View allAll Photos Tagged Destructive
About my pictures:
Since 2014 I've been documenting the daily, destructive, poisonous chemtrail activity in the Dayton, Ohio area -- home of the notorious Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (visited by every important person on Earth, and even a few Aliens ;-) -- and apparently from my photo and video documentation, Chemtrail Central. This area has been getting chemtrailed on a massive, daily basis and is being conducted, as they say, “in plain sight”.
However, this area isn’t special in that regard. The massive chemtrailing is going on across the USA (and other countries), as evidenced in abundance on FlickR and many other sites. This incredible not-so-secret Government program, which itself is expensive and dangerous, spoils not only blue skies, but poisons our air, water and soil to unknown levels. Regardless of the purpose, weather control/weather as a weapon/mind control, it really amounts to a crime against humanity in my opinion.
In response, I have posted thousands of full-resolution images (15,000+!), documenting the overwhelming evidence of this crime on Flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/133042043@N04/albums
I have additional Chemtrail videos posted on:
www.youtube.com/user/BlueRidgeParkway
And to help generate interest, further study and assist in research, I am designating all my chemtrail pictures uploaded to Flickr (under “Chem Trailchaser”) as CC0 — Creative Commons Zero.
This removes my copyright and releases them into the Public Domain, which means that any of my photos designated CC0, can be used, without restriction or attribution, for any use. Isn’t that awesome? So please… download, copy, backup, mirror, share, use and improve as many of these photos as you can! Thanks for looking - Chem
Hurricane Sandy (also unofficially known as "Superstorm Sandy") was the deadliest and most destructive hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, as well as the second-costliest hurricane in United States history. Classified as the eighteenth named storm, tenth hurricane and second major hurricane of the year, Sandy was a Category 3 storm at its peak intensity when it made landfall in Cuba.[1] While it was a Category 2 storm off the coast of the Northeastern United States, the storm became the largest Atlantic hurricane on record (as measured by diameter, with winds spanning 1,100 miles (1,800 km)).[2][3] Estimates as of March 2014 assess damage to have been over $68 billion (2013 USD), a total surpassed only by Hurricane Katrina.[4] At least 286 people were killed along the path of the storm in seven countries.[5]
Sandy developed from a tropical wave in the western Caribbean Sea on October 22, quickly strengthened, and was upgraded to Tropical Storm Sandy six hours later. Sandy moved slowly northward toward the Greater Antilles and gradually intensified. On October 24, Sandy became a hurricane, made landfall near Kingston, Jamaica, re-emerged a few hours later into the Caribbean Sea and strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane. On October 25, Sandy hit Cuba as a Category 3 hurricane, then weakened to a Category 1 hurricane. Early on October 26, Sandy moved through the Bahamas.[6] On October 27, Sandy briefly weakened to a tropical storm and then restrengthened to a Category 1 hurricane. Early on October 29, Sandy curved north-northwest and then[7] moved ashore near Brigantine, New Jersey, just to the northeast of Atlantic City, as a post-tropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds.[1][8]
In Jamaica, winds left 70% of residents without electricity, blew roofs off buildings, killed one, and caused about $100 million (2012 USD) in damage. Sandy's outer bands brought flooding to Haiti, killing at least 54, causing food shortages, and leaving about 200,000 homeless; the hurricane also caused two deaths in the Dominican Republic. In Puerto Rico, one man was swept away by a swollen river. In Cuba, there was extensive coastal flooding and wind damage inland, destroying some 15,000 homes, killing 11, and causing $2 billion (2012 USD) in damage. Sandy caused two deaths and damage estimated at $700 million (2012 USD) in The Bahamas. In Canada, two were killed in Ontario and an estimated $100 million (2012 CAD) in damage was caused throughout Ontario and Quebec.[9]
In the United States, Hurricane Sandy affected 24 states, including the entire eastern seaboard from Florida to Maine and west across the Appalachian Mountains to Michigan and Wisconsin, with particularly severe damage in New Jersey and New York. Its storm surge hit New York City on October 29, flooding streets, tunnels and subway lines and cutting power in and around the city.[10][11] Damage in the United States amounted to $65 billion (2013 USD).[12]
coming/here/done
County town of Buckinghamshire, large and sprawling, with a destructive road system around which new brash buildings have arisen. We parked in a multistorey car park, on the third floor and travelled UP two floors to get out by walking over a bridge, through a huge recent shopping centre and out into a little oasis of streets in the old town where St Mary's church is sited, all on the same level as that fifth floor bridge.
Large and cruciform, mainly C13, grouped around a central tower with a picturesque recessed leaded clock stage with gothic open parapet and pinnacles, and short further recessed spire. The approach is to the south transept, the main entrance. Many trees make exteriors problematic. On entering there was a pervasive smell of coffee (although my friend got bacon!). The west end has a newish gallery and a dais with tables and chairs serving a cafe which is sited in the south-west corner of the south aisle and also fills the south porch. In this sea of pine boarding sits the Norman font; I was surprised that it didn't have a flat cover with "bar stools" around it. Olympic banners hang from the nave roof obstructing the view east, although the view was better from the gallery. Gorgeous west window by O'Connor. The north aisle has dome comfy armchairs and some medieval stalls ejected from elsewhere, and also a lovely baroque altar table among the clutter. The north transept has two good monuments, a cusped triangular recess with an alabaster knight, and a standing canopied monument with kneeling figures of mother and daughter complete with the original railings. Here too a Norman pillar piscina (not mentioned at all in the BofE) and a medieval cope chest. EE chancel, although east and south wall are entirely Victorian by the restorer Scott. There is an outer chapel east of the south transept (C14 with rich sedilia and a collection of memorials which seemed resited here) and an odd large square space to the west with a tall central wooden column supporting the roof. The inner south chapel has been converted into an office for a local charity which is based in the church, and has a stone screen filling the arch with a reset window.
I quite enjoyed my visit, if not the smell of stale coffee, apart from the awful staged cafe area at the west end and the poorly judged inclusion of the font here. However at least it was laid out as a church when I called, my friend recalled seeing badminton nets strewn across the nave on a previous visit. However it is obviously a well-used building, and an open one.
More compact after this accordion like collision
A destructive crash
ICBC, Salvage yard,
Queensborough, New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
County town of Buckinghamshire, large and sprawling, with a destructive road system around which new brash buildings have arisen. We parked in a multistorey car park, on the third floor and travelled UP two floors to get out by walking over a bridge, through a huge recent shopping centre and out into a little oasis of streets in the old town where St Mary's church is sited, all on the same level as that fifth floor bridge.
Large and cruciform, mainly C13, grouped around a central tower with a picturesque recessed leaded clock stage with gothic open parapet and pinnacles, and short further recessed spire. The approach is to the south transept, the main entrance. Many trees make exteriors problematic. On entering there was a pervasive smell of coffee (although my friend got bacon!). The west end has a newish gallery and a dais with tables and chairs serving a cafe which is sited in the south-west corner of the south aisle and also fills the south porch. In this sea of pine boarding sits the Norman font; I was surprised that it didn't have a flat cover with "bar stools" around it. Olympic banners hang from the nave roof obstructing the view east, although the view was better from the gallery. Gorgeous west window by O'Connor. The north aisle has dome comfy armchairs and some medieval stalls ejected from elsewhere, and also a lovely baroque altar table among the clutter. The north transept has two good monuments, a cusped triangular recess with an alabaster knight, and a standing canopied monument with kneeling figures of mother and daughter complete with the original railings. Here too a Norman pillar piscina (not mentioned at all in the BofE) and a medieval cope chest. EE chancel, although east and south wall are entirely Victorian by the restorer Scott. There is an outer chapel east of the south transept (C14 with rich sedilia and a collection of memorials which seemed resited here) and an odd large square space to the west with a tall central wooden column supporting the roof. The inner south chapel has been converted into an office for a local charity which is based in the church, and has a stone screen filling the arch with a reset window.
I quite enjoyed my visit, if not the smell of stale coffee, apart from the awful staged cafe area at the west end and the poorly judged inclusion of the font here. However at least it was laid out as a church when I called, my friend recalled seeing badminton nets strewn across the nave on a previous visit. However it is obviously a well-used building, and an open one.
front top and rear damage
A destructive crash
ICBC, Salvage yard,
Queensborough, New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
About my pictures:
Since 2014 I've been documenting the daily, destructive, poisonous chemtrail activity in the Dayton, Ohio area -- home of the notorious Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (visited by every important person on Earth, and even a few Aliens ;-) -- and apparently from my photo and video documentation, Chemtrail Central. This area has been getting chemtrailed on a massive, daily basis and is being conducted, as they say, “in plain sight”.
However, this area isn’t special in that regard. The massive chemtrailing is going on across the USA (and other countries), as evidenced in abundance on FlickR and many other sites. This incredible not-so-secret Government program, which itself is expensive and dangerous, spoils not only blue skies, but poisons our air, water and soil to unknown levels. Regardless of the purpose, weather control/weather as a weapon/mind control, it really amounts to a crime against humanity in my opinion.
In response, I have posted thousands of full-resolution images (15,000+!), documenting the overwhelming evidence of this crime on Flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/133042043@N04/albums
I have additional Chemtrail videos posted on:
www.youtube.com/user/BlueRidgeParkway
And to help generate interest, further study and assist in research, I am designating all my chemtrail pictures uploaded to Flickr (under “Chem Trailchaser”) as CC0 — Creative Commons Zero.
This removes my copyright and releases them into the Public Domain, which means that any of my photos designated CC0, can be used, without restriction or attribution, for any use. Isn’t that awesome? So please… download, copy, backup, mirror, share, use and improve as many of these photos as you can! Thanks for looking - Chem
About my pictures:
Since 2014 I've been documenting the daily, destructive, poisonous chemtrail activity in the Dayton, Ohio area -- home of the notorious Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (visited by every important person on Earth, and even a few Aliens ;-) -- and apparently from my photo and video documentation, Chemtrail Central. This area has been getting chemtrailed on a massive, daily basis and is being conducted, as they say, “in plain sight”.
However, this area isn’t special in that regard. The massive chemtrailing is going on across the USA (and other countries), as evidenced in abundance on FlickR and many other sites. This incredible not-so-secret Government program, which itself is expensive and dangerous, spoils not only blue skies, but poisons our air, water and soil to unknown levels. Regardless of the purpose, weather control/weather as a weapon/mind control, it really amounts to a crime against humanity in my opinion.
In response, I have posted thousands of full-resolution images (15,000+!), documenting the overwhelming evidence of this crime on Flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/133042043@N04/albums
I have additional Chemtrail videos posted on:
www.youtube.com/user/BlueRidgeParkway
And to help generate interest, further study and assist in research, I am designating all my chemtrail pictures uploaded to Flickr (under “Chem Trailchaser”) as CC0 — Creative Commons Zero.
This removes my copyright and releases them into the Public Domain, which means that any of my photos designated CC0, can be used, without restriction or attribution, for any use. Isn’t that awesome? So please… download, copy, backup, mirror, share, use and improve as many of these photos as you can! Thanks for looking - Chem
Hurricane Sandy (also unofficially known as "Superstorm Sandy") was the deadliest and most destructive hurricane of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, as well as the second-costliest hurricane in United States history. Classified as the eighteenth named storm, tenth hurricane and second major hurricane of the year, Sandy was a Category 3 storm at its peak intensity when it made landfall in Cuba.[1] While it was a Category 2 storm off the coast of the Northeastern United States, the storm became the largest Atlantic hurricane on record (as measured by diameter, with winds spanning 1,100 miles (1,800 km)).[2][3] Estimates as of March 2014 assess damage to have been over $68 billion (2013 USD), a total surpassed only by Hurricane Katrina.[4] At least 286 people were killed along the path of the storm in seven countries.[5]
Sandy developed from a tropical wave in the western Caribbean Sea on October 22, quickly strengthened, and was upgraded to Tropical Storm Sandy six hours later. Sandy moved slowly northward toward the Greater Antilles and gradually intensified. On October 24, Sandy became a hurricane, made landfall near Kingston, Jamaica, re-emerged a few hours later into the Caribbean Sea and strengthened into a Category 2 hurricane. On October 25, Sandy hit Cuba as a Category 3 hurricane, then weakened to a Category 1 hurricane. Early on October 26, Sandy moved through the Bahamas.[6] On October 27, Sandy briefly weakened to a tropical storm and then restrengthened to a Category 1 hurricane. Early on October 29, Sandy curved north-northwest and then[7] moved ashore near Brigantine, New Jersey, just to the northeast of Atlantic City, as a post-tropical cyclone with hurricane-force winds.[1][8]
In Jamaica, winds left 70% of residents without electricity, blew roofs off buildings, killed one, and caused about $100 million (2012 USD) in damage. Sandy's outer bands brought flooding to Haiti, killing at least 54, causing food shortages, and leaving about 200,000 homeless; the hurricane also caused two deaths in the Dominican Republic. In Puerto Rico, one man was swept away by a swollen river. In Cuba, there was extensive coastal flooding and wind damage inland, destroying some 15,000 homes, killing 11, and causing $2 billion (2012 USD) in damage. Sandy caused two deaths and damage estimated at $700 million (2012 USD) in The Bahamas. In Canada, two were killed in Ontario and an estimated $100 million (2012 CAD) in damage was caused throughout Ontario and Quebec.[9]
In the United States, Hurricane Sandy affected 24 states, including the entire eastern seaboard from Florida to Maine and west across the Appalachian Mountains to Michigan and Wisconsin, with particularly severe damage in New Jersey and New York. Its storm surge hit New York City on October 29, flooding streets, tunnels and subway lines and cutting power in and around the city.[10][11] Damage in the United States amounted to $65 billion (2013 USD).[12]
coming/here/done
About my pictures:
Since 2014 I've been documenting the daily, destructive, poisonous chemtrail activity in the Dayton, Ohio area -- home of the notorious Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (visited by every important person on Earth, and even a few Aliens ;-) -- and apparently from my photo and video documentation, Chemtrail Central. This area has been getting chemtrailed on a massive, daily basis and is being conducted, as they say, “in plain sight”.
However, this area isn’t special in that regard. The massive chemtrailing is going on across the USA (and other countries), as evidenced in abundance on FlickR and many other sites. This incredible not-so-secret Government program, which itself is expensive and dangerous, spoils not only blue skies, but poisons our air, water and soil to unknown levels. Regardless of the purpose, weather control/weather as a weapon/mind control, it really amounts to a crime against humanity in my opinion.
In response, I have posted thousands of full-resolution images (15,000+!), documenting the overwhelming evidence of this crime on Flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/133042043@N04/albums
I have additional Chemtrail videos posted on:
www.youtube.com/user/BlueRidgeParkway
And to help generate interest, further study and assist in research, I am designating all my chemtrail pictures uploaded to Flickr (under “Chem Trailchaser”) as CC0 — Creative Commons Zero.
This removes my copyright and releases them into the Public Domain, which means that any of my photos designated CC0, can be used, without restriction or attribution, for any use. Isn’t that awesome? So please… download, copy, backup, mirror, share, use and improve as many of these photos as you can! Thanks for looking - Chem
Handiwork!
Teredo navalis, the naval shipworm, is a species of saltwater clam, a marine bivalve mollusc in the family Teredinidae, the shipworms. Like other species in this family, this bivalve is called a shipworm, because it looks like a worm, while at the anterior end it has a small shell of two valves which is specialised to bore through wood.
