p>Females: Betty, Shaka, Dazzle, Roxy, Casique, Lily, Tocoi and Coquina.</p><br>
<p>Males: Sunny, Zac, Aqe, Tomo, Hemingway, Boomer, Lilys Calf (Oli) and Roxy&#39;s Calf (Surge).</p><br>
<p>Zac is on loan from Gulfarium, Shaka and Lily are on loan from Dolphin Quest, while Phebe lives at the sister park Georgia Aquarium.</p><br>
<p>Svarthola or Vistehola is a cave and an archaeological site, located in Randaberg municipality in Rogaland county, Norway. The 9 m deep cavern is located on the Viste farm, about 10 km northwest of the city of Stavanger, situated near the shore of the Visteviga bay, at the mouth of the Hafrsfjorden. The site has yielded numerous Neolithic artifacts that have been excavated and discovered in and around the cave.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The location served as a shelter for a group of about 25 people during the Neolithic since around 6,000 BCE. These people were mainly hunter-gatherers, who adopted a sedentary lifestyle based on agriculture around 4,000 BCE. The occupants of Vistehola engaged in hunting to maintain a diet, that largely consisted of wild boar. Faunal remains of moose and seal were also found. Since around 2,000 BCE, their major form of sustenance had shifted towards farming.</p><br>
<p>The site was first studied in 1907 and 1910, and again in 1939 and 1941. The discovered material is remarkably well preserved and provides comprehensive information on the prehistoric inhabitant&#39;s living conditions from between 8,000 and 6,000 years ago. Cultural layers were divided into four distinct strata, that correspond with the local Mesolithic and Neolithic era and the most recent sediment layer has been associated with the Iron Age. The greater discovery group includes hunting and fishing implements made of stone, antlers and bone as well as residue of shells and ornamental items.</p><br>
<p>The cave houses an inhabited area of approximately 100 m&sup2; and is located about 250 m north of today&#39;s shoreline. Excavation of the site revealed implement waste and also traces of funerals. At the east wall of the cave a skeleton of a juvenile boy (around 15 year old) was found who lived about 7,500 years ago. It represents one of the earliest known human remains in Norway.</p><br>
<h2>Media gallery</h2><br>
<p>Vistehola.jpgEntrance to the cave</p><br>
<p>Vistehola3.jpgInterior of the cave</p><br>
<p>Vistehola4.jpgCeiling of the cave</p><br>
<p>Vistehola2.jpgSvarthålå på Viste</p><br>
<p>Whitbarrow is a hill in Cumbria, England. Designated a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest and national nature reserve, it forms part of the Morecambe Bay Pavements Special Area of Conservation due to its supporting some of the best European examples of natural limestone habitats. Also known as Whitbarrow Scar , the hill lies about 9 km south-west of Kendal, just north of the A590 road, close to the village of Witherslack. Part of the site is a local nature reserve called Whitbarrow Scar.</p><br>
<p>It is a mixture of woodland, grassland and limestone pavement. The hill is prominent from the A590 road with its steep limestone cliffs, laid down in the Carboniferous period some 350 million years ago. The main cliff faces are made up of rocks known as Dalton Beds, above which are Urswick Limestones, of which the limestone pavement (here and elsewhere around Morecambe Bay, including Hutton Roof Crags) has been formed.</p><br>
<p>Whitbarrow, like most of the Lake District, shows many signs of the last ice age, including glacial erratics (boulders left behind when the ice retreated), and the limestone pavement itself, formed when ice left bare limestone exposed to the elements which eroded it and left us with the grikes and clints we see today. The limestone has been used for many purposes including building, agricultural fertiliser, and production of millstones, but is now protected by law and it is an offence to remove any. Whitbarrow NNR is owned and managed by the Forestry Commission, Lake District National Park Authority and the Cumbria Wildlife Trust.</p><br>
<p>Much of Whitbarrow is covered in woodland, initially naturally and from 1919 following planting; the Forestry Commission now holds leases on parts of the hill. A variety of techniques are used to manage the woodland, including coppicing; the variety of methods adds to the range of wildlife resulting.</p><br>
<p>The summit of Whitbarrow Scar is known as Lord’s Seat, and an anticlockwise walk to here from Witherslack, returning along the valley to the west, forms a chapter in The Outlying Fells of Lakeland by Alfred Wainwright. He describes it as "the most beautiful in this book; beautiful it is every step of the way.... All is fair to the eye on Whitbarrow."</p><br>
<p>For the town of the same name, see Semmering, Austria.</p><br>
<p>Semmering is a mountain pass in the Eastern Northern Limestone Alps connecting Lower Austria and Styria, between which it forms a natural border.</p><br>
<h2>Location</h2><br>
<p>Semmering Pass is located west of Sonnwendstein and Hirschenkogel and east of the Pinkenkogel.</p><br>
<p>With the Wechsel Pass, the Semmering is the most important connection between Lower Austria and Styria. It can be crossed by road (via an Autobahn with a tunnel), or using the Semmering Railway.</p><br>
<p>The village of Semmering is on the pass. The villages of Maria Schutz and Spital am Semmering are slightly below the pass, on the Lower Austrian and Styrian sides respectively. Schottwien and Mürzzuschlag are the closest sizeable towns on either side.</p><br>
<h2>Rail transportation</h2><br>
<p>As the Semmering is a major bottleneck in the Austrian railway network, the Semmering Railway, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site, is planned to be supplemented by a tunnel at the base of the mountains. The project is supported by the Austrian Federal Government and the governments of Styria and Carinthia, but has been heavily opposed by the government of Lower Austria, which stalled the project by issuing negative environmental impact statements. The project has now been revised according to the advanced state of technology and the layout of the line has been altered in order to minimize effects on ground water.</p><br>
<p>A ground-breaking ceremony was held at Gloggnitz on April 25, 2012 to officially launch preliminary construction works for the 27.3 km Semmering Base Tunnel. Opening is planned for 2024. The €3·1bn base tunnel between Gloggnitz and Mürzzuschlag is a key part of the new Südbahn project. It will eliminate the current bottleneck on the 41 km Semmering Railway route where steep gradients and numerous curves require freight trains to use two or three locomotives.</p><br>
<p>The tunnel will comprise two 10 m bores between 40 and 70 m apart, linked by cross passages every 500m. Boring is planned to start in 2014, with excavation completed ready for fitting out from 2021. The tunnel will be designed for passenger trains to run at up to 230 km/h, shortening Wien - Graz journey times by 40 min to 1 h 50 min, which is expected to attract more customers to rail.</p><br>
<h2>Skiing</h2><br>
<p>The Semmering ski resort, called Zauberberg, which also hosts World Cup events, is located at the pass and extends on to the Hirschenkogel mountain. It is mainly used by skiers from Vienna, from where it can be reached within one hour, but increasingly also by people from Hungary and Slovakia.</p><br>
<h2>Numismatics</h2><br>
<p>The Semmering Pass is featured on a famous commemorative coin: the 25 euro 150 Years of the Semmering Alpine Railway Coin. The reverse of the coin shows a typical Semmering view. A steam engine has just emerged from a tunnel crossing one of the distinctive viaducts.</p><br>
<p>Woodstown is home to a historic settlement measuring 1.5 km by 0.5 km, located on the southern bank of the River Suir, about 5.5 km west of Waterford City in the southeast of Ireland. This site should not be confused with Woodstown beach which is on the western side of Waterford Harbour near the fishing port of Dunmore East.</p><br>
<h2>Discovery</h2><br>
<p>The National Roads Authority had planned to build a road over the site which showed no evidence of a historical monument. Investigation ditch and gulley across the road route led to the discovery of the site. In 2005 the site was declared a national monument and the motorway bypassed the site. The NRA, who have no responsibility for the site in the future, published reports, based on excavations in April and August 2003. These suggest that the site found at Woodstown was a defended, riverside settlement with evidence of industrial activity, most likely dating from the period - 830 to 940 AD.</p><br>
<p>With over 600 features such as house gullies, pits and fireplaces found, the archaeology points to a densely populated and affluent settlement. Apart from Woodstown, there is no evidence of a large 9th-century Viking settlement in Western Europe. Further small excavations, which took place in 2006, identified a structure which may have been associated with metal-working. Reports on these excavations have yet to be published.</p><br>
<h2>9th-century Viking settlement</h2><br>
<p>The 2010 International Viking Conference confirmed the site as a longphort - a defensive enclosure built to protect the ships of Viking raiders and the treasure which they amassed, including silver, local captives (whom they would sell as slaves) and cattle.</p><br>
<p>About 4,000 objects including silver ingots, lead weights, ships nails, Byzantine coins and Viking weaponry have been recovered through preliminary surface test trenching. Much of the metal work found at Woodstown dates back to the mid to late 9th century.</p><br>
<p>Work being carried out on the grave suggests that it is one of the best equipped such graves from Ireland or Great Britain. Included were a sword (which may have come from Carolingian Francia rather than Norway itself), a spearhead showing silver inlay, a shield which seemed to have been placed over the dead man’s face, an axe and whetstone.</p><br>
<p>The Viking inhabitants of Woodstown had some very small and apparently personalised weights which they would use to measure very small amounts of silver. The most common unit of measurement is Scandinavian and does not appear to be evident at other sites in Ireland.</p><br>
<p>Woodstown Vikings seem to have been trading as individuals, buying and selling with locals. This pattern of commerce seems to be confined to the area of Kilkenny and Waterford which may mean a distinctive and quite unique type of Viking colonisation and settlement in the south-east of Ireland.</p><br>
<h2>5th Century Iron Age settlement</h2><br>
<p>Initial studies suggest that the site may have been built and occupied by the local Déise around the time of Saint Patrick and long before the first Vikings arrived in Ireland. At that time, the Déise were established as an outward-looking people with a strong maritime tradition and colonies in south west Wales.</p><br>
<p>The Brenta Group or Brenta Dolomites  is a mountain range, and a subrange of the Rhaetian Alps in the Southern Limestone Alps mountain group. They are located in the Province of Trentino, in northeastern Italy. It is the only dolomitic group west of river Adige. Therefore, geographically, they have not always been considered a part of the Dolomites mountain ranges. Geologically, however, they definitely are - and therefore sometimes called the "Western Dolomites". As part of the Dolomites, the Brenta Group has been officially recognized as UNESCO World Heritage Site under the World Heritage Convention.</p><br>
<h2>Geology and glaciology</h2><br>
<p>Geologically, the Brenta Group is very different from the granite-formed neighboring mountain groups like Ortles and Adamello/Presanella. The main peaks are formed of hard compact dolomite, while the peripheral subgroups often are made up of more calcareous dolomite or limestone. The hard dolomite (dolomia principale) was originally formed during the Mesozoic era, under the surface of the shallow Tethys Ocean, some 200 million years ago. The hard compact dolomite with a high magnesium content was formed during the Upper Triassic period. The softer, more calcareous material was deposited later, in the late Triassic and early Jurassic period. The difference is clearly noticeable for the climber who gets a much more compact and reliable rock on the peaks of the central part of the Brenta Group than in the peripheral subgroups. Eventually, these layers were pushed upwards by the tectonic activity that led to the formation of the Alps during the Eocene, starting some 66 million years ago and leading to the formation of folds and thrust faults. Subsequent erosion carved out the dolomitic landscape with its steep vertical pinnacles, as we know it now.</p><br>
<p>Although the remnants of hugh moraines suggests that the Brenta group was once encapsulated by big glaciers, the remnants of those are now very modest and have been steadily shrinking over the course of the last hundred years. Traditionally, the Brenta glaciers were relatively small and called "vedrette". Over the last hundred years their size has been reduced to often smaller than half of their original size around 1900. Climate change appears to be the main reason.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The Brenta Group is separated from:</p><br>
<p>the Ortler Alps in the north by the Noce Valley</p><br>
<p>the Adamello-Presanella group in the west by the Campo Carlo Magno Pass and the river Sarca</p><br>
<p>the Fiemme Mountains in the east by the Adige valley.</p><br>
<p>The Brenta Group covers a relatively large area. It can be subdivided into a</p><br>
<p>Southern Sector, comprising the Tosa massif, the Ambiez chain and the subgroups of Vallon, Fracingli, Ghez</p><br>
<p>Central Sector, comprising the Sfulmini chain and the Cima Brenta massif as well as the subgroups of Monte Daino, Gaiarda/Altissimo and Grostè.</p><br>
<p>Northern Sector comprising the Northern chain and the subgroup of La Campa.</p><br>
<p>Technically, the shouldering mountains, as there are on the east side Cima Paganella, Monte Gazza, and on the west side the Doss del Sabion should be considered part of the Brenta Group, but they are very peripheral.</p><br>
<p>The Brenta Group counts a number of lakes of which the Molveno Lake and the Tovèl Lake are the most significant.</p><br>
<h2>Peaks</h2><br>
<p>Notable peaks of the Brenta Group are:</p><br>
<p>has suggested that Cima Tosa is not as high as 3173 metres and is probably lower than Cima Brenta.</p><br>
<h2>Mountain passes</h2><br>
<p>The main mountain passes of the Brenta Group are:</p><br>
<h2>Exploration history</h2><br>
<p>The Brenta Group had probably been frequently explored by local hunters, but the scientific and alpinistic exploration started in 1864 when John Ball, (Irish-)British explorer and founder of the British Alpine Club, undertook the east-west traverse of the Brenta Group over the Bocca di Brenta. A year later he reached the summit of the Cima Tosa, only to find out that a few days earlier, on July 20, 1865, the summit had been claimed by Bepi Loss from Primiero and his companions. Ball wrote about his endeavors in the Alpine Journal and attracted other British explorers to the Brenta Group. Douglas Freshfield, a later chairman of the prestigious Alpine Club arrived in 1871. He and his companions Francis Fox Tuckett and the French guide François Devouassoud from Chamonix. These men, who all would become main figures of the Golden Age of Alpinism were active in the Brenta Group and Presanella in 1871 and 1872. In 1871 they reached the summit of the Cima Brenta. Other British mountaineers of that era that would add to the exploration of the Brenta Group were Arthur John Butler (a.o. 1884: Cima degli Armi, 1885: Campanile Alto), and Edward Theodore Compton (1881: Crozzon di Brenta). The latter built up a career as an artist in Germany and had fully integrated into the ranks of the Deutsch-Oestereichische Alpen Verein (DÖAV), for which he made a large series of paintings and illustrations, also featuring the Brenta Group in some remarkable images. Trentino was Welshtirol, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918, so it was only natural that the DÖAV took an interest in the exploration of these mountains. After Karl Schulz had reached the third and highest summit of the Crozzon di Brenta and reported his findings, other German and Austrian alpinist found their way to the Brenta Group.</p><br>
<p>Important explorative and descriptive work was done by and Hanns Barth. German speaking alpinists like Gottfried Merzbacher, Steck, Mayr, Adang, Heinemann and others left their mark on the Brenta Dolomites. Around the turn of the century a competitive spirit developed between Italian and German speaking alpinists, which took its main inspiration from the emerging nationalistic feelings in the region. Besides that, the explorative character of alpinism gave way to the ascent of rock climbing as a sport. The completion of the Italian unification in 1870 triggered expectations in Italian speaking Tyrol. The spirit of Irredentismo was increasingly present among the local alpinists, who had founded in 1872 their own. In 1882 they constructed the first mountain hut located within the Brenta Group, close to Bocca di Brenta: Rifugio Tosa, at 2439 m. Local Alpinists like Carlo and Giuseppe Garbari and Nino Pooli, started to follow in the tracks of the local guides Matteo & Bonifacio Nicolussi and Antonio Dallagiacomo, who had led all the foreigners to the summits. The antagonism with the Germanic climbers was exacerbated by an alleged practice of piggybacking on Italic efforts. The DÖAV Sektion Bremen decided to construct a large mountain hut at the rocky saddle just above the Rifugio Tosa in 1897. A similar situation was created at Passo Tuckett where the SAT had constructed the small rifugio Sella in 1905 and the DÖAV Sektion Berlin built a larger hut right next to it. When the last undisturbed major peak in the Brenta Group, Campanile Basso, was finally climbed by Berger and Ampferer in 1899, it appeared that they had heavily relied on the work of Garbari and Pooli, who had stopped just 35 meters off the summit. During the First World War the Brenta Group remained undisturbed by warfare and it is fair to conclude that after Trentino became allocated to Italy at the Treaty of Versailles, the exploration of the Brenta Group had been largely completed. The era of sports climbing had begun and innumerable climbing routes in all possible difficulty rates were traced on the vertical walls of these mountains over the years.</p><br>
<h2>Via delle Bocchette</h2><br>
<p>The access to the peaks and pinnacles of the central part of the Brenta Group was facilitated by the construction -by order of the SAT- of a via ferrata that would respectfully avoid the summits but would connect the passes and indentures called bocchette between the peaks. The work on the Via dell Bocchette Centrali started in 1935.</p><br>
<p>Much of the work at that stage was done by the Brenta guides of that era: Bruno Detassis and Enrico Giordano. The itinerary completed two years later enabled climbers to reach the apex of the Campanile Basso Via Normale. The works were interrupted by the Second World War but were resumed in 1948 mostly by effort of Celestino Donini, until reaching its completion point at the Bocca dei Armi. Later, in 1968-&#39;69 the itinerary was extended towards the Bocca del Tuckett by a trajectory called Via delle Bocchette Alte, a challenging itinerary that reaches a quota of 3002 meters and traverses the Cima Brenta east face just under the summit. At a later stage the itinerary of vie ferrate was extended towards Passo del Grostè by means of the Sentiero Benini and still later on extended further over the Northern Chain towards Rifugio Peller: Sentiero Costanzi.</p><br>
<h2>Flora and fauna</h2><br>
<p>The Autonomous Province of Trento passed a law in 1967 to protect the Brenta Group as part of the This area covers 650 km. Its fauna is among the richest of the Alps and includes all animal species which find their habitat on the mountains; bear, chamois and alpine ibex included. The Brenta Group was one of the last places in Italy where endemic bears (Ursus arctos) could find a habitat. Their numbers have recently grown, also as a result of the strengthening of the population by mixing in bears from Slovenia. Approximately 30 bears populate the park. The golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) and the wood grouse (Tetrao urogallus) find a protected home in these mountains. At several locations there are colonies of alpine marmots (Marmota marmot).</p><br>
<h2>Skiing, hiking and climbing</h2><br>
<p>The ski slopes are located on the west side of the Brenta Group in Val Rendena surrounding the mundane ski resorts of Madonna di Campiglio and Pinzolo.</p><br>
<p>Most of the lifts and ski slopes are located on the shouldering mountains Doss del Sabion and Monte Spinale. There is however a long modern high capacity lift that goes from Madonna del Campiglio right up the main chain of the Brenta Group to Passo Grostè at 2444 meters. In all, the Ski Area Campiglio Dolomiti di Brenta-Val di Sole-Val Rendena can offer around 150 km of piste on 98 ski slopes of all difficulty grades, facilitated by 63 lifts. On the east side of the Brenta Group the ski slopes are located on the Paganella. The Paganella Ski Area can offer around 50 km of piste, facilitated by 16 lifts. The skiing area above Molveno at Pradel is very small but offers a splendid view into the central part of the Brenta Group.</p><br>
<p>Most hikers come to the Brenta Group to hike along the Via della Bocchette and connected vie ferrate, like Sentiero Castiglioni. A completion of the whole south-north itinerary departing from Rif. Agostini along the Sentiero Castiglioni, Sentiero dell&#39;Ideale, Bocchette Centrali, Bocchette Alte, Sentiero Benini and Sentiero Costanzi, ending at Rifugio Peller would require in total approximately 28 walking/climbing hours. Therefore, an entire network of Alpine huts exists above the 2000 meter altitude, mostly operated by the SAT as part of the Club Alpino Italiano:</p><br>
<p>Several privately owned mountain huts can be found at lower altitudes. Signed mountain paths cross the entire Brenta Dolomites, giving access to much frequented areas of these mountains. Hikers can choose between very challenging itineraries like the Bochette Alte or less demanding alternatives but should always come well prepared with the right equipment, safety gear and precautions against sudden weather changes. A few small shelter huts (It.:bivacco) have been erected at high and remote altitudes: Bivacco Castiglioni (3135 m) at the summit of Crozzon di Brenta, Bivacco Bonvecchio (2790 m) 300 m north of the Cima Sassara, and Bivacco Costanzi at 2365 m on the Sasso Rosso. Some peripheral subgroups, like Ghez, Daino, Vallon and Campa are far away from all the touristic attention - even on an August day. These wild remote areas pose their own specific challenges and a hike in these areas requires cautious preparation.</p><br>
<p>Those areas, however, are somehow less interesting for the vertical rock climbers because of the fragility of the more calcareous rock. For these climbers the peaks and pinnacles of the Central Chain - made up of solid Dolomia principale- remain the main attraction. Challenging historic itineraries like the Via Preuss and Diedro Fehrmann on Campanile Basso, the Via Schulz and the Pilastro die Francesi on the Crozzon di Brenta, the Via Videsott on the Cima Margherita, the Via Dibona on the Croz dell&#39;Altissimo and so many other classic routes and their endless variants attract many climbers every year. The Brenta group has become also popular with mountain bikers and has become the last decade a renown base for paragliders. Former European Champion (2006, 2010) and World Cup Silver Medalist (2011) Paragliding Luca Donini is from Molveno.</p><br>
<h2>Mountain passes</h2><br>
<p>The main mountain passes of the Brenta Group are:</p><br>
<p>Jøssingfjorden is a fjord in Sokndal municipality in Rogaland county, Norway. The 3 km long fjord is narrow and deep and is surrounded by mountains. It sits about 4 km southeast of the municipal centre of Hauge. There is some settlement on the southeastern side of the fjord: the villages of Li, Vinterstø, and Bu. There is a road that runs along the southeast coast of the fjord, with sharp hairpin turns leading down from the mountains to the shore of the fjord both heading north and south from the fjord.</p><br>
<p>The Tellnes mine, one of Norway&#39;s largest titanium mines, is located in the mountains about 4 km northeast of the fjord. The mine is run by a company called Titania, and the fjord is used as the shipping port for the company. The Nedre Helleren Power Plant is located at the head of the fjord. The electricity is generated by water from lakes located high in the mountains and the water is piped down to the sea level power plant the force of the falling water produces the electricity.</p><br>
<p>At the head of the fjord is the small Helleren farm which is now abandoned. It sits in a narrow valley with steep rock cliffs on two sides, a rock scree on the third side, and the fjord on the fourth side. The base of one of the rock cliffs stops about 8 m above the ground forming a rock shelter, or heller (hence the name of the farm). The farm is preserved and is now owned by the Dalane folk museum.</p><br>
<h2>Media gallery</h2><br>
<p>Helleren Jøssingfjord.jpgHead of the fjord</p><br>
<p>Noorwegen 098.jpgHead of the fjord, view of the shipping port</p><br>
<p>Vinterstø 20150621 111340.jpgLooking towards the head of the fjord</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The fjord is well known as the location of the World War II-era Altmark Incident. On 16 February 1940, the British destroyer managed to free prisoners taken by the from the.</p><br>
<p>After this incident in the Jøssingfjorden, the term Jøssing came to mean a Norwegian patriot, the opposite of a Quisling (or traitor). The origin of this term is ironic: the Norwegian collaborator government tried to neutralize their nickname Quislings by using the Jøssingfjord event to coin a derogatory term Jøssing, referring to "anti-nazis". This attempt backfired, as it was quickly appropriated as a positive term by the Norwegian populace, and in 1943 the word was banned from official use. As a consequence, the best known illegal Norwegian newspaper got its name from the same incident: Jøssingposten (The Jøssingpost).</p><br>
<p>Utica is an ancient city located between Carthage in the south and Hippo Diarrhytus  in the north, near the outflow of the Medjerda River into the Mediterranean. It is traditionally considered to be the first colony to have been founded by the Phoenicians in North Africa. After the defeat of Carthage by Rome, Utica was an important Roman colony for seven centuries. Today, Utica no longer exists, and its remains are located in Bizerte Governorate in Tunisia – not on the coast where it once lay, but further inland because deforestation and agriculture upriver led to massive erosion and the Medjerda River silted over its original mouth.</p><br>
<h2>Utica's beginnings</h2><br>
<p>Utica was founded as a port located on the trade route leading to the Straits of Gibraltar and the Atlantic Ocean, thus facilitating Phoenician trade in the Mediterranean. The name "Utica" is from the Phoenician ˁattiq (identical to modern Arabic ( عُتَيقة) ˁuttayqah and Hebrew עתיק ˁatiq) meaning "old ", contrasting with the later colony "Carthage", meaning "new town".</p><br>
<p>The actual founding date of Utica is controversial. Several classical authors date its foundation to around 1100 BC. The archaeological evidence, however, suggests a foundation no earlier than the eighth century BC. Although Carthage was later founded about 40 km from Utica, records suggest "that until 540 BC Utica was still maintaining political and economic autonomy in relation to its powerful Carthaginian neighbor".</p><br>
<p>By the fourth century BC, Utica came under Punic control, but continued to exist as a privileged ally of Carthage. Soon, commercial rivalry created problems between Carthage and Utica.</p><br>
<h3>Mercenary War</h3><br>
<p>This relationship between Carthage and Utica began to disintegrate after the First Punic War, with the outbreak of rebellion among mercenaries who had not received compensation for their service to Carthage. Originally, Utica refused to participate in this rebellion, so that the Libyan forces led by Spendius and Matho laid siege to Utica and nearby Hippocritae.</p><br>
