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Distributed from the southernmost USA, in southern Arizona and southern Texas, south through Middle America as far as northwest Costa Rica, the Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet is a drab, unassuming tyrant-flycatcher with a slight, erectile crest and two broad white wingbars, but few other distinguishing features. Despite the species’ relatively broad range, no geographical variation is currently considered to warrant naming. Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet is somewhat catholic in its habitat requirements, inhabiting a wide variety of semi-open habitats, including plantations and parks in cities; it is recorded from sea level to at least 2100 m. The species is generally common and widespread, albeit somewhat less numerous in the north of its range, and the Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet’s breeding biology is relatively well known; it builds a bulky, globular nest of vegetable matter, and lays two to four eggs, which are perhaps incubated solely by the female. The species’ diet appears to consist of arthropods, berries and small fruits, all of which are usually taken while perched, but occasionally in flight.
Ashy Drongo
The ashy drongo (Dicrurus leucophaeus) is a species of bird in the drongo family Dicruridae. It is found widely distributed across South and Southeast Asia with several populations that vary in the shade of grey, migration patterns and in the size or presence of white patches around the eye.
The adult ashy drongo is mainly dark grey, and the tail is long and deeply forked, There are a number of subspecies varying in the shade of the grey plumage. Some subspecies have white markings on the head. Young birds are dull brownish grey.
Subspecies longicaudatus of India (which includes beavani of the Himalayas that winters on the peninsula, with one breeding population in central India that Vaurie separates as longicaudatus in the restricted sense) is very dark and almost like the black drongo although this bird is slimmer and has a somewhat longer and less-splayed tail. It is found in more tall forest habitat, has dark grey underside lacking the sheen of black drongo. The iris is crimson and there is no white rictal spot. Subspecies leucogenis and salangensis have a white eye-patch as do several of the island forms that breed further south. The calls are a little more nasal and twangy than that of the black drongo.
The ashy drongo breeds in the hills of tropical southern Asia from eastern Afghanistan east to southern China, Ryukyu Islands in southern Japan (particularly Okinawa) and Indonesia. Many populations in the northern part of its range are migratory.
The ashy drongo has short legs and sits very upright while perched prominently, often high on a tree. It is insectivorous and forages by making aerial sallies but sometimes gleans from tree trunks. They are found singly, in pairs or small groups. During migration they fly in small flocks.
A common call that they make is described as drangh gip or gip-gip-drangh. They can imitate the calls of other birds and are capable of imitating the whistling notes of a common iora.
The breeding season is May to June with a clutch of three or four reddish or brown eggs laid in a loose cup nest in a tree.
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Bro Distributer, a chemical tanker built at the Jinling Shipyards of Nanjing, China in 2006, draws slowly into Eastham Lock on the Manchester Ship Canal, from where it will drop down and enter into the Mersey Estuary. October the 5th 2020.
She was distributing flyers promoting a vintage shop to the passing by in the centre of town.
Her blue hair, though combed in a short ponytail, attracted my attention.
I approached and wondered whether she'd pose for me with her hair falling down over her shoulders.
Johanna laughed and agreed to indulge my photographic request, shaking her hair loose.
Johanna used to study art, she's more of a craftswoman by nature, she loves sewing and photography as well and used to develop photos in a dark room...
She was kind and friendly, working in between studies to become a seamstress, Johanna was lovely to talk to and make pictures of.
I sent her the photo and was delighted to receive a lovely thank you note in return :-)
Kiitos, Johanna!
Updating:
Johanna's blog: lorelaiblue.wordpress.com/2014/05/31/hello/
href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers/discuss/72157633469671398/">www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers/discuss/72157633469671...
Update:
"Hey Ann!
I'm just popping in to let you know that I *finally* put up the blog I've been planning. Here it is: lorelaiblue.wordpress.com/2014/05/31/hello/
I hope you're okay with me using the photo you took? I made sure to credit you, but I can also link to your photography blog if you like.
Have a nice weekend! :)
Johanna."
31.5.2014
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Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the genus Ulmus in the family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North America and Eurasia, presently ranging southward in the Middle East to Lebanon and Israel, and across the Equator in the Far East into Indonesia.
Elms are components of many kinds of natural forests. Moreover, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, many species and cultivars were also planted as ornamental street, garden, and park trees in Europe, North America, and parts of the Southern Hemisphere, notably Australasia. Some individual elms reached great size and age. However, in recent decades, most mature elms of European or North American origin have died from Dutch elm disease, caused by a microfungus dispersed by bark beetles. In response, disease-resistant cultivars have been developed, capable of restoring the elm to forestry and landscaping.
Description
The genus is hermaphroditic, having apetalous perfect flowers which are wind-pollinated. Elm leaves are alternate, with simple, single- or, most commonly, doubly serrate margins, usually asymmetric at the base and acuminate at the apex. The fruit is a round wind-dispersed samara flushed with chlorophyll, facilitating photosynthesis before the leaves emerge. The samarae are very light, those of British elms numbering around 50,000 to the pound (454 g). (Very rarely anomalous samarae occur with more than two wings.) All species are tolerant of a wide range of soils and pH levels but, with few exceptions, demand good drainage. The elm tree can grow to great height, the American elm in excess of 30 m (100 ft), often with a forked trunk creating a vase profile.
Taxonomy
There are about 30 to 40 species of Ulmus (elm); the ambiguity in number results from difficulty in delineating species, owing to the ease of hybridization between them and the development of local seed-sterile vegetatively propagated microspecies in some areas, mainly in the Ulmus field elm (Ulmus minor) group. Oliver Rackham describes Ulmus as the most critical genus in the entire British flora, adding that 'species and varieties are a distinction in the human mind rather than a measured degree of genetic variation'. Eight species are endemic to North America and three to Europe, but the greatest diversity is in Asia with approximately two dozen species. The oldest fossils of Ulmus are leaves dating Paleocene, found across the Northern Hemisphere.
The classification adopted in the List of elm species is largely based on that established by Brummitt. A large number of synonyms have accumulated over the last three centuries; their currently accepted names can be found in the list of Elm synonyms and accepted names.
Botanists who study elms and argue over elm identification and classification are called "pteleologists", from the Greek πτελέα (elm).
As part of the suborder urticalean rosids, they are distantly related to cannabis, mulberries, figs, hops, and nettles.
Elm propagation methods vary according to elm type and location, and the plantsman's needs. Native species may be propagated by seed. In their natural setting, native species, such as wych elm and European white elm in central and northern Europe and field elm in southern Europe, set viable seed in "favourable" seasons. Optimal conditions occur after a late warm spring. After pollination, seeds of spring-flowering elms ripen and fall at the start of summer (June); they remain viable for only a few days. They are planted in sandy potting soil at a depth of 1 cm, and germinate in three weeks. Slow-germinating American elm will remain dormant until the second season. Seeds from autumn-flowering elms ripen in the fall and germinate in the spring. Since elms may hybridize within and between species, seed propagation entails a hybridisation risk. In unfavourable seasons, elm seeds are usually sterile. Elms outside their natural range, such as English elm U. minor 'Atinia', and elms unable to pollinate because pollen sources are genetically identical, are sterile and are propagated by vegetative reproduction. Vegetative reproduction is also used to produce genetically identical elms (clones). Methods include the winter transplanting of root suckers; taking hardwood cuttings from vigorous one-year-old shoots in late winter, taking root cuttings in early spring; taking softwood cuttings in early summer; grafting; ground and air layering; and micropropagation. A bottom heat of 18 °C and humid conditions are maintained for hard- and softwood cuttings. The transplanting of root suckers remains the easiest most and common propagation method for European field elm and its hybrids. For specimen urban elms, grafting to wych-elm rootstock may be used to eliminate suckering or to ensure stronger root growth. The mutant-elm cultivars are usually grafted, the "weeping" elms 'Camperdown' and 'Horizontalis' at 2–3 m (7–10 ft), the dwarf cultivars 'Nana' and 'Jacqueline Hillier' at ground level. Since the Siberian elm is drought tolerant, in dry countries, new varieties of elm are often root-grafted onto this species.
Dutch elm disease (DED) devastated elms throughout Europe and much of North America in the second half of the 20th century. It derives its name "Dutch" from the first description of the disease and its cause in the 1920s by Dutch botanists Bea Schwarz and Christina Johanna Buisman. Owing to its geographical isolation and effective quarantine enforcement, Australia has so far remained unaffected by DED, as have the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia in western Canada.
DED is caused by a microfungus transmitted by two species of Scolytus elm-bark beetles, which act as vectors. The disease affects all species of elms native to North America and Europe, but many Asiatic species have evolved antifungal genes and are resistant. Fungal spores, introduced into wounds in the tree caused by the beetles, invade the xylem or vascular system. The tree responds by producing tyloses, effectively blocking the flow from roots to leaves. Woodland trees in North America are not quite as susceptible to the disease because they usually lack the root grafting of the urban elms and are somewhat more isolated from each other. In France, inoculation with the fungus of over 300 clones of the European species failed to find a single variety that possessed of any significant resistance.
The first, less aggressive strain of the disease fungus, Ophiostoma ulmi, arrived in Europe from Asia in 1910, and was accidentally introduced to North America in 1928. It was steadily weakened by viruses in Europe and had all but disappeared by the 1940s. However, the disease had a much greater and longer-lasting impact in North America, owing to the greater susceptibility of the American elm, Ulmus americana, which masked the emergence of the second, far more virulent strain of the disease Ophiostoma novo-ulmi. It appeared in the United States sometime in the 1940s, and was originally believed to be a mutation of O. ulmi. Limited gene flow from O. ulmi to O. novo-ulmi was probably responsible for the creation of the North American subspecies O. novo-ulmi subsp. americana. It was first recognized in Britain in the early 1970s, believed to have been introduced via a cargo of Canadian rock elm destined for the boatbuilding industry, and rapidly eradicated most of the mature elms from western Europe. A second subspecies, O. novo-ulmi subsp. novo-ulmi, caused similar devastation in Eastern Europe and Central This subspecies, which was introduced to North America, and like O. ulmi, is thought to have originated in Asia. The two subspecies have now hybridized in Europe where their ranges have overlapped. The hypothesis that O. novo-ulmi arose from a hybrid of the original O. ulmi and another strain endemic to the Himalayas, Ophiostoma himal-ulmi, is now discredited.
No sign indicates the current pandemic is waning, and no evidence has been found of a susceptibility of the fungus to a disease of its own caused by d-factors: naturally occurring virus-like agents that severely debilitated the original O. ulmi and reduced its sporulation.
Elm phloem necrosis
Elm phloem necrosis (elm yellows) is a disease of elm trees that is spread by leafhoppers or by root grafts. This very aggressive disease, with no known cure, occurs in the Eastern United States, southern Ontario in Canada, and Europe. It is caused by phytoplasmas that infect the phloem (inner bark) of the tree. Infection and death of the phloem effectively girdles the tree and stops the flow of water and nutrients. The disease affects both wild-growing and cultivated trees. Occasionally, cutting the infected tree before the disease completely establishes itself and cleanup and prompt disposal of infected matter has resulted in the plant's survival via stump sprouts.
Most serious of the elm pests is the elm leaf beetle Xanthogaleruca luteola, which can decimate foliage, although rarely with fatal results. The beetle was accidentally introduced to North America from Europe. Another unwelcome immigrant to North America is the Japanese beetle Popillia japonica. In both instances, the beetles cause far more damage in North America owing to the absence of the predators in their native lands. In Australia, introduced elm trees are sometimes used as food plants by the larvae of hepialid moths of the genus Aenetus. These burrow horizontally into the trunk then vertically down. Circa 2000, the Asian Zig-zag sawfly Aproceros leucopoda appeared in Europe and North America, although in England, its impact has been minimal and it is no longer monitored.
One of the earliest of ornamental elms was the ball-headed graft narvan elm, Ulmus minor 'Umbraculifera', cultivated from time immemorial in Persia as a shade tree and widely planted in cities through much of south-west and central Asia. From the 18th century to the early 20th century, elms, whether species, hybrids, or cultivars, were among the most widely planted ornamental trees in both Europe and North America. They were particularly popular as a street tree in avenue plantings in towns and cities, creating high-tunnelled effects. Their quick growth and variety of foliage and forms, their tolerance of air-pollution, and the comparatively rapid decomposition of their leaf litter in the fall were further advantages.
In North America, the species most commonly planted was the American elm (U. americana), which had unique properties that made it ideal for such use - rapid growth, adaptation to a broad range of climates and soils, strong wood, resistance to wind damage, and vase-like growth habit requiring minimal pruning. In Europe, the wych elm (U. glabra) and the field elm (U. minor) were the most widely planted in the countryside, the former in northern areas including Scandinavia and northern Britain, the latter further south. The hybrid between these two, Dutch elm (U. × hollandica), occurs naturally and was also commonly planted. In much of England, the English elm later came to dominate the horticultural landscape. Most commonly planted in hedgerows, it sometimes occurred in densities over 1000/km2. In south-eastern Australia and New Zealand, large numbers of English and Dutch elms, as well as other species and cultivars, were planted as ornamentals following their introduction in the 19th century, while in northern Japan Japanese elm (U. davidiana var. japonica) was widely planted as a street tree. From about 1850 to 1920, the most prized small ornamental elm in parks and gardens was the 'Camperdown' elm (U. glabra 'Camperdownii'), a contorted, weeping cultivar of the wych elm grafted on to a nonweeping elm trunk to give a wide, spreading, and weeping fountain shape in large garden spaces.
In northern Europe, elms were, moreover, among the few trees tolerant of saline deposits from sea spray, which can cause "salt-burning" and die-back. This tolerance made elms reliable both as shelterbelt trees exposed to sea wind, in particular along the coastlines of southern and western Britain and in the Low Countries, and as trees for coastal towns and cities.
This belle époque lasted until the First World War, when as a consequence of hostilities, notably in Germany, whence at least 40 cultivars originated, and of the outbreak at about the same time of the early strain of DED, Ophiostoma ulmi, the elm began its slide into horticultural decline. The devastation caused by the Second World War, and the demise in 1944 of the huge Späth nursery in Berlin, only accelerated the process. The outbreak of the new, three times more virulent, strain of DED Ophiostoma novo-ulmi in the late 1960s, brought the tree to its nadir.
Since around 1990, the elm has enjoyed a renaissance through the successful development in North America and Europe of cultivars highly resistant to DED. Consequently, the total number of named cultivars, ancient and modern, now exceeds 300, although many of the older clones, possibly over 120, have been lost to cultivation. Some of the latter, however, were by today's standards inadequately described or illustrated before the pandemic, and a number may survive, or have regenerated, unrecognised. Enthusiasm for the newer clones often remains low owing to the poor performance of earlier, supposedly disease-resistant Dutch trees released in the 1960s and 1970s. In the Netherlands, sales of elm cultivars slumped from over 56,000 in 1989 to just 6,800 in 2004, whilst in the UK, only four of the new American and European releases were commercially available in 2008.
Efforts to develop DED-resistant cultivars began in the Netherlands in 1928 and continued, uninterrupted by World War II, until 1992. Similar programmes were initiated in North America (1937), Italy (1978), and Spain (1986). Research has followed two paths:
Species and species cultivars
In North America, careful selection has produced a number of trees resistant not only to DED, but also to the droughts and cold winters that occur within the continent. Research in the United States has concentrated on the American elm (U. americana), resulting in the release of DED-resistant clones, notably the cultivars 'Valley Forge' and 'Jefferson'. Much work has also been done into the selection of disease-resistant Asiatic species and cultivars.
In 1993, Mariam B. Sticklen and James L. Sherald reported the results of experiments funded by the U.S. National Park Service and conducted at Michigan State University in East Lansing that were designed to apply genetic engineering techniques to the development of DED-resistant strains of American elm trees. In 2007, A. E. Newhouse and F. Schrodt of the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse reported that young transgenic American elm trees had shown reduced DED symptoms and normal mycorrhizal colonization.
In Europe, the European white elm (U. laevis) has received much attention. While this elm has little innate resistance to DED, it is not favoured by the vector bark beetles. Thus it only becomes colonized and infected when no other elms are available, a rare situation in western Europe. Research in Spain has suggested that it may be the presence of a triterpene, alnulin, which makes the tree bark unattractive to the beetle species that spread the disease. This possibility, though, has not been conclusively proven. More recently, field elms Ulmus minor highly resistant to DED have been discovered in Spain, and form the basis of a major breeding programme.
Hybrid cultivars
Owing to their innate resistance to DED, Asiatic species have been crossed with European species, or with other Asiatic elms, to produce trees that are both highly resistant to disease and tolerant of native climates. After a number of false dawns in the 1970s, this approach has produced a range of reliable hybrid cultivars now commercially available in North America and Europe. Disease resistance is invariably carried by the female parent.
Some of these cultivars, notably those with the Siberian elm (Ulmus pumila) in their ancestry, lack the forms for which the iconic American elm and English elm were prized. Moreover, several exported to northwestern Europe have proven unsuited to the maritime climate conditions there, notably because of their intolerance of anoxic conditions resulting from ponding on poorly drained soils in winter. Dutch hybridizations invariably included the Himalayan elm (Ulmus wallichiana) as a source of antifungal genes and have proven more tolerant of wet ground; they should also ultimately reach a greater size. However, the susceptibility of the cultivar 'Lobel', used as a control in Italian trials, to elm yellows has now (2014) raised a question mark over all the Dutch clones.
Several highly resistant Ulmus cultivars have been released since 2000 by the Institute of Plant Protection in Florence, most commonly featuring crosses of the Dutch cultivar 'Plantijn' with the Siberian elm to produce resistant trees better adapted to the Mediterranean climate.
Cautions regarding novel cultivars
Elms take many decades to grow to maturity, and as the introduction of these disease-resistant cultivars is relatively recent, their long-term performance and ultimate size and form cannot be predicted with certainty. The National Elm Trial in North America, begun in 2005, is a nationwide trial to assess strengths and weaknesses of the 19 leading cultivars raised in the US over a 10-year period; European cultivars have been excluded. Meanwhile, in Europe, American and European cultivars are being assessed in field trials started in 2000 by the UK charity Butterfly Conservation.
The oldest American elm trees in New York City's Central Park were planted in the 1860s by Frederick Law Olmsted, making them among the oldest stands of American elms in the world. Along the Mall and Literary Walk four lines of American elms stretch over the walkway forming a cathedral-like covering. A part of New York City's urban ecology, the elms improve air and water quality, reduce erosion and flooding, and decrease air temperatures during warm days.
While the stand is still vulnerable to DED, in the 1980s the Central Park Conservancy undertook aggressive countermeasures such as heavy pruning and removal of extensively diseased trees. These efforts have largely been successful in saving the majority of the trees, although several are still lost each year. Younger American elms that have been planted in Central Park since the outbreak are of the DED-resistant 'Princeton' and 'Valley Forge' cultivars.
Several rows of American elm trees that the National Park Service (NPS) first planted during the 1930s line much of the 1.9-mile-length (3 km) of the National Mall in Washington, DC. DED first appeared on the trees during the 1950s and reached a peak in the 1970s. The NPS used a number of methods to control the epidemic, including sanitation, pruning, injecting trees with fungicide, and replanting with DED-resistant cultivars. The NPS combated the disease's local insect vector, the smaller European elm bark beetle (Scolytus multistriatus), by trapping and by spraying with insecticides. As a result, the population of American elms planted on the Mall and its surrounding areas has remained intact for more than 80 years.
Elm wood is valued for its interlocking grain, and consequent resistance to splitting, with significant uses in wagon-wheel hubs, chair seats, and coffins. The bodies of Japanese Taiko drums are often cut from the wood of old elm trees, as the wood's resistance to splitting is highly desired for nailing the skins to them, and a set of three or more is often cut from the same tree. The elm's wood bends well and distorts easily. The often long, straight trunks were favoured as a source of timber for keels in ship construction. Elm is also prized by bowyers; of the ancient bows found in Europe, a large portion are elm. During the Middle Ages, elm was also used to make longbows if yew were unavailable.
The first written references to elm occur in the Linear B lists of military equipment at Knossos in the Mycenaean period. Several of the chariots are of elm (" πτε-ρε-ϝα ", pte-re-wa), and the lists twice mention wheels of elmwood. Hesiod says that ploughs in Ancient Greece were also made partly of elm.
The density of elm wood varies between species, but averages around 560 kg/m3.
Elm wood is also resistant to decay when permanently wet, and hollowed trunks were widely used as water pipes during the medieval period in Europe. Elm was also used as piers in the construction of the original London Bridge, but this resistance to decay in water does not extend to ground contact.
Viticulture
The Romans, and more recently the Italians, planted elms in vineyards as supports for vines. Lopped at 3 m, the elms' quick growth, twiggy lateral branches, light shade, and root suckering made them ideal trees for this purpose. The lopped branches were used for fodder and firewood. Ovid in his Amores characterizes the elm as "loving the vine": ulmus amat vitem, vitis non deserit ulmum (the elm loves the vine, the vine does not desert the elm), and the ancients spoke of the "marriage" between elm and vine.
Medicinal products
The mucilaginous inner bark of the slippery elm (Ulmus rubra) has long been used as a demulcent, and is still produced commercially for this purpose in the U.S. with approval for sale as a nutritional supplement by the Food and Drug Administration.
Fodder
Elms also have a long history of cultivation for fodder, with the leafy branches cut to feed livestock. The practice continues today in the Himalaya, where it contributes to serious deforestation.
Biomass
As fossil fuel resources diminish, increasing attention is being paid to trees as sources of energy. In Italy, the Istituto per la Protezione delle Piante is (2012) in the process of releasing to commerce very fast-growing elm cultivars, able to increase in height by more than 2 m (6 ft) per year.