This species may have originated in the northeast Atlantic Ocean, but has spread around the world. It tunnels into underwater piers and pilings and is a major cause of damage and destruction to submarine timber structures and the hulls of wooden boats.
Teredo navalis is a very destructive pest of submerged timber. In the Baltic Sea, pine trees can become riddled with tunnels within 16 weeks of being in the water and oaks within 32 weeks, with whole trees 30 centimetres (12 in) in diameter being completely warped within a year. Ships' timbers are attacked, wrecks destroyed and sea defences damaged.
Around 1730 in the Netherlands, shipworms were found to be seriously weakening the wooden dike revetments, and to prevent erosion of the dikes and subsequent flooding disasters the revetments had to be replaced with heavy stones, at great expense. The shipworm's arrival in San Francisco Bay around 1920 heralded great destruction to the piers and wharves of harbours. It has spread in the Pacific Ocean where its greater tolerance of low salinity levels has caused damage in areas previously unaffected by native shipworms.
In the eighteenth century the British Royal Navy resorted to covering the bottoms of its ships with copper in an attempt to prevent the damage caused by shipworm, giving rise to the expression "copper-bottomed"
From: Peculiarities of American Cities by Captain Willard Glazier
PHILADELPHIA: HUBBARD BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, No. 723 Chestnut Street. 1886
[We lived in Pacifica for 7 years. It was about 10 miles straight up the coast to this place and we saw it often.]
CHAPTER XXXIII. SAN FRANCISCO.
San Francisco.—The Golden State.—San Francisco Bay.—Golden Gate.—Conquest of California by Fremont, 1848.—Discovery of Gold.—Rush to the Mines, 1849.—"Forty-niners."—Great Rise in Provisions and Wages.—Miners Homeward Bound.—Dissipation and Vice in the City.—Vigilance Committee.—Great Influx of Miners in 1850.—Immense Gold Yield.—Climate.—Earthquakes.—Productions.—Irrigation.—Streets and Buildings.—Churches.—Lone Mountain Cemetery.—Cliff House.—Seal Rock.—Theatres.—Chinese Quarter.—Chinese Theatres.—Joss Houses.—Emigration Companies.—The Chinese Question.—Cheap Labor.—"The Chinese Must Go."—Present Population and Commerce of San Francisco.—Exports.—Manufactures.—Cosmopolitan Spirit of Inhabitants.
San Francisco is situated on the best harbor which our Pacific Coast affords, a little below the 38th parallel of latitude, and about a degree further south than St. Louis, Cincinnati and Washington. It is the western terminus of the Central Pacific Railroad, American gateway to Asia and the far East.
As the traveler proceeds thitherward from the Valley of the Mississippi, on descending the western slopes of the Sierras, he finds himself fairly within the Golden State; and in more senses than one does California deserve that name. If it be the summer season the very air seems filled with a golden haze. In leaving the mountains all freshness is left behind. Trees and fields are yellow with drouth, which lasts from April to November. Dense clouds of dust fill the air and settle upon everything. Whole regions, by the means of[Pg 449] extensive and destructive mining operations, have been denuded of all verdure, and lie bare and unsightly, waiting until the slow processes of time, or the more expeditious hand of man, shall reclaim them. But mines have now given place to vast grain and cattle farms or ranches; and great fields of golden grain and the cattle on a thousand hills are on either side of the track. If it be later or earlier in the year there is a wealth of bloom such as is never dreamed of in the East. The ground, sometimes, as far as the eye can reach, is brilliant with color, a golden yellow the predominating hue. In the rainy season the Sacramento valley, the occasional victim of prolonged drouth, is sometimes visited by a freshet, which carries destruction with it; a mountain torrent, taking its rise near the base of Mt. Shasta, and fed by the snows of the Sierras, it is fitful in its demeanor. It finds its outlet through San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate to the Pacific.
San Francisco is on a peninsula which extends between the bay of that name and the ocean. Its site is nothing more than a collection of sand hills, which, before the building of the city, were continually changing their positions. The peninsula is thirty miles long and six wide, across the city, which stands on the eastern or inner slope.
San Francisco Bay is unsurpassed in the world, except by Puget Sound, in Washington Territory, for size, depth, ease of entrance and security. The entrance to the bay is through a passage five miles in length and about two in width, with its shallowest depth about thirty feet at low tide. Rocks rise almost perpendicularly on the northern side of the entrance, to a height of three thousand feet. A lighthouse is placed on one of[Pg 450] these, at Point Bonita. Fort Point, a fortress built on solid rock, commands the entrance from the south, and beyond it, until San Francisco is reached, are a series of sand dunes, some of them white and drifting and others showing green with the scant grass growing upon them. The entrance to the bay is called the Golden Gate, a name applied with singular appropriateness, since through its portals have passed continuous streams of gold since the discovery of the latter in 1848. Strangely enough, the name was given before the gold discovery, though at how early a date there seems no means of knowing. As far as can be ascertained, it first appears in Fremont's "Geographical Memoir of California," published in 1847. Six miles eastward from its entrance the bay turns southward for a distance of thirty miles, forming a narrow peninsula between it and the ocean, on the northeastern extremity of which the city is built. It also extends northward to San Puebla Bay, which latter extending eastward, connects by means of a narrow strait with Suisun Bay, into which the Sacramento River discharges its volume of water. These three bays furnish ample and safe harborage for all the merchant fleets of the world.
San Francisco Bay is about forty miles in length, its widest point being twelve miles. At Oakland, directly east of San Francisco, it is eight miles in width. Alcatraz Island, in the centre of the channel, six miles from the Golden Gate, is a solid rock rising threateningly above the water, and bristling with heavy artillery. It is sixteen hundred feet in length, and four hundred and fifty feet in width. Angel Island is directly north of Alcatraz, and four miles from San Francisco, contains eight hundred acres, and is also fortified. Midway[Pg 451] between San Francisco and Oakland is Yerba Buena, or Goat Island, which, too, is held as a United States military station. Red Rock, Bird Rock, the Two Sisters, and other small islands dot the bay.
In 1775 the first ship passed the portals of the Golden Gate, and made its way into the Bay of San Francisco. This ship was the San Carlos, commanded by Caspar De Portala, a Franciscan monk and Spanish Governor of Lower California, who set out on a voyage of discovery and exploration. The same man had six years previously visited the sand hills of the present site of San Francisco, being the first white man to set his foot upon them. Portala named the harbor San Francisco, after the founder of his monastic order, St. Francis. A mission was founded there six years later, on the twenty-seventh of June, by Friars Francisco Paloa and Bonito Cambou, under the direction of Father Junipero Serra, who had been commissioned by Father Portala as president of all the missions in Upper California. This was the sixth mission established in California, and up to the year 1800 the Fathers labored with great zeal and industry, had established eighteen missions, converted six hundred and forty-seven savages, and acquired a vast property in lands, cattle, horses, sheep and grain. Presidios or military stations were established for the protection of these missions, and the Indians readily submitted themselves to the Fathers, and acquired the arts of civilization.
The Franciscan friars continued complete sovereigns of the land during the first quarter of the present century, and increased in worldly goods. Mexico became a republic in 1824, and in 1826 considerably curtailed their privileges. In 1845 their property was finally confiscated and the missions broken up. The[Pg 452] priests returned to Spain; the Indians to their savagery; and only the crumbling walls of their adobe houses, and their decaying orchards and vineyards, remained to tell the tale of the past history of California. From that period until 1847 California was a bone of contention between Mexico and the United States, her territory overrun by troops of both nations. On the sixteenth of January, 1847, the Spanish forces capitulated to Fremont, and peace was established.
With the exception of the Mission Dolores, there was no settlement at San Francisco until 1835, when a tent was erected. A small frame house was built the following year, and on the fifteenth of April, 1838, the first white child was born. The population of San Francisco, then known as Yerba Buena, in 1842 was one hundred and ninety-six persons. In 1847 it had increased to four hundred and fifty-one persons, including whites, Indians, negroes and Sandwich Islanders. In March, 1848, the city contained two hundred houses, and eight hundred and fifty inhabitants. In November of the same year, the first steamer, a small boat from Sitka, made a trial trip around the bay. In this year the first public school and the first Protestant church were established.
This year marked the great era in the history of San Francisco. In the fall of 1847, Captain John A. Sutter, a Swiss by birth, who had resided in California since 1839, began erecting a saw mill at a place called Colorna, on the American River, a confluent of the Sacramento, about fifty miles east of the city of that name. James W. Marshall, who had taken the contract for erecting the mill, was at work with his men cutting and widening the tail-race when, on January eighteenth, 1848, he observed some particles of a yellow, glittering substance. In[Pg 453] February specimens of these findings were taken to San Francisco, and pronounced to be gold. The truth being soon confirmed, the rush for the gold fields commenced. People in all sections of California and Oregon forsook their occupations, and set out for the mines. The news spread, increasing as it went; until the reports grew fabulous. Many of the earliest miners acquired fortunes quickly, and as quickly dissipated them. The journal of Rev. Walter Colton, at that time Alcalde of Monterey, contains the following paragraph, under date of August twelfth, 1848:—
"My man Bob, who is of Irish extraction, and who had been in the mines about two months, returned to Monterey about four weeks since, bringing with him over two thousand dollars, as the proceeds of his labor. Bob, while in my employ, required me to pay him every Saturday night in gold, which he put into a little leather bag and sewed into the lining of his coat, after taking out just twelve and a half cents, his weekly allowance for tobacco. But now he took rooms and began to branch out; he had the best horses, the richest viands, and the choicest wines in the place. He never drank himself but it filled him with delight to brim the sparkling goblet for others. I met Bob to-day, and asked him how he got on. 'Oh, very well,' he replied, 'but I am off again for the mines.' 'How is that, Bob? you brought down with you over two thousand dollars; I hope you have not spent all that; you used to be very saving; twelve and a half cents a week for tobacco, and the rest you sewed into the lining of your coat.' 'Oh, yes,' replied Bob, 'and I have got that money yet. I worked hard for it, and the devil can't get it away. But the two[Pg 454]thousand dollars came aisily, by good luck, and has gone as aisily as it came!'"
Reports of the new El Dorado reached the States, and during 1849, from Maine to Louisiana came the gold seekers. From every country in Europe, from Australia and from China, additions were made to the throng of pilgrims, who, by the Isthmus, around the Horn, across the seas, and by the terrible journey overland, all rushed pell mell up the Sacramento, stopping at San Francisco only long enough to find some means of conveyance. We have no space to tell the story of that time. Men came and went. Some made fortunes. Others returned poorer than they came. Many who attempted the overland route left their bones bleaching on the plains. Some went back to their homes, and others remained to become permanent citizens of California. What the F. F. V.s are to Virginia, and the Pilgrim Fathers to Massachusetts, the "Forty-niners," a large number of whom still survive, will be, in the future, to California.
During 1848 ten million dollars' worth of gold had been gathered on the Yuba, American and Feather rivers. The city of San Francisco had, in January, 1849, two thousand inhabitants, and these were in a hurry to be off to the mines as soon as the rainy season was over. Ships began to arrive from all quarters, and July of that year found the flags of every nation floating in the bay. Five hundred square-rigged vessels lay in the harbor, and everybody was scrambling for the mines. These multitudes of people, though they thought only of gold, yet had to be fed, clothed and housed after a fashion. There were no supplies adequate to the demand, and provisions went up to fabulous prices. Apples sold for from $1 to $5 apiece, and eggs at the same rates.[Pg 455] Laborers demanded from $20 to $30 for a day's work, and were scarcely to be had at those figures. The miners probably averaged $25 a day at the mines, though some were making their hundreds. But at the exorbitant prices to be paid for everything, few were able to lay up much money.
Late in the year of 1849 the reaction came. The steamers were filled with downcast miners, thankful that they had enough left to take themselves home. Others having acquired something, stopped at San Francisco, and plunged into the worst forms of dissipation. The city during this and the following year held a carnival of vice and crime. Women there were few or none, save of the worst character, and gambling dens, dance houses, and drinking hells flourished on every street. In 1850 a Vigilance Committee was organized by the better class of citizens, which soon exercised a wholesome restraint upon the criminal classes. In the same year California was admitted to the Union without the preliminary of a Territorial Government, and San Francisco was chartered as a city. Courts were established, and the lawless community came under the dominion of law and order.
By this time the great haste which seized everybody in his eagerness to obtain gold and return home to enjoy it, had somewhat subsided. Men began to realize that there were other means of making money besides digging for it. Gardens were planted and orchards set out, and it was discovered that the apparently barren soil of the State would yield with a fruitfulness unparalleled in the East. San Francisco began to be more than a canvass city. Mud flats were filled in and sand hills leveled, houses, hotels and stores erected, and a wild speculation began in city property. Lots which a few[Pg 456] days before had been purchased for two or three thousand dollars, were held at fifty thousand dollars. A canvas tent, fifteen by twenty feet, near the plaza, rented for forty thousand dollars per annum. The Parker House, a two-story frame building on Kearney street, also near the plaza, brought a yearly rent of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Board in a hotel or a tent was eight dollars per day, and provisions were proportionately high. To build a brick house cost a dollar for each brick used. Twenty-seven thousand people arrived in San Francisco, by sea or land, during 1850. In 1853 thirty-four thousand gold seekers returned home, the yield of gold that year having been $65,000,000, the largest annual yield of the State. The imports of San Francisco in the same year were over $45,000,000. As early as this period it was the third city in tonnage entrances in the United States, New York and New Orleans alone exceeding it. In 1856 the bad state of public affairs again necessitated the interference of a Vigilance Committee, but since that time the city has been orderly.
The site of San Francisco was fixed by chance. More desirable places might have been selected, but the influx of miners dropped upon the first spot convenient for them to land, from which to start post-haste to the mines, and that spot is indicated by the present city. Owing to its location its climate is not in all respects desirable. The general climate of the coast is tempered, both in summer and winter, by a warm ocean current, which, flowing northward along the coast of China and Siberia, takes a turn to the south when it reaches Alaska, and washes the western coast of the continent of America. It is so warm that it produces a marked[Pg 457] effect upon this coast, just as the Gulf Stream tempers the climate of the British Islands. But it has been sensibly cooled by its proximity to Arctic seas, and so sends cool breezes to fan the land during the heat of summer. These summer sea breezes rushing through the narrow opening of the Golden Gate become almost gales, and bring both cold and fog with them. The air of winter is mild and spring-like. This is the rainy season, but it does not rain continuously. It is the season of verdure and growth, and frosts are both slight and infrequent in the latitude of San Francisco. Not a drop of rain falls during the summer. The mornings are warm and sometimes almost sultry; but about ten o'clock the sea breeze springs up, growing more violent as the day advances, and frequently bringing a chilly fog with it, so that by evening men are glad to wrap themselves in overcoats, and women put on their cloaks and furs. The sand, which is still heaped in dunes to the westward of the city, and lies upon its vacant lots, is lifted and whirled through the air, falling almost like sleet, and stinging the faces of pedestrians.