<p>The Carthaginian generals Hanno and Hamilcar then came to Utica&#39;s defense, managing to raise the siege, but "the severest blow of all… was the defection of Hippacritae and Utica, the only two cities in Libya which had…bravely faced the present war…indeed they never had on any occasion given the least sign of hostility to Carthage." Eventually, the forces of Carthage proved victorious, forcing Utica and Hippacritae to surrender after a short siege.</p><br>
<h2>Roman Utica</h2><br>
<h3>Third Punic War</h3><br>
<p>Utica again defied Carthage in the Third Punic War, when it surrendered to Rome shortly before the breakout of war in 150 BC. After its victory, Rome rewarded Utica by granting it an expanse of territory stretching from Carthage to Hippo.</p><br>
<p>As a result of the war, Rome created a new province of Africa, and Utica became its capital, which meant that the governor&#39;s residence was there along with a small garrison. Over the following decades Utica also attracted Roman citizens who settled there to do business.</p><br>
<h3>Roman Civil War</h3><br>
<p>During the Roman Civil War between the supporters of Pompey and Caesar, the remaining Pompeians, including Cato the Younger, fled to Utica after being defeated at the Battle of Thapsus in 46 BC. Caesar pursued them to Utica, meeting no resistance from the inhabitants. Cato, who was the leader of the Pompeians, ensured the escape of his fellow senators and anyone else who desired to leave, then committed suicide, unwilling to accept the clemency of Caesar. Displaying their fondness for Cato, "the people of Utica...called Cato their saviour and benefactor... And this they continued to do even when word was brought that Caesar was approaching. They decked his body in splendid fashion, gave it an illustrious escort, and buried it near the sea, where a statue of him now stands, sword in hand". After his death, Cato was given the name of Uticensis, due to the place of his death as well as to his public glorification and burial by the citizens of Utica.</p><br>
<h3>Roman status</h3><br>
<p>Utica obtained the formal status of a municipium in 36 BC and its inhabitants became members of the Quirina tribe. The city was chosen by the Romans as the place where the governor of their new Africa Province was resident, but the silting of the port (because of the Medjerda River) damaged the importance of Utica.</p><br>
<p>During the reign of Augustus, however, the seat of provincial government was moved to a since rebuilt Carthage, although Utica did not lose its status as one of the foremost cities in the province. When Hadrian was emperor, Utica requested to become a full Roman colony, but this request was not granted until Septimius Severus, a native of the Province of Africa, took the throne."</p><br>
<p>The city and all the area east of the "Fossatum Africae" was nearly fully romanised by the Septimius Severus times. According to historian Theodore Mommsen, all the inhabitants of Utica spoke Latin and practiced Christianity in the fourth and early fifth century. The Peutinger Map from around this time shows the town.</p><br>
<h3>Fall of Utica</h3><br>
<p>In AD 439, the Vandals captured Utica, in AD 534 the Byzantines captured it once more. Finally the Arabs were responsible for its ultimate destruction around AD 700. "Excavations at the site have yielded two Punic cemeteries and Roman ruins, including baths and a villa with mosaics".</p><br>
<h2>Diocese of Utica</h2><br>
<p>Roman Utica was a Christian city with an important diocese in Africa Proconsularis.</p><br>
<p>Indeed, there are more than a dozen bishops documented in Utica. The first, Aurelius, intervened at the council held at Carthage in 256 AD by St. Cyprian to discuss the question of the "lapsi". Maurus, the second bishop, was accused of apostasy during the persecution of 303 AD. The third, Victorius, took part in the Council of Arles in 314 AD along with Cecilianus of Carthage; he is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on 23 August. Then the fourth, Quietus, assisted at the Council of Carthage (349) proclaimed by Gratus.</p><br>
<p>At the Conference of Carthage (411) which saw gathered together the bishops of Nicene Christianity and of heretical Donatism Victorius II took part for the Church and Gedudus for the Donatists. The historian Morcelli added the bishop Gallonianus, present at the Council of Carthage (419), who, according to J. Mesnage, instead belonged to the Diocese of Utina. Then the Bishop Florentinus, who intervened at the Synod of Carthage (484), was met by the Vandal king Huneric, after which he was exiled.</p><br>
<p>Faustinianus participated at the Council of Carthage (525). He was followed by the bishop Giunilius, an ecclesiastical writer, who dedicated his works to Primasius of Hadrumetum. In the seventh century was the bishop Flavianus, who assisted at the Council of Carthage (646) against Monothelitism; and Potentinus, who was exiled in Spain and intervened at the Council of Toledo (684).</p><br>
<p>With the Arab conquest, Utica was destroyed and disappeared even as an independent diocese. Only during the early Renaissance Utica was again a diocese, when the Spanish Empire conquered the region for some decades and Pedro del Campo was named bishop of the recreated Diocese of Utica in 1516 AD.</p><br>
<h2>Ruins</h2><br>
<p>The site of the ruins of Utica is set on a low hill, composed of several Roman villas. Their walls still preserve decorative floor mosaics. To the northwest of these villas is a Punic necropolis, with Punic sarcophagi 20 ft below the Roman level.</p><br>
<p>Currently, the site is located about 30 km from Tunis and 30 km from Bizerte and near cities with four other historical sites:</p><br>
<p>Zhana: village two kilometers from the site and has some important monuments</p><br>
<p>Ghar El Melh: city located on a narrow strip of land between the mountains and the sea and welcoming several fortresses</p><br>
<p>El Alia: city which houses monuments Andalusian style</p><br>
<p>Metline: coastal town of Andalucian style.</p><br>
<p>The House of the Cascade at Utica is typical of most Roman houses excavated in North Africa.</p><br>
<h2>Archaeological site of Utica, Tunisia: image gallery</h2><br>
<h2>Footnotes</h2><br>
<h2>Bibliography</h2><br>
<p>Fethi Chelbi, Roland Paskoff et Pol Trousset, « », Antiquités africaines, vol. 31, 1995, pp. 7–51</p><br>
<p>Fethi Chelbi, Utique la splendide, éd. Agence nationale du patrimoine, Tunis, 1996</p><br>
<p>Cintas, Pierre. « Nouvelles recherches à Utique », Karthago. number 5, 1954, pp. 86–155</p><br>
<p>Étiennette Colozier, « Quelques monuments inédits dUtique », Mélanges darchéologie et d&#39;histoire, vol. 64, numéro64, 1952, pp. 67–86 ()</p><br>
<p>Hatto Gross, Walter. Utica. In: Der Kleine Pauly (KlP). Band 5, Stuttgart 1975, Sp. 1081 f.</p><br>
<p>Lézine, Alexandre. Carthage-Utique. Études darchitecture et durbanisme, éd. CNRS, Paris, 1968</p><br>
<p>Roland Paskoff et Pol Trousset, « Lancienne baie dUtique: du témoignage des textes à celui des images satellitaires », Mappemonde, numéro1/1992, pp. 30–34 ()</p><br>
<p>G. Ville, « La maison de la mosaïque de la chasse à Utique », Karthago, numéro11, 1961–1962, pp. 17–76</p><br>
<p>Mount Disappointment is a mountain in the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles County, California with a summit elevation of 5,963+ feet . It was named "Disappointment" in 1894 when USGS surveyors sighted it from the Santa Susana Mountains, believing it to be the highest point in the immediate area, decided to use it as their next triangulation point. When they reached the summit, however, they discovered that San Gabriel Peak half a mile  to the east was 167 ft higher and so moved there instead.</p><br>
<p>A Nike missile site was located there in 1955 and the summit was flattened to accommodate it. The missile site was abandoned in 1965. The mountain top is now an important telecommunications site for both commercial and government organizations.</p><br>
<p>Shirleys Bay is a bay of the Ottawa River, about ten miles from Ottawa in Ontario, Canada. Shirleys Bay is also includes a significant wetland and nature preserve that is listed as an Important Bird Area.</p><br>
<p>It is also the name of a Canadian military and civilian telecommunication research campus that is located on the shore of the bay. Organizations with facilities at the site include Defence Research and Development Canada, Communications Research Centre, the Canadian Space Agencys David Florida Laboratory, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Firearms Training Unit, Department of Defence firearms training area, and the Connaught National Army Cadet Summer Training Centre. In October 1952, the Canadian government set up an observatory at the site to attempt to measure magnetic or radio noise disturbances. The area includes the Innis Point Bird Observatory and the Shirleys Bay Crown Game Preserve, which is managed by the Ottawa Duck Club.</p><br>
<h2>Project Magnet</h2><br>
<p>Project Magnet was an unidentified flying object (UFO) study programme established by the Department of Transport (DOT) on 2 December 1950, under the direction of Wilbert B. Smith, senior radio engineer for the DOTs Broadcast and Measurements Section. It was formally active until mid-1954, and informally until Smiths death in 1962.</p><br>
<p>The station, Project Magnet, was equipped with radio monitoring equipment, Geiger counters, and cameras. It allegedly recorded a suspicious signal on 8 August 1954, which some presume was from a UFO. Although no pictures were made because of fog, all further results were declared secret.</p><br>
<p>Taliesin West was architect Frank Lloyd Wright&#39;s winter home and school in the desert from 1937 until his death in 1959 at the age of 91. Today it is the main campus of the School of Architecture at Taliesin and houses the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.</p><br>
<p>Open to the public for tours, Taliesin West is located on Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA. The complex drew its name from Wright&#39;s summer home, Taliesin, in Spring Green, Wisconsin.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Wright and the Taliesin Fellowship began to "trek" to Arizona each winter in 1933. In 1937 Wright purchased the plot of desert land that would soon become Taliesin West. He paid “$3.50 an acre on a southern slope of the McDowell Range overlooking Paradise Valley outside Scottsdale.”</p><br>
<p>Wright believed this to be the perfect spot for such a building: a place of residence, a place of business and a place to learn. Wright described it like this, “Finally I learned of a site twenty-six miles from Phoenix, across the desert of the vast Paradise Valley. On up to a great mesa in the mountains. On the mesa just below McDowell Peak we stopped, turned, and looked around. The top of the world.”</p><br>
<h2>Design</h2><br>
<p>Wright felt very strongly about the connection to the desert. He said: “Arizona needs its own architecture… Arizona’s long, low, sweeping lines, uptilting planes. Surface patterned after such abstraction in line and color as find realism in the patterns of the rattlesnake, the Gila monster, the chameleon, and the saguaro, cholla or staghorn – or is it the other way around—are inspiration enough.”</p><br>
<p>The structure&#39;s walls are made of local desert rocks, stacked within wood forms, filled with concrete. Wright always favored using the materials readily available rather than those that must be transported to the site. In Wright’s own words: “There were simple characteristic silhouettes to go by, tremendous drifts and heaps of sunburned desert rocks were nearby to be used. We got it all together with the landscape…” The flat surfaces of the rocks were placed outward facing and large boulders filled the interior space so concrete could be conserved.</p><br>
<p>Natural light also played a major part in the design. In the drafting room, Wright used translucent canvas to act as a roof (later replaced by plastic because of the intense wear from the Arizona sun). In the south-facing dining room, Wright did not take the masonry walls from floor to ceiling, and designed the roof to hang past the walls preventing unwanted sun rays from penetrating but allowing for horizontal light to pass through the room. Wright believed natural light aided the work environment he had his apprentices in, keeping the inside of his building in touch with the natural surroundings.</p><br>
<p>Every part of Taliesin West bears Frank Lloyd Wright’s personal touch. Upon every return after a summer in Wisconsin Wright would grab a hammer and immediately make his way through the complex. He would walk through each room making changes or shouting orders to apprentices closely following with wheelbarrows and tools. He constantly changed and improved on his design fixing arising problems and addressing new situations. Throughout the years he added an addition to the dining room, the cabaret theatre, music pavilion and numerous other rooms. All of the furniture and decorations were designed by Wright and the majority built by apprentices. A brilliant aspect of Wright&#39;s design is the cabaret theatre. Built with six sides, out of the standard rock-concrete mixture, in an irregularly hexagonal shape, the theatre provides its occupants with what someone has called "95% acoustic perfection". Someone sitting in the back row can hear the lightest whisper from a speaker on stage.</p><br>
<h3>Power lines controversy</h3><br>
<p>The view at Taliesin West was critical to its success. In the 1940s Wright waged a battle against overhead power lines on aesthetic grounds. In the late 1940s when power lines appeared within the view of Taliesin West, Wright wrote President Harry S. Truman, demanding they be buried. It was a losing battle. So after briefly considering rebuilding in Tucson, he "turned his back on the valley," moving the entrance to the rear of the main building.Gretchen McKay, Taliesin West shows how architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, built in harmony with nature,</p><br>
<p>Pittsburg Post-Gazette, March 27, 2010.</p><br>
<h2>Legacy</h2><br>
<p>During his lifetime, Wright continually altered and added to the complex of buildings, all of which were constructed by students.</p><br>
<p>Many of Wright&#39;s most famous buildings were designed in the drafting room at Taliesin West, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York City and Grady Gammage Auditorium at Arizona State University in Tempe.</p><br>
<p>Taliesin West continues as the headquarters of The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and as the winter home for the School of Architecture at Taliesin. As in Wrights time, students and faculty spend the summers in Spring Green, Wisconsin. The School of Architecture at Taliesin offers an accredited Master of Architecture (M.Arch) degree focused on Wrights principals.</p><br>
<p>The structure was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1982.</p><br>
<p>In 2008, the USA National Park Service submitted Taliesin West along with nine other Frank Lloyd Wright properties to a tentative list for World Heritage Status. The 10 sites have been submitted as one single site. The January 22, 2008 press release from the National Park Service website announcing the nominations states that, "The preparation of a Tentative List is a necessary first step in the process of nominating a site to the World Heritage List."</p><br>
<h2>Photo gallery</h2><br>
<p>Herodium , Herodeion , best known in Israel as Herodion  and in Arabic as Jabal al-Fureidis ; also Har Hordos is a truncated-cone-shaped hill, 12 km south of Jerusalem and 5 km southeast of Bethlehem, in the Judaean Desert, West Bank. Herod the Great built a palace fortress and a small town at Herodium, between 23 and 15 BCE, and is believed to have been buried there. Herodium is 758 meters  above sea level, the highest peak in the Judaean Desert. Today, the site is managed by the Israel National Parks Authority.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>Herodion is the only site that is named after King Herod the Great. It was known by the Crusaders as the "Mountain of Franks". Arab locals call it Jabal al-Fourdis ("Mountain of Paradise"). The Modern Hebrew name, Herodion (הרודיון), is actually a transliteration of the Greek spelling. However, modern Israeli archaeologists have confirmed that the site’s original Hebrew name was Herodis (הרודיס), just as this name is inscribed in one of the Bar Kokhba letters recovered from the Muraba’at Caves in the Judaean desert.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Emergence</h3><br>
<p>In 40 BCE, after the Parthian conquest of Syria, Herod fled to Masada. On the way, at the location of Herodion, Herod clashed with the Parthians and emerged victorious. According to the Roman Jewish historian Josephus, he "built a town on that spot in commemoration of his victory, and enhanced it with wonderful palaces... and he called it Herodion after himself" (The Wars of the Jews I, Chapter 13).</p><br>
<p>Josephus describes Herodium as follows:</p><br>
<p>"This fortress, which is some sixty stadia distant from Jerusalem, is naturally strong and very suitable for such a structure, for reasonably nearby is a hill, raised to a (greater) height by the hand of man and rounded off in the shape of a breast. At intervals it has round towers, and it has a steep ascent formed of two hundred steps of hewn stone. Within it are costly royal apartments made for security and for ornament at the same time. At the base of the hill there are pleasure grounds built in such a way as to be worth seeing, among other things because of the way in which water, which is lacking in that place, is brought in from a distance and at great expense. The surrounding plain was built up as a city second to none, with the hill serving as an acropolis for the other dwellings." (The Jewish War I, 21, 10; Antiquities of the Jews XIV, chapter 13.9).</p><br>
<h3>Construction</h3><br>
<p>Archaeologists believe that the palace was built by slaves, paid workers (contractors), and architects. Herod was considered one of the greatest builders of his time and was not daunted by geography—his palace was built on the edge of the desert and was situated atop an artificial hill. The largest of the four towers was built on a stone base 18 meters in diameter. This was most likely where Herod lived; he decorated his rooms with mosaic floors and elaborate frescoes. The other three towers, which consisted of living spaces and storage, were 16 meters in diameter. Outside, several cisterns were built to collect water that was channeled into the palace.</p><br>
<h3>Roman siege</h3><br>
<h4>Great Revolt</h4><br>
<p>Herodium was conquered and destroyed by the Romans in 71 CE.</p><br>
<h4>Bar Kokhba's revolt</h4><br>
<p>At the beginning of the Bar Kokhba revolt sixty years later, Simon bar Kokhba declared Herodium as his secondary headquarters. Archaeological evidence for the revolt was found all over the site, from the outside buildings to the water system under the mountain. Inside the water system, supporting walls built by the rebels were discovered, and another system of caves was found. Inside one of the caves, burned wood was found which was dated to the time of the revolt. The fortress was commanded by Yeshua ben Galgula, who was likely Bar Kokhba&#39;s second in command.</p><br>
<h2>Excavation</h2><br>
<p>The archaeological excavation of Herodium was begun in 1962 by Virgilio Canio Corbo and Stanislao Loffreda, from the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum of Jerusalem, and it continued until 1967: they discovered the upper citadel, at the top of the hill.</p><br>
<p>From 1972, excavations were carried out by Ehud Netzer, working on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and they were intermittent until the archaeologist&#39;s death in 2010. Netzer excavated mostly the lower palace, at the base of the hill.</p><br>
<h3>Herod's palace</h3><br>
<p>Herod the Great built a palace within the fortress of Herodium. Herod himself commissioned a lavish palace to be built between 23 and 15 BCE atop Herodium for all to see. The palace itself consisted of four towers of seven stories, a bathhouse, courtyards, a Roman theatre, banquet rooms, a large walkway (“the course”), as well as extravagant living quarters for himself and guests. Once Herod died and the Great Revolt started, Herodium was abandoned. The Jews eventually had a base at Herodium where they built a synagogue which can still be seen today, unlike much of Herod’s Palace.</p><br>
<h4>Bathhouse</h4><br>
<p>The Roman bathhouse consisted of three areas, the caldarium, the tepidarium, and the frigidarium. It also had a very impressive dome which is still in good condition today despite thousands of years of earthquakes and wars. The caldarium had vaulted ceilings, raised floors, and channels in the walls to conduct heat. The tepidarium had mosaic floors and frescoes just like the living quarters of the palace. The frigidarium, the last stop in the bathhouse, was where guests would cool off in a large pool.</p><br>
<h4>Theatre</h4><br>
<p>Netzer discovered the Roman Theatre just before his death in late 2010. A loggia, or a theatre box, was discovered. This means that when Herod or other notable officials went to see a play, they would receive luxury treatment. The rest of the audience would be seated below on benches that could accommodate about 650 people. What is quite unique about this find is that frescoes of landscapes were discovered. This suggests that the painters were well traveled; they depict scenes of Italy and even the Nile River in Egypt. It is also assumed that the painters were on loan to Herod from Caesar in Rome.</p><br>
<h3>Synagogue</h3><br>
<p>A pre-year-70 synagogue at Herodium is of the Galilean-type, featuring stone benches built along the walls and aisles formed by columns that supported the roof. It is one of the oldest synagogues in the Levant.</p><br>
<h3>Tomb of Herod</h3><br>
<p>Hebrew University professor Ehud Netzer reported on 8 May 2007 that he had discovered the tomb of Herod, above tunnels and water pools at a flattened site halfway up the hill to Herodium, 12 km south of Jerusalem. Later excavations strengthened the idea that this site is Herod&#39;s mausoleum. The base of the tomb has now been uncovered and is visible to visitors to the site.</p><br>
<p>The 2009–2010 excavations uncovered near the tomb base a small 450-seat capacity theater with an elaborately decorated royal theater box.</p><br>
<p>Netzer died in October 2010 from injuries sustained from a fall at the site, and access to the mausoleum was subsequently blocked to the public pending review of the site&#39;s safety.</p><br>
<p>In October 2013, archaeologists Joseph Patrich and Benjamin Arubas challenged the identification of the tomb as that of Herod. According to Patrich and Arubas, the tomb is too modest to be Herods and has several unlikely features. Roi Porat, who replaced Netzer as excavation leader after the latters death, stood by the identification.</p><br>
<h2>Legal aspects</h2><br>
<p>In February 2013 an exhibit dedicated to Herod at the Israel Museum featured finds from Herodium. Rula Maayah, the Palestinian tourism and antiquities minister said that according to international law Israelis have no right to excavate Herodium, which is in the occupied West Bank, or to take any antiquities from it. Palestinian officials compared the exhibition to the historical plunder of archaeological treasures by former colonial powers. The Israel Museum said that the items from Herodium will be returned to the site after the exhibition, "in better condition than before". The Israel Museum cited the Oslo Accords as giving Israel a right to perform archaeology in the territories and said they will return it to the West Bank when the exhibition has ended.</p><br>
<p>The site is in Area C, a term used to describe 60% of the West Bank that is under full Israeli control in accordance with the 1993 Oslo Accords.</p><br>
<h2>Films</h2><br>
<p>Herods Lost Tomb (2008; National Geographic Society), in addition to examining Netzers purported find of Herods tomb, the palace and most of Herods other large projects are reconstructed in CGI.</p><br>
<p>"Finding Jesus: Faith, Fact, Forgery: Season 2, Episode 4: The tomb of Herod" (2017; CNN), the episode unpacks the epic story of the client king of Judea.</p><br>
<p>Gamla  was an ancient Jewish city on the Golan Heights. It is believed to have been founded as a Seleucid fort during the Syrian Wars which was turned into a city under Hasmonean rule in 81 BCE. During the Great Revolt, it became an important stronghold for rebels and because of this Gamla is a symbol of heroism for the modern state of Israel and an important historical and archaeological site. It lies within the current Gamla nature reserve and is a prominent tourist attraction.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Antiquity</h3><br>
<p>Archaeological excavations have shown that in the place of Gamla there was already a settlement in the Early Bronze Age. The settlement was probably agricultural, as archaeologists have found evidence of long-term use of flint sickles. Some of the findings even go back to the Copper Age. Around 2700 BCE, the settlement was abandoned until it was used as a military outpost by the Seleucids. The Mishnah mentions Gamla among the cities conquered by Joshua, although in reality the fort was abandoned before the arrival of the Jews. Archaeologist Dani Zion suggests that the inhabitants of the Gamla themselves connected the remains of the ancient walls with the biblical story.</p><br>
<h3>Judean city</h3><br>
<p>Situated at the southern part of the Golan, overlooking the Sea of Galilee, Gamla was built on a steep hill shaped like a camels hump, from which it derives its name (Gamla meaning the camel&#39; in Aramaic). Although the site was inhabited since the Early Bronze Age, the city appears to have been founded as a Seleucid fort during the Syrian Wars (3rd century BCE) which later became a civilian settlement. Jews inhabited it from the last quarter of the 2nd century BCE, and it was annexed to the Hasmonean state under king Alexander Jannaeus in c. 81 BCE. It was most likely an important city under the Hasmoneans, as evidenced by the massive use in Gamla Hasmonean coins.</p><br>
<p>There are other theories on the appearance of the city. It is possible that the Jewish settlement on the site of Gamla was previously founded by natives of Babylon. This theory is based on the Aramaic writing of the name "Gamla" (with an Aleph at the end). Yitzhak Gal believed that the victory of the Maccabees in the struggle against the Greeks gave impetus to the return of Babylonian Jews to the Land of Israel, including those settled in the Golan, where Jewish control had not yet been established. Josephus said in The War of the Jews that Jannaeus conquered Gamla during the war in Galilee against the Seleucid ruler Demetrius Eucaerus.</p><br>
<h3>Life in the city</h3><br>
<p>The city was situated on a hill between the valleys of the creeks Gamla and Daliot. It was built on a small saddle of the basalt ridge and was surrounded by deep gorges, which provided the city with strong advantages in defense. The only road approached the city from the east. In this place a massive fortress wall was built of square basalt stones up to 6 m thick. The city itself was located on a more gentle southern slope. Along the wall there were square towers, on the top of the hill at the northern end of the wall there was a round tower, which was built much earlier than the wall and before the outbreak of hostilities was the only defensive fortification in Gamla. In the lower part of the wall, two more towers guarded the entrance to the city. In the western part of the city wealthy houses were found.</p><br>
<p>As the capital of the Golan, Gamla lasted about 150 years. The city was famous for producing high-quality olive oil. It was actively developed during the reign of Herod the Great, and later became a dispute between Herod Antipas and Nabatean King Aretas IV Philopatris.</p><br>
<p>In matters of worship, Gamla was a typical traditional Jewish settlement. Archaeologists have discovered an ancient synagogue and a large number of different ritual objects. In addition to well-known things, such as mikvehs and ritual dishes, a strange architectural detail was discovered. Both entrances to the narrow alley between the two houses were partially blocked by the later pilasters. From a practical architectural point of view, these did not carry any function, so it was concluded they symbolized the eruv. From the beginning of the first millennium, when the Romans turned the former Jewish kingdom into the province of Judea, the Gamalites played an important role in the struggle for independence. In particular, Judas of Gamala raised the anti-Roman rebellion in Sepphoris and was killed when it was suppressed. His sons, Jacob and Simon fought against the Romans in 46 CE, and his third son was the leader of the Sicarii, while another relative of his led defense of Masada.</p><br>