Food
Elm bark, cut into strips and boiled, sustained much of the rural population of Norway during the great famine of 1812. The seeds are particularly nutritious, containing 45% crude protein, and less than 7% fibre by dry mass.
Elm has been listed as one of the 38 substances that are used to prepare Bach flower remedies, a kind of alternative medicine.
Bonsai
Chinese elm (Ulmus parvifolia) is a popular choice for bonsai owing to its tolerance of severe pruning.
Genetic resource conservation
In 1997, a European Union elm project was initiated, its aim to coordinate the conservation of all the elm genetic resources of the member states and, among other things, to assess their resistance to Dutch elm disease. Accordingly, over 300 clones were selected and propagated for testing.
Culture
Notable elm trees
Many elm trees of various kinds have attained great size or otherwise become particularly noteworthy.
In art
Many artists have admired elms for the ease and grace of their branching and foliage, and have painted them with sensitivity. Elms are a recurring element in the landscapes and studies of, for example, John Constable, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Frederick Childe Hassam, Karel Klinkenberg, and George Inness.
In Greek mythology, the nymph Ptelea (Πτελέα, Elm) was one of the eight hamadryads, nymphs of the forest and daughters of Oxylos and Hamadryas. In his Hymn to Artemis, poet Callimachus (third century BC) tells how, at the age of three, the infant goddess Artemis practised her newly acquired silver bow and arrows, made for her by Hephaestus and the Cyclopes, by shooting first at an elm, then at an oak, before turning her aim on a wild animal:
πρῶτον ἐπὶ πτελέην, τὸ δὲ δεύτερον ἧκας ἐπὶ δρῦν, τὸ τρίτον αὖτ᾽ ἐπὶ θῆρα.
The first reference in literature to elms occurs in the Iliad. When Eetion, father of Andromache, is killed by Achilles during the Trojan War, the mountain nymphs plant elms on his tomb ("περί δὲ πτελέας ἐφύτευσαν νύμφαι ὀρεστιάδες, κoῦραι Διὸς αἰγιόχoιo"). Also in the Iliad, when the River Scamander, indignant at the sight of so many corpses in his water, overflows and threatens to drown Achilles, the latter grasps a branch of a great elm in an attempt to save himself ("ὁ δὲ πτελέην ἕλε χερσὶν εὐφυέα μεγάλην".
The nymphs also planted elms on the tomb in the Thracian Chersonese of "great-hearted Protesilaus" ("μεγάθυμου Πρωτεσιλάου"), the first Greek to fall in the Trojan War. These elms grew to be the tallest in the known world, but when their topmost branches saw far off the ruins of Troy, they immediately withered, so great still was the bitterness of the hero buried below, who had been loved by Laodamia and slain by Hector. The story is the subject of a poem by Antiphilus of Byzantium (first century AD) in the Palatine Anthology:
Θεσσαλὲ Πρωτεσίλαε, σὲ μὲν πολὺς ᾄσεται αἰών,
Tρoίᾳ ὀφειλoμένoυ πτώματος ἀρξάμενoν•
σᾶμα δὲ τοι πτελέῃσι συνηρεφὲς ἀμφικoμεῦση
Nύμφαι, ἀπεχθoμένης Ἰλίoυ ἀντιπέρας.
Δένδρα δὲ δυσμήνιτα, καὶ ἤν ποτε τεῖχoς ἴδωσι
Tρώϊον, αὐαλέην φυλλοχoεῦντι κόμην.
ὅσσoς ἐν ἡρώεσσι τότ᾽ ἦν χόλoς, oὗ μέρoς ἀκμὴν
ἐχθρὸν ἐν ἀψύχoις σώζεται ἀκρέμoσιν.
[:Thessalian Protesilaos, a long age shall sing your praises,
Of the destined dead at Troy the first;
Your tomb with thick-foliaged elms they covered,
The nymphs, across the water from hated Ilion.
Trees full of anger; and whenever that wall they see,
Of Troy, the leaves in their upper crown wither and fall.
So great in the heroes was the bitterness then, some of which still
Remembers, hostile, in the soulless upper branches.]
Protesilaus had been king of Pteleos (Πτελεός) in Thessaly, which took its name from the abundant elms (πτελέoι) in the region.
Elms occur often in pastoral poetry, where they symbolise the idyllic life, their shade being mentioned as a place of special coolness and peace. In the first Idyll of Theocritus (third century BC), for example, the goatherd invites the shepherd to sit "here beneath the elm" ("δεῦρ' ὑπὸ τὰν πτελέαν") and sing. Beside elms, Theocritus places "the sacred water" ("το ἱερὸν ὕδωρ") of the Springs of the Nymphs and the shrines to the nymphs.
Aside from references literal and metaphorical to the elm and vine theme, the tree occurs in Latin literature in the Elm of Dreams in the Aeneid. When the Sibyl of Cumae leads Aeneas down to the Underworld, one of the sights is the Stygian Elm:
In medio ramos annosaque bracchia pandit
ulmus opaca, ingens, quam sedem somnia vulgo
uana tenere ferunt, foliisque sub omnibus haerent.
:Spreads in the midst her boughs and agéd arms
an elm, huge, shadowy, where vain dreams, 'tis said,
are wont to roost them, under every leaf close-clinging.]
Virgil refers to a Roman superstition (vulgo) that elms were trees of ill-omen because their fruit seemed to be of no value. It has been noted that two elm-motifs have arisen from classical literature: the 'Paradisal Elm' motif, arising from pastoral idylls and the elm-and-vine theme, and the 'Elm and Death' motif, perhaps arising from Homer's commemorative elms and Virgil's Stygian Elm. Many references to elm in European literature from the Renaissance onwards fit into one or other of these categories.
There are two examples of pteleogenesis (:birth from elms) in world myths. In Germanic and Scandinavian mythology the first woman, Embla, was fashioned from an elm, while in Japanese mythology Kamuy Fuchi, the chief goddess of the Ainu people, "was born from an elm impregnated by the Possessor of the Heavens".
The elm occurs frequently in English literature, one of the best known instances being in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, where Titania, Queen of the Fairies, addresses her beloved Nick Bottom using an elm-simile. Here, as often in the elm-and-vine motif, the elm is a masculine symbol:
Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
... the female Ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the Elm.
O, how I love thee! how I dote on thee!
Another of the most famous kisses in English literature, that of Paul and Helen at the start of Forster's Howards End, is stolen beneath a great wych elm.
The elm tree is also referenced in children's literature. An Elm Tree and Three Sisters by Norma Sommerdorf is a children's book about three young sisters who plant a small elm tree in their backyard.
In politics
The cutting of the elm was a diplomatic altercation between the kings of France and England in 1188, during which an elm tree near Gisors in Normandy was felled.
In politics, the elm is associated with revolutions. In England after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the final victory of parliamentarians over monarchists, and the arrival from Holland, with William III and Mary II, of the Dutch elm hybrid, planting of this cultivar became a fashion among enthusiasts of the new political order.
In the American Revolution, the Liberty Tree was an American white elm in Boston, Massachusetts, in front of which, from 1765, the first resistance meetings were held against British attempts to tax the American colonists without democratic representation. When the British, knowing that the tree was a symbol of rebellion, felled it in 1775, the Americans took to widespread Liberty Elm planting, and sewed elm symbols on to their revolutionary flags. Elm planting by American Presidents later became something of a tradition.
In the French Revolution, too, Les arbres de la liberté (Liberty Trees), often elms, were planted as symbols of revolutionary hopes, the first in Vienne, Isère, in 1790, by a priest inspired by the Boston elm. L'Orme de La Madeleine (:the Elm of La Madeleine), Faycelles, Département de Lot, planted around 1790 and surviving to this day, was a case in point. By contrast, a famous Parisian elm associated with the Ancien Régime, L'Orme de Saint-Gervais in the Place St-Gervais, was felled by the revolutionaries; church authorities planted a new elm in its place in 1846, and an early 20th-century elm stands on the site today. Premier Lionel Jospin, obliged by tradition to plant a tree in the garden of the Hôtel Matignon, the official residence and workplace of Prime Ministers of France, insisted on planting an elm, so-called 'tree of the Left', choosing the new disease-resistant hybrid 'Clone 762' (Ulmus 'Wanoux' = Vada). In the French Republican Calendar, in use from 1792 to 1806, the 12th day of the month Ventôse (= 2 March) was officially named "jour de l'Orme", Day of the Elm.
Liberty Elms were also planted in other countries in Europe to celebrate their revolutions, an example being L'Olmo di Montepaone, L'Albero della Libertà (:the Elm of Montepaone, Liberty Tree) in Montepaone, Calabria, planted in 1799 to commemorate the founding of the democratic Parthenopean Republic, and surviving until it was brought down by a recent storm (it has since been cloned and 'replanted'). After the Greek Revolution of 1821–32, a thousand young elms were brought to Athens from Missolonghi, "Sacred City of the Struggle" against the Turks and scene of Lord Byron's death, and planted in 1839–40 in the National Garden. In an ironic development, feral elms have spread and invaded the grounds of the abandoned Greek royal summer palace at Tatoi in Attica.
In a chance event linking elms and revolution, on the morning of his execution (30 January 1649), walking to the scaffold at the Palace of Whitehall, King Charles I turned to his guards and pointed out, with evident emotion, an elm near the entrance to Spring Gardens that had been planted by his brother in happier days. The tree was said to be still standing in the 1860s.
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Portrait of University of Michigan Robotics PhD student Jana Plavlasek on Thursday, June 29, 2023.
Participants from Berea College, Howard University, Kennesaw State University, and Morehouse College spent the final week of June at the University of Michigan College of Engineering Robotics Department participating in the Distributed Teaching Collaborative Summer Session in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The program, which began with the new Robotics 101 course in Fall 2020 being remotely taught to Morehouse and Spelman College students, enables instructors from different institutions, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), to benefit from open-source resources available for new course development at R1 institutions. This collaboration provides students from HBCUs and MSIs with access to cutting-edge robotics education and helps promote equity in STEM fields.
In March of this year Robotics PhD student Jana Pavlasek and Professor Chad Jenkins were awarded the Claudia Joan Alexander Trailblazer Award for their work developing the new course for undergraduate students, Rob 102: Introduction to AI and Programming. Their commitment to creating opportunity in AI and Robotics continues to extend beyond the University of Michigan. In Fall 2023, Robotics 102 will be offered in this collaborative distributed format to the partner schools. This initiative will help to provide equitable opportunities for students from diverse backgrounds to learn and grow in the field of robotics.
Photo: Brenda Ahearn/University of Michigan, College of Engineering, Communications and Marketing
T212 Obaks were to the West Coast what T206’s were to the rest of the country. While little of the players are known, their images endure...trade cards from the "Obak Baseball Players" series (T212), distributed by the California branch of the American Tobacco Company to promote their Obak Mouthpiece Cigarettes brand. The set was released in three separate subsets, one per year from 1909 through 1911.
While the players may not be well known to fans today—and most probably weren't to fans in the eastern half of the country even in 1910—the cards are appreciated for their stunning good looks. The artwork on these is sensational, transporting you back in time to a period when the game was beginning to grow up in California, Oregon and Washington, where these players toiled in hopes of getting noticed by a big league club in the east.
Link to - Obak Cards Were West Coast’s Version of T206 - www.sportscollectorsdaily.com/obak-cards-were-west-coasts...
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Ivan Massie "Ivy" Olson (October 14, 1885 in Kansas City, Missouri – d. September 1, 1965 in Inglewood, California at age 79) was a professional baseball shortstop. He played fourteen seasons in Major League Baseball from 1911 to 1924 for the Cleveland Naps, Cincinnati Reds, and Brooklyn Robins.
His best season was in 1919 when he played in all 140 games and would lead the NL in at bats (590), plate appearances (635), hits (164), singles (140) and at bats per strikeout (49.2). In 1921 he would also lead the NL in at bats (652). He currently ranks 84th on the MLB all-time sacrifice hits list (198) and ranks 73rd on the all-time at bats per strikeout list (23). He also holds the Los Angeles Dodgers single season record for at bats per strikeout (55.1 in 1922) and is the Dodgers all-time at bats per strikeout leader (26.8).
After his playing career ended, he was a coach for the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants.
He played two years (1909 and 1910) with the Portland Beavers in the Pacific Coast League.
1910 Portland Beavers
Classification: A
League: Pacific Coast League
Record: 114-87, Finished 1st out of 6 teams
Manager: Judge McCredie
Location: Portland, OR
Ivy Olson's 1910 Minor League stats:
Games - 210
AB - 798
Hits - 189
Doubles - 25
Triples - 4
Home runs - 1
Batting avg. - .237
Slugging - .282
Total bases - 225
MLB debut - April 12, 1911, for the Cleveland Naps
Last MLB appearance - July 21, 1924, for the Brooklyn Robins
MLB statistics: (14 seasons / 1,574 games
Hits - 1,575
Batting average - .258
Doubles - 191
Triples - 69
Home runs - 13
RBI - 446
Runs -730
Stolen bases - 156
Sacrifice hits - 198
Teams:
Cleveland Naps (1911–1914)
Cincinnati Reds (1915)
Brooklyn Robins (1915–1924)
Link to - SABR article - Ivy Olson - written by Brian Stevens - sabr.org/bioproj/person/400b2297
Link to all of his issued baseball cards - www.tradingcarddb.com/Person.cfm/pid/72064/col/1/yea/0/Iv...
Cherry Blossom. Washington, DC. USA. Mar/2016
A cherry blossom is the flower of any of several trees of genus Prunus, particularly the Japanese cherry, Prunus serrulata, which is called sakura after the Japanese (桜 or 櫻; さくら).
Cherry blossom is speculated to be native to the Himalayas.[4] Currently it is widely distributed, especially in the temperate zone of theNorthern Hemisphere including Europe, West Siberia, India, China, Japan, Korea, Canada, and the United States. The cherry blossom is considered the national flower of Japan.
Japan gave 3,020 cherry blossom trees as a gift to the United States in 1912 to celebrate the nations' then-growing friendship, replacing an earlier gift of 2000 trees which had to be destroyed due to disease in 1910. These trees were planted in Sakura Park in Manhattan and line the shore of the Tidal Basin and the roadway in East Potomac Park in Washington, D.C. The first two original trees were planted by first ladyHelen Taft and Viscountess Chinda on the bank of the Tidal Basin. The gift was renewed with another 3,800 trees in 1965.In Washington, D.C. the cherry blossom trees continue to be a popular tourist attraction (and the subject of the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival) when they reach full bloom in early spring
Todos os anos o Festival Nacional das Cerejeiras celebra a floração das cerejeiras dadas à cidade de Washington, em 1912, pelo prefeito de Tóquio. O presente foi uma homenagem do prefeito à longa história de amizade entre Estados Unidos e Japão. As cerejeiras floridas marcam a chegada da primavera na cidade e proporcionam uma das vistas mais apreciadas da região. Um dos lugares mais bonitos para observação é ao redor do Tidal Basin, espelho d’água no centro de Washington próximo ao Washington Monument, ao Lincoln Memorial, ao Jefferson Memorial e ao Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. O pico da florada é definido como o dia em que 70% das flores do Tidal Basin estão abertas
Houve a coordenação de muitas pessoas para assegurar a chegada das cerejeiras. Um primeiro lote de 2.000 árvores chegou doente em 1910, mas isso não impediu as partes envolvidas de envidarem todos os esforços para a concretização do intento. Entre os governos dos dois países, com as coordenações do Dr. Jokichi Takamine, um químico famoso mundialmente e fundador da Sankyo Co., Ltd. (hoje conhecida como Daiichi Sankyo), Dr. David Fairchild, do Departamento de Agricultura dos Estados Unidos, de Eliza Scidmore, primeiro membro da diretoria feminina da National Geographic Society e da primeira-dama Helen Herron Taft, mais de 3.000 árvores chegaram a Washington, D.C. em 1912. Em uma cerimônia simples, em 27 de março de 1912, a primeira-dama Helen Herron Taft e a Viscondessa Chinda, esposa do embaixador do Japão, plantaram as duas primeiras árvores do Japão na margem norte do Tidal Basin em West Potomac Park. Ao longo dos anos, os presentes foram trocados entre os dois países. Em 1915, o Governo dos Estados Unidos retribuiu com um presente de árvores chamadas “dogwood” (que também tem belas florações) para o povo do Japão. (tradução:nationalcherryblossom)
Cherry Blossom. Washington, DC. USA. Mar/2016
A cherry blossom is the flower of any of several trees of genus Prunus, particularly the Japanese cherry, Prunus serrulata, which is called sakura after the Japanese (桜 or 櫻; さくら).
Cherry blossom is speculated to be native to the Himalayas.[4] Currently it is widely distributed, especially in the temperate zone of theNorthern Hemisphere including Europe, West Siberia, India, China, Japan, Korea, Canada, and the United States. The cherry blossom is considered the national flower of Japan.
Japan gave 3,020 cherry blossom trees as a gift to the United States in 1912 to celebrate the nations' then-growing friendship, replacing an earlier gift of 2000 trees which had to be destroyed due to disease in 1910. These trees were planted in Sakura Park in Manhattan and line the shore of the Tidal Basin and the roadway in East Potomac Park in Washington, D.C. The first two original trees were planted by first ladyHelen Taft and Viscountess Chinda on the bank of the Tidal Basin. The gift was renewed with another 3,800 trees in 1965.In Washington, D.C. the cherry blossom trees continue to be a popular tourist attraction (and the subject of the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival) when they reach full bloom in early spring
Todos os anos o Festival Nacional das Cerejeiras celebra a floração das cerejeiras dadas à cidade de Washington, em 1912, pelo prefeito de Tóquio. O presente foi uma homenagem do prefeito à longa história de amizade entre Estados Unidos e Japão. As cerejeiras floridas marcam a chegada da primavera na cidade e proporcionam uma das vistas mais apreciadas da região. Um dos lugares mais bonitos para observação é ao redor do Tidal Basin, espelho d’água no centro de Washington próximo ao Washington Monument, ao Lincoln Memorial, ao Jefferson Memorial e ao Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. O pico da florada é definido como o dia em que 70% das flores do Tidal Basin estão abertas
Houve a coordenação de muitas pessoas para assegurar a chegada das cerejeiras. Um primeiro lote de 2.000 árvores chegou doente em 1910, mas isso não impediu as partes envolvidas de envidarem todos os esforços para a concretização do intento. Entre os governos dos dois países, com as coordenações do Dr. Jokichi Takamine, um químico famoso mundialmente e fundador da Sankyo Co., Ltd. (hoje conhecida como Daiichi Sankyo), Dr. David Fairchild, do Departamento de Agricultura dos Estados Unidos, de Eliza Scidmore, primeiro membro da diretoria feminina da National Geographic Society e da primeira-dama Helen Herron Taft, mais de 3.000 árvores chegaram a Washington, D.C. em 1912. Em uma cerimônia simples, em 27 de março de 1912, a primeira-dama Helen Herron Taft e a Viscondessa Chinda, esposa do embaixador do Japão, plantaram as duas primeiras árvores do Japão na margem norte do Tidal Basin em West Potomac Park. Ao longo dos anos, os presentes foram trocados entre os dois países. Em 1915, o Governo dos Estados Unidos retribuiu com um presente de árvores chamadas “dogwood” (que também tem belas florações) para o povo do Japão. (tradução:nationalcherryblossom)
Cherry Blossom. Washington, DC. USA. Mar/2016
A cherry blossom is the flower of any of several trees of genus Prunus, particularly the Japanese cherry, Prunus serrulata, which is called sakura after the Japanese (桜 or 櫻; さくら).
Cherry blossom is speculated to be native to the Himalayas.[4] Currently it is widely distributed, especially in the temperate zone of theNorthern Hemisphere including Europe, West Siberia, India, China, Japan, Korea, Canada, and the United States. The cherry blossom is considered the national flower of Japan.
Japan gave 3,020 cherry blossom trees as a gift to the United States in 1912 to celebrate the nations' then-growing friendship, replacing an earlier gift of 2000 trees which had to be destroyed due to disease in 1910. These trees were planted in Sakura Park in Manhattan and line the shore of the Tidal Basin and the roadway in East Potomac Park in Washington, D.C. The first two original trees were planted by first ladyHelen Taft and Viscountess Chinda on the bank of the Tidal Basin. The gift was renewed with another 3,800 trees in 1965.In Washington, D.C. the cherry blossom trees continue to be a popular tourist attraction (and the subject of the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival) when they reach full bloom in early spring
Todos os anos o Festival Nacional das Cerejeiras celebra a floração das cerejeiras dadas à cidade de Washington, em 1912, pelo prefeito de Tóquio. O presente foi uma homenagem do prefeito à longa história de amizade entre Estados Unidos e Japão. As cerejeiras floridas marcam a chegada da primavera na cidade e proporcionam uma das vistas mais apreciadas da região. Um dos lugares mais bonitos para observação é ao redor do Tidal Basin, espelho d’água no centro de Washington próximo ao Washington Monument, ao Lincoln Memorial, ao Jefferson Memorial e ao Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. O pico da florada é definido como o dia em que 70% das flores do Tidal Basin estão abertas
Houve a coordenação de muitas pessoas para assegurar a chegada das cerejeiras. Um primeiro lote de 2.000 árvores chegou doente em 1910, mas isso não impediu as partes envolvidas de envidarem todos os esforços para a concretização do intento. Entre os governos dos dois países, com as coordenações do Dr. Jokichi Takamine, um químico famoso mundialmente e fundador da Sankyo Co., Ltd. (hoje conhecida como Daiichi Sankyo), Dr. David Fairchild, do Departamento de Agricultura dos Estados Unidos, de Eliza Scidmore, primeiro membro da diretoria feminina da National Geographic Society e da primeira-dama Helen Herron Taft, mais de 3.000 árvores chegaram a Washington, D.C. em 1912. Em uma cerimônia simples, em 27 de março de 1912, a primeira-dama Helen Herron Taft e a Viscondessa Chinda, esposa do embaixador do Japão, plantaram as duas primeiras árvores do Japão na margem norte do Tidal Basin em West Potomac Park. Ao longo dos anos, os presentes foram trocados entre os dois países. Em 1915, o Governo dos Estados Unidos retribuiu com um presente de árvores chamadas “dogwood” (que também tem belas florações) para o povo do Japão. (tradução:nationalcherryblossom)
Cherry Blossom. Washington, DC. USA. Mar/2016
A cherry blossom is the flower of any of several trees of genus Prunus, particularly the Japanese cherry, Prunus serrulata, which is called sakura after the Japanese (桜 or 櫻; さくら).
