View allAll Photos Tagged flotation
Des gilets de sauvetage usagés recouvrent les remparts de la Batterie royale à l’instar d’une enceinte doublement protégée ou d’une barricade militaire fortifiée. Les équipements de flottaison ont servi à des milliers de réfugiés syriens en fuite vers l’Europe avant d’être récupérés en 2016 par Ai Weiwei sur l’île grecque de Lesbos. Agglomérés pour dresser une frontière colorée, ces vestiges de la crise migratoire nous confrontent aux périples de ceux qui tentent désespérément d’échapper aux violences de la guerre.
Valorisation du patrimoine : L’installation résonne avec l’histoire locale puisqu’elle fait écho aux racines migratoires de la Nouvelle-France. La Batterie royale est un ouvrage de défense militaire construit par les Français en 1691 pour contrecarrer les tentatives d’invasion anglaises. En évoquant les délimitations frontalières qui régissent toujours la mobilité humaine, la structure architecturale renforce le propos de l’œuvre qui la recouvre.
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Used life jackets cover the walls of Old Quebec’s Royal Battery, suggesting protective padding or a fortified military barricade. But these personal flotation devices are the very ones used by thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing to Europe. The life jackets were recovered by Ai Weiwei in 2016 on the Greek island of Lesbos. They form a colourful border, an artifact of the migrant crisis confronting us with the journeys of those ready to do whatever it takes to escape the violence of war.
Heritage note: The installation’s theme evokes local history by echoing the migratory past of New France. The Royal Battery is a military defense structure built by the French in 1691 to thwart English invasions. As a symbol of the borders that still govern human mobility today, the architectural structure intensifies the implication of the work that covers it.
Source: passagesinsolites.com/en/oeuvres/ai-weiwei-beijing-chine-...
The caribou is a specialist that is well adapted to cooler climates with hollow-hair fur that covers almost all of its body including its nose, and provides insulation in winter and flotation for swimming.[4] Caribou can reach a speed of 60–80 km/h (37–50 mph).[1] Young caribou can already outrun an Olympic sprinter when only a day old.[16] The caribou's favourite winter food is fruticose deer lichen. Seventy percent of the diet of woodland caribou consists of arboreal lichen which take hundreds of years to grow and are therefore only found in mature forests. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribou
London inspires many to write compelling thoughts and anecdotes just as the grand city on the Thames inspires me to photograph her night after night. Some words are one-off's while others are part of timeless pieces of literature. I've combined famous London quotes with my own night images of London for the ultimate list of London quotes. Feel free to add your suggestions in the comment section below.
London is the epitome of our times, and the Rome of today.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Conduct of Life
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
-Samuel Johnson
Go where we may rest where we will, Eternal London haunts us still.
- Thomas Moore, "Rhymes on the Road", The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore
Take a perfect day, add six hours of rain and fog, and you have instant London.
- Anonymous
London's like a black-browed brute that gets an unholy influence over you.
- Robert Smythe Hichens, The Woman with the Fan
London is the clearing-house of the world.
- Joseph Chamberlain, speech at Guildhall, London, Jan. 19, 1904
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner that I love London so.
There's nowhere else like London, nothing at all. Anywhere.
I think London is sexy because it's so full of eccentrics.
It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee house for the voice of a kingdom.
A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income.
If London is a watercolour, New York is an oil painting.
London is a splendid place to live for those who can get out of it.
Nothing is certain in London but expense.
A person who is tired of London isn't necessarily tired of life. It might be that he just can't find a parking place.
I've been walking about London for the last thirty years, and I find something fresh in it every day.
There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear - the City of London and the South Seas.
Oh, I love London society. It is composed now of beautiful idiots and brilliant lunatics, just what a society should be.
And there is London!--England's heart and soul.
By the proud flowing of her famous Thames,
She circulates through countless lands and isles
Her greatness; gloriously she rules,
At once the awe and sceptre of the world.
- Robert Montgomery
I love thee, London! for thy many men,
And for thy mighty deeds and scenes of glory.
- Philip James Bailey
London is a city that has reinvented itself upon the remains of the past.
- Leo Hollis, London Rising: The Men Who Made Modern London
London isn't a stodgy place. Trend-setting London is to the United Kingdom what New York City is to the United States: the spot where everything happens first (or ultimately ends up).
- Donald Olson, England For Dummies
London goes beyond any boundary or convention. It contains every wish or word ever spoken, every action or gesture ever made, every harsh or noble statement ever expressed. It is illimitable. It is Infinite London.
- Peter Ackroyd, London: The Biography
London is a cluster of communities, great and small, famous and unsung; a city of contrasts, a congregation of diversity.
- Roy Porter, London: A Social History
The English mist is always at work like a subtle painter, and London is a vast canvas prepared for the mist to work on.
- Arthur Symons, Cities and Sea-Coasts and Islands
London is a huge shop, with a hotel on the upper storeys.
- George Gissing, New Grub Street
London is a bad habit one hates to lose.
- Anonymous
Spare London, for London, is like the city that thou lovedst.
- Thomas Nash, Christ's Tears Over Jerusalem
London is a roost for every bird.
- Benjamin Disraeli, Lothair
And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky
- John Betjeman, "Christmas"
London is like a smoky pearl set in a circle of emeralds.
- William Henry Rideing, In the Land of Lorna Doone
London's like a forest ... we shall be lost in it.
- Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Taken at the Flood
London is a splendid place to live in for those who can get out of it.
- George John Gordon Bruce, The Observer, Oct. 1, 1944
London is like a woman with too many years to encourage confession.
- Louise Closser Hale, We Discover New England
The streets of London have their map, but our passions are uncharted. What are you going to meet if you turn this corner? - Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room
I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air – or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.
- Arthur Conan Doyle
Paris is a woman but London is an independent man puffing his pipe in a pub.
- Jack Kerouac, Lonesome Traveler
If the parks are "the lungs of London" we wonder what Greenwich Fair is -- a periodical breaking out, we suppose -- a sort of spring rash.
- Charles Dickens, Greenwich Fair
You are now
In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow
At once is deaf and loud and on the shore
Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more.
Yet in its depth what treasures!
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, letter to Maria Gisborne, 1820
I journeyed to London, to the time kept City,
Where the River flows, with foreign flotations.
There I was told: we have too many churches,
And too few chop-houses.
- T. S. Eliot, The Rock
London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
There's a hole in the world
Like a great black pit
And the vermin of the world
Inhabit it ...
And it goes by the name of London.
- Stephen Sondheim, Sweeney Todd
London is a city of clubs and private houses. You have to be a member.
- Alec Waugh, The Sugar Islands
The truth is, that in London it is always a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be.
- Jane Austen, Emma
London is an endless skirmish between angles and emptiness.
- China Mieville, Kraken
London opens to you like a novel itself... It is divided into chapters, the chapters into scenes, the scenes into sentences; it opens to you like a series of rooms, door, passage, door. Mayfair to Piccadilly to Soho to the Strand.
- Anna Quindlen, Imagined London
London, thou art the flower of cities all! Gemme of all joy, Jasper of jocundity.
- William Dunbar
I don’t know what London’s coming to — the higher the buildings the lower the morals.
- Noël Coward
When it's three o'clock in New York, it's still 1938 in London.
- Bette Midler, attributed, The Unofficial Guide to London
London is like a cold dark dream sometimes.
- Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
My Dad says that being a Londoner has nothing to do with where you're born. He says that there are people who get off a jumbo jet at Heathrow, go through immigration waving any kind of passport, hop on the tube and by the time the train's pulled into Piccadilly Circus they've become a Londoner.
- Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho
One of the things she most liked about the city -apart from all its obvious attractions, the theatre, the galleries, the exhilarating walks by the river- was that so few people ever asked you personal questions.
- Julia Gregson
A mighty mass of brick, and smoke, and shipping, / Dirty and dusty, but as wide as eye / Could reach, with here and there a sail just skipping / In sight, then lost amidst the forestry / Of masts; a wilderness of steeples peeping / On tiptoe through their sea-coal canopy; / A huge, dun cupola, like a foolscap crown / On a fool’s head – and there is London Town.
- Lord Byron
The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.
- Oscar Wilde
It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.
- Arthur Conan Doyle
The truth is, that in London it is always a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be.
- Jane Austen
In London, love and scandal are considered the best sweeteners of tea.
- John Osborne
This melancholy London – I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.
- William Butler Yeats
The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane.
- Stephen Fry
Do you realise that people die of boredom in London suburbs? It’s the second biggest cause of death amongst the English in general. Sheer boredom.
- Alexander McCall Smith
If London is a watercolour, New York is an oil painting.
- Peter Shaffer
Nothing is certain in London but expense.
- William Shenstone
You will recognize, my boy, the first sign of old age: it is when you go out into the streets of London and realize for the first time how young the policemen look. -
Sir Seymour Hicks
I like the spirit of this great London which I feel around me. Who but a coward would pass his whole life in hamlets, and forever abandon his faculties to the eating rust of obscurity?
- Charlotte Brontë
There’s a hole in the world / Like a great black pit / And the vermin of the world / Inhabit it / And it goes by the name of London.
- Stephen Sondheim in Sweeney Todd
I’m leaving because the weather is too good. I hate London when it’s not raining.
- Groucho Marx
London, London, London town / You can toughen up or get thrown around.
- Kano
I believe we shall come to care about people less and less. The more people one knows the easier it becomes to replace them. It’s one of the curses of London.
- Ambrose Bierce
It is not the walls that make the city, but the people who live within them. The walls of London may be battered, but the spirit of the Londoner stands resolute and undismayed.
- George VI
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner,
That I love London so;
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner,
That I think of her wherever I go.
I get a funny feeling inside of me,
Just walking up and down;
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner,
That I love London town.
- Hubert Gregg, "Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner"
A broken heart is a very pleasant complaint for a man in London if he has a comfortable income.
- George Bernard Shaw
In London everyone is different and that means anyone can fit in.
The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised.
By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.
I came to London. It had become the centre of my world and I was lost.
One thing about London is that when you step out into the night, it swallows you.
- Sebastian Saulks, Engleby
There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear — the city of London and the South Seas.
- Herman Melville
The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is, that, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe there is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the poet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
You are now / In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow / At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore / Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more / Yet in its depth what treasures!
– Percy Bysshe Shelley
London is a modern Babylon.
- Benjamin Disraeli
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This time of year one can always find some new members of the Avila Beach Junior Lifeguard Program swimming, bodysurfing and being taught all the tricks of the trade for saving lives.
Though the water is usually quite cold around here, just a few of them wore wetsuits.
A water-level view of the Apollo 17 Command Module (CM) "America" floating in the Pacific Ocean following splashdown and prior to recovery. The prime recovery ship, the USS Ticonderoga, is in the background. When this picture was taken, the three-man crew of astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, Ronald E. Evans and Harrison H. Schmitt, had already been picked up by helicopter and flown to the deck of the recovery ship. The spacecraft was later hoisted aboard the USS Ticonderoga. A United States Navy UDT swimmer stands on the flotation collar. Apollo 17 splashdown occurred at 2:24:59 p.m. (EST), Dec. 19, 1972, about 350 nautical miles southeast of Samoa.
Credit: NASA
Image Number: S72-56147
Date: December 19, 1972
The Block 10 mine, one of the original BHP leases, was floated as the BHP Block 10 Co. Ltd in 1888. A concentration mill was erected at the mine in the 1890s to treat sulphide ore. Underground subsidence seriously affected the mill and, as a result, a new mill was erected on this hill in 1903, about 600 metres from the mine.
An aerial ropeway, the first at Broken Hill, was completed in 1904. This transported broken ore from the mine to a large storage bin above the mill. The mill cost £50 000 and could treat 3500 tons of ore per week.
The mine produced 2.5 million tons of ore and paid £1.5 million in dividends up to 1923 when it and the mill closed and were purchased by BHP. The mine was reworked by Broken Hill South Ltd between 1946 and 1960. Much of the mine site is now covered by overburden dumps from modern open-cut operations.
The concrete foundations on site are the remnants of the Block 10 concentration mill erected in 1903. The mill, designed by Captain John Warren and containing many of his inventions, was the first all electric mill in Broken Hill.
The aerial ropeway delivered broken ore from the mine to a storage bin above the mill. Broken ore was fed to crushing rolls and then passed to cylindrical trommels and hydraulic classifiers for sizing. Subsequent treatment consisted of wet concentration by jigs, Wilfley tables and vanners. These relied on specific gravity to separate the heavier lead and silver minerals from the zinc minerals. The resultant concentrate contained about two-thirds of the lead and one-half of the silver in the original ore, but very little zinc.
Flotation units were added to the mill in 1910 to produce a zinc concentrate from the tailings. Combined gravity-flotation concentration mills were standard at Broken Hill until after 1930 when the first all-flotation plants were installed.
Source: City Of Broken Hill.
These fortress-like stone foundations are the remains of Broken Hill Proprietary Limited (BHP)’s concentration mills that operated from 1894 to 1897. The company’s first concentration mill was built on the east side of the lode in 1889. Concentration is the process of separating valuable metals or minerals from the raw material, in this case ore. The first mill was closed due to subsidence.
A gravity mill with a capacity of 10,000 tons of ore per week was erected here in 1897. The mill produced high-grade lead, but millions of tons of zinc-rich waste product, or tailings, were dumped.
In 1904, the flotation process was added to the plant. Flotation involves crushing the ore to separate valuable minerals and gangue (mined rock that is not ore) components, pulping the particles of ore with water, and then separating the specific mineral. It operated until 1927 and was demolished in 1940.
Source: Visit Broken Hill (www.visitbrokenhill.com/Trails/Silver-Trail/10.-BHP-Mill-...)
Equipped with wet suits, personal flotation devices, helmets, and specially designed water rescue equipment, the Lego Swift Water Rescue personnel perform water-based rescues in natural and man-made waterways. They are dispatched to floods, or situations where someone is trapped in rushing water. The truck has a 7-wide rescue section and incorporates several SNOT (Studs Not On Top) techniques. The rescue boat is brick built and holds 4 minfigs. The design is original work by Steven Asbury.
The Mount Elliott Mining Complex is an aggregation of the remnants of copper mining and smelting operations from the early 20th century and the associated former mining township of Selwyn. The earliest copper mining at Mount Elliott was in 1906 with smelting operations commencing shortly after. Significant upgrades to the mining and smelting operations occurred under the management of W.R. Corbould during 1909 - 1910. Following these upgrades and increases in production, the Selwyn Township grew quickly and had 1500 residents by 1918. The Mount Elliott Company took over other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s, including the Mount Cuthbert and Kuridala smelters. Mount Elliott operations were taken over by Mount Isa Mines in 1943 to ensure the supply of copper during World War Two. The Mount Elliott Company was eventually liquidated in 1953.
