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Compiled and Published by H.E.C. Robinsons Pty. Ltd 221-3 George Street, Sydney, Australia. Published probably in 1945. 12th Edition Revised.
Published for the Department of Education, New South Wales.
Maitland Opportunity Unlimited
Published for Maitland City Council
Set up and printed by Tipper & Cliff 393 High Street, Maitland
Includes maps and inserts
Published c.1961
14cm x 21cm
This image may be used for study and personal research purposes
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Scanned and cleaned by Melora of historyofhyrule.com from the Japanese artbook, Hyrule Historia (Now published in multiple languages)
All of these books were originally published in 1975 (the year I was born). Curtain was written circa 1940 when Christie was afraid that she might die during World War II and leave Poirot's life unfinished, but was then locked away in a vault until she was actually nearing the end of of her life and authorised its publication. The rest were (I believe) all written in the early '70s.
There are 11 novels and one collection of short stories. They total 3902 pages.
Four authors are Brits, four Americans, one Finn, one Pole, one Argentine, and one Mexican. The books are organised here (and as of now, this is the order I intend to read them) alphabetically by the original title—it is merely an odd bit of chance that the four books in translation all fall at the end.
Four of the books are used copies, eight new. One used book and two new books were purchased at the Strand Bookstore in Manhattan. Four new books were purchased at the very local Greenlight Bookstore in Fort Green, Brooklyn. One new book was mail ordered direct from the publisher. One new book was mail ordered from the UK because I like the British cover better than the American one. The three remaining used books were ordered from used bookstores in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and England.
All books were purchased in the last six months, though one is a replacement for a book that I had previously owned (and before that had read the first few dozen pages in a library copy, some 10-15 years ago).
My final pre-summer reading was Agatha Christie's The Curious affair at Styles, the first Poirot mystery, the setting of which is revisited in Curtain, the last.
———
Progress:
Curtain. 3 June – 5 June
Dhalgren. 7 June – 25 June
Dead babies. 25 June – 29 June
The dead father. 29 June – 3 July
Galaxies. 12 July* – 22 July
[ Cats†. 13 July ]
Hello sailor. 22 July – 23 July
High-rise. 23 July – 29 July
JR. 29 July – 1 October
The year of the hare. 1 October – 9 October
The chain of chance. 9 October – 4 November
The book of sand. 4 November – 19 November
Terra nostra. 20 November –
———
Wrap up:
So this was more of late spring/summer/fall reading than simply summer, but I did make it through nearly the entire stack.§
I absolutely loved Dhalgren and JR. I thoroughly enjoyed Curtain, The dead father, and High-rise. I thought there was some good stuff in Galaxies, The chain of chance, and The book of sand. And I was disappointed with Dead babies, Hello sailor, and The year of the hare. My thoughts on Terra nostra will again have to wait.
In reading many of these books, as I am wont to do, I began making films of them in my head. Not simply seeing them acted out, but thinking about them technically: sets, camera shots, casting, abridging or adapting the text. By the fourth or fifth book I had concocted the idea of making a 5-10 minute short for each book, that could perhaps be strung together into a strange sort of anthology. Maybe that could be a summer project for some future year.
———
*I rushed through The dead father—a hardback book—perhaps a little quickly in order to pack the next three slim, softcover novels along with me to San Francisco for a week's vacation. I made a stab at starting Galaxies on the plane out, but it was a 5AM flight, and I was too exhausted to retain much of what I read; and similarly with any downtime on the trip, or on the red-eye flight back east and so I began again upon our return.‡
†A short, silly, later addition to my summer reading. Bernard "Hap" Kliban's Cats, a book of sketches and cartoons, which Megan had thought to maybe buy for me as a birthday gift, but then thought maybe it was too silly, was first published in 1975. (Aaron has given me a calendar of Kliban's cat cartoons each of the last two years for Xmas.) Megan showed it to me as I was waiting for her to close up the toy store the other day, and I read through it in about half an hour, then purchased it.
‡Having now finished Galaxies it seems it might have been strangely more appropriate had I in fact been able to tackle it on the flight. The book is a postmodern meta-novel and discourse on the state of American sci-fi in the greater landscape of literary fiction of the 1970s disguised as a typical pulp sci-fi novel of the era. Toward the end of the book Malzberg creates and addresses a hypothetical "reader" who has chosen the book to read on a six-hour cross-country flight from New York to California.
§This was my second, or perhaps third, dive into Terra nostra, and although I made it further than previously, I did put it down toward the end of 2013 to move onto other things.
The Postcard
A postally unused postcard published by C.T. They state on the divided back of the card that it is a genuine Curteich-Chicago 'C.T. Art-Colortone' postcard. (Reg. U.S. Patent Office).
I don't know why they bothered to patent it - the print quality is awful.
C.T. state on the back of the card that a One Cent stamp is required for postage. They also state:
'The Bridal Altar is one of the oldest
and most historic features in Mammoth
Cave.
Many couples have been married at
this spot'.
Mammoth Cave National Park
Mammoth Cave National Park is an American national park in west-central Kentucky, encompassing portions of Mammoth Cave, the longest-known cave system in the world.
Since the 1972 unification of Mammoth Cave with the even-longer system under Flint Ridge to the north, the official name of the system has been the Mammoth–Flint Ridge Cave System.
The park was established as a national park on the 1st. July 1941, and a World Heritage Site on the 27th. October 1981.
The Green River runs through the park. Mammoth Cave is the world's longest known cave system with more than 400 miles (640 km) of surveyed passageways. It is nearly twice as long as the second-longest cave system, Mexico's Sac Actun underwater cave.
The Geology of Mammoth Cave
Mammoth Cave developed in thick Mississippian-aged limestone strata capped by a layer of sandstone, which has made the system remarkably stable. New discoveries and connections add several miles to the cave's known length each year.
At one valley bottom in the southern region of the park, a massive sinkhole has developed. Known as Cedar Sink, the sinkhole features a small river entering one side and disappearing back underground at the other side.
Visiting Mammoth Cave
The National Park Service offers several cave tours to visitors. Some notable features of the cave, such as Grand Avenue, Frozen Niagara, and Fat Man's Misery, can be seen on lighted tours ranging from one to six hours in length.
Two tours, lit only by visitor-carried paraffin lamps, are popular alternatives to the electric-lit routes. Several "wild" tours venture away from the developed parts of the cave into muddy crawls and dusty tunnels.
The Echo River Tour, one of the cave's most famous attractions, took visitors on a boat ride along an underground river. The tour was discontinued for logistic and environmental reasons in the early 1990's.
Mammoth Cave in Prehistory
The story of human beings in relation to Mammoth Cave spans five thousand years. Several sets of Native American remains have been recovered from Mammoth Cave, or other nearby caves in the region, in both the 19th. and 20th. centuries. Most mummies found represent examples of intentional burial, with ample evidence of pre-Columbian funerary practice.
An exception to purposeful burial was discovered when in 1935 the remains of an adult male were discovered under a large boulder. The boulder had shifted and settled onto the victim, a pre-Columbian miner, who had disturbed the rubble supporting it.
The remains of the ancient victim were named "Lost John" and exhibited to the public into the 1970's, when they were interred in a secret location in Mammoth Cave for reasons of preservation as well as emerging political sensitivities with respect to the public display of Native American remains.
Research beginning in the late 1950's led by Patty Jo Watson, of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, has done much to illuminate the lives of the late Archaic and early Woodland peoples who explored and exploited caves in the region.
Preserved by the constant cave environment, dietary evidence yielded carbon dates enabling Watson to determine the age of the specimens. An analysis of their content allows determination of the relative content of plant and meat in the diet of either culture over a period spanning several thousand years. This analysis indicates a timed transition from a hunter-gatherer culture to plant domestication and agriculture.
Another technique employed in archaeological research at Mammoth Cave, was experimental archaeology, in which modern explorers were sent into the cave using the technology that was employed by the ancient cultures whose leftover implements lie discarded in many parts of the cave. The goal was to gain insight into the problems faced by the ancient people who explored the cave.
Ancient human remains and artifacts within the caves are protected by various federal and state laws. One of the most basic facts to be determined about a newly discovered artifact is its precise location and situation. Even slightly moving a prehistoric artifact contaminates it from a research perspective. Explorers are properly trained not to disturb archaeological evidence, and some areas of the cave remain out-of-bounds for even seasoned explorers, unless the subject of the trip is archaeological research on that area.
Besides the remains that have been discovered in the portion of the cave accessible through the Historic Entrance of Mammoth Cave, the remains of cane torches used by Native Americans, as well as other artifacts such as drawings, gourd fragments, and woven grass moccasin slippers are found in the Salts Cave section of the system in Flint Ridge.
Though there is undeniable proof of their existence and use of the cave, there is no evidence of further use past the archaic period. Experts and scientists have no answer as to why this is, making it one of the greatest mysteries of Mammoth Cave to this day.
Earliest Written History
The 31,000-acre (13,000 ha) tract known as the "Pollard Survey" was sold by indenture on the 10th. September 1791 in Philadelphia by William Pollard. 19,897 acres (8,052 ha) of the Pollard Survey between the North bank of Bacon Creek and the Green River were purchased by Thomas Lang, Jr..
Lang was a British American merchant from Yorkshire, England. He bought the land on the 3rd. June 1796 for £4,116, but the land was lost to a local county tax claim during the War of 1812.
Legend has it that the first European to visit Mammoth Cave was either John Houchin or his brother Francis Houchin, in 1797. While hunting, Houchin pursued a wounded bear to the cave's large entrance opening near the Green River.
Some Houchin Family tales have John Decatur "Johnny Dick" Houchin as the discoverer of the cave, but this is highly unlikely because Johnny Dick was only 10 years old in 1797, and was unlikely to be out hunting bears at such a tender age.
His father John is the more likely candidate from that branch of the family tree, but the most probable candidate for discoverer of Mammoth Cave is Francis "Frank" Houchin, whose land was much closer to the cave entrance than his brother John's.
There is also the argument that their brother Charles Houchin, who was known as a great hunter and trapper, was the man who shot the bear and chased it into the cave. The shadow over Charles's claim is the fact that he was residing in Illinois until 1801.
Contrary to this story is Brucker and Watson's 'The Longest Cave', which asserts that the cave was certainly known before that time. Caves in the area were certainly known before the discovery of the entrance to Mammoth Cave. Even Francis Houchin had a cave entrance on his land very near the bend in the Green River known as the Turnhole, which is less than a mile from the main entrance to Mammoth Cave.
The land containing this historic entrance was first surveyed and registered in 1798 under the name of Valentine Simons. Simons began exploiting Mammoth Cave for its saltpeter reserves.
Mammoth Cave in the 19th. Century
In partnership with Valentine Simon, various other individuals owned the land through the War of 1812, when Mammoth Cave's saltpeter reserves became significant due to the Jefferson Embargo Act of 1807 which prohibited all foreign trade.