<h3>Siege of Gamla</h3><br>
<p>Josephus Flavius, Commander of Galilee during the Jewish Revolt against Rome, in 66 CE fortified Gamla as his main stronghold on the Golan. Josephus gives a very detailed topographical description of the city, which he also referred to as Gamala, and the steep ravines which precluded the need to build a wall around it. Only along the northern saddle, at the town&#39;s eastern extremity, was a 350 meters-long wall built. It was constructed by blocking gaps between existing houses and destroying houses that lay in its way.</p><br>
<p>Initially loyal to the Romans, Gamla turned rebellious under the influence of refugees from other locations. It was one of only five cities in the Galilee and Golan who stood against Vespasian&#39;s legions, reflecting the cooperation between the local population and the rebels. At the time of the revolt, the town minted its own coins, probably more as a means of propaganda than as currency. Bearing the inscription "For the redemption of Jerusalem the H(oly)" in a mixture of paleo-Hebrew (biblical) and Aramaic, only 6 of these coins have ever been found.</p><br>
<p>The city sustained the first seven-month siege, which was organized in 66 CE by Herod Agrippa II. On October 12th, 67 CE a total of about 60 thousand soldiers under the command of Vespasian began a second siege. The inhabitants of the city, including armed rebels, were, according to Josephus, only 9,000 people. Kenneth Atkinson calls this number clearly exaggerated. Nevertheless, Dani Zion writes that before the siege Gamla became a refuge city, in which both insurgents from all over the Galilee and residents of the surrounding villages flocked. There were not enough places in the city, and even the city synagogue was adapted to accommodate refugees.</p><br>
<p>The seizure of the city was of fundamental importance to Vespasian. According to the existing strategy, it was necessary to seize and suppress all the centers of resistance along the route, however small. In addition, the Jews expected, albeit unreasonably, the possible assistance of fellow believers from Babylon and the military intervention of Parthia. Although Josephus, who led the consolidation of the defense of Gamla, describes it as a fortress, archaeological findings show that in fact the walls were constructed in fragments, filling in the gaps between buildings to create a continuous line of fortifications.</p><br>
<p>Josephus also provides a detailed description of the Roman siege and conquest of Gamla in 67 CE by components of legions X Fretensis, XV Apollinaris and V Macedonica. The Romans first attempted to take the city by means of a siege ramp, but were repulsed by the defenders. Only on the second attempt did the Romans succeed in breaching the walls at three different locations and invading the city. They then engaged the Jewish defenders in hand-to-hand combat up the steep hill. Fighting in the cramped streets from an inferior position, the Roman soldiers attempted to defend themselves from the roofs. These subsequently collapsed under the heavy weight, killing many soldiers and forcing a Roman retreat. The legionnaires re-entered the town a few days later, eventually beating Jewish resistance and completing the capture of Gamla.</p><br>
<h3>Estimates</h3><br>
<p>Gamla is often compared with the more famous heroic story of the fortress of Masada, where the defenders, not wanting to surrender to the Romans, committed suicide. Sometimes Gamla is even called the "Northern Masada" or "Masada Golan." However, Dani Zion emphasizes that Masada was a fortress, originally built as a fortification facility, where several hundred families of rebels were hiding and where there was no battle as such. Gamla, on the other hand was a city where fortification was carried out in connection with military operations and where real heavy fighting took place before the capture and destruction. According to Josephus, some 4,000 inhabitants were slaughtered, while 5,000, trying to escape down the steep northern slope, were either trampled to death, fell or perhaps threw themselves down a ravine. These appear to be exaggerated and the number of inhabitants on the eve of the revolt has been estimated at 3,000–4,000.</p><br>
<h2>Identification</h2><br>
<p>The Israel Antiquities Authority has, of late, taken the position that the ancient site of Gamla is to be identified with the site known as Tell es Salām (shown on map) which, itself, is a corruption of the Arabic word, es-Sanām (the hump). In previous years, the site had been identified with Tell ed-Drāʿ, a place ca. 20 km east of Lake Tiberias in the Ruqqad river-bed, based on Konrad Furrer&#39;s identification of the site in 1889. It was only properly identified in 1968 by surveyor Itzhaki Gal, after the Israeli conquest of the Golan Heights during the Six-Day War.</p><br>
<p>With the destruction of the town by the Roman army, Gamla was abandoned, never to be rebuilt. Archaeological excavations there have revealed widespread evidence for the battle that took place at the site. About 100 catapult bolts have been uncovered, as well as 1,600 arrowheads and 2,000 ballista stones, the latter all made from local basalt. This is a quantity unsurpassed anywhere in the Roman Empire. Most were collected along and in close proximity to the wall, placing the heavy fighting in the vicinity and the Roman siegecraft to the north east of the town. Next to a heavy concentration of the stones, the excavators have identified a man-made breach in the wall, probably made by a battering ram.</p><br>
<h2>Archeological finds</h2><br>
<p>Archaeological finds in Gamla provided historians with a unique opportunity to study Jewish life at the end of the Second Temple period. In particular, studies prove that, although the active development of the Golan began under Alexander Jannaeus, the Jews began to settle here much earlier - at least in the second century BCE. This is shown by the large number of coins of the period of the reign of John Hyrcanus. In addition to coins, a large number of weapons were found in Gamla, a synagogue of the Second Temple period, various ritual objects, many different household items and jewelry.</p><br>
<p>About 200 artifacts excavated at Gamla have been identified as the remains of Roman army equipment. These include parts of Roman lorica segmentata, an officer&#39;s helmet visor and cheek-guard, bronze scales of another type of armor, as well as Roman identification tags.</p><br>
<p>A Roman siege-hook, used both for stabbing and hooking onto the wall, was found in the breach. Only one human jawbone was identified during the exploration of Gamla, raising questions regarding the absence of human remains despite the widespread evidence of a battle. A tentative answer is discussed by archaeologist Danny Syon, who suggests that the dead would have been buried at nearby mass graves that are yet to be found. One such mass grave has been found at Yodfat, which had suffered the same fate as Gamla at the hands of Vespasian&#39;s legions.</p><br>
<p>Artifacts from Gamla are on the display at the Golan Archaeological Museum, including arrowheads, ballista stones, clay oil lamps and coins minted in the town during the siege. A scale model and film are used to describe the conquest and destruction of the Jewish town and all of its inhabitants.</p><br>
<h3>Weapons</h3><br>
<p>One of the important sucesses of archaeologists was the discovery of a huge number of ancient weapons. The number of stone nuclei found in Gamla and arrowheads is a record for finds throughout the Roman Empire. In particular, about 2000 nuclei from basalt, 1600 metal arrowheads, parts of Roman helmets, armor, shields and many other weapons and military supplies were collected.</p><br>
<h3>Coins</h3><br>
<p>6,314 ancient coins were also found in Gamla, including unique coins of its own coinage. Most of them (6,164) were found during 14 seasons of excavation under the guidance of Gutman (1976-1989), 24 during conservation and restoration work in 1990–1991, and the remaining 126 during the four seasons of excavations conducted by Dani Zion and Zvi Yabur in the years 1997–2000. Another 153 coins from Gamla were subsequently found in the collection by the kibbutz Sasa. Among the found coins:</p><br>
<p>In total, 9 Gamla coins from the times of the uprising were found. Of these, 7 were found directly at Gamla, one in Alexandrium, and one from collectors (presumably stolen from Gamla). The Gamla coin, found in Alexandrium, testifies to contacts with the rebels in Galilee. Historians, in particular Dani Zion, Ya&#39;akov Meshorer and David Eidlin, actively discussed the minting of insurgent coins outside of Jerusalem. As Eugene Wallenberg writes, this fact "opens the widest horizons for the historian in studying the social and economic history of the uprising, the study of the Zealots party as an independent and as a self-sufficient political formation." Researchers note the inscriptions on coins were made by craftsmen with low qualification, synthesizing Paleo-Hebrew and Aramaic letters: on one side is the inscription "Deliverance," on the other side, "Holy Jerusalem."</p><br>
<p>Shmaryahu Gutman wrote:</p><br>
<h3>Synagogue</h3><br>
<p>The remains of one of the earliest synagogues is situated inside the city walls. It was built of dressed stone with pillared aisles. Measuring 22 by 17 meters, its main hall was surrounded by a Doric colonnade, its corner columns were heart-shaped, and it was entered by twin doors at the south west. A ritual bath was unearthed next to it. On the eve of Gamlas destruction, the synagogue appears to have been converted to a dwelling for refugees, as testified by a number of meager fireplaces and large quantities of cookpots and storage jars found along its northern wall. Situated next to the city wall, 157 ballista stones were collected from the synagogues hall alone and 120 arrowheads from its vicinity. The synagogue is thought to date from the late 1st century BCE and is among the oldest synagogues in the world.</p><br>
<p>The chronology of the synagogue was challenged by Maoz in 2012. His interpretation is that it was built about 50 CE and a miqveh was added in 67 CE. The earlier "miqveh" was, in Maoz&#39; understanding, a water cistern.</p><br>
<h2>Present-day Gamla</h2><br>
<p>In 2003, the territory of the ancient city was incorporated into the Gamla nature reserve, and is open to tourists. In addition to the ancient city, it includes the highest waterfall in Israel, the ruins of a Byzantine settlement and many Neolithic dolmens.</p><br>
<p>Religious visitors sometimes hold bar mitzvahs in the ancient Gamla synagogue. In May 2010, the remains of the old town were damaged during a major forest fire caused by a fire from a projectile released during military exercises.</p><br>
<p>In Israel, there is a catch phrase "Gamla will not fall again," the meaning of which is that control of the Golan Heights is of strategic importance for ensuring the security of Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud party, said this in 2009, arguing the position that the Golan cannot return to Syria.</p><br>
<p>The Santa Susana Pass, originally Simi Pass, is a low mountain pass in the Simi Hills of Southern California, connecting the San Fernando Valley and town of Chatsworth, to the Simi Valley and city of Simi Valley.</p><br>
<p>It has been featured in numerous movies, including Shooting High (1940), Man&#39;s Genesis (1912), Judith of Bethulia (1914), Jack and the Beanstalk (1917) and Range Warfare (1935).</p><br>
<h2>Natural history</h2><br>
<p>The pass is the division between the Simi Hills to the south and Santa Susana Mountains to the north, and forms the most critical wildlife corridor and habitat linkage between them. The scenery is made up of sandstone formations in massive outcroppings and numerous boulders, with California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion, with oak savannahs, chaparral shrub forest, and native bunchgrass plant communities in between. The perennial water sources provide diverse habitat for birds, mammals, and reptiles.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Native American</h3><br>
<p>The Santa Susana Pass was at the juncture of the Native American Tongva-Fernandeño, Chumash-Venturaño, and Tataviam-Fernandeño tribal lands and was first crossed by their trail route, and used for an estimated 8,000 years.</p><br>
<h3>Under Spain and Mexico</h3><br>
<p>The first Europeans to use the pass were members of the Spanish Portolà expedition (1769–1770), the first European land entry and exploration of the present-day state of California. The expedition traversed the pass on January 15, 1770, heading east to a campground that later became part of Mission San Fernando Rey de España. After secularization of the mission in 1834, San Fernando Valley rancheros used the trail. A rough wagon road evolved.</p><br>
<h2>Early statehood</h2><br>
<p>American newspapers in California first referred to the pass as Simi Pass from 1857 when the Los Angeles Star, wrote of the capture of the outlaw Juan Flores there. That name continued in use, declining from the late 1880&#39;s until 1911 in the Eagle Rock Sentinel. It began to be referred to as Santa Susana Pass in the Los Angeles Herald 18 September 1887, being used with increasing frequency thereafter.</p><br>
<p>In 1859, the California Legislature appropriated $15,000 (with additional funding provided by Los Angeles and Santa Barbara Counties) towards improving the old wagon road into a new stagecoach road, now known as the Old Santa Susana Stage Road. The precipitous portion of the route down from the summit on the San Fernando Valley side was called the Devil&#39;s Slide; horses were usually blindfolded and chains were used to augment brakes on the steep descent. Passengers debarked and walked.</p><br>
<p>The outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 disrupted mail service along the Butterfield Overland Mails southern stagecoach route from St. Louis, Missouri via El Paso, Fort Yuma and Los Angeles and on to San Francisco via the Tejon Pass, which had begun its run in 1858. To compensate, the government contracted the Butterfield Company to carry mail between Los Angeles and San Francisco via the new wagon road over the Santa Susana Pass. The first overland mail stage run through the pass took place on April 6, 1861. The main route climbs through what is now Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park, with a branch in L.A. City Park Chatsworth Park South. It was an important artery linking the Los Angeles Basin and inland Ventura County, and was part of the main route for travel by stagecoach between Los Angeles and San Francisco from 1861 until the opening of rail traffic between the cities in 1876. The Old Santa Susana Stage Road is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Part of the stage road is also a Historic-Cultural Monument of Ventura County and of the City of Los Angeles under the name Old Stagecoach Trail.&#39;</p><br>
<h3>Late 19th and 20th century</h3><br>
<p>A new wagon route bypassing the deteriorating Devil&#39;s Slide was opened in 1895 to the north. Initially called El Camino Nuevo (the New Road), it was later named the Chatsworth Grade Road, which continued in use until Santa Susana Pass Road (now Old Santa Susana Pass Road) was built in 1917.</p><br>
<p>This was the first automobile route between the San Fernando and Simi Valleys. It also was the main northbound coast road to Santa Barbara and San Francisco, until the Conejo Grade in Ventura County between Conejo Valley and the Oxnard Plain on "Camino Real Viejo" (the Old Royal Road, now USA Route 101), was improved. In 1968 State Route 118, the "Simi Valley-San Fernando Valley Freeway" opened, north of the old auto road as the latest route across the Pass. In 1994 it was renamed the "Ronald Reagan Freeway".</p><br>
<p>The pass area became famous from being seen in many movies, primarily Westerns, filmed from the 1920s to the 1950s here at the Spahn, Iverson, Bell Moving Picture, and Corriganville Movie Ranches. The area became infamous in the late 1960s with the Manson Family headquartered at the Spahn Ranch, near the top of the stage roads Devils Slide. To the south of the old stage road is Sage Ranch Park and the Santa Susana Field Laboratory. Immediately to the north of Route 118 at the pass top is Rocky Peak Park, a part of the Rim of the Valley Trail Corridor. The old wagon road and rocky hill environs are part of the Santa Susana Pass State Historic Park, for public exploration.</p><br>
<p>The Southern Pacific Railroad began construction of three railroad tunnels through the pass in 1900 and opened the route in 1904. The railroad built the Santa Susana Depot in Rancho Simi on Los Angeles Avenue at Tapo Street in 1903.</p><br>
<p>Camelback Mountain  is a mountain in Phoenix, Arizona, United States. The English name is derived from its shape, which resembles the hump and head of a kneeling camel. The mountain, a prominent landmark of the Phoenix metropolitan area, is located in the Camelback Mountain Echo Canyon Recreation Area between the Arcadia neighborhood of Phoenix and the town of Paradise Valley. It is a popular recreation destination for hiking and rock climbing.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>A cave discovered on the north side of Camelback mountain indicates that it was used as a sacred site by the prehistoric Hohokam Culture before they abandoned the area in the 14th century.</p><br>
<p>In January 1879, United States President Rutherford B. Hayes included Camelback Mountain as part of a one million acre (4,000 km²) reservation for the Salt River Pima and Maricopa American Indian tribes. Six months later, at the behest of Charles Poston, the Arizona Territorial Legislature reversed the decision in order to ensure the primacy of the 5000 non-Indian area residents as well as their continued access to Salt River water.</p><br>
<p>Efforts to protect Camelback Mountain as a natural preserve began in the early 1910s. However, by the 1960s, nearly all of the area had been sold to private interests. Federal and state authorities attempted to stop development above the one thousand and six hundred feet level. They failed to halt development and in 1963 efforts to arrange a land exchange failed in the Arizona State legislature. In 1965, United States Senator Barry Goldwater took up the cause and helped to secure the higher elevations against development. The area became a Phoenix city park in 1968.</p><br>
<p>The peak lends its name to a major east-west street in the Phoenix area called Camelback Road that starts in Scottsdale and goes about 34 mi west past the West Valley suburbs of Goodyear and Litchfield Park. It starts again past the White Tanks.</p><br>
<p>Camelback Mountain is designated as a Phoenix Point of Pride.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>The mountain is composed of a geologic unconformity between two separate rock formations. The higher part of the peak is Precambrian granite (ca. 1.5 billion years old). The head of the camel is predominantly red sedimentary sandstone from the Tertiary period (ca. 25 million years old).</p><br>
<h2>Recreation</h2><br>
<p>Two hiking trails ascend 1,280 ft to the peak of Camelback Mountain. The Echo Canyon Trail is 1.14 miles (1900 m) and the Cholla Trail is 1.4 mi (2300 m). Both trails are considered strenuous with steep grades. The hiking path has dirt, gravel, boulders, and some handrail-assisted sections. The average hike requires a round trip time of 1.5 to 3 hours.</p><br>
<p>The Praying Monk is a red sandstone rock formation which is used for rock climbing. Located on the northern slope, the formation resembles the silhouette of a man kneeling in prayer. It rises approximately 100 feet (30 m) and the eastern face has several permanent anchor bolts for attaching a belay rope.</p><br>
<p>Banias  is the Arabic and modern Hebrew name of an ancient site that developed around a spring once associated with the Greek god Pan. It is located at the foot of Mount Hermon, north of the Golan Heights. The spring is the source of the Banias River, one of the main tributaries of the Jordan River. Archaeologists uncovered a shrine dedicated to Pan and related deities, and the remains of an ancient city founded sometime after the conquest by Alexander the Great and inhabited until 1967; the ancient city was mentioned in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark by the name of Caesarea Philippi.</p><br>
<p>The first mention of the ancient city during the Hellenistic period was in the context of the Battle of Panium, fought around 200-198 BCE, when the name of the place was given as Panion. Later the region was called Paneas (Πανειάς). Both names were derived from that of Pan, the god of the wild and companion of the nymphs.</p><br>
<p>The spring at Banias initially originated in a large cave carved out of a sheer cliff face which was gradually lined with a series of shrines. The temenos (sacred precinct) included in its final phase a temple placed at the mouth of the cave, courtyards for rituals, and niches for statues. It was constructed on an elevated, 80m long natural terrace along the cliff which towered over the north of the city. A four-line inscription at the base of one of the niches relates to Pan and Echo, the mountain nymph, and was dated to 87 BCE.</p><br>
<p>The once very large spring gushed from the limestone cave, but an earthquake moved it to the foot of the natural terrace where it now seeps quietly from the bedrock, with a greatly reduced flow. From here the stream, called Nahal Hermon in Hebrew, flows towards what once were the malaria-infested Hula marshes.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Semitic deity of the spring</h3><br>
<p>The pre-Hellenistic deity associated with the spring of Banias was variously called Baal-gad or Baal-hermon.</p><br>
<h3>Hellenism; association with Pan</h3><br>
<p>Banias was certainly an ancient place of great sanctity, and when Hellenised religious influences began to overlay the region, the cult of its local numen gave place to the worship of Pan, to whom the cave was therefore dedicated.</p><br>
<p>Paneas was first settled in the Hellenistic period following Alexander the Great&#39;s conquest of the east. The Ptolemaic kings built a cult centre there in the 3rd century BC.</p><br>
<p>In the Hellenistic Period the spring was named Panias, for the Arcadian goat-footed god Pan. Pan was revered by the ancient Greeks as the god of isolated rural areas, music, goat herds, hunting, herding, of sexual and spiritual possession, and of victory in battle, since he was said to instill panic among the enemy. The Latin equivalent for Paneas is Fanium.</p><br>
<p>The spring lies close to the way of the sea mentioned by Isaiah, along which many armies of Antiquity marched.</p><br>
<p>In extant sections of the Greek historian Polybiuss history of The Rise of the Roman Empire, a Battle of Panium is mentioned. This battle was fought in ca. 200-198 BC between the armies of Ptolemaic Egypt and the Seleucids of Coele-Syria, led by Antiochus III. Antiochuss victory cemented Seleucid control over Phoenicia, Galilee, Samaria, and Judea until the Maccabean revolt. It was these Seleucids who built a pagan temple dedicated to Pan at Paneas.</p><br>
<h3>Roman and Byzantine Periods</h3><br>
<p>Upon Zenodoruss death in 20 BC, the Panion (Πανιάς), including Paneas, was annexed to the Kingdom of Herod the Great, a client of the Roman Empire. Herod erected a temple of white marble&#39; there n honour of his patron. In 3 BCE, Philip II (also known as Philip the Tetrarch) founded a city which became his administrative capital, known from Josephus and the Gospels of Matthew and Mark as Caesarea or Caesarea Philippi, to distinguish it from Caesarea Maritima and other cities named Caesarea. On the death of Philip II in 34 CE his kingdom was briefly incorporated into the province of Syria, with the city given the autonomy to administer its own revenues, before reverting to his nephew, Herod Agrippa I.</p><br>
<p>In 61 CE, king Agrippa II renamed the administrative capital Neronias in honour of the Roman emperor Nero, but this name was discarded several years later, in 68 CE. Agrippa also carried out urban improvements.</p><br>
<p>In 67CE, during the First Jewish–Roman War, Vespasian briefly visited Caesarea Philippi before advancing on Tiberias in Galilee.</p><br>
<p>With the death of Agrippa II around the year 92 came the end of Herodian rule, and the city returned to the province of Syria.</p><br>
<p>In the late Roman and Byzantine periods the written sources name the city again as Paneas, or more seldomly as Caesarea Paneas.</p><br>
<p>In 361, Emperor Julian the Apostate instigated a religious reformation of the Roman state, in which he supported the restoration of Hellenic paganism as the state religion. In Paneas this was achieved by replacing Christian symbols, though the change was short lived.</p><br>
<p>In the 5th century, following the division of the Empire, the city was part of the Eastern (later Byzantine) Empire, but was lost to the Arab expansion of the 7th century.</p><br>
<h3>Arab dynasties of the Caliphate</h3><br>
<p>In 635 Paneas gained favourable terms of surrender from the Muslim army of Khalid ibn al-Walid after it had defeated Heraclius&#39; forces. In 636, a second, newly formed Byzantine army advancing on Palestine used Paneas as a staging post on the way to confront the Muslim army at the final Battle of Yarmouk.</p><br>
<p>The depopulation of Paneas after the Muslim conquest was rapid, as its traditional markets disappeared. Only 14 of the 173 Byzantine sites in the area show signs of habitation from this period. The Hellenised city thus fell into a precipitous decline. At the council of al-Jabiyah, when the administration of the new territory of the Umar Caliphate was established, Paneas remained the principal city of the district of al-Djawlan (the Djawlan) in the jund (military Province) of Dimashq (Damascus), due to its strategic military importance on the border with Jund al-Urdunn, which comprised the Galilee and territories east and north of it.</p><br>
<p>Around 780 CE the nun Hugeburc visited Caesarea and reported that the town had a church and a great many Christians, but her account does not clarify whether any of those Christians were still living in the town at the time of her visit.</p><br>
<p>The transfer of the Abbasid Caliphate capital from Damascus to Baghdad inaugurated the flowering of the Islamic Golden Age at the expense of the provinces. With the decline of Abbasid power in the tenth century, Paneas found itself a provincial backwater in a slowly collapsing empire, as district governors began to exert greater autonomy and used their increasing power to make their positions hereditary. The control of Syria and Paneas passed to the Fatimids of Egypt.</p><br>
<p>At the end of the 9th century Al-Ya&#39;qubi reaffirms that Paneas was still the capital of al-Djawlan in the jund of Dimshq, although by then the town was known as Madīnat al-Askat (city of the tribes) with its inhabitants being Qays, mostly of the Banu Murra with some Yamani families.</p><br>
<p>Due to the Byzantine advances under Nicephorus Phocas and John Zimisces into the Abbasid empire, a wave of refugees fled south and augmented the population of Madīnat al-Askat. The city was taken over by an extreme Shī‘ah sect of the Bedouin Qarāmita in 968. In 970 the Fatimids again briefly took control, only to lose it again to the Qarāmita. The old population of Banias along with the new refugees formed a Sunni sufi ascetic community. In 975 the Fatimid al-&#39;Aziz wrested control in an attempt to subdue the anti-Fatimid agitation of Mahammad b. Ahmad al-Nablusi and his followers and to extend Fatimid control into Syria. al-Nabulusi’s school of hadith was to survive in Banias under the tutelage of Arab scholars such as Abú Ishaq (Ibrahim b. Hatim) and al-Balluti.</p><br>
<h3>Crusader and Ayyubid period</h3><br>
<p>The Crusaders&#39; arrival in 1099 quickly split the mosaic of semi-independent cities of the Seljuk Kingdom of Damascus.</p><br>
<p>The Crusaders have held the town twice, 1128–32 and 1140–64.</p><br>
<p>Banias was pillaged by the crusaders in 1148.</p><br>