Cherry blossom is speculated to be native to the Himalayas.[4] Currently it is widely distributed, especially in the temperate zone of theNorthern Hemisphere including Europe, West Siberia, India, China, Japan, Korea, Canada, and the United States. The cherry blossom is considered the national flower of Japan.
Japan gave 3,020 cherry blossom trees as a gift to the United States in 1912 to celebrate the nations' then-growing friendship, replacing an earlier gift of 2000 trees which had to be destroyed due to disease in 1910. These trees were planted in Sakura Park in Manhattan and line the shore of the Tidal Basin and the roadway in East Potomac Park in Washington, D.C. The first two original trees were planted by first ladyHelen Taft and Viscountess Chinda on the bank of the Tidal Basin. The gift was renewed with another 3,800 trees in 1965.In Washington, D.C. the cherry blossom trees continue to be a popular tourist attraction (and the subject of the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival) when they reach full bloom in early spring
Todos os anos o Festival Nacional das Cerejeiras celebra a floração das cerejeiras dadas à cidade de Washington, em 1912, pelo prefeito de Tóquio. O presente foi uma homenagem do prefeito à longa história de amizade entre Estados Unidos e Japão. As cerejeiras floridas marcam a chegada da primavera na cidade e proporcionam uma das vistas mais apreciadas da região. Um dos lugares mais bonitos para observação é ao redor do Tidal Basin, espelho d’água no centro de Washington próximo ao Washington Monument, ao Lincoln Memorial, ao Jefferson Memorial e ao Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. O pico da florada é definido como o dia em que 70% das flores do Tidal Basin estão abertas
Houve a coordenação de muitas pessoas para assegurar a chegada das cerejeiras. Um primeiro lote de 2.000 árvores chegou doente em 1910, mas isso não impediu as partes envolvidas de envidarem todos os esforços para a concretização do intento. Entre os governos dos dois países, com as coordenações do Dr. Jokichi Takamine, um químico famoso mundialmente e fundador da Sankyo Co., Ltd. (hoje conhecida como Daiichi Sankyo), Dr. David Fairchild, do Departamento de Agricultura dos Estados Unidos, de Eliza Scidmore, primeiro membro da diretoria feminina da National Geographic Society e da primeira-dama Helen Herron Taft, mais de 3.000 árvores chegaram a Washington, D.C. em 1912. Em uma cerimônia simples, em 27 de março de 1912, a primeira-dama Helen Herron Taft e a Viscondessa Chinda, esposa do embaixador do Japão, plantaram as duas primeiras árvores do Japão na margem norte do Tidal Basin em West Potomac Park. Ao longo dos anos, os presentes foram trocados entre os dois países. Em 1915, o Governo dos Estados Unidos retribuiu com um presente de árvores chamadas “dogwood” (que também tem belas florações) para o povo do Japão. (tradução:nationalcherryblossom)
Food being distributed to Filipinos at Malacanan Palace by two members of USAC and Madame Roxas. Helping are the wives of the members of President Roxas cabinet to the needy people of Manila. This was part of a program for the independence of the Philippines. July 2, 1946
Signal Corp U.S. Army photograph, US National Archives
UN Women implementing partner Htoi Gender and Development Foundation is working with women in camps for internally displaced people in Kachin State and supporting the economic empowerment of the most vulnerable women. This work has been made possible by supplementary funding from the Government of Japan for the regional programme ‘Women and Girls at the Centre of COVID-19 Prevention’. The programme contributes to the goal of leaving no one behind, even during COVID-19.
Photo: UN Women/Naw Su
Century Comedy, distributed by Universal, directed by Edward Ludwig, starring Edna Marian and the Century Follies Girls. Provincial Archives of Alberta, PR2017.0628/24.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City
New York City (NYC), often called the City of New York or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2018 population of 8,398,748 distributed over about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the U.S. state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass. With almost 20 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and approximately 23 million in its combined statistical area, it is one of the world's most populous megacities. New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, significantly influencing commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.
Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City is composed of five boroughs, each of which is a county of the State of New York. The five boroughs—Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island—were consolidated into a single city in 1898. The city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. New York is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the United States, the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world as of 2016. As of 2019, the New York metropolitan area is estimated to produce a gross metropolitan product (GMP) of $2.0 trillion. If greater New York City were a sovereign state, it would have the 12th highest GDP in the world. New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world.
New York City traces its origins to a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan; the post was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York was the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, and has been the largest U.S. city since 1790. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the U.S. by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the U.S. and its ideals of liberty and peace. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship and environmental sustainability, and as a symbol of freedom and cultural diversity. In 2019, New York was voted the greatest city in the world per a survey of over 30,000 people from 48 cities worldwide, citing its cultural diversity.
Many districts and landmarks in New York City are well known, including three of the world's ten most visited tourist attractions in 2013. A record 62.8 million tourists visited New York City in 2017. Times Square is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, and a major center of the world's entertainment industry. Many of the city's landmarks, skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattan's real estate market is among the most expensive in the world. New York is home to the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, with multiple distinct Chinatowns across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service and contributing to the nickname The City that Never Sleeps, the New York City Subway is the largest single-operator rapid transit system worldwide, with 472 rail stations. The city has over 120 colleges and universities, including Columbia University, New York University, Rockefeller University, and the City University of New York system, which is the largest urban public university system in the United States. Manhattan is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, namely the New York Stock Exchange, located on Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, and NASDAQ, headquartered in Midtown Manhattan.
Cherry Blossom. Washington, DC. USA. Mar/2016
A cherry blossom is the flower of any of several trees of genus Prunus, particularly the Japanese cherry, Prunus serrulata, which is called sakura after the Japanese (桜 or 櫻; さくら).
Cherry blossom is speculated to be native to the Himalayas.[4] Currently it is widely distributed, especially in the temperate zone of theNorthern Hemisphere including Europe, West Siberia, India, China, Japan, Korea, Canada, and the United States. The cherry blossom is considered the national flower of Japan.
Japan gave 3,020 cherry blossom trees as a gift to the United States in 1912 to celebrate the nations' then-growing friendship, replacing an earlier gift of 2000 trees which had to be destroyed due to disease in 1910. These trees were planted in Sakura Park in Manhattan and line the shore of the Tidal Basin and the roadway in East Potomac Park in Washington, D.C. The first two original trees were planted by first ladyHelen Taft and Viscountess Chinda on the bank of the Tidal Basin. The gift was renewed with another 3,800 trees in 1965.In Washington, D.C. the cherry blossom trees continue to be a popular tourist attraction (and the subject of the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival) when they reach full bloom in early spring
Todos os anos o Festival Nacional das Cerejeiras celebra a floração das cerejeiras dadas à cidade de Washington, em 1912, pelo prefeito de Tóquio. O presente foi uma homenagem do prefeito à longa história de amizade entre Estados Unidos e Japão. As cerejeiras floridas marcam a chegada da primavera na cidade e proporcionam uma das vistas mais apreciadas da região. Um dos lugares mais bonitos para observação é ao redor do Tidal Basin, espelho d’água no centro de Washington próximo ao Washington Monument, ao Lincoln Memorial, ao Jefferson Memorial e ao Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. O pico da florada é definido como o dia em que 70% das flores do Tidal Basin estão abertas
Houve a coordenação de muitas pessoas para assegurar a chegada das cerejeiras. Um primeiro lote de 2.000 árvores chegou doente em 1910, mas isso não impediu as partes envolvidas de envidarem todos os esforços para a concretização do intento. Entre os governos dos dois países, com as coordenações do Dr. Jokichi Takamine, um químico famoso mundialmente e fundador da Sankyo Co., Ltd. (hoje conhecida como Daiichi Sankyo), Dr. David Fairchild, do Departamento de Agricultura dos Estados Unidos, de Eliza Scidmore, primeiro membro da diretoria feminina da National Geographic Society e da primeira-dama Helen Herron Taft, mais de 3.000 árvores chegaram a Washington, D.C. em 1912. Em uma cerimônia simples, em 27 de março de 1912, a primeira-dama Helen Herron Taft e a Viscondessa Chinda, esposa do embaixador do Japão, plantaram as duas primeiras árvores do Japão na margem norte do Tidal Basin em West Potomac Park. Ao longo dos anos, os presentes foram trocados entre os dois países. Em 1915, o Governo dos Estados Unidos retribuiu com um presente de árvores chamadas “dogwood” (que também tem belas florações) para o povo do Japão. (tradução:nationalcherryblossom)
Cherry Blossom. Washington, DC. USA. Mar/2016
A cherry blossom is the flower of any of several trees of genus Prunus, particularly the Japanese cherry, Prunus serrulata, which is called sakura after the Japanese (桜 or 櫻; さくら).
Cherry blossom is speculated to be native to the Himalayas.[4] Currently it is widely distributed, especially in the temperate zone of theNorthern Hemisphere including Europe, West Siberia, India, China, Japan, Korea, Canada, and the United States. The cherry blossom is considered the national flower of Japan.
Japan gave 3,020 cherry blossom trees as a gift to the United States in 1912 to celebrate the nations' then-growing friendship, replacing an earlier gift of 2000 trees which had to be destroyed due to disease in 1910. These trees were planted in Sakura Park in Manhattan and line the shore of the Tidal Basin and the roadway in East Potomac Park in Washington, D.C. The first two original trees were planted by first ladyHelen Taft and Viscountess Chinda on the bank of the Tidal Basin. The gift was renewed with another 3,800 trees in 1965.In Washington, D.C. the cherry blossom trees continue to be a popular tourist attraction (and the subject of the annual National Cherry Blossom Festival) when they reach full bloom in early spring
Todos os anos o Festival Nacional das Cerejeiras celebra a floração das cerejeiras dadas à cidade de Washington, em 1912, pelo prefeito de Tóquio. O presente foi uma homenagem do prefeito à longa história de amizade entre Estados Unidos e Japão. As cerejeiras floridas marcam a chegada da primavera na cidade e proporcionam uma das vistas mais apreciadas da região. Um dos lugares mais bonitos para observação é ao redor do Tidal Basin, espelho d’água no centro de Washington próximo ao Washington Monument, ao Lincoln Memorial, ao Jefferson Memorial e ao Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. O pico da florada é definido como o dia em que 70% das flores do Tidal Basin estão abertas
Houve a coordenação de muitas pessoas para assegurar a chegada das cerejeiras. Um primeiro lote de 2.000 árvores chegou doente em 1910, mas isso não impediu as partes envolvidas de envidarem todos os esforços para a concretização do intento. Entre os governos dos dois países, com as coordenações do Dr. Jokichi Takamine, um químico famoso mundialmente e fundador da Sankyo Co., Ltd. (hoje conhecida como Daiichi Sankyo), Dr. David Fairchild, do Departamento de Agricultura dos Estados Unidos, de Eliza Scidmore, primeiro membro da diretoria feminina da National Geographic Society e da primeira-dama Helen Herron Taft, mais de 3.000 árvores chegaram a Washington, D.C. em 1912. Em uma cerimônia simples, em 27 de março de 1912, a primeira-dama Helen Herron Taft e a Viscondessa Chinda, esposa do embaixador do Japão, plantaram as duas primeiras árvores do Japão na margem norte do Tidal Basin em West Potomac Park. Ao longo dos anos, os presentes foram trocados entre os dois países. Em 1915, o Governo dos Estados Unidos retribuiu com um presente de árvores chamadas “dogwood” (que também tem belas florações) para o povo do Japão. (tradução:nationalcherryblossom)
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Pabongkha Hermitage (Pha bong kha ri khrod)[1]
by José Ignacio Cabezón (January 30, 2006)
Section 1 of 3
Distributed under the THDL Digital Text License.
Introduction
A view of Pha bong kha from the south. A view of Pha bong kha from the rear, looking down into the Nyang bran Valley.
Pha bong kha, one of the largest and most important of the Se ra hermitages (ri khrod), lies about eight kilometers northwest of downtown Lha sa on the southern (Lha sa-facing) slope of a peak known as Mount Parasol (Dbu gdugs ri), northwest of Se ra. It takes a little over one hour to walk from Pha bong kha to Se ra. Pha bong kha is the starting point for the “Sixth-Month Fourth-Day” (Drug pa tshe bzhi) Sera Mountain Circumambulation Circuit (Se ra’i ri ’khor) pilgrimage. To see images of the circumambulation taken in 2002, click here.
The site has a long history that is said to go back to the time of the first Buddhist king (of Tibet) Songtsen Gampo (Chos rgyal srong btsan sgam po).[2] Although originally the site of his castle (sku mkhar) or fort, it appears that Pha bong kha was quickly converted into a monastery, perhaps as early as the reign of the second great Buddhist king (of Tibet) Trisong Detsen (Chos rgyal khri srong lde’u btsan). The monastery was partially destroyed as part of King Glang dar ma’s (d. 842) campaign to dismantle monastic Buddhism. During the so-called “later propagation period” (phyi dar), Pha bong kha was taken over by members of the Bka’ gdams pa school. Later, Tsong kha pa (1357-1419) lived at the site as a hermit, and it eventually became a Dge lugs institution. Before 1959, Pha bong kha was apparently an autonomous institution that belonged to no other monastery, although at various times it has had informal ties to Se ra through the person of the various Se ra bla mas that served as its abbots. The monastery suffered considerable destruction from 1960 to the mid-1980s. Se ra monks began renovating the buildings in the mid-1980s, and today the monastery belongs to Se ra. Since the mid-80s, all of Pha bong kha’s monks are Se ra monks, and the hermitage is managed by a senior Se ra monk. As was the case before 1959, and as is typical of the Se ra hermitages in general, Pha bong kha is principally a ritual institution. It maintains its own tradition of monthly and yearly ritual cycles.[3] The most important of these yearly ritual events (at least for the laity) are:
•the six-day (three sets of two-day) Avalokiteśvara fasting rituals (smyung gnas) that take place during the time of the Tibetan New Year (Lo gsar) celebrations,
•the sixteen-day (eight sets of two-day) Avalokiteśvara fasting rituals that take place during the fourth Tibetan month. This attracts many (especially elderly) people from Lha sa and the surrounding area, and
•the ritual and other events that take place during the “Sixth-Month Fourth-Day” pilgrimage.
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Notes
[1] The account that follows is based on the narrative of the monastery in Sde srid sangs rgyas rgya mtsho, Dga’ ldan chos ’byung bai ḍūrya ser po [Yellow Lapis: A History of the Ganden (School)] (Krung go’i bod kyi shes rig dpe skrun khang, 1991), 144; on the “Pha bong kha” entry in Dung dkar blo bzang ’phrin las, Dung dkar tshig mdzod chen mo (Krung go’i bod kyi shes rig dpe skrun khang, 2002), 1313-1316; on a dkar chag of the monastery made available to me by Pha bong kha monks in 2004; and on material from oral interviews with some of the resident monks conducted in August of 2004.
The title of the dkar chag reads Yul nyer bzhi’i ya rgyal/ de bi ko ṭi dang ming gzhan pha bong kha byang chub shing gi nags khrod du bkod pa’i dkar chag dad ldan padmo rgyas byed gzi sbyin ’od stong ’bar ba’i nor bu (hereafter Pha bong kha’i dkar chag). It appears to be an edited version of a text bearing the same name published in Three Khrid on the Nā ro mkha’ spyod Practice (Delhi: Ngawang Sopa, 1976), 454-532. (I have Gene Smith to thank for making a copy of this latter edition available to me.) References to the dkar chag in this work are to the edition published in Tibet. The publication of the Tibetan edition of the dkar chag was sponsored by a contemporary abbot (or perhaps now former abbot) of Pha bong kha, Byams pa thub bstan rin po che.
In the colophon the author of the dkar chag identifies himself as the reincarnation of a bla ma of Kong po jo rdzong, the reincarnation of the bla ma of Chökhang Tsewa Monastery (Chos khang rtse ba dgon pa); he also identifies himself as belonging to the Mé College (Grwa tshang smad) of Se ra, but gives his name only in Sanskrit as Wāginḍamatibhadrapaṭu bandashāsadharasagara (sic).
The introductory verse of the Delhi edition bears identifying marks (dots) under certain syllables. (These are missing in the Tibetan edition.) Those marks spell out “Ngag dbang blo bzang thub bstan rgya mtsho ’jigs bral dbang phyug phyogs las rnam par rgyal ba.” This resembles the name of the eighth Demo incarnation Ngawang Lozang Tupten Jikmé Gyatso (De mo sku phreng brgyad pa ngag dbang blo bzang thub bstan ’jigs med rgya mtsho, 1778-1819), tutor of the Ninth Dalai Lama (Da lai bla ma sku phreng dgu pa, 1806-1815).
The colophon tells us that the work was written between the female-fire-pig (me mo phag) and male-earth-bird (sa pho bya) years. In the fourteenth calendrical cycle or rab byung, this corresponds to 1827-1828. The author of the dkar chag further states that he based his work on a verse text compiled by Mkhar rdo ba (mkhan thog brgyad pa kha rdo sku thog bzod pa rgya mtsho’am/_blo bzang sgom chung pas bsgrigs pa tshig bcad ma), as well as on the constitution (bca’ yig) of the monastery written by Rta tshag ye shes bstan pa’i mgon po (1760-1810). On Mkhar rdo bzod pa rgya mtsho (1672-1749) see the Introduction to the Hermitages. On Rta tshag ye shes bstan pa’i mgon po, see TBRC P302.
Still unavailable, to my knowledge, are: (1) the dkar chag of Pha bong kha in six folios written by Mkhar rdo bzod pa rgya mtsho, and (2) another dkar chag by ’Khon ston dpal ’byor lhun grub (1561-1637). The latter is mentioned in A khu rin po che’s (1803-1875) list of rare texts; see Lokesh Chandra, Materials for a History of Tibetan Literature (Kyoto: Rinsen Book Co., 1981, repr. of the 1963 ed.), no. 11012. Bshes gnyen tshul khrims, Lha sa’i dgon tho rin chen spungs rgyan [A Catalogue of the Monasteries of Lhasa: A Heap of Jewels; hereafter Lha sa’i dgon tho] (Bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang, 2001), 15, quotes ’Khon ston’s dkar chag, implying, perhaps, that he had the text at his disposal; he gives the date of composition of the work as 1619.
Sde srid sangs rgyas rgya mtsho’s account of Pha bong kha in the Bai ḍūrya ser po, 144, is fascinating because it links the flourishing of Tibet to the flourishing of Pha bong kha; and vice versa, it links political problems in Tibet with the decline of Pha bong kha. Mention of Pha bong kha is also found in Turrell Wylie, The Geography of Tibet According to the ’Dzam-gling-rgyas-bshad (Rome: IsMEO, 1962), 83 and 159 n. 400; and Alfonsa Ferrari, Luciano Petech and Hugh Richardson, Mk’yen brtse’s Guide to the Holy Places of Central Tibet (Rome: IsMEO, 1958), 42, 101-102 n. 86, and plates 6 and 7.
[2] Bshes gnyen tshul khrims, Lha sa’i dgon tho, 15, gives the date of Pha bong kha’s founding as “around 643” but cites no source for this.
[3] As with many monasteries, these include both exoteric and Tantric ritual practices that take place on the eighth, tenth, fifteenth, twenty-fifth, and twenty-eighth of the lunar month. Pha bong kha monks also do special rituals for important bla mas in the tradition every Wednesday.
source : www.thdl.org/collections/cultgeo/mons/sera/hermitages/ind...
The barn owl (Tyto alba) is the most widely distributed species of owl and one of the most widespread of all birds. It is also referred to as the common barn owl, to distinguish it from other species in its family, Tytonidae, which forms one of the two main lineages of living owls, the other being the typical owls
The barn owl is found almost everywhere in the world except polar and desert regions, Asia north of the Himalayas, most of Indonesia, and some Pacific islands.
Barn Owls prefer a mixed farming habitat with spinneys, ditches, rough pastures and well-managed field margins. Grassland makes good hunting ground, along with hay meadows. They are often found around farm buildings, barns and the edge of villages. A breeding pair of barn owls needs around 1.5 ha of rough grass.. (C) (S)
Santa distributing the presents and goodies to everyone. This was at my cousin Melinda's place up in Stockton, CA during our family's annual Christmas party gathering here. We had lots of good food, fun games, fellowship, a short service, white elephant, the distribution of all the Christmas presents with Santa, and simply enjoyed the time we had with one another on this joyous holiday season. Anyway, hope y'all are having a nice and safe holiday season so far! (Tuesday late evening, December 24, 2024)
*Christmas is not found in the store-bought gifts but in the shared smiles, the heartfelt conversations, and the moments that touch the soul.
Postal Service History:
The first official postal service in Australia was established in April 1809, when the Sydney merchant Isaac Nichols was appointed as the first Postmaster in the colony of New South Wales. Prior to this, mail had been distributed directly by the captain of the ship on which the mail arrived, however, this system was neither reliable nor secure.