The blockade starved the American military of saltpeter and therefore gunpowder. As a result, the domestic price of saltpeter rose and production based on nitrates extracted from caves such as Mammoth Cave became more lucrative.
In July 1812, the cave was purchased from Simon and other owners by Charles Wilkins and an investor from Philadelphia named Hyman Gratz. Soon the cave was being mined for calcium nitrate on an industrial scale, utilizing a labor force of 70 slaves to build and operate the soil leaching apparatus, as well as to haul the raw soil from deep in the cave to the central processing site.
A half-interest in the cave changed hands for ten thousand dollars (equivalent to over $150,000 in 2020). After the war when prices fell, the workings were abandoned and it became a minor tourist attraction centering on a Native American mummy discovered nearby.
When Wilkins died his estate's executors sold his interest in the cave to Gratz. In the spring of 1838, the cave was sold by the Gratz brothers to Franklin Gorin, who intended to operate Mammoth Cave purely as a tourist attraction, the bottom long having since fallen out of the saltpeter market.
Gorin was a slave owner, and used his slaves as tour guides. One of these slaves would make a number of important contributions to human knowledge of the cave, and become one of Mammoth Cave's most celebrated historical figures.
Stephen Bishop, an African-American slave and a guide to the cave during the 1840's and 1850's, was one of the first people to make extensive maps of the cave, and named many of the cave's features.
Stephen Bishop was introduced to Mammoth Cave in 1838 by Franklin Gorin. Gorin wrote, after Bishop's death:
"I placed a guide in the cave – the celebrated and
great Stephen, and he aided in making the discoveries.
He was the first person who ever crossed the Bottomless
Pit, and he, myself and another person whose name I have forgotten were the only persons ever at the bottom of
Gorin's Dome to my knowledge.
After Stephen crossed the Bottomless Pit, we discovered
all that part of the cave now known beyond that point. Previous to those discoveries, all interest centered in
what is known as the 'Old Cave' ... but now many of the
points are but little known, although as Stephen was wont
to say, they were 'grand, gloomy and peculiar'."
In 1839, Dr. John Croghan of Louisville bought the Mammoth Cave Estate, including Bishop and its other slaves from their previous owner, Franklin Gorin. Croghan briefly ran an ill-fated tuberculosis hospital in the cave in 1842-43, the vapors of which he believed would cure his patients. A widespread epidemic of tuberculosis ultimately claimed the life of Dr. Croghan in 1849.
Throughout the 19th. century, the fame of Mammoth Cave grew so much that the cave became an international sensation. As a result of the growing renown of the cave, the cave boasted famous visitors such as actor Edwin Booth (his brother, John Wilkes Booth, assassinated Abraham Lincoln in 1865), singer Jenny Lind (who visited the cave on the 5th. April 1851), and violinist Ole Bull who together gave a concert in one of the caves. Two chambers in the caves have since been known as "Booth's Amphitheatre" and "Ole Bull's Concert Hall".
By 1859, when the Louisville and Nashville Railroad opened its main line between these cities, Colonel Larkin J. Procter owned the Mammoth Cave Estate. He also owned the stagecoach line that ran between Glasgow Junction (Park City) and the Mammoth Cave Estate. This line transported tourists to Mammoth Caves until 1886, when he established the Mammoth Cave Railroad.
Early 20th. century: The Kentucky Cave Wars
The difficulties of farming life in the hardscrabble, poor soil of the cave-country influenced local owners of smaller nearby caves to see opportunities for commercial exploitation, particularly given the success of Mammoth Cave as a tourist attraction.
The "Kentucky Cave Wars" was a period of bitter competition between local cave owners for tourist money. Broad tactics of deception were used to lure visitors away from their intended destination to other private show caves. Misleading signs were placed along the roads leading to the Mammoth Cave. A typical strategy during the early days of automobile travel involved representatives (known as "cappers") of other private show caves hopping aboard a tourist's car's running board, and leading the passengers to believe that Mammoth Cave was closed, quarantined, caved in or otherwise inaccessible.
In 1906, Mammoth Cave became accessible by steamboat with the construction of a lock and dam at Brownsville, Kentucky.
In 1908, Max Kämper, a young German mining engineer, arrived at the cave by way of New York. Kämper had just graduated from technical college and his family had sent him on a trip abroad as a graduation present. Originally intending to spend two weeks at Mammoth Cave, Kämper spent several months.
With the assistance of Stephen Bishop, Kämper produced a remarkably accurate instrumental survey of many kilometers of Mammoth Cave, including many new discoveries. Reportedly, Kämper also produced a corresponding survey of the land surface overlying the cave: this information was to be useful in the opening of other entrances to the cave, as soon happened with the Violet City entrance.
The Croghan family suppressed the topographic element of Kämper's map, and it is not known to survive today, although the cave map portion of Kämper's work stands as a triumph of accurate cave cartography: not until the early 1960's and the advent of the modern exploration period would these passages be surveyed and mapped with greater accuracy.
Kämper returned to Berlin, and from the point of view of the Mammoth Cave country, disappeared entirely. It was not until the turn of the 21st. century that a group of German tourists, after visiting the cave, researched Kämper's family and determined his fate: the young Kämper was killed in trench warfare in the Great War on the 10th. December 1916 at the Battle of the Somme.
Famed French cave explorer Édouard-Alfred Martel visited the cave for three days in October 1912. Without access to the closely held survey data, Martel was permitted to make barometric observations in the cave for the purpose of determining the relative elevation of different locations. He identified different levels of the cave, and correctly noted that the level of the Echo River within the cave was controlled by that of the Green River on the surface.
Martel lamented the 1906 construction of the dam at Brownsville, pointing out that this made a full hydrogeologic study of the cave impossible. Among his precise descriptions of Mammoth Cave, Martel suggested that Mammoth Cave was connected to Salts and Colossal Caves: this would not be proven correct until 60 years after Martel's visit.
In the early 1920's, George Morrison created, via blasting, a number of entrances to Mammoth Cave on land not owned by the Croghan Estate. Absent the data from the Croghan's secretive surveys, performed by Kämper, Bishop, and others, which had not been published in a form suitable for determining the geographic extent of the cave, it was now conclusively shown that the Croghans had been for years exhibiting portions of Mammoth Cave which were not under land they owned. Lawsuits were filed and, for a time, different entrances to the cave were operated in direct competition with each other.
In the early 20th. century, Floyd Collins spent ten years exploring the Flint Ridge Cave System (the most important legacy of these explorations was the discovery of Floyd Collins' Crystal Cave and exploration in Salts Cave) before dying at Sand Cave, Kentucky, in 1925.
While exploring Sand Cave, Floyd dislodged a rock onto his leg while in a tight crawl-way and was unable to be rescued before dying of starvation. Attempts to rescue Collins created a mass media sensation; the resulting publicity would draw prominent Kentuckians to initiate a movement which would soon result in the formation of Mammoth Cave National Park.
The National Park Movement (1926–1941)
As the last of the Croghan heirs died, momentum grew among wealthy citizens of Kentucky for the establishment of Mammoth Cave National Park. Private citizens formed the Mammoth Cave National Park Association in 1924. The park was authorized on the 25th. May 1926.
Donated funds were used to purchase some farmsteads in the region, while other tracts within the proposed national park boundary were acquired by right of eminent domain. In contrast to the formation of other national parks in the sparsely populated American West, thousands of people were forcibly relocated in the process of forming Mammoth Cave National Park. Often eminent domain proceedings were bitter, with landowners paid what were considered to be inadequate sums. The resulting acrimony still resonates within the region to this day.
The New Entrance, closed to visitors since 1941, was reopened on the 26th. December 1951, becoming the entrance used for the beginning of the Frozen Niagara tour.
The longest cave (1954–1972)
By 1954, Mammoth Cave National Park's land holdings encompassed all lands within its outer boundary with the exception of two privately held tracts. One of these, the old Lee Collins farm, had been sold to Harry Thomas of Horse Cave, Kentucky, whose grandson, William "Bill" Austin, operated Collins Crystal Cave as a show cave in direct competition with the national park, which was forced to maintain roads leading to the property. Condemnation and purchase of the Crystal Cave property seemed only a matter of time.
In February 1954, a two-week expedition under the auspices of the National Speleological Society was organized at the invitation of Austin: this expedition became known as C-3, or the Collins Crystal Cave Expedition.
The C-3 expedition drew public interest, first from a photo essay published by Robert Halmi in the July 1954 issue of True Magazine, and later from the publication of a double first-person account of the expedition, 'The Caves Beyond: The Story of the Collins Crystal Cave Expedition' by Joe Lawrence, Jr. (then president of the National Speleological Society) and Roger Brucker.
The expedition proved conclusively that passages in Crystal Cave extended toward Mammoth Cave proper, at least exceeding the Crystal Cave property boundaries. However, this information was closely held by the explorers: it was feared that the National Park Service might forbid exploration were this known.
In 1955 Crystal Cave was connected by survey with Unknown Cave, the first connection in the Flint Ridge system.
Some of the participants in the C-3 expedition wished to continue their explorations past the conclusion of the C-3 Expedition, and organized as the Flint Ridge Reconnaissance. This organization was incorporated in 1957 as the Cave Research Foundation. The organization sought to legitimize the cave explorers' activity through the support of original academic and scientific research. Notable scientists who studied Mammoth Cave during this period include Patty Jo Watson.
In March 1961, the Crystal Cave property was sold to the National Park Service for $285,000. At the same time, the Great Onyx Cave property, the only other remaining private inholding, was purchased for $365,000. The Cave Research Foundation was permitted to continue their exploration through a Memorandum of Understanding with the National Park Service.
Colossal Cave was connected by survey to Salts Cave in 1960, and in 1961 Colossal-Salts cave was similarly connected to Crystal-Unknown cave, creating a single cave system under much of Flint Ridge. By 1972, the Flint Ridge Cave System had been surveyed to a length of 86.5 miles (139.2 km), making it the longest cave in the world.
During the 1960's, the Cave Research Foundation (CRF) exploration and mapping teams found passageways in the Flint Ridge Cave System that penetrated under Houchins Valley and came within 800 feet (240 m) of known passages in Mammoth Cave.
In 1972, CRF Chief Cartographer John Wilcox pursued an aggressive program to finally connect the caves, fielding several expeditions from the Flint Ridge side as well as exploring leads in Mammoth Cave.
On a July 1972 trip, deep in the Flint Ridge Cave System, Patricia Crowther—with her slight frame of 115 pounds (52 kg)—crawled through a narrow canyon later dubbed the "Tight Spot", which acted as a filter for larger cavers.
A subsequent trip past the Tight Spot on the 30th. August 1972, by Wilcox, Crowther, Richard Zopf, and Tom Brucker discovered the name "Pete H" inscribed on the wall of a river passage with an arrow pointing in the direction of Mammoth Cave. The name is believed to have been carved by Warner P. "Pete" Hanson, who was active in exploring the cave in the 1930's. Hanson had been killed in World War II. The passage was named Hanson's Lost River by the explorers.