Thunder storms are of rare occurrence at San Francisco, but earthquakes are exceedingly frequent. Probably not a year elapses in which slight shocks are not felt in the State. Sometimes these shocks extend over vast areas, and at other times are merely local. On October twenty-first, 1868, a severe earthquake occurred at San Francisco, swaying buildings and throwing down numbers in process of erection. The houses of the city are mostly built with a view to these disturbances of nature. The dwelling houses are seldom more than two and one-half stories in height, while the blocks of the[Pg 458] business streets do not display the altitude of structures in the eastern cities.
The climate is so mild and so favorable that the productions of California embrace those of both temperate and semi-tropical latitudes. The sand hills of San Francisco were found, with the help of irrigation to produce plentifully of both fruits and flowers, and the suburbs of the city display many greenhouse plants growing in the open air. Roses bloom every month in the year, and strawberries ripen from February to December. In San Francisco the mean temperature in January is 49° and in June 56°. The average temperature of the year is 54°.
The California market, between Kearney and Montgomery streets, extending through from Pine to California streets, displays all the fruits, vegetables and grains of the northern States, raised in the immediate neighborhood of the city, while oranges, lemons and pomegranates are sent from further south. The tenderer varieties of grapes flourish in the open air, and the State produces raisins which command a price but little below those of Europe. The thrift of the fruit trees of California is most remarkable. Most trees begin bearing on the second year from the slip or graft, and produce abundantly at three or four years of age. Their growth and the size of their productions are unequaled on the continent. The above mentioned market is one of the sights of the city, and should not be missed by the visitor.
Irrigation has been found necessary to render the sand hills about San Francisco productive, and windmills have become familiar objects in the landscape, their long arms revolving in the ocean breeze, while little[Pg 459] streams of water trickling here and there vivify the earth. As a result, though trees are scarce, what few there are being mostly stunted live oaks, whose long roots extend down deep into the soil, there are flowers everywhere. On one side of a fence will be a sand-bank, white with shifting sand, on the other, flourishing in the same kind of soil, will be an al fresco conservatory, brilliant with color and luxuriant in foliage.
Montgomery street is the leading thoroughfare, broad and lined with handsome buildings. Toward the north it climbs a hill so steep that carriages cannot ascend it, and pedestrians make their way up by means of a flight of steps. From this elevation a fine view is obtained of the city and bay. Kearney and Market streets are also fashionable promenades, containing many of the retail stores. The principal banks and business offices are found on California street, and the handsomest private residences are on Van Ness avenue, Taylor, Bush, Sutter, Leavenworth and Folsom streets, Clay street Hill and Pine street Hill. The city extends far beyond its original limits, having encroached upon the bay. Solid blocks now stand where, in 1849, big ships rode at anchor. It is laid out with regularity, most of its streets being at right angles with one another. The business streets are generally paved with Belgian blocks or cobble stones, and most of the residence streets are planked. The city does not present the handsome and showy architecture of many cities of the east, though here and there are fine edifices. It is yet too new, and too hurriedly built, to have acquired the substantiality and grandeur of older cities. Between fine brick or stone structures several stories high are sandwiched insignificant wooden houses of only two stories, the relics of a past which is[Pg 460] yet exceedingly near the present. The public buildings, especially those belonging to the United States, are fine.
The City Hall will, when finished, be surpassed by few structures in the country. The Palace Hotel, at the corner of Market and New Montgomery streets, is a vast building, erected and furnished at a cost of $3,250,000. It is entered by a grand court-yard surrounded by colonnades, and from its roof a birds-eye view of the whole city can be obtained. Baldwin's Hotel, at the corner of Marshall and Powell streets, is another palatial structure, costing a quarter of a million more, for building, decorating and furnishing, than the Palace Hotel. The Grand Hotel, Occidental, Lick House, Russ House and Cosmopolitan are all established and popular hotels.
The largest and finest church edifice on the Pacific Coast is that of St. Ignatius, Roman Catholic, in McAlister street. The finest interior is that of St. Patrick's, also Roman Catholic, in Mission street between Third and Fourth. The First Unitarian church, in Geary street, is one of the finest churches in the city, remarkable for the purity of its architectural design and the elegance of its finish. The Chinese Mission House, at the corner of Stockton and Sacramento streets, will prove interesting to strangers. The Roman Catholics, who number among their adherents all the Spanish citizens, make no concealment of their intention to gain a majority of the population. But though they are a power in the community, and have many churches, the different Protestant sects are largely represented. Indeed, San Francisco is thoroughly tolerant in matters of religion. Not only do Catholics and Protestants find their own appropriate places of worship, but the Jews[Pg 461] have two Synagogues, and the Chinese Buddhists three Temples or Joss Houses.
There is but one road leading out of the city, but within the city limits there are many modes of conveyance. Cars propelled by endless wire cables, which move along the streets without the assistance of either horse or steam power, intersect the city in every direction. Omnibuses run out on the Point Lobos road to the Cliff House; and he who has not ridden or driven thither and watched the seals on Seal Rock, has not seen all of San Francisco. This is the one excursion of the city; its one pet dissipation. Everybody goes to the Cliff. A drive of five or six miles, on a good road, over and through intervening sand hills, brings the visitor to the Cliff House. This road leads by Laurel Hill, or as it was formerly called, Lone Mountain Cemetery, two and one-half miles west of the city, within whose inclosure a conical hill rises to a considerable height above the surrounding level country. On its summit is a large wooden cross, a prominent landmark, and within the cemetery are several fine monuments, conspicuously that of Senator Broderick, and a miniature Pantheon, marking the resting place of the Ralston family. The Lone Mountain possesses an unrivaled outlook over city, bay, ocean and coast range.
The Cliff House is a large, low building, set on the edge of a cliff rising abruptly from the ocean, and facing west; and from it you have a grand view of the Golden Gate, while oceanward you strain your eyes to catch some glimpse of China or Japan, which lie so far away in front of you. But you see instead, if the day be clear, the faint but bold outlines of the Farallon Islands,[Pg 462] and the white sails of vessels passing in and out of the Golden Gate.
Late in the year of 1876 I completed my horseback journey across the continent, dashing with my horse into the surf to the westward of the Cliff House. A long and wearisome, but at the same time interesting and reasonably exciting ride, was at an end, and after viewing San Francisco, I was free to enjoy those luxuries of modern civilization, the railway cars, on my homeward route.
SEAL ROCKS, FROM THE CLIFF HOUSE, NEAR SAN FRANCISCO.
The Farallones de los Frayles are six islets lifting up their jagged peaks in picturesque masses out in the ocean, twenty-three and one-half miles westward of the Golden Gate. The largest Farallon extends for nearly a mile east and west, and is three hundred and forty feet high. On its highest summit the government has placed a lighthouse, and there the light-keepers live, sometimes cut off for weeks from the shore, surrounded by barrenness and desolation, but within sight of the busy life which ebbs and flows through the narrow strait which leads to San Francisco. These islands are composed of broken and water-worn rocks, forming numerous sharp peaks, and containing many caves. One of these caves has been utilized as a fog-trumpet, or whistle, blown by the force of the waves. The mouth-piece of a trumpet has been fixed against the aperture of the rock, and the waves dashing against it with force enough to crush a ship to pieces, blows the whistle. This fog whistle ceases entirely at low water, and its loudness at all times depends upon the force of the waves. The Farallones are the homes of innumerable sea birds, gulls, mures, shags and sea-parrots, the eggs of the first two being regularly collected by eggers, who make a profitable business [Pg 463]of gathering them at certain seasons of the year. In 1853 one thousand dozen of these eggs, the result of a three days' trip, were sold at a dollar a dozen. Gathering the eggs is difficult and not unattended by danger, as precipices must be scaled, and the birds sometimes show themselves formidable enemies. The larger island is also populated by immense numbers of rabbits, all descended from a few pairs brought there many years ago. Occasionally these creatures, becoming too numerous for the resources of the island, die by hundreds, of starvation. Though their progenitors were white, they have reverted to the original color of the wild race. The cliffs of these islands are alive with seals, or sea-lions, as they are called, which congregate upon their sunny slopes, play, bark, fight and roar. Some of them are as large as an ox and seemingly as clumsy; but they disport themselves in the surf, which is strong enough to dash them in pieces, with the utmost ease, allowing the waves to send them almost against the rocks, and then by a sudden, dextrous movement, gliding out of danger.
The Cliff House has also its sea-lions, on Seal Rock, not far from the hotel, and the visitors are never tired of watching them as they wriggle over the rocks, barking so noisily as to be heard above the breakers. Formerly numbers of them were shot by wanton sportsmen, but they are now protected by law. "Ben. Butler" and "General Grant" are two seals of unusual size, which appear to hold the remainder of the seal colony in subjection. If two begin to fight and squabble about a position which each wants, either "Ben" or the "General" quickly settles the dispute by flopping the malcontents overboard. The higher these creatures can[Pg 464] wriggle up the rocks the happier they appear to be; and when a huge beast has attained a solitary peak, by dint of much squirming, he manifests his satisfaction by raising his small pointed head and complacently looking about him. As soon as another spies him, and can reach the spot, a squabble ensues, howls are heard, teeth enter into the contest, the stronger secures the eminence, and the weaker is ignominiously sent to the humbler and lower regions.
An early drive to and a breakfast at the Cliff House, with a return to the city before the sea-breeze begins, is the favorite excursion of the San Franciscan. The road passes beyond this hotel to a broad, beautiful beach, on which, at low tide, one can drive to the Ocean House, at its extreme end, and then return to the city by the old Mission grounds, which still lie in its southwestern limits. The Mission building is of adobe, of the old Spanish style, built in 1778. Adjoining it is the cemetery, with its fantastic monuments, and paths worn by the feet of the Mission fathers and their dusky penitents.
The largest and finest theatre of the city, and one of the finest in the United States, is the Grand Opera House, at the corner of Mission and Third streets. Four other theatres and an Academy of Music, furnish amusements to the residents of the city. Woodward's Gardens, on Mission street between Thirteenth and Fourteenth streets, contains a museum, an art galley, and a menagerie. There are also two Chinese theatres, one at 618 Jackson street, and the other at 625½ Jackson street.
The Chinese Quarter of San Francisco, which has become famous the world over, occupies portions of Sacramento, Commercial, Dupont, Pacific and Jackson streets. It is a locality which no stranger should fail to[Pg 465] see. Here he steps at once into the Celestial Empire. Chinamen throng the streets, dressed in their semi-American, semi-Asiatic costumes, the pig-tail usually depending behind, though sometimes it is rolled up, out of sight, under the hat. The harsh gutturals of the Chinese language, nearly every word ending in ng, are heard on every hand, mingled with the grotesque pigeon English. The signs exhibit Chinese characters, and the stores and bazaars are filled with Chinese merchandise.
Women are scarce in this quarter, and only of the courtezan class; but here and there one meets you, dressed usually in Chinese gown and trowsers, with hair arranged in the indescribable Chinese chignon, and carrying a fan—for all the world as though she had stepped off a fan or a saucer—and not more immodest in demeanor than the same class in our eastern cities. There are few or no Chinese wives in San Francisco. Chinese immigration takes the form of an immense bow, beginning at China, stretching to the Pacific coast of America, and retiring again to its starting point; for every Chinaman expects to return to his native land, either alive or dead. He does not take root in American soil. He comes here to make a little money, leaving his family behind him, and, satisfied with a very modest competence, returns as he came. If he dies here, his bones are carried back, that they may find a resting-place with those of his ancestors. Therefore the women imported are for the basest purposes.
But to return to this Chinese Quarter. Here is the old St. Giles of London, the old Five Points of New York magnified and intensified. Here congregate the roughest and rudest elements, and here stand, shamelessly revealed, crime and bestiality too vile to name. In one cellar[Pg 466] is a gambling-hell, for John Chinaman's besetting weakness is his love of gambling. The mode of gambling is very simple, involving no skill, and the stakes are small; but many a Celestial loses there, at night, his earnings of the day. Near by is an opium cellar, fitted up with benches or shelves, on each of which will be found a couple of Chinamen lying, with a wooden box for a pillow. While one is preparing his opium and smoking, the other is enjoying its full effects, in a half stupor. The Chinese tenement houses are crowded and filthy beyond description, and the breeding places of disease and crime. They are scattered thickly throughout the quarter. Their theatres, of which there are two, already referred to, have only male performers, who personate both sexes, and give what seems to be passable acting, accompanied by the clash and clang of cymbals, the beating of gongs, the sounding of trumpets, and other disagreeable noises regarded by the Chinese as music. The entire audience are smoking, either tobacco or opium.
The Joss houses, or temples of the Chinese, are more in the nature of club houses and employment bureaus, than of religious houses. The first floor contains the business room, smoking or lounging room, dining room, kitchen, and other offices, which are used by the Emigration Company to which the building belongs. The second floor contains a moderate-sized hall, devoted to religious rites. Its walls are decorated with moral maxims from Confucius and other writers, in which the devotees are exhorted to fidelity, integrity, and the other virtues. The Joss or Josh is an image of a Chinaman, before whom the Chinese residents of San Francisco are expected to come once a year and burn slips of paper. Praying is also done, but as this is by means of putting printed[Pg 467] prayers into a machine run by clockwork, there is no great exhaustion among the worshipers.
The Chinese have no Sunday, and are ready to work every day of the week, if they can get paid for it. Their only holiday is at New Year, which occurs with them usually in February, but is a movable feast, when they require an entire week to settle their affairs, square up their religious and secular accounts, and make a new start in life. The Chinese have one saving virtue. They pay their debts on every New Year's day. If they have not enough to settle all claims against them they hand over their assets to their creditors, old scores are wiped out, and they commence anew.
The six Chinese Emigration Companies, each representing a Chinese province, manage the affairs of the immigrants with a precision, minuteness and care which is unparalleled by any organization of western civilization. Before the passage of the anti-Chinese law, when a ship came into port laden with Chinamen, the agents of the different companies boarded it, and each took the names of those belonging to his province. They provided lodgings and food for the new comers, and as quickly as possible secured them employment; lent them money to go to any distant point; cared for them if they were sick and friendless, and, finally, sent home the bones of those who died on American shores. These companies settle all disputes between the Chinese, and when a Chinamen wishes to return home, they examine his accounts, and oblige him to pay his just debts before leaving. The means for doing all this are obtained in the shape of voluntary contributions from the immigrants. These companies do not act as employment bureaus, for these are separate and thoroughly organized institutions.[Pg 468] These latter farm out the work of any number of hands, at the price agreed upon, furnishing a foreman, with whom all negotiations are transacted, who, perhaps, is the only one speaking English, and who is responsible for all the work.
The English spoken by the Chinese is known as "pigeon English," "pigeon" being the nearest approach which a Chinamen can make to saying "business."
Most English words are more or less distorted. L is always used by them for r, mi for I, and the words abound in terminal ee's.
The Chinese problem is one which is agitating the country and giving a coloring to its politics. The Pacific States seem, by a large majority of their population, to regard the presence of the Mongolian among them as an unmitigated evil, to be no longer tolerated. Eastern capitalists have hailed their coming as inaugurating the era of cheap labor and increased fortunes for themselves. Hence the discussion and the disturbances. A lady who had made her home in San Francisco for several years past, says, in a letter to the writer of this article, "A person not living in California can form no conception of the curse which the Chinese are to this section of the world."