<p>With the arrival of fresh troops in Palestine, King Baldwin broke the three-month-old truce of February 1157 by raiding the large flocks that the Turkomans had pastured in the area of Caesarea Philippi (Banias). In 1157 Banias became the principal centre of Humphrey of Torons crusader fiefdom, along with his being the constable of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, after it had first been granted to the Hospitallers by King Baldwin. The Knights Hospitallers, having fallen into an ambush, relinquished the fiefdom. Humphrey in turn was besieged in Banias and King Baldwin was able to break the siege, only to be ambushed at Jacobs Ford in June 1157. The fresh troops arriving from Antioch and Tripoli were able to relieve the besieged crusaders. within the Lordship of Beirut. It was captured by Nūr ed-Din on 18 November 1164. The Franks had built a castle at Hunin (Château Neuf) in 1107 to protect the trade route from Damascus to Tyre. After Nūr ed-Din&#39;s ousting of the Crusader Humphrey of Toron from Banias, Hunin was at the front line securing the border defences against the Saracen garrison at Banias.</p><br>
<p>Ibn Jubayr, the geographer, traveller and poet from al-Andalus, described Banias:</p><br>
<p>After the death of Nūr ed-Din in May 1174 King Amaury led the crusader forces in a siege of Banias. The Governor of Damascus allied himself with the crusaders and released all his Frankish prisoners. With the death of King Amaury in July 1174 the crusader border became unstable. In 1177 King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem ("the leper") laid siege to Banias and again the crusader forces withdrew after receiving tribute from Samsan al-Din Ajuk, the Governor of Banias.</p><br>
<p>In 1179 al-Malik al-Nâsir Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb (Saladin) took personal control of the forces of Banias and created a protective screen across the Hula through Tell al-Qadi.</p><br>
<p>In 1187 Saladin ordered al-Afdal (his son) to send an envoy to Count Raymond III of Tripoli requesting safe passage through his principality of Galilee and Tiberias. Raymond was obliged to grant the request under the terms of his treaty with Saladin. Al-Afdal&#39;s force of 7,000 horsemen left Banias and encountered a force of 150 Knights Templar led by Gerard de Ridefort, Grand Master of the Knights Templar. The Templar force was destroyed in the encounter. Saladin then besieged Tiberias, and after six days the town fell. On 4 July 1187 Saladin defeated the crusaders coming to relieve Tiberias at the Battle of Hattin.</p><br>
<p>In the first decade of the thirteenth century Banias was partially destroyed by an earthquake. Jahârkas, the local amir, rebuilt the burj (fortress tower) in 1204 (AH 597). Named as Kŭl’at es-Subeibeh in 1846 by B B Edwards.</p><br>
<p>In March 1219 Khutluba was forced to relinquish Banias and destroy its fortress. The city was then passed to al-Adil and his son al-Muazzam.</p><br>
<p>Banias along with Toron (now the modern town of Tebnine) and Safed were recovered by the Franks through treaty in 1229, just two years after al-Muazzams death on November 11, 1227, by Frederick II from Sultan al-Kamil.</p><br>
<h3>Ottoman period</h3><br>
<p>The traveller J. S. Buckingham described Banias in 1825: "The present town is small, and meanly built, having no place of worship in it; and the inhabitants, who are about 500 in number, are Mohammedans and Metouali, governed by a Moslem Sheikh.</p><br>
<p>In the 1870s, Banias was described as "a village, built of stone, containing about 350 Moslems, situated on a raised table-land at the bottom of the hills of Mount Hermon. The village is surrounded by gardens crowded with fruit-trees. The source of the Jordan is close by, and the water runs in little aqueducts into and under every part of the modern village."</p><br>
<h3>French Mandate to contemporary</h3><br>
<p>The Syria-Lebanon-Palestine boundary was a product of the post-World War I Anglo-French partition of Ottoman Syria. British forces had advanced to a position at Tel Hazor against Turkish troops in 1918 and wished to incorporate all the sources of the Jordan River within the British controlled Palestine. Due to the French inability to establish administrative control, the frontier between Syria and Palestine was fluid. Following the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, and the unratified and later annulled Treaty of Sèvres, stemming from the San Remo conference, the 1920 boundary extended the British controlled area to north of the Sykes Picot line, a straight line between the mid point of the Sea of Galilee and Nahariya. In 1920 the French managed to assert authority over the Arab nationalist movement and after the Battle of Maysalun, King Faisal was deposed. The international boundary between Palestine and Syria was finally agreed by Great Britain and France in 1923 in conjunction with the Treaty of Lausanne, after Britain had been given a League of Nations mandate for Palestine in 1922. Banyas (on the Quneitra/Tyre road) was within the French Mandate of Syria. The border was set 750 metres south of the spring.</p><br>
<p>In 1941 Australian forces occupied Banias in the advance to the Litani during the Syria-Lebanon Campaign; Free French and Indian forces also invaded Syria in the Battle of Kissoué. Banias&#39;s fate in this period was left in a state of limbo since Syria had come under British military control. When Syria was granted independence in April 1946, it refused to recognize the 1923 boundary agreed between Britain and France.</p><br>
<p>Following the 1948 Arab Israeli War, the Banias spring remained in Syrian territory, while the Banias River flowed through the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) into Israel. In 1953, at one of a series of meetings to regularize administration of the DMZs, Syria offered to adjust the armistice lines, and cede to Israel&#39;s 70% of the DMZ, in exchange for a return to the pre 1946 International border in the Jordan basin area, with Banias water resources returning to Syrian sovereignty. On 26 April, the Israeli cabinet met to consider the Syrian suggestions, with head of Israel’s Water Planning Authority, Simha Blass, in attendance. Blass noted that while the land to be ceded to Syria was not suitable for cultivation, the Syrian map did not suit Israel’s water development plan. Blass explained that the movement of the International boundary in the area of Banias would affect Israel’s water rights. The Israeli cabinet rejected the Syrian proposals but decided to continue the negotiations by making changes to the accord and placing conditions on the Syrian proposals. The Israeli conditions took into account Blass’s position over water rights and Syria rejected the Israeli counter offer.</p><br>
<p>In September 1953, Israel advanced plans for its National Water Carrier to help irrigate the coastal Sharon Plain and eventually the Negev desert by launching a diversion project on a nine-mile (14 km) channel midway between the Huleh Marshes and Lake Galilee (Lake Tiberias) in the central DMZ to be rapidly constructed. This prompted shelling from Syria and friction with the Eisenhower Administration; the diversion was moved to the southwest.</p><br>
<p>The Banias was included in the Jordan Valley Unified Water Plan, which allocated Syria 20 million cubic metres annually from it. The plan was rejected by the Arab League. Instead, at the 2nd Arab summit conference in Cairo of January 1964 the League decided that Syria, Lebanon and Jordan would begin a water diversion project. Syria started the construction of canal to divert the flow of the Banias river away from Israel and along the slopes of the Golan toward the Yarmouk River. Lebanon was to construct a canal from the Hasbani River to Banias and complete the scheme The project was to divert 20 to 30 million cubic metres of water from the river Jordan tributaries to Syria and Jordan for the development of Syria and Jordan. The diversion plan for the Banias called for a 73 kilometre long canal to be dug 350 metres above sea level, that would link the Banias with the Yarmuk. The canal would carry the Banias’s fixed flow plus the overflow from the Hasbani (including water from the Sarid and Wazani). This led to military intervention from Israel, first with tank fire and then, as the Syrians shifted the works further eastward, with airstrikes.</p><br>
<p>On June 10, 1967, the last day of the Six Day War, the Golani Brigade captured the village of Banias. Eshkol&#39;s priority on the Syrian front was control of the water sources.</p><br>
<h2>Misidentification as biblical Laish/Dan</h2><br>
<p>While Banias does not appear in the Old Testament, Philostorgius, Theodoret, Benjamin of Tudela and Samuel ben Samson all incorrectly identified it with Laish, now known to be located at Tell el-Qadi (Arabic) or Tel Dan (modern Hebrew). Eusebius of Caesarea accurately places Dan/Laish in the vicinity of Paneas at the fourth mile on the route to Tyre. Eusebius&#39;s identification was confirmed by E Robinson in 1838 and subsequently by archaeological excavations at Tel Dan and Caesarea Philippi.</p><br>
<h2>Notables from Paneas</h2><br>
<p>Al-Wadin ibn ‘Ata al-Dimashki (d. 764 or 766) - an Arab scholar of the Umayyad era</p><br>
<h2>Further reading</h2><br>
<h3>Water issues</h3><br>
<p>Water for the Future: The West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel, and Jordan By USA National Academy of Sciences, Inc NetLibrary, Jamʻīyah al-ʻIlmīyah al-Malakīyah, Committee on Sustainable Water Supplies for the Middle East, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences (USA) Published by National Academies Press, 1999 ,</p><br>
<p>Allan, John Anthony and Allan, Tony (2001) The Middle East Water Question: Hydropolitics and the Global Economy I.B.Tauris,</p><br>
<p>Amery, Hussein A. and Wolf, Aaron T. (2000) Water in the Middle East: A Geography of Peace University of Texas Press,</p><br>
<p>Jelep La or Jelep Pass , elevation 4,267 m, is a high mountain pass between East Sikkim District, Sikkim, India and Tibet Autonomous Region, China. It is on a route that connects Lhasa to India. The pass is about south of Nathu La and although it is higher, Jelep has been used for centuries by traders because of its less rugged terrain. The Menmecho Lake lies below the Jelep La.</p><br>
<p>Jelep-la, a Tibetan name, means "The lovely level pass, so called because it is the easiest and most level of all the passes between Tibet and Sikkim."</p><br>
<p>On the Indian side there are two routes to Jelep La, one through Gangtok and the other through Kalimpong. The Kalimpong route is an ancient one which was responsible for the boost in the local economy due to the trading of wool and furs early last century. The pass was closed after the Sino-Indian War in 1962. It passes through the towns of Pedong in northern West Bengal, Rhenok, and Kupup. The route from Gangtok passes through the towns of Sherathang, nearby Changu lake and alongside Nathu La and through Kupup.</p><br>
<p>The route is scenic with forests of rhododendrons blooming in spring. Numerous hamlets are scattered in the surrounding area. On the Tibetan side the pass leads to the Chumbi Valley of the Tibetan Plateau.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Jelep La was in use from early times as trade flourished between India and Tibet. After the appropriation of India by the British, the latter started to construct roads into Sikkim around 1884. This was viewed with some apprehension among the Tibetans and in 1886 a small Tibetan militia occupied the region around the pass. In May 1888, they attacked the British but were warded off by a British Expeditionary Force. Later in September the same year the British regained control of the area around the pass.</p><br>
<p>With the growing Russian influence in Tibet, a British expedition was sent via Jelep La to Lhasa in 1904 led by Colonel Francis Younghusband. This expedition was met by hostile Tibetan forces which were defeated by the British. A trade agreement was then forced on the Tibetans in the absence of the 13th Dalai Lama, who had fled to Mongolia.</p><br>
<p>In 1910, to escape a Chinese invasion, the 13th Dalai Lama "accompanied by six ministers and a small escort" which included his close aide, diplomat and military figure Tsarong Dzasa, fled via Jelep La to Sikkim and Darjeeling, where they stayed almost two years. During this period he was invited to Calcutta by the Viceroy, Lord Minto, which helped restore relations with the British.</p><br>
<p>After India&#39;s independence in 1947, Sikkim, which was then a monarchy, agreed to a special protectorate status and gave India the status of a suzerain nation and its defence and foreign affairs were managed by India. After the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950 and suppression of the Tibetan uprising in 1959, the passes into Sikkim became a conduit for refugees from Tibet before being closed by the Chinese. During the 1962 Sino-Indian War, there were border skirmishes between the Indian and Chinese armed forces in and around the passes of Jelep La and Nathu La - this was despite Sikkim still being a separate Kingdom at that stage. After the war the two passes were closed.</p><br>
<p>Sikkim became a part of India in early 1975 following a referendum. With the recent thawing in relations between India and China, plans are afoot to reopen the Jelep La (following the July6, 2006 reopening of the Nathu La) which is projected to result in an economic boom for the region.</p><br>
<p>Nathu La  is a mountain pass in the Himalayas. It connects the Indian state of Sikkim with China&#39;s Tibet Autonomous Region. The pass, at 4,310 m above mean sea level, forms a part of an offshoot of the ancient Silk Road. Nathu means "listening ears" and La means "pass" in Tibetan.</p><br>
<p>On the Indian side, the pass is 54 km east of Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim. Only citizens of India can visit the pass, and then only after obtaining a permit in Gangtok.</p><br>
<p>Nathu La is one of the three open trading border posts between China and India; the others are Shipkila in Himachal Pradesh and Lipulekh (or Lipulech) at the trisection point of Uttarakhand–India, Nepal and China. Sealed by India after the 1962 Sino-Indian War, Nathu La was re-opened in 2006 following numerous bilateral trade agreements. The opening of the pass shortens the travel distance to important Hindu and Buddhist pilgrimage sites in the region and was expected to bolster the economy of the region by playing a key role in the growing Sino-Indian trade. However, trade is limited to specific types of goods and to specific days of the week.</p><br>
<p>It is also one of the five officially agreed Border Personnel Meeting points between the Indian Army and the People&#39;s Liberation Army of China for regular consultations and interactions between the two armies to improve relations.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Nathu La is located on the 563 km Old Silk Route, an offshoot of the historic Silk Road. The Old Silk Route connects Lhasa in Tibet to the plains of Bengal to the south. In 1815, trade volume increased after the British annexed territories belonging to the Sikkimese, Nepalese, and Bhutanese. The potential of Nathu La was realised in 1873, after the Darjeeling Deputy Commissioner published a report on the strategic importance of mountain passes between Sikkim and Tibet. In December 1893, the Sikkimese monarchy and Tibetan rulers signed an agreement to increase trade between the two nations. The agreement culminated in 1894 when the trade pass was opened.</p><br>
<p>Nathu La played a vital role in the 1903–1904 British expedition to Tibet, which sought to prevent the Russian Empire from interfering in Tibetan affairs and thus gaining a foothold in the region. In 1904, Major Francis Younghusband, serving as the British Commissioner to Tibet, led a successful mission through Nathu La to capture Lhasa. This led to the setting up of trading posts at Gyantse and Gartok in Tibet, and gave control of the surrounding Chumbi Valley to the British. The following November, China and Great Britain ratified an agreement approving trade between Sikkim and Tibet.</p><br>
<p>In 1947 and 1948, a popular vote for Sikkim to join newly independent India failed and Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru agreed to a special protectorate status for Sikkim. Sikkim agreed to be a protectorate nation and Indian troops were allowed to man its borders, including Nathu La. During this period, more than 1,000 mules and 700 people were involved in cross-border trade through Nathu La.</p><br>
<p>The current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, used this pass to travel to India for the 2,500th birthday celebration of Gautama Buddha, which was held between November 1956 and February 1957. Later, on 1 September 1958, Nehru, his daughter Indira Gandhi, and Palden Thondup Namgyal (son of—and internal affairs adviser to—Tashi Namgyal, the Chogyal of Sikkim) used this pass to travel to nearby Bhutan.</p><br>
<p>After the Peoples Republic of China took control of Tibet in 1950 and suppressed a Tibetan uprising in 1959, the passes into Sikkim became a conduit for refugees from Tibet. During the 1962 Sino-Indian War, Nathu La witnessed skirmishes between soldiers of the two countries. Shortly thereafter, the passage was sealed and remained closed for more than four decades. Between 7 and 13 September 1967, Chinas People&#39;s Liberation Army and the Indian Army had six-day "border skirmishes", including the exchange of heavy artillery fire. In 1975, Sikkim acceded to India and Nathu La became part of Indian territory. China, however, refused to acknowledge the accession at that time.</p><br>
<p>In 2003, with the thawing of Sino-Indian relations, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayees visit to China led to the resumption of talks on opening the border. Later in 2004, the Indian Defence Ministers visit to China led to the formal opening of the pass. The opening, originally scheduled for 2 October 2005, was postponed due to last-minute infrastructure problems on the Chinese side. Finally, after a decade of talks, Nathu La was opened on 6 July 2006. The date of the reopening, which also formally recognised Tibet as part of China by India and Sikkim&#39;s accession to India, coincided with the birthday of the reigning Dalai Lama. In the years before the reopening, the only person permitted to cross the barbed-wire frontier had been a Chinese postman with an Indian military escort, who would hand over mail to his Indian counterpart in a building at the border.</p><br>
<p>The opening of the pass was marked by a ceremony on the Indian side that was attended by officials from both countries. A delegation of 100 traders from India and 100 Tibetans crossed the border to respective trading towns. Despite heavy rain and chilly winds, the ceremony was marked by the attendance of many officials, locals, and international and local media. The barbed wire fence between India and China was replaced by a 10 m (30 ft) wide stone-walled passageway. It was also decided to mark the year 2006 as the year of Sino-Indian friendship.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The pass is 54 km east of Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim and 430 km from Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. In the winter, the pass is blocked by heavy snowfall. Because there is no meteorological centre in Nathu La, systematic measurements of meteorological data (such as temperature and rainfall) are not available for the region. However, it is known that in the higher reaches of the Himalayas around the region, summer temperature never exceeds 15 °C (59 °F).</p><br>
<p>Nathu La has moderately shallow, excessively drained, coarse, and loamy soil on a steep slope (30–50%) with gravelly loamy surface, moderate erosion, and moderate stoniness. To preserve the fragile environment of Nathu La on the Indian side, the government of India regulates the flow of tourists. Road maintenance is entrusted to Border Roads Organisation, a wing of the Indian Army. On the Chinese side the pass leads to the Chumbi Valley of the Tibetan Plateau.</p><br>
<h2>Flora and fauna</h2><br>
<p>Because of the steep elevation increase around the pass, the vegetation graduates from sub-tropical forest at its base, to a temperate region, to a wet and dry alpine climate, and finally to cold tundra desert devoid of vegetation. Around Nathu La and the Tibetan side, the region has little vegetation besides scattered shrubs. Major species found in the region include dwarf rhododendrons (Rhododendron anthopogon, R. setosum) and junipers. The meadows include the genera Poa, Meconopsis, Pedicularis, Primula, and Aconitum. The region has a four-month growing season during which grasses, sedges, and medicinal herbs grow abundantly and support a host of insects, wild and domestic herbivores, larks, and finches. The nearby Kyongnosla Alpine Sanctuary has rare, endangered ground orchida and rhododendrons interspersed among tall junipers and silver firs.</p><br>
<p>There are no permanent human settlements in the region, though it has a large number of defence personnel who man the borders on both sides. A small number of nomadic Tibetan graziers or Dokpas herd yak, sheep and pashmina-type goats in the region. There has been intense grazing pressure due to domestic and wild herbivores on the land. Yaks are found in these parts, and in many hamlets they serve as beasts of burden. The region around Nathu La contains many endangered species, including Tibetan gazelle, snow leopard, Tibetan wolf, Tibetan snowcock, lammergeier, raven, golden eagle, and ruddy shelduck. Feral dogs are considered a major hazard in this region. The presence of landmines in the area causes casualties among yak, nayan, kiang, and Tibetan wolf.</p><br>
<p>The avifauna consists of various types of laughing thrushes, which live in shrubs and on the forest floor. The blue whistling-thrush, redstarts, and forktails are found near waterfalls and hill-streams. The mixed hunting species present in the region include warblers, tit-babblers, treecreepers, white-eyes, wrens, and rose finches. Raptors such as black eagle, black-winged kite and kestrels; and pheasants such as monals and blood pheasant are also found.</p><br>
<h2>Economy</h2><br>
<p>Up until 1962, before the pass was sealed, goods such as pens, watches, cereals, cotton cloth, edible oils, soaps, building materials, and dismantled scooters and four-wheelers were exported to Tibet through the pass on mule-back. Two hundred mules, each carrying about 80 kg of load, were used to ferry goods from Gangtok to Lhasa, which used to take 20–25 days. Upon return, silk, raw wool, musk pods, medicinal plants, country liquor, precious stones, gold, and silverware were imported into India.</p><br>
<p>Most of the trade in those days was carried out by the Marwari community, which owned 95% of the 200 authorised firms.</p><br>
<p>Since July 2006, trading is open Mondays through Thursdays. Exports from India exempted from duty include agricultural implements, blankets, copper products, clothes, cycles, coffee, tea, barley, rice, wheat, flour, dry fruits, vegetables, vegetable oil, tobacco, snuff, spices, shoes, kerosene oil, stationery, utensils, milk processed products, canned food, dyes, and local herbs. Chinese exports to India exempted from duty include goat skin, sheep skin, wool, raw silk, yak tail, yak hair, china clay, borax, butter, common salt, horses, goats, and sheep. Restrictions are placed on traders, with permits only given to those who were Sikkimese citizens before the kingdom merged with India in 1975.</p><br>
<p>There were fears among some traders in India that Indian goods would find a limited outlet in Tibet, while China would have access to a ready market in Sikkim and West Bengal.</p><br>
<p>The reopening of the pass was expected to stimulate the economy of the region and bolster Indo-Chinese trade, but this has not happened. Figures released by the Tibet Autonomous Regional Bureau of Commerce show that in the 51 days of trading in 2006, only US$186,250 worth of trade passed through Nathu La.</p><br>
<p>On the Indian side, only citizens of India can visit the pass on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, The pass is particularly useful for pilgrims visiting monasteries in Sikkim such as Rumtek, one of the holiest shrines in Buddhism. For Hindus, the pass reduces the journey time to Mansarovar Lake from fifteen days to two days.</p><br>
<p>A major concern of the Indian government is the trafficking of wildlife products such as tiger and leopard skins and bones, bear gall bladders, otter pelts, and shahtoosh wool into India. The Indian government has undertaken a program to sensitise the police and other law enforcement agencies in the area. Most of such illicit trade currently takes place via Nepal.</p><br>
<h3>Transport</h3><br>
<p>On the Tibetan side two highways — from Kangmar to Yadong and from Yadong to Nathu La — were listed in the 2006 construction plans. Plans are also underway to extend the Qinghai-Tibet Railway to Yadong over the next decade.</p><br>
<p>The nearest railheads are New Jalpaiguri (Siliguri) in India and Xigazê in China.</p><br>
<p>The Chinese government is planning to extend its rail service to Yadong, a few kilometers (miles) from Nathu La. In addition, the Government of India is planning an extension of rail services from Sevoke in Darjeeling district to Sikkim&#39;s capital Gangtok, 38 mi from Nathu La.</p><br>
<p>The Strait of Bonifacio  is the strait between Corsica and Sardinia, named after the Corsican town Bonifacio. It is 11 km wide and divides the Tyrrhenian Sea from the western Mediterranean Sea. The strait is notorious among sailors for its weather, currents, shoals, and other obstacles.</p><br>
<p>The most famous disaster in the Strait of Bonifacio was that of the French frigate Sémillante on February 15, 1855. Sémillante had left the port of Toulon the day before on its way into the Black Sea to supply the Crimean War with troops. A storm caused it to hit a reef; the ship sank and none of the 750 soldiers on board survived.</p><br>
<p>After a tanker disaster in 1993, the passage through the Strait of Bonifacio has been prohibited for French and Italian flag ships with dangerous goods. Passage for ships with dangerous goods sailing under other flags is strongly discouraged and subject to mandatory piloting.</p><br>
<p>Its maximum depth is 100 m.</p><br>
<p>Tel Hazor , also Hatzor  and Tell el-Qedah , is an archaeological tell at the site of ancient Hazor, located in Israel, Upper Galilee, north of the Sea of Galilee, in the southern Hula Valley overlooking Lake Merom. In the Middle Bronze Age  and the Israelite period , Hazor was the largest fortified city in the country and one of the most important in the Fertile Crescent. It maintained commercial ties with Babylon and Syria, and imported large quantities of tin for the bronze industry. In the Book of Joshua, Hazor is described as “the head of all those kingdoms” .</p><br>
<p>The Hazor expedition headed by Yigal Yadin in the mid-1950s was the most important dig undertaken by Israel in its early years of statehood. Tel Hazor is the largest archaeological site in northern Israel, featuring an upper tell of 30 acres and a lower city of more than 175 acres.</p><br>
<p>In 2005, the remains of Hazor were designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO as part of the Biblical Tels - Megiddo, Hazor, Beer Sheba.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Canaanite Hazor</h3><br>
<p>During the Egyptian Second Intermediate Period and early New Kingdoms (together running between 18th century BC and 13th century BC), Canaan was an Egyptian vassal state; thus 14th century documents, from the El Amarna archive in Egypt, describe the king of Hazor (in Amarna letters called Hasura), Abdi-Tirshi, as swearing loyalty to the Egyptian pharaoh. However, EA 148 specifically reports that Hasura&#39;s king had gone over to the Habiru, who were invading Canaan. In these documents, Hazor is described as an important city in Canaan. Hazor is also mentioned in the Execration texts, that pre-date the Amarna letters, and in 18th century BC documents found in Mari on the Euphrates River.</p><br>
<p>According to the Book of Joshua, Hazor was the seat of Jabin, a powerful Canaanite king who led a Canaanite confederation against Joshua, but was defeated by Joshua, who burnt Hazor to the ground. According to the Book of Judges, Hazor was the seat of Jabin, the king of Canaan, whose commander, Sisera, led a Canaanite army against Barak, but was ultimately defeated. Textual scholars believe that the prose account of Barak, which differs from the poetic account in the Song of Deborah, is a conflation of accounts of two separate events, one concerning Barak and Sisera like the poetic account, the other concerning Jabin&#39;s confederation and defeat. In addition, the Book of Judges and Book of Joshua may be parallel accounts referring to the same events, rather than describing different time periods, and thus they may refer to the same Jabin, a powerful king based in Hazor, whose Canaanite confederation was defeated by an Israelite army.</p><br>