Finally, on the 9th. September 1972, a six-person CRF team of Wilcox, Crowther, Zopf, Gary Eller, Stephen Wells, and Cleveland Pinnix (a National Park Service ranger) followed Hanson's Lost River downstream to discover its connection with Echo River in Cascade Hall of Mammoth Cave.
With this linking of the Flint Ridge and Mammoth Cave systems, the "Everest of Speleology" had been climbed. The integrated cave system contained 144.4 miles (232.4 km) of surveyed passages and had fourteen entrances.
Recent Discoveries
Further connections between Mammoth Cave and smaller caves or cave systems have followed, notably to Proctor/Morrison Cave beneath nearby Joppa Ridge in 1979.
Proctor Cave was discovered by Jonathan Doyle, a Union Army deserter during the Civil War, and was later owned by the Mammoth Cave Railroad, before being explored by the CRF. Morrison cave was discovered by George Morrison in the 1920's. This connection pushed the frontier of Mammoth exploration southeastward.
At the same time, discoveries made outside the park by an independent group called the Central Kentucky Karst Coalition or CKKC resulted in the survey of tens of miles in Roppel Cave east of the park.
Discovered in 1976, Roppel Cave was briefly on the list of the nation's longest caves before it was connected to the Proctor/Morrison's section of the Mammoth Cave System on the 10th. September 1983. The connection was made by two mixed parties of CRF and CKKC explorers. Each party entered through a separate entrance and met in the middle before continuing in the same direction to exit at the opposite entrance. The resulting total surveyed length was near 300 miles (480 km).
On the 19th. March 2005, a connection into the Roppel Cave portion of the system was surveyed from a small cave under Eudora Ridge, adding approximately three miles to the known length of the Mammoth Cave System.
The newly found entrance to the cave, now termed the "Hoover Entrance", had been discovered in September 2003, by Alan Canon and James Wells. Incremental discoveries since then have pushed the total to more than 400 miles (640 km).
It is certain that many more miles of cave passages await discovery in the region. Discovery of new natural entrances is a rare event: the primary mode of discovery involves the pursuit of side passages identified during routine systematic exploration of cave passages entered from known entrances.
Related and Nearby Caves
At least two other massive cave systems lie short distances from Mammoth Cave: the Fisher Ridge Cave System and the Martin Ridge Cave System.
The Fisher Ridge Cave System was discovered in January 1981 by a group of Michigan cavers associated with the Detroit Urban Grotto of the National Speleological Society. So far, the Fisher Ridge Cave System has been mapped to 125 miles (201 km).
In 1976, Rick Schwartz discovered a large cave south of the Mammoth Cave park boundary. This cave became known as the Martin Ridge Cave System in 1996, as new exploration connected the 3 nearby caves of Whigpistle Cave (Schwartz's original entrance), Martin Ridge Cave, and Jackpot Cave.
As of 2018, the Martin Ridge Cave System had been mapped to a length of 34 miles (55 km), and exploration continues.
Biology and Ecosystem
The following species of bats inhabit the caverns: Indiana bat, gray bat, little brown bat, big brown bat, and the eastern pipistrelle bat.
All together, these and more rare bat species such as the eastern small-footed bat had estimated populations of 9–12 million just in the Historic Section.
While these species still exist in Mammoth Cave, their numbers are now no more than a few thousand at best. Ecological restoration of this portion of Mammoth Cave, and facilitating the return of bats, is an ongoing effort. Not all bat species here inhabit the cave; the red bat is a forest-dweller, and is found underground only rarely.
Other animals which inhabit the caves include: two genera of crickets, a cave salamander two genera of eyeless cave fish, a cave crayfish, and a cave shrimp.
Common fossils of the cave include crinoids, blastoids, and gastropods. The Mississippian limestone has yielded fossils of more than a dozen species of shark. In 2020, scientists reported the discovery of part of a Saivodus Striatus, a species comparable in size to a modern great white shark.
The Mammoth Cave Name
The cave's name refers to the large width and length of the passages connecting to the Rotunda just inside the entrance. The name was used long before the extensive cave system was more fully explored and mapped, to reveal a mammoth length of passageways.
No fossils of the woolly mammoth have ever been found in Mammoth Cave, and the name of the cave has nothing to do with this extinct mammal.
Currently Available Tours
Currently (2022) available tours operating in Mammoth Cave are:
-- Accessible Tour
-- Cleaveland Avenue Tour
-- Discovery Self-Guided
-- Domes and Dripstones Tour
-- Extended Historic Tour
-- Frozen Niagara Tour
-- Gothic Avenue Tour
-- Grand Avenue Tour
-- Grand Historic Tour
-- Great Onyx Lantern Tour
-- Historic Tour
-- Mammoth Passage Tour
-- River Styx Tour
-- Star Chamber Tour
-- Violet City Lantern Tour
-- Wondering Woods Tours
The Postcard
A postcard published by Butlin's that was posted in Bognor Regis on Monday the 17th. August 1964 to:
Mr. & Mrs. P. Nunn,
c/o Mrs. A. Drinkwater,
25, Derby Road,
Gloucester.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Sunday.
Hope you are having a
good time. We are having
a super time.
Weather lovely so far.
We have made friends
with another couple who
have two girls aged 6 & 9
so we have been jolly
lucky.
What a fabulous place this
is, about 8,000 campers
here this week.
We all went for a swim in
the pool today.
I rang mother this morning.
Minka is very poorly. Dad
seemed very upset.
Love Joan xxxx"
A Public Suicide
So what else happened on the day that Joan posted the card?
Well, the 17th. August 1964 marked the birth in Cross Houses, Shrewsbury, UK of Kevin Whitrick.
Kevin Neil Whitrick killed himself at the age of 42 on the 21st. March 2007 in Telford, UK.
Kevin was a British citizen and an electrical engineer. His death was highly publicised because of his live, online webcast suicide.
At the time of his death, he was married to his wife Paula, but lived apart from his family after the breakdown of his marriage two years previously.
On the day of his death, Kevin Whitrick was in a chatroom on PalTalk along with about 60 other users in a special "insult" chatroom where people "have a go at each other".
He suddenly stood on a chair, punched a hole in the ceiling and placed a rope around a joist. He then tied the other end around his neck, then stepped off the chair. Some people thought this was a prank, until his face started turning blue.
Some people in the chatroom egged him on, while others tried desperately to find his address. A member in the room contacted the police, who arrived at the scene two minutes later. However Kevin Whitrick was pronounced dead at 11:15 pm GMT.
Aftermath of the Suicide
The death was reported in the press, and is notable because of concerns that it could inspire other suicides, the possibility of the webcam footage being made available on the internet, and discussions over the culpability of web users who encouraged the man to kill himself.
Police detectives traced the chatroom users to question them about their role in the cyber suicide. The Crown Prosecution Service has stated that none of the chatroom users will face criminal charges.
Similar Incidents Portrayed on The Internet
-- 2003: Brandon Vedas died of an unintentional drug overdose while engaged in an internet chat, as shown on his webcam.
-- 2008: Abraham Biggs, 19, committed suicide by consuming significant quantities of prescription drugs, and streaming his suicide live under the name feels_like_ecstacy. (sic)
Before he fell unconscious and subsequently died, Biggs was also chatting on a bodybuilding forum, where he had reportedly threatened to commit suicide on numerous occasions.
-- 2010: A 21-year-old man named Marcus Jannes from Järna, Stockholm, hanged himself and livestreamed it after making a post on the Internet forum Flashback.org, in which he wrote that he had swallowed some painkillers and was going to hang himself.
-- 2013: A 14-year-old girl from Ōmihachiman under the alias of rorochan_1999 (Japanese: ろろ ちゃん, Hepburn: Roro Chan) committed suicide on livestream.
-- 2016: A 22 year Turkish man named Erdogan Ceren killed himself with a shot to the heart in a Facebook live stream (on October 10th 2016, around 3pm) after his girlfriend cheated on him and broke up with him.
-- 2016: A young man from Sindh, Pakistan named Muneer Ahmad Kalor committed suicide while live streaming in Facebook Live because his friend got angry with him.
-- 2016: Suicide of Océane Ebem, an eighteen-year-old woman from Égly in the suburbs of Paris, who on the 10th. May 2016 livestreamed a long video testimonial before throwing herself under a train.
-- 2016: Katelyn Nicole Davis, a 12-year-old girl from Polk County, Georgia livestreamed her hanging herself on the 30th. December 2016.
-- 2018: Shuaib Aslam, an eighteen-year-old from Stockton, California shot himself and livestreamed it on YouTube.
-- 2019: Gleb Korablev, an eighteen-year-old university student from Moscow, Russia livestreamed himself on social media network VK committing suicide via self inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The video was notorious for sparking an internet legend claiming it is cursed.
-- 2020: Ronnie McNutt, a 33-year-old veteran and autoworker who committed suicide by gunshot to the head, livestreamed the event on Facebook, on the 31st. August.
-- 2021 : A 28 year old man from San Diego, California named Angel Hernandez Grado committed suicide on Instagram after he allegedly held his girlfriend captive for two days.
Murder on the Internet
Murder has also been portrayed on the Internet.
18 year old twin sisters, Amália and Amanda Alves were shot dead in July 2021 in a horrific gangland execution that was live-streamed on Instagram. It was reported that the shooting happened because the women 'knew too much' about incidents involving drug dealers.
The young women's bodies were found hours later after they were killed on the side of a road behind a property complex in Pacajus, Brazil. Amanda Alves left behind a three-year-old daughter, whilst her twin sister Amália Alves had become a mum to a son who was only six-months-old.
A 17 year old suspect in the case was arrested on suspicion of the bloodbath.
Video footage captured the sisters’ harrowing final moments as they knelt next to each other on the dirty road. The pair were forced to gather their hair up in a bun before the suspect took the gun to the back of their skulls and fired the fatal bullets.
He then blasted two more shots at one of the sisters before standing over the other victim and firing another four bullets at her limp body.
Manfred Mann
Also on the 17th. August 1964, the Number One chart hit in the UK was 'Doo Wah Diddy Diddy' by Manfred Mann.
This photo of rice growing in Southern Brazil has been published online in a Rice Today article, by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), called Country Snapshots: Brazil, in Rice Today
Postcard published circa 1960's.
When launched in 1907 at Mare Island, in the burgeoning era of stream and the predecessors to the warships we know today, the construction of a steel barque for the US Navy must have seemed odd. The role, however, for the USS Intrepid was not as a vessel of war, but instead for training, which she did until 1912 when she became a receiving ship. She would fill that role, along with time as a barracks vessel, until being sold in 1921.
AT that point she was converted to the role of a barge, a capacity in which she would again enter the Navy as YSR-42, a sludge removal barge. Once that job was done, she would be sold again, and continued her barge service until 1954 when she went ashore on the Long Beach Peninsula, a grave she would never depart.