Yet without them some of the great enterprises of the Pacific coast, notably the Central Pacific Railroad, would have remained long unfinished; and they came also to furnish manual labor at a time when it was scarce and difficult to obtain at any price. The Chinaman is a strange compound of virtue and vice, cleanliness and filth, frugality and recklessness, simplicity and cunning. He is scrupulously clean as to his person, indulging in frequent baths; yet he will live contentedly with the[Pg 469] most wretched surroundings, and inhale an air vitiated by an aggregation of breaths and stenches of all kinds. He is a faithful worker and a wonderful imitator. He cannot do the full work of a white man, but he labors steadily and unceasingly. He takes no time for drunken sprees, but he is an inveterate opium smoker, and sometimes deliberately sacrifices his life in the enjoyment of the drug. He is frugal to the last degree, but will waste his daily earnings in the gambling hell and policy shop. Scrupulously honest, he is yet the victim of the vilest vices which are engrafting themselves upon our western coast. Living upon one-third of what will keep a white man, and working for one-half the wages the latter demands, he is destroying the labor market of that quarter of our country, reducing its working classes to his own level, in which in the future the latter, too, will be forced to be contented on a diet of "rice and rats," and to forego all educational advantages for their children, becoming, like the Chinese themselves, mere working machines; or else enter into a conflict of labor against labor, race against race.
The latter alternative seems inevitable, and it has already begun. China, with her crowded population, could easily spare a hundred million people and be the better for it. Those one hundred million Chinamen, if welcomed to our shores, would speedily swamp our western civilization. They might not become the controlling power—the Anglo-Saxon is always sure to remain that—but as hewers of wood and drawers of water, as builders of our railroads, hands upon our farms, workers in our factories, and cooks and chambermaids in our houses, a like number of American men and women would be displaced, and wages quickly[Pg 470] reduced to an Asiatic level; and such a time of distress as this country never saw would dawn upon us.
There seems to be no assimilation between the Caucasian and the Mongolian on the Pacific slope. In the East an Irish girl recently married a Chinaman; but in San Francisco, though every other race under the sun has united in marriage, the Chinaman is avoided as a pariah. White and yellow races may meet and fraternize in business, in pleasure, and even in crime; but in marriage never. Chinamen rank among the most respected merchants of San Francisco, and these receive exceptional respect as individuals; but between the two races as races a great gulf is fixed. The Chinese immigrant takes no interest in American affairs. His world is on the other side of the Pacific. And the American people return the compliment by taking no interest in him. It is undeniable that, by a certain class of San Francisco citizens, popularly known as Hoodlums, the treatment of the Chinese population has been shameful in the extreme. A Chinaman has no rights which a white man is bound to respect. Insult, contumely, abuse, cruelty and injustice he has been forced to bear at the hands of the rougher classes, without hope of redress. He has been kicked, and cheated, and plundered, and not a voice has been raised in his behalf; but if he has been guilty of the slightest peccadillo, how quickly has he been made to feel the heavy hand of justice!
It seems a pity that before the cry was raised with such overwhelming force, "The Chinese must go!" some little effort had not been made to adapt them to Western civilization. They are quick to take ideas concerning their labor; why not in other things? We have received and adopted the ignorant, vicious hordes[Pg 471] from foreign lands to the east of us, and are fast metamorphosing them into intelligent, useful citizens. We are even trying our hand upon the negro, as a late atonement for all the wrong we have done him. But the Indian and the Chinaman seem to be without the pale of our mercy and our Christianity. It might not have been possible, but still the experiment was worth the trying, of attempting to lift them up industrially, educationally and morally, to a level with our own better classes, instead of permitting them to drag us down. Returning to their own country, and carrying back with them our Western civilization, as a little leaven, they might have leavened the whole lump. It is too late for that now, and the mandate has gone forth: "The Chinese must go!" Considering all things as they are, rather than as they might have been, it is undoubtedly better so, and the only salvation of our Pacific States.
San Francisco had, in 1880, a population of 232,956. The commerce is very large, and must every year increase as the West is built up. The chief articles of export are the precious metals, breadstuffs, wines and wool. She has important manufactures, embracing watches, carriages, boots and shoes, furniture, iron and brass works, silver ware, silk and woolen. California seems peculiarly adapted to the silk industry, and her silk manufactures will probably assume marked importance in the future. The wonderful climate and unequaled productiveness are constantly attracting immigration, and the Pacific Central, which spans the continent, has vastly improved on the old methods of travel by caravan across the plains and over the mountains.
The population of San Francisco is cosmopolitan to the last degree, and embraces natives of every clime and[Pg 472]nearly every nation on the globe. Yet in spite of this strange agglomeration she is intensely Yankee in her go-ahead-ativeness, with Anglo-Saxon alertness intensified. In fact, as San Francisco is on the utmost limits of the West, beyond which there is nothing but a vast expanse of water until we begin again at the East, so she represents the superlative of Anglo-Saxon enterprise and American civilization, and looks to a future which shall far outstrip her past.
DESTRUCTIVE INVASIVE SPECIES... introduced mid-nineteenth century and spreading across eastern USA & Canada --- destroys many hardwoods including oak.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Superfamily: Noctuoidea
Family: Erebidae
Genus: Lymantria
Species: L. dispar
County town of Buckinghamshire, large and sprawling, with a destructive road system around which new brash buildings have arisen. We parked in a multistorey car park, on the third floor and travelled UP two floors to get out by walking over a bridge, through a huge recent shopping centre and out into a little oasis of streets in the old town where St Mary's church is sited, all on the same level as that fifth floor bridge.
Large and cruciform, mainly C13, grouped around a central tower with a picturesque recessed leaded clock stage with gothic open parapet and pinnacles, and short further recessed spire. The approach is to the south transept, the main entrance. Many trees make exteriors problematic. On entering there was a pervasive smell of coffee (although my friend got bacon!). The west end has a newish gallery and a dais with tables and chairs serving a cafe which is sited in the south-west corner of the south aisle and also fills the south porch. In this sea of pine boarding sits the Norman font; I was surprised that it didn't have a flat cover with "bar stools" around it. Olympic banners hang from the nave roof obstructing the view east, although the view was better from the gallery. Gorgeous west window by O'Connor. The north aisle has dome comfy armchairs and some medieval stalls ejected from elsewhere, and also a lovely baroque altar table among the clutter. The north transept has two good monuments, a cusped triangular recess with an alabaster knight, and a standing canopied monument with kneeling figures of mother and daughter complete with the original railings. Here too a Norman pillar piscina (not mentioned at all in the BofE) and a medieval cope chest. EE chancel, although east and south wall are entirely Victorian by the restorer Scott. There is an outer chapel east of the south transept (C14 with rich sedilia and a collection of memorials which seemed resited here) and an odd large square space to the west with a tall central wooden column supporting the roof. The inner south chapel has been converted into an office for a local charity which is based in the church, and has a stone screen filling the arch with a reset window.
I quite enjoyed my visit, if not the smell of stale coffee, apart from the awful staged cafe area at the west end and the poorly judged inclusion of the font here. However at least it was laid out as a church when I called, my friend recalled seeing badminton nets strewn across the nave on a previous visit. However it is obviously a well-used building, and an open one.
Destructive fire is natural and healthy. During our visit to Yellowstone there were four active fires in the park. Just a year or two after what seems like complete devastation, new life sprouts. The process of rebirth begins.
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
A local fisherman in Moalboal using a net to scoop up small reef fish to sell at the local market - a clear indicator of over-fishing.
Rope Access NDT Tower Inspections. For more information go to: www.rigcomaccess.com/ropeaccess/ogmp/inspection-and-testi...
Entry in category 4. ©Eva De Boever; See also bit.ly/snsf_comp_copy
Field images: Olympus camera.
Non-destructive 3D view of the internal structure of sample object: μ-computer tomography using a Bruker Skyscan 2211 (R’Equip project) at 90kV, 110 μA, 2200ms exposure time, 6 μm resolution, 0.2° rotation step, CCD detector. Image reconstruction: InstaRecon; segmentation + visualization: CT-Vox.
Project by Prof. A. Foubert; with contribution of Dr. D. Jaramillo-Vogel (CT Image Lab), E. Feenstra (sampling) and bachelor students (Carbonate Sedimentology Lab, UniFr)
The ability to recognize features in ancient sedimentary rocks that can only be attributed to the former presence of life is a challenge with high relevance to the study of early life on Earth and on other planets. To understand how micro-organisms mediate the nucleation and growth of CaCO3 crystals and thereby become fossilized, is thereby of unequivocal importance. Small centimeter-diameter biofilms forming in places at the surface of an active cold spring tufa deposit in the Gottéron valley (near Fribourg) provide a recent, field laboratory to study these processes. Non-destructive 3D imaging using μ-CT showed where and how calcite crystals start precipitating below the surface and within the core of a, seemingly unlithified, photosyntezing biofilm. They thereby preserve a laminated internal structure, such as often observed in ‘stromatolites’, the oldest recognized and identified (microbial) fossils on our planet. ¦ Image#4_10
this particular block house is in absolutely great condition, 117 years after. kept away from the ever present destructive monster in man/woman unkind. most of its internal wooden decks/planking are in great shape. many thanks to a farmer that allowed me to document this
baie dankie jannie!
more images to follow later in a special album
photographer's note-
blockhouses were built by the british from 1899-1902 during the anglo-boer war to protect the railway bridges from
boer attacks
the stone is local while the remaining materials were imported from britain. some were constructed entirely from concrete
the block houses could house 20 men with water, munitions and supplies stored on the lower floor. The living quarters were on the middle floor and was accessible by a retractable ladder and the top floor was the lookout deck.
only about 1000 of these blockhouses were built and few have survived
they were very effective barriers and few saw any action.
end of note
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The building of blockhouses started in March 1900 to protect the railways, in particular the railway bridges. Many of these were impressive structures of stone, with corrugated iron roofs, standing three storeys high and enetred by an external wooden stair in the form of a drawbridge.
These were effective but also time consuming and costly to build. This led to more modest style structures being built in the form of rectangular, signle-storey buildings with a stone wall mounted upon which was a coorugated iron upperwork, this was pierced with loopholes and double skinned, the void between being filled with stones to block rifle fire. Even these structures were slow to construct and a solution to these was sort by Kitchener, he turned to Major Spring R Rice, Officer Commanding 23 Field Company, Royal Engineers based as Middleburg, Transvaal.
Major Rice designed two new forms of blockhouse, the first octagonal and the second, the one that became known as the 'Rice Blockhouse'. circular. This was made of of corrugated iron filled with a stone-filled, loopholed shield above and an earth-filled caisson below, the whole being topped off with a stone roof. When ideally sited the door was blocked approached under cover of a trench and the hillock on which it sat and the lower part of the walls was covered with loose stones for added protection. It was said that trained men could erect such a blockhouse in a single day and the record for erecting one was a mere three hours. It was usually garrisoned by a non-commissioned officer and six men. Outside the immediate area was protected by barbed wire and a barbed wire fence stretched between one blockhouse and the next, hung out with tin cans to make as much noise as possible when disturbed.
The fortifications in cluded numerous other modesl, often ad-hoc designs fashioned to meet the requirements of the location and adjusted to make the best of available materials, but the Rice design was the one that sprang up in huge numbers. By September 1901 the Western Railway blockhouse line from De Aar to Lobatsi, north of Mafeking, was complete, as was the Central Railway system from Naauwpoort to Pretoria and the Delalgoa Railway to the border of Koomati Poort. In addition a box west of Johannesburg and Pretoria and a line south-east to Standerton and Newcastle were operational. In the next three months the line north from Pretoria to Pietersberg was built, the Western Railwasy cover extended south-west to beaufort West and numerous additions made in Transvaal and was now Orange Colony. By May 1902 a line of blockhouses ran from Beaufort West right across Cape Colony to the Atlantic coast and yet more lines had been added elsewhere. By the end of the war there were 3,700 miles (6,000km) of lines with some 8,000 blockhouses manned by 50,000 British troops and 16,000 Africans.
Source: The Boer War South Africa 1899-1902 by Martin Marix Evans
About my pictures:
Since 2014 I've been documenting the daily, destructive, poisonous chemtrail activity in the Dayton, Ohio area -- home of the notorious Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (visited by every important person on Earth, and even a few Aliens ;-) -- and apparently from my photo and video documentation, Chemtrail Central. This area has been getting chemtrailed on a massive, daily basis and is being conducted, as they say, “in plain sight”. I've got over 10,000 high-resolution pictures already uploaded and available for free on Flickr, with thousands more on the way:
www.flickr.com/photos/133042043@N04/albums
Additional Chemtrail videos may be found on:
www.youtube.com/user/BlueRidgeParkway
I am designating all my chemtrail pictures uploaded to Flickr as CC0 (Creative Commons Zero), which removes my copyright and releases them into the Public Domain. They are archived on Flickr under "Chem Trailchaser". I hope by making these images widely available, it will accelerate interest, research, study and more documentation from all over the world. Please, download, copy, backup, mirror, share, use and improve as many of these photos as you can! Thanks for looking - Chem
About my pictures:
Since 2014 I've been documenting the daily, destructive, poisonous chemtrail activity in the Dayton, Ohio area -- home of the notorious Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (visited by every important person on Earth, and even a few Aliens ;-) -- and apparently from my photo and video documentation, Chemtrail Central. This area has been getting chemtrailed on a massive, daily basis and is being conducted, as they say, “in plain sight”.
However, this area isn’t special in that regard. The massive chemtrailing is going on across the USA (and other countries), as evidenced in abundance on FlickR and many other sites. This incredible not-so-secret Government program, which itself is expensive and dangerous, spoils not only blue skies, but poisons our air, water and soil to unknown levels. Regardless of the purpose, weather control/weather as a weapon/mind control, it really amounts to a crime against humanity in my opinion.
In response, I have posted thousands of full-resolution images (15,000+!), documenting the overwhelming evidence of this crime on Flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/133042043@N04/albums
I have additional Chemtrail videos posted on:
www.youtube.com/user/BlueRidgeParkway
And to help generate interest, further study and assist in research, I am designating all my chemtrail pictures uploaded to Flickr (under “Chem Trailchaser”) as CC0 — Creative Commons Zero.
This removes my copyright and releases them into the Public Domain, which means that any of my photos designated CC0, can be used, without restriction or attribution, for any use. Isn’t that awesome? So please… download, copy, backup, mirror, share, use and improve as many of these photos as you can! Thanks for looking - Chem
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) Technician Bethany Benedict contacts and works with state and local partners; and residents to survey and stop the spread of the spotted lanternfly, a destructive insect that feeds on a wide range of fruit, ornamental, and hardwood trees, including grapes, apples, walnut, and oak; a serious threat to the United States' agriculture and natural resources, seen here in Manheim, Pennsylvania, on August 29, 2018. The spotted lanternfly is a destructive insect that feeds on a wide range of fruit, ornamental, and hardwood trees, including grapes, apples, walnut, and oak; a serious threat to the United States' agriculture and natural resources. The pest damages plants as it sucks sap from branches, stems, and tree trunks. The repeated feedings leave the tree bark with dark scars. Spotted lanternfly also excretes a sticky fluid, which promotes mold growth and further weakens plants and puts our agriculture and forests at risk. Native to Asia, the spotted lanternfly has no natural enemies in North America. it's free to multiply and ravage orchards, vineyards, and wooded areas. The invasive insect was first detected in the United States in Pennsylvania in 2014, and has now spread to several states, by people who accidentally move infested material or items containing egg masses.