In 1825 the colonial administration was empowered to establish a Postmaster General's Department, which had previously been administered from Britain.
In 1828 the first post offices outside Sydney were established with offices in Bathurst, Campbelltown, Parramatta, Liverpool, Newcastle, Penrith, and Windsor. By 1839 there were forty post offices in the colony, with more opening as settlement spread. The advance of postal services was further increased as the railway network began to be established throughout New South Wales from the 1860s. Also, in 1863, the Postmaster General WH Christie noted that accommodation facilities for Postmasters in some post offices was quite limited, and stated that it was a matter of importance that 'post masters should reside and sleep under the same roof as the office'.
The appointment of James Barnet as Acting Colonial Architect in 1862 coincided with a considerable increase in funding to the public works program. Between 1865 and 1890 the Colonial Architect's Office was responsible for the building and maintenance of 169 Post Offices and telegraph offices in New South Wales. The post offices constructed during this period were designed in a variety of architectural styles, as Barnet argued that the local parliamentary representatives always preferred 'different patterns'.
James Johnstone Barnet (1827 - 1904) was made acting Colonial Architect in 1862 and appointed Colonial Architect from 1865 - 1890. He was born in Scotland and studied in London under Charles Richardson, RIBA and William Dyce, Professor of Fine Arts at King's College, London. He was strongly influenced by Charles Robert Cockerell, leading classical theorist at the time and by the fine arts, particularly works of painters Claude Lorrain and JRM Turner. He arrived in Sydney in 1854 and worked as a self-employed builder. He served as Edmund Blacket's clerk of works on the foundations of the Randwick (Destitute Childrens') Asylum. Blacket then appointed Barnet as clerk-of-works on the Great Hall at Sydney University. By 1859 he was appointed second clerk of works at the Colonial Architect's Office and in 1861 was Acting Colonial Architect. Thus began a long career. He dominated public architecture in New South Wales, as the longest-serving Colonial Architect in Australian history. Until he resigned in 1890 his office undertook some 12, 000 works, Barnet himself designing almost 1000. They included those edifices so vital to promoting communication, the law, and safe sea arrivals in colonial Australia. Altogether there were 169 post and telegraph offices, 130 courthouses, 155 police buildings, 110 lockups and 20 lighthouses, including the present Macquarie Lighthouse on South Head, which replaced the earlier one designed by Francis Greenway. Barnet's vision for Sydney is most clearly seen in the Customs House at Circular Quay, the General Post Office in Martin Place, and the Lands Department and Colonial Secretary's Office in Bridge Street. There he applied the classicism he had absorbed in London, with a theatricality which came from his knowledge of art.
The construction of new post offices continued throughout the Depression years under the leadership of Walter Liberty Vernon, who retained office from 1890 to 1911. While twenty-seven post offices were built between 1892 and 1895, funding to the Government Architect's Office was cut from 1893 to 1895, causing Vernon to postpone a number of projects.
Walter Liberty Vernon (1846 - 1914) was both architect and soldier. Born in England, he ran successful practices in Hastings and London and had estimable connections in artistic and architectural circles. In 1883 he had a recurrence of bronchitic asthma and was advised to leave the damp of England. He and his wife sailed to New South Wales. Before leaving, he gained a commission to build new premises for Messrs David Jones and Co., in Sydney's George Street. In 1890 he was appointed Government Architect - the first to hold that title - in the newly reorganised branch of the Public Works Department. He saw his role as building 'monuments to art'. His major buildings, such as the Art Gallery of New South Wales (1904 - 1906) are large in scale, finely wrought in sandstone, and maintaining the classical tradition. Among others are the Mitchell Wing of the State Library, Fisher Library at the University of Sydney, and Central Railway Station. He also added to a number of buildings designed by his predecessors, including Customs House, the GPO, and Chief Secretary's Building - with changes which did not meet with the approval of his immediate predecessor, James Barnet who, nine years after his resignation, denounced Vernon's additions in an essay and documentation of his own works. In England, Vernon had delighted his clients with buildings in the fashionable Queen Anne style. In New South Wales, a number of British trained architects who were proponents of the Arts and Crafts style joined his office and under their influence, Vernon changed his approach to suburban projects. Buildings such as the Darlinghurst First Station (Federation Free style, 1910) took on the scale and character of their surroundings. Under Vernon's leadership, an impressive array of buildings was produced which were distinguished by interesting brickwork and careful climatic considerations, by shady verandahs, sheltered courtyards, and provision for cross-flow ventilation. Examples are courthouses in Parkes (1904), Wellington (1912), and Bourke, Lands Offices in Dubbo (1897) and Orange (1904), and the Post Office in Wellington (1904).
Following Federation in 1901, the Commonwealth Government took over responsibility for Post, Telegraph and Telephone offices, with the Department of Home Affairs Works Division being made responsible for Post Office construction. In 1916 construction was transferred to the Department of Works and Railways, with the Department of the Interior responsible during World War II.
On the 22nd of December 1975 the Postmaster General's Department was abolished and replaced by Post and Telecommunications Department, with Telecom and Australia Post being created. In 1989, the Australian Postal Corporation Act established Australia Post as a self-funding entity, which heralded a new direction in property management, including a move towards smaller shop-front style post offices away from the larger more traditional buildings.
For much of its history, the post office has been responsible for a wide variety of community services including mail distribution, as agencies for the Commonwealth Savings Bank, electoral enrolments, and the provision of telegraph and telephone services. The town post office served as a focal point for the community, most often built in a prominent position in the centre of town close to other public buildings, creating a nucleus of civic buildings and community pride.
The Broken Hill Post Office:
In September 1883, Charles Rasp, a boundary rider on the Mount Gipps sheep station, pegged out a mineral lease on the property, in the belief that a rock outcrop within the lease area bore tin oxide. Rasp was joined by two other property workers, who in turn advised the manager of Mount Gipps, George McCulloch. McCulloch suggested a 'syndicate of seven' investors to pay for the development of the lease. Early samples proved to have a low bearing of tin and the main settlement was at Silverton to the north.
It was not until January 1885, when silver ore was discovered in the tailings of the Rasp shaft that people began to take an interest in the Broken Hill area. In June, the 'syndicate' decided to register itself as the Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited, to mine the ore load. With the establishment of the mine, the town began to grow rapidly with a Broken Hill Progress Committee being established in November to encourage the town's development. The first storekeeper, Walter Sully, operated a postal service pending the construction of a post office.
In January 1886 the first post office was opened in Broken Hill following pressure from the Progress Committee on the postmaster at Silverton, the nearest post office. The Broken Hill office was run by Mrs Marie Wilson from a small building attached to Walter Sully's general store in Argent Street. Mrs Wilson was the first Government Official appointed in Broken Hill.
In August 1886 a telegraph station was established in Broken Hill, also operating out of the post office building, with Mr William Newtown appointed as Post and Telegraph Master. By the end of 1886, Broken Hill's population had risen to 3000, and the post office building was deemed no longer adequate for the bustling mining town. From October 1886, the Progress Committee began to make official requests to the Post Master General's (PMG) Department for the erection of an official post office. Initially, the PMG Department was reluctant to approve the erection of a large office due to the uncertainty of Broken Hill settlement being permanent. Many other frontier mining towns had disappeared when the ore had dried up. However, by October 1888, the Department had accepted Broken Hill's permanency and plans had been drawn up by the Colonial Architects Office under James Barnet, for a large office, with a residence attached. These were rejected on the grounds of being too small and it was not until the 11th of November 1889 that the final plans were accepted.
The tender for the construction was awarded to Mr John Dobbie of Balmain for £6475 on the condition that the new office be erected in twelve months.
The new office was finished in 1892, opening for business on the 9th of May. The most striking feature of the new office was the tower, standing 86 feet high. A balcony adorned the tower and second storey of the office, with a verandah encircling the ground level. The internal fittings, including entrance door in Argent Street, mail counters, and stairways were made out of cedar. The postmaster was accommodated within the building, with a residence for a postal assistant also provided.
In 1973 the rear section of the Post Office was removed to make way for the building of a new telephone exchange. The postmaster's residence was also removed at this stage. Between August and November 1979 a major refurbishment and renovation program was undertaken in the post office, during which time the service operated out of temporary accommodation.
Source: New South Wales Heritage Register.
Bain News Service,, publisher.
Distributing milk bottles on HELEN JUILLARD
[between ca. 1915 and ca. 1920]
1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in. or smaller.
Notes:
Title from unverified data provided by the Bain News Service on the negatives or caption cards.
Forms part of: George Grantham Bain Collection (Library of Congress).
Format: Glass negatives.
Rights Info: No known restrictions on publication.
Repository: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print
General information about the Bain Collection is available at hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.ggbain
Higher resolution image is available (Persistent URL): hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ggbain.22188
Call Number: LC-B2- 3909-5
The geothermal areas of Yellowstone include several geyser basins in Yellowstone National Park as well as other geothermal features such as hot springs, mud pots, and fumaroles. The number of thermal features in Yellowstone is estimated at 10,000. A study that was completed in 2011 found that a total of 1,283 geysers have erupted in Yellowstone, 465 of which are active during an average year. These are distributed among nine geyser basins, with a few geysers found in smaller thermal areas throughout the Park. The number of geysers in each geyser basin are as follows: Upper Geyser Basin (410), Midway Geyser Basin (59), Lower Geyser Basin (283), Norris Geyser Basin (193), West Thumb Geyser Basin (84), Gibbon Geyser Basin (24), Lone Star Geyser Basin (21), Shoshone Geyser Basin (107), Heart Lake Geyser Basin (69), other areas (33). Although famous large geysers like Old Faithful are part of the total, most of Yellowstone's geysers are small, erupting to only a foot or two. The hydrothermal system that supplies the geysers with hot water sits within an ancient active caldera. Many of the thermal features in Yellowstone build up sinter, geyserite, or travertine deposits around and within them.
The various geyser basins are located where rainwater and snowmelt can percolate into the ground, get indirectly superheated by the underlying Yellowstone hotspot, and then erupt at the surface as geysers, hot springs, and fumaroles. Thus flat-bottomed valleys between ancient lava flows and glacial moraines are where most of the large geothermal areas are located. Smaller geothermal areas can be found where fault lines reach the surface, in places along the circular fracture zone around the caldera, and at the base of slopes that collect excess groundwater. Due to the Yellowstone Plateau's high elevation the average boiling temperature at Yellowstone's geyser basins is 199 °F (93 °C). When properly confined and close to the surface it can periodically release some of the built-up pressure in eruptions of hot water and steam that can reach up to 390 feet (120 m) into the air (see Steamboat Geyser, the world's tallest geyser). Water erupting from Yellowstone's geysers is superheated above that boiling point to an average of 204 °F (95.5 °C) as it leaves the vent. The water cools significantly while airborne and is no longer scalding hot by the time it strikes the ground, nearby boardwalks, or even spectators. Because of the high temperatures of the water in the features it is important that spectators remain on the boardwalks and designated trails. Several deaths have occurred in the park as a result of falls into hot springs.
Prehistoric Native American artifacts have been found at Mammoth Hot Springs and other geothermal areas in Yellowstone. Some accounts state that the early people used hot water from the geothermal features for bathing and cooking. In the 19th century Father Pierre-Jean De Smet reported that natives he interviewed thought that geyser eruptions were "the result of combat between the infernal spirits". The Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled north of the Yellowstone area in 1806. Local natives that they came upon seldom dared to enter what we now know is the caldera because of frequent loud noises that sounded like thunder and the belief that the spirits that possessed the area did not like human intrusion into their realm. The first white man known to travel into the caldera and see the geothermal features was John Colter, who had left the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He described what he saw as "hot spring brimstone". Beaver trapper Joseph Meek recounted in 1830 that the steam rising from the various geyser basins reminded him of smoke coming from industrial smokestacks on a cold winter morning in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In the 1850s famed trapper Jim Bridger called it "the place where Hell bubbled up".
The heat that drives geothermal activity in the Yellowstone area comes from brine (salty water) that is 1.5–3 miles (7,900–15,800 ft; 2,400–4,800 m) below the surface. This is actually below the solid volcanic rock and sediment that extends to a depth of 3,000 to 6,000 feet (900 to 1,800 m) and is inside the hot but mostly solid part of the pluton that contains Yellowstone's magma chamber. At that depth the brine is superheated to temperatures that exceed 400 °F (204 °C) but is able to remain a liquid because it is under great pressure (like a huge pressure cooker).
Convection of the churning brine and conduction from surrounding rock transfers heat to an overlaying layer of fresh groundwater. Movement of the two liquids is facilitated by the highly fractured and porous nature of the rocks under the Yellowstone Plateau. Some silica is dissolved from the fractured rhyolite into the hot water as it travels through the fractured rock. Part of this hard mineral is later redeposited on the walls of the cracks and fissures to make a nearly pressure-tight system. Silica precipitates at the surface to form either geyserite or sinter, creating the massive geyser cones, the scalloped edges of hot springs, and the seemingly barren landscape of geyser basins.
There are at least five types of geothermal features found at Yellowstone:
Fumaroles: Fumaroles, or steam vents, are the hottest hydrothermal features in the park. They have so little water that it all flashes into steam before reaching the surface. At places like Roaring Mountain, the result is loud hissing of steam and gases.
Geysers: Geysers such as Old Faithful are a type of geothermal feature that periodically erupt scalding hot water. Increased pressure exerted by the enormous weight of the overlying rock and water prevents deeper water from boiling. As the hot water rises it is under less pressure and steam bubbles form. They, in turn, expand on their ascent until the bubbles are too big and numerous to pass freely through constrictions. At a critical point the confined bubbles actually lift the water above, causing the geyser to splash or overflow. This decreases the pressure of the system and violent boiling results. Large quantities of water flash into tremendous amounts of steam that force a jet of water out of the vent: an eruption begins. Water (and heat) is expelled faster than the geyser's recharge rate, gradually decreasing the system's pressure and eventually ending the eruption.
Hot springs: Hot springs such as Grand Prismatic Spring are the most common hydrothermal features in the park. Their plumbing has no constrictions. Superheated water cools as it reaches the surface, sinks, and is replaced by hotter water from below. This circulation, called convection, prevents water from reaching the temperature needed to set off an eruption. Many hot springs give rise to streams of heated water.
Mudpots: Mudpots such as Fountain Paint Pots are acidic hot springs with a limited water supply. Some microorganisms use hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg smell), which rises from deep within the earth, as an energy source. They convert the gas into sulfuric acid, which breaks down rock into clay.
Travertine terraces: Travertine terraces, found at Mammoth Hot Springs, are formed from limestone (a rock type made of calcium carbonate). Thermal waters rise through the limestone, carrying high amounts of dissolved carbonate. Carbon dioxide is released at the surface and calcium carbonate deposited as travertine, the chalky white rock of the terraces. These features constantly and quickly change due to the rapid rate of deposition.
Geyser basins
The Norris Geyser Basin 44°43′43″N 110°42′16″W is the hottest geyser basin in the park and is located near the northwest edge of Yellowstone Caldera near Norris Junction and on the intersection of three major faults. The Norris-Mammoth Corridor is a fault that runs from Norris north through Mammoth to the Gardiner, Montana, area. The Hebgen Lake fault runs from northwest of West Yellowstone, Montana, to Norris. This fault experienced an earthquake in 1959 that measured 7.4 on the Richter scale (sources vary on exact magnitude between 7.1 and 7.8; see 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake). Norris Geyser Basin is so hot and dynamic because these two faults intersect with the ring fracture zone that resulted from the creation of the Yellowstone Caldera of 640,000 years ago.
The Basin consists of three main areas: Porcelain Basin, Back Basin, and One Hundred Springs Plain. Unlike most of other geyser basins in the park, the waters from Norris are acidic rather than alkaline (for example, Echinus Geyser has a pH of ~3.5). The difference in pH allows for a different class of bacterial thermophiles to live at Norris, creating different color patterns in and around the Norris Basin waters.
The Ragged Hills that lie between Back Basin and One Hundred Springs Plain are thermally altered glacial kames. As glaciers receded the underlying thermal features began to express themselves once again, melting remnants of the ice and causing masses of debris to be dumped. These debris piles were then altered by steam and hot water flowing through them. Madison lies within the eroded stream channels cut through lava flows formed after the caldera eruption. The Gibbon Falls lies on the caldera boundary as does Virginia Cascades.
Algae on left bacteria on right at the intersection of flows from the Constant & Whirlgig Geysers at Norris Geyser Basin
The tallest active geyser in the world, Steamboat Geyser,[11] is located in Norris Basin. Unlike the slightly smaller but much more famous Old Faithful Geyser located in Upper Geyser Basin, Steamboat has an erratic and lengthy timetable between major eruptions. During major eruptions, which may be separated by intervals of more than a year (the longest recorded span between major eruptions was 50 years), Steamboat erupts over 300 feet (90 m) into the air. Steamboat does not lie dormant between eruptions, instead displaying minor eruptions of approximately 40 feet (12 m).
Norris Geyser Basin periodically undergoes a large-scale, basin-wide thermal disturbance lasting a few weeks. Water levels fluctuate, and temperatures, pH, colors, and eruptive patterns change throughout the basin. During a disturbance in 1985, Porkchop Geyser continually jetted steam and water; in 1989, the same geyser apparently clogged with silica and blew up, throwing rocks more than 200 feet (61 m). In 2003 a park ranger observed it bubbling heavily, the first such activity seen since 1991. Activity increased dramatically in mid-2003. Because of high ground temperatures and new features beside the trail much of Back Basin was closed until October. In 2004 the boardwalk was routed around the dangerous area and now leads behind Porkchop Geyser.
North of Norris, Roaring Mountain is a large, acidic hydrothermal area (solfatara) with many fumaroles. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the number, size, and power of the fumaroles were much greater than today. The fumaroles are most easily seen in the cooler, low-light conditions of morning and evening.
The Gibbon Geyser Basin 44°41′58″N 110°44′34″W includes several thermal areas in the vicinity of the Gibbon River between Gibbon Falls and Norris. The most accessible feature in the basin is Beryl Spring, with a small boardwalk right along the Grand Loop Road. Artists' Paintpots is a small hydrothermal area south of Norris Junction that includes colorful hot springs and two large mudpots.
The Monument Geyser Basin 44°41′03″N 110°45′14″W has no active geysers, but its 'monuments' are siliceous sinter deposits similar to the siliceous spires discovered on the floor of Yellowstone Lake. Scientists hypothesize that this basin's structures formed from a hot water system in a glacially dammed lake during the waning stages of the Pinedale Glaciation. The basin is on a ridge reached by a very steep one-mile (1.6 km) trail south of Artists' Paint Pots. Other areas of thermal activity in Gibbon Geyser Basin lie off-trail.
South of Norris along the rim of the caldera is the Upper Geyser Basin 44°27′52″N 110°49′45″W, which has the highest concentration of geothermal features in the park. This complement of features includes the most famous geyser in the park, Old Faithful Geyser, as well as four other predictable large geysers. One of these large geysers in the area is Castle Geyser which is about 1,400 feet (430 m) northwest of Old Faithful. Castle Geyser has an interval of approximately 13 hours between major eruptions, but is unpredictable after minor eruptions. The other three predictable geysers are Grand Geyser, Daisy Geyser, and Riverside Geyser. Biscuit Basin and Black Sand Basin are also within the boundaries of Upper Geyser Basin.
The hills surrounding Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin are reminders of Quaternary rhyolitic lava flows. These flows, occurring long after the catastrophic eruption of 640,000 years ago, flowed across the landscape like stiff mounds of bread dough due to their high silica content.
Evidence of glacial activity is common, and it is one of the keys that allows geysers to exist. Glacier till deposits underlie the geyser basins providing storage areas for the water used in eruptions. Many landforms, such as Porcupine Hills north of Fountain Flats, are made up of glacial gravel and are reminders that 70,000 to 14,000 years ago, this area was buried under ice.
Signs of the forces of erosion can be seen everywhere, from runoff channels carved across the sinter in the geyser basins to the drainage created by the Firehole River. Mountain building is evident on the drive south of Old Faithful, toward Craig Pass. Here the Rocky Mountains reach a height of 8,262 feet (2,518 m), dividing the country into two distinct watersheds.
Midway Geyser Basin 44°31′04″N 110°49′56″W is much smaller than the other basins found alongside the Firehole River. Despite its small size, it contains two large features, the 200-by-300-foot-wide (60 by 90 m) Excelsior Geyser which pours over 4,000 U.S. gallons (15,000 L; 3,300 imp gal) per minute into the Firehole River. The largest hot spring in Yellowstone, the 370-foot-wide (110 m) and 121-foot-deep (37 m) Grand Prismatic Spring is found here. Also in the basin is Turquoise Pool and Opal Pool.
Lower Geyser Basin
Blue spring with steam rising from it; irregular blotches of red and orange residue are on the banks, along with dead tree trunks.
Silex Spring at Fountain Paint Pot
Farther north is the Lower Geyser Basin 44°32′58″N 110°50′09″W, which is the largest geyser basin in area, covering approximately 11 square miles. Due to its large size, it has a much less concentrated set of geothermal features, including Fountain Paint Pots. Fountain Paint Pots are mud pots, that is, a hot spring that contains boiling mud instead of water. The mud is produced by a higher acidity in the water which enables the spring to dissolve surrounding minerals to create an opaque, usually grey, mud. Also there is Firehole Spring, Celestine Pool, Leather Pool, Red Spouter, Jelly spring, and a number of fumaroles.