The reverse reads:
"Hull of former navy ship INTREPID wrecked on the Long Beach Peninsula in February 1954. It has since nearly disappeared in the sand.
Photo by Dick Powers.
Published by PHOTO'NEIL. Long Beach, Wash. 98631"
Great stuff! My 365 project was published on to an amazing magazine called ERRR and a great friend of mine, Elen Tinoco took great pics of the mag! Please check out her stuff, the magazine's stuff, and get super inspired :D
It sucks I still haven't gotten my hands on the mag tho :/
Echinocardium cordatum
Published in:
Copejans, E.; Smits, M. (2011). De wetenschap van de zee: over een onbekende wereldoceaan. Acco: Leuven. 175 pp.
ISBN 9789033484124.
On page 73.
Published in:
Degraer S., Wittoeck J., Appeltans W., Cooreman K., Deprez T., Hillewaert H., Hostens K., Mees J., Vanden Berghe en Vincx M., (2006), The Macrobenthos Atlas of the Belgian Part of the North Sea. Belgian Science Policy. D/2005/1191/3. 164 pp.
ISBN 9081008161.
On page 145.
The Postcard
A postally unused carte postale published by L. B. of Dijon and distributed by Ch. Macé of Versailles. The card has a divided back.
The Gardens of Versailles
The Gardens of Versailles are situated to the west of the palace. They cover some 800 hectares (1,977 acres) of land, much of which is landscaped in the classic French formal garden style perfected here by André Le Nôtre.
Beyond the surrounding belt of woodland, the gardens are bordered by the urban areas of Versailles to the east and Le Chesnay to the north-east, by the National Arboretum de Chèvreloup to the north, the Versailles plain (a protected wildlife preserve) to the west, and by the Satory Forest to the south.
In 1979, the gardens along with the château were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List due to its cultural importance during the 17th. and 18th. centuries.
The gardens are now one of the most visited public sites in France, receiving more than six million visitors a year.
The gardens contain 200,000 trees, 210,000 flowers planted annually, and feature meticulously manicured lawns and parterres, as well as many sculptures.
50 fountains containing 620 water jets, fed by 35 km. of piping, are located throughout the gardens. Dating from the time of Louis XIV and still using much of the same network of hydraulics as was used during the Ancien Régime, the fountains contribute to making the gardens of Versailles unique.
On weekends from late spring to early autumn, there are the Grandes Eaux - spectacles during which all the fountains in the gardens are in full play. Designed by André Le Nôtre, the Grand Canal is the masterpiece of the Gardens of Versailles.
In the Gardens too, the Grand Trianon was built to provide the Sun King with the retreat that he wanted. The Petit Trianon is associated with Marie-Antoinette, who spent time there with her closest relatives and friends.
The Du Bus Plan for the Gardens of Versailles
With Louis XIII's purchase of lands from Jean-François de Gondi in 1632 and his assumption of the seigneurial role of Versailles in the 1630's, formal gardens were laid out west of the château.
Claude Mollet and Hilaire Masson designed the gardens, which remained relatively unchanged until the expansion ordered under Louis XIV in the 1660's. This early layout, which has survived in the so-called Du Bus plan of c.1662, shows an established topography along which lines of the gardens evolved. This is evidenced in the clear definition of the main east–west and north–south axis that anchors the gardens' layout.
Louis XIV
In 1661, after the disgrace of the finance minister Nicolas Fouquet, who was accused by rivals of embezzling crown funds in order to build his luxurious château at Vaux-le-Vicomte, Louis XIV turned his attention to Versailles.
With the aid of Fouquet's architect Louis Le Vau, painter Charles Le Brun, and landscape architect André Le Nôtre, Louis began an embellishment and expansion program at Versailles that would occupy his time and worries for the remainder of his reign.
From this point forward, the expansion of the gardens of Versailles followed the expansions of the château.
(a) The First Building Campaign
In 1662, minor modifications to the château were undertaken; however, greater attention was given to developing the gardens. Existing bosquets (clumps of trees) and parterres were expanded, and new ones created.
Most significant among the creations at this time were the Versailles Orangerie and the "Grotte de Thétys". The Orangery, which was designed by Louis Le Vau, was located south of the château, a situation that took advantage of the natural slope of the hill. It provided a protected area in which orange trees were kept during the winter months.
The "Grotte de Thétys", which was located to the north of the château, formed part of the iconography of the château and of the gardens that aligned Louis XIV with solar imagery. The grotto was completed during the second building campaign.
By 1664, the gardens had evolved to the point that Louis XIV inaugurated the gardens with the fête galante called Les Plaisirs de L'Île Enchantée. The event, was ostensibly to celebrate his mother, Anne d'Autriche, and his consort Marie-Thérèse but in reality celebrated Louise de La Vallière, Louis' mistress.
Guests were regaled with entertainments in the gardens over a period of one week. As a result of this fête - particularly the lack of housing for guests (most of them had to sleep in their carriages), Louis realised the shortcomings of Versailles, and began to expand the château and the gardens once again.
(b) The Second Building Campaign
Between 1664 and 1668, there was a flurry of activity in the gardens - especially with regard to fountains and new bosquets; it was during this time that the imagery of the gardens exploited Apollo and solar imagery as metaphors for Louis XIV.
Le Va's enveloppe of the Louis XIII's château provided a means by which, though the decoration of the garden façade, imagery in the decors of the grands appartements of the king and queen formed a symbiosis with the imagery of the gardens.
With this new phase of construction, the gardens assumed the design vocabulary that remained in force until the 18th. century. Solar and Apollonian themes predominated with projects constructed at this time.
Three additions formed the topological and symbolic nexus of the gardens during this phase of construction: the completion of the "Grotte de Thétys", the "Bassin de Latone", and the "Bassin d'Apollon".
The Grotte de Thétys
Started in 1664 and finished in 1670 with the installation of the statuary, the grotto formed an important symbolic and technical component to the gardens. Symbolically, the "Grotte de Thétys" related to the myth of Apollo - and by association to Louis XIV.
It represented the cave of the sea nymph Thetis, where Apollo rested after driving his chariot to light the sky. The grotto was a freestanding structure located just north of the château.
The interior, which was decorated with shell-work to represent a sea cave, contained the statue group by the Marsy brothers depicting the sun god attended by nereids.
Technically, the "'Grotte de Thétys" played a critical role in the hydraulic system that supplied water to the garden. The roof of the grotto supported a reservoir that stored water pumped from the Clagny pond and which fed the fountains lower in the garden via gravity.
The Bassin de Latone
Located on the east–west axis is the Bassin de Latone. Designed by André Le Nôtre, sculpted by Gaspard and Balthazar Marsy, and constructed between 1668 and 1670, the fountain depicts an episode from Ovid's Metamorphoses.
Altona and her children, Apollo and Diana, being tormented with mud slung by Lycian peasants, who refused to let her and her children drink from their pond, appealed to Jupiter who responded by turning the Lycians into frogs.
This episode from mythology has been seen as a reference to the revolts of the Fronde, which occurred during the minority of Louis XIV. The link between Ovid's story and this episode from French history is emphasised by the reference to "mud slinging" in a political context.
The revolts of the Fronde - the word fronde also means slingshot - have been regarded as the origin of the use of the term "mud slinging" in a political context.
The Bassin d'Apollon
Further along the east–west axis is the Bassin d'Apollon. The Apollo Fountain, which was constructed between 1668 and 1671, depicts the sun god driving his chariot to light the sky. The fountain forms a focal point in the garden, and serves as a transitional element between the gardens of the Petit Parc and the Grand Canal.
The Grand Canal
With a length of 1,500 metres and a width of 62 metres, the Grand Canal, which was built between 1668 and 1671, prolongs the east–west axis to the walls of the Grand Parc. During the Ancien Régime, the Grand Canal served as a venue for boating parties.
In 1674 the king ordered the construction of Petite Venise (Little Venice). Located at the junction of the Grand Canal and the northern transversal branch, Little Venice housed the caravels and yachts that were received from The Netherlands and the gondolas and gondoliers received as gifts from the Doge of Venice.
The Grand Canal also served a practical role. Situated at a low point in the gardens, it collected water that drained from the fountains in the garden above. Water from the Grand Canal was pumped back to the reservoir on the roof of the Grotte de Thétys via a network of windmill- and horse-powered pumps.
The Parterre d'Eau
Situated above the Latona Fountain is the terrace of the château, known as the Parterre d'Eau. Forming a transitional element from the château to the gardens below, the Parterre d'Eau provided a setting in which the symbolism of the grands appartements synthesized with the iconography of the gardens.
In 1664, Louis XIV commissioned a series of statues intended to decorate the water feature of the Parterre d'Eau. The Grande Command, as the commission is known, comprised twenty-four statues of the classic quaternities and four additional statues depicting abductions from the classic past.
Evolution of the Bosquets
One of the distinguishing features of the gardens during the second building campaign was the proliferation of bosquets. Expanding the layout established during the first building campaign, Le Nôtre added or expanded on no fewer that ten bosquets between 1670 and 1678:
-- The Bosquet du Marais
-- The Bosquet du Théâtre d'Eau, Île du Roi
-- The Miroir d'Eau
-- The Salle des Festins (Salle du Conseil)
-- The Bosquet des Trois Fontaines
-- The Labyrinthe
-- The Bosquet de l'Arc de Triomphe
-- The Bosquet de la Renommée (Bosquet des Dômes)
-- The Bosquet de l'Encélade
-- The Bosquet des Sources
In addition to the expansion of existing bosquets and the construction of new ones, there were two additional projects that defined this era, the Bassin des Sapins and the Pièce d'Eau des Suisses.
-- The Bassin des Sapins
In 1676, the Bassin des Sapins, which was located north of the château below the Allée des Marmoset's was designed to form a topological pendant along the north–south axis with the Pièce d'Eau des Suisses located at the base of the Satory hill south of the château.
Later modifications in the gardens transformed this fountain into the Bassin de Neptune.
-- Pièce d'Eau des Suisses
Excavated in 1678, the Pièce d'Eau des Suisses - named after the Swiss Guards who constructed the lake - occupied an area of marshes and ponds, some of which had been used to supply water for the fountains in the garden.
This water feature, with a surface area of more than 15 hectares (37 acres), is the second largest - after the Grand Canal - at Versailles.
(c) The Third Building Campaign
Modifications to the gardens during the third building campaign were distinguished by a stylistic change from the natural aesthetic of André Le Nôtre to the architectonic style of Jules Hardouin Mansart.
The first major modification to the gardens during this phase occurred in 1680 when the Tapis Vert - the expanse of lawn that stretches between the Latona Fountain and the Apollo Fountain - achieved its final size and definition under the direction of André Le Nôtre.
Beginning in 1684, the Parterre d'Eau was remodelled under the direction of Jules Hardouin-Mansart. Statues from the Grande Commande of 1674 were relocated to other parts of the garden; two twin octagonal basins were constructed and decorated with bronze statues representing the four main rivers of France.