Most states are at risk of the pest. USDA and our state and local partners are working hard to stop the spread of this invasive pest, but we need your help. Look for signs of spotted lanternfly.
Inspect trucks for egg masses before leaving parking lots or work sites. Scrape off any egg masses you find into rubbing alcohol or hand sanitizer. While parked, keep windows closed so hitchhiking nymphs and adults stay out. Make sure you also check other equipment being moved, like outdoor machinery, propane tanks, and shipping containers. If youâre a business owner, keep a close watch over your property. Park in areas away from the tree line. To capture nymphs and adults, you can wrap tree trunks with adhesive bands from May to August. You can also remove ailanthus trees, known as âThe Tree of Heaven.â These invasive weed trees are a favorite of spotted lanternflies. Most importantly, be vigilant to inspect both incoming and outgoing goods â and the containers and equipment that carry them â they could be carrying a hitching pest as well. In a quarantine area, you can get information on management controls at aphis.usda.gov/hungrypests/slf. If you do encounter spotted lanternfly eggs, nymphs, or adults outside of quarantined areas, report the sighting to your State Department of Agriculture. USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.
*Adult spotted lanternflies are approximately 1 inch long and one-half inch wide, and they have large and visually striking wings. Their forewings are light brown with black spots at the front and a speckled band at the rear. Their hind wings are scarlet with black spots at the front and white and black bars at the rear. Their abdomen is yellow with black bars. Nymphs in their early stages of development appear black with white spots and turn to a red phase before becoming adults. Egg masses are yellowish-brown in color, covered with a gray, waxy coating prior to hatching.
Find it, report it!
Contact your State Department of Agriculture or the Extension specialist near you to report signs of spotted lanternfly. If possible, take a picture or capture the insect in alcohol.
Stop the Spread
Everyone can play a role in stopping the spread of spotted lanternfly
Remove and Destroy
Crush nymph and adult spotted lanternflies. Scrape egg masses into hand sanitizer or rubbing alcohol.
For more information about the Spotted Lanternfly, please see www.aphis.usda.gov/hungrypests/slf
For more information about the Tree of Heaven, please see www.nps.gov/shen/learn/nature/tree-of-heaven.htm
PictionID:55545800 - Catalog:14_036753 - Title:GD/Astronautics Testing Details: Rose Canyon Inspection; Non-Destructive Testing Date: 03/29/1965 - Filename:14_036753.tif - ---- Images from the Convair/General Dynamics Astronautics Atlas Negative Collection. The processing, cataloging and digitization of these images has been made possible by a generous National Historical Publications and Records grant from the National Archives and Records Administration---Please Tag these images so that the information can be permanently stored with the digital file.---Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum
County town of Buckinghamshire, large and sprawling, with a destructive road system around which new brash buildings have arisen. We parked in a multistorey car park, on the third floor and travelled UP two floors to get out by walking over a bridge, through a huge recent shopping centre and out into a little oasis of streets in the old town where St Mary's church is sited, all on the same level as that fifth floor bridge.
Large and cruciform, mainly C13, grouped around a central tower with a picturesque recessed leaded clock stage with gothic open parapet and pinnacles, and short further recessed spire. The approach is to the south transept, the main entrance. Many trees make exteriors problematic. On entering there was a pervasive smell of coffee (although my friend got bacon!). The west end has a newish gallery and a dais with tables and chairs serving a cafe which is sited in the south-west corner of the south aisle and also fills the south porch. In this sea of pine boarding sits the Norman font; I was surprised that it didn't have a flat cover with "bar stools" around it. Olympic banners hang from the nave roof obstructing the view east, although the view was better from the gallery. Gorgeous west window by O'Connor. The north aisle has dome comfy armchairs and some medieval stalls ejected from elsewhere, and also a lovely baroque altar table among the clutter. The north transept has two good monuments, a cusped triangular recess with an alabaster knight, and a standing canopied monument with kneeling figures of mother and daughter complete with the original railings. Here too a Norman pillar piscina (not mentioned at all in the BofE) and a medieval cope chest. EE chancel, although east and south wall are entirely Victorian by the restorer Scott. There is an outer chapel east of the south transept (C14 with rich sedilia and a collection of memorials which seemed resited here) and an odd large square space to the west with a tall central wooden column supporting the roof. The inner south chapel has been converted into an office for a local charity which is based in the church, and has a stone screen filling the arch with a reset window.
I quite enjoyed my visit, if not the smell of stale coffee, apart from the awful staged cafe area at the west end and the poorly judged inclusion of the font here. However at least it was laid out as a church when I called, my friend recalled seeing badminton nets strewn across the nave on a previous visit. However it is obviously a well-used building, and an open one.
A tired but stiff-lipped soldier moves forward, unaware of the destructive symmetry passing him by, as he completes a routine patrol with a headquarters element of Company A, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, near Op Dai Phu hamlet, located north of Hue.
About my pictures:
Since 2014 I've been documenting the daily, destructive, poisonous chemtrail activity in the Dayton, Ohio area -- home of the notorious Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (visited by every important person on Earth, and even a few Aliens ;-) -- and apparently from my photo and video documentation, Chemtrail Central. This area has been getting chemtrailed on a massive, daily basis and is being conducted, as they say, “in plain sight”. I've got over 10,000 high-resolution pictures already uploaded and available for free on Flickr, with thousands more on the way:
www.flickr.com/photos/133042043@N04/albums
Additional Chemtrail videos may be found on:
www.youtube.com/user/BlueRidgeParkway
I am designating all my chemtrail pictures uploaded to Flickr as CC0 (Creative Commons Zero), which removes my copyright and releases them into the Public Domain. They are archived on Flickr under "Chem Trailchaser". I hope by making these images widely available, it will accelerate interest, research, study and more documentation from all over the world. Please, download, copy, backup, mirror, share, use and improve as many of these photos as you can! Thanks for looking - Chem
www.beatport.com/release/destructive-darkness/1043833
Released by: Chibar Records
Release/catalogue number: CRMK130
Release date: Mar 6, 2013
Destructive Darkness:
Tekoff - Destructive Darkness 06:08
Tekoff - Destructive Darkness (Alex Okrazo Remix) 08:15
Tekoff - Trouble 06:33
Tekoff - Enigmatik 08:07
PictionID:55548973 - Catalog:14_036998 - Title:GD/Astronautics Testing Details: O.A.O. Nose Fairing Panels; Test Failures Date: 12/02/1965 - Filename:14_036998.tif - ---- Images from the Convair/General Dynamics Astronautics Atlas Negative Collection. The processing, cataloging and digitization of these images has been made possible by a generous National Historical Publications and Records grant from the National Archives and Records Administration---Please Tag these images so that the information can be permanently stored with the digital file.---Repository: San Diego Air and Space Museum
19th WCNDT 2016 World Conference on Non-Destructive Testing, Munich, 13 - 17 June
DGZIP, German Society of Non-Destructive Testing
Not the greatest find. These pretty moths are invasive and the larvae destructive. I only have one boxwood shrub to keep protected. I guess it was good that I found this moth before my shrub was destroyed.
The dichotomy: comfort in a wild land.
Life is a destructive pursuit—our position comes at the expense of so much. Yet so little of what we destroy is by our own hand. Seldom do we find ourselves behind the wrecking ball. Nowhere is this more true than in America. Opportunity—the payoff of so much destruction—abounds, but not all are worth what they cost: much has been sacrificed in our race for a cheaper and more plentiful material world.
The barbarians of development and commercialization are forever beating upon the gates of our last wild refuges. Yet much untouched wildness remains worth protecting and it is the commercial potential of these places that is our most valuable weapon in their defense.
Much about my wild experiences illustrates this central dichotomy of American wilderness. We made Seattle from California’s central coast in less than two hours and descended in comfort through the tumult of a building storm. We rented a car and sipped African coffee as sun-bloodied clouds broke like waves upon the great volcano. We entered the pitchest shadow of both Earth and old-growth forest ascending the southern limb of Tacoma to find a warm bed nestled along the Nisqually.
In the morning I woke and climbed a rain-soaked ribbon of slate. Winding through dense fog, I drove with no destination in mind. Here and there the curtain of pine opened to reveal a white and murky world beyond. Before the road reached the yawning scar of spring melts, I turned off at Christine Falls. Alone and cold, I made a few images of the falls. At moments like this, my gaze is cast back toward the hectic pace of daily life, back across the scar my own existence is bound to cut across the Earth. I wonder what life is like for a Douglas fir in the katabatic wind of the great mountain—bound for centuries to a small patch of rock where “nature red in tooth and claw” surely compares favorably with the sting of an eight-month winter. Is it paradise? Is it interminable? Privilege and immense opportunity aside, the singularity of life leaves so many questions behind.
Perhaps some romanticize a retreat to an anachronistic idea of what life should be. Perhaps some would abandon from modernity—but not I. The box is open and evils loosed. The central question now is, how can we ensure the persistence of conservation? How can we use what opportunity is given to better ourselves and others?
The itch to return just under my skin.
This is the question that faces parks today and it is asked not just from within: this weekend this topic sprung up in conversation online with friends. Industrial tourism both threatens and sustains the parks. I am loathe to wholly condemn it simply because I know I could not visit the parks without roads and without lodging—my days of backpacking are both behind and far in front of me. My hope is that park visitation is a positive experience for others as it is for me; that visiting the National Parks continues to build faith in its mission.
Landscape photography may have started for me as an attempt to collect a portfolio of beautiful images but it quickly turned into a method to lose myself somewhere beautiful. Words often fail when I try to express what it means to me to make a few photographs in some place as sublime as Mount Rainier National Park. Could I bottle and share an approximation of the feeling we would have seen our last box store built. Instead I can share only photographs and a few sentences.
I’m not after post-card images. The past two years of living in California, of exploring the coasts and the mountains I am left of sound opinion that a photograph’s power is in its ability to share a genuine moment. My younger self may have been disappointed with the fog that obscured whatever early morning color might have come from sunrise, but I was giddy. Fog means terrific, soft light. Fog means drama and the chance to focus on the world within a radius of some 100 feet.
The falls sent out a tongue of cold mist whose path was notable even above the fog and chill of night not yet shook loose from the fragrant trees. The irony of Rainier is that it is a volcano that flows everywhere with ice and water. Standing before the falls amongst centuries-old firs, one must remind himself that man and pine alike are just visitors to a perilous land.
Years ago, I had the pleasure of waiting for sunrise along the rain-kissed roadside cliffs of Tahoe and Glacier National Park. The world of rock and trees and fog are everywhere similar and are nowhere the same. Minarets of stone wring the very water from the air and wear the spoils. Vast armies of evergreens pour over the foothills and march onward into the permafrost until they can climb no more, twisted and stunted in the frigid breath of the mountain. Wherever I go, I hold the scent of falling water and pine resin in my mind and the itch to return just under my skin.
In the past 200 years we’ve transformed nearly all the wild places of the Earth. I fetishize wildness, I’ll admit it. I doubt, however, that my love for it is any deeper than the apathy that exists elsewhere towards its destruction; and, so, if there is any role for one amateur photographer and nature lover in the support of parks—I am only too happy to play my part. In these experiences, I constantly reflect on whether my coming to these places or my consumption of photography has done anything to contribute to their preservation. I never have an answer.
About my pictures:
Since 2014 I've been documenting the daily, destructive, poisonous chemtrail activity in the Dayton, Ohio area -- home of the notorious Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (visited by every important person on Earth, and even a few Aliens ;-) -- and apparently from my photo and video documentation, Chemtrail Central. This area has been getting chemtrailed on a massive, daily basis and is being conducted, as they say, “in plain sight”. I've got over 10,000 high-resolution pictures already uploaded and available for free on Flickr, with thousands more on the way:
www.flickr.com/photos/133042043@N04/albums
Additional Chemtrail videos may be found on:
www.youtube.com/user/BlueRidgeParkway
I am designating all my chemtrail pictures uploaded to Flickr as CC0 (Creative Commons Zero), which removes my copyright and releases them into the Public Domain. They are archived on Flickr under "Chem Trailchaser". I hope by making these images widely available, it will accelerate interest, research, study and more documentation from all over the world. Please, download, copy, backup, mirror, share, use and improve as many of these photos as you can! Thanks for looking - Chem
I correctly forecast single costliest natural disaster ever world wide in great detail.
On the evening of June 15, 1896, the northeast coast of Hondo, the main island of Japan, was struck by a great earthquake wave (tsunami), which was more destructive of life and property than any earthquake convulsion of this century in that empire. The whole coastline of the San-Riku, the three provinces of Rikuzen, Rikuchu, and Rikuoku, from the island of Kinkwazan, 38° 20' north, northward for 175 miles, was laid waste by a great wave moving from the east and south, that varied in recorded height from 10 to 50 feet. A few survivors, who saw it advancing in the darkness, report its height as 80 to 100 feet. With a difference of but thirty minutes in time between the southern and northern points, it struck the San-Riku coast and in a trice obliterated towns and villages, killed 26,975 people out of the original population, and grievously wounded the 5,390 survivors. It washed away and wrecked 9,313 houses, stranded some 300 larger craft—steamers, schooners, and junks—and crushed or carried away 10,000 fishing boats, destroying property to the value of six million yen. Thousands of acres of arable land were turned to wastes, projecting rocks offshore were broken, overturned, or moved hundreds of yards, shallows and bars were formed, and in some localities the entire shoreline was changed.
They were all seafaring communities along this coast strip and the fisheries were the chief industry. The shipment of sea products to the great ports was the main connection with the outer world. A high mountain range bars communication with the trunk railway line of the island, and this picturesque, fiord-cut coast is so remote and so isolated that only two foreigners had been seen in the region in ten years, with the exception of the French mission priest, Father Raspail, who lost his life in the flood. With telegraph offices, instruments, and operators carried away, word came slowly to Tokyo, and with 50 to 100 miles of mountain roads between the nearest railway station and the seacoast aid was long in reaching the wretched survivors. When adequate idea of the calamity reached the capital and the cities, men-of-war, soldiers, sappers, surgeons, and nurses were quickly dispatched, and public sympathy found expression in contributions through the different newspapers, amounting to more than 250,000 yen, for the relief of the injured. The Japanese journalist and photographer were quickly on their way, and the vernacular press soon fed the public full of horrors, yet the first to reach the scene of the disaster was an American missionary, the Rev. Rothesay Miller, who made the usual three days' trip over the mountains in less than a day and a half on his American bicycle.
There were old traditions of such earthquake waves on this coast, one of two centuries ago doing some damage, and a tsunami of forty years ago and a lesser one of 1892 flooding the streets of Kamaishi and driving people to upper floors and the roofs of their houses. The barometer gave no warning, no indication of any unusual conditions on June 15, and the occurrence of thirteen light earthquake shocks during the day excited no comment. Rain had fallen in the morning and afternoon, and with a temperature of 80° to 90° the damp atmosphere was very oppressive. The villagers on that remote coast adhered to the old calendar in observing their local fêtes and holidays, and on that fifth day of the fifth moon had been celebrating the Girls' Festival. Rain had driven them indoors with the darkness, and nearly all were in their houses at eight o'clock, when, with a rumbling as of heavy cannonading out at sea, a roar, and the crash and crackling of timbers, they were suddenly engulfed in the swirling waters. Only a few survivors on all that length of coast saw the advancing wave, one of them telling that the water first receded some 600 yards from ghastly white sands and then the Wave stood like a black wall 80 feet in height, with phosphorescent lights gleaming along its crest. Others, hearing a distant roar, saw a dark shadow seaward and ran to high ground, crying "Tsunami! tsunami!" Some who ran to the upper stories of their houses for safety were drowned, crushed, or imprisoned there, only a few breaking through the roofs or escaping after the water subsided.