Geysers in Lower Geyser Basin include Great Fountain Geyser, whose eruptions reach 100 to 200 feet (30–61 m) in the air, while waves of water cascade down its sinter terraces., the Fountain group of Geysers (Clepsydra Geyser which erupts nearly continuously to heights of 45 feet (14 m), Fountain Geyser, Jelly Geyser, Jet Geyser, Morning Geyser, and Spasm Geyser), the Pink Cone group of geysers (Dilemma Geyser, Labial Geyser, Narcissus Geyser, Pink Geyser, and Pink Cone Geyser), the White Dome group of geysers (Crack Geyser, Gemini Geyser, Pebble Geyser, Rejuvenated Geyser, and White Dome Geyser), as well as Sizzler Geyser.
Clepsydra Geyser erupting. July 2019
Fountain Paint Pots
White Dome Geyser
West Thumb Geyser Basin
Several pools of blue water in ashen rock basin.
West Thumb Geyser Basin
Blackened basin with orange streaks; steam is rising from it with fir trees in the background.
Overflow areas of Silex springs
The West Thumb Geyser Basin 44°25′07″N 110°34′23″W, including Potts Basin to the north, is the largest geyser basin on the shores of Yellowstone Lake. The heat source of the thermal features in this location is thought to be relatively close to the surface, only 10,000 feet (3,000 m) down. West Thumb is about the same size as another famous volcanic caldera, Crater Lake in Oregon, but much smaller than the great Yellowstone Caldera which last erupted about 640,000 years ago. West Thumb is a caldera within a caldera.
West Thumb was created approximately 162,000 years ago when a magma chamber bulged up under the surface of the earth and subsequently cracked it along ring fracture zones. This in turn released the enclosed magma as lava and caused the surface above the emptied magma chamber to collapse. Water later filled the collapsed area of the caldera, forming an extension of Yellowstone Lake. This created the source of heat and water that feed the West Thumb Geyser Basin today.
The thermal features at West Thumb are not only found on the lake shore, but extend under the surface of the lake as well. Several underwater hydrothermal features were discovered in the early 1990s and can be seen as slick spots or slight bulges in the summer. During the winter, the underwater thermal features are visible as melt holes in the icy surface of the lake. The surrounding ice can reach three feet (one yard) in thickness.
Perhaps the most famous hydrothermal feature at West Thumb is a geyser on the lake shore known as Fishing Cone. Walter Trumbull of the 1870 Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition described a unique event while a man was fishing adjacent to the cone: "...in swinging a trout ashore, it accidentally got off the hook and fell into the spring. For a moment it darted about with wonderful rapidity, as if seeking an outlet. Then it came to the top, dead, and literally boiled." Fishing Cone erupted frequently to the height of 40 feet (12 m) in 1919 and to lesser heights in 1939. One fisherman was badly burned in Fishing Cone in 1921. Fishing at the geyser is now prohibited.
Early visitors would arrive at West Thumb via stagecoach from the Old Faithful area. They had a choice of continuing on the stagecoach or boarding the steamship Zillah to continue the journey by water to Lake Hotel. The boat dock was located near the south end of the geyser basin near Lakeside Spring.
Backcountry Geyser Basins
The Heart Lake 44°18′00″N 110°30′56″W, Lone Star 44°24′50″N 110°49′04″W, and Shoshone Geyser Basins 44°21′16″N 110°47′57″W are located away from the road and require at least several miles of hiking to reach. These areas lack the boardwalks and other safety features of the developed areas. As falling into geothermal features can be fatal, it is usually advisable to visit these areas with an experienced guide or at the very least, travelers need to ensure they remain on well-marked trails.
The Heart Lake Geyser Basin contains several groups of geysers and deep blue hot springs near Heart Lake in the south-central portion of Yellowstone, southeast of most of the main geyser basins. Lying in the Snake River watershed east of Lewis Lake and south of Yellowstone Lake, Heart Lake was named sometime before 1871 for Hart Hunney, a hunter. Other explorers in the region incorrectly assumed that the lake's name was spelled 'heart' because of its shape. The Heart Lake Geyser Basin begins a couple miles from the lake and descends along Witch Creek to the lakeshore. Five groups of hydrothermal features comprise the basin, and all of them contain geysers, although some are dormant.
Between Shoshone Lake and Old Faithful is the Lone Star Geyser Basin, of which the primary feature is Lone Star Geyser, named for its isolation from the nearby geysers of the Upper Geyser Basin. The basin is reachable on foot or bicycle via a 3 mile road that is closed to vehicles.
The Shoshone Geyser Basin, reached by hiking or by boat, contains one of the highest concentrations of geysers in the world – more than 80 in an area 1,600 by 800 feet (490 by 240 m). Hot springs and mudpots dot the landscape between the geyser basin and Shoshone Lake.
Hot Spring Basin is located 15 miles (24 km) north-northeast of Fishing Bridge and has one of Yellowstone's largest collections of hot springs and fumaroles. The geothermal features there release large amounts of sulfur. This makes water from the springs so acidic that it has dissolved holes in the pants of people who sit on wet ground and causes mounds of sulfur three feet (1 m) high to develop around fumaroles. The very hot acidic water and steam have also created voids in the ground that are only covered by a thin crust.
Mammoth Hot Springs is a large complex of hot springs on a hill of travertine in Yellowstone National Park adjacent to Fort Yellowstone and the Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District. It was created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate (over two tons flow into Mammoth each day in a solution). Because of the huge amount of geothermal vents, travertine flourishes. Although these springs lie outside the caldera boundary, their energy has been attributed to the same magmatic system that fuels other Yellowstone geothermal areas.
The thermal features at Mud Volcano and Sulphur Caldron are primarily mud pots and fumaroles because the area is situated on a perched water system with little water available. Fumaroles or "steam vents" occur when the ground water boils away faster than it can be recharged. Also, the vapors are rich in sulfuric acid that leaches the rock, breaking it down into clay. Because no water washes away the acid or leached rock, it remains as sticky clay to form a mud pot. Hydrogen sulfide gas is present deep in the earth at Mud Volcano and is oxidized to sulfuric acid by microbial activity, which dissolves the surface soils to create pools and cones of clay and mud. Along with hydrogen sulfide, steam, carbon dioxide, and other gases explode through the layers of mud.
A series of shallow earthquakes associated with the volcanic activity in Yellowstone struck this area in 1978. Soil temperatures increased to nearly 200 °F (93 °C). The slope between Sizzling Basin and Mud Geyser, once covered with green grass and trees, became a barren landscape of fallen trees known as "the cooking hillside".
Yellowstone National Park is a national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872. Yellowstone was the first national park in the U.S. and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world. The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially the Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular. While it represents many types of biomes, the subalpine forest is the most abundant. It is part of the South Central Rockies forests ecoregion.
While Native Americans have lived in the Yellowstone region for at least 11,000 years, aside from visits by mountain men during the early-to-mid-19th century, organized exploration did not begin until the late 1860s. Management and control of the park originally fell under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the first Secretary of the Interior to supervise the park being Columbus Delano. However, the U.S. Army was eventually commissioned to oversee the management of Yellowstone for 30 years between 1886 and 1916. In 1917, the administration of the park was transferred to the National Park Service, which had been created the previous year. Hundreds of structures have been built and are protected for their architectural and historical significance, and researchers have examined more than a thousand archaeological sites.
Yellowstone National Park spans an area of 3,468.4 sq mi (8,983 km2), comprising lakes, canyons, rivers, and mountain ranges. Yellowstone Lake is one of the largest high-elevation lakes in North America and is centered over the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest super volcano on the continent. The caldera is considered a dormant volcano. It has erupted with tremendous force several times in the last two million years. Well over half of the world's geysers and hydrothermal features are in Yellowstone, fueled by this ongoing volcanism. Lava flows and rocks from volcanic eruptions cover most of the land area of Yellowstone. The park is the centerpiece of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the largest remaining nearly intact ecosystem in the Earth's northern temperate zone. In 1978, Yellowstone was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Hundreds of species of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians have been documented, including several that are either endangered or threatened. The vast forests and grasslands also include unique species of plants. Yellowstone Park is the largest and most famous megafauna location in the contiguous United States. Grizzly bears, cougars, wolves, and free-ranging herds of bison and elk live in this park. The Yellowstone Park bison herd is the oldest and largest public bison herd in the United States. Forest fires occur in the park each year; in the large forest fires of 1988, nearly one-third of the park was burnt. Yellowstone has numerous recreational opportunities, including hiking, camping, boating, fishing, and sightseeing. Paved roads provide close access to the major geothermal areas as well as some of the lakes and waterfalls. During the winter, visitors often access the park by way of guided tours that use either snow coaches or snowmobiles.
Teton County is a county in the U.S. state of Wyoming. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 23,331. Its county seat is Jackson. Its west boundary line is also the Wyoming state boundary shared with Idaho and the southern tip of Montana. Teton County is part of the Jackson, WY-ID Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Teton County contains the Jackson Hole ski area, all of Grand Teton National Park, and 40.4% of Yellowstone National Park's total area, including over 96.6% of its water area (largely in Yellowstone Lake).
Wyoming is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the south. With a population of 576,851 in 2020, Wyoming is the least populous state despite being the 10th largest by area, with the second-lowest population density after Alaska. The state capital and most populous city is Cheyenne, which had an estimated population of 63,957 in 2018.
Wyoming's western half consists mostly of the ranges and rangelands of the Rocky Mountains; its eastern half consists of high-elevation prairie, and is referred to as the High Plains. Wyoming's climate is semi-arid in some parts and continental in others, making it drier and windier overall than other states, with greater temperature extremes. The federal government owns just under half of Wyoming's land, generally protecting it for public uses. The state ranks sixth in the amount of land—-and fifth in the proportion of its land—-that is owned by the federal government. Its federal lands include two national parks (Grand Teton and Yellowstone), two national recreation areas, two national monuments, and several national forests, as well as historic sites, fish hatcheries, and wildlife refuges.
Indigenous peoples inhabited the region for thousands of years. Historic and currently federally recognized tribes include the Arapaho, Crow, Lakota, and Shoshone. Part of the land that is now Wyoming came under American sovereignty via the Louisiana Purchase, part via the Oregon Treaty, and, lastly, via the Mexican Cession. With the opening of the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, and the California Trail, vast numbers of pioneers travelled through parts of the state that had once been traversed mainly by fur trappers, and this spurred the establishment of forts, such as Fort Laramie, that today serve as population centers. The Transcontinental Railroad supplanted the wagon trails in 1867 with a route through southern Wyoming, bringing new settlers and the establishment of founding towns, including the state capital of Cheyenne. On March 27, 1890, Wyoming became the union's 44th state.
Farming and ranching, and the attendant range wars, feature prominently in the state's history. Today, Wyoming's economy is largely based on tourism and the extraction of minerals such as coal, natural gas, oil, and trona. Its agricultural commodities include barley, hay, livestock, sugar beets, wheat, and wool.
Wyoming was the first state to allow women the right to vote (not counting New Jersey, which had allowed it until 1807), and the right to assume elected office, as well as the first state to elect a female governor. In honor of this part of its history, its most common nickname is "The Equality State" and its official state motto is "Equal Rights". It is among the least religious states in the country, and is known for having a political culture that leans towards libertarian conservatism. The Republican presidential nominee has carried the state in every election since 1968.
Distributed through www.CutInTheFence.com with the following description:
Tiny Rails is a simple, strange, and quiet grouping of found photos from the dusty corners of Leipzig Germany. Jeremy Pastell shows us an uncomfortable view of railroad systems without people, carriages without riders, and buildings without time.
Jeremy has an anarcho-libertarian philosophy on zine making; steal your content, get it to the masses, and reproduce freely. In Tiny Rails, Jeremy shares vintage photos of East German "PIKO" brand model trains and their related setups. This zine is a peak into the miniature fantasy world of steam-era railroad dreamers, brought back to life and imported into your domestic railfan zine collection.
first edition of 50 copies, hand numbered
12 page black & white printing with a light brown cover - 5.5" x 8.5"
design & production: JEREMY PASTELL - 2019
The largest school district in Iowa is not going to finish the year in the classroom but through distance learning. A big first step is making sure students have access to technology at home. I dropped by North and Roosevelt high schools as laptops were being distributed to high school seniors in need.
The Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus), also called the white scavenger vulture or pharaoh's chicken, is a small Old World vulture in the monotypic genus Neophron. It is widely distributed from the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, West Asia and India. The contrasting underwing pattern and wedge-shaped tail make it distinctive in flight as it soars in thermals during the warmer parts of the day. Egyptian vultures feed mainly on carrion but are opportunistic and will prey on small mammals, birds, and reptiles. They also feed on the eggs of other birds, breaking larger ones by tossing a large pebble onto them.
The use of tools is rare in birds and apart from the use of a pebble as a hammer, Egyptian vultures also use twigs to roll up wool for use in their nest. Egyptian vultures that breed in the temperate regions migrate south in winter while tropical populations are relatively sedentary. Populations of this species declined in the 20th century and some island populations are endangered by hunting, accidental poisoning, and collision with power lines.
The Egyptian vulture was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Vultur percnopterus. The genus Neophron was created by Jules-César Savigny in the first natural history volume of the Description de l'Égypte' (1809). The genus Neophron contains only a single extant species. A few prehistoric species from the Neogene period in North America placed in the genus Neophrontops (the name meaning "looks like Neophron") are believed to have been very similar to these vultures in lifestyle, but the genetic relationships are unclear. A fossil species Neophron lolis has been described from the late Miocene of Spain. The genus Neophron is considered to represent the oldest branch of the vultures which consists of separated (or polyphyletic) clades. Along with its nearest evolutionary relatives, the lammergeier (Gypaetus barbatus) and the palm-nut vulture (Gypohierax angolensis), they are sometimes placed in a separate subfamily, the Gypaetinae.
There are three widely recognised subspecies of the Egyptian vulture, although there is considerable gradation due to movement and intermixing of the populations. The nominate subspecies, N. p. percnopterus, with a dark grey bill, has the largest range, occurring in southern Europe, northern Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and north-western India. Populations breeding in the temperate zone migrate south during winter.
The Indian subcontinent is the range of subspecies N. p. ginginianus, the smallest of the three subspecies, which is identifiable by a pale yellow bill. The subspecies name is derived from Gingee in southern India from where the French explorer Pierre Sonnerat described it as Le Vautour de Gingi and it was given a Latin name by John Latham in his Index Ornithologicus (1790).
A small population that is found only in the eastern Canary Islands was found to be genetically distinct and identified as a new subspecies, N. p. majorensis in 2002. Known locally as the guirre they are genetically more distant from N. p. percnopterus, significantly greater even than N. p. ginginianus is from N. p. percnopterus. Unlike neighbouring populations in Africa and southern Europe, it is non-migratory and consistently larger in size. The subspecies name majorensis is derived from "Majorata", the ancient name for the island of Fuerteventura. The island was named by Spanish conquerors in the 15th century after the "Majos", the main native Guanche tribe there. One study in 2010 suggested that the species established on the island about 2,500 years ago when the island was first colonized by humans.
Nikolai Zarudny and Härms described a subspecies, rubripersonatus, from Baluchistan in 1902. This was described as having a deeper reddish orange skin on the head and a yellow-tipped dark bill. This has rarely been considered a valid subspecies but the intermediate pattern of bill colouration suggests intermixing of subspecies.
The genus name is derived from Greek mythology. Timandra was the mother of Neophron. Aegypius was a friend of Neophron and about the same age. It upset Neophron to know that his mother Timandra was having a love affair with Aegypius. Seeking revenge, Neophron made advances towards Aegypius' mother, Bulis. Neophron succeeded and enticed Bulis into entering the dark chamber where his mother and Aegypius were to meet soon. Neophron then distracted his mother, tricking Aegypius into entering the chamber and sleeping with his own mother Bulis. When Bulis discovered the deception she gouged out the eyes of her son Aegypius before killing herself. Aegypius prayed for revenge and Zeus, on hearing the prayer, changed Aegypius and Neophron into vultures. "Percnopterus" is derived from Greek for "black wings": "περκνός" (perknos, meaning "blue-black") and πτερόν (pteron, meaning wing).
The adult's plumage is white, with black flight feathers in the wings. Wild birds usually appear soiled with a rusty or brown shade to the white plumage, derived from mud or iron-rich soil. Captive specimens without access to soil have clean white plumage. It has been suggested as a case of cosmetic colouration. The bill is slender and long, and the tip of the upper mandible is hooked. The nostril is an elongated horizontal slit. The neck feathers are long and form a hackle. The wings are pointed, with the third primary being the longest; the tail is wedge shaped. The legs are pink in adults and grey in juveniles. The claws are long and straight, and the third and fourth toes are slightly webbed at the base.
The bill is black in the nominate subspecies but pale or yellowish in adults of the smaller Indian ginginianus. Rasmussen and Anderton (2005) suggest that this variation may need further study, particularly due to the intermediate black-tipped bill described in rubripersonatus. The facial skin is yellow and unfeathered down to the throat. The sexes are indistinguishable in plumage but breeding males have a deeper orange facial skin colour than females. Females average slightly larger and are about 10–15% heavier than males. Young birds are blackish or chocolate brown with black and white patches. The adult plumage is attained only after about five years.
The adult Egyptian vulture measures 47–65 centimetres (19–26 in) from the point of the beak to the extremity of the tail feathers. In the smaller N. p. ginginianus males are about 47–52 centimetres (19–20 in) long while females are 52–55.5 centimetres (20.5–21.9 in) long. The wingspan is about 2.7 times the body length. Birds from Spain weigh about 1.9 kilograms (4.2 lb) while birds of the Canary Island subspecies majorensis, representing a case of island gigantism, are heavier with an average weight of 2.4 kilograms (5.3 lb). The Egyptian vulture is one of the smallest true Old World vulture, the only smaller species appears to be the marginally lighter palm-nut vulture (which may be an outlier from other vultures). Additionally, the hooded vulture is only scarcely larger than the Egyptian species.
Egyptian vultures are widely distributed across the Old World with their breeding range from southern Europe to northern Africa east to western and southern Asia. They are rare vagrants in Sri Lanka. They occur mainly on the dry plains and lower hills. In the Himalayas, they go up to about 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) in summer. In Armenia, breeding pairs have been found up to 2,300 meters a.s.l.
Most Egyptian vultures in the subtropical zone of Europe migrate south to Africa in winter. Vagrants may occur as far south as in South Africa although they bred in the Transkei region prior to 1923. They nest mainly on rocky cliffs, sometimes adopting ledges on tall buildings in cities and on large trees. Like many other large soaring migrants, they avoid making long crossings over water. Italian birds cross over through Sicily and into Tunisia making short sea crossings by passing through the islands of Marettimo and Pantelleria with rare stops on the island country of Malta. Those that migrate through the Iberian Peninsula cross into Africa over the Strait of Gibraltar while others cross further east through the Levant. In summer, some African birds fly further north into Europe and vagrants have been recorded in England, Ireland, and southern Sweden.
Migrating birds can sometimes cover 500 kilometres (310 mi) in a single day until they reach the southern edge of the Sahara, 3,500 to 5,500 kilometres (2,200 to 3,400 mi) from their summer home. Young birds that have not reached breeding age may overwinter in the grassland and semi-desert regions of the Sahel.
The Egyptian vulture is usually seen singly or in pairs, soaring in thermals along with other scavengers and birds of prey, or perched on the ground or atop a building. On the ground, they walk with a waddling gait. They feed on a range of food, including mammal faeces (including those of humans), insects in dung, carrion, vegetable matter, and sometimes small animals. When it joins other vulture species at a dead animal, it tends to stay on the periphery and waits until the larger species leave. Pairs may also scrounge for food from other vultures, particularly griffons. Recently fledged young will sometimes fly to other nests, competing with young vultures for food, stealing or even soliciting food from the (unrelated) adults bringing food. Wild rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) form a significant part of the diet of Spanish vultures. In the Iberian Peninsula, landfills are an important food source, with the vultures more likely to occupy territories close to landfill sites. Studies suggest that they feed on ungulate faeces to obtain carotenoid pigments responsible for their bright yellow and orange facial skin. The ability to assimilate carotenoid pigments may serve as a reliable signal of fitness.
Egyptian vultures are mostly silent but make high-pitched mewing or hissing notes at the nest and screeching noises when squabbling at a carcass. Young birds have been heard making a hissing croak in flight. They also hiss or growl when threatened or angry.
Egyptian vultures roost communally on large trees, buildings or on cliffs. Roost sites are usually chosen close to a dump site or other suitable foraging area. In Spain and Morocco, summer roosts are formed mainly by immature birds. The favourite roost trees tended to be large dead pines. The number of adults at the roost increases towards June. It is thought that breeding adults may be able to forage more efficiently by joining the roost and following others to the best feeding areas. Breeding birds that failed to raise young may also join the non-breeding birds at the roost during June. Allopreening has been observed in Canarian Egyptian vultures between mated pairs of individuals as well as pairs of unrelated and same-sex individuals, particularly females.
The breeding season is in spring. During the beginning of the breeding season, courting pairs soar high together and one or both may make steep spiralling or swooping dives. The birds are monogamous and pair bonds may be maintained for more than one breeding season and the same nest sites may be reused each year. The nest is an untidy platform of twigs lined with rags and placed on a cliff ledge, building, or the fork of a large tree. Old nest platforms of eagles may also be taken over. Nests placed on the ground are rare but have been recorded in subspecies N. p. ginginianus and N. p. majorensis.