In the same year, Le Vau's Orangerie, located to south of the Parterrre d'Eau was demolished to accommodate a larger structure designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart.
In addition to the Orangerie, the Escaliers des Cent Marches, which facilitated access to the gardens from the south, to the Pièce d'Eau des Suisses, and to the Parterre du Midi were constructed at this time, giving the gardens just south of the château their present configuration and decoration.
Additionally, to accommodate the anticipated construction of the Aile des Nobles - the north wing of the château - the Grotte de Thétys was demolished.
With the construction of the Aile des Nobles (1685–1686), the Parterre du Nord was remodelled to respond to the new architecture of this part of the château.
To compensate for the loss of the reservoir on top of the Grotte de Thétys and to meet the increased demand for water, Jules Hardouin-Mansart designed new and larger reservoirs situated north of the Aile des Nobles.
Construction of the ruinously expensive Canal de l'Eure was inaugurated in 1685; designed by Vauban it was intended to bring waters of the Eure over 80 kilometres, including aqueducts of heroic scale, but the works were abandoned in 1690.
Between 1686 and 1687, the Bassin de Latone, under the direction of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, was rebuilt. It is this final version of the fountain that one sees today at Versailles.
During this phase of construction, three of the garden's major bosquets were modified or created. Beginning with the Galerie des Antiques, this bosquet was constructed in 1680 on the site of the earlier and short-lived Galerie d'Eau. This bosquet was conceived as an open-air gallery in which antique statues and copies acquired by the Académie de France in Rome were displayed.
The following year, construction began on the Salle de Bal. Located in a secluded section of the garden west of the Orangerie, this bosquet was designed as an amphitheater that featured a cascade – the only one surviving in the gardens of Versailles. The Salle de Bal was inaugurated in 1685 with a ball hosted by the Grand Dauphin.
Between 1684 and 1685, Jules Hardouin-Mansart built the Colonnade. Located on the site of Le Nôtre's Bosquet des Sources, this bosquet featured a circular peristyle formed from thirty-two arches with twenty-eight fountains, and was Hardouin-Mansart's most architectural of the bosquets built in the gardens of Versailles.
(d) The Fourth Building Campaign
Due to financial constraints arising from the War of the League of Augsburg and the War of the Spanish Succession, no significant work on the gardens was undertaken until 1704.
Between 1704 and 1709, bosquets were modified, some quite radically, with new names suggesting the new austerity that characterised the latter years of Louis XIV's reign.
Louis XV
With the departure of the king and court from Versailles in 1715 following the death of Louis XIV, the palace and gardens entered an era of uncertainty.
In 1722, Louis XV and the court returned to Versailles. Seeming to heed his great-grandfather's admonition not to engage in costly building campaigns, Louis XV did not undertake the costly rebuilding that Louis XIV had.
During the reign of Louis XV, the only significant addition to the gardens was the completion of the Bassin de Neptune (1738–1741).
Rather than expend resources on modifying the gardens at Versailles, Louis XV - an avid botanist - directed his efforts at Trianon. In the area now occupied by the Hameau de la Reine, Louis XV constructed and maintained les Jardins Botaniques.
In 1761, Louis XV commissioned Ange-Jacques Gabriel to build the Petit Trianon as a residence that would allow him to spend more time near the Jardins Botaniques. It was at the Petit Trianon that Louis XV fell fatally ill with smallpox; he died at Versailles on the 10th. May 1774.
Louis XVI
Upon Louis XVI's ascension to the throne, the gardens of Versailles underwent a transformation that recalled the fourth building campaign of Louis XIV. Engendered by a change in outlook as advocated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Philosophes, the winter of 1774–1775 witnessed a complete replanting of the gardens.
Trees and shrubbery dating from the reign of Louis XIV were felled or uprooted with the intent of transforming the French formal garden of Le Nôtre and Hardouin-Mansart into a version of an English landscape garden.
The attempt to convert Le Nôtre's masterpiece into an English-style garden failed to achieve its desired goal. Owing largely to the topology of the land, the English aesthetic was abandoned and the gardens replanted in the French style.
However, with an eye on economy, Louis XVI ordered the Palisades - the labour-intensive clipped hedging that formed walls in the bosquets - to be replaced with rows of lime trees or chestnut trees. Additionally, a number of the bosquets dating from the time of the Sun King were extensively modified or destroyed.
The most significant contribution to the gardens during the reign of Louis XVI was the Grotte des Bains d'Apollon. The rockwork grotto set in an English style bosquet was the masterpiece of Hubert Robert in which the statues from the Grotte de Thétys were placed.
Revolution
In 1792, under order from the National Convention, some of the trees in the gardens were felled, while parts of the Grand Parc were parcelled and dispersed.
Sensing the potential threat to Versailles, Louis Claude Marie Richard (1754–1821) – director of the Jardins Botaniques and grandson of Claude Richard – lobbied the government to save Versailles. He succeeded in preventing further dispersing of the Grand Parc, and threats to destroy the Petit Parc were abolished by suggesting that the parterres could be used to plant vegetable gardens, and that orchards could occupy the open areas of the garden.
These plans were never put into action; however, the gardens were opened to the public - it was not uncommon to see people washing their laundry in the fountains and spreading it on the shrubbery to dry.
Napoléon I
The Napoleonic era largely ignored Versailles. In the château, a suite of rooms was arranged for the use of the empress Marie-Louise, but the gardens were left unchanged, save for the disastrous felling of trees in the Bosquet de l'Arc de Triomphe and the Bosquet des Trois Fontaines. Massive soil erosion necessitated planting of new trees.
Restoration
With the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814, the gardens of Versailles witnessed the first modifications since the Revolution. In 1817, Louis XVIII ordered the conversion of the Île du Roi and the Miroir d'Eau into an English-style garden - the Jardin du Roi.
The July Monarchy; The Second Empire
While much of the château's interior was irreparably altered to accommodate the Museum of the History of France (inaugurated by Louis-Philippe on the 10th. June 1837), the gardens, by contrast, remained untouched.
With the exception of the state visit of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1855, at which time the gardens were a setting for a gala fête that recalled the fêtes of Louis XIV, Napoléon III ignored the château, preferring instead the château of Compiègne.
Pierre de Nolhac
With the arrival of Pierre de Nolhac as director of the museum in 1892, a new era of historical research began at Versailles. Nolhac, an ardent archivist and scholar, began to piece together the history of Versailles, and subsequently established the criteria for restoration of the château and preservation of the gardens, which are ongoing to this day.
Bosquets of the Gardens
Owing to the many modifications made to the gardens between the 17th. and the 19th. centuries, many of the bosquets have undergone multiple modifications, which were often accompanied by name changes.
Deux Bosquets - Bosquet de la Girondole - Bosquet du Dauphin - Quinconce du Nord - Quinconce du Midi
These two bosquets were first laid out in 1663. They were arranged as a series of paths around four salles de verdure and which converged on a central "room" that contained a fountain.
In 1682, the southern bosquet was remodeled as the Bosquet de la Girondole, thus named due to spoke-like arrangement of the central fountain. The northern bosquet was rebuilt in 1696 as the Bosquet du Dauphin with a fountain that featured a dolphin.
During the replantation of 1774–1775, both the bosquets were destroyed. The areas were replanted with lime trees and were rechristened the Quinconce du Nord and the Quinconce du Midi.
Labyrinthe - Bosquet de la Reine
In 1665, André Le Nôtre planned a hedge maze of unadorned paths in an area south of the Latona Fountain near the Orangerie. In 1669, Charles Perrault - author of the Mother Goose Tales - advised Louis XIV to remodel the Labyrinthe in such a way as to serve the Dauphin's education.
Between 1672 and 1677, Le Nôtre redesigned the Labyrinthe to feature thirty-nine fountains that depicted stories from Aesop's Fables. The sculptors Jean-Baptiste Tuby, Étienne Le Hongre, Pierre Le Gros, and the brothers Gaspard and Balthazard Marsy worked on these thirty-nine fountains, each of which was accompanied by a plaque on which the fable was printed, with verse written by Isaac de Benserade; from these plaques, Louis XIV's son learned to read.
Once completed in 1677, the Labyrinthe contained thirty-nine fountains with 333 painted metal animal sculptures. The water for the elaborate waterworks was conveyed from the Seine by the Machine de Marly.
The Labyrinthe contained fourteen water-wheels driving 253 pumps, some of which worked at a distance of three-quarters of a mile.
Citing repair and maintenance costs, Louis XVI ordered the Labyrinthe demolished in 1778. In its place, an arboretum of exotic trees was planted as an English-styled garden.
Rechristened Bosquet de la Reine, it would be in this part of the garden that an episode of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, which compromised Marie-Antoinette, transpired in 1785.
Bosquet de la Montagne d'Eau - Bosquet de l'Étoile
Originally designed by André Le Nôtre in 1661 as a salle de verdure, this bosquet contained a path encircling a central pentagonal area. In 1671, the bosquet was enlarged with a more elaborate system of paths that served to enhance the new central water feature, a fountain that resembled a mountain, hence the bosquets new name: Bosquet de la Montagne d'Eau.
The bosquet was completely remodeled in 1704 at which time it was rechristened Bosquet de l'Étoile.
Bosquet du Marais - Bosquet du Chêne Vert - Bosquet des Bains d'Apollon - Grotte des Bains d'Apollon
Created in 1670, this bosquet originally contained a central rectangular pool surrounded by a turf border. Edging the pool were metal reeds that concealed numerous jets for water; a swan that had water jetting from its beak occupied each corner.
The centre of the pool featured an iron tree with painted tin leaves that sprouted water from its branches. Because of this tree, the bosquet was also known as the Bosquet du Chêne Vert.
In 1705, this bosquet was destroyed in order to allow for the creation of the Bosquet des Bains d'Apollon, which was created to house the statues had once stood in the Grotte de Thétys.
During the reign of Louis XVI, Hubert Robert remodeled the bosquet, creating a cave-like setting for the Marsy statues. The bosquet was renamed the Grotte des Bains d'Apollon.
Île du Roi - Miroir d'Eau - Jardin du Roi
Originally designed in 1671 as two separate water features, the larger - Île du Roi - contained an island that formed the focal point of a system of elaborate fountains.
The Île du Roi was separated from the Miroir d'Eau by a causeway that featured twenty-four water jets. In 1684, the island was removed and the total number of water jets in the bosquet was significantly reduced.
The year 1704 witnessed a major renovation of the bosquet, at which time the causeway was remodelled and most of the water jets were removed.
A century later, in 1817, Louis XVIII ordered the Île du Roi and the Miroir d'Eau to be completely remodeled as an English-style garden. At this time, the bosquet was rechristened Jardin du Roi.