<p>Israel Finkelstein claims that the Israelites emerged as a subculture within Canaanite society and rejects the biblical account of the Israelite conquest of Canaan. In this view, the Book of Joshua conflates several independent battles between disparate groups over the centuries, and artificially attributes them to a single leader, Joshua. One archaeological stratum dating from around 1200 BC shows signs of catastrophic fire, and cuneiform tablets found at the site refer to monarchs named Ibni Addi, where Ibni may be the etymological origin of Yavin (Jabin). The city also show signs of having been a magnificent Canaanite city prior to its destruction, with great temples and opulent palaces, split into an upper acropolis, and lower city; the town evidently had been a major Canaanite city. He theorized that the destruction of Hazor was the result of civil strife, attacks by the Sea Peoples, and/or a result of the general collapse of civilization across the whole eastern Mediterranean in the Late Bronze Age.</p><br>
<p>Amnon Ben-Tor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem believes that recently unearthed evidence of violent destruction by burning verifies the Biblical account. In 2012, a team led Ben-Tor and Sharon Zuckerman discovered a scorched palace from the 13th century BC in whose storerooms they found 3,400-year-old ewers holding burned crops; however, Sharon Zuckerman did not agree with Ben-Tors theory, and claimed that the burning was the result of the citys numerous factions opposing each other with excessive force.</p><br>
<h3>Israelite Hazor</h3><br>
<p>The archaeological remains suggest that after its destruction, the city of Hazor was rebuilt as a minor village within "the territory of Naphtali" (Joshua 19:36). According to the Books of Kings, the town, along with Megiddo, and Gezer, was substantially fortified and expanded by Solomon. Like Megiddo and Gezer, the remains at Hazor show that during the Early Iron Age the town gained a highly distinctive six chambered gate, as well as a characteristic style to its administration buildings; archaeologists determined that these constructions at Hazor were built by the same leadership as those at Megiddo and Gezer. Some archaeologists conclude that they were constructed in the tenth century by King Solomon; others date these structures to the early 9th century BC, during the reign of the Omrides.</p><br>
<p>Yigael Yadin, one of the earliest archaeologists to work on the site, saw certain features as clearly being Omride; Megiddo, Gezer, and Hazor, all feature deep rock cut pits, from the base of which were rock cut tunnels leading to a well that reached the water table, as water-supply systems, which Yadin attributed to the rule of Ahab; Yadin also attributed to Ahab a citadel, measuring 25 x 21 m, with two-meter thick walls, which was erected in the western part of Hazor. However, Yadin&#39;s dating was based on the assumption that the layer connected with the gates and administration buildings were built by Solomon.</p><br>
<p>Archaeological remains indicate that towards the later half of the 9th century BC, when the king of Israel was Jehu, Hazor fell into the control of Aram Damascus. Some archaeologists suspect that subsequent to this conquest Hazor was rebuilt by Aram, probably as an Aramaean city. When the Assyrians later defeated the Aramaeans, Hazor seemingly returned to Israelite control; Assyrian records indicate that Joash, king of Israel at the time, had paid tribute to Assyria and Israel had become an Assyrian vassal. Subsequently, the town, along with the remainder of the kingdom of Israel, entered a period of great prosperity, particularly during the rule of Jeroboam II. Some archaeologists attribute the later large scale constructions at Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer, including the rock cut water supply systems, to this era.</p><br>
<p>Israel&#39;s attempted rebellion against Assyrian domination resulted in an invasion by the forces of the Assyrian ruler, Tiglath-Pileser III; the evidence on the ground suggests that hasty attempts were made to reinforce the defenses of Hazor. Despite the defences, in 732 BC Hazor was captured, its population deported, and the city was burnt to the ground.</p><br>
<h2>Excavations</h2><br>
<p>The site of Hazor is around 200 acre in area, with an upper city making up about 1/8 of that. The upper mound has a height of about 40 meters. Initial soundings were carried out by John Garstang in 1926.</p><br>
<p>Major excavations were conducted for 4 seasons from 1955 to 1958 by a Hebrew University team led by Yigael Yadin.</p><br>
<p>Yadin returned to Hazor for a final season of excavation in 1968. The excavations were supported by James A. de Rothschild, and were published in a dedicated five volume set of books by the Israel Exploration Society.</p><br>
<p>Excavation at the site by Hebrew University, joined by the Complutense University of Madrid, resumed in 1990 under Amnon Ben-Tor.</p><br>
<p>Findings from the dig are housed in a museum at Kibbutz Ayelet HaShahar. In 2008, some artifacts in the museum were damaged in an earthquake.</p><br>
<p>In 2010, a clay tablet was discovered dating from the 18th or 17th centuries BC inscribed with laws in the style of Hammurabi&#39;s Code. The document includes laws pertaining to body parts and damages, similar to laws such as "an eye for an eye" that appear in the Book of Exodus. The document is written in Akkadian cuneiform, the diplomatic language of the period.</p><br>
<p>The Ryukyu Trench, also called Nansei-Shotō Trench, is a 1398 km  long oceanic trench located along the southeastern edge of Japan&#39;s Ryukyu Islands in the Philippine Sea in the Pacific Ocean, between northeastern Taiwan and southern Japan. The trench has a maximum depth of 7460 m . at a rate of approximately 52 mm/yr . In conjunction with the adjacent Nankai Trough to the northeast, subduction of the Philippine plate has produced 34 volcanoes.</p><br>
<p>The largest earthquake to have been recorded along the Ryukyu Trench, the 1968 Hyūga-nada earthquake,</p><br>
<p>was magnitude 7.5 and occurred along the northernmost part of the trench This earthquake also produced a tsunami.</p><br>
<h2>Ryukyu Trench and Ryukyu Arc structure near Taiwan</h2><br>
<p>An east-west planar seismic zone associated with the Ryukyu Trench occurs off the east coast of Taiwan. This seismic zone is continuous laterally for 50 km and to 150 km depth. The hypocenters of earthquakes at this location outline a Benioff zone indicating that the Philippine Sea Plate is subducting at an angle of about 45° beneath the Eurasian plate in this area; the dip of the slab changes dramatically from one end of the trench to the other as noted in the next section. Such depth and dip inferences of this area are consistent with the positions of the overlying Tatun and Chilung volcano groups of Taiwan.</p><br>
<p>The region behind (N and NW of) the Ryukyu Arc is a bathymetric low known as the Okinawa Trough. The Yilan Plain of Taiwan could be the westward continuation of this trough, but the Yilan Plain sits on the forearc side of the Ryukyu Trench system. This may indicate that the Ilan Plain represents a former spreading centre that sits trench-ward of the current spreading centre and volcanic arc.</p><br>
<p>Near 122°E (about 100 km East of the Taiwan Coast), the Ryukyu Arc is displaced to the north relative to the eastern extent of the arc. One hypothesis is that a north trending dextral transform faults has displaced this section of the arc to the north. A competing hypothesis claims that no transform fault motion is involved in the displacement, but rather the trench is continuous up to the northeast continental margin of Taiwan. A third hypothesis maintains that the trench is continuous through the continental margin right up to the northeastern Taiwan coastline, also without the existence of a dextral north-south trending fault.</p><br>
<h2>Seismic structure</h2><br>
<p>Ocean bottom seismography methods combined with earthquake studies of the Benioff zone constrain the dip angle of the Philippine Sea Plate along the Ryukyu trench. In the Northern part of the Ryukyu trench, the dip of the Philippine Sea Plate is shallow at shallow depth, reaching only about 11° in the first 50 km, and steeper at deeper depths, reaching 70° below about 70 km. In contrast, the slab dip in the central and southern parts of the Ryukyu trench is more gentle, reaching only 40-50° at 70 km depth.</p><br>
<p>Ocean bottom seismography studies of the Ryukyu trench provide insight into the P-wave velocity structure of the area. In the northern part of the trench, several transects have been studied, including a profile of the back arc region parallel to the trench, a transect spanning the trench, fore arc and back arc region, and a transect spanning the Ryukyu volcanic arc. The transect perpendicular to the length of the trench images many distinct velocity layers. The sedimentary wedge created by subduction has four distinct layers with p-wave velocities of 1.8 km/s, 2.8-2.9 km/s, 3.5 km/s, and 4.5–5 km/s. In the area of this transect, the wedge reaches a thickness of 9 km at 50 km from the trench. Beneath the wedge are several seismic layers within the oceanic crust.</p><br>
<p>Separate ocean bottom seismography and multi-channel seismic studies provide insight into the structure of the northern end of the Ryukyu trench region. Features of note include a thick (7–12 km) low velocity (4–5 km/s) zone on the landward side of the trench, the existence of subducting paleo-arc crust near the top of the trench in contrast to simple oceanic crust located at the middle of the trench, and a zone in which the Philippine Plate subducts beneath low P-wave velocity material (Vp=5 km/s) that coincides with the location of the 7.5 1968 Hyuganada earthquake. It has been hypothesized that the above structural heterogeneity, in particular the subducting paleo-arc crust and its associated bathymetric highs, is one reason why earthquakes in this region are not larger i.e. exceeding 8.0. The exact mechanism by which the subduction of paleo-arc crust prevents sufficient stress build up for a larger earthquake is unknown.</p><br>
<p>Lake McQueeney is a reservoir on the Guadalupe River located 5 mi west of Seguin in Guadalupe County, Texas, United States. It was formed in 1928 by the construction of a dam to provide hydroelectric power to the area. Management of the dam and lake was assumed by the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority on May 1, 1963. The lake&#39;s prominent feature is Treasure Island, a residential area that has been subjected to major flooding in 1972, 1998, and 2002. Most of it is approximately 10 ft deep, with deeper sections along the center channel of the river. It is a venue for outdoor recreation, including fishing, boating, and swimming, and is maintained at a constant level year round.</p><br>
<h2>Fish and plant life</h2><br>
<p>The lake has been stocked with species of fish intended to improve the utility of the reservoir for recreational fishing. Fish present in it include catfish, white crappie, sunfish, spotted bass, and largemouth bass. Vegetation in the lake includes cattail, pondweed, American lotus, spatterdock, rushes, water hyacinth, water lettuce, and hydrilla.</p><br>
<h2>Recreational uses</h2><br>
<p>There are no public parks or free boat ramps on the lake&#39;s shore. Many private homes line the perimeter of it. In the center is an extensively developed island called Treasure Island on which many vacation and summer homes have been built.</p><br>
<p>Booth House is a prominent heritage building in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada located at 252 Metcalfe Street, just south of Somerset in Downtown Ottawa. The house was built by lumber baron John R. Booth in 1906, and it was designed by John W. H. Watts, who did a number of other Ottawa buildings.</p><br>
<p>It remained in the Booth family until 1947, when it then became home of the Laurentian Club, one of Ottawa&#39;s leading clubs. The club closed in 2000, however, and the property was bought by Trinity Western University to house its academic-internship program, the Laurentian Leadership Centre. It now houses Trinity Western students who are interning in various governmental, cultural, business, journalistic, or non-governmental offices.</p><br>
<p>In 1990, the building was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.</p><br>
<p>Humayuns tomb  is the tomb of the Mughal Emperor Humayun in Delhi, India. The tomb was commissioned by Humayuns first wife and chief consort, Empress Bega Begum , in 1569-70, and designed by Mirak Mirza Ghiyas, a Persian architect chosen by her. and is located in Nizamuddin East, Delhi, India, close to the Dina-panah Citadel, also known as Purana Qila , that Humayun founded in 1533. It was also the first structure to use red sandstone at such a scale. The tomb was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993, and since then has undergone extensive restoration work, which is complete. Besides the main tomb enclosure of Humayun, several smaller monuments dot the pathway leading up to it, from the main entrance in the West, including one that even pre-dates the main tomb itself, by twenty years; it is the tomb complex of Isa Khan Niyazi, an Afghan noble in Sher Shah Suri&#39;s court of the Suri dynasty, who fought against the Mughals, constructed in 1547 CE.</p><br>
<p>The complex encompasses the main tomb of the Emperor Humayun, which houses the graves of Bega Begum herself, Hamida Begum, and also Dara Shikoh, great-great-grandson of Humayun and son of the later Emperor Shah Jahan, as well as numerous other subsequent Mughals, including Emperor Jahandar Shah, Farrukhsiyar, Rafi Ul-Darjat, Rafi Ud-Daulat, Muhammad Kam Bakhsh and Alamgir II. It represented a leap in Mughal architecture, and together with its accomplished Charbagh garden, typical of Persian gardens, but never seen before in India, it set a precedent for subsequent Mughal architecture. It is seen as a clear departure from the fairly modest mausoleum of his father, the first Mughal Emperor, Babur, called Bagh-e Babur (Gardens of Babur) in Kabul (Afghanistan). Though the latter was the first Emperor to start the tradition of being buried in a paradise garden. Modelled on Gur-e Amir, the tomb of his ancestor and Asia&#39;s conqueror Timur in Samarkand, it created a precedent for future Mughal architecture of royal mausolea, which reached its zenith with the Taj Mahal, at Agra.</p><br>
<p>The site was chosen on the banks of Yamuna river, due to its proximity to Nizamuddin Dargah, the mausoleum of the celebrated Sufi saint of Delhi, Nizamuddin Auliya, who was much revered by the rulers of Delhi, and whose residence, Chilla Nizamuddin Auliya lies just north-east of the tomb. In later Mughal history, the last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar took refuge here, during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, along with three princes, and was captured by Captain Hodson before being exiled to Rangoon. At the time of the Slave Dynasty this land was under the KiloKheri Fort which was capital of Sultan Kequbad, son of Nasiruddin (1268–1287).</p><br>
<p>The Tombs of Battashewala Complex lie in the buffer zone of the World Heritage Site of the Humayun Tomb Complex; the two complexes are separated by a small road but enclosed within their own separate compound walls.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>After his death on 27 January 1556, Humayuns body was first buried in his palace in Purana Quila at Delhi. Thereaft, Purana Quila, damaged the tomb of humayun. In 1558, it was seen by his son, the then Mughal Emperor, Akbar. Akbar subsequently visited the tomb when it was about to be completed in 1571. Speaking stones: world cultural heritage sites in India, by Bill Aitken. Dept. of Tourism. Published by Eicher Goodearth Limitedjsbbfjipppnshthe house</p><br>
<p>The tomb of Humayun was built by the orders of Humayuns first wife and chief consort, Empress Bega Begum (also known as Haji Begum). The construction began in 1565, nine years after his death, and completed in 1572 AD at a cost of 1.5 million ruppees at the time. The cost for building the mausoleum was paid entirely by Empress Bega Begum. When Humayun had died in 1556, Bega Begum was so grieved over her husbands death that she dedicated her life thenceforth to a sole purpose: the construction of the most magnificent mausoleum in the Empire, at a site near the Yamuna River in Delhi for the memorial of the late Emperor. According to Ain-i-Akbari, a 16th-century detailed document written during the reign of Akbar, Haji Begum supervised the construction of the tomb after returning from Mecca and undertaking the Hajj pilgrimage.</p><br>
<p>According to Abd al-Qadir Badauni, one of the few contemporary historians to mention its construction, the architect of the tomb was the Persian architect, Mirak Mirza Ghiyas (also referred to as Mirak Ghiyathuddin) who was brought from Herat (northwest Afghanistan), and had previously designed several buildings in Herat, Bukhara (now Uzbekistan), and others elsewhere in India. Ghiyas, to whom the mausoleums exquisite design is attributed was chosen to be the architect by Empress Bega Begum. Unfortunately, before the structures completion, he died and so his son Sayyed Muhammad ibn Mirak Ghiyathuddin completed his fathers design in 1571.</p><br>
<p>An English merchant, William Finch, who visited the tomb in 1611, describes the rich interior furnishing of the central chamber (in comparison to the sparse look today). He mentioned the presence of rich carpets, and a shamiana, a small tent above the cenotaph, which was covered with a pure white sheet and with copies of the Quran in front along with his sword, turban and shoes.</p><br>
<p>The fortunes of the once famous Charbagh (Four-square) gardens, which spread over 13 hectares surrounding the monument, changed repeatedly over the years after its construction. The capital had already shifted to Agra in 1556, and the decline of the Mughals accelerated the decay of the monument and its features, as the expensive upkeep of the garden proved impossible. By the early 18th century, the once lush gardens were replaced by vegetable garden of people who had settled within the walled area. However, the capture of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 together with the premises, and his subsequent sentencing to exile, along with execution of his three sons, meant that the monument’s worst days lay ahead, as the British took over Delhi completely. In 1860, the Mughal design of the garden was replanted to a more English garden-style, with circular beds replacing the fours central water pools on the axial pathways and trees profusely planted in flowerbeds. This fault was corrected in early 20th century, when on Viceroy, Lord Curzon&#39;s orders the original garden were restored in a major restoration project between 1903–1909, which also included lining the plaster channels with sandstone; a 1915 planting scheme, added emphasis to the central and diagonal axis by lining it with trees, though some trees were also planted on the platform originally reserved for tents. The 1882, the Official curator of ancient monument in India, published his first report, which mentioned that the main garden was let out to various cultivators, amongst them till late were the royal descendants, who grew cabbage and tobacco in it.</p><br>
<p>During the Partition of India, in August 1947 the Purana Qila together with Humayun&#39;s Tomb, became major refugee camps for Muslims migrating to the newly founded Pakistan, and was later managed by the government of India. These camps stayed open for about five years, and caused considerable damage not only to the extensive gardens, but also to the water channels and the principal structures. Eventually, to avoid vandalism, the cenotaphs within the mausoleum were encased in brick. In the coming years, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), took on responsibility for the preservation of heritage monuments in India, and gradually the building and its gardens were restored. Until 1985, four unsuccessful attempts were made to reinstate the original water features.</p><br>
<p>An important phase in the restoration of the complex, started around 1993, when the monument was declared a World Heritage Site. This brought new interest to its restoration, and a detailed research and excavation process began under the aegis of the Aga Khan Trust and the ASI, culminating in 2003, when much of the complex, and gardens were finally restored, with its historic fountains running once again after several centuries of disuse. The restoration has been a continuous process ever since, with subsequent phases addressing various aspects and monuments of the complex.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>Turkic and Mughal rule in the Indian subcontinent, also introduced Central Asian and Persian styles of Islamic architecture in the region, and by the late 12th century early monuments in this style were appearing in and around Delhi, the capital of Delhi Sultanate. Starting with the Turkic Slave dynasty which built the Qutb Minar (1192 AD) and its adjacent Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque (1193 CE). North India was successive ruled foreign dynasties in the coming centuries giving rise to the Indo-Islamic architecture. While the prevailing style of architecture was trabeate, employing pillars, beams and lintels, this brought in the arcuate style of construction, with its arches and beams, which flourished under Mughal patronage and by incorporating elements of Indian architecture, especially Rajasthani architecture including decorative corbel brackets, balconies, pendentive decorations and indeed kiosks or chhatris, to developed a distinct, Mughal architecture style, which was to become a lasting legacy of the nearly four hundred years of the Mughal rule. The combination of red sandstone and white marble was previously seen in Delhi Sultanate period tombs and mosques, most distinctively in the highly decorative Alai Darwaza in the Qutub complex, Mehrauli, built in 1311 AD, under the Khalji dynasty.</p><br>
<p>The high rubble built enclosure is entered through two lofty double-storeyed gateways on the west and south, 16 metres high with rooms on either side of the passage and a small courtyards on the upper floors. Six-sided stars that adorn the main gateway on the west, are also seen on the iwan of the main tomb structure, though it has been used as ornamental cosmic symbol. The mosque usually present alongside royal tombs, like the Taj, is conspicuously missing from the enclosure, which has only one other structure, the tomb of Emperor&#39;s favourite barber, now commonly known as Nai ka Gumbad (Dome-of-barber). The tomb built of rubble masonry and red sandstone, uses white marble as a cladding material and also for the flooring, lattice screens (jaalis), door frames, eaves (chhajja) and for the main dome. It stands on a vaulted terrace eight-metre high and spread over 12,000m². It is essentially square in design, though chamferred on the edges to appear octagonal, to prepare ground for the design of the interior structure. The plinth made with rubble core has fifty-six cells all around, and houses over 100 gravestones. Plus, the entire base structure is on a raised platform, a few steps high.</p><br>
<p>Inspired by Persian architecture; the tomb reaches a height of 47 m and is 91 m wide, and was the first Indian building to use the Persian double dome on a high neck drum, and measures 42.5 m, and is topped by 6 m high brass finial ending in a crescent, common in Timurid tombs. The double or double-layered dome, has its outer layer which supports the white marble exterior, while the inner part gives shape to the cavernous interior volume. As a contrast to the pure white exterior dome, rest of the building is made up of red sandstone, with white and black marble and yellow sandstone detailing, to relieve the monotony.</p><br>
<p>The symmetrical and simple designed on the exterior is in sharp contrast with the complex interior floor plan, of inner chambers, which is a square ninefold plan, where eight two-storyed vaulted chambers radiate from the central, double-height domed chamber. It can be entered through an imposing entrance iwan (high arc) on the south, which is slightly recessed, while others sides are covered with intricate jaalis, stone lattice work. Underneath this white dome in a domed chamber (hujra), lies the central octagonal sepulcher, the burial chamber containing a single cenotaph, that of the second Mughal Emperor, Humayun aligned on the north-south axis, as per Islamic tradition, where in the head is placed to the north, while the face is turned sideways towards Mecca. The real burial chamber of the Emperor, however lies further away in an underground chamber, exactly beneath the upper cenotaph, accessible through a separate passage outside the main structure, which remains mostly closed to visiting public. This burial technique along with pietra dura, a marble and even stone inlay ornamentation in numerous geometrical and arabesque patterns, seen all around the facade is an important legacy of the Indo-Islamic architecture, and flourished in many later mausolea of the Mughal Empire, like the Taj Mahal, where again we find twin cenotaphs and exquisite pietra dura craftsmanship.</p><br>
<p>The main chamber also carries the symbolic element, a mihrab design over the central marble lattice or jaali, facing Mecca in the West, here instead of the traditional Surah 24, An-Noor of Quran which is inscribed on the mihrabs, this one is just an outline allowing light to enter directly into the chamber, from Qibla or the direction of Mecca, thus elevating the status of the Emperor, above his rivals and closer to divinity.</p><br>
<p>This chamber with high ceiling is then encompassed by four main octagonal chambers on two floors, set at the diagonals with arched lobbies leading to them also connecting them, plus there are four auxiliary chambers in between suggesting that the tomb was built as a dynastic mausoleum. Collectively the concept of eight side chambers not only offers passage for circumambulation of the main cenotaph, a practice common in Sufism and also visible in many Mughal imperial mausoleums, it also reflects the concept of Paradise in Islamic cosmology. Each of the main chambers has in turn eight more, smaller chambers radiating from them, and thus the symmetrical ground plan reveals itself to contain 124 vaulted chambers in all. Many smaller chambers too, contain cenotaphs of other members of the Mughal royal family and nobility, all within main walls of the tomb. Prominent among them cenotaphs of Hamida Begum herself are there alongside Dara Shikoh. In all there are over 100 graves within the entire complex, including many on the first level terrace, earning it the name "Dormitory of the Mughals", since the graves are not inscribed their identification remains uncertain.</p><br>
<p>The building was first to use its unique combination of red sandstone and white marble, and includes several elements of Indian architectural, like the small canopies, or chhatris surrounding the central dome, popular in Rajasthani architecture and which were originally covered with blue tiles.</p><br>
<h2>Char Bagh</h2><br>
<p>While the main tomb took over eight years to build, it was also placed in centre of a 30 acre Char Bagh (Four Gardens), a Persian-style garden with quadrilateral layout and was the first of its kind in the South Asia region in such a scale. The highly geometrical and enclosed Paradise garden is divided into four squares by paved walkways (khiyabans) and two bisecting central water channels, reflecting the four rivers that flow in jannat, the Islamic concept of paradise. Each of the four square is further divided into smaller squares with pathways, creating into 36 squares in all, a design typical of later Mughal gardens. The central water channels appear to be disappearing beneath the tomb structure and reappearing on the other side in a straight line, suggesting the Quranic verse, which talks of rivers flowing beneath the Garden of Paradise.</p><br>