The Mount Elliott Smelter:
The existence of copper in the Leichhardt River area of north western Queensland had been known since Ernest Henry discovered the Great Australia Mine in 1867 at Cloncurry. In 1899 James Elliott discovered copper on the conical hill that became Mount Elliott, but having no capital to develop the mine, he sold an interest to James Morphett, a pastoralist of Fort Constantine station near Cloncurry. Morphett, being drought stricken, in turn sold out to John Moffat of Irvinebank, the most successful mining promoter in Queensland at the time.
Plentiful capital and cheap transport were prerequisites for developing the Cloncurry field, which had stagnated for forty years. Without capital it was impossible to explore and prove ore-bodies; without proof of large reserves of wealth it was futile to build a railway; and without a railway it was hazardous to invest capital in finding large reserves of ore. The mining investor or the railway builder had to break the impasse.
In 1906 - 1907 copper averaged £87 a ton on the London market, the highest price for thirty years, and the Cloncurry field grew. The railway was extended west of Richmond in 1905 - 1906 by the Government and mines were floated on the Melbourne Stock Exchange. At Mount Elliott a prospecting shaft had been sunk and on the 1st of August 1906 a Cornish boiler and winding plant were installed on the site.
Mount Elliott Limited was floated in Melbourne on the 13th of July 1906. In 1907 it was taken over by British and French interests and restructured. Combining with its competitor, Hampden Cloncurry Copper Mines Limited, Mount Elliott formed a special company to finance and construct the railway from Cloncurry to Malbon, Kuridala (then Friezeland) and Mount Elliott (later Selwyn). This new company then entered into an agreement with the Queensland Railways Department in July 1908.
The railway, which was known as the 'Syndicate Railway', aroused opposition in 1908 from the trade unions and Labor movement generally, who contended that railways should be State-owned. However, the Hampden-Mount Elliott Railway Bill was passed by the Queensland Parliament and assented to on the 21st of April 1908; construction finished in December 1910. The railway terminated at the Mount Elliott smelter.
By 1907 the main underlie shaft had been sunk and construction of the smelters was underway using a second-hand water-jacket blast furnace and converters. At this time, W.H. Corbould was appointed general manager of Mount Elliott Limited.
The second-hand blast furnace and converters were commissioned or 'blown in' in May 1909, but were problematic causing hold-ups. Corbould referred to the equipment in use as being the 'worst collection of worn-out junk he had ever come across'. Corbould soon convinced his directors to scrap the plant and let him design new works.
Corbould was a metallurgist and geologist as well as mine/smelter manager. He foresaw a need to obtain control and thereby ensure a reliable supply of ore from a cross-section of mines in the region. He also saw a need to implement an effective strategy to manage the economies of smelting low-grade ore. Smelting operations in the region were made difficult by the technical and economic problems posed by the deterioration in the grade of ore. Corbould resolved the issue by a process of blending ores with different chemical properties, increasing the throughput capacity of the smelter and by championing the unification of smelting operations in the region. In 1912, Corbould acquired Hampden Consols Mine at Kuridala for Mount Elliott Limited, followed with the purchases of other small mines in the district.
Walkers Limited of Maryborough was commissioned to manufacture a new 200 ton water jacket furnace for the smelters. An air compressor and blower for the smelters were constructed in the powerhouse and an electric motor and dynamo provided power for the crane and lighting for the smelter and mine.
The new smelter was blown in September 1910, a month after the first train arrived, and it ran well, producing 2040 tons of blister copper by the end of the year. The new smelting plant made it possible to cope with low-grade sulphide ores at Mount Elliott. The use of 1000 tons of low-grade sulphide ores bought from the Hampden Consols Mine in 1911 made it clear that if a supply of higher sulphur ore could be obtained and blended, performance, and economy would improve. Accordingly, the company bought a number of smaller mines in the district in 1912.
Corbould mined with cut and fill stoping but a young Mines Inspector condemned the system, ordered it dismantled and replaced with square set timbering. In 1911, after gradual movement in stopes on the No. 3 level, the smelter was closed for two months. Nevertheless, 5447 tons of blister copper was produced in 1911, rising to 6690 tons in 1912 - the company's best year. Many of the surviving structures at the site were built at this time.
Troubles for Mount Elliott started in 1913. In February, a fire at the Consols Mine closed it for months. In June, a thirteen week strike closed the whole operation, severely depleting the workforce. The year 1913 was also bad for industrial accidents in the area, possibly due to inexperienced people replacing the strikers. Nevertheless, the company paid generous dividends that year.
At the end of 1914 smelting ceased for more than a year due to shortage of ore. Although 3200 tons of blister copper was produced in 1913, production fell to 1840 tons in 1914 and the workforce dwindled to only 40 men. For the second half of 1915 and early 1916 the smelter treated ore railed south from Mount Cuthbert. At the end of July 1916 the smelting plant at Selwyn was dismantled except for the flue chambers and stacks. A new furnace with a capacity of 500 tons per day was built, a large amount of second-hand equipment was obtained and the converters were increased in size.
After the enlarged furnace was commissioned in June 1917, continuing industrial unrest retarded production which amounted to only 1000 tons of copper that year. The point of contention was the efficiency of the new smelter which processed twice as much ore while employing fewer men. The company decided to close down the smelter in October and reduce the size of the furnace, the largest in Australia, from 6.5m to 5.5m. In the meantime the price of copper had almost doubled from 1916 due to wartime consumption of munitions.
The new furnace commenced on the 16th of January 1918 and 77,482 tons of ore were smelted yielding 3580 tons of blister copper which were sent to the Bowen refinery before export to Britain. Local coal and coke supply was a problem and materials were being sourced from the distant Bowen Colliery. The smelter had a good run for almost a year except for a strike in July and another in December, which caused Corbould to close down the plant until New Year. In 1919, following relaxation of wartime controls by the British Metal Corporation, the copper price plunged from about £110 per ton at the start of the year to £75 per ton in April, dashing the company's optimism regarding treatment of low grade ores. The smelter finally closed after two months operation and most employees were laid off.
For much of the period 1919 to 1922, Corbould was in England trying to raise capital to reorganise the company's operations but he failed and resigned from the company in 1922. The Mount Elliott Company took over the assets of the other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s - Mount Cuthbert in 1925 and Kuridala in 1926. Mount Isa Mines bought the Mount Elliott plant and machinery, including the three smelters, in 1943 for £2,300, enabling them to start copper production in the middle of the Second World War. The Mount Elliott Company was finally liquidated in 1953.
In 1950 A.E. Powell took up the Mount Elliott Reward Claim at Selwyn and worked close to the old smelter buildings. An open cut mine commenced at Starra, south of Mount Elliott and Selwyn, in 1988 and is Australia's third largest copper producer producing copper-gold concentrates from flotation and gold bullion from carbon-in-leach processing.
Profitable copper-gold ore bodies were recently proved at depth beneath the Mount Elliott smelter and old underground workings by Cyprus Gold Australia Pty Ltd. These deposits were subsequently acquired by Arimco Mining Pty Ltd for underground development which commenced in July 1993. A decline tunnel portal, ore and overburden dumps now occupy a large area of the Maggie Creek valley south-west of the smelter which was formerly the site of early miner's camps.