Salle des Festins - Salle du Conseil - Bosquet de l'Obélisque
In 1671, André Le Nôtre conceived a bosquet - originally christened Salle des Festins and later called Salle du Conseil - that featured a quatrefoil island surrounded by a channel containing fifty water jets. Access to the island was obtained by two swing bridges.
Beyond the channel and placed at the cardinal points within the bosquet were four additional fountains. Under the direction of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the bosquet was completely remodeled in 1706. The central island was replaced by a large basin raised on five steps, which was surrounded by a canal. The central fountain contained 230 jets that, when in play, formed an obelisk – hence the new name Bosquet de l'Obélisque.
Bosquet du Théâtre d'Eau - Bosquet du Rond-Vert
The central feature of this bosquet, which was designed by Le Nôtre between 1671 and 1674, was an auditorium/theatre sided by three tiers of turf seating that faced a stage decorated with four fountains alternating with three radiating cascades.
Between 1680 and Louis XIV's death in 1715, there was near-constant rearranging of the statues that decorated the bosquet.
In 1709, the bosquet was rearranged with the addition of the Fontaine de l'Île aux Enfants. As part of the replantation of the gardens ordered by Louis XVI during the winter of 1774–1775, the Bosquet du Théâtre d'Eau was destroyed and replaced with the unadorned Bosquet du Rond-Vert. The Bosquet du Théâtre d'Eau was recreated in 2014, with South Korean businessman and photographer Yoo Byung-eun being the sole patron, donating €1.4 million.
Bosquet des Trois Fontaines - Berceau d'Eau
Situated to the west of the Allée des Marmousets and replacing the short-lived Berceau d'Eau (a long and narrow bosquet created in 1671 that featured a water bower made by numerous jets of water), the enlarged bosquet was transformed by Le Nôtre in 1677 into a series of three linked rooms.
Each room contained a number of fountains that played with special effects. The fountains survived the modifications that Louis XIV ordered for other fountains in the gardens in the early 18th. century and were subsequently spared during the 1774–1775 replantation of the gardens.
In 1830, the bosquet was replanted, at which time the fountains were suppressed. Due to storm damage in the park in 1990 and then again in 1999, the Bosquet des Trois Fontaines was restored and re-inaugurated on the 12th. June 2004.
Bosquet de l'Arc de Triomphe
This bosquet was originally planned in 1672 as a simple pavillon d'eau - a round open expanse with a square fountain in the centre. In 1676, this bosquet was enlarged and redecorated along political lines that alluded to French military victories over Spain and Austria, at which time the triumphal arch was added - hence the name.
As with the Bosquet des Trois Fontaines, this bosquet survived the modifications of the 18th. century, but was replanted in 1830, at which time the fountains were removed.
Bosquet de la Renommée - Bosquet des Dômes
Built in 1675, the Bosquet de la Renommée featured a fountain statue of Fame. With the relocation of the statues from the Grotte de Thétys in 1684, the bosquet was remodelled to accommodate the statues, and the Fame fountain was removed.
At this time the bosquet was rechristened Bosquet des Bains d'Apollon. As part of the reorganisation of the garden that was ordered by Louis XIV in the early part of the 18th. century, the Apollo grouping was moved once again to the site of the Bosquet du Marais - located near the Latona Fountain - which was destroyed and was replaced by the new Bosquet des Bains d'Apollon.
The statues were installed on marble plinths from which water issued; and each statue grouping was protected by an intricately carved and gilded baldachin.
The old Bosquet des Bains d'Apollon was renamed Bosquet des Dômes due to two domed pavilions built in the bosquet.
Bosquet de l'Encélade
Created in 1675 at the same time as the Bosquet de la Renommée, the fountain of this bosquet depicts Enceladus, a fallen Giant who was condemned to live below Mount Etna, being consumed by volcanic lava.
From its conception, this fountain was conceived as an allegory of Louis XIV's victory over the Fronde. In 1678, an octagonal ring of turf and eight rocaille fountains surrounding the central fountain were added. These additions were removed in 1708.
When in play, this fountain has the tallest jet of all the fountains in the gardens of Versailles - 25 metres.
Bosquet des Sources - La Colonnade
Designed as a simple unadorned salle de verdure by Le Nôtre in 1678, the landscape architect enhanced and incorporated an existing stream to create a bosquet that featured rivulets that twisted among nine islets.
In 1684, Jules Hardouin-Mansart completely redesigned the bosquet by constructing a circular arched double peristyle. The Colonnade, as it was renamed, originally featured thirty-two arches and thirty-one fountains – a single jet of water splashed into a basin center under the arch.
In 1704, three additional entrances to the Colonnade were added, which reduced the number of fountains from thirty-one to twenty-eight. The statue that currently occupies the centre of the Colonnade - the Abduction of Persephone - (from the Grande Commande of 1664) was set in place in 1696.
Galerie d'Eau - Galerie des Antiques - Salle des Marronniers
Occupying the site of the Galerie d'Eau (1678), the Galerie des Antiques was designed in 1680 to house the collection of antique statues and copies of antique statues acquired by the Académie de France in Rome.
Surrounding a central area paved with colored stone, a channel was decorated with twenty statues on plinths, each separated by three jets of water.
The Galerie was completely remodeled in 1704 when the statues were transferred to Marly and the bosquet was replanted with horse chestnut trees - hence the current name Salle des Marronniers.
Salle de Bal
This bosquet, which was designed by Le Nôtre and built between 1681 and 1683, features a semi-circular cascade that forms the backdrop for a salle de verdure.
Interspersed with gilt lead torchères, which supported candelabra for illumination, the Salle de Bal was inaugurated in 1683 by Louis XIV's son, the Grand Dauphin, with a dance party.
The Salle de Bal was remodeled in 1707 when the central island was removed and an additional entrance was added.
Replantations of the Gardens
Common to any long-lived garden is replantation, and Versailles is no exception. In their history, the gardens of Versailles have undergone no less than five major replantations, which have been executed for practical and aesthetic reasons.
During the winter of 1774–1775, Louis XVI ordered the replanting of the gardens on the grounds that many of the trees were diseased or overgrown, and needed to be replaced.
Also, as the formality of the 17th.-century garden had fallen out of fashion, this replantation sought to establish a new informality in the gardens - that would also be less expensive to maintain.
This, however, was not achieved, as the topology of the gardens favored the Jardin à la Française over an English-style garden.
Then, in 1860, much of the old growth from Louis XVI's replanting was removed and replaced. In 1870, a violent storm struck the area, damaging and uprooting scores of trees, which necessitated a massive replantation program.
However, owing to the Franco-Prussian War, which toppled Napoléon III, and the Commune de Paris, replantation of the garden did not get underway until 1883.
The most recent replantations of the gardens were precipitated by two storms that battered Versailles in 1990 and then again in 1999. The storm damage at Versailles and Trianon amounted to the loss of thousands of trees - the worst such damage in the history of Versailles.
The replantations have allowed museum and governmental authorities to restore and rebuild some of the bosquets that were abandoned during the reign of Louis XVI, such as the Bosquet des Trois Fontaines, which was restored in 2004.
Catherine Pégard, the head of the public establishment which administers Versailles, has stated that the intention is to return the gardens to their appearance under Louis XIV, specifically as he described them in his 1704 description, Manière de Montrer les Jardins de Versailles.
This involves restoring some of the parterres like the Parterre du Midi to their original formal layout, as they appeared under Le Nôtre. This was achieved in the Parterre de Latone in 2013, when the 19th. century lawns and flower beds were torn up and replaced with boxwood-enclosed turf and gravel paths to create a formal arabesque design.
Pruning is also done to keep trees at between 17 and 23 metres (56 to 75 feet), so as not to spoil the carefully designed perspectives of the gardens.
Owing to the natural cycle of replantations that has occurred at Versailles, it is safe to state that no trees dating from the time of Louis XIV are to be found in the gardens.
Problems With Water
The marvel of the gardens of Versailles - then as now - is the fountains. Yet, the very element that animates the gardens, water, has proven to be the affliction of the gardens since the time of Louis XIV.
The gardens of Louis XIII required water, and local ponds provided an adequate supply. However, once Louis XIV began expanding the gardens with more and more fountains, supplying the gardens with water became a critical challenge.
To meet the needs of the early expansions of the gardens under Louis XIV, water was pumped to the gardens from ponds near the château, with the Clagny pond serving as the principal source.
Water from the pond was pumped to the reservoir on top of the Grotte de Thétys, which fed the fountains in the garden by means of gravitational hydraulics. Other sources included a series of reservoirs located on the Satory Plateau south of the château.
The Grand Canal
By 1664, increased demand for water necessitated additional sources. In that year, Louis Le Vau designed the Pompe, a water tower built north of the château. The Pompe drew water from the Clagny pond using a system of windmills and horsepower to a cistern housed in the Pompe's building. The capacity of the Pompe 600 cubic metres per day - alleviated some of the water shortages in the garden.
With the completion of the Grand Canal in 1671, which served as drainage for the fountains of the garden, water, via a system of windmills, was pumped back to the reservoir on top of the Grotte de Thétys.
While this system solved some of the water supply problems, there was never enough water to keep all of the fountains running in the garden in full-play all of the time.
While it was possible to keep the fountains in view from the château running, those concealed in the bosquets and in the farther reaches of the garden were run on an as-needed basis.
In 1672, Jean-Baptiste Colbert devised a system by which the fountaineers in the gardens would signal each other with whistles upon the approach of the king, indicating that their fountain needed to be turned on. Once the king had passed a fountain in play, it would be turned off and the fountaineer would signal that the next fountain could be turned on.
In 1674, the Pompe was enlarged, and subsequently referred to as the Grande Pompe. Pumping capacity was increased via increased power and the number of pistons used for lifting the water. These improvements increased the water capacity to nearly 3,000 cubic metres of water per day; however, the increased capacity of the Grande Pompe often left the Clagny pond dry.
The increasing demand for water and the stress placed on existing systems of water supply necessitated newer measures to increase the water supplied to Versailles. Between 1668 and 1674, a project was undertaken to divert the water of the Bièvre river to Versailles. By damming the river and with a pumping system of five windmills, water was brought to the reservoirs located on the Satory Plateau. This system brought an additional 72,000 cubic metres water to the gardens on a daily basis.
Despite the water from the Bièvre, the gardens needed still more water, which necessitated more projects. In 1681, one of the most ambitious water projects conceived during the reign of Louis XIV was undertaken.
Owing to the proximity of the Seine to Versailles, a project was proposed to raise the water from the river to be delivered to Versailles. Seizing upon the success of a system devised in 1680 that raised water from the Seine to the gardens of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, construction of the Machine de Marly began the following year.
The Machine de Marly was designed to lift water from the Seine in three stages to the Aqueduc de Louveciennes some 100 metres above the level of the river. A series of huge waterwheels was constructed in the river, which raised the water via a system of 64 pumps to a reservoir 48 metres above the river. From this first reservoir, water was raised an additional 56 metres to a second reservoir by a system of 79 pumps. Finally, 78 additional pumps raised the water to the aqueduct, which carried the water to Versailles and Marly.