Extra-pair copulation with neighbouring birds has been recorded and may be a reason for adult males to stay close to the female before and during the egg laying period. Females may sometimes associate with two males and all three help in raising the brood. The typical clutch consists of two eggs which are incubated in turns by both parents. The eggs are brick red with the broad end covered more densely with blotches of red, brown, and black. The parents begin incubating soon after the first egg is laid leading to asynchronous hatching. The first egg hatches after about 42 days. The second chick may hatch three to five days later and a longer delay increases the likelihood that it will die of starvation. In cliffs where the nests are located close to each other, young birds have been known to clamber over to neighbouring nests to obtain food. In the Spanish population, young fledge and leave the nest after 90 to 110 days. Fledged birds continue to remain dependent on their parents for at least a month. Once the birds begin to forage on their own, they move away from their parents' territory; young birds have been found nearly 500 km away from their nest site. One-year-old European birds migrate to Africa and stay there for at least one year. A vulture that fledged in France stayed in Africa for three years before migrating north in spring. After migrating back to their breeding areas, young birds move widely in search of good feeding territories and mates. The full adult plumage is attained in the fourth or fifth year. Egyptian vultures have been known to live for up to 37 years in captivity and at least 21 years in the wild. The probability of survival in the wild varies with age, increasing till the age of 2 and then falling at the age of 5. Older birds have an annual survival probability varying from 0.75 for non-breeders to 0.83 for breeding birds.
Mayor de Blasio helps distribute face coverings in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, in Queens on Saturday, May 16, 2020. Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
"So as we talked about this, the conversation shifted to discussing the mechanics of all relationships, in particular collaboration and crowdsourcing where people work together to accomplish an assigned task. In essence, what makes crowd-sourcing work? Why do people do it? What are the unseen connections between the sea of individuals who do?" - Cult of the Crowd
Read more at - cultofthecrowd.com/post/5386708994/currency
U.S. Marines with Marine Attack Squadron (VMA) 223 conduct flight operations at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina, Feb. 23, 2023. U.S. Marines with 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW) conducted distributed aviation operations outside of their home duty station and local area to validate logistics, sustainment, and communications requirements for command elements. VMA-223 is a subordinate unit of 2nd MAW, the aviation combat element of II Marine Expeditionary Force. (U.S. Marine Corps video by Lance Cpl. Rowdy Vanskike)
© All rights reserved. May not be reproduced or distributed without express written permission from the author. Leonardo Reyes-Gonzalez.
The geothermal areas of Yellowstone include several geyser basins in Yellowstone National Park as well as other geothermal features such as hot springs, mud pots, and fumaroles. The number of thermal features in Yellowstone is estimated at 10,000. A study that was completed in 2011 found that a total of 1,283 geysers have erupted in Yellowstone, 465 of which are active during an average year. These are distributed among nine geyser basins, with a few geysers found in smaller thermal areas throughout the Park. The number of geysers in each geyser basin are as follows: Upper Geyser Basin (410), Midway Geyser Basin (59), Lower Geyser Basin (283), Norris Geyser Basin (193), West Thumb Geyser Basin (84), Gibbon Geyser Basin (24), Lone Star Geyser Basin (21), Shoshone Geyser Basin (107), Heart Lake Geyser Basin (69), other areas (33). Although famous large geysers like Old Faithful are part of the total, most of Yellowstone's geysers are small, erupting to only a foot or two. The hydrothermal system that supplies the geysers with hot water sits within an ancient active caldera. Many of the thermal features in Yellowstone build up sinter, geyserite, or travertine deposits around and within them.
The various geyser basins are located where rainwater and snowmelt can percolate into the ground, get indirectly superheated by the underlying Yellowstone hotspot, and then erupt at the surface as geysers, hot springs, and fumaroles. Thus flat-bottomed valleys between ancient lava flows and glacial moraines are where most of the large geothermal areas are located. Smaller geothermal areas can be found where fault lines reach the surface, in places along the circular fracture zone around the caldera, and at the base of slopes that collect excess groundwater. Due to the Yellowstone Plateau's high elevation the average boiling temperature at Yellowstone's geyser basins is 199 °F (93 °C). When properly confined and close to the surface it can periodically release some of the built-up pressure in eruptions of hot water and steam that can reach up to 390 feet (120 m) into the air (see Steamboat Geyser, the world's tallest geyser). Water erupting from Yellowstone's geysers is superheated above that boiling point to an average of 204 °F (95.5 °C) as it leaves the vent. The water cools significantly while airborne and is no longer scalding hot by the time it strikes the ground, nearby boardwalks, or even spectators. Because of the high temperatures of the water in the features it is important that spectators remain on the boardwalks and designated trails. Several deaths have occurred in the park as a result of falls into hot springs.
Prehistoric Native American artifacts have been found at Mammoth Hot Springs and other geothermal areas in Yellowstone. Some accounts state that the early people used hot water from the geothermal features for bathing and cooking. In the 19th century Father Pierre-Jean De Smet reported that natives he interviewed thought that geyser eruptions were "the result of combat between the infernal spirits". The Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled north of the Yellowstone area in 1806. Local natives that they came upon seldom dared to enter what we now know is the caldera because of frequent loud noises that sounded like thunder and the belief that the spirits that possessed the area did not like human intrusion into their realm. The first white man known to travel into the caldera and see the geothermal features was John Colter, who had left the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He described what he saw as "hot spring brimstone". Beaver trapper Joseph Meek recounted in 1830 that the steam rising from the various geyser basins reminded him of smoke coming from industrial smokestacks on a cold winter morning in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In the 1850s famed trapper Jim Bridger called it "the place where Hell bubbled up".
The heat that drives geothermal activity in the Yellowstone area comes from brine (salty water) that is 1.5–3 miles (7,900–15,800 ft; 2,400–4,800 m) below the surface. This is actually below the solid volcanic rock and sediment that extends to a depth of 3,000 to 6,000 feet (900 to 1,800 m) and is inside the hot but mostly solid part of the pluton that contains Yellowstone's magma chamber. At that depth the brine is superheated to temperatures that exceed 400 °F (204 °C) but is able to remain a liquid because it is under great pressure (like a huge pressure cooker).
Convection of the churning brine and conduction from surrounding rock transfers heat to an overlaying layer of fresh groundwater. Movement of the two liquids is facilitated by the highly fractured and porous nature of the rocks under the Yellowstone Plateau. Some silica is dissolved from the fractured rhyolite into the hot water as it travels through the fractured rock. Part of this hard mineral is later redeposited on the walls of the cracks and fissures to make a nearly pressure-tight system. Silica precipitates at the surface to form either geyserite or sinter, creating the massive geyser cones, the scalloped edges of hot springs, and the seemingly barren landscape of geyser basins.
There are at least five types of geothermal features found at Yellowstone:
Fumaroles: Fumaroles, or steam vents, are the hottest hydrothermal features in the park. They have so little water that it all flashes into steam before reaching the surface. At places like Roaring Mountain, the result is loud hissing of steam and gases.
Geysers: Geysers such as Old Faithful are a type of geothermal feature that periodically erupt scalding hot water. Increased pressure exerted by the enormous weight of the overlying rock and water prevents deeper water from boiling. As the hot water rises it is under less pressure and steam bubbles form. They, in turn, expand on their ascent until the bubbles are too big and numerous to pass freely through constrictions. At a critical point the confined bubbles actually lift the water above, causing the geyser to splash or overflow. This decreases the pressure of the system and violent boiling results. Large quantities of water flash into tremendous amounts of steam that force a jet of water out of the vent: an eruption begins. Water (and heat) is expelled faster than the geyser's recharge rate, gradually decreasing the system's pressure and eventually ending the eruption.
Hot springs: Hot springs such as Grand Prismatic Spring are the most common hydrothermal features in the park. Their plumbing has no constrictions. Superheated water cools as it reaches the surface, sinks, and is replaced by hotter water from below. This circulation, called convection, prevents water from reaching the temperature needed to set off an eruption. Many hot springs give rise to streams of heated water.
Mudpots: Mudpots such as Fountain Paint Pots are acidic hot springs with a limited water supply. Some microorganisms use hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg smell), which rises from deep within the earth, as an energy source. They convert the gas into sulfuric acid, which breaks down rock into clay.
Travertine terraces: Travertine terraces, found at Mammoth Hot Springs, are formed from limestone (a rock type made of calcium carbonate). Thermal waters rise through the limestone, carrying high amounts of dissolved carbonate. Carbon dioxide is released at the surface and calcium carbonate deposited as travertine, the chalky white rock of the terraces. These features constantly and quickly change due to the rapid rate of deposition.
Geyser basins
The Norris Geyser Basin 44°43′43″N 110°42′16″W is the hottest geyser basin in the park and is located near the northwest edge of Yellowstone Caldera near Norris Junction and on the intersection of three major faults. The Norris-Mammoth Corridor is a fault that runs from Norris north through Mammoth to the Gardiner, Montana, area. The Hebgen Lake fault runs from northwest of West Yellowstone, Montana, to Norris. This fault experienced an earthquake in 1959 that measured 7.4 on the Richter scale (sources vary on exact magnitude between 7.1 and 7.8; see 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake). Norris Geyser Basin is so hot and dynamic because these two faults intersect with the ring fracture zone that resulted from the creation of the Yellowstone Caldera of 640,000 years ago.
The Basin consists of three main areas: Porcelain Basin, Back Basin, and One Hundred Springs Plain. Unlike most of other geyser basins in the park, the waters from Norris are acidic rather than alkaline (for example, Echinus Geyser has a pH of ~3.5). The difference in pH allows for a different class of bacterial thermophiles to live at Norris, creating different color patterns in and around the Norris Basin waters.
The Ragged Hills that lie between Back Basin and One Hundred Springs Plain are thermally altered glacial kames. As glaciers receded the underlying thermal features began to express themselves once again, melting remnants of the ice and causing masses of debris to be dumped. These debris piles were then altered by steam and hot water flowing through them. Madison lies within the eroded stream channels cut through lava flows formed after the caldera eruption. The Gibbon Falls lies on the caldera boundary as does Virginia Cascades.
Algae on left bacteria on right at the intersection of flows from the Constant & Whirlgig Geysers at Norris Geyser Basin
The tallest active geyser in the world, Steamboat Geyser,[11] is located in Norris Basin. Unlike the slightly smaller but much more famous Old Faithful Geyser located in Upper Geyser Basin, Steamboat has an erratic and lengthy timetable between major eruptions. During major eruptions, which may be separated by intervals of more than a year (the longest recorded span between major eruptions was 50 years), Steamboat erupts over 300 feet (90 m) into the air. Steamboat does not lie dormant between eruptions, instead displaying minor eruptions of approximately 40 feet (12 m).
Norris Geyser Basin periodically undergoes a large-scale, basin-wide thermal disturbance lasting a few weeks. Water levels fluctuate, and temperatures, pH, colors, and eruptive patterns change throughout the basin. During a disturbance in 1985, Porkchop Geyser continually jetted steam and water; in 1989, the same geyser apparently clogged with silica and blew up, throwing rocks more than 200 feet (61 m). In 2003 a park ranger observed it bubbling heavily, the first such activity seen since 1991. Activity increased dramatically in mid-2003. Because of high ground temperatures and new features beside the trail much of Back Basin was closed until October. In 2004 the boardwalk was routed around the dangerous area and now leads behind Porkchop Geyser.
North of Norris, Roaring Mountain is a large, acidic hydrothermal area (solfatara) with many fumaroles. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the number, size, and power of the fumaroles were much greater than today. The fumaroles are most easily seen in the cooler, low-light conditions of morning and evening.
The Gibbon Geyser Basin 44°41′58″N 110°44′34″W includes several thermal areas in the vicinity of the Gibbon River between Gibbon Falls and Norris. The most accessible feature in the basin is Beryl Spring, with a small boardwalk right along the Grand Loop Road. Artists' Paintpots is a small hydrothermal area south of Norris Junction that includes colorful hot springs and two large mudpots.
The Monument Geyser Basin 44°41′03″N 110°45′14″W has no active geysers, but its 'monuments' are siliceous sinter deposits similar to the siliceous spires discovered on the floor of Yellowstone Lake. Scientists hypothesize that this basin's structures formed from a hot water system in a glacially dammed lake during the waning stages of the Pinedale Glaciation. The basin is on a ridge reached by a very steep one-mile (1.6 km) trail south of Artists' Paint Pots. Other areas of thermal activity in Gibbon Geyser Basin lie off-trail.
South of Norris along the rim of the caldera is the Upper Geyser Basin 44°27′52″N 110°49′45″W, which has the highest concentration of geothermal features in the park. This complement of features includes the most famous geyser in the park, Old Faithful Geyser, as well as four other predictable large geysers. One of these large geysers in the area is Castle Geyser which is about 1,400 feet (430 m) northwest of Old Faithful. Castle Geyser has an interval of approximately 13 hours between major eruptions, but is unpredictable after minor eruptions. The other three predictable geysers are Grand Geyser, Daisy Geyser, and Riverside Geyser. Biscuit Basin and Black Sand Basin are also within the boundaries of Upper Geyser Basin.
The hills surrounding Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin are reminders of Quaternary rhyolitic lava flows. These flows, occurring long after the catastrophic eruption of 640,000 years ago, flowed across the landscape like stiff mounds of bread dough due to their high silica content.
Evidence of glacial activity is common, and it is one of the keys that allows geysers to exist. Glacier till deposits underlie the geyser basins providing storage areas for the water used in eruptions. Many landforms, such as Porcupine Hills north of Fountain Flats, are made up of glacial gravel and are reminders that 70,000 to 14,000 years ago, this area was buried under ice.
Signs of the forces of erosion can be seen everywhere, from runoff channels carved across the sinter in the geyser basins to the drainage created by the Firehole River. Mountain building is evident on the drive south of Old Faithful, toward Craig Pass. Here the Rocky Mountains reach a height of 8,262 feet (2,518 m), dividing the country into two distinct watersheds.
Midway Geyser Basin 44°31′04″N 110°49′56″W is much smaller than the other basins found alongside the Firehole River. Despite its small size, it contains two large features, the 200-by-300-foot-wide (60 by 90 m) Excelsior Geyser which pours over 4,000 U.S. gallons (15,000 L; 3,300 imp gal) per minute into the Firehole River. The largest hot spring in Yellowstone, the 370-foot-wide (110 m) and 121-foot-deep (37 m) Grand Prismatic Spring is found here. Also in the basin is Turquoise Pool and Opal Pool.
Lower Geyser Basin
Blue spring with steam rising from it; irregular blotches of red and orange residue are on the banks, along with dead tree trunks.
Silex Spring at Fountain Paint Pot
Farther north is the Lower Geyser Basin 44°32′58″N 110°50′09″W, which is the largest geyser basin in area, covering approximately 11 square miles. Due to its large size, it has a much less concentrated set of geothermal features, including Fountain Paint Pots. Fountain Paint Pots are mud pots, that is, a hot spring that contains boiling mud instead of water. The mud is produced by a higher acidity in the water which enables the spring to dissolve surrounding minerals to create an opaque, usually grey, mud. Also there is Firehole Spring, Celestine Pool, Leather Pool, Red Spouter, Jelly spring, and a number of fumaroles.
Geysers in Lower Geyser Basin include Great Fountain Geyser, whose eruptions reach 100 to 200 feet (30–61 m) in the air, while waves of water cascade down its sinter terraces., the Fountain group of Geysers (Clepsydra Geyser which erupts nearly continuously to heights of 45 feet (14 m), Fountain Geyser, Jelly Geyser, Jet Geyser, Morning Geyser, and Spasm Geyser), the Pink Cone group of geysers (Dilemma Geyser, Labial Geyser, Narcissus Geyser, Pink Geyser, and Pink Cone Geyser), the White Dome group of geysers (Crack Geyser, Gemini Geyser, Pebble Geyser, Rejuvenated Geyser, and White Dome Geyser), as well as Sizzler Geyser.
Clepsydra Geyser erupting. July 2019
Fountain Paint Pots
White Dome Geyser
West Thumb Geyser Basin
Several pools of blue water in ashen rock basin.
West Thumb Geyser Basin
Blackened basin with orange streaks; steam is rising from it with fir trees in the background.
Overflow areas of Silex springs
The West Thumb Geyser Basin 44°25′07″N 110°34′23″W, including Potts Basin to the north, is the largest geyser basin on the shores of Yellowstone Lake. The heat source of the thermal features in this location is thought to be relatively close to the surface, only 10,000 feet (3,000 m) down. West Thumb is about the same size as another famous volcanic caldera, Crater Lake in Oregon, but much smaller than the great Yellowstone Caldera which last erupted about 640,000 years ago. West Thumb is a caldera within a caldera.
West Thumb was created approximately 162,000 years ago when a magma chamber bulged up under the surface of the earth and subsequently cracked it along ring fracture zones. This in turn released the enclosed magma as lava and caused the surface above the emptied magma chamber to collapse. Water later filled the collapsed area of the caldera, forming an extension of Yellowstone Lake. This created the source of heat and water that feed the West Thumb Geyser Basin today.
The thermal features at West Thumb are not only found on the lake shore, but extend under the surface of the lake as well. Several underwater hydrothermal features were discovered in the early 1990s and can be seen as slick spots or slight bulges in the summer. During the winter, the underwater thermal features are visible as melt holes in the icy surface of the lake. The surrounding ice can reach three feet (one yard) in thickness.
Perhaps the most famous hydrothermal feature at West Thumb is a geyser on the lake shore known as Fishing Cone. Walter Trumbull of the 1870 Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition described a unique event while a man was fishing adjacent to the cone: "...in swinging a trout ashore, it accidentally got off the hook and fell into the spring. For a moment it darted about with wonderful rapidity, as if seeking an outlet. Then it came to the top, dead, and literally boiled." Fishing Cone erupted frequently to the height of 40 feet (12 m) in 1919 and to lesser heights in 1939. One fisherman was badly burned in Fishing Cone in 1921. Fishing at the geyser is now prohibited.
Early visitors would arrive at West Thumb via stagecoach from the Old Faithful area. They had a choice of continuing on the stagecoach or boarding the steamship Zillah to continue the journey by water to Lake Hotel. The boat dock was located near the south end of the geyser basin near Lakeside Spring.
Backcountry Geyser Basins
The Heart Lake 44°18′00″N 110°30′56″W, Lone Star 44°24′50″N 110°49′04″W, and Shoshone Geyser Basins 44°21′16″N 110°47′57″W are located away from the road and require at least several miles of hiking to reach. These areas lack the boardwalks and other safety features of the developed areas. As falling into geothermal features can be fatal, it is usually advisable to visit these areas with an experienced guide or at the very least, travelers need to ensure they remain on well-marked trails.
The Heart Lake Geyser Basin contains several groups of geysers and deep blue hot springs near Heart Lake in the south-central portion of Yellowstone, southeast of most of the main geyser basins. Lying in the Snake River watershed east of Lewis Lake and south of Yellowstone Lake, Heart Lake was named sometime before 1871 for Hart Hunney, a hunter. Other explorers in the region incorrectly assumed that the lake's name was spelled 'heart' because of its shape. The Heart Lake Geyser Basin begins a couple miles from the lake and descends along Witch Creek to the lakeshore. Five groups of hydrothermal features comprise the basin, and all of them contain geysers, although some are dormant.
Between Shoshone Lake and Old Faithful is the Lone Star Geyser Basin, of which the primary feature is Lone Star Geyser, named for its isolation from the nearby geysers of the Upper Geyser Basin. The basin is reachable on foot or bicycle via a 3 mile road that is closed to vehicles.
The Shoshone Geyser Basin, reached by hiking or by boat, contains one of the highest concentrations of geysers in the world – more than 80 in an area 1,600 by 800 feet (490 by 240 m). Hot springs and mudpots dot the landscape between the geyser basin and Shoshone Lake.
Hot Spring Basin is located 15 miles (24 km) north-northeast of Fishing Bridge and has one of Yellowstone's largest collections of hot springs and fumaroles. The geothermal features there release large amounts of sulfur. This makes water from the springs so acidic that it has dissolved holes in the pants of people who sit on wet ground and causes mounds of sulfur three feet (1 m) high to develop around fumaroles. The very hot acidic water and steam have also created voids in the ground that are only covered by a thin crust.
Mammoth Hot Springs is a large complex of hot springs on a hill of travertine in Yellowstone National Park adjacent to Fort Yellowstone and the Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District. It was created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate (over two tons flow into Mammoth each day in a solution). Because of the huge amount of geothermal vents, travertine flourishes. Although these springs lie outside the caldera boundary, their energy has been attributed to the same magmatic system that fuels other Yellowstone geothermal areas.
The thermal features at Mud Volcano and Sulphur Caldron are primarily mud pots and fumaroles because the area is situated on a perched water system with little water available. Fumaroles or "steam vents" occur when the ground water boils away faster than it can be recharged. Also, the vapors are rich in sulfuric acid that leaches the rock, breaking it down into clay. Because no water washes away the acid or leached rock, it remains as sticky clay to form a mud pot. Hydrogen sulfide gas is present deep in the earth at Mud Volcano and is oxidized to sulfuric acid by microbial activity, which dissolves the surface soils to create pools and cones of clay and mud. Along with hydrogen sulfide, steam, carbon dioxide, and other gases explode through the layers of mud.
A series of shallow earthquakes associated with the volcanic activity in Yellowstone struck this area in 1978. Soil temperatures increased to nearly 200 °F (93 °C). The slope between Sizzling Basin and Mud Geyser, once covered with green grass and trees, became a barren landscape of fallen trees known as "the cooking hillside".
Yellowstone National Park is a national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872. Yellowstone was the first national park in the U.S. and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world. The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially the Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular. While it represents many types of biomes, the subalpine forest is the most abundant. It is part of the South Central Rockies forests ecoregion.
While Native Americans have lived in the Yellowstone region for at least 11,000 years, aside from visits by mountain men during the early-to-mid-19th century, organized exploration did not begin until the late 1860s. Management and control of the park originally fell under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the first Secretary of the Interior to supervise the park being Columbus Delano. However, the U.S. Army was eventually commissioned to oversee the management of Yellowstone for 30 years between 1886 and 1916. In 1917, the administration of the park was transferred to the National Park Service, which had been created the previous year. Hundreds of structures have been built and are protected for their architectural and historical significance, and researchers have examined more than a thousand archaeological sites.