<p>The entire tomb and the garden is enclosed within high rubble walls on three sides, the fourth side was meant to be the river Yamuna, which has since shifted course away from the structure. The central walkways, terminate at two gates: a main one in the southern wall, and a smaller one in the western wall. It has two double-storey entrances, the West gate which used now, while the South gate, which was used during Mughal era, now remains closed. Aligned at the centre on the eastern wall lies a baradari, literally a pavilion with twelve doors, which is a building or room with twelve doors designed to allow the free draught of air through it, finally on the northern wall lies a hammam, a bath chamber.</p><br>
<h2>Other monuments</h2><br>
<p>Tomb and mosque of Isa Khan: Several monuments dot the pathway leading up to the tomb enclosure from the main entrance in the West. Prominent among them is one that pre-dates the main tomb itself, by twenty years. Constructed in 1547 CE, it is the tomb complex of Isa Khan Niyazi, an Afghan noble in Sher Shah Suris court of the Suri dynasty, who fought against the Mughals. The octagonal tomb is positioned within an octagonal garden, which was built during his own lifetime and the reign of Islam Shah Suri, son of Sher Shah. It later served as a burial place for the entire family of Isa Khan. On the western side of the tomb lies a three-bay wide mosque, in red sandstone. The octagonal tomb bears a striking resemblance to other tombs of the Sur dynasty monuments in the Lodhi Gardens, in Delhi and demonstrates a marked progression in the development of the exquisite architectural style of the main tomb. Some of the architectural details present here were seen later in the main Humayuns tomb, though on a much grander scale, such as the tomb being placed in a walled garden enclosure.</p><br>
<p>Bu Halimas Tomb and Garden: When entering the complex from the West, visitors first enter a garden complex, known as Bu Halima&#39;s Garden, though little is known about her, and since the tomb or the raised platform where it once stood is not at the centre, it appears to be a later addition.</p><br>
<p>Afsarwala Tomb and mosque: Standing southwest end of the complex, lies the Afsarwala tomb (Officers Tomb) belonging to a nobleman (Afsar Indianized word for Officer) in Akbars court. One of the marble graves inside the tomb is dated 1566-67 CE. The mosque itself can be dated to the same period judging from its siting, standing as it does adjacent to the tomb, rather than away from it.</p><br>
<p>Arab Sarai: Literally meaning the sarai (resthouse) for the horses, the structure stands adjacent to the Afsarwala mosque and was built by Bega Begum around 1560-1561 CE, ostensibly built for the craftsmen who came for the construction work. It could accommodate 300 Arabas.(in Persian ارابه means:Cart or Gari (vehicle)).</p><br>
<p>Nila Gumbad: Standing outside the boundary of the complex is the tomb known as Nila Burj (now known as Nila Gumbad) or Blue Dome, so called because it carries striking blue glazed tiles. It was built by Abdul Rahim Khan-I-Khana, son of Bairam Khan also a courtier in Mughal Emperor, Akbars court, for his servant Miyan Fahim. Fahim, who not only grew up with his son, but later also died alongside one of Rahims own sons, Feroze khan, while fighting against the rebellion of Mughal general Mahabat Khan in 1625/26, during the reign of Jahangir.</p><br>
<p>This structure is known for its unique architecture, as it is octagonal on the outside while square within; its ceiling is decorated with painted and incised plaster, it has a high neck dome and shows a conspicuous absence of a double dome feature, common to tombs of the period.</p><br>
<p>Chillah Nizamuddin Aulia: Believed to be the residence of patron saint of Delhi, Nizamuddin Auliya (d. 1325 A.D), is located just outside the main complex, near the northeastern corner of the principle mausoleum and is an example of Tughlaq period architecture.</p><br>
<p>Yet further away from the tomb complex, lie Mughal-period monuments, Bada Bateshewala Mahal, the tomb of Muzaffar Husain Mirza, the grand nephew of Humayun, built 1603-4 on platform with five arches on each side, has its interior walls decorated with incised and painted plaster; the Chote Bateshewala Mahal once an arcaded octagonal building with a domed ceiling and stone jaalis. Both these monument now lie inside a commercial area facing the complex&#39;s parking lot. Another period structure is Barapula, a bridge with 12 piers and 11 arched openings, built in 1621 by Mihr Banu Agha, the chief eunuch of Jahangir’s court.</p><br>
<p>Barber&#39;s Tomb:</p><br>
<p>Towards the south-east corner, within the Char Bagh, lies a tomb known as Nai-ka-Gumbad, or Barber&#39;s Tomb, belonging to royal barber, it is datable to 1590-91 CE, through an inscription found inside. Its proximity to the main tomb and the fact that it is the only other structure within the main tomb complex suggests its importance, however there are no inscriptions suggesting as to who is interred therein, the name Barbers tomb is the local name of the structure, hence still in use.</p><br>
<p>The tomb stands on a raised platform, reached by seven steps from the south, it has a square plan and consists of a single compartment covered with a double-dome. Inside lie two graves each inscribed with verses from the Quran. Also, one of the graves is inscribed with the figure 999 which may stand for the Hijra year 1590-91. However in an 1820 watercolour now at British Library, the Persian caption beneath the structure reads, Maqbarah-i-Kokah i.e. "Tomb of Kaka", and Kokah or Kaka in Persian stand for foster-brother (mirak brother), Mirak(a Persian title as sir) though the identity of the person remains unknown, and it might be (incorrectly) referring to another nearby monument in the Chausath Khamba complex, the tomb Ataga Khan, the foster brother of Humayun, which lies in Nizamuddin West area and not to the east of the Humayun&#39;s tomb.</p><br>
<h2>Restoration</h2><br>
<p>Before the restoration work was undertaken, vandalism and illegal encroachments were rampant at the site of the tomb, presenting a serious danger to the preservation of this invaluable treasure. At the main entrance of Humayun’s Tomb, dingy stalls had been put up under a very corrupt system of municipal patronage known as tehbazari, and all sorts of heavy vehicles were allowed to be parked illegally in these open spaces. On the Nila Gumbad side was a huge citadel of India’s vote bank politics — thousands of ‘slum dwellers’ were kept by an influential section of the political leadership to serve as ‘bonded voters’ during elections. The environment of the dargah of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya had also been ruthlessly degraded and the holy tank had become a messy cesspool.</p><br>
<p>Restoration work by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), in collaboration with Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), began around 1999 after research work, which started in 1997, and was completed in March 2003. Around 12 hectares of lawns were replanted, and over 2500 trees and plants, including mango, lemon, neem, hibiscus and jasmine cuttings, were planted in the gardens. Installation of a new water circulation system for the walkway channels was also undertaken. To ensure that water flowed naturally through the channels and pools on the 12-hectare (30 acre) site without the aid of hydraulic systems, the water channels were re-laid to an exacting grade of one centimetre every 40 metres (1:4000 slope). This eventually enabled water to flow through the watercourses in the gardens, and dormant fountains to start functioning once again. Other tasks in this mammoth restoration project included setting up a rainwater harvesting system using 128 ground water recharge pits, and desilting and revitalising old wells that were discovered during the restoration work. This was first a privately funded collaborative effort under the aegis of the National Cultural Fund (NCF) by the ASI. Funding included a sum of $650,000 from the Aga Khan Trust for Culture of His Highness the Aga Khan, with help from the Oberoi Hotels Group. In addition, AKTC is conducting a more significant restoration at Baburs tomb, the resting place of Humayuns father in Kabul.</p><br>
<p>After the restoration work, the conditions in and around this complex underwent a sea-change. All the stalls and other intrusions were removed and the monuments and green spaces restored. Elegant gardens now surround the monuments, adding to their dignity and grace. When illuminated at night, the monument looks truly magnificent.</p><br>
<p>In 2009, as a part of the ongoing restoration work, the ASI and AKTC, after months of manual work using hand-tools, removed from the roof a thick layer of cement concrete that had been exerting pressure of about 1,102 tons on the structure. The cement concrete was originally laid in the 1920s to prevent water seepage, and led to a blockage in water passages. Subsequently, each time there was leakage, a fresh layer of cement was added, leading to an accumulated thickness of about 40 cm; this has now been replaced with a traditional lime-based roof layer. In the next phase, similar treatment was given to the tomb&#39;s first chabutra (plinth), which was originally paved with large blocks of quartzite stone, some weighing over a 1,000 kg. In the 1940s, an uneven settlement in the lower plinth had been corrected by covering it with a layer of concrete, adding to the disfigurement of the original Mughal flooring, which matched with that at the West Gate.</p><br>
<h2>The mausoleum today</h2><br>
<p>Ill thought out construction plans like The Delhi Government&#39;s plans in 2006/2007 to build a new tunnel to connect East Delhi to Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Delhi in South Delhi, and to widen the roads near the tomb for the 2010 Commonwealth Games to connect National Highway-24 with Lodhi Road, also posed a serious threat to the monument. Urban planners feared that the historic monument would not have been able to withstand the vibrations ensuing from the construction work in such close proximity. Finally, the Archaeological Survey of India was able to halt the plans.</p><br>
<p>On 30 May 2014, the finial of the tomb was knocked off the dome by a heavy storm which struck the city. On 19 April 2016, India&#39;s Union Culture Minister Dr. Mahesh Sharma unveiled the restored finial of the monument. The original finial will be conserved.</p><br>
<p>The ruins of Gedi are a historical and archaeological site near the Indian Ocean coast of eastern Kenya. The site is adjacent to the town of Gedi  in the Kilifi District and within the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest.</p><br>
<p>Gedi is one of many medieval Swahili-Arab coastal settlements that stretch from Mogadishu, Somalia to the Zambezi River in Mozambique. There are 116 known Swahili sites stretching from southern Somalia to Vumba Kuu at the Kenya-Tanzania border.</p><br>
<p>The site of Gedi includes a walled town and its outlying area. All of the standing buildings at Gedi, which include mosques, a palace, and numerous houses, are made from stone, are one-story, and are distributed unevenly in the town. There are also large open areas in the settlement which contained earth and thatch houses. Stone "pillar tombs" are a distinctive type of Swahili Coast architecture found at Gedi as well.</p><br>
<p>Gedi&#39;s location along the coast and association with similar sites along the Swahili Coast made it an important trade center. Although there are few historical documents specifically associating Gedi with Indian Ocean trade, the site is thought to have been one of the most important sites along the coast.</p><br>
<h2>History of discovery and excavation</h2><br>
<p>Although Gedi remained unknown to most of British East Africa&#39;s colonists until the 1920s, the site was known by the local Mijikenda peoples. Despite changes in their belief system and the prominence of Islam in the region, evil and ancestral spirits are thought by many to reside at Gedi. According to local tradition, the ruins are protected by the spirits of its priests. These "Old Ones" are said to curse anyone who harms the site.</p><br>
<p>The Gedi ruins were first discovered by colonialists in 1884 after a British resident of Zanzibar, Sir John Kirk, visited the site.</p><br>
<h3>Early archaeological research</h3><br>
<p>Excavations commenced at Gedi in 1948 under the supervision of James Kirkman, lasting until 1958 with intermittent excavations occurring in the 1960s to the 1980s. Kirkman excavated the buildings at the citys core, including the palace, and several of the mosques and houses, as well as, cleared and repaired the walls. The Great Mosque was excavated in 1954 and the palace was excavated in 1963. Following his excavation of the Great Mosque, Kirkmans report "The Arab City of Gedi, The Great Mosque, Architecture and Finds" was published, followed by a series of monographs and papers.</p><br>
<p>Along with the excavations at Gedi during the 1950s, concurrent excavations also took place at similar sites along the Swahili Coast. Wilson&#39;s 1982 survey of the 116 sites along the coast found 34 isolated ruins, which he concluded likely contained possible settlements or isolated dwellings. Although smaller settlements were studied, larger sites received the most attention. Other than Gedi, the site most intensively excavated was Ungwana at the mouth of the Tana River, which was similar in size to Gedi. However, compared to sites similar in size, Gedi had one of the more densely populated urban centers.</p><br>
<h3>Recent archaeological research</h3><br>
<p>Since the 1990s archaeological research at Gedi and other Swahili coastal settlements has intensified. From 2002 to 2003, research at Gedi continued to focus on urban development prior to the fifteenth century, with focus on a group of coral houses built by social elites in the site&#39;s urban core.</p><br>
<h2>History of occupation</h2><br>
<p>The history of occupation at Gedi has been extrapolated as a result of excavations and historical documents pertaining to its material culture, architecture, and the known history of trade linking the Swahili Coast with the regions adjoining the Indian Ocean. The settlement of Gedi occurred long after the emergence of the earliest settlements along the Swahili Coast with the intensification of trade in the sixth century. The earliest evidence for occupation at Gedi is a grave marker that has been radiocarbon dated to between 1041 to 1278, placing the original settlement of the site sometime in the eleventh or early twelfth century.</p><br>
<p>Gedis participation in trade is believed to be the contributing factor in its founding and its later development into a city supporting an estimated population of 2,500 inhabitants at its peak. Despite the absence of historical documents specifically mentioning Gedi, it is considered to be one of the most important sites along the coast. Prior to the construction of the outer wall in the fifteenth century, the city initially developed in the northern section of the modern site. The adoption of Islam by the inhabitants in the twelfth century is marked by the presence of three superimposed mosques in the northern area the city, which were constructed during the twelfth to the fourteenth century. The style of architecture and the absence of minarets characteristic of all of Gedis mosques has been used to suggest that the locals were influenced by the Ibadite denomination.</p><br>
<p>From the eleventh through the fourteenth centuries, urban development at Gedi expanded primarily to the north, west and south with the eventual shift of the population around the Great Mosque during the fifteenth century. Gedis population and prosperity peaked during the fifteenth and into the sixteenth century until it and many other coastal sites began to decline in the late-sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Gedi was abandoned by the middle of the seventeenth century. The presence of the Portuguese from the sixteenth century has been considered one of the primary factors in Gedis eventual abandonment with their attempts to monopolize trade and due to armed intervention. However, a drop in the water table seen with the deepening of the well next to the Great Mosque, a Wazimba raid along the coast in 1589, and Galla migrations and raids from Somalia may have been additional factors in the abandonment of Gedi an most of the mainland coastal sites north of Mombasa.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The Gedi ruins make up a site consisting of 45 acres that lies in the primeval Arabuko-Sokoke Forest. The ancient town at Gedi is divided by two walls, with an outer wall enclosing 45 acres and an inner wall enclosing 18 acres.</p><br>
<p>Within the inner wall there are two mosques, a palace or Sheikh&#39;s house, four large houses, several clustered houses, and four large pillar tombs comprising the urban core. The inner wall also encloses four other houses and three other mosques. Between the inner and outer walls few stone structures have been identified with the exception of two mosques. Immediately beyond the outer wall there is one mosque and several other unidentified structures.</p><br>
<p>In addition to being divided by the inner and outer walls, which created an urban core occupied by the sites foremost buildings and areas of occupation between and outside of the outer wall, Gedi has a well-established infrastructure. Gedis structures appear to be formally arranged in accordance with streets laid out in a grid pattern. Additionally the site contained sumps to collect storm water and lavatories in many of its primary buildings.</p><br>
<p>The majority of Gedi&#39;s structures were domestic residences made of thatched-roofed mud buildings concentrated between the outer and inner walls; however, the only buildings that survived to the present were constructed using coral stones extracted from the Indian Ocean. All of the buildings at Gedi are single-story structures. The walls and other coral structures were constructed in a similar manner using lime mortar, with most foundations no greater than one foot in depth and filled with stones. Where foundations were used, they tended to be no wider than the wall they supported. There are several examples of non-utilitarian design elements. Doorways for the buildings consist of square framed pointed archways, with tombs and mosques containing spandrels and architraves that have been carved or inlaid with porcelain.</p><br>
<h3>Walls</h3><br>
<p>The inner and outer walls were constructed similarly with the outer wall measuring nine feet high and 18 inches thick, which was also coated in plaster. Although the inner wall has a more obvious defensive function and despite the absence of gun ports and the questionable strength of the outer wall, it has nonetheless been credited as being a fortification.</p><br>
<h3>Mosques</h3><br>
<p>The mosques at Gedi contained wells and washing facilities, which would have been used for cleansing prior to worship. However, they were not constructed with minarets used for the call to prayer, which was more characteristic in other regions. Gedi&#39;s mosques were typically laid out with anterooms flanking the central room, which had a roof supported by wood beams resting on square stone pillars. The isles created by the pillars obstructed the view of the mihrab, which were situated on the north walls in the direction of Mecca.</p><br>
<p>At Gedi, two of the mosques have been dubbed "Great Mosques." The mosque traditionally known as the Great Mosque is a rectangular building located within the inner wall, which was built during the fifteenth century. The Great Mosque has three entrances and three rows of pillars in the central room supporting the roof. Above one of the entrances is a relief of a spear point flanked by a shield on its spandrel, while on the east entrance the architrave is engraved with a herringbone pattern. The structure also has one of the deepest foundations, with its 21 inch wide walls extending four feet into the subsoil.</p><br>
<p>The second Great Mosque resided in an older portion of the city, which was inhabited from the eleventh century and located to the north of the walled city. The structure that is standing was constructed in the fourteenth century on top of two earlier mosques from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The mosque measures 26 m in length along its north-south orientation.</p><br>
<h3>Tombs</h3><br>
<p>The pillar tombs at Gedi, which consist of masonry based structures topped with a pillar or column, are part of an architectural style of the medieval Swahili Coastal settlements. A common feature on the pillar tombs at Gedi are decorative recessed panels. Although there are four large pillar tombs at Gedi, the "dated tomb," located within the inner wall, stands out from the rest since it has on Arabic inscription with the date A.H. 802 (A.D. 1399).</p><br>
<h3>Houses</h3><br>
<p>The surviving residential buildings at Gedi are all located within the inner wall and are representative of the living conditions of the elite members of Gedi society, since the majority of the population lived in the mud thatched dwellings outside the city&#39;s core.</p><br>
<p>Although the houses at Gedi vary in size, their number of rooms, and their layout, the basic house at the site is a three-room structure, which usually contained a forecourt and domestic court. The entrances of houses have a greater deal of variability in the configuration of their passageways, since many of the houses were highly concentrated and laid out to maximize the use of available space.</p><br>
<h3>Palace</h3><br>
<p>The palace, which housed the city&#39;s sheikh, had a large central room with two anterooms, each containing its own courtyard. A series of residential rooms were accessible from the main hall. There were also two additional courts, the audience court and the reception court, which were accessed through different gates.</p><br>
<h3>Gedi's hinterland</h3><br>
<p>Gedi also has a hinterland consisting of several smaller sites made up of either solitary mosques and tombs or several houses. The sites of Shaka and Kilepwa are nearby. Kilepwa, located on an island in Mida Creek, is closer to Gedi and consists of three stone houses. There is also an isolated mosque at the west end of the creek, a mosque at Watamu, and a mosque and tombs at Kiburugeni.</p><br>
<h2>Material culture</h2><br>
<p>Excavations at Gedi have uncovered numerous artifacts, but the most abundant and commonly discussed in literature are beads and ceramics, which have been used to identify trade and to obtain dates for the site&#39;s occupation.</p><br>
<h3>Currency</h3><br>
<p>It is speculated that cowrie shells may have been the principal currency at Gedi. However, there are examples of locally struck coins at contemporary sites, but none have been recovered at Gedi.</p><br>
<h3>Beads</h3><br>
<p>There are several classifications of beads common to the Swahili coastal settlements that have been found at Gedi. In his examination of beads found at Gedi and the Limpopo Valley (Mapungubwe), Schofield placed beads into three categories: red, blue, green, and yellow cylinders made from cane glass; smaller black, red, green, yellow, and blue biconical and lenticular beads made from wound glass; and spheres of red, black, and yellow pressed glass. All but 25 of the 558 beads categorized as class 1–3 were made from opaque glass. During his excavations at Gedi, Kirkman recovered 631 beads in six stratigraphic layers. Monochrome yellow, green, and black wound and pressed glass beads formed in melon, biconical, globular, barrel, and cylindrical shapes were the most common styles represented in strata from the fourteenth century and sporadically appeared in later levels. Small drawn cane glass beads are also commonly represented in fourteenth and fifteenth century levels with the colors green, opaque red, yellow, and black occurring more frequently than blue, brown, and red. It is believed that Islamic traders brought the majority of glass beads to East Africa, which were traded across the continent, since there is no evidence for local production or trade south or west of Egypt and Nubia with the exception of a site in Igbo Olokun Grove at Ile-Ife in southern Nigeria.</p><br>
<h3>Pottery</h3><br>
<p>Numerous types and styles of ceramics have been found during the excavations at Gedi including Chinese porcelain, Islamic glazed ware, and locally produced earthenwares. Several examples of the ceramics recovered at Gedi are represented in different quantities at other coastal sites. Red slipped pottery is rare at Gedi, compared to other inland sites, while bowls with rounded bottoms, flat rims, and incised ornamentation on top of the rims are more common at Gedi. White to cream colored bowls were also found in small quantities, along with an isolated pottery type that has a golden brown luster. A sherd with a trellis pattern is a possible import from the African interior.</p><br>
<h4>Imports</h4><br>
<p>Ceramic that were imported to Gedi represent either direct or indirect trade with China, South Asia, and the Islamic world. Islamic pottery found at Gedi was wheel spun, glazed, and kiln fired, which includes sgraffiato, Yemeni black on yellow ceramics, and figured wares frequently depicting floral designs on blue and white panels. Sgraffiato is red-bodied earthenware with yellow or green glaze that was common in modern-day Iraq from the ninth to the sixteenth century. Various types of Chinese pottery also appear at Gedi, including celadon and blue and white porcelain, which were found in large enough volumes to assume that a significant portion of the population had access to higher quality wares, while sherds were also found inlayed in the mosques.</p><br>
<h4>Local wares</h4><br>
<p>Pottery produced locally in East Africa was shaped by hand, unglazed, and assumed to be open fired, but it has been proposed that the absence of evidence for kilns may be the result of mistaking their remnants for metal furnaces. Despite the increase of imported ceramics in the fifteenth century, local varieties continued to be present in later levels of the sites occupation.</p><br>
<h4>Ceramic chronology</h4><br>
<p>In the fourteenth century, celadon was a prized import in East Africa, which was initially obtained from the Ming Dynasty in exchange for ivory. However, knowledge of direct exchange with the Chinese is restricted to a single account of a Chinese fleet harbored off of Malindi and Mombasa between 1417 and 1419. During the same century, local wares began to change with the reduction in the number of incised ornamental patterns and a shift to long necked-pots, compared to earlier short-necked variants. In the following century, blue and white porcelain and monochrome Islamic wares became the dominant imports; a trend that began to emerge in the previous century and would continue until Gedi&#39;s decline in the seventeenth century.</p><br>
<h4>Pottery associated with the dated tomb</h4><br>
<p>The array of different types and styles of ceramic found during the excavations of Gedi provide information about the city&#39;s trade ties through the origin of imported vessels and aid in dating the site through seriation. At Gedi, a chronology has been established for the appearance of many of the ceramics, which have been found in deposits up to five feet. The dated tomb with an inscription connecting it to AD 1399 has served as a datum point for dating the stratigraphic layers. Celadon, Islamic monochromes, and blue and white Chinese porcelain were found in levels above the tomb, which date to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Below the tomb, yellow and black Islamic wares were found down to the natural soil, while celadon was found in layers immediately below the tomb. The celadon below the tomb varied from the celadon found above the tomb, since carvings of lotus pedals were more common on the celadon in the lower layers. Given the date of the tomb, it was determined that the ceramics above the tomb dated to the fifteenth century, which helped extrapolate dates for the remaining stratigraphy.</p><br>
<h2>Economy</h2><br>
<p>Local industries and trades likely included pottery production, metal working, construction, spinning and weaving cloth, fishing, trade, and possibly the production of salt, which are represented in the archaeological and historical record at a number of coastal sites. In addition, the local coral architecture using limestone mortar also indicates the presence of local trades associated with construction and masonry.</p><br>
<p>Food production at Gedi likely involved a mixed economy based on livestock, as well as agricultural and horticultural production. Some foods were introduced through trade. Available crops included millet, African rice, cocoyam, coconuts, bananas, citrus fruits, pomegranates, figs, sugar cane, cotton, and various vegetables, while the principal livestock was likely cattle. Sheep, goats, and chickens played an important role as well.</p><br>