Shallow water and outlying islands broke the force of the wave in some places, and in long, narrow inlets or fiords the giant roller was broken into two, three, and even six waves, that crashed upon the shore in succession. Ships and junks were carried one and two miles inland, left on hilltops, treetops, and in the midst of fields uninjured or mixed up with the ruins of houses, the rest engulfed or swept seaward. Where the wave entered a fiord or bay it bore everything along to the head of the ravine or valley and left the mass of debris in a heap at the end. Where the coast was low and faced the open ocean the wave washed in and, retreating, carried everything back with it. Many survivors, swept away by the waters, were cast ashore on outlying islands, or seized bits of wreckage and kept afloat. On the open coast the wave came and withdrew within five minutes, while in long inlets the waters boiled and surged for nearly a half hour before subsiding. The best swimmers were helpless in the first swirl of water, and nearly all the bodies recovered were frightfully battered and mutilated, rolled over and driven against rocks, struck by and crushed between timbers. The force of the wave cut down groves of large pine trees to short stumps, snapped thick granite posts of temple gates and carried the stone cross-beams 309 yards away. Many people were lost through running back to save others or to save their valuables.
One loyal schoolmaster carried the emperor's portrait to a place of safety before seeking out his own family. A half-demented soldier, retired since the late war and continually brooding on a possible attack by the enemy, became convinced that the first cannonading sound was from a hostile fleet, and, seizing his sword, ran down to the beach to meet the foe. One village officer, mistaking the sound of crashing timbers for crackling flames, ran to high ground to see where the fire was, and thus saved his life. Another village officer, living on the edge of a hill, heard the crash and slid his screens open to look upon foaming waters nearly level with his veranda. In a moment the waters disappeared, leaving a black, empty level where the populous village had been a few minutes before. Four women clung to one man, seeking to escape to high ground, and their combined weight resisting the force of the receding wave they were all saved. The only survivors of another village were eight men who had been playing the game of "go" in a hillside temple. Eight children floated away and left on high ground were believed to be the only survivors of one village, until one hundred people were found who had been borne across and stranded on the opposite shores of their bay. One hundred and fifty people were found cast away on one island offshore. From two large villages on one bay only thirty young men survived, hardy, muscular young fishermen and powerful swimmers, yet in other places the strongest perished, and the aged and infirm, cripples, and tiny children were miraculously preserved. The wave flooded the cells of Okachi prison and the jailers broke the bolts and let the 195 convicts free. Only two convicts attempted to escape, the others waiting in good order until marched to the high ground by their keepers. The good Père Raspail had just reached Kamaishi from his all-day walk of 50 miles over the mountains and entered his inn, when his assistant called to him from the street. The priest came to the veranda, but in an instant the water was upon him. He was seen later, swimming, but evidently was struck by timbers or swept out to sea, as his body has not been recovered. Japanese men-of-war cruised for a week off Kamaishi, recovering bodies daily. The Japanese system of census enumeration is so complete and minute that the name of every person who lost his life was soon known, and the Official Gazette was able to state that out of a population of 6,529 at Kamaishi 4,985 were lost and 500 injured, while 953 dwellings and 867 warehouses and other structures were destroyed or carried away, and 176 ships carried inland or swept out and lost.
The survivors were so stunned with the appalling disaster that few could do anything for themselves or others. With houses, nets, and fishing-boats carried away and the fish retreating to further and deeper waters, starvation faced them, and, the great heat continuing while so many bodies were strewn along shore and imprisoned in ruins, the atmosphere fast became poisonous. The north-coast people are opposed to cremation and insisted on earth burial, which delayed the disposal of the dead and augmented the danger of pestilence. Disinfectants were sent in quantity, and the work of recovery and burial was so pressing that soldiers were put to it after all available coolies had been impressed. The Red Cross Society, with its hospitals and nurses, had difficulty in caring for all the wounded, the greater number of whom, besides requiring surgical aid, were suffering from pneumonia and internal inflammations consequent upon their long exposure in wet clothing without shelter and from the brine, fish oil, and sand breathed in and swallowed while in the first tumult of waters. Besides the generous relief fund subscribed by the people, the government has made large assignments from its available funds and sent stores of provisions, clothing, tools, etc., to the 60,000 homeless, ruined, bereaved, and starving people of the San-Riku coast.
The wave was plainly felt two hours later on the shores of the island of Yesso, 200 miles north of the center of disturbance on the San-Riku coast, the water advancing 80 feet beyond high-tide mark on the beach at Hakodate. Eight hours later there was a great disturbance of the waters on the shores of the Bonin islands, more than 700 miles southward, the water rising three or four feet and retreating violently. Six hours later, on the shores of Kaui, the most northern of the Hawaiian islands, distant 3,390 miles, the waters receded violently and washed on shore in a wave some inches above the normal height.
The plainest inference has been that the great wave was the result of an eruption, explosion, or other disturbance in the bed of the sea, 500 or 600 miles off the San-Riku coast. The most popular theory is that it resulted from the caving-in of some part of the wall or bed of the great "Tuscarora Deep," one of the greatest depressions of the ocean bed in the world, discovered in 1874 by the present Rear-Admiral Belknap, U. S. N., while in command of the U. S. S. Tuscarora, engaged in deep-sea surveys.
The "Tuscarora Deep" is nearly five and one-third statute miles in depth, being exceeded, so far as known, only by the still more profound depths discovered last year in the South Pacific by Commander A. F. Balfour, of the British Navy.
That disturbances were taking place in this tremendous abyss was again suggested at six o'clock on the morning of July 4, when the Canadian Pacific Railway Company's mail steamer Empress of Japan, sailing directly over it in a smooth sea, was shaken as if a propeller blade had been lost or the ship had struck an obstruction. Every one was roused by the peculiar shock, but no visible explanation was furnished. The destructive wave and this incident together should stimulate further investigation of this dangerous, bottomless pit of the Pacific ocean, which owes its discovery to United States explorers by deep-sea soundings.
this particular block house is in absolutely great condition, 117 years after. kept away from the ever present destructive monster in man/woman unkind. most of its internal wooden decks/planking are in great shape. many thanks to a farmer that allowed me to document this
baie dankie jannie!
more images to follow later in a special album
photographer's note-
blockhouses were built by the british from 1899-1902 during the anglo-boer war to protect the railway bridges from
boer attacks
the stone is local while the remaining materials were imported from britain. some were constructed entirely from concrete
the block houses could house 20 men with water, munitions and supplies stored on the lower floor. The living quarters were on the middle floor and was accessible by a retractable ladder and the top floor was the lookout deck.
only about 1000 of these blockhouses were built and few have survived
they were very effective barriers and few saw any action.
end of note
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The building of blockhouses started in March 1900 to protect the railways, in particular the railway bridges. Many of these were impressive structures of stone, with corrugated iron roofs, standing three storeys high and enetred by an external wooden stair in the form of a drawbridge.
These were effective but also time consuming and costly to build. This led to more modest style structures being built in the form of rectangular, signle-storey buildings with a stone wall mounted upon which was a coorugated iron upperwork, this was pierced with loopholes and double skinned, the void between being filled with stones to block rifle fire. Even these structures were slow to construct and a solution to these was sort by Kitchener, he turned to Major Spring R Rice, Officer Commanding 23 Field Company, Royal Engineers based as Middleburg, Transvaal.
Major Rice designed two new forms of blockhouse, the first octagonal and the second, the one that became known as the 'Rice Blockhouse'. circular. This was made of of corrugated iron filled with a stone-filled, loopholed shield above and an earth-filled caisson below, the whole being topped off with a stone roof. When ideally sited the door was blocked approached under cover of a trench and the hillock on which it sat and the lower part of the walls was covered with loose stones for added protection. It was said that trained men could erect such a blockhouse in a single day and the record for erecting one was a mere three hours. It was usually garrisoned by a non-commissioned officer and six men. Outside the immediate area was protected by barbed wire and a barbed wire fence stretched between one blockhouse and the next, hung out with tin cans to make as much noise as possible when disturbed.
The fortifications in cluded numerous other modesl, often ad-hoc designs fashioned to meet the requirements of the location and adjusted to make the best of available materials, but the Rice design was the one that sprang up in huge numbers. By September 1901 the Western Railway blockhouse line from De Aar to Lobatsi, north of Mafeking, was complete, as was the Central Railway system from Naauwpoort to Pretoria and the Delalgoa Railway to the border of Koomati Poort. In addition a box west of Johannesburg and Pretoria and a line south-east to Standerton and Newcastle were operational. In the next three months the line north from Pretoria to Pietersberg was built, the Western Railwasy cover extended south-west to beaufort West and numerous additions made in Transvaal and was now Orange Colony. By May 1902 a line of blockhouses ran from Beaufort West right across Cape Colony to the Atlantic coast and yet more lines had been added elsewhere. By the end of the war there were 3,700 miles (6,000km) of lines with some 8,000 blockhouses manned by 50,000 British troops and 16,000 Africans.
Source: The Boer War South Africa 1899-1902 by Martin Marix Evans
Longwall mining is a highly destructive practice that goes against the ethic of land stewardship American agricultural communities are founded upon. Coal companies that practice longwall mining are not required to prevent damage – they are only required to compensate citizens whose property they have damaged or destroyed. Rural residents often choose to sell their homes and farms rather than stay and face the consequences of the longwall machine, leading to the depopulation of rural areas above the longwall mines.
Aphids, also known as plant lice and in Britain and the Commonwealth as greenflies, blackflies or whiteflies, are small sap sucking insects, and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea.[1] Aphids are among the most destructive insect pests on cultivated plants in temperate regions.[1] The damage they do to plants has made them enemies of farmers and gardeners the world over, but from a zoological standpoint they are a very successful group of organisms.[2] Their success is in part due to the asexual reproduction capability of some species.
About 4,400 species of 10 families are known. Historically, many fewer families were recognised, as most species were included in the family Aphididae. Around 250 species are serious pests for agriculture and forestry as well as an annoyance for gardeners. They vary in length from 1 to 10 millimetres (0.04 to 0.39 in).
Natural enemies include predatory ladybirds, hoverfly larvae, parasitic wasps, aphid midge larvae, crab spiders, lacewings and entomopathogenic fungi like Lecanicillium lecanii and the Entomophthorales.
Hello everyone. .
waiting your comments
أهلن
شخباركم .
الصراااحه فن الماكرو ممتع
يخلي الشخص اول مره يشوف هالحشرات وهي كبيرره
وعاااد انا من اخذت العدسه ولم اترك هالمجال الممتع
وهي رؤية مخلوقات الله
وهي الحشرات لا ترى تفاصيلها بالعين المجرده ولكن التطور والتكنولوجيا
وصلت فأيدينا عدسات وكاميرات ممكن نشوف هالعالم الصغير بأعيننا
وهالمره الكل يمكن النص يعرف هالحشره
معلومات عنها :-
المن (بالإنكليزية: Aphids) هو نوع من الحشرات الصغيرة التي تتغذى على عصارة النباتات، كما يعتبرها المزارعون حشرات ضارة ومؤذية
كثيرة هي النباتات التي تتعرض للإصابة بالمن، وهي تشمل أشجاراً ونباتات عشبية أيضاً. من هذه النباتات:
الرمان
فول الصويا
يترافق وجود المن أحياناً مع مجود النمل. فهناك بعض أنواع النمل التي تستغل هذه الحشرات لتوفير الغذاء، فهذا النوع من النمل يأخذ بيض حشرة المن ويحتفظ به في منازله تحت الأرض في الظلام حتى تفقس هذه البيوض، وتبقى فترة طويلة في الظلام، فتصاب بالعمى، وتفقد بصرها، وبعد ذلك يقوم النمل بإخراج هذه الحشرات للخارج، حيث يرعاها وينقلها ويوجهها كيفما شاء وأراد، فيسير بهذه القطعان من المن لتتغذى، ثم يعيدها إلى مسكنه حيث يحلبها وذلك بأن يضربها على مؤخرتها ضربات خاصة بقرون الاستشعار ؛ ليحفزها على أن تدر وتفرز سائلا سكريا هو من أفضل أنواع الأطعمة عند النمل، وتقدر كمية ما تفرزه الحشرة الواحدة بـ(48) قطرة يوميا. وهذا يزيد مائة ضعف عما تنتجه البقرة إذا قارنا حجم الحشرة بحجم البقرة. وقد حاول أحد العلماء أن يحاكي ضربات قرون الاستشعار عند النملة فأحضر شعيرتين، وضرب بهما مؤخرة حشرة المن ليستدرها، فلم يستطع أن يحفزها على افراز هذا السائل.
وطبعا الحشره حصلت منها الكثير
في اوراق الشجر عندنا وحبيت اصورها
وشوفو النتيجه من العدسه الجباره ممتازه بالنسبه لي
مع انه ينقصها شويت وضوح ولكن انا بالنسبه لي بدون مكبرات الصوره حلوه < برااا
وعااد انا انتظر رأيكم في هالشغله هه
لانه حبيت هالمجال واتمنى الكل يشجعني ما يحبطني
والي يحبط يروح دربه هههه
وطبعا الجاي احلى واحلى هه انتظرونا بس ههههههههههه
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Photography@Just Crazy
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About my pictures:
Since 2014 I've been documenting the daily, destructive, poisonous chemtrail activity in the Dayton, Ohio area -- home of the notorious Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (visited by every important person on Earth, and even a few Aliens ;-) -- and apparently from my photo and video documentation, Chemtrail Central. This area has been getting chemtrailed on a massive, daily basis and is being conducted, as they say, “in plain sight”. I've got over 10,000 high-resolution pictures already uploaded and available for free on Flickr, with thousands more on the way:
www.flickr.com/photos/133042043@N04/albums
Additional Chemtrail videos may be found on:
www.youtube.com/user/BlueRidgeParkway
I am designating all my chemtrail pictures uploaded to Flickr as CC0 (Creative Commons Zero), which removes my copyright and releases them into the Public Domain. They are archived on Flickr under "Chem Trailchaser". I hope by making these images widely available, it will accelerate interest, research, study and more documentation from all over the world. Please, download, copy, backup, mirror, share, use and improve as many of these photos as you can! Thanks for looking - Chem
"A self-destructive man feels completely alienated, utterly alone. He's an outsider to the human community. He thinks to himself, "I must be insane." What he fails to realize is that society has, just as he does, a vested interest in considerable losses and catastrophes. These wars, famines, floods and quakes meet well-defined needs.
Man wants chaos. In fact, he's gotta have it. Depression, strife, riots, murder, all this dread. We're irresistibly drawn to that almost orgiastic state created out of death and destruction. It's in all of us. We revel in it. Sure, the media tries to put a sad face on these things, painting them up as great human tragedies. But we all know the function of the media has never been to eliminate the evils of the world, no. Their job is to persuade us to accept those evils and get used to living with them. The powers that be want us to be passive observers. And they haven't given us any other options outside the occasional, purely symbolic, participatory act of voting. You want the puppet on the right or the puppet on the left?"