Yellowstone National Park spans an area of 3,468.4 sq mi (8,983 km2), comprising lakes, canyons, rivers, and mountain ranges. Yellowstone Lake is one of the largest high-elevation lakes in North America and is centered over the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest super volcano on the continent. The caldera is considered a dormant volcano. It has erupted with tremendous force several times in the last two million years. Well over half of the world's geysers and hydrothermal features are in Yellowstone, fueled by this ongoing volcanism. Lava flows and rocks from volcanic eruptions cover most of the land area of Yellowstone. The park is the centerpiece of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the largest remaining nearly intact ecosystem in the Earth's northern temperate zone. In 1978, Yellowstone was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Hundreds of species of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians have been documented, including several that are either endangered or threatened. The vast forests and grasslands also include unique species of plants. Yellowstone Park is the largest and most famous megafauna location in the contiguous United States. Grizzly bears, cougars, wolves, and free-ranging herds of bison and elk live in this park. The Yellowstone Park bison herd is the oldest and largest public bison herd in the United States. Forest fires occur in the park each year; in the large forest fires of 1988, nearly one-third of the park was burnt. Yellowstone has numerous recreational opportunities, including hiking, camping, boating, fishing, and sightseeing. Paved roads provide close access to the major geothermal areas as well as some of the lakes and waterfalls. During the winter, visitors often access the park by way of guided tours that use either snow coaches or snowmobiles.
Teton County is a county in the U.S. state of Wyoming. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 23,331. Its county seat is Jackson. Its west boundary line is also the Wyoming state boundary shared with Idaho and the southern tip of Montana. Teton County is part of the Jackson, WY-ID Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Teton County contains the Jackson Hole ski area, all of Grand Teton National Park, and 40.4% of Yellowstone National Park's total area, including over 96.6% of its water area (largely in Yellowstone Lake).
Wyoming is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the south. With a population of 576,851 in 2020, Wyoming is the least populous state despite being the 10th largest by area, with the second-lowest population density after Alaska. The state capital and most populous city is Cheyenne, which had an estimated population of 63,957 in 2018.
Wyoming's western half consists mostly of the ranges and rangelands of the Rocky Mountains; its eastern half consists of high-elevation prairie, and is referred to as the High Plains. Wyoming's climate is semi-arid in some parts and continental in others, making it drier and windier overall than other states, with greater temperature extremes. The federal government owns just under half of Wyoming's land, generally protecting it for public uses. The state ranks sixth in the amount of land—-and fifth in the proportion of its land—-that is owned by the federal government. Its federal lands include two national parks (Grand Teton and Yellowstone), two national recreation areas, two national monuments, and several national forests, as well as historic sites, fish hatcheries, and wildlife refuges.
Indigenous peoples inhabited the region for thousands of years. Historic and currently federally recognized tribes include the Arapaho, Crow, Lakota, and Shoshone. Part of the land that is now Wyoming came under American sovereignty via the Louisiana Purchase, part via the Oregon Treaty, and, lastly, via the Mexican Cession. With the opening of the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, and the California Trail, vast numbers of pioneers travelled through parts of the state that had once been traversed mainly by fur trappers, and this spurred the establishment of forts, such as Fort Laramie, that today serve as population centers. The Transcontinental Railroad supplanted the wagon trails in 1867 with a route through southern Wyoming, bringing new settlers and the establishment of founding towns, including the state capital of Cheyenne. On March 27, 1890, Wyoming became the union's 44th state.
Farming and ranching, and the attendant range wars, feature prominently in the state's history. Today, Wyoming's economy is largely based on tourism and the extraction of minerals such as coal, natural gas, oil, and trona. Its agricultural commodities include barley, hay, livestock, sugar beets, wheat, and wool.
Wyoming was the first state to allow women the right to vote (not counting New Jersey, which had allowed it until 1807), and the right to assume elected office, as well as the first state to elect a female governor. In honor of this part of its history, its most common nickname is "The Equality State" and its official state motto is "Equal Rights". It is among the least religious states in the country, and is known for having a political culture that leans towards libertarian conservatism. The Republican presidential nominee has carried the state in every election since 1968.
U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Philip Cortellucci, a pilot with Marine Attack Squadron (VMA) 223, flies an AV-8B Harrier II at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina, Feb. 23, 2023. U.S. Marines with 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW) conducted distributed aviation operations outside of their home duty station and local area to validate logistics, sustainment, and communications requirements for command elements. VMA-223 is a subordinate unit of 2nd MAW, the aviation combat element of II Marine Expeditionary Force. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Adam Henke)
British postcard, distributed in the Netherlands by M. Bonnist & Zonen, Amsterdam, no, 136e. Photo: Paramount. Publicity still of Marlene Dietrich and Dickie Moore in Blonde Venus (Josef von Sternberg, 1932).
Marlene Dietrich was the star of Blonde Venus (1932), her fifth cooperation with director Josef von Sternberg. In this melodrama she plays German nightclub singer Helen, who marries an American chemist (Herbert Marshall). Years later her husband becomes poisoned with Radium and needs an expensive treatment in Germany. Helen returns to night club work to attempt to raise the money and becomes popular as the Blonde Venus. When she meets the playboy millionaire Nick Townsend (Cary Grant), she decides to ask for money to have an affair with him. Ned goes to Germany and Helen becomes Nick's mistress. When her cured husband returns fifteen days ahead the schedule, he finds that she had been unfaithful to him. Ned decides to take their son Johnny (Dickie Moore) from Helen, forcing her to run away with their son with the police in their tail. Highlights of Blonde Venus are Dietrich's wonderful nightclub scenes. The most famous of the one in which she 'stripteases' out of a gorilla suit.
Source: IMDb
The distress in Lancashire: Distributing Bread at the Crooked Lane Depot, Preston.
The following description of the distress in Preston was written by Edwin Waugh. The full account entitled "HOME-LIFE OF THE LANCASHIRE FACTORY FOLK DURING THE COTTON FAMINE" can be accessed Here
AMONG THE PRESTON OPERATIVES.
Proud Preston, or Priest-town, on the banks of the beautiful Ribble, is a place of many quaint customs, and of great historic fame. Its character for pride is said to come from the fact of its having been, in the old time, a favourite residence of the local nobles and gentry, and of many penniless folk with long pedigrees. It was here that Richard Arkwright shaved chins at a halfpenny each, in the meantime working out his bold and ingenious schemes, with patient faith in their ultimate success. It was here, too, that the teetotal movement first began, with Anderson for its rhyme-smith. Preston has had its full share of the changeful fortunes of England, and, like our motherland, it has risen strongly out of them all. War's mad havoc has swept over it in many a troubled period of our history. Plague, pestilence, and famine have afflicted it sorely; and it has suffered from trade riots, "plug-drawings," panics, and strikes of most disastrous kinds. Proud Preston—the town of the Stanleys and the Hoghtons, and of "many a crest that is famous in story"—the town where silly King Jamie disported himself a little, with his knights and nobles, during the time of his ruinous visit to Hoghton Tower,—Proud Preston has seen many a black day. But, from the time when Roman sentinels kept watch and ward in their old camp at Walton, down by the Ribble side, it has never seen so much wealth and so much bitter poverty together as now. The streets do not show this poverty; but it is there. Looking from Avenham Walks, that glorious landscape smiles in all the splendour of a rich spring-tide. In those walks the nursemaids and children, and dainty folk, are wandering as usual airing their curls in the fresh breeze; and only now and then a workless operative trails by with chastened look. The wail of sorrow is not heard in Preston market-place; but destitution may be found almost anywhere there just now, cowering in squalid corners, within a few yards of plenty—as I have seen it many a time this week. The courts and alleys behind even some of the main streets swarm with people who have hardly a whole nail left to scratch themselves with.
Before attempting to tell something of what I saw whilst wandering amongst the poor operatives of Preston, I will say at once, that I do not intend to meddle with statistics. They have been carefully gathered, and often given elsewhere, and there is no need for me to repeat them. But, apart from these, the theme is endless, and full of painful interest. I hear on all hands that there is hardly any town in Lancashire suffering so much as Preston. The reason why the stroke has fallen so heavily here, lies in the nature of the trade. In the first place, Preston is almost purely a cotton town. There are two or three flax mills, and two or three ironworks, of no great extent; but, upon the whole, there is hardly any variety of employment there to lighten the disaster which has befallen its one absorbing occupation. There is comparatively little weaving in Preston; it is a town mostly engaged in spinning. The cotton used there is nearly all what is called "Middling American," the very kind which is now most scarce and dear. The yarns of Preston are known by the name of "Blackburn Counts." They range from 28's up to 60's, and they enter largely into the manufacture of goods for the India market. These things partly explain why Preston is more deeply overshadowed by the particular gloom of the times than many other places in Lancashire. About half-past nine on Tuesday morning last, I set out with an old acquaintance to call upon a certain member of the Relief Committee, in George's Ward. He is the manager of a cotton mill in that quarter, and he is well known and much respected among the working people. When we entered the mill-yard, all was quiet there, and the factory was still and silent. But through the office window we could see the man we wanted. He was accompanied by one of the proprietors of the mill, turning over the relief books of the ward. I soon found that he had a strong sense of humour, as well as a heart welling over with tenderness. He pointed to some of the cases in his books. The first was that of an old man, an overlooker of a cotton mill. His family was thirteen in number; three of the children were under ten years of age; seven of the rest were factory operatives; but the whole family had been out of work for several months. When in full employment the joint earnings of the family amounted to 80s. a week; but, after struggling on in the hope of better times, and exhausting the savings of past labour, they had been brought down to the receipt of charity at last, and for sixteen weeks gone by the whole thirteen had been living upon 6s. a week from the relief fund. They had no other resource. I went to see them at their own house afterwards, and it certainly was a pattern of cleanliness, with the little household gods there still. Seeing that house, a stranger would never dream that the family was living on an average income of less than sixpence a head per week. But I know how hard some decent folk will struggle with the bitterest poverty before they will give in to it. The old man came in whilst I was there. He sat down in one corner, quietly tinkering away at something he had in his hands. His old corduroy trousers were well patched, and just new washed. He had very little to say to us, except that "He could like to get summat to do; for he wur tired o' walkin' abeawt." Another case was that of a poor widow woman, with five young children. This family had been driven from house to house, by increasing necessity, till they had sunk at last into a dingy little hovel, up a dark court, in one of the poorest parts of the town, where they huddled together about a fireless grate to keep one another warm. They had nothing left of the wreck of their home but two rickety chairs, and a little deal table reared against the wall, because one of the legs was gone. In this miserable hole—which I saw afterwards—her husband died of sheer starvation, as was declared by the jury on the inquest. The dark, damp hovel where they had crept to was scarcely four yards square; and the poor woman pointed to one corner of the floor, saying, "He dee'd i' that nook." He died there, with nothing to lie upon but the ground, and nothing to cover him, in that fireless hovel. His wife and children crept about him, there, to watch him die; and to keep him as warm as they could. When the relief committee first found this family out, the entire clothing of the family of seven persons weighed eight pounds, and sold for fivepence, as rags. I saw the family afterwards, at their poor place; and will say more about them hereafter. He told me of many other cases of a similar kind. But, after agreeing to a time when we should visit them personally, we set out together to see the "Stone Yard," where there are many factory hands at work under the Board of Guardians.
The "Stone Yard" is close by the Preston and Lancaster Canal. Here there are from one hundred and seventy to one hundred and eighty, principally young men, employed in breaking, weighing, and wheeling stone, for road mending. The stones are of a hard kind of blue boulder, gathered from the land between Kendal and Lancaster. The "Labour Master" told me that there were thousands of tons of these boulders upon the land between Kendal and Lancaster. A great deal of them are brought from a place called "Tewhitt Field," about seven mile on "t' other side o' Lancaster." At the "Stone Yard" it is all piece-work, and the men can come and go when they like. As one of the Guardians told me, "They can oather sit an' break 'em, or kneel an' break 'em, or lie deawn to it, iv they'n a mind." The men can choose whether they will fill three tons of the broken stone, and wheel it to the central heap, for a shilling, or break one ton for a shilling. The persons employed here are mostly "lads an' leet-timber't chaps." The stronger men are sent to work upon Preston Moor. There are great varieties of health and strength amongst them. "Beside," as the Labour Master said, "yo'd hardly believe what a difference there it i'th wark o' two men wortchin' at the same heap, sometimes. There's a great deal i'th breaker, neaw; some on 'em's more artful nor others. They finden out that they can break 'em as fast again at after they'n getten to th' wick i'th inside. I have known an' odd un or two, here, that could break four ton a day,—an' many that couldn't break one,—but then, yo' know, th' men can only do accordin' to their ability. There is these differences, and there always will be." As we stood talking together, one of my friends said that he wished "Radical Jack" had been there. The latter gentleman is one of the guardians of the poor, and superintendent of the "Stone Yard." The men are naturally jealous of misrepresentation; and, the other day, as "Radical Jack" was describing the working of the yard to a gentleman who had come to look at the scene, some of the men overheard his words, and, misconceiving their meaning, gathered around the superintendent, clamorously protesting against what he had been saying. "He's lying!" said one. "Look at these honds!" cried another; "Wi'n they ever be fit to go to th' factory wi' again?"
Others turned up the soles of their battered shoon, to show their cut and stockingless feet. They were pacified at last; but, after the superintendent had gone away, some of the men said much and more, and "if ever he towd ony moor lies abeawt 'em, they'd fling him into th' cut." The "Labour Master" told me there was a large wood shed for the men to shelter in when rain came on. As we were conversing, one of my friends exclaimed, "He's here now!" "Who's here?" "Radical Jack." The superintendent was coming down the road. He told me some interesting things, which I will return to on another occasion. But our time was up. We had other places to see. As we came away, three old Irishwomen leaned against the wall at the corner of the yard, watching the men at work inside. One of them was saying, "Thim guardians is the awfullest set o' min in the world! A man had better be transpoorted than come under 'em. An' thin, they'll try you, an' try you, as if you was goin' to be hanged." The poor old soul had evidently only a narrow view of the necessities and difficulties which beset the labours of the Board of Guardians at a time like this. On our way back to town one of my friends told me that he "had met a sexton the day before, and had asked him how trade was with him. The sexton replied that it was "Varra bad—nowt doin', hardly." "Well, how's that?" asked the other. "Well, thae sees," answered the sexton, "Poverty seldom dees. There's far more kilt wi' o'er-heytin' an' o'er-drinkin' nor there is wi' bein' pinched."
Christmas and the Distress
Christmas which is just upon us, will necessarily be a cold one for the operatives, the resources of the past are not forthcoming; money is terribly scare, and many a one, who, in former years, have been jubilant at this season, will now have to be content with less than a ‘tithe’ of that cheer which is indissolubly associated with the good old-fashioned carnival of Christmas. Preparations are being made in many quarters for giving treats to the distressed operatives; the ordinary paupers will receive their Christmas dinner, in accordance with custom, and all those in receipt of relief from the charitable committee will, if they get nothing else, have eightpence each to fall back upon from the Mansion House fund. The kitchen in Crooked-lane appears to be as busy a place as ever. The following boilers of soup – each containing 175 gallons, have been made during the week :- Saturday, 4 boilers of meat and 1 and a half of sweet soup, Monday, 4 meat and 1 sweet, Tuesday, 5 meat and 1 sweet, Wednesday, 4 meat 4 scouse, Thursday 6 meat, yesterday 6 meat and half a boiler of sweet meat. The meat soup contained upwards of 4,850lbs beef, mutton, &c., of first-rate quality. During the week, 23,853 loaves of bread have been given out weighing 42 tons 12 cwt; 35,741 quarts of soup, and 9,057 quarts of scouse have been served at the Walker-street and the Crooked-lane establishments. The whole expense of the week, including bedding and clothing will exceed £3,000.
The following presents have been received during the week, for which the committee begs to offer its thanks.
A parcel of clothing from Mrs Foster, Whitehaven.
A parcel of grey flannel from Mrs Tollemache, Portland-terrace, Richmond, Surrey.
A crate of hats from L. Frayne, Bromsgrove.
Two bales and one hamper of clothing from E. Hallett and friends.
A bale of clothing from E.H. Sangley, Chudleign, Devon.
A large bale of clothing from C.S. Bromsgrove.
Three bales of clothing from H. Bell and Sons, Mickelgate, York.
A large bale of clothing from Lady Park, ‘very valuable’.
A truss of clothing from the Ladies Committee, Leeds.
Fifty sacks of rice chaff from W. Williams, Birkenhead.
A bale of clothing from friends at Castle Bromwick, per the Misses Kempson.
Ten bales of clothing from J. W. M’Clure, Manchester.
A sack of flour, one barrel of beef, twenty small barrels of herring, a barrel of fish, J.W. M’Clure, Manchester.
A bag of rice, a barrel of flour from Mr Baxter, Liverpool.
Two hundred plum puddings from the Lord Mayor’s Committee, London.
A quarter of the famous bull ‘Skyrocket’ weighing 419 lbs from Lord Feversham.
A parcel of clothing from Mr Burnett, Liverpool, per Mr Livesey, Preston.
Two carcasses of venison, used in the soup from Cartechy Castle, Scotland.
A box of clothing, tea, sugar &c., from Mrs Reyner, Waterloo.
A parcel of quilting, worsted, &c., from Mrs Jacson, Barton Lodge.
A sack of clothing from H. Rose Clark, Etwall, Derby.
A bale of clothing from George Earle, Hull.
One hamper of clothing from Thomas Cooper, Ulverstone.
3 boxes of clothing from Rossall College
87 lbs of venison from Messrs. Boulours, Marylebone.
A 2nd parcel clothing from United Sunday Scholars of Longsutton, per Rev. J. Nuller.
A case of caps and hats and a parcel of clothing from Penrim.
Preston Chronicle Dec 20th, 1862
The geothermal areas of Yellowstone include several geyser basins in Yellowstone National Park as well as other geothermal features such as hot springs, mud pots, and fumaroles. The number of thermal features in Yellowstone is estimated at 10,000. A study that was completed in 2011 found that a total of 1,283 geysers have erupted in Yellowstone, 465 of which are active during an average year. These are distributed among nine geyser basins, with a few geysers found in smaller thermal areas throughout the Park. The number of geysers in each geyser basin are as follows: Upper Geyser Basin (410), Midway Geyser Basin (59), Lower Geyser Basin (283), Norris Geyser Basin (193), West Thumb Geyser Basin (84), Gibbon Geyser Basin (24), Lone Star Geyser Basin (21), Shoshone Geyser Basin (107), Heart Lake Geyser Basin (69), other areas (33). Although famous large geysers like Old Faithful are part of the total, most of Yellowstone's geysers are small, erupting to only a foot or two. The hydrothermal system that supplies the geysers with hot water sits within an ancient active caldera. Many of the thermal features in Yellowstone build up sinter, geyserite, or travertine deposits around and within them.
The various geyser basins are located where rainwater and snowmelt can percolate into the ground, get indirectly superheated by the underlying Yellowstone hotspot, and then erupt at the surface as geysers, hot springs, and fumaroles. Thus flat-bottomed valleys between ancient lava flows and glacial moraines are where most of the large geothermal areas are located. Smaller geothermal areas can be found where fault lines reach the surface, in places along the circular fracture zone around the caldera, and at the base of slopes that collect excess groundwater. Due to the Yellowstone Plateau's high elevation the average boiling temperature at Yellowstone's geyser basins is 199 °F (93 °C). When properly confined and close to the surface it can periodically release some of the built-up pressure in eruptions of hot water and steam that can reach up to 390 feet (120 m) into the air (see Steamboat Geyser, the world's tallest geyser). Water erupting from Yellowstone's geysers is superheated above that boiling point to an average of 204 °F (95.5 °C) as it leaves the vent. The water cools significantly while airborne and is no longer scalding hot by the time it strikes the ground, nearby boardwalks, or even spectators. Because of the high temperatures of the water in the features it is important that spectators remain on the boardwalks and designated trails. Several deaths have occurred in the park as a result of falls into hot springs.
Prehistoric Native American artifacts have been found at Mammoth Hot Springs and other geothermal areas in Yellowstone. Some accounts state that the early people used hot water from the geothermal features for bathing and cooking. In the 19th century Father Pierre-Jean De Smet reported that natives he interviewed thought that geyser eruptions were "the result of combat between the infernal spirits". The Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled north of the Yellowstone area in 1806. Local natives that they came upon seldom dared to enter what we now know is the caldera because of frequent loud noises that sounded like thunder and the belief that the spirits that possessed the area did not like human intrusion into their realm. The first white man known to travel into the caldera and see the geothermal features was John Colter, who had left the Lewis and Clark Expedition. He described what he saw as "hot spring brimstone". Beaver trapper Joseph Meek recounted in 1830 that the steam rising from the various geyser basins reminded him of smoke coming from industrial smokestacks on a cold winter morning in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In the 1850s famed trapper Jim Bridger called it "the place where Hell bubbled up".
The heat that drives geothermal activity in the Yellowstone area comes from brine (salty water) that is 1.5–3 miles (7,900–15,800 ft; 2,400–4,800 m) below the surface. This is actually below the solid volcanic rock and sediment that extends to a depth of 3,000 to 6,000 feet (900 to 1,800 m) and is inside the hot but mostly solid part of the pluton that contains Yellowstone's magma chamber. At that depth the brine is superheated to temperatures that exceed 400 °F (204 °C) but is able to remain a liquid because it is under great pressure (like a huge pressure cooker).