<p>Swahili coastal settlements frequently conducted trade with the interior, obtaining goods for overseas trade or local consumption. However, isolated and small settlements have been interpreted as hinterlands that developed around and supported the economies of the larger settlements. Small settlements or hamlets were established between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries within the vicinity of Gedi including sites at the end of Mida Creek, Kiburugeni, Watamu, Shaka, and Kilepwa. These smaller settlements are thought to represent agricultural communities that provided Gedi with most of its agricultural produce.</p><br>
<h3>Maritime trade</h3><br>
<p>The history of maritime trade along the coast of East Africa dates to the Classical Period. The Periplus Maris Erthraei, written by an Egyptian-Greek merchant circa AD 40–55, described trading ports along the Indian Ocean including Azania, a historic designation of the East African coast extending southward to present day Tanzania. Physical evidence for trade predates the earliest towns in the ninth century with the discovery of four Roman beads from the fourth century and pottery from the fifth century. Roman documents from the first through fifth centuries, as well as, Ptolemy&#39;s Geographia also provide historical accounts of trade with East Africa, followed by a dearth of historical documents until the tenth century. After the fall of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, Arab, Indian, and Chinese shipping grew in importance, which was eventually dominated by Persia after its conquest of southern Arabia and Egypt in AD 515 and AD 616. It has been proposed that trade between the Swahili Coast and Persia, as well as later Islamic merchants following the spread of Islam after AD 632, contributed to the settlement and development of the coastal sites.</p><br>
<p>Gedi&#39;s participation in maritime trade can be seen in the increasing frequency of imports found at Gedi over the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Many artifacts found at Gedi including much of the ceramics, all the beads, and the two Chinese coins resulted from either direct or indirect trade with the Near East, Arabia, China, India, and Indochina. Swahili coastal settlements exported gold, ivory, slaves, ebony, mangrove poles, copper, copal gum, frankincense, myrrh, and crystal rock.</p><br>
<p>Maritime trade along the coast of East Africa was facilitated by trade winds in the Indian Ocean, as well as relatively short distances between land masses. However, despite reduced access to good anchorage, Gedi and other large mainland sites were able to maintain a high degree of economic success. Their success in trade may have been influenced by the early establishment of trade routes and available commercial support from their hinterlands.</p><br>
<h2>Conservation and administration</h2><br>
<p>Gedi was made a historic monument in 1927. The site was declared a protected monument in 1929, after looters began removing Chinese porcelain inset as architectural decoration.</p><br>
<p>In 1969, stewardship of Gedi was turned over to the National Museums of Kenya. The site is currently administered by the museum&#39;s Department of Coastal Archaeology. In 2000, the construction of a museum funded by the European Union concluded, which features a permanent display on Swahili culture.</p><br>
<p>Ritchie&#39;s Archipelago is a cluster of smaller islands which lie 20 km east of Great Andaman, the main island group of the Andaman Islands.</p><br>
<p>The Islands belong to the South Andaman administrative district, part of the Indian union territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>The archipelago is named after an 18th-century British marine surveyor, John Ritchie, who spent nearly two decades in the employ of the Council of Bengal charting and documenting the Andaman&#39;s and surrounding regions. The individual islands are largely named after British generals and civil officials serving in India at the time of the Indian Rebellion of 1857.</p><br>
<p>Of the archipelago which now bears his name, Ritchies accounts and maps were the first reliable sources of information on the islands, which until then were very sketchily known to Europeans. Ritchie was one who championed that the British administration in India make further investigation and use of the Andamans. During Ritchies time these entreaties were largely ignored. Perhaps frustrated and disillusioned after years of thankless work under difficult circumstances, Ritchie requested to be returned for home leave, which he was in 1787. An extract from his parting note to his superiors explained:</p><br>
<p>"The condition of my health being such as requires an immediate change of climate... after a series of 19 years continuous service in the office of Marine Surveyor, I hope there is no impropriety in my requesting the favour, also... to continue my allowance to me... It is a small salary, and the receipt of it has been the only advantage I have ever reaped from the Companys service, and because my Line of Service, from its singularity, has had no gradation of advancement... whilst its Duties have been uncommonly severe, uncommonly hazardous, and equally unprofitable; for what advantage could be obtained from tracking a Labyrinth of Woods and Rivers? Or from exploring the Shoals of a shelving and broken Sea Coast? All of which uninhabited, and seldom visited, except perhaps in the disastrous case of shipwreck... In the meantime it has been from my Labours, that the Honble Company have obtained all authentic knowledge of the Sea Coast and Tide Rivers of their possessions in Bengal, together with other services more important and beneficial."</p><br>
<p>Two years after Ritchie&#39;s departure, an attempt was made to set up a colony in the Andamans, but this was aborted after only a few years. It was not until 1867 that a permanent European presence was established, when the whole islands were annexed by the British and a penal colony established at Ross Island on South Andaman Island.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>the islands are located in the Bay of Bengal, bordering with the Andaman Sea and are some 400 km south of the nearest Asian mainland, Cape Negrais in Myanmar.</p><br>
<p>The archipelago comprises 4 larger islands, 3 medium islands, and 10 smaller islands and islets, extending in a roughly north-south chain, parallel to the main Great Andaman group. Baratang Island and South Andaman Island lie to the west across Diligent Strait; the active volcano Barren Island is 85 km further to the east.</p><br>
<p>The islands of Ritchie&#39;s Archipelago run in a closely spaced arc which extends about 60 km from the southern-most Rose Island. to North Button I., with Diligent Strait between them and Great Andaman ranging from 30 km to less than 10 km. Most of the islands are clustered closely together separated by only narrow, almost river-like channels. The exceptions are Rose Island and Neill Island to the south of Havelock Island, and the three small Button islands which are smaller outliers to the north of the group.</p><br>
<p>The interior of most of the islands consists of undulating hills and plains, with a topography not exceeding 100 m above mean sea level. Occasionally the land rises reasonably abruptly from the sea to a domed plateau, and there are a few rocky coastal cliffs; however, in the main the coastlines are relatively flat, interspersed by both rocky and sand beaches and some low-lying lagoons and estuaries on the larger islands. Coral reefs surround many of the islands, particularly on the "sea-ward" (i.e., eastern) coastlines.</p><br>
<p>Havelock, John Lawrence, Henry Lawrence, Peel and Outram Is. have a few tidal creeks winding into their interiors; in general freshwater streams are few.</p><br>
<h3>Islands</h3><br>
<p>The main islands in the archipelago (in decreasing order of approximate size) are:</p><br>
<p>Havelock Island - 92.2 km&sup2</p><br>
<p>Henry Lawrence Island - 54.7 km&sup2</p><br>
<p>John Lawrence Island - 34.8 km&sup2, formerly inhabited</p><br>
<p>Peel Island - 23.7 km&sup2</p><br>
<p>Wilson Island - 14.3 km&sup2</p><br>
<p>Outram Island - 13.9 km&sup2</p><br>
<p>Neill Island - 13.7 km&sup2</p><br>
<h2>Administration</h2><br>
<p>Politically, Ritchie&#39;s Archipelago is part of Port Blair Taluk.</p><br>
<h2>Demographics</h2><br>
<p>The islands were originally populated by the indigenous Great Andamanese peoples, in particular the tribal and linguistic grouping known as Aka-Bale. However, as the populations of the various Andamanese indigenous peoples declined greatly in the decades following the establishment of colonial settlements by the British Raj (and later, independent India), the indigenous communities of these islands have vanished. The present population of the islands consists of immigrant Indian and a few Karen (Burmese) settlers.</p><br>
<p>The 2011 census of India reported 9,355 people living on two inhabited islands of Ritchie&#39;s Archipelago: Havelock Island and Neill Island.</p><br>
<h2>Transportation</h2><br>
<p>Port Blair, is located approximately 40 km to the southwest of the archipelago, accessible via a 3-5 hour ferry trip.</p><br>
<h2>Image gallery</h2><br>
<p>Bigej or Begej  Island is part of Kwajalein Atoll in the Ralik Chain in the Republic of the Marshall Islands , 2,100 nautical miles  southwest of Honolulu, Hawaii.</p><br>
<p>The remains of a fuel tank farm built by the US Navy in 1944 are still present on the island. Bigej is not part of the Reagan Test Site.</p><br>
<p>Bigej is uninhabited and has no buildings on it but many people from Kwajalein island in the south of the atoll come up to visit it for picnics and camping. It is covered with lush tropical palm trees and jungle. It is a site of cultural significance to the indigenous people of Kwajalein, as are most of the small islands throughout the atoll. Some Kwajalein landowners have proposed developing Bigej to look similar to the landscaped beauty of Kwajalein island, for the exclusive use of Kwajalein atoll landowners and their families. Recently Kwajalein landowners have already begun resettling Bigej, establishing several tents and simple homes there along the southern lagoon side.</p><br>
<p>The Sierra Estrella  is a mountain range located southwest of Phoenix, Arizona. Much of the range falls within the Gila River Indian Reservation, but 14,400 acre of BLM land is protected as the Sierra Estrella Wilderness.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>On the highest peaks, temperatures are usually 8-12 degrees cooler than in the valley. Snow can be seen at least once or twice a year on the highest points of the mountain range (typically above 4,000 ft). Sometimes, the snow level can drop near 2,000 ft, but depends if the precipitation reaches the mountain range. A good example is during the month of March 2006, when a heavy storm system reached the state and lowered snow levels near 4,000 ft. Once the skies cleared next morning, snow covered the Estrella&#39;s mountain tops.</p><br>
<p>Estrella Mountain Regional park occupies 19,840 acre in the northern portion of the range. The park offers multi-use trails including a competitive loop for running and mountain biking. Equestrian use is permitted. The park has parking and a riding arena.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Sierra Estrellas were inhabited by the Akimel Oodham people and also some Yavapai bands at the north end of the range at the time of Spanish colonization, and today the mountains tower over several of the Akimel Oodham and Maricopa villages of the Gila River Indian Community. In the colonial era, they were part of the land claimed as New Spain. Occasionally Spanish explorers or priests, most notably Father Kino, would venture near the range to document the area and contact the Akimel O&#39;odham. There are petroglyhps throughout the Southern portion of the range.</p><br>
<p>In 1810, Mexico declared its independence from Spain, and the Sierra Estrellas went on to become part of Mexico. In 1827, a French fur trapping expedition led by Michel Robidoux was attacked by Indians (O&#39;odham?) and survivors escaped into the Sierra Estrella mountains. In 1853, the United States acquired the Estrellas from Mexico as part of the Gadsden purchase. It soon became part of a trade route for settlers in California known as the Butterfield Overland stage. People and equipment could be moved across the area much quicker. The route was massively successful its time, moving millions of dollars in supplies. However, it was short-lived. Steam locomotives soon replaced stage coaches across the United States, and the Butterfield Stage Route was no longer utilized.</p><br>
<p>In 1857, the Battle of Pima Butte was fought in the area of the mountains. The allied Yuma, Mohave, Yavapai and Apache peoples attacked the Maricopa village of Sacate. The Maricopa and their allies, the Akimel O&#39;odham, defeated the attackers, leaving approximately 200 of them dead or wounded. It is notable for being the last major battle fought solely between indigenous Americans in North America.</p><br>
<h3>Mexican gold</h3><br>
<p>Mexican gold is said to be buried in this range, known as Montezumas treasure. The legend of Mexican gold in the Estrellas was largely started by John D. Mitchell, a western treasure hunter and author. In his story of Don Joaquins lost treasure he describes an extensive mine and a stone house in the heart of the Estrellas. To give some credit to the story a stone house does exist along with signs of mining. It is not well known or travelled but several treasure hunters have visited the site.</p><br>
<h2>Access</h2><br>
<p>Four-wheel-drive vehicles are required to approach the wilderness boundary. Only the western boundary of the wilderness is accessible to the public; elsewhere the wilderness is bounded by the Gila River Indian Reservation.</p><br>
<h2>Peaks</h2><br>
<p>The major peaks of the Sierra Estrella are (NW to SE):</p><br>
<p>Hayes Peak, 4,512 ft, named in honor of Ira Hayes, US Marine hero of the Pima Nation</p><br>
<p>Montezuma Sleeping</p><br>
<p>Butterfly Mountain, 4,119 ft</p><br>
<p>Quartz Peak, 4,052 ft (usually obscured by Butterfly Mountain when viewed from the east)</p><br>
<p>Montezuma Peak, 4,337 ft</p><br>
<p>Montezuma Head</p><br>
<p>The names of the peaks can vary by map. For example, Google Maps lists Hayes Peak as Sierra Estrella High Point and does not name any other peak.</p><br>
<p>Avdat , also known as Abdah and Ovdat and Obodat, is a site of a ruined Nabataean city in the Negev desert in southern Israel. It was the most important city on the Incense Route after Petra, between the 1st century BCE and the 7th century CE. It was founded in the 3rd century BCE, and inhabited by Nabataeans, Romans, and Byzantines. Avdat was a seasonal camping ground for Nabataean caravans travelling along the early Petra–Gaza road  in the 3rd – late 2nd century BCE. The city&#39;s original name was changed to Avdat in honor of Nabataean King Obodas I, who, according to tradition, was revered as a deity and was buried there.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Before the end of the 1st century BCE a temple platform (the acropolis) was created along the western edge of the plateau. Recent excavations have shown that the town continued to be inhabited by the Nabataeans continuously from this period until its destruction by earthquake in the early 7th century CE. Sometime towards the end of the 1st century BCE the Nabataeans began using a new route between the site of Moyat Awad in the Arabah valley and Avdat by way of Makhtesh Ramon. Nabataean or Roman Nabataean sites have been found and excavated at Moyat Awad (mistakenly identified as Moa of the 6th century CE Madeba Map), Qatzra, Har Masa, Mezad Nekarot, Shaar Ramon (Khan Saharonim), Mezad Maale Mahmal and Grafon.</p><br>
<p>Avdat continued to prosper as a major station along the Petra-Gaza road after the Roman annexation of Nabataea in 106 CE. Avdat, like other towns in the central Negev highlands, adjusted to the cessation of international trade through the region in the early to mid 3rd century by adopting agriculture, and particularly the production of wine, as its means of subsistence. Numerous terraced farms and water channels were built throughout the region in order to collect enough run-off from winter rains to support agriculture in the hyper arid zone of southern Israel. At least five wine presses dated to the Byzantine period have been found at the site.</p><br>
<p>In the late 3rd or early 4th century (probably during the reign of Diocletian) the Roman army constructed an army camp measuring 100 x 100 m. on the northern side of the plateau. Elsewhere at the site, an inscription was found in the ruins of a tower describing the date (293/294 CE) and the fact that one of the builders hailed from Petra. Around this time a bath house was constructed on the plain below the site. The bath house was supplied with water by way of a well, tunneled 70 meters through bedrock. Sites along the Petra-Gaza road were apparently used by the Roman army in the 4th and 5th centuries when the road continued to function as an artery between Petra and the Nabataean Negev settlements. Pottery and coins from the late 3rd to the early 5th century have been found at Mezad Maale Mahmal, Shar Ramon and Har Masa and Roman milestones line part of the road between Avdat and Shar Ramon. A fort with four corner towers was constructed on the ruins of early Nabataean structures north of Avdat at Horvat Maagora. Milestones have been found on along the Petra Gaza road north at Avdat between Avdat and Horvat Ma&#39;agora and further up the road towards Halutza (Elusa).</p><br>
<p>The early town was heavily damaged by a major (probably local) earthquake, sometime in the early 5th century CE. In the ruins of this destruction a Nabataean inscription, in black ink on plaster, was found bearing a blessing of the Nabataean god, Dushara. The inscription was written by the plasterer, one Ben-Gadya. This is the latest Nabataean inscription ever found in Israel.</p><br>
<p>A wall was built around the later town, including a large area of man-made caves, some of which were partially inhabited in the Byzantine period. Under Byzantine rule, in 5th and 6th century, a citadel and a monastery with two churches were built on the acropolis of Avdat. Saint Theodore&#39;s Church is the most interesting Byzantine relic in Avdat. Marble tombstones inserted in the floor are covered with Greek inscriptions. St. Theodore was a Greek martyr of the 4th century. The Monastery stands next to the church and nearby a lintel is carved with lions and it marks the entrance to the castle.</p><br>
<h2>Historical sites</h2><br>
<h3>Temple of Oboda</h3><br>
<p>The building complex known as The Temple of Oboda sits on the acropolis of the city. The temple was built as a dedication to the deified Nabataean king Obodas II.</p><br>
<p>The temple stands adjacent to the east of two other buildings: a Christian chapel and a second temple known as the “western temple.”</p><br>
<p>The temple dedicated to the cult of Obodas the King was built with a hard-limestone in the year 9 BCE during the reign of Obodas II. The temple is a tripartite structure: consisting of a porch, hall and adytum; its overall dimensions are 14 x 11 metres (45×36 ft).</p><br>
<p>The building was divided into four rooms.</p><br>
<p>First and second rooms were unequal subdivisions of the adytum (debir), the first room is the eastern room which is the smallest of the two measuring at 3 x 4 metres (10×13 ft). The second room was the western room and the largest of the two rooms measuring 5 x 4 metres (16×13 ft). The third room was the hall (hekhal), a oblong shape measuring at 8 metres (26 ft), which is now completely covered by a Talus. The fourth room is the porch (‘ulam) divided into two compartments one facing west measuring approximately 4 x 4 metres (13x13 ft) and the other facing east measuring approximately 4 x 4.5 metres (13×15 ft) were divided by a 60-centimetre (2 ft) wall.</p><br>
<p>A worshiper entered through the porch, which faces south, proceeded through the hall to the rooms of the adytum at the northern end.</p><br>
<p>The worshiper then turned about face toward south to worship the images of the deities placed in niches in the wall. The western room contained two niches which may have contained the images of two Nabataean gods Allat and Dushura. The other room contained a larger single niche were it is believed the defied image of Obodas the King was worshiped. The temple was built to be his eternal resting place and the center of worship for his cult.The Temple of Obodas: Excavations at Oboda in July 1989 Avraham Negev</p><br>
<p>Israel Exploration Journal, Vol. 41, No. 1/3 (1991), pp. 62-80 Published by: Israel Exploration Society Article Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27926214</p><br>
<h2>Today</h2><br>
<p>Avdat was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in June 2005, but on 4 October 2009 the site suffered extensive damage when hundreds of artifacts were smashed and paint smeared on walls and an ancient wine press. Two men were later indicted for causing NIS 8.7m worth ($2.3 million) of damages to the site. The men sought to avenge the demolition of a nearby relatives&#39; home by authorities.</p><br>
<p>Avdat was also the filming location of Jesus Christ Superstar.</p><br>
<p>or Inner Alster Lake is one of two artificial lakes within the city limits of Hamburg, Germany, which are formed by the river Alster . The main annual festival is the Alstervergnügen.</p><br>
<p>The lake has an area of 0.2 km².</p><br>
<h2>Overview</h2><br>
<h3>History</h3><br>
<p>The phrase "inner" refers to the old city walls of Hamburg. The Binnenalster was the part of the lake that was "inside" the city walls. The lake was originally created to serve as a reservoir for a mill. As of 2008 the old city walls do not exist, instead two car and train bridges, the Lombardsbrücke and the Kennedybrücke, span the river.</p><br>
<h3>Location</h3><br>
<p>The Binnenalster is bordered by embankment streets on three sides, only the northern side is bordered by a park. Jungfernstieg – on the southern side, opposite this park is a busy boulevard and center of the Binnenalster. Left and right, Ballindamm and Neuer Jungfernstieg accommodate a number of corporate headquarters and first class hotels.</p><br>
<h2>Public events</h2><br>
<h3>Alstervergnügen</h3><br>
<p>The Alstervergnügen (Alster enjoyment) is an annual street fair held around the lake. It always takes place throughout the first weekend of September, and offers a wide variety of food, drink, vending and games stands, as well as some rock bands.</p><br>
<p>or Outer Alster Lake is the larger one of two artificial lakes, which are formed by the Alster River and are both located within the city limits of Hamburg, Germany. The other lake is the Binnenalster. The Außenalster and its shores are used by the inhabitants of Hamburg for many sport and recreational purposes, such as sailing and rowing.</p><br>
<h2>Overview</h2><br>
<h3>History</h3><br>
<p>The phrase "outer" refers to the former Wallanlagen (city walls) of Hamburg. The Außenalster was the part of the lake that was "outside" the city walls, built in 1625. In 1804 city wall and ramparts were stripped down and re-naturalized to parks, but the spatial division between the two lakes was retained. Today, two car and rail bridges, the Lombardsbrücke and the Kennedybrücke, span the river at this location. The areas around the Außenalster developed slightly different on the eastern and western sides; while the western side became a wealthy suburban area around the late 18th century, much of the eastern side used to be a property of the finance department of the City of Hamburg and only developed in the later decades of the 19th century.</p><br>
<h3>Geography</h3><br>
<p>The Außenalster has a size of 1.64 km&sup2; and is on average only some 2.5 m deep. It is fed by the rivers Alster, Osterbek (via Osterbekkanal) and Wandse (via Mundsburger Kanal). Other canals entering the Außenalster include Rondeelkanal, Goldbekkanal and Uhlenhorster Kanal. The lake also forms a number of smaller bays and inlets. The Alster River enters the Außenalster in the North at Krugkoppelbrücke and leaves it in the South at Kennedybrücke.</p><br>
<h3>Location</h3><br>
<p>Districts bordering the Außenalster are Harvestehude and Rotherbaum on the western shore, and Winterhude, Uhlenhorst, Hohenfelde and St. Georg on the eastern shore. Many of the streets around Außenalster are among the most desirable addresses in Hamburg. St. Georg, as part of Hamburg-Mitte, has a notably denser built environment; all other districts around Außenalster are primarily residential districts, with many of the villas around the lake also being used by various organizations or small professional businesses. Alsterufer and Harvestehuder Weg on the western shore include a number of consular missions, like the USA Consulate General. For its proximity to the inner city and its recreational qualities, the Außenalster is location of a number of hotels: among others, five-star superior Hotel Atlantic lies near the south-eastern bay of Außenalster; another hotel of the same category is currently under construction at Fontenay on the western shore.</p><br>
<h2>Festivals, recreation and sport</h2><br>
<h3>Festivals</h3><br>
<p>Usually during May, the Japanese community in Hamburg organizes the annual Kirschblütenfest (Cherry Blossom Festival) around Außenalster. Less regularly − that is, only when a winter becomes cold enough and the Außenalster&#39;s ice strong enough − the Alstereisvergnügen is held on the frozen Alster.</p><br>
<h3>Alsterpark</h3><br>
<p>Almost all banks of the Außenalster are public. Formerly private gardens on the western side were made public while Hamburg was host to the Internationale Gartenbauausstellung (International Horticulture Show, IGA) in 1953. The banks vary from a small strip of green to large public parks (e.g. the Alstervorland). The 7.6 km long pathway around the lake is very popular for joggers.</p><br>
<h3>Water sports</h3><br>
<p>Because of frequently occurring gusts, the lake is consider no easy sailing area. The Alster&#39;s water is regularly tested for quality, and consider "very clean" by German standards. Nevertheless, swimming is not recommended, because of the density of watercrafts and an oftentimes shallow vision. A number of famous, long-standing sailing and rowing clubs are based around Außenalster: like Der Hamburger und Germania Ruder Club (est. 1836), Ruderclub Allemannia (est. 1866), Norddeutscher Regatta Verein (est. 1868) or Hamburger Segel-Club (est. 1926).</p><br>
<p>Lake Victoria, a naturally occurring shallow freshwater lake of the Murray catchment and part of the Murray-Darling basin, is located in the western Riverina region of south western New South Wales, Australia.</p><br>
<p>The lake is located approximately 60 km downstream of the junction of the Murray and Darling rivers and draws its flow from Frenchmans Creek, an anabranch of the Murray above Lock 9. The lake feeds back to the Murray River below Lock 7 via Rufus River.</p><br>
<p>The lake was constructed in the late 1920s and provides a storage of water to manage the regulated release of agreed minimum flows of water down the Murray into South Australia. Even though Lake Victoria is in New South Wales, it is operated by SA Water, the South Australian water authority, on behalf of River Murray Water, a division of the Murray-Darling Basin Commission.</p><br>
<p>The Campsie Fells  are a range of hills in central Scotland, stretching east to west from Denny Muir to Dumgoyne, in Stirlingshire and overlooking Strathkelvin to the south. The southern extent of the range fall within East Dunbartonshire. The range overlooks the villages of Strathblane, Blanefield and Lennoxtown to the south; Killearn to the west; Fintry and Strathendrick to the north. The Fintry Hills lie further to the north; Kilpatrick Hills lie to the west and the Kilsyth Hills to the east.</p><br>
<p>The Earl&#39;s Seat is the highest point of the Campsie Fells, measuring 578 m (1896 ft). On the top of the Earl&#39;s Seat is a trig point. Two main ways of climbing the Earl&#39;s Seat are by going past Dumgoyne from the Glengoyne Distillery or going up the Fin Glen from Clachan of Campsie.</p><br>
<p>The name is taken from one of the individual hills in the range, called Campsie; meaning "crooked fairy hill", from the Scottish Gaelic cam, meaning crooked, and sìth meaning fairy. "Fell" originates from the Old Norse word fjal, meaning hill.</p><br>