- Waking Life
About my pictures:
Since 2014 I've been documenting the daily, destructive, poisonous chemtrail activity in the Dayton, Ohio area -- home of the notorious Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (visited by every important person on Earth, and even a few Aliens ;-) -- and apparently from my photo and video documentation, Chemtrail Central. This area has been getting chemtrailed on a massive, daily basis and is being conducted, as they say, “in plain sight”.
However, this area isn’t special in that regard. The massive chemtrailing is going on across the USA (and other countries), as evidenced in abundance on FlickR and many other sites. This incredible not-so-secret Government program, which itself is expensive and dangerous, spoils not only blue skies, but poisons our air, water and soil to unknown levels. Regardless of the purpose, weather control/weather as a weapon/mind control, it really amounts to a crime against humanity in my opinion.
In response, I have posted thousands of full-resolution images (15,000+!), documenting the overwhelming evidence of this crime on Flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/133042043@N04/albums
I have additional Chemtrail videos posted on:
www.youtube.com/user/BlueRidgeParkway
And to help generate interest, further study and assist in research, I am designating all my chemtrail pictures uploaded to Flickr (under “Chem Trailchaser”) as CC0 — Creative Commons Zero.
This removes my copyright and releases them into the Public Domain, which means that any of my photos designated CC0, can be used, without restriction or attribution, for any use. Isn’t that awesome? So please… download, copy, backup, mirror, share, use and improve as many of these photos as you can! Thanks for looking - Chem
The Dance of Death (1493) by Michael Wolgemut, from the 'Liber chronicarum' by Hartmann Schedel.
MARLE, van, Raimond (1932). Iconographie de l'Art Profane au Moyen-Age et a la Renaissance. Allegories et symboles. Martinus Nijhoff, La Haye/Den Haag.
The "Dance of Death" was originally a species of spectacular play akin to the English moralities. It has been traced back to the middle of the fourteenth century. The epidemics so frequent and so destructive at that time, such as the Black Death, brought before popular imagination the subject of death and its universal sway. The dramatic movement then developing led to its treatment in the dramatic form. In these plays Death appeared not as the destroyer, but as the messenger of God summoning men to the world beyond the grave, a conception familiar both to the Holy Bible and to the ancient poets. The dancing movement of the characters was a somewhat later development, as at first Death and his victims moved at a slow and dignified gait. But Death, acting the part of a messenger, naturally took the attitude and movement of the day, namely the fiddlers and other musicians, and the dance of death was the result.
The purpose of these plays was to teach the truth that all men must die and should therefore prepare themselves to appear before their Judge. The scene of the play was usually the cemetery or churchyard, though sometimes it may have been the church itself. The spectacle was opened by a sermon on the certainty of death delivered by a monk. At the close of the sermon there came forth from the charnel-house, usually found in the churchyard, a series of figures decked out in the traditional mask of death, a close-fitting, yellowish linen suit painted so as to resemble a skeleton. One of them addresses the intended victim, who is invited to accompany him beyond the grave. The first victim was usually the pope or the emperor. The invitation is not regarded with favour and various reasons are given for declining it, but these are found insufficient and finally death leads away his victim. A second messenger then seizes the hand of a new victim, a prince or a cardinal, who is followed by others representing the various classes of society, the usual number being twenty-four. The play was followed by a second sermon reinforcing the lesson of the representation.
The oldest traces of these plays are found in Germany, but we have the Spanish text for a similar dramatic performance dating back to the year 1360, "La Danza General de la Muerte". We read of similar dramatic representations elsewhere: in Bruges before Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy in 1449; in 1453 at Besançon, and in France in the Cimetière des Innocents near Paris in 1424. That similar spectacles were known in England we infer from John Lydgate's "Dance of Death" written in the first half of the fifteenth century. In Italy besides the traditional dance of death we find spectacular representations of death as the all-conqueror in the so-called "Trionfo della Morte". The earliest traces of this conception may be found in Dante and Petrarch. In Florence (1559) the "triumph of death" formed a part of the carnival celebration. We may describe it as follows: After dark a huge wagon, draped in black and drawn by oxen, drove through the streets of the city. At the end of the shaft was seen the Angel of Death blowing the trumpet. On the top of the wagon stood a great figure of Death carrying a scythe and surrounded by coffins. Around the wagons were covered graves which opened whenever the procession halted. Men dressed in black garments on which were painted skulls and bones came forth and, seated on the edge of the graves, sang dirges on the shortness of human life. Before and behind the wagon appeared men in black and white bearing torches and death masks, followed by banners displaying skulls and bones and skeletons riding on scrawny nags. While they marched the entire company sang the Miserere with trembling voices.
Specimens of the dramatic dance of death have been preserved in the Altsfeld Passion Plays, in the French morality entitled "Charité", and in the Neumarkt Passion Play which opens with the triumph of Death. As the painter's art developed, the dance of death was in a way made permanent by being painted on the enclosing walls of cemeteries, on charnel-houses, in mortuary chapels, and even in churches. These representations are found in most of the countries of Europe. One of the most famous is the "Triumph of Death" in the cemetery of Pisa, painted between 1450 and 1500. One of the oldest pictures of the dance of death proper is that in the Cemetière des Innocents at Paris (1425). Bäumker, in Herder's "Kirchenlexikon", enumerates seven French dances of death dating back to the fifteenth century, three of the sixteenth century, three of the seventeenth century, seven of uncertain date, five in England, and four in Italy. Within the limits of the old German Empire there still exist some thirty painted dances of death scattered throughout Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. In many representations underneath the several couples are found a rhymed dialogue between Death and his victims, being the invitation of the former and the reply of his victim.
With the development of his art the dance of death naturally became a popular theme for the engraver. Many such prints were produced by various German artists, but the most famous version is that of the younger Holbein, issued in 1538 by the brothers Trechsel at Lyons. It appears to be clear from the researches of Wornum and Woltmann, of Paul Mantz, of W. J. Linton, the Rev. G. Davies, C. Dodgson, and others, that the drawings were undoubtedly the work of Hans Holbein the younger, who was resident in Basle up to the autumn of 1526, before which time the drawings must have been produced. They were distinctly in his manner and of extraordinarily high merit. There is no evidence that Holbein ever cut a block himself, and when these were issued it was expressly stated that the artist or engraver, who is now generally accepted as Hans Lütszelberger, one of the greatest of German engravers, was dead. But little is known of his career. He was certainly dead before 1526. The designs appear to have been cut on the wood eleven years before the book was published, and their issue was probably held back by reason of the unsettled state of religious opinion in Basle. The series comprises forty-two engravings, the subject expressed with masterly dramatic power, marvellous clearness, and marked reticence of line. Technically they are as perfect as woodcuts can be. There are five sets of proof impressions in existence, and the little book passed through nine editions at Lyons and was printed also in Venice, Augsburg, and Basle. There have been many reissues and reproductions of it, and a facsimile of the first edition was published in Munich in 1884.
Besides the "Dance of Death" Holbein designed a series of initials consisting of an alphabet in which it is the motif. Of Holbein's larger "Dance of Death" more than one hundred editions have appeared. Since Holbein this subject has been treated again and again, especially by German engravers. The most noted of recent dances of death is that by Alfred Rethel, 1848, in which Death is represented as the hero of the Red Republic. Both the conception and the execution of Rethel's engravings are highly artistic and impressive.(newadvent.org)
I correctly forecast single costliest natural disaster ever world wide in great detail.
On the evening of June 15, 1896, the northeast coast of Hondo, the main island of Japan, was struck by a great earthquake wave (tsunami), which was more destructive of life and property than any earthquake convulsion of this century in that empire. The whole coastline of the San-Riku, the three provinces of Rikuzen, Rikuchu, and Rikuoku, from the island of Kinkwazan, 38° 20' north, northward for 175 miles, was laid waste by a great wave moving from the east and south, that varied in recorded height from 10 to 50 feet. A few survivors, who saw it advancing in the darkness, report its height as 80 to 100 feet. With a difference of but thirty minutes in time between the southern and northern points, it struck the San-Riku coast and in a trice obliterated towns and villages, killed 26,975 people out of the original population, and grievously wounded the 5,390 survivors. It washed away and wrecked 9,313 houses, stranded some 300 larger craft—steamers, schooners, and junks—and crushed or carried away 10,000 fishing boats, destroying property to the value of six million yen. Thousands of acres of arable land were turned to wastes, projecting rocks offshore were broken, overturned, or moved hundreds of yards, shallows and bars were formed, and in some localities the entire shoreline was changed.
They were all seafaring communities along this coast strip and the fisheries were the chief industry. The shipment of sea products to the great ports was the main connection with the outer world. A high mountain range bars communication with the trunk railway line of the island, and this picturesque, fiord-cut coast is so remote and so isolated that only two foreigners had been seen in the region in ten years, with the exception of the French mission priest, Father Raspail, who lost his life in the flood. With telegraph offices, instruments, and operators carried away, word came slowly to Tokyo, and with 50 to 100 miles of mountain roads between the nearest railway station and the seacoast aid was long in reaching the wretched survivors. When adequate idea of the calamity reached the capital and the cities, men-of-war, soldiers, sappers, surgeons, and nurses were quickly dispatched, and public sympathy found expression in contributions through the different newspapers, amounting to more than 250,000 yen, for the relief of the injured. The Japanese journalist and photographer were quickly on their way, and the vernacular press soon fed the public full of horrors, yet the first to reach the scene of the disaster was an American missionary, the Rev. Rothesay Miller, who made the usual three days' trip over the mountains in less than a day and a half on his American bicycle.
There were old traditions of such earthquake waves on this coast, one of two centuries ago doing some damage, and a tsunami of forty years ago and a lesser one of 1892 flooding the streets of Kamaishi and driving people to upper floors and the roofs of their houses. The barometer gave no warning, no indication of any unusual conditions on June 15, and the occurrence of thirteen light earthquake shocks during the day excited no comment. Rain had fallen in the morning and afternoon, and with a temperature of 80° to 90° the damp atmosphere was very oppressive. The villagers on that remote coast adhered to the old calendar in observing their local fêtes and holidays, and on that fifth day of the fifth moon had been celebrating the Girls' Festival. Rain had driven them indoors with the darkness, and nearly all were in their houses at eight o'clock, when, with a rumbling as of heavy cannonading out at sea, a roar, and the crash and crackling of timbers, they were suddenly engulfed in the swirling waters. Only a few survivors on all that length of coast saw the advancing wave, one of them telling that the water first receded some 600 yards from ghastly white sands and then the Wave stood like a black wall 80 feet in height, with phosphorescent lights gleaming along its crest. Others, hearing a distant roar, saw a dark shadow seaward and ran to high ground, crying "Tsunami! tsunami!" Some who ran to the upper stories of their houses for safety were drowned, crushed, or imprisoned there, only a few breaking through the roofs or escaping after the water subsided.
Shallow water and outlying islands broke the force of the wave in some places, and in long, narrow inlets or fiords the giant roller was broken into two, three, and even six waves, that crashed upon the shore in succession. Ships and junks were carried one and two miles inland, left on hilltops, treetops, and in the midst of fields uninjured or mixed up with the ruins of houses, the rest engulfed or swept seaward. Where the wave entered a fiord or bay it bore everything along to the head of the ravine or valley and left the mass of debris in a heap at the end. Where the coast was low and faced the open ocean the wave washed in and, retreating, carried everything back with it. Many survivors, swept away by the waters, were cast ashore on outlying islands, or seized bits of wreckage and kept afloat. On the open coast the wave came and withdrew within five minutes, while in long inlets the waters boiled and surged for nearly a half hour before subsiding. The best swimmers were helpless in the first swirl of water, and nearly all the bodies recovered were frightfully battered and mutilated, rolled over and driven against rocks, struck by and crushed between timbers. The force of the wave cut down groves of large pine trees to short stumps, snapped thick granite posts of temple gates and carried the stone cross-beams 309 yards away. Many people were lost through running back to save others or to save their valuables.
One loyal schoolmaster carried the emperor's portrait to a place of safety before seeking out his own family. A half-demented soldier, retired since the late war and continually brooding on a possible attack by the enemy, became convinced that the first cannonading sound was from a hostile fleet, and, seizing his sword, ran down to the beach to meet the foe. One village officer, mistaking the sound of crashing timbers for crackling flames, ran to high ground to see where the fire was, and thus saved his life. Another village officer, living on the edge of a hill, heard the crash and slid his screens open to look upon foaming waters nearly level with his veranda. In a moment the waters disappeared, leaving a black, empty level where the populous village had been a few minutes before. Four women clung to one man, seeking to escape to high ground, and their combined weight resisting the force of the receding wave they were all saved. The only survivors of another village were eight men who had been playing the game of "go" in a hillside temple. Eight children floated away and left on high ground were believed to be the only survivors of one village, until one hundred people were found who had been borne across and stranded on the opposite shores of their bay. One hundred and fifty people were found cast away on one island offshore. From two large villages on one bay only thirty young men survived, hardy, muscular young fishermen and powerful swimmers, yet in other places the strongest perished, and the aged and infirm, cripples, and tiny children were miraculously preserved. The wave flooded the cells of Okachi prison and the jailers broke the bolts and let the 195 convicts free. Only two convicts attempted to escape, the others waiting in good order until marched to the high ground by their keepers. The good Père Raspail had just reached Kamaishi from his all-day walk of 50 miles over the mountains and entered his inn, when his assistant called to him from the street. The priest came to the veranda, but in an instant the water was upon him. He was seen later, swimming, but evidently was struck by timbers or swept out to sea, as his body has not been recovered. Japanese men-of-war cruised for a week off Kamaishi, recovering bodies daily. The Japanese system of census enumeration is so complete and minute that the name of every person who lost his life was soon known, and the Official Gazette was able to state that out of a population of 6,529 at Kamaishi 4,985 were lost and 500 injured, while 953 dwellings and 867 warehouses and other structures were destroyed or carried away, and 176 ships carried inland or swept out and lost.
The survivors were so stunned with the appalling disaster that few could do anything for themselves or others. With houses, nets, and fishing-boats carried away and the fish retreating to further and deeper waters, starvation faced them, and, the great heat continuing while so many bodies were strewn along shore and imprisoned in ruins, the atmosphere fast became poisonous. The north-coast people are opposed to cremation and insisted on earth burial, which delayed the disposal of the dead and augmented the danger of pestilence. Disinfectants were sent in quantity, and the work of recovery and burial was so pressing that soldiers were put to it after all available coolies had been impressed. The Red Cross Society, with its hospitals and nurses, had difficulty in caring for all the wounded, the greater number of whom, besides requiring surgical aid, were suffering from pneumonia and internal inflammations consequent upon their long exposure in wet clothing without shelter and from the brine, fish oil, and sand breathed in and swallowed while in the first tumult of waters. Besides the generous relief fund subscribed by the people, the government has made large assignments from its available funds and sent stores of provisions, clothing, tools, etc., to the 60,000 homeless, ruined, bereaved, and starving people of the San-Riku coast.