Convection of the churning brine and conduction from surrounding rock transfers heat to an overlaying layer of fresh groundwater. Movement of the two liquids is facilitated by the highly fractured and porous nature of the rocks under the Yellowstone Plateau. Some silica is dissolved from the fractured rhyolite into the hot water as it travels through the fractured rock. Part of this hard mineral is later redeposited on the walls of the cracks and fissures to make a nearly pressure-tight system. Silica precipitates at the surface to form either geyserite or sinter, creating the massive geyser cones, the scalloped edges of hot springs, and the seemingly barren landscape of geyser basins.
There are at least five types of geothermal features found at Yellowstone:
Fumaroles: Fumaroles, or steam vents, are the hottest hydrothermal features in the park. They have so little water that it all flashes into steam before reaching the surface. At places like Roaring Mountain, the result is loud hissing of steam and gases.
Geysers: Geysers such as Old Faithful are a type of geothermal feature that periodically erupt scalding hot water. Increased pressure exerted by the enormous weight of the overlying rock and water prevents deeper water from boiling. As the hot water rises it is under less pressure and steam bubbles form. They, in turn, expand on their ascent until the bubbles are too big and numerous to pass freely through constrictions. At a critical point the confined bubbles actually lift the water above, causing the geyser to splash or overflow. This decreases the pressure of the system and violent boiling results. Large quantities of water flash into tremendous amounts of steam that force a jet of water out of the vent: an eruption begins. Water (and heat) is expelled faster than the geyser's recharge rate, gradually decreasing the system's pressure and eventually ending the eruption.
Hot springs: Hot springs such as Grand Prismatic Spring are the most common hydrothermal features in the park. Their plumbing has no constrictions. Superheated water cools as it reaches the surface, sinks, and is replaced by hotter water from below. This circulation, called convection, prevents water from reaching the temperature needed to set off an eruption. Many hot springs give rise to streams of heated water.
Mudpots: Mudpots such as Fountain Paint Pots are acidic hot springs with a limited water supply. Some microorganisms use hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg smell), which rises from deep within the earth, as an energy source. They convert the gas into sulfuric acid, which breaks down rock into clay.
Travertine terraces: Travertine terraces, found at Mammoth Hot Springs, are formed from limestone (a rock type made of calcium carbonate). Thermal waters rise through the limestone, carrying high amounts of dissolved carbonate. Carbon dioxide is released at the surface and calcium carbonate deposited as travertine, the chalky white rock of the terraces. These features constantly and quickly change due to the rapid rate of deposition.
Geyser basins
The Norris Geyser Basin 44°43′43″N 110°42′16″W is the hottest geyser basin in the park and is located near the northwest edge of Yellowstone Caldera near Norris Junction and on the intersection of three major faults. The Norris-Mammoth Corridor is a fault that runs from Norris north through Mammoth to the Gardiner, Montana, area. The Hebgen Lake fault runs from northwest of West Yellowstone, Montana, to Norris. This fault experienced an earthquake in 1959 that measured 7.4 on the Richter scale (sources vary on exact magnitude between 7.1 and 7.8; see 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake). Norris Geyser Basin is so hot and dynamic because these two faults intersect with the ring fracture zone that resulted from the creation of the Yellowstone Caldera of 640,000 years ago.
The Basin consists of three main areas: Porcelain Basin, Back Basin, and One Hundred Springs Plain. Unlike most of other geyser basins in the park, the waters from Norris are acidic rather than alkaline (for example, Echinus Geyser has a pH of ~3.5). The difference in pH allows for a different class of bacterial thermophiles to live at Norris, creating different color patterns in and around the Norris Basin waters.
The Ragged Hills that lie between Back Basin and One Hundred Springs Plain are thermally altered glacial kames. As glaciers receded the underlying thermal features began to express themselves once again, melting remnants of the ice and causing masses of debris to be dumped. These debris piles were then altered by steam and hot water flowing through them. Madison lies within the eroded stream channels cut through lava flows formed after the caldera eruption. The Gibbon Falls lies on the caldera boundary as does Virginia Cascades.
Algae on left bacteria on right at the intersection of flows from the Constant & Whirlgig Geysers at Norris Geyser Basin
The tallest active geyser in the world, Steamboat Geyser,[11] is located in Norris Basin. Unlike the slightly smaller but much more famous Old Faithful Geyser located in Upper Geyser Basin, Steamboat has an erratic and lengthy timetable between major eruptions. During major eruptions, which may be separated by intervals of more than a year (the longest recorded span between major eruptions was 50 years), Steamboat erupts over 300 feet (90 m) into the air. Steamboat does not lie dormant between eruptions, instead displaying minor eruptions of approximately 40 feet (12 m).
Norris Geyser Basin periodically undergoes a large-scale, basin-wide thermal disturbance lasting a few weeks. Water levels fluctuate, and temperatures, pH, colors, and eruptive patterns change throughout the basin. During a disturbance in 1985, Porkchop Geyser continually jetted steam and water; in 1989, the same geyser apparently clogged with silica and blew up, throwing rocks more than 200 feet (61 m). In 2003 a park ranger observed it bubbling heavily, the first such activity seen since 1991. Activity increased dramatically in mid-2003. Because of high ground temperatures and new features beside the trail much of Back Basin was closed until October. In 2004 the boardwalk was routed around the dangerous area and now leads behind Porkchop Geyser.
North of Norris, Roaring Mountain is a large, acidic hydrothermal area (solfatara) with many fumaroles. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the number, size, and power of the fumaroles were much greater than today. The fumaroles are most easily seen in the cooler, low-light conditions of morning and evening.
The Gibbon Geyser Basin 44°41′58″N 110°44′34″W includes several thermal areas in the vicinity of the Gibbon River between Gibbon Falls and Norris. The most accessible feature in the basin is Beryl Spring, with a small boardwalk right along the Grand Loop Road. Artists' Paintpots is a small hydrothermal area south of Norris Junction that includes colorful hot springs and two large mudpots.
The Monument Geyser Basin 44°41′03″N 110°45′14″W has no active geysers, but its 'monuments' are siliceous sinter deposits similar to the siliceous spires discovered on the floor of Yellowstone Lake. Scientists hypothesize that this basin's structures formed from a hot water system in a glacially dammed lake during the waning stages of the Pinedale Glaciation. The basin is on a ridge reached by a very steep one-mile (1.6 km) trail south of Artists' Paint Pots. Other areas of thermal activity in Gibbon Geyser Basin lie off-trail.
South of Norris along the rim of the caldera is the Upper Geyser Basin 44°27′52″N 110°49′45″W, which has the highest concentration of geothermal features in the park. This complement of features includes the most famous geyser in the park, Old Faithful Geyser, as well as four other predictable large geysers. One of these large geysers in the area is Castle Geyser which is about 1,400 feet (430 m) northwest of Old Faithful. Castle Geyser has an interval of approximately 13 hours between major eruptions, but is unpredictable after minor eruptions. The other three predictable geysers are Grand Geyser, Daisy Geyser, and Riverside Geyser. Biscuit Basin and Black Sand Basin are also within the boundaries of Upper Geyser Basin.
The hills surrounding Old Faithful and the Upper Geyser Basin are reminders of Quaternary rhyolitic lava flows. These flows, occurring long after the catastrophic eruption of 640,000 years ago, flowed across the landscape like stiff mounds of bread dough due to their high silica content.
Evidence of glacial activity is common, and it is one of the keys that allows geysers to exist. Glacier till deposits underlie the geyser basins providing storage areas for the water used in eruptions. Many landforms, such as Porcupine Hills north of Fountain Flats, are made up of glacial gravel and are reminders that 70,000 to 14,000 years ago, this area was buried under ice.
Signs of the forces of erosion can be seen everywhere, from runoff channels carved across the sinter in the geyser basins to the drainage created by the Firehole River. Mountain building is evident on the drive south of Old Faithful, toward Craig Pass. Here the Rocky Mountains reach a height of 8,262 feet (2,518 m), dividing the country into two distinct watersheds.
Midway Geyser Basin 44°31′04″N 110°49′56″W is much smaller than the other basins found alongside the Firehole River. Despite its small size, it contains two large features, the 200-by-300-foot-wide (60 by 90 m) Excelsior Geyser which pours over 4,000 U.S. gallons (15,000 L; 3,300 imp gal) per minute into the Firehole River. The largest hot spring in Yellowstone, the 370-foot-wide (110 m) and 121-foot-deep (37 m) Grand Prismatic Spring is found here. Also in the basin is Turquoise Pool and Opal Pool.
Lower Geyser Basin
Blue spring with steam rising from it; irregular blotches of red and orange residue are on the banks, along with dead tree trunks.
Silex Spring at Fountain Paint Pot
Farther north is the Lower Geyser Basin 44°32′58″N 110°50′09″W, which is the largest geyser basin in area, covering approximately 11 square miles. Due to its large size, it has a much less concentrated set of geothermal features, including Fountain Paint Pots. Fountain Paint Pots are mud pots, that is, a hot spring that contains boiling mud instead of water. The mud is produced by a higher acidity in the water which enables the spring to dissolve surrounding minerals to create an opaque, usually grey, mud. Also there is Firehole Spring, Celestine Pool, Leather Pool, Red Spouter, Jelly spring, and a number of fumaroles.
Geysers in Lower Geyser Basin include Great Fountain Geyser, whose eruptions reach 100 to 200 feet (30–61 m) in the air, while waves of water cascade down its sinter terraces., the Fountain group of Geysers (Clepsydra Geyser which erupts nearly continuously to heights of 45 feet (14 m), Fountain Geyser, Jelly Geyser, Jet Geyser, Morning Geyser, and Spasm Geyser), the Pink Cone group of geysers (Dilemma Geyser, Labial Geyser, Narcissus Geyser, Pink Geyser, and Pink Cone Geyser), the White Dome group of geysers (Crack Geyser, Gemini Geyser, Pebble Geyser, Rejuvenated Geyser, and White Dome Geyser), as well as Sizzler Geyser.
Clepsydra Geyser erupting. July 2019
Fountain Paint Pots
White Dome Geyser
West Thumb Geyser Basin
Several pools of blue water in ashen rock basin.
West Thumb Geyser Basin
Blackened basin with orange streaks; steam is rising from it with fir trees in the background.
Overflow areas of Silex springs
The West Thumb Geyser Basin 44°25′07″N 110°34′23″W, including Potts Basin to the north, is the largest geyser basin on the shores of Yellowstone Lake. The heat source of the thermal features in this location is thought to be relatively close to the surface, only 10,000 feet (3,000 m) down. West Thumb is about the same size as another famous volcanic caldera, Crater Lake in Oregon, but much smaller than the great Yellowstone Caldera which last erupted about 640,000 years ago. West Thumb is a caldera within a caldera.
West Thumb was created approximately 162,000 years ago when a magma chamber bulged up under the surface of the earth and subsequently cracked it along ring fracture zones. This in turn released the enclosed magma as lava and caused the surface above the emptied magma chamber to collapse. Water later filled the collapsed area of the caldera, forming an extension of Yellowstone Lake. This created the source of heat and water that feed the West Thumb Geyser Basin today.
The thermal features at West Thumb are not only found on the lake shore, but extend under the surface of the lake as well. Several underwater hydrothermal features were discovered in the early 1990s and can be seen as slick spots or slight bulges in the summer. During the winter, the underwater thermal features are visible as melt holes in the icy surface of the lake. The surrounding ice can reach three feet (one yard) in thickness.
Perhaps the most famous hydrothermal feature at West Thumb is a geyser on the lake shore known as Fishing Cone. Walter Trumbull of the 1870 Washburn-Langford-Doane Expedition described a unique event while a man was fishing adjacent to the cone: "...in swinging a trout ashore, it accidentally got off the hook and fell into the spring. For a moment it darted about with wonderful rapidity, as if seeking an outlet. Then it came to the top, dead, and literally boiled." Fishing Cone erupted frequently to the height of 40 feet (12 m) in 1919 and to lesser heights in 1939. One fisherman was badly burned in Fishing Cone in 1921. Fishing at the geyser is now prohibited.
Early visitors would arrive at West Thumb via stagecoach from the Old Faithful area. They had a choice of continuing on the stagecoach or boarding the steamship Zillah to continue the journey by water to Lake Hotel. The boat dock was located near the south end of the geyser basin near Lakeside Spring.
Backcountry Geyser Basins
The Heart Lake 44°18′00″N 110°30′56″W, Lone Star 44°24′50″N 110°49′04″W, and Shoshone Geyser Basins 44°21′16″N 110°47′57″W are located away from the road and require at least several miles of hiking to reach. These areas lack the boardwalks and other safety features of the developed areas. As falling into geothermal features can be fatal, it is usually advisable to visit these areas with an experienced guide or at the very least, travelers need to ensure they remain on well-marked trails.
The Heart Lake Geyser Basin contains several groups of geysers and deep blue hot springs near Heart Lake in the south-central portion of Yellowstone, southeast of most of the main geyser basins. Lying in the Snake River watershed east of Lewis Lake and south of Yellowstone Lake, Heart Lake was named sometime before 1871 for Hart Hunney, a hunter. Other explorers in the region incorrectly assumed that the lake's name was spelled 'heart' because of its shape. The Heart Lake Geyser Basin begins a couple miles from the lake and descends along Witch Creek to the lakeshore. Five groups of hydrothermal features comprise the basin, and all of them contain geysers, although some are dormant.
Between Shoshone Lake and Old Faithful is the Lone Star Geyser Basin, of which the primary feature is Lone Star Geyser, named for its isolation from the nearby geysers of the Upper Geyser Basin. The basin is reachable on foot or bicycle via a 3 mile road that is closed to vehicles.
The Shoshone Geyser Basin, reached by hiking or by boat, contains one of the highest concentrations of geysers in the world – more than 80 in an area 1,600 by 800 feet (490 by 240 m). Hot springs and mudpots dot the landscape between the geyser basin and Shoshone Lake.
Hot Spring Basin is located 15 miles (24 km) north-northeast of Fishing Bridge and has one of Yellowstone's largest collections of hot springs and fumaroles. The geothermal features there release large amounts of sulfur. This makes water from the springs so acidic that it has dissolved holes in the pants of people who sit on wet ground and causes mounds of sulfur three feet (1 m) high to develop around fumaroles. The very hot acidic water and steam have also created voids in the ground that are only covered by a thin crust.
Mammoth Hot Springs is a large complex of hot springs on a hill of travertine in Yellowstone National Park adjacent to Fort Yellowstone and the Mammoth Hot Springs Historic District. It was created over thousands of years as hot water from the spring cooled and deposited calcium carbonate (over two tons flow into Mammoth each day in a solution). Because of the huge amount of geothermal vents, travertine flourishes. Although these springs lie outside the caldera boundary, their energy has been attributed to the same magmatic system that fuels other Yellowstone geothermal areas.
The thermal features at Mud Volcano and Sulphur Caldron are primarily mud pots and fumaroles because the area is situated on a perched water system with little water available. Fumaroles or "steam vents" occur when the ground water boils away faster than it can be recharged. Also, the vapors are rich in sulfuric acid that leaches the rock, breaking it down into clay. Because no water washes away the acid or leached rock, it remains as sticky clay to form a mud pot. Hydrogen sulfide gas is present deep in the earth at Mud Volcano and is oxidized to sulfuric acid by microbial activity, which dissolves the surface soils to create pools and cones of clay and mud. Along with hydrogen sulfide, steam, carbon dioxide, and other gases explode through the layers of mud.
A series of shallow earthquakes associated with the volcanic activity in Yellowstone struck this area in 1978. Soil temperatures increased to nearly 200 °F (93 °C). The slope between Sizzling Basin and Mud Geyser, once covered with green grass and trees, became a barren landscape of fallen trees known as "the cooking hillside".
Yellowstone National Park is a national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872. Yellowstone was the first national park in the U.S. and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world. The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially the Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular. While it represents many types of biomes, the subalpine forest is the most abundant. It is part of the South Central Rockies forests ecoregion.
While Native Americans have lived in the Yellowstone region for at least 11,000 years, aside from visits by mountain men during the early-to-mid-19th century, organized exploration did not begin until the late 1860s. Management and control of the park originally fell under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of the Interior, the first Secretary of the Interior to supervise the park being Columbus Delano. However, the U.S. Army was eventually commissioned to oversee the management of Yellowstone for 30 years between 1886 and 1916. In 1917, the administration of the park was transferred to the National Park Service, which had been created the previous year. Hundreds of structures have been built and are protected for their architectural and historical significance, and researchers have examined more than a thousand archaeological sites.
Yellowstone National Park spans an area of 3,468.4 sq mi (8,983 km2), comprising lakes, canyons, rivers, and mountain ranges. Yellowstone Lake is one of the largest high-elevation lakes in North America and is centered over the Yellowstone Caldera, the largest super volcano on the continent. The caldera is considered a dormant volcano. It has erupted with tremendous force several times in the last two million years. Well over half of the world's geysers and hydrothermal features are in Yellowstone, fueled by this ongoing volcanism. Lava flows and rocks from volcanic eruptions cover most of the land area of Yellowstone. The park is the centerpiece of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the largest remaining nearly intact ecosystem in the Earth's northern temperate zone. In 1978, Yellowstone was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Hundreds of species of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians have been documented, including several that are either endangered or threatened. The vast forests and grasslands also include unique species of plants. Yellowstone Park is the largest and most famous megafauna location in the contiguous United States. Grizzly bears, cougars, wolves, and free-ranging herds of bison and elk live in this park. The Yellowstone Park bison herd is the oldest and largest public bison herd in the United States. Forest fires occur in the park each year; in the large forest fires of 1988, nearly one-third of the park was burnt. Yellowstone has numerous recreational opportunities, including hiking, camping, boating, fishing, and sightseeing. Paved roads provide close access to the major geothermal areas as well as some of the lakes and waterfalls. During the winter, visitors often access the park by way of guided tours that use either snow coaches or snowmobiles.
Teton County is a county in the U.S. state of Wyoming. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 23,331. Its county seat is Jackson. Its west boundary line is also the Wyoming state boundary shared with Idaho and the southern tip of Montana. Teton County is part of the Jackson, WY-ID Micropolitan Statistical Area.
Teton County contains the Jackson Hole ski area, all of Grand Teton National Park, and 40.4% of Yellowstone National Park's total area, including over 96.6% of its water area (largely in Yellowstone Lake).
Wyoming is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the south. With a population of 576,851 in 2020, Wyoming is the least populous state despite being the 10th largest by area, with the second-lowest population density after Alaska. The state capital and most populous city is Cheyenne, which had an estimated population of 63,957 in 2018.
Wyoming's western half consists mostly of the ranges and rangelands of the Rocky Mountains; its eastern half consists of high-elevation prairie, and is referred to as the High Plains. Wyoming's climate is semi-arid in some parts and continental in others, making it drier and windier overall than other states, with greater temperature extremes. The federal government owns just under half of Wyoming's land, generally protecting it for public uses. The state ranks sixth in the amount of land—-and fifth in the proportion of its land—-that is owned by the federal government. Its federal lands include two national parks (Grand Teton and Yellowstone), two national recreation areas, two national monuments, and several national forests, as well as historic sites, fish hatcheries, and wildlife refuges.
Indigenous peoples inhabited the region for thousands of years. Historic and currently federally recognized tribes include the Arapaho, Crow, Lakota, and Shoshone. Part of the land that is now Wyoming came under American sovereignty via the Louisiana Purchase, part via the Oregon Treaty, and, lastly, via the Mexican Cession. With the opening of the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, and the California Trail, vast numbers of pioneers travelled through parts of the state that had once been traversed mainly by fur trappers, and this spurred the establishment of forts, such as Fort Laramie, that today serve as population centers. The Transcontinental Railroad supplanted the wagon trails in 1867 with a route through southern Wyoming, bringing new settlers and the establishment of founding towns, including the state capital of Cheyenne. On March 27, 1890, Wyoming became the union's 44th state.
Farming and ranching, and the attendant range wars, feature prominently in the state's history. Today, Wyoming's economy is largely based on tourism and the extraction of minerals such as coal, natural gas, oil, and trona. Its agricultural commodities include barley, hay, livestock, sugar beets, wheat, and wool.
Wyoming was the first state to allow women the right to vote (not counting New Jersey, which had allowed it until 1807), and the right to assume elected office, as well as the first state to elect a female governor. In honor of this part of its history, its most common nickname is "The Equality State" and its official state motto is "Equal Rights". It is among the least religious states in the country, and is known for having a political culture that leans towards libertarian conservatism. The Republican presidential nominee has carried the state in every election since 1968.
Mechanitis polymnia (Orange-spotted Tiger Clearwing) is a very widespread species, distributed from Mexico to Bolivia. There are 22 named subspecies, each varying in colour and pattern.
Adults of some groups are the longest-lived butterflies, surviving 6-11 months. Adult feeding behavior depends on the species, where some groups primarily seek flower nectar while others only feed on sap flows, rotting fruit, dung, or animal carcasses. Males exhibit perching and patrolling behaviors when seeking mates.
The black and orange-banded "tigers" are toxic, many of which are mimicked by other species due to their unpalatability to birds. The shared pattern gives the butterflies an "advantage in numbers" because insectivorous birds learn to avoid all "tiger" species - tasting one such butterfly causes birds to vomit, and the experience is enough to convince them to leave similar looking creatures alone.
DPUs (distributed power units) on Norfolk Southern intermodal train 27A passing the former N&W depot at Boyce, Virginia on December 14, 2024, as sunset nears.
Item:
Title: Distributing Relief Supplies to Mont Pelee Refugees
Photographer:
Publisher: Underwood & Underwood
Publisher#: 6697
Year: 1902
Height: 3.5 in
Width: 3.5 in
Media: glass slide
Color: b/w
Country: Martinique
Town: St Pierre
Notes:
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