The Old Selwyn Township:
In 1907, the first hotel, run by H. Williams, was opened at the site. The township was surveyed later, around 1910, by the Mines Department. The town was to be situated north of the mine and smelter operations adjacent the railway, about 1.5km distant. It took its name from the nearby Selwyn Ranges which were named, during Burke's expedition, after the Victorian Government Geologist, A.R. Selwyn. The town has also been known by the name of Mount Elliott, after the nearby mines and smelter.
Many of the residents either worked at the Mount Elliott Mine and Smelter or worked in the service industries which grew around the mining and smelting operations. Little documentation exists about the everyday life of the town's residents. Surrounding sheep and cattle stations, however, meant that meat was available cheaply and vegetables grown in the area were delivered to the township by horse and cart. Imported commodities were, however, expensive.
By 1910 the town had four hotels. There was also an aerated water manufacturer, three stores, four fruiterers, a butcher, baker, saddler, garage, police, hospital, banks, post office (officially from 1906 to 1928, then unofficially until 1975) and a railway station. There was even an orchestra of ten players in 1912. The population of Selwyn rose from 1000 in 1911 to 1500 in 1918, before gradually declining.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
I need a story to go with this. Something with a happy ending. I will try to think of something. Back in a bit!
Ok. I've found it.
Has anyone here ever read the "Life of Pi" novel? I've never been especially bookish but I did pick this up not long after it was published in 2001 and it's story has stuck in my mind ever since. I suspect it may not have caught everyone's imagination the same way, but it did for me, not least the aspect of not being believed, and also the aspect of two lives in parallel. One of the instances in my life of not being believed was when I saw a black panther in the same Padley Gorge pictured above almost exactly a year ago, but the first time was when I was 20 and I saw a small floating island in the middle of the ocean.
"Life of Pi" is described here in Wikipedia:
Life of Pi is a Canadian fantasy adventure novel by Yann Martel published in 2001. The protagonist is Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, an Indian boy from Pondicherry who explores issues of spirituality and practicality from an early age. He survives 227 days after a shipwreck while stranded on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.
The novel begins with a note from the author, which is an integral part of it. Unusually, the note describes entirely fictional events. It serves to establish and enforce one of the book's main themes: the relativity of truth.
Life of Pi is subdivided into three sections:
Part one
In the first section, the main character, by the name of Piscine Patel, an adult Canadian, reminisces about his childhood in India. His father owns a zoo in Pondicherry. The livelihood provides the family with a relatively affluent lifestyle and some understanding of animal psychology.
The narrator describes how he acquired his full name, Piscine Molitor Patel, as a tribute to the swimming pool in France. After hearing schoolmates tease him by transforming the first name into "Pissing", he establishes the short form of his name as "Pi" when he starts secondary school. The name, he says, pays tribute to the irrational number which is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.
In recounting his experiences, Pi describes several other unusual situations involving proper names: two visitors to the zoo, one a devout Muslim, and the other a committed atheist, bear identical names; and a 450-pound tiger at the zoo bears the name Richard Parker as the result of a clerical error, in which human and animal names were reversed.
Pi is raised as a Hindu who practices vegetarianism. At the age of fourteen, he investigates Christianity and Islam, and decides to become an adherent of all three religions, much to his parents' dismay, saying he "just wants to love God." He tries to understand God through the lens of each religion, and comes to recognize benefits in each one.
A few years later in 1977, during the period when Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declares "The Emergency", Pi's father decides to sell the zoo and emmigrate with his wife and sons to Canada.
Part two
The second part of the novel begins with Pi's family aboard the Tsimtsum, a Japanese freighter that is transporting animals from their zoo to North America. A few days out of port from Manila, the ship encounters a storm and sinks. Pi manages to escape in a small lifeboat, only to learn that the boat also holds a spotted hyena, an injured Grant's zebra, and an orangutan named Orange Juice. Much to the boy's distress, the hyena kills the zebra and then Orange Juice. A tiger has been hiding under the boat's tarpaulin: it's Richard Parker, who had boarded the lifeboat with ambivalent assistance from Pi himself some time before the hyena attack. Suddenly emerging from his hideaway, Richard Parker kills and eats the hyena.
Frightened, Pi constructs a small raft out of rescue flotation devices, tethers it to the bow of the boat and makes it his place of retirement. He begins conditioning Richard Parker to take a submissive role by using food as a positive reinforcer, and seasickness as a punishment mechanism, while using a whistle for signals. Soon, Pi asserts himself as the alpha animal, and is eventually able to share the boat with his feline companion, admitting in the end that Richard Parker is the one who helped him survive his ordeal.
Pi recounts various events while adrift in the Pacific Ocean. At his lowest point, exposure renders him blind and unable to catch fish. In a state of delirium, he talks with a marine "echo", which he initially identifies as Richard Parker having gained the ability to speak, but it turns out to be another blind castaway, a Frenchman, who boards the lifeboat with the intention of killing and eating Pi, but is eventually killed by Richard Parker.
Some time later, Pi's boat comes ashore on a floating island network of algae and inhabited by hundreds of thousands of meerkats. Soon, Pi and Richard Parker regain strength, but the boy's discovery of the carnivorous nature of the island's plant life forces him to return to the ocean.
Two hundred and twenty-seven days after the ship's sinking, the lifeboat washes onto a beach in Mexico, after which Richard Parker disappears into the nearby jungle without looking back, leaving Pi heartbroken at the abrupt farewell.
Part three
The third part of the novel describes a conversation between Pi and two officials from the Japanese Ministry of Transport, who are conducting an inquiry into the shipwreck. They meet him at the hospital in Mexico where he is recovering. Pi tells them his tale, but the officials reject it as unbelievable. Pi then offers them a second story in which he is adrift on a lifeboat not with zoo animals, but with the ship's cook, a Taiwanese sailor with a broken leg, and his own mother. The cook amputates the sailor's leg for use as fishing bait, then kills the sailor himself as well as Pi's mother for food, and soon he is killed by Pi, who dines on him.
The investigators note parallels between the two stories. They soon conclude that the hyena symbolizes the cook, the zebra the sailor, the orangutan Pi's mother, and the tiger represents Pi. Pi points out that neither story can be proven and neither explains the cause of the shipwreck, so he asks the officials which story they prefer: the one without animals or the one with animals. They eventually choose the story with the animals. Pi thanks them and says: "And so it goes with God." The investigators then leave and file a report.
Life of Pi, according to Yann Martel, can be summarized in three statements: "Life is a story... You can choose your story... A story with God is the better story." A recurring theme throughout the novel seems to be believability. Pi at the end of the book asks the two investigators "If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for?". According to Gordon Houser there are two main themes of the book: "that all life is interdependent, and that we live and breathe via belief."
The book was made more credible for me by the fact that the writer clearly knew the inside of a ship's lifeboat inside out, just as I had learnt as a deck cadet restocking the survival stores and kit, painting the boats 'lifeboat' orange....servicing lifeboats was a regular feature of my life for more than four years. But it was the idea of a floating island in the middle of the ocean that really intrigued me and haunted me because people (like with the black panther) never believed I saw it.
We were way out in the Indian Ocean on a voyage from Port Dampier in north western Australia back to Gijon in Spain via the Cape of Good Hope round South Africa. It was on a day like so many of the others we enjoyed on long tramping voyages around the world, blue skies and deep blue ocean. It was nice and warm and the sea sparkled. I was on the bridge, on watch with the Ghanaian 2nd Officer. He was busy in the chart room doing his noon sun sight to fix our position and complete a back log of chart corrections. And my job was to keep watch, look out for other ships and navigational hazards. But we hadn't seen a ship or land for about a week, and it might be another two weeks before we saw either again but still I had to keep my eyes peeled all around.