In 1685, the Machine de Marly came into full operation. However, owing to leakage in the conduits and breakdowns of the mechanism, the machine was only able to deliver 3,200 cubic metres of water per day - approximately one-half the expected output. The machine was nevertheless a must-see for visitors. Despite the fact that the gardens consumed more water per day than the entire city of Paris, the Machine de Marly remained in operation until 1817.
During Louis XIV's reign, water supply systems represented one-third of the building costs of Versailles. Even with the additional output from the Machine de Marly, fountains in the garden could only be run à l'ordinaire - which is to say at half-pressure.
With this measure of economy, the fountains still consumed 12,800 cubic metres of water per day, far above the capacity of the existing supplies. In the case of the Grandes Eaux - when all the fountains played to their maximum - more than 10,000 cubic metres of water was needed for one afternoon's display.
Accordingly, the Grandes Eaux were reserved for special occasions such as the Siamese Embassy visit of 1685–1686.
The Canal de l'Eure
One final attempt to solve water shortage problems was undertaken in 1685. In this year it was proposed to divert the water of the Eure river, located 160 km. south of Versailles and at a level 26 m above the garden reservoirs.
The project called not only for digging a canal and for the construction of an aqueduct, it also necessitated the construction of shipping channels and locks to supply the workers on the main canal.
Between 9,000 to 10,000 troops were pressed into service in 1685; the next year, more than 20,000 soldiers were engaged in construction. Between 1686 and 1689, when the Nine Years' War began, one-tenth of France's military was at work on the Canal de l'Eure project.
However with the outbreak of the war, the project was abandoned, never to be completed. Had the aqueduct been completed, some 50,000 cubic metres of water would have been sent to Versailles - more than enough to solve the water problem of the gardens.
Today, the museum of Versailles is still faced with water problems. During the Grandes Eaux, water is circulated by means of modern pumps from the Grand Canal to the reservoirs. Replenishment of the water lost due to evaporation comes from rainwater, which is collected in cisterns that are located throughout the gardens and diverted to the reservoirs and the Grand Canal.
Assiduous husbanding of this resource by museum officials prevents the need to tap into the supply of potable water of the city of Versailles.
The Versailles Gardens In Popular Culture
The creation of the gardens of Versailles is the context for the film 'A Little Chaos', directed by Alan Rickman and released in 2015, in which Kate Winslet plays a fictional landscape gardener and Rickman plays King Louis XIV.
I'd almost forgotten that shortly before I left Nottingham back in early October to move up North I did an interview with Nottinghams local Leftlion arts and culture magazine. It's great to see my work published for the first time!
The opening paragraph reads:
Andy Wells is a man with a nocturnal secret: when not running Spanky Van Dykes, he can often be found creeping around the Notts countryside in the middle of the night, with a big bag of, er, 'special equipment'. Actually, he's one of the UK's leading light painting photographers, with his amazing work having already been showcased in Times Square...
Chuffed to bits!
strobist… 580exii high camera right lastolite STU 1/8 24mm.
Oh joie! publication et chronique du portrait de Bunny et Cyane dans le nouveau Compétence Photo!! en vente dans toutes les bonnes épiceries, comme on dit!
This photograph was published in the Illustrated Chronicle on the 13th of October 1915.
During the Great War the Illustrated Chronicle published photographs of soldiers and sailors from Newcastle and the North East of England, which had been in the news. The photographs were sent in by relatives and give us a glimpse into the past.
The physical collection held by Newcastle Libraries comprises bound volumes of the newspaper from 1910 to 1925. We are keen to find out more about the people in the photographs. If you recognise anyone in the images please comment below.
Copies of this photograph may be ordered from us, for more information see: www.newcastle.gov.uk/tlt Please make a note of the image reference number above to help speed up your order.
Scanned and cleaned by Melora of historyofhyrule.com from the Japanese artbook, Hyrule Historia (Now published in multiple languages)
The Kaiser Permanente Center for Total Health is sending its Google Glass V1 back as part of the Explorer exchange program.
Published in: Google Glass rolls out a try-before-you-buy program
Published on Gothamist June 1st, 2010, here: gothamist.com/2010/06/01/marina_mania.php
Marina in the home stretch. This was taken right before the end...
Published in 1948 by the Joint Executive Committee for the Inauguration of the Republic of the Philippines.
(Photo taken from the Presidential Museum and Library's collection)
The Postcard
A postcard published by the London View Co. Ltd. The card was posted in Brighton on Friday the 25th. December 1908 to:
Mrs. Norris,
73, Southampton Street,
Reading,
Berks.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Dear Mrs. Norris,
Just a p.c. to remind you
of dear old Brighton.
Wishing you a jolly Xmas
and a prosperous New
Year.
Yours as ever,
E. Colin".
The Old Steine
The Old Steine is a thoroughfare in central Brighton, East Sussex. The southern end leads to Marine Parade, the Brighton seafront and the Palace Pier. The Royal Pavilion is located immediately to the north of the Old Steine.
The word Steine comes from the Old English stoene, meaning 'Stony Place'. The name comes from the number of large sarsen stones which once lay in the area. Many of the stones can still be seen at the base of the Steine's Victoria Fountain, where they were placed when it was built in 1823. You can see the fountain in the photograph.
The Old Steine was originally an open green with a stream running adjacent to the easternmost dwellings of Brighthelmstone. The area was used by local fishermen to lay out and dry their nets.
When Brighton started to become fashionable in the late 18th. century, the area became the centre for visitors. Building around the area started in 1760, and railings started to appear around the green area in the 1770's, reducing its size. This continued throughout the 19th century. The eastern lawns of the Royal Pavilion were also originally part of the Old Steine.
Dr. Richard Russell, whose 1750 paper on the health benefits of sea water helped to popularise Brighton, had a house built on the Old Steine in 1759; the site is now occupied by the Royal Albion Hotel.
Maria Fitzherbert
Maria Fitzherbert lived in Steine House on the west side of the Old Steine from 1804 until her death in 1837.
Maria Anne Fitzherbert (née Smythe, 26th. July 1756 – 27th. March 1837) was a long-time companion of George IV of the United Kingdom before he became king.
In 1785, they secretly contracted a marriage that was invalid under English civil law because his father, King George III, had not consented to it.
Maria was a Roman Catholic which meant that had the marriage been approved and valid, George would have lost his place in the line of succession, because the law at the time forbade Catholics or spouses of Catholics from becoming monarch.
However, her nephew-in-law from her first marriage, Cardinal Weld, persuaded Pope Pius VII to declare the marriage sacramentally valid.
Quentin Crisp
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, the 25th. December 1908 marked the birth in Sutton, Surrey of Quentin Crisp. Quentin, who was born Denis Charles Pratt; 25 December 1908 – 21 November 1999) was an English writer, raconteur and actor. He also served as an artist's model. His most notable work was 'The Naked Civil Servant'.
Growing up in a conventional suburban background, Crisp wore make-up and painted his nails from an early age. During his teenage years he worked briefly as a rent-boy.
He then spent 30 years as a professional model for life-classes in art colleges.
The interviews he gave about his unusual life attracted increasing public curiosity, and he was soon sought after for his very personal views on social manners and the cultivating of style.
His one-person stage show was a long-running hit both in Britain and America, and he also appeared in films and on TV.
At the age of ninety, Crisp came to the realisation that he was a trans woman rather than a gay man. In 'The Last Word', published posthumously, Crisp said:
"The only thing in my life I have wanted
and didn't get was to be a woman. It will
be my life's biggest regret.
If the operation had been available and
cheap when I was young, say when I was
twenty-five or twenty-six, I would have
jumped at the chance. My life would have
been much simpler as a result".
Crisp defied convention by criticising both gay liberation and Diana, Princess of Wales, especially during her attempts to gain public sympathy following her divorce from Prince Charles. He stated:
"I always thought Diana was such trash and
got what she deserved. She was Lady Diana
before she was Princess Diana so she knew
the racket.
She knew that royal marriages have nothing
to do with love. You marry a man and you stand
beside him on public occasions, and you wave
and for that you never have a financial worry
until the day you die."
Following Diana's death in 1997, he commented that it was perhaps her "fast and shallow" lifestyle that led to her demise:
"She could have been Queen of England –
and she was swanning about Paris with
Arabs. What disgraceful behaviour! Going
about saying she wanted to be the Queen
of Hearts.
The vulgarity of it is so overpowering."
The Death of Quentin Crisp
Quentin died of a heart attack at the age of 90 on the 21st. November 1999 in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester.
2017 edition. First published in 2008. Written by a transwoman professor of gender and women’s studies this seemingly comprehensive history only goes back to the 1850’s with anecdotes of cross dressing adventurous women who sought to join the army and otherwise escape their lot. This was also the time when Western medicine took an interest in such cases which were mostly trans women. Trans men having blended much more easily into the public sphere did not band together to form societies, but simply lived their lives integrated with society so their stories are largely lost to history.
Once photography became available many more stories came to light of transgender individuals who furthered the cause by funding outreach and studies. In the ‘70s feminist theory began to reject anything seen as tied to patriarchy including butch femme relationships and transexual persons because they were seen to ape stereotypes of gender roles. Lesbians and transexual women have been at odds ever since and gender non-conforming women became more allied with transgenderism.
A short paragraph in a boxed aside under the heading “religion and transgender” speaks to the cross dressing of indigenous people as part of their shamanic rituals and possible beliefs in reincarnation. Also mention of the seven different genders in Judaic text, but the section mostly focuses on religiours prohibitions of cross gender behavior. The indigenous history of transgender people which informs societal acceptance of modern transgender people in Asia and the Native American Two Spirit concept is never mentioned at all. Interestingly at the Queer California exhibit for which this author was a consultant the section on Native American transgender traditions is clearly separate from the exhibits in the transgender room and no relationship between the two is to be construed. (2/21/21 Note update: this is likely due to push back from Native people who see trans activist culturally appropriating their cross sex identities as transgender in the modern definition that denies biological sex. I can confirm from my own culture that these identities did not deny biological sex and did not claim to be born in the wrong body as current ideology is trying to state.)
The reference to Leslie Feinberg has no mention of her pivotal book Transgender Warriors that drew out these gender non-conforming traditions from ancient pagan history. She is only mentioned in relation to her pamphlet Transgender Liberation: A Movement Who’s Time Has Come and is relevant to this text only in terms of her contributions to the movement being broadened to include all non normative expressions of gender including her own male presentation at certain times of her life. No mention that it was her wish to be transparent as a woman and that she passed as a man for economic viability and safety.
The bulk of this book concerns detailed accounts of feminist theory and academic discussions between feminists and trans feminists including the origin of the term TERF (trans exclusionary radical feminists) coined by a group of feminists that is now considered a slur. This back and forth around the topic of what constitutes gender and the resulting oppression by the patriarchy will likely go on forever since American society has no transgender roots with which to frame such gender expression and play. Meanwhile all those discarded by the straight presenting assimilationist during the run up to gay marriage equality in the ‘90s paved the way for this revolution by finding a home under the term Queer while the term transgender began to include all the non-gender conforming persons.