The wave was plainly felt two hours later on the shores of the island of Yesso, 200 miles north of the center of disturbance on the San-Riku coast, the water advancing 80 feet beyond high-tide mark on the beach at Hakodate. Eight hours later there was a great disturbance of the waters on the shores of the Bonin islands, more than 700 miles southward, the water rising three or four feet and retreating violently. Six hours later, on the shores of Kaui, the most northern of the Hawaiian islands, distant 3,390 miles, the waters receded violently and washed on shore in a wave some inches above the normal height.
The plainest inference has been that the great wave was the result of an eruption, explosion, or other disturbance in the bed of the sea, 500 or 600 miles off the San-Riku coast. The most popular theory is that it resulted from the caving-in of some part of the wall or bed of the great "Tuscarora Deep," one of the greatest depressions of the ocean bed in the world, discovered in 1874 by the present Rear-Admiral Belknap, U. S. N., while in command of the U. S. S. Tuscarora, engaged in deep-sea surveys.
The "Tuscarora Deep" is nearly five and one-third statute miles in depth, being exceeded, so far as known, only by the still more profound depths discovered last year in the South Pacific by Commander A. F. Balfour, of the British Navy.
That disturbances were taking place in this tremendous abyss was again suggested at six o'clock on the morning of July 4, when the Canadian Pacific Railway Company's mail steamer Empress of Japan, sailing directly over it in a smooth sea, was shaken as if a propeller blade had been lost or the ship had struck an obstruction. Every one was roused by the peculiar shock, but no visible explanation was furnished. The destructive wave and this incident together should stimulate further investigation of this dangerous, bottomless pit of the Pacific ocean, which owes its discovery to United States explorers by deep-sea soundings.
Public Domain Book: A handbook of the destructive insects of Victoria : with notes on the methods to be adopted to check and extirpate them
by French, Charles, 1843-; Victoria. Dept. of Agriculture
Published 1891
About my pictures:
Since 2014 I've been documenting the daily, destructive, poisonous chemtrail activity in the Dayton, Ohio area -- home of the notorious Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (visited by every important person on Earth, and even a few Aliens ;-) -- and apparently from my photo and video documentation, Chemtrail Central. This area has been getting chemtrailed on a massive, daily basis and is being conducted, as they say, “in plain sight”.
However, this area isn’t special in that regard. The massive chemtrailing is going on across the USA (and other countries), as evidenced in abundance on FlickR and many other sites. This incredible not-so-secret Government program, which itself is expensive and dangerous, spoils not only blue skies, but poisons our air, water and soil to unknown levels. Regardless of the purpose, weather control/weather as a weapon/mind control, it really amounts to a crime against humanity in my opinion.
In response, I have posted thousands of full-resolution images (15,000+!), documenting the overwhelming evidence of this crime on Flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/133042043@N04/albums
I have additional Chemtrail videos posted on:
www.youtube.com/user/BlueRidgeParkway
And to help generate interest, further study and assist in research, I am designating all my chemtrail pictures uploaded to Flickr (under “Chem Trailchaser”) as CC0 — Creative Commons Zero.
This removes my copyright and releases them into the Public Domain, which means that any of my photos designated CC0, can be used, without restriction or attribution, for any use. Isn’t that awesome? So please… download, copy, backup, mirror, share, use and improve as many of these photos as you can! Thanks for looking - Chem
County town of Buckinghamshire, large and sprawling, with a destructive road system around which new brash buildings have arisen. We parked in a multistorey car park, on the third floor and travelled UP two floors to get out by walking over a bridge, through a huge recent shopping centre and out into a little oasis of streets in the old town where St Mary's church is sited, all on the same level as that fifth floor bridge.
Large and cruciform, mainly C13, grouped around a central tower with a picturesque recessed leaded clock stage with gothic open parapet and pinnacles, and short further recessed spire. The approach is to the south transept, the main entrance. Many trees make exteriors problematic. On entering there was a pervasive smell of coffee (although my friend got bacon!). The west end has a newish gallery and a dais with tables and chairs serving a cafe which is sited in the south-west corner of the south aisle and also fills the south porch. In this sea of pine boarding sits the Norman font; I was surprised that it didn't have a flat cover with "bar stools" around it. Olympic banners hang from the nave roof obstructing the view east, although the view was better from the gallery. Gorgeous west window by O'Connor. The north aisle has dome comfy armchairs and some medieval stalls ejected from elsewhere, and also a lovely baroque altar table among the clutter. The north transept has two good monuments, a cusped triangular recess with an alabaster knight, and a standing canopied monument with kneeling figures of mother and daughter complete with the original railings. Here too a Norman pillar piscina (not mentioned at all in the BofE) and a medieval cope chest. EE chancel, although east and south wall are entirely Victorian by the restorer Scott. There is an outer chapel east of the south transept (C14 with rich sedilia and a collection of memorials which seemed resited here) and an odd large square space to the west with a tall central wooden column supporting the roof. The inner south chapel has been converted into an office for a local charity which is based in the church, and has a stone screen filling the arch with a reset window.
I quite enjoyed my visit, if not the smell of stale coffee, apart from the awful staged cafe area at the west end and the poorly judged inclusion of the font here. However at least it was laid out as a church when I called, my friend recalled seeing badminton nets strewn across the nave on a previous visit. However it is obviously a well-used building, and an open one.
Brown-headed Cowbird, Molothrus ater, female.
A destructive social parasite on other species, the cowbird lays it's eggs in other birds' nests, leaving the foster parents to raise the young cowbirds without the parent cowbirds' help. Because the cowbird eggs hatch sooner, the young cowbirds have a head start, growing faster and generally usurping most of the food, leaving the rightful fledglings to starve (or be pushed out of the nest by an inherited behavior of the young cowbirds). The populations of many species of birds have be severly impacted by cowbirds. Formerly a herd-follower on the Great Plains, upon settlement by European immigrants, this bird moved into the chopped up, formerly-unbroken eastern forests and began victimizing the forest birds had/have developed very little defense against the onslaught of the cowbirds.
San Luis Obispo County, California, USA.
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I correctly forecast single costliest natural disaster ever world wide in great detail.
On the evening of June 15, 1896, the northeast coast of Hondo, the main island of Japan, was struck by a great earthquake wave (tsunami), which was more destructive of life and property than any earthquake convulsion of this century in that empire. The whole coastline of the San-Riku, the three provinces of Rikuzen, Rikuchu, and Rikuoku, from the island of Kinkwazan, 38° 20' north, northward for 175 miles, was laid waste by a great wave moving from the east and south, that varied in recorded height from 10 to 50 feet. A few survivors, who saw it advancing in the darkness, report its height as 80 to 100 feet. With a difference of but thirty minutes in time between the southern and northern points, it struck the San-Riku coast and in a trice obliterated towns and villages, killed 26,975 people out of the original population, and grievously wounded the 5,390 survivors. It washed away and wrecked 9,313 houses, stranded some 300 larger craft—steamers, schooners, and junks—and crushed or carried away 10,000 fishing boats, destroying property to the value of six million yen. Thousands of acres of arable land were turned to wastes, projecting rocks offshore were broken, overturned, or moved hundreds of yards, shallows and bars were formed, and in some localities the entire shoreline was changed.
They were all seafaring communities along this coast strip and the fisheries were the chief industry. The shipment of sea products to the great ports was the main connection with the outer world. A high mountain range bars communication with the trunk railway line of the island, and this picturesque, fiord-cut coast is so remote and so isolated that only two foreigners had been seen in the region in ten years, with the exception of the French mission priest, Father Raspail, who lost his life in the flood. With telegraph offices, instruments, and operators carried away, word came slowly to Tokyo, and with 50 to 100 miles of mountain roads between the nearest railway station and the seacoast aid was long in reaching the wretched survivors. When adequate idea of the calamity reached the capital and the cities, men-of-war, soldiers, sappers, surgeons, and nurses were quickly dispatched, and public sympathy found expression in contributions through the different newspapers, amounting to more than 250,000 yen, for the relief of the injured. The Japanese journalist and photographer were quickly on their way, and the vernacular press soon fed the public full of horrors, yet the first to reach the scene of the disaster was an American missionary, the Rev. Rothesay Miller, who made the usual three days' trip over the mountains in less than a day and a half on his American bicycle.
There were old traditions of such earthquake waves on this coast, one of two centuries ago doing some damage, and a tsunami of forty years ago and a lesser one of 1892 flooding the streets of Kamaishi and driving people to upper floors and the roofs of their houses. The barometer gave no warning, no indication of any unusual conditions on June 15, and the occurrence of thirteen light earthquake shocks during the day excited no comment. Rain had fallen in the morning and afternoon, and with a temperature of 80° to 90° the damp atmosphere was very oppressive. The villagers on that remote coast adhered to the old calendar in observing their local fêtes and holidays, and on that fifth day of the fifth moon had been celebrating the Girls' Festival. Rain had driven them indoors with the darkness, and nearly all were in their houses at eight o'clock, when, with a rumbling as of heavy cannonading out at sea, a roar, and the crash and crackling of timbers, they were suddenly engulfed in the swirling waters. Only a few survivors on all that length of coast saw the advancing wave, one of them telling that the water first receded some 600 yards from ghastly white sands and then the Wave stood like a black wall 80 feet in height, with phosphorescent lights gleaming along its crest. Others, hearing a distant roar, saw a dark shadow seaward and ran to high ground, crying "Tsunami! tsunami!" Some who ran to the upper stories of their houses for safety were drowned, crushed, or imprisoned there, only a few breaking through the roofs or escaping after the water subsided.
Shallow water and outlying islands broke the force of the wave in some places, and in long, narrow inlets or fiords the giant roller was broken into two, three, and even six waves, that crashed upon the shore in succession. Ships and junks were carried one and two miles inland, left on hilltops, treetops, and in the midst of fields uninjured or mixed up with the ruins of houses, the rest engulfed or swept seaward. Where the wave entered a fiord or bay it bore everything along to the head of the ravine or valley and left the mass of debris in a heap at the end. Where the coast was low and faced the open ocean the wave washed in and, retreating, carried everything back with it. Many survivors, swept away by the waters, were cast ashore on outlying islands, or seized bits of wreckage and kept afloat. On the open coast the wave came and withdrew within five minutes, while in long inlets the waters boiled and surged for nearly a half hour before subsiding. The best swimmers were helpless in the first swirl of water, and nearly all the bodies recovered were frightfully battered and mutilated, rolled over and driven against rocks, struck by and crushed between timbers. The force of the wave cut down groves of large pine trees to short stumps, snapped thick granite posts of temple gates and carried the stone cross-beams 309 yards away. Many people were lost through running back to save others or to save their valuables.
One loyal schoolmaster carried the emperor's portrait to a place of safety before seeking out his own family. A half-demented soldier, retired since the late war and continually brooding on a possible attack by the enemy, became convinced that the first cannonading sound was from a hostile fleet, and, seizing his sword, ran down to the beach to meet the foe. One village officer, mistaking the sound of crashing timbers for crackling flames, ran to high ground to see where the fire was, and thus saved his life. Another village officer, living on the edge of a hill, heard the crash and slid his screens open to look upon foaming waters nearly level with his veranda. In a moment the waters disappeared, leaving a black, empty level where the populous village had been a few minutes before. Four women clung to one man, seeking to escape to high ground, and their combined weight resisting the force of the receding wave they were all saved. The only survivors of another village were eight men who had been playing the game of "go" in a hillside temple. Eight children floated away and left on high ground were believed to be the only survivors of one village, until one hundred people were found who had been borne across and stranded on the opposite shores of their bay. One hundred and fifty people were found cast away on one island offshore. From two large villages on one bay only thirty young men survived, hardy, muscular young fishermen and powerful swimmers, yet in other places the strongest perished, and the aged and infirm, cripples, and tiny children were miraculously preserved. The wave flooded the cells of Okachi prison and the jailers broke the bolts and let the 195 convicts free. Only two convicts attempted to escape, the others waiting in good order until marched to the high ground by their keepers. The good Père Raspail had just reached Kamaishi from his all-day walk of 50 miles over the mountains and entered his inn, when his assistant called to him from the street. The priest came to the veranda, but in an instant the water was upon him. He was seen later, swimming, but evidently was struck by timbers or swept out to sea, as his body has not been recovered. Japanese men-of-war cruised for a week off Kamaishi, recovering bodies daily. The Japanese system of census enumeration is so complete and minute that the name of every person who lost his life was soon known, and the Official Gazette was able to state that out of a population of 6,529 at Kamaishi 4,985 were lost and 500 injured, while 953 dwellings and 867 warehouses and other structures were destroyed or carried away, and 176 ships carried inland or swept out and lost.
The survivors were so stunned with the appalling disaster that few could do anything for themselves or others. With houses, nets, and fishing-boats carried away and the fish retreating to further and deeper waters, starvation faced them, and, the great heat continuing while so many bodies were strewn along shore and imprisoned in ruins, the atmosphere fast became poisonous. The north-coast people are opposed to cremation and insisted on earth burial, which delayed the disposal of the dead and augmented the danger of pestilence. Disinfectants were sent in quantity, and the work of recovery and burial was so pressing that soldiers were put to it after all available coolies had been impressed. The Red Cross Society, with its hospitals and nurses, had difficulty in caring for all the wounded, the greater number of whom, besides requiring surgical aid, were suffering from pneumonia and internal inflammations consequent upon their long exposure in wet clothing without shelter and from the brine, fish oil, and sand breathed in and swallowed while in the first tumult of waters. Besides the generous relief fund subscribed by the people, the government has made large assignments from its available funds and sent stores of provisions, clothing, tools, etc., to the 60,000 homeless, ruined, bereaved, and starving people of the San-Riku coast.
The wave was plainly felt two hours later on the shores of the island of Yesso, 200 miles north of the center of disturbance on the San-Riku coast, the water advancing 80 feet beyond high-tide mark on the beach at Hakodate. Eight hours later there was a great disturbance of the waters on the shores of the Bonin islands, more than 700 miles southward, the water rising three or four feet and retreating violently. Six hours later, on the shores of Kaui, the most northern of the Hawaiian islands, distant 3,390 miles, the waters receded violently and washed on shore in a wave some inches above the normal height.
The plainest inference has been that the great wave was the result of an eruption, explosion, or other disturbance in the bed of the sea, 500 or 600 miles off the San-Riku coast. The most popular theory is that it resulted from the caving-in of some part of the wall or bed of the great "Tuscarora Deep," one of the greatest depressions of the ocean bed in the world, discovered in 1874 by the present Rear-Admiral Belknap, U. S. N., while in command of the U. S. S. Tuscarora, engaged in deep-sea surveys.
The "Tuscarora Deep" is nearly five and one-third statute miles in depth, being exceeded, so far as known, only by the still more profound depths discovered last year in the South Pacific by Commander A. F. Balfour, of the British Navy.
That disturbances were taking place in this tremendous abyss was again suggested at six o'clock on the morning of July 4, when the Canadian Pacific Railway Company's mail steamer Empress of Japan, sailing directly over it in a smooth sea, was shaken as if a propeller blade had been lost or the ship had struck an obstruction. Every one was roused by the peculiar shock, but no visible explanation was furnished. The destructive wave and this incident together should stimulate further investigation of this dangerous, bottomless pit of the Pacific ocean, which owes its discovery to United States explorers by deep-sea soundings.