It had escaped my vision, being very low in the water, and relatively small, but suddenly I became aware of an object off the port bow, a few miles out. I grabbed the binoculars and found it, and could quite believe what my eyes were seeing. In the middle of the ocean, with water to every horizon, was a small island with an upright tree in the centre, just floating along. I called to the Second Mate and is reaction was "Yeah, yeah, alright" but he didn't emerge from the chart room. I called again and he told me just to keep an eye on it. I turned and went into the chart room so that he looked up at me and I described to him what I was seeing. And that big black face opened up to reveal a big bright white smile and he grinned and put his face down again to concentrate on his work. I scurried back out on the bridge wing, peering down to see if any of the crew were on deck. They must have been on smoko break, and none were in sight.
And so I stood there, and watching from on high, as our huge ore carrier passed down the side of the little floating island. I swung round as it started to shrink into the distance behind our stern, and soon it was lost amongst the bends and dips of the ocean towards the horizon. And no one ever believed me it had existed.
I've always believed my honesty and integrity were my greatest qualities and it has always hurt me if anyone disbelieves me....particularly when I really am telling the truth!
Here it is. My do-it-yourself floating photography blind plan. I have been working on this composite image over the last several weeks as I could make time. The image is sized large for viewing – 24”x36” at 300 ppi, and I have chosen to upload it to my stream as a Public Domain Work. My gift to those who may find value in it.
I finished construction some time in mid-April and used it with my camera for the first time on April 25 and have been using it periodically since.
Not sure how much value FLICKRINOS will find in this, or whether or not others will execute the plan. All I can say is that I have thoroughly enjoyed designing and building AND using this blind. I have tagged all my posted images captured with this blind “floating blind”. So, if you do a search of my stream for that phrase or tag you can judge for yourself as to whether or not the effort involved in building and using the blind is worth it. Most all of the images so tagged are “full frame”, i.e. not cropped – in my mind, a measure of the effectiveness of the use of the blind in getting close to aquatic life (while not disrupting wildlife behaviors).
This is not an original idea. There are commercial products out there that accomplish the same end. I believe this plan to be an affordable alternative to a commercial floating blind. The big advantage with this approach is the small details you can incorporate to serve your own personal needs.
I first got the idea that I wanted to pursue something like this after a series of outings to a duck pond on my brother’s property in the spring of 2020. I worked from a ground blind on the bank of the pond and got some great images (mostly wood ducks), but in the end (as you would expect) many of the photographs looked the same with similar light conditions and perspective. After the success of that first year at the pond, I was thinking it would be nice to have a perspective lower to the water surface, “duck-eye-level”, if you will, AND have the ability to move to the wildlife rather than wait for the wildlife to come to me. This design accomplishes those goals. The blind essentially floats the camera (on the gimbal mount) around the photographer who stands in the water with waders in the “photographer’s well” section of the blind. Alternatively, a person could simply use a ball-head mount on the camera deck. The floating blind does require that the wetland location is “walkable” in waders – some locations may have a soft, deep-muck bottom that would not easily allow walking in waders. With the 6-inch diameter pipe, the blind does have the ability to float my person as well, but this is not a practice that would suit good photography and keeping the wildlife undisturbed. The performance of the blind really shines on a protected body of water such as the duck pond I visit, but I have also used it now on bigger water such as the lower Fox River at De Pere, Wisconsin which is ¼ mile wide at that location and can catch a lot of wind. Of course, you have to choose your day and time carefully for bigger water for relatively calm conditions.
My first day on the pond with the blind this past spring, I quickly came to find that if I moved slowly enough, I could pivot the whole blind to follow ducks moving across my field of view or even “walk” the blind to get closer. For me, using a wired shutter release with my left thumb and guiding the camera on the gimble with my right hand while back-button focusing with my right thumb worked best. All the while letting the blind and camera float around me and trying hard not to disturb the quiet water with my movements. With the floating blind, every turn of the blind brought new light, reflections and perspective. From the floating blind (as opposed to a fixed shore blind) every image was different. The pond I visit has a fringe of about 10 to 15 feet from the bank to wader depth. But the blind allows me to choose to stand in deeper water, or sit, or kneel on the bottom within its confines in more shallow depths. Also, with the spring mating period for ducks on the private pond, I had the luxury of leaving the blind on the pond over the period of weeks that I visited there. I simply removed my camera and gimbal and tied the blind off from the bank with a long rope, allowing it to float freely on the pond. So the blind was something the ducks got accustomed to moving around the pond with the wind while I was not there.
My gear consists of a Canon 5D mark iii, the Canon EF600mm f/4L IS USM lens and the Wimberley gimbal – all told, about 18 lbs, plus I place my sling camera bag with Canon 70-200 f/2.8 lens, and a water bottle beside the gimbal mount on the camera deck. For use strictly on a protected water (such as the small duck pond), I believe I could have made the blind with 4” diameter pipe rather than the 6”. But for bigger water (like the Fox River) the 6” pipe provides flotation to handle waves from the occasional fishing boat. The 4” pipe would have the added benefit of an even lower perspective.
So I am sharing this plan and my experience in the hope that other wildlife artists/photographers will find value in it and (if they pursue a “build”) in turn pay it forward by sharing their experience, suggestions for improvements or upgrades with me and others AND (of course) continue to share all those great, inspirational photos (I always love to see camera data too) to inspire and educate both visually and technically.
KEEP CLICKING AND INSPIRING FLICKRINOS !!! AND BE CAREFUL OUT THERE.
Best regards,
Steven
A 2011 view of the processing house and flotation ponds at Cefn Coch. Incredibly, we only felt a couple of drops of rain.
This is a Ferret Mk 5 (FV712), an amphibious derivation of the Mk 3, but equipped with a large flat turret designed to carry up to four Swingfire wire-guided anti-tank missiles in twin banks. A 7.62mm general-purpose machine-gun (GMPG) was posted between the missile banks.
The Ferret Mk 3, from which this was derived, was also called the “big wheels” Ferret. It had indeed larger-size tyres, higher ground clearance, heavier armour, flotation screens and a stronger suspension than earlier versions of the armoured car.
Swingfire was a British wire-guided anti-tank missile developed in the 1960s and produced from 1966 until 1993. The name refers to its ability to make a rapid turn of up to 90˚ after firing to bring it onto the line of the sighting mechanism. This meant that the launcher vehicle could be concealed and the operator, using a portable sight, placed at a distance in a more advantageous firing position.
Swingfire was developed by Fairey Engineering Ltd and the British Aircraft Corporation, together with Wallop Industries Ltd and minor subcontractors. It replaced the Vickers Vigilant missile in British service. Its design incorporated elements from its predecessor the Vigilant and the experimental Orange William missile. Swingfire saw use in both the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 Iraq War.
This combination of missile and vehicle only served with the British Army. However, seven countries still have the missile in their inventories and 10 have the Ferret, according to Wikipedia.
The exhibit was the original Australian test vehicle and the misspelling of Kirkudbright is apparently original. Seen at the Tank Museum in Bovington, Dorset.
The Hornibrook Highway Bridge was constructed in the years 1932 - 1935, by the firm of M.R. Hornibrook. Conceived as a response to high unemployment, and economic recession, it also represented an opportunity to end the isolation of the residents of the Redcliffe Peninsula.