Because of the exclusion of the ancient pagan history covered in Leslie’s book I feel that this author is framing transgender history exclusively in a modern context in order to point to a future that is trending towards a cyborg and technocratic brave new world of gender self identity that justifies discarding any relationship to either history or biology. This is what is meant by the subtitle of the book “The Roots of Today’s Revolution”.
What I see is that this framing is a way of attempting to speak for all gender non-conforming people under a leadership dominated by transexuals. This dynamic playing out now in the arena of children and how those questioning their gender are being groomed with trans affirming therapy towards a transition outcome. Since the word transgender as the public understands it describes people who medically change their biological sex. The push to accept transgender people and children frames the issue as that of being a medical condition to be assisted by society with access to free hormones and surgery on demand and as early as possible. In terms of youth who don’t yet know their orientation they are to be given puberty blocker drugs to delay the changes in their body. This then stops the physical changes that is a normal part of puberty. What we all went through and was part of coming to gradual acceptance or maybe not so gradual rude awakening to our gender reality. A point that can now be argued is a bad thing because of the stress it might cause to trans identifying youth. While youths as young as 16 can be given hormone treatment and double mastectomies for their “chest dysphoria” (an aversion to one’s newly acquired breasts).
This framing totally overshadows and in turn oppresses those persons who are gender non-conforming, but may have no wish to be other than their natal birth identity. Who may in fact just be homosexual. And who are creatives who embody both sexes in a gender non-conforming fashion and use this gender ambiguity as their own super power. As art and theatre classes are cut from our increasingly techno dominant society how we nurture this creativity is being dropped.
In an increasingly medicalized society the transgender agenda is being boiled down by public perception to be basically a pro heterosexual solution which, in a still homophobic world, is preferable for living a normal life. And in an increasingly misogynistic world is preferable to becoming a woman. We are currently letting children browsing the echo chamber of the internet decide with the help of adult transexual mentors and coaches what their identities should be. We may have to wait another decade for the detransitioning of all those youths (mostly girls) who opted for this heteronormative option in order to hear and understand how this happened. A process that is now emerging. This will then call for a more critical assessment of the transgender revolution.
The Postcard
A Star Series postcard that was published by G. D. & D. of London. The card was printed in Bavaria.
The card was posted in Blackpool on Friday the 21st. June 1912 to:
Miss A. Ellis,
180, Cleveland Street,
Doncaster,
Yorks.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Dear Ada,
Had a grand day
yesterday but showery
today.
We are having some
fun.
Love, Bert.
I will try and write that
letter on Sunday".
Blackpool
Blackpool is a seaside resort in Lancashire on the northwest coast of England. The town is by the Irish Sea, between the Ribble and Wyre rivers, and is 27 miles (43 km) north of Liverpool and 40 miles (64 km) northwest of Manchester.
At the 2011 census, Blackpool had a population of 139,720, making it the most populous settlement in Lancashire. It is home to the Blackpool Tower, which when built in 1894 was the tallest building in the British Empire.
Throughout the Medieval and Early Modern period, Blackpool was a coastal hamlet in Lancashire's Amounderness Hundred, and remained as such until the mid-18th. century, when it became fashionable in England to travel to the coast in the summer to improve well-being.
In 1781, visitors attracted to Blackpool's 7-mile (11 km) sandy beach were able to use a new private road, built by Thomas Clifton and Sir Henry Hoghton.
Stagecoaches began running to Blackpool from Manchester in the same year, and from Halifax in 1782. In the early 19th. century, Henry Banks and his son-in-law John Cocker erected new buildings in Blackpool, which increased its population from less than 500 in 1801 to over 2,500 in 1851. St John's Church in Blackpool was consecrated in 1821.
Blackpool rose to prominence as a major centre of tourism in England when a railway was built in the 1840's connecting it to the industrialised regions of northern England. The railway made it much easier and cheaper for visitors to reach Blackpool, triggering an influx of settlers.
By 1881, Blackpool was a booming resort with a population of 14,000 and a promenade complete with piers, fortune-tellers, public houses, trams, donkey rides, fish and chip shops, and theatres.
By 1901, the population of Blackpool was 47,000, by which time its place was cemented as the archetypal British seaside resort. By 1951, the town had grown to 147,000 people.
Shifts in tastes, combined with opportunities for British people to travel overseas, affected Blackpool's status as a leading resort in the late 20th. century. However its urban fabric and economy both remain relatively undiversified and firmly rooted in the tourism sector, and the borough's seafront continues to attract millions of visitors every year.
Blackpool's major attractions and landmarks include the Blackpool Tower, Blackpool Illuminations, Pleasure Beach, Blackpool Zoo, Sandcastle Water Park, the Winter Gardens and Blackpool Tramway, which is the UK's only surviving first-generation tramway.
Mary McCarthy
So what else happened on the day that Bert posted the card?
Well, the 21st. June 1912 marked the birth in Seattle, Washington of Mary Therese McCarthy. Mary was an American novelist, critic and political activist.
-- Mary McCarthy - The Early Years
Mary was born to Roy Winfield McCarthy and his wife, the former Martha Therese Preston. Mary was orphaned at the age of six when both her parents died in the flu epidemic of 1918.
She and her brothers, Kevin, Preston, and Sheridan, were raised in very unhappy circumstances by her Catholic father's parents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, under the direct care of an uncle and aunt she remembered for harsh treatment and abuse.
When the situation became intolerable, she was taken in by her maternal grandparents in Seattle. Her maternal grandmother, Augusta Morganstern, was Jewish, and her maternal grandfather, Harold Preston, a prominent attorney and co-founder of the law firm Preston Gates & Ellis, was Presbyterian. Her brothers were sent to boarding school.
McCarthy credited her grandfather, who helped draft one of the nation's first Workmen's Compensation Acts, with helping form her liberal views. McCarthy explores the complex events of her early life in Minneapolis and her coming of age in Seattle in her memoir, 'Memories of a Catholic Girlhood'. Her younger brother, actor Kevin McCarthy, went on to star in such movies as 'Death of a Salesman' (1951) and 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' (1956).
Under the guardianship of the Prestons, McCarthy studied at the Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Seattle and Annie Wright Seminary in Tacoma, and went on to graduate in 1933 with an A.B. cum laude from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
-- Mary McCarthy's Literary Career
Her debut novel, 'The Company She Keeps', received critical acclaim as a succès de scandale, depicting the social milieu of New York intellectuals of the late 1930's with unreserved frankness.
After building a reputation as a satirist and critic, McCarthy enjoyed popular success when the 1963 edition of her novel 'The Group' remained on the New York Times Best Seller list for almost two years. Her work is noted for its precise prose and its complex mixture of autobiography and fiction.
Her feud with fellow writer Lillian Hellman formed the basis for the play 'Imaginary Friends' by Nora Ephron. The feud had simmered since the late 1930's over ideological differences, particularly the questions of the Moscow Trials and of Hellman's support for the 'Popular Front' with Stalin.
McCarthy provoked Hellman in 1979 when she famously said on The Dick Cavett Show: "Every word Hellman writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'."
Hellman responded by filing a $2.5 million libel suit against McCarthy, which ended shortly after Hellman died in 1984. Observers of the trial noted the resulting irony of Hellman's defamation suit is that it brought significant scrutiny, and decline of Hellman's reputation, by forcing McCarthy and her supporters to prove that she had lied.
-- Mary McCarthy's Beliefs as an Adult
McCarthy left the Catholic Church as a young woman when she became an atheist. In her contrarian fashion, McCarthy treasured her religious education for the classical foundation it provided her intellect, while at the same time she depicted her loss of faith and her contests with religious authority as essential to her character.
In New York, she moved in 'fellow-travelling' Communist circles early in the 1930's, but by the latter half of the decade she repudiated Soviet-style Communism, expressing solidarity with Leon Trotsky after the Moscow Trials, and vigorously countering playwrights and authors she considered to be sympathetic to Stalinism.
As part of the Partisan Review circle and as a contributor to The Nation, The New Republic, Harper's Magazine, and The New York Review of Books, she garnered attention as a cutting critic.
During the 1940's and 1950's she became a liberal critic of both McCarthyism and Communism. She maintained her commitment to liberal critiques of culture and power to the end of her life, opposing the Vietnam War in the 1960's and covering the Watergate scandal hearings in the 1970's.
-- Mary McCarthy's Opposition to the Vietnam War
In 1967 and 1968, McCarthy travelled to North and South Vietnam, to report on the war from an anti-war perspective. She documented her observations in two books, 'Vietnam', and 'Hanoi'.
Interviewed after her first trip, she declared on British television that there was not a single documented case of the Viet Cong deliberately killing a South Vietnamese woman or child. She wrote favourably about the Viet Cong.
McCarthy visited North Vietnam in March 1968, only a month after the Tet Offensive created havoc in South Vietnam. In her book, 'Hanoi', McCarthy provides a rare English-language description of life in North Vietnam during Vietnam's war with the United States. McCarthy describes an orderly society, in which everyone pitched in to help with the war effort. North Vietnam received advance warning of most bombing attacks, and McCarthy regularly had to take cover from American bombs.
McCarthy's visits to Vietnam generated some controversy. During her visit to North Vietnam, McCarthy met briefly with U.S. Air Force officer James Risner, who was being held as a prisoner of war by North Vietnam at the time.
Years later, after his release, Risner attacked McCarthy as not having recognized that he had been tortured by the North Vietnamese while in custody.
-- The Personal Life of Mary McCarthy
Mary married four times. In 1933 she married Harald Johnsrud, an actor and would-be playwright.
Her best-known spouse was the writer and critic Edmund Wilson, whom she married in 1938 after leaving her lover Philip Rahv, and with whom she had a son, Reuel Wilson.
In 1946 she married Bowden Broadwater, who worked for the New Yorker.
In 1961, McCarthy married career diplomat James R. West.
Although she broke ranks with some of her Partisan Review colleagues when they swerved toward conservative politics after World War II, she carried on lifelong friendships with Dwight Macdonald, Nicola Chiaromonte, Philip Rahv, F. W. Dupee and Elizabeth Hardwick.
Most prized of all was her close friendship with Hannah Arendt, with whom she maintained a sizeable correspondence widely regarded for its intellectual rigor.
After Arendt's passing, McCarthy became Arendt's literary executor from 1976 until her own death in 1989. McCarthy taught at Bard College from 1946 to 1947, and once again between 1986 and 1989.
-- The Death of Mary McCarthy
Mary died at the age of 77 of lung cancer on the 25th. October 1989, at New York–Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.
-- Film Portrayal of Mary McCarthy
In the 2012 German movie Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy is portrayed by Janet McTeer.