<p>Erosion along the line of a geological fault known as the Campsie Fault has left tiers of rock representing some 30 lava flows which date from the Carboniferous period. The headwaters of the River Carron rise in the Campsies.</p><br>
<p>The Campsie Fells have cemented their place in history as the birthplace of Scottish skiing, when W.W. Naismith of Glasgow skied the area, becoming the first ever man to ski in Scotland in March 1892.</p><br>
<p>Ben Lomond, just north of Ogden, Utah, is a peak in the northern portion of the Wasatch Mountains. A popular trail passes over its summit , accessible from four different trailheads to the north, south, and east.</p><br>
<p>It is often referred to by locals as Ben Lomond Peak, Mt. Ben Lomond, and Ben Lomond Mountain. The USGS has it labeled as Ben Lomond on maps.</p><br>
<p>Ben Lomond stands out along the Wasatch Front because the mountain range appears to run east and west along the Wasatch Range, while most mountains appear to run south and north. Two miles northwest of Ben Lomond is Willard Peak, with an elevation of 9,764 ft. Northwest of Willard Peak is Inspiration Point. A dirt road travels 14 mi from Mantua, Utah to Inspiration Point. The road is usually not passable until July due to deep snow that resists melting due to the area&#39;s northern exposure. Atop Inspiration Point on a clear day, one can see Salt Lake City to the south, Willard Bay and the Great Salt Lake to the west, and the city of Logan, Utah to the northeast.</p><br>
<p>From Inspiration Peak one can hike or bike to the summit of Ben Lomond, and then continue east to a trailhead on North Ogden Pass. The trail is listed as one of the top mountain bike rides in Utah. The distance from the North Ogden trailhead to the summit of Ben Lomond is approximately 9 mi.</p><br>
<p>Ben Lomond was named after the mountain Ben Lomond in the Scottish Highlands. Mary Wilson Montgomery an early settler thought the mountain range resembled the Munro.</p><br>
<p>According to some sources, the Paramount Pictures logo, known as Majestic Mountain, was modeled after Ben Lomond. It is said that William W. Hodkinson, the founder of Paramount and a native of the Ogden area, initially drew the image on a napkin during a meeting in 1914.</p><br>
<p>The Canton and Enderbury Islands consist of the coral atolls of Canton  and Enderbury in the northeastern part of the Phoenix Islands, about 1,850 miles  south of Hawaii in the central Pacific Ocean. The islands were vital naval and air bases on the route between the Americas and the Philippines and Australia and were claimed by both the United Kingdom and the United States. From 1939 to 1979, they formed an Anglo&ndash;American condominium, with administration jointly exercised by the U.S. and the UK. This arrangement only covered Canton and Enderbury islands; the remaining Phoenix Islands were still claimed by the U.S. under the Guano Islands Act, but aside from Hull Island were either abandoned or remained under exclusive British control until 1979.</p><br>
<p>The United States and the United Kingdom relinquished control over the islands to the government of newly independent Kiribati under the Treaty of Tarawa in 1979 and the Canton and Enderbury Islands Condominium ceased to exist. In this treaty, the U.S. acknowledged Kiribati sovereignty over fourteen islands. Today the islands form part of the Phoenix Islands administrative group within the Republic of Kiribati.</p><br>
<p>As of 2005, the population of Canton Island was 41, down from 61 in 2000. In May 2010 the population was reportedly 24, with 14 adults and 10 children. The island&#39;s sole village is called Tebaronga. Enderbury is uninhabited.</p><br>
<p>In 2006, the government of Kiribati declared the islands, together with other Phoenix Islands, to be a marine protected area, to preserve the unique flora and fauna of the archipelago and its surrounding waters.</p><br>
<p>Natural Bridge is a geological formation in Rockbridge County, Virginia, comprising a 215 ft natural arch with a span of 90 ft. It is situated within a gorge carved from the surrounding mountainous limestone terrain by Cedar Creek, a small tributary of the James River. Consisting of horizontal limestone strata, Natural Bridge is the remains of the roof of a cave or tunnel through which the Cedar Creek once flowed.</p><br>
<p>Natural Bridge has been designated a Virginia Historic Landmark and a National Historic Landmark. Since 2016, the bridge and its surroundings have been managed by the Commonwealth of Virginia as Natural Bridge State Park.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>Rocks in the area are limestones and dolomites from the Ordovician Period, which implies deposition about 470 million years ago. The carbonates of the Natural Bridge occur within the Chepultepec Formation, making the buttress of the bridge, and the Beekmantown Formation, deposited conformably over the Chepultepec and comprising the span and the upper part of the bridge. Strata at Natural Bridge are close to horizontal, in contrast with dipping and folded beds as close as 300 ft away along Highway 11, which points to the fact that structurally the rocks making the Natural Bridge are the bottom part of a syncline.</p><br>
<p>The process of formation of the bridge is less certain, but the ideas proposed by different individuals have in common the importance of three elements: The southeast dipping of the strata, the capability of water to slowly dissolve carbonates, and the existence of numerous fractures. Edgard W. Spencer has provided a summary of the most respected interpretations and produced the presently most widely accepted hypothesis. According to him, the Natural Bridge was the remnant of an underground river tunnel that diverted water to the south. Initially, the underground river started capturing water from the Poague Run about 2 mi to the north, contributing to enlarge the incipient Cedar Creek drainage basin. Over time, through weathering and erosion, the underground river collapsed and disappeared almost completely, the Natural Bridge being the only surviving relic of the roof of the ancient underground river. The creek&#39;s larger flow contributed to form the present-day gorge, significantly increasing the distance from the bottom of the water flow to the roof of the underground channel. Today, the "Lost River", about 1/2 mi upstream from the Natural Bridge, is an example supporting the hypothesis of the underground river. Water from the side of the gorge flows into the Cedar Creek, similarly as the ancestral Cedar Creek underground river allegedly flowed into the Cascade Creek, presently entering the Cedar Creek approximately 500 ft below the Natural Bridge.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Natural Bridge was a sacred site of the Native American Monacan tribe, who believed it to be the site of a major victory over pursuing Powhatans centuries before the arrival of Europeans in Virginia.</p><br>
<p>In March 1742, a frontiersman named John Howard — along with his son and others — was commissioned by Governor Gooch to explore the southwest of Virginia as far as the Mississippi River. The party followed Cedar Creek through the Natural Bridge, then floated in buffalo-skin boats down the New, Coal, Kanawha, and Ohio rivers to the Mississippi.</p><br>
<p>It is alleged that George Washington also came to the site in 1750 as a young surveyor. To support claims that Washington surveyed the area, tour guides claim the initials "G.W." on the wall of the bridge, 23 ft up, were carved by the future president. Legend also has it that George Washington threw a rock from the bottom of Cedar Creek over the bridge. In 1927, a large stone was found, also engraved "G.W." and bearing a surveyor&#39;s cross, which historians accepted as proof that he indeed surveyed the bridge.</p><br>
<p>Thomas Jefferson purchased 157 acre of land including the Natural Bridge from King George III of England for 20 shillings in 1774. He called it "the most Sublime of nature&#39;s works". Jefferson built a two-room log cabin, with one room reserved for guests, beginning its use as a retreat. While President, in 1802, he personally surveyed the area. Many famous guests stayed here, including John Marshall, James Monroe, Henry Clay, Sam Houston, and Martin Van Buren.</p><br>
<p>Natural Bridge was one of the tourist attractions of the new world that Europeans visited during the 18th and 19th centuries. Vacationing guests from all over the world took day trips from Natural Bridge on horseback or horse-drawn carriages to explore the countryside. In 1833, a new owner erected the Forest Inn to accommodate the increasing number of people.</p><br>
<p>The bridge had considerable notoriety during the 19th century. Herman Melville alluded to the bridge in describing Moby-Dick: "But soon the fore part of him slowly rose from the water; for an instant his whole marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia&#39;s Natural Bridge..." William Cullen Bryant, another American literary figure, said that Natural Bridge and Niagara Falls were the two most remarkable features of North America. During the 1880s Natural Bridge was a resort owned by Colonel Henry Parsons, who also owned the nearby Rockbridge Inn.</p><br>
<p>In 1927 a nocturnal lighting display of the arch and gorge was designed by Samuel Hibben and Phinehas V. Stephens, illuminating engineers with the Westinghouse Company. The display was formally switched on by President Calvin Coolidge in a 1927 inaugural ceremony. The original display has since been replaced with a sound and light show depicting the biblical seven days of the Creation as described in Genesis.</p><br>
<p>In 2013, nearly 1,500 acre, including the bridge, were slated to be sold at auction. To prevent piecemeal development of the landmark, the Virginia Conservation Legacy Fund (VCLF) purchased the bridge, hotel, and surrounding land for $9.1 million, made possible by a loan from the Virginia Clean Water Revolving Loan Fund. When the VCLF soon found itself unable to make payments on that loan, the Commonwealth of Virginia offered to manage the property as a Virginia State Park.</p><br>
<h2>Natural Bridge State Park</h2><br>
<p>Natural Bridge State Park officially opened on September 24, 2016. As a state park, the property is managed by the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation, although it remains owned by the VCLF; it is the only state park operating on privately owned land. The property will be transferred to state ownership after the original loan has been paid in full. VCLF continues to both own and manage the nearby Natural Bridge Hotel and Natural Bridge Caverns.</p><br>
<p>Visitors must purchase tickets to view the bridge from below, although the park&#39;s fees under state management are about half what had been charged under prior ownership. USA Route 11 (Lee Highway) runs on top of the bridge, but protective fences make it difficult to see anything besides the roadway.</p><br>
<p>The state park includes several long-standing attractions, including the trail under the bridge and along Cedar Creek, a recreation of Monacan Native American housing, and the 30 ft Lace Falls. The "Drama of Creation" light show continues to be shown in the evening, after the state park is technically closed.</p><br>
<p>The new state park was designated an "Affiliated Area" by the National Park Service in 2016. The designation does not imply ownership or management by the federal government, though it does allow for their technical and financial assistance.</p><br>
<p>Monks Mound is the largest Pre-Columbian earthwork in the Americas and the largest pyramid north of Mesoamerica. The beginning of its construction dates from 900-955 CE. Located at the Cahokia Mounds UNESCO World Heritage Site near Collinsville, Illinois, the mound size was calculated in 1988 as about 100 feet  high, 955 feet  long including the access ramp at the southern end, and 775 feet  wide. This makes Monks Mound roughly the same size at its base as the Great Pyramid of Giza . Its base circumference is larger than the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan. As a platform mound, the earthwork supported a wooden structure on the summit.</p><br>
<p>Unlike Egyptian pyramids which were built of stone, the platform mound was constructed almost entirely of layers of basket-transported soil and clay. Because of this construction and its flattened top, over the years, it has retained rainwater within the structure. This has caused slumping, the avalanche-like sliding of large sections of the sides at the highest part of the mound. Its designed dimensions would have been significantly smaller than its present extent, but recent excavations have revealed that slumping was a problem even while the mound was being made.</p><br>
<h2>Construction and abandonment</h2><br>
<p>Construction of Monks Mound by the Mississippian culture began about 900–950 CE, on a site that had already been occupied by buildings. The original concept seems to have been a much smaller mound, now buried deep within the northern end of the present structure. At the northern end of the summit plateau, as finally completed around 1100 CE, is an area raised slightly higher still, on which was placed a building over 100 ft long, the largest in the entire Cahokia Mounds urban zone. Deep excavations in 2007 confirmed findings from earlier test borings, that several types of earth and clay from different sources had been used successively. Study of various sites suggests that the stability of the mound was improved by the incorporation of bulwarks, some made of clay, others of sods from the Mississippi flood-plain, which permitted steeper slopes than the use of earth alone. The structure rises in four terraces to a height of 100 feet with a rectangular base covering nearly 15 acres and containing 22 million cubic feet of adobe, carried basket by basket to the site.</p><br>
<p>The most recent section of the mound, added some time before 1200 CE, is the lower terrace at the south end, which was added after the northern end had reached its full height. It may partly have been intended to help minimize the slumping which by then was already under way. Today, the western half of the summit plateau is significantly lower than the eastern; this is the result of massive slumping, beginning about 1200 CE. This also caused the west end of the big building to collapse. It may have led to the abandonment of the mound&#39;s high status, following which various wooden buildings were erected on the south terrace, and garbage was dumped at the foot of the mound. By about 1300, the urban society at Cahokia Mounds was in serious decline. When the eastern side of the mound started to suffer serious slumping, it was not repaired.</p><br>
<h2>European settlers</h2><br>
<p>There is no evidence of significant Native American settlement in the Cahokia Mounds urban area for hundreds of years after about 1400 CE. In 1735, French missionaries built a chapel at the west end of the south terrace of the mound. The River L&#39;Abbe Mission served a small Illiniwek community, until they were forced to abandon the area by rival tribes about 1752. In 1776, during the American Revolutionary War, a trading post called the Cantine was established next to the mound (by then known as the Great Nobb). It lasted only until 1784.</p><br>
<p>In the early nineteenth century, the land was claimed by people of French descent, and Nicholas Jarrot had a deed for most of it. He donated some to a small group of French Trappist monks, who settled on one of the smaller mounds from 1809. They took advantage of the big mound&#39;s terraces to grow produce, which was elevated above the danger of flooding: wheat on the upper levels, garden produce on the south terrace. During their short stay in the area, which lasted until 1813, Henry Brackenridge visited the site and published the first detailed description of the largest mound. He named it Monks Mound.</p><br>
<p>In 1831 T. Amos Hill bought the plot including the Mound. He built a house on the upper terrace, and sank a well. This work revealed various archaeological remains, including human bones.</p><br>
<h2>Archaeology</h2><br>
<p>Thomas I. Ramey, who bought the site in 1864, began an era of more responsible ownership, and encouraged archaeological investigation. Many artifacts were found at or near the surface. Ramey had a tunnel made nearly 30 m into the north face of the mound, but it revealed nothing of historic interest. By this time, people were beginning to consider the mound more within its context. A survey made for local dentist Dr. John R. Patrick in the 1880s marked the beginning of modern understanding of the Cahokia site as a whole, and its relationship to other sites in the area.</p><br>
<p>Many archaeological investigations of the mound have taken place since then. One of the biggest began in the 1960s, when Nelson Reed, a local businessman and historian of native cultures, obtained permission to conduct excavations. He was trying to locate the high-status building (temple or palace) presumed to have stood at the peak of Monks Mound. By drilling cores at various points on the mound, his team revealed the various stages of its construction from the 10th to 12th centuries CE. Remains of a fairly recent house (presumably Hill&#39;s) were found, but no temple.</p><br>
<p>In 1970 Reed returned to work at the mound, and adopted a new strategy: scraping away the topsoil from several 5 m&sup2; patches with a backhoe, to a depth of around 60 cm. This quickly revealed various features, including what appeared to be the outline of the temple. Further backhoe work in 1971 confirmed the shape of the presumed temple at over 30 m long, the largest building found at Cahokia. This technique was opposed by professional archaeologists because it destroyed several hundred years of stratification over most of the mounds summit, which was the evidence by which they could place and evaluate artifacts and construction. Reeds backhoe excavations revealed other significant features, such as a hole which seemed to have been the socket for a post about three feet (one metre) in diameter. The dramatic finds encouraged the Governor of Illinois to budget for an expansion of the Cahokia Mounds State Park.</p><br>
<h2>Preservation</h2><br>
<p>From the time the original urban society collapsed, the great mound became overgrown with trees, the roots of which helped stabilize its steep slopes. In the 20th century, researchers removed the trees in the course of work at the mound and park preparation. Reduction of groundwater levels in the Mississippi floodplain during the 1950s caused the mound to dry out, damaging the clay layers within. When heavy rainfall occurred, it caused new slumping, starting about 1956. The increasingly violent weather of recent decades has exacerbated the problem. In 1984-5 there were several slumps, and the state government brought in surplus soil to make repairs to the major scar on the eastern side. A decade later, there was further slumping on the western side, so irregular that repair was impractical. Drains were installed to reduce the effects of heavy rain. It was during this process that workers discovered a mass of stone deep within the mound.</p><br>
<p>The repairs of the 1980s and 1990s were only partly successful. In 2004-5 more serious slumping episodes occurred. These demonstrated that adding new earth to repair the major slump on the east side had been a mistake. Experts decided to take a new approach. In 2007, backhoes were used to dig out the entire mass of earth from this slump and another at the northwest corner, to a level beyond the internal slippage zone. Engineers created a series of anti-slip "steps" across the exposed face before the original earth (minus the imported repair material) was replaced at its original level. To avoid introducing water deep into the mound&#39;s interior, the work was carried out in high summer, and as quickly as possible. In parallel with the repair work, teams of archaeologists studied the evidence that was being revealed. The eastern sliding zone penetrated more deeply within the mound than originally estimated, and the excavation had to be very large- 50 feet (15 m) wide, to a height of 65 feet (20 m) above the mound base. This heightened concerns about a conflict between conservation and archaeology.</p><br>
<p>Corisco, or Mandj, is a small island of Equatorial Guinea, located 29 km southwest of the Rio Muni estuary that defines the border with Gabon. Corisco, whose name derives from the Portuguese word for lightning, has an area of just 14 km², and its highest point is 35 m above sea level.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>During the Iron Age (50 BC - 1400 AD) and prior to the arrival of the Portuguese, the island was densely settled. The most important evidence of human occupation comes from the area of Nandá, near the eastern coast, where dozens of prehistoric burials have been excavated. These burials belong to two different periods: Early Iron Age (50 BC - 450 AD) and Middle Iron Age (1000-1150 AD). During the first period, the islanders deposited bundles of human bones and iron implements (axes, bracelets, spears, spoons, iron currency) in shallow pits dug in the sand. During the second period, tombs have been documented where the corpses (not preserved) lied down surrounded by pots, probably containing food and alcoholic beverages. The deceased were interred with their adornments (collars, bracelets and anklets) and a few personal possessions (knives and adzes).</p><br>
<p>When Portuguese sailors arrived in the Mino Estuary in 1471, they noted that the islands in the area were mainly unpopulated. They named Corisco after lightning, due to the gales their experienced around the island. After more than three centuries of abandonment, when it was sporadically visited by European sailors, Corisco was settled by the Benga people. They arrived during the second half of the 18th century attracted by the prospects of trade with the Europeans. The island was later acquired by Spain in 1843, as a result of an arrangement made by J. J. Lerena y Barry with Benga king Bonkoro I. Bonkoro I died in 1846 and was succeeded by his son Bonkoro II, but due to rivalries on the island, Bonkoro II moved to São Tomé, and Munga I ruled in Corisco 1848 to 1858, his son Munga II taking over, and meeting the explorer Manuel Iradier in the 1870s.</p><br>
<p>In general the Spanish paid little attention to Corisco. In the early part of the 20th century it was part of the administration of Elobey, Annobon, and Corisco, and postage stamps were issued under that name. It became an integral part of Equatorial Guinea upon independence.</p><br>
<p>Corisco and the surrounding waters of Corisco Bay have become of interest in recent years for their oil prospects. A consortium of Elf Aquitaine and Petrogab began prospecting in 1981. The area is disputed with Gabon because of the perceived value of the oil. In February 2003, Gabonese Defence Minister Ali-Ben Bongo Ondimba visited the islands and re-stated Gabon&#39;s claim to them.</p><br>
<p>Hergest Ridge is a large elongated hill which traverses the border between England and Wales in the United Kingdom, between the town of Kington in Herefordshire and the village of Gladestry in Powys. Its highest point, which is in England, is 426 metres high.</p><br>
<h2>On Offa's Dyke Path</h2><br>
<p>The Offa&#39;s Dyke Path waymarked long distance footpath leads along the ridge. The path passes close by the highest point of the ridge and the adjacent trig point.</p><br>
<h2>Victorian Racecourse</h2><br>
<p>A disused Victorian circular country racecourse is sited on the hill. It is clearly marked on Ordnance Survey maps and is still visible on the ground. The racecourse was popular between 1825 and 1846. It replaced an earlier racecourse on nearby Bradnor Hill just to the north of Kington town, which dates from 1770. Horse races continued here in the summer until around 1880. With the panoramic views on all sides, they were popular with the local gentry, squirearchy and farming community.</p><br>
<h2>Upland Sheep Grazing</h2><br>
<p>During the Second World War the hill was cultivated, but has now reverted to rough sheep grazing and moorland, and is partly covered by bracken and gorse.</p><br>
<p>"Hergest" should be pronounced to rhyme with hardest with a hard "g" (as in "garden"). The local dialect pronunciation of the name is actually "Hargest".</p><br>
<p>The Red Book of Hergest is a medieval Welsh language manuscript stored in the Bodleian library in Oxford.</p><br>
<h2>Inspiration</h2><br>
<p>The ridge inspired an album by English multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield, Hergest Ridge. Oldfield was a resident of the area during the writing and recording of his albums Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn. Ommadawn was actually recorded in his nearby house, The Beacon. The albums were reissued with bonus material in June 2010.</p><br>
<p>At the end of Ommadawn is a short song entitled On Horseback. The last lines of the lyrics are as follows:</p><br>
<p>So if you feel a little glum, to Hergest Ridge you should come. In summer, winter, rain or sun, it&#39;s good to be on horseback.</p><br>
<p>Signal Hill , or Lions Rump, is a landmark flat-topped hill located in Cape Town, next to Lions Head and Table Mountain.</p><br>
<p>The hill was also known as "The Lions Flank", a term now obsolete. Together with Lions Head, Signal Hill looks like a lion sphinx.</p><br>
<h2>Signals</h2><br>
<p>Signal flags were used to communicate weather warnings as well as anchoring instructions to visiting ships in order to ensure that they prepared adequately for stormy weather while in the bay. Similarly, ships could use flags to signal for assistance if, for example, an anchor line parted during a storm.</p><br>
<p>It is known for the Noon Gun that is operated there by the South African Navy and South African Astronomical Observatory. In 1836, a time ball was set up at the Cape Town observatory, however it was not visible to ships in the harbour, so a second time ball was erected on Signal Hill in order to relay the precise moment of 1pm Cape Mean Time. In this way ships in the bay were able to check their marine chronometers. The daily practice of dropping of the ball continued until 1934, when it was made redundant by radio signals.</p><br>
<p>The guns on Signal Hill were used to notify the public when a ship was in trouble and there was a possibility of casualties on the coast near Cape Town. Three guns would be fired from Chavonnes Battery, followed by a single gun in answer from Imhoff Battery.</p><br>
<h2>Structures</h2><br>
<p>There is a road to the summit and that vantage point provides views over the Cape Town city centre and Atlantic Seaboard and surroundings, including at dawn or sunset. Along Signal Hill Road is the Appleton Scout Campsite operated by Scouts South Africa.</p><br>
<p>There are several tombs, or kramats, on the hill for Muslim missionaries and religious leaders. The most conspicuous one, a white square building with a green dome, is for the sheikh Mohamed Hassen Ghaibie (Shah al-Qadri), a follower of Sheikh Yusuf. Other tombs consist of raised rectangles, decorated with satin. They are still visited by some local Muslim people.</p><br>
<h2>Ecology</h2><br>
<p>Signal Hill is one of the only places in the world where critically endangered Peninsula Shale Renosterveld vegetation can be found.</p><br>
<p>Peninsula Shale Renosterveld used to be the dominant ecosystem of the Cape Town City Bowl, but was completely endemic, occurring nowhere else in the world.</p><br>
<p>Urban growth has now covered most of this ecosystem and — along with a tiny patch on Devil&#39;s Peak — Signal Hill has the only surviving sample of this vegetation in the world.</p><br>
<h2>Panorama</h2><br>
<p>Mount Andrus is a shield volcano 3.2 km  SE of Mount Boennighausen in the SE extremity of Ames Range, in Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica. Mapped by USGS from surveys and USA Navy air photos, 1964-68. Named by US-ACAN for Lt. Carl H. Andrus, US Navy, medical officer and Officer-in-Charge of Byrd Station in 1964.</p><br>
<p>Andrus has a 4.5 km-wide caldera at its summit. Weak fumarolic activity was detected in 1977 at Mt. Kaufmann in the northern end of the Ames Range of which Mt. Andrus is the southernmost volcano.</p><br>
<p>In an interesting side note, Mt. Andrus was reportedly climbed by one Michael J. Andrus (no relation to Carl H. Andrus) in August 2006 for the purpose of downhill skiing, which would make him the first Andrus to visit the mountain (though perhaps not the last). Carl H. Andrus is himself an avid mountain climber, having summited all 46 of the Adirondack high peaks and having, in his youth, climbed the Matterhorn.</p><br>