Prior to the construction of the Hornibrook viaduct, the Redcliffe Peninsula was accessed via two main methods of transport: ferry and road. Road transportation in particular was of great concern to the residents of the Redcliffe area. During times of wet weather, the Redcliffe road running via Petrie regularly became impassable to vehicles.
Several schemes had been drafted to improve the accessibility of the Redcliffe area to vehicle owners and also to the growing day-tripper market, having seaside holidays at Redcliffe.
These schemes favoured the construction of a new road link across Hayes Inlet and the mouth of the South Pine River. In 1926, the Redcliffe Council had proposed such a project be considered by the Main Roads Board.
Such a road link would involve crossing 2.7 kilometres of water by viaduct at a cost of 120,000 pounds. This road would then connect with Sandgate-Brisbane main road, avoiding the long drive via Petrie.
M.R. Hornibrook had holidayed in this area and saw the development potential of the Redcliffe area being linked by road to Brisbane. The onset of the financial depression of 1929 - 1933 gave Hornibrook the impetus to plan and construct a road viaduct across from Redcliffe to Sandgate.
Major contracts for construction diminished with the deepening depression, and the decline in public spending. Hornibrook believed a major project was needed to keep together the construction force built up by his company during twenty-five years of work.
In 1931, Hornibrook approached the State Government with a proposal to construct a toll bridge linking the southern part of Redcliffe with the Sandgate area. Initially, this proposal was rejected. After further consultation with the State Government, an act of Parliament was pushed through allowing for the involvement of private enterprise in the construction of toll facilities.
The terms of franchise set the toll, as well as stipulating the length of lease. Hornibrook negotiated successfully for a forty year franchise on the projected road bridge.
The full extent of the project involved a road viaduct 2.68 km in length plus associated roadworks. To finance such a major construction, a prospectus was issued to encourage local investment in Hornibrook Highway Ltd.
Work officially commenced on the project on June the 8th 1932, but in its first eighteen months progress was limited, due to a lack of financing. The entry portals at either end of the bridge were completed in early 1933. Continuing financial difficulties forced Hornibrook to attempt to re-finance the company to finish the work as planned by 1935. The major flotation was assisted by a £100,000 loan from the AMP Society, guaranteed by the State Government. Work recommended at a faster pace from July of 1934.
The portals were designed by architect John Beebe. Orginally a Bendigo based architect, Beebe moved to Queensland in 1916, and worked at the Queensland Works Department until 1926. He then moved into private practice in Brisbane until 1936.
Over 2.5 million superfeet of timber was needed to provide girders and decking on the bridge. Two sawmills were bought specially to process timber from the Mount Mee and Conondale Ranges. 250 timbergetters were employed to cut the required amount of timber. Concrete was supplied from the QCL works at Darra - the two portals being the first significant structures in Queensland to use material from this source.
The last plank on the viaduct was spiked into place on September the 7th 1935. The bitumen road surface was laid in under three weeks setting an Australian record. The construction of the bridge was similar to other bridges in Queensland, but when it was completed it was the longest road viaduct built over water in the southern hemisphere.
The viaduct was opened to road traffic on October the 4th 1935, foreshortening the road journey by several hours. Also a special coordinated road/rail bus service was inaugurated by the company to convey commuters between Sandgate and Redcliffe.
The Hornibrook Highway played an important strategic role during the defence of Australia in World War Two. Military road convoys were able to use the highway to move war material efficiently to points in Queensland.
By the 1970s increasing road volumes necessitated the investigation of a replacement structure capable of carrying additional traffic.
The Hornibrook Highway franchise was surrendered to the Department of Main Roads in 1975 after forty years of operation by the company. From this time the Main Roads Department assumed responsibility for maintaining the structure.
A replacement viaduct was authorised by the Main Roads Department in 1977 to cope with increasing traffic flows to and from the Redcliffe Peninsula. The Houghton Highway as the new bridge was named opened to traffic in 1979.
The Hornibrook Highway was closed to vehicular traffic with the opening of the replacement structure in 1979. It has since been used as a pedestrian thoroughfare and bikeway.
The Hornibrook Highway was a major catalyst in accelerating the urban development of the Redcliffe Peninsula and it's surrounding area. In its planning, construction, and operation, it represents a major innovation in construction activities in Queensland at a time of economic crisis.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
Although it looks as though this bright orange life ring (or life belt) is in the middle of the countryside, it is placed at the side of the Sulby reservoir in the Isle of Man.
Got life vests for the chi's and Matix today because we are going to my mom's tomorrow and they like to go in the pool, but stay in until they get tired. Tried them out today in the doggie pool!
These five photos tell the story of the mill at Comet ghost town.
The Basin Montana Tunnel Company took over the Comet mine in 1927 and built this 200 ton per day mill.
The Hornibrook Highway Bridge was constructed in the years 1932 - 1935, by the firm of M.R. Hornibrook. Conceived as a response to high unemployment, and economic recession, it also represented an opportunity to end the isolation of the residents of the Redcliffe Peninsula.
Prior to the construction of the Hornibrook viaduct, the Redcliffe Peninsula was accessed via two main methods of transport: ferry and road. Road transportation in particular was of great concern to the residents of the Redcliffe area. During times of wet weather, the Redcliffe road running via Petrie regularly became impassable to vehicles.
Several schemes had been drafted to improve the accessibility of the Redcliffe area to vehicle owners and also to the growing day-tripper market, having seaside holidays at Redcliffe.
These schemes favoured the construction of a new road link across Hayes Inlet and the mouth of the South Pine River. In 1926, the Redcliffe Council had proposed such a project be considered by the Main Roads Board.
Such a road link would involve crossing 2.7 kilometres of water by viaduct at a cost of 120,000 pounds. This road would then connect with Sandgate-Brisbane main road, avoiding the long drive via Petrie.
M.R. Hornibrook had holidayed in this area and saw the development potential of the Redcliffe area being linked by road to Brisbane. The onset of the financial depression of 1929 - 1933 gave Hornibrook the impetus to plan and construct a road viaduct across from Redcliffe to Sandgate.
Major contracts for construction diminished with the deepening depression, and the decline in public spending. Hornibrook believed a major project was needed to keep together the construction force built up by his company during twenty-five years of work.
In 1931, Hornibrook approached the State Government with a proposal to construct a toll bridge linking the southern part of Redcliffe with the Sandgate area. Initially, this proposal was rejected. After further consultation with the State Government, an act of Parliament was pushed through allowing for the involvement of private enterprise in the construction of toll facilities.
The terms of franchise set the toll, as well as stipulating the length of lease. Hornibrook negotiated successfully for a forty year franchise on the projected road bridge.
The full extent of the project involved a road viaduct 2.68 km in length plus associated roadworks. To finance such a major construction, a prospectus was issued to encourage local investment in Hornibrook Highway Ltd.
Work officially commenced on the project on June the 8th 1932, but in its first eighteen months progress was limited, due to a lack of financing. The entry portals at either end of the bridge were completed in early 1933. Continuing financial difficulties forced Hornibrook to attempt to re-finance the company to finish the work as planned by 1935. The major flotation was assisted by a £100,000 loan from the AMP Society, guaranteed by the State Government. Work recommended at a faster pace from July of 1934.
The portals were designed by architect John Beebe. Orginally a Bendigo based architect, Beebe moved to Queensland in 1916, and worked at the Queensland Works Department until 1926. He then moved into private practice in Brisbane until 1936.
Over 2.5 million superfeet of timber was needed to provide girders and decking on the bridge. Two sawmills were bought specially to process timber from the Mount Mee and Conondale Ranges. 250 timbergetters were employed to cut the required amount of timber. Concrete was supplied from the QCL works at Darra - the two portals being the first significant structures in Queensland to use material from this source.
The last plank on the viaduct was spiked into place on September the 7th 1935. The bitumen road surface was laid in under three weeks setting an Australian record. The construction of the bridge was similar to other bridges in Queensland, but when it was completed it was the longest road viaduct built over water in the southern hemisphere.
The viaduct was opened to road traffic on October the 4th 1935, foreshortening the road journey by several hours. Also a special coordinated road/rail bus service was inaugurated by the company to convey commuters between Sandgate and Redcliffe.
The Hornibrook Highway played an important strategic role during the defence of Australia in World War Two. Military road convoys were able to use the highway to move war material efficiently to points in Queensland.
By the 1970s increasing road volumes necessitated the investigation of a replacement structure capable of carrying additional traffic.
The Hornibrook Highway franchise was surrendered to the Department of Main Roads in 1975 after forty years of operation by the company. From this time the Main Roads Department assumed responsibility for maintaining the structure.
A replacement viaduct was authorised by the Main Roads Department in 1977 to cope with increasing traffic flows to and from the Redcliffe Peninsula. The Houghton Highway as the new bridge was named opened to traffic in 1979.
The Hornibrook Highway was closed to vehicular traffic with the opening of the replacement structure in 1979. It has since been used as a pedestrian thoroughfare and bikeway.
The Hornibrook Highway was a major catalyst in accelerating the urban development of the Redcliffe Peninsula and it's surrounding area. In its planning, construction, and operation, it represents a major innovation in construction activities in Queensland at a time of economic crisis.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
"Flotation"
Sterne pierregarin
(Sterna hirundo) Camargue (Bouche-du-Rhône, juin 2019)
Website : www.fluidr.com/photos/pat21
"Copyright © – Patrick Bouchenard
The reproduction, publication, modification, transmission or exploitation of any work contained here in for any use, personal or commercial, without my prior written permission is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved."
This detritus around the infrastructure projects in Melbourne makes for a challenging composition. The light outdoors this spring was very manageable. Lots of drama in the sky and clouds.
One of several projects, that explore photography as evidence amongst other ideas.
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i had hoped to get close enough to catch some photos of him packin' his canoe down to the beach. i wasn't close enough.
i was surprised to see him go some distance from shore without wearing a pfd (personal flotation device) which is almost
de rigueur these days.
“AS-204 EGRESS TRAINING -- The prime crew for Apollo/Saturn Mission 204, the first manned Apollo flight, practice water egress training in the Gulf of Mexico. Egressing from an Apollo command module is Astronaut Virgil I. Grissom, command pilot. Sitting in life raft are Astronauts Edward H. White II (foreground), senior pilot, and Roger B. Chaffee (center background), pilot.”
By NASA standards, a passable caption. It’s at least cursorily informative, correct even. With mostly proper punctuation...damn. They even managed to spell the Astronauts’ names correctly! A rare moment indeed. Along with it being an overall wonderful, rare & somewhat poignant photograph.
However, for less than a handful of us I’m sure, the immediate glaring question is, “What’s up with those uprighting bags???”
Additionally, as in other photographs of this boilerplate’s original ‘incarnation’ as BP-1102, note the omission of the crew side hatch door.
Peripherally...that's a mighty small lone raft to accomodate three men. Maybe this was a worst case/one raft egress scenario?
Back to the uprighting bags: I recalled there being an “Apollo Experience Report” addressing and (I expected) likely resolving the uprighting bag question. At:
ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19730010171/downloads/1973001...
WRONG, all references to uprighting bags pertained to the eventual spherical design. WTF?!
THANKS to Coye Mac Jones, the following excerpt from a presentation(?) of his, exquisitely provides the answers…and more. Superb & qualifying as a “WIN”:
“Apollo BP-1102/1102A was an in-house NASA-MSC Landing and Recovery Division (LRD) designed aluminum boilerplate Apollo Command Module (CM), the crew module of the Apollo Program, Skylab Program and the Apollo Soyuz Test Project. BP-1102A is in Apollo Block II configuration (lunar mission configuration) but was initially delivered as BP-1102 in early 1965 in Apollo Block I configuration (earth orbit mission configuration) following its fabrication of aluminum alloy 5056 at Kelly AFB Air Materiel
Command in San Antonio, where also its sister boilerplate BP-1101/1101A was fabricated. It was outfitted for manned testing by NASA-MSC Technical Services Division.
BP-1102/1102A had only operational mechanical and electronic subsystems required for post-splashdown testing/training such as communications, side and forward hatches, crew couches, uprighting system, etc. All other subsystems in the boilerplate CM were simulated by mockups such as equipment bays and display panel overlays. For the uprighting system, bag inflation was accomplished by compressed air from scuba tanks and controlled as in the CM by display panel switch throw. An unusual method was used to simulate the noisy CM uprighting bag air compressors pumps - two Mattel toy bicycle V-RROOM! “motors” were installed inside the equipment bays to activate concurrently with uprighting bag inflation. (BP-1102/1102A vehicle project engineer Harry Clancy personally purchased the V-RROOM!’s.) The BP-1102 Block I uprighting bags were built in-house for training purposes while BP-1102A utilized Block II CM bags. Crew equipment, suits, survival kits/rafts, were supplied and supported by Crew Systems Division during tests and training.
LRD used BP-1102/1102A for water egress procedures for Block I[1] and Block II[2] Command Module development/evaluation and astronaut water crew egress trainer for Apollo, Skylab, and ASTP astronaut crews. Prime and backup astronaut crews trained in BP-1102/1102A first in static conditions in a water tank, then in open water conditions in the Gulf of Mexico. BP-1102A was also used as the mockup command module during the simulation of recovery quarantine procedures on the USS Guadalcanal during Apollo IX in March 1969[3].
BP-1102A is Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum Collection Object No. A19800160000, and is currently on display at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA
airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/boilerplate-command...
It is displayed with the uprighting bags and flotation collar from Apollo 11.
November 23, 2010
Updated: September 25, 2019
Updated: April 23, 2020
Written By:
Coye Mac Jones
NASA-MSC/LRD Vehicle Project Engineer in 1964-71
Retired NASA-Johnson Space Center/Houston in January 2003
References:
[1] NASA Program Apollo Working Paper No. 1213: “Crew Egress Procedures For Apollo Block I Command Module At Sea” dated December 7, 1966:
ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19700024994...
[2] NASA Program Apollo Working Paper No. 1348: “The Crew - Command Module Postlanding Interface” dated July 7, 1969:
ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19700024853...
[3] Ref: MSC Roundup, March 7, 1969, “Mobile Quarantine Trailer Gets Test During Apollo IX”:
www.jsc.nasa.gov/history/roundups/issues/69-03-07.pdf”
Additionally/finally, with some relevant/pertinent, interesting & hopefully correct observations by user “moorouge”. With some links to additional useful resources:
www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum29/HTML/001192.html
Credit: collectSPACE website
I drove by a park along the ocean today and grabbed a few shots. It was a gorgeous day, with the lovely blue of the sky reflecting into the water of the ocean. I captured this little girl with her Manta Ray water toy, and loved everything about the shot.
Now, I don't know if things have changed, but flotation toys like this used to be illegal in the ocean. The only floats that were allowed were ones with ropes all around them. There were no lifeguards around, so there was no one to enforce that law, even if it's still on the books.
I was surprised, also, that the little girl's mother let her go in the water alone, and was quite a ways away from her. There were two little girls, and the youngest was with the mother on the beach. It seemed like the mom was trying to pack it in for the day, but the little ones didn't want to go! No children ever want to leave the beach, and it's been that way forever! I wish I could give this shot to the mom, as her daughter was adorable!
The shot was taken from many yards away. I was in the park, not even on the beach itself. I was impressed by the camera's zoom feature.
Equipped with wet suits, personal flotation devices, helmets, and specially designed water rescue equipment, the Lego Swift Water Rescue personnel perform water-based rescues in natural and man-made waterways. They are dispatched to floods, or situations where someone is trapped in rushing water. The truck has a 7-wide rescue section and incorporates several SNOT (Studs Not On Top) techniques. The rescue boat is brick built and holds 4 minfigs. The design is original work by Steven Asbury.
The Mount Elliott Mining Complex is an aggregation of the remnants of copper mining and smelting operations from the early 20th century and the associated former mining township of Selwyn. The earliest copper mining at Mount Elliott was in 1906 with smelting operations commencing shortly after. Significant upgrades to the mining and smelting operations occurred under the management of W.R. Corbould during 1909 - 1910. Following these upgrades and increases in production, the Selwyn Township grew quickly and had 1500 residents by 1918. The Mount Elliott Company took over other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s, including the Mount Cuthbert and Kuridala smelters. Mount Elliott operations were taken over by Mount Isa Mines in 1943 to ensure the supply of copper during World War Two. The Mount Elliott Company was eventually liquidated in 1953.
The Mount Elliott Smelter:
The existence of copper in the Leichhardt River area of north western Queensland had been known since Ernest Henry discovered the Great Australia Mine in 1867 at Cloncurry. In 1899 James Elliott discovered copper on the conical hill that became Mount Elliott, but having no capital to develop the mine, he sold an interest to James Morphett, a pastoralist of Fort Constantine station near Cloncurry. Morphett, being drought stricken, in turn sold out to John Moffat of Irvinebank, the most successful mining promoter in Queensland at the time.
Plentiful capital and cheap transport were prerequisites for developing the Cloncurry field, which had stagnated for forty years. Without capital it was impossible to explore and prove ore-bodies; without proof of large reserves of wealth it was futile to build a railway; and without a railway it was hazardous to invest capital in finding large reserves of ore. The mining investor or the railway builder had to break the impasse.
In 1906 - 1907 copper averaged £87 a ton on the London market, the highest price for thirty years, and the Cloncurry field grew. The railway was extended west of Richmond in 1905 - 1906 by the Government and mines were floated on the Melbourne Stock Exchange. At Mount Elliott a prospecting shaft had been sunk and on the 1st of August 1906 a Cornish boiler and winding plant were installed on the site.
Mount Elliott Limited was floated in Melbourne on the 13th of July 1906. In 1907 it was taken over by British and French interests and restructured. Combining with its competitor, Hampden Cloncurry Copper Mines Limited, Mount Elliott formed a special company to finance and construct the railway from Cloncurry to Malbon, Kuridala (then Friezeland) and Mount Elliott (later Selwyn). This new company then entered into an agreement with the Queensland Railways Department in July 1908.
The railway, which was known as the 'Syndicate Railway', aroused opposition in 1908 from the trade unions and Labor movement generally, who contended that railways should be State-owned. However, the Hampden-Mount Elliott Railway Bill was passed by the Queensland Parliament and assented to on the 21st of April 1908; construction finished in December 1910. The railway terminated at the Mount Elliott smelter.
By 1907 the main underlie shaft had been sunk and construction of the smelters was underway using a second-hand water-jacket blast furnace and converters. At this time, W.H. Corbould was appointed general manager of Mount Elliott Limited.
The second-hand blast furnace and converters were commissioned or 'blown in' in May 1909, but were problematic causing hold-ups. Corbould referred to the equipment in use as being the 'worst collection of worn-out junk he had ever come across'. Corbould soon convinced his directors to scrap the plant and let him design new works.
Corbould was a metallurgist and geologist as well as mine/smelter manager. He foresaw a need to obtain control and thereby ensure a reliable supply of ore from a cross-section of mines in the region. He also saw a need to implement an effective strategy to manage the economies of smelting low-grade ore. Smelting operations in the region were made difficult by the technical and economic problems posed by the deterioration in the grade of ore. Corbould resolved the issue by a process of blending ores with different chemical properties, increasing the throughput capacity of the smelter and by championing the unification of smelting operations in the region. In 1912, Corbould acquired Hampden Consols Mine at Kuridala for Mount Elliott Limited, followed with the purchases of other small mines in the district.
Walkers Limited of Maryborough was commissioned to manufacture a new 200 ton water jacket furnace for the smelters. An air compressor and blower for the smelters were constructed in the powerhouse and an electric motor and dynamo provided power for the crane and lighting for the smelter and mine.
The new smelter was blown in September 1910, a month after the first train arrived, and it ran well, producing 2040 tons of blister copper by the end of the year. The new smelting plant made it possible to cope with low-grade sulphide ores at Mount Elliott. The use of 1000 tons of low-grade sulphide ores bought from the Hampden Consols Mine in 1911 made it clear that if a supply of higher sulphur ore could be obtained and blended, performance, and economy would improve. Accordingly, the company bought a number of smaller mines in the district in 1912.
Corbould mined with cut and fill stoping but a young Mines Inspector condemned the system, ordered it dismantled and replaced with square set timbering. In 1911, after gradual movement in stopes on the No. 3 level, the smelter was closed for two months. Nevertheless, 5447 tons of blister copper was produced in 1911, rising to 6690 tons in 1912 - the company's best year. Many of the surviving structures at the site were built at this time.
Troubles for Mount Elliott started in 1913. In February, a fire at the Consols Mine closed it for months. In June, a thirteen week strike closed the whole operation, severely depleting the workforce. The year 1913 was also bad for industrial accidents in the area, possibly due to inexperienced people replacing the strikers. Nevertheless, the company paid generous dividends that year.
At the end of 1914 smelting ceased for more than a year due to shortage of ore. Although 3200 tons of blister copper was produced in 1913, production fell to 1840 tons in 1914 and the workforce dwindled to only 40 men. For the second half of 1915 and early 1916 the smelter treated ore railed south from Mount Cuthbert. At the end of July 1916 the smelting plant at Selwyn was dismantled except for the flue chambers and stacks. A new furnace with a capacity of 500 tons per day was built, a large amount of second-hand equipment was obtained and the converters were increased in size.
After the enlarged furnace was commissioned in June 1917, continuing industrial unrest retarded production which amounted to only 1000 tons of copper that year. The point of contention was the efficiency of the new smelter which processed twice as much ore while employing fewer men. The company decided to close down the smelter in October and reduce the size of the furnace, the largest in Australia, from 6.5m to 5.5m. In the meantime the price of copper had almost doubled from 1916 due to wartime consumption of munitions.
The new furnace commenced on the 16th of January 1918 and 77,482 tons of ore were smelted yielding 3580 tons of blister copper which were sent to the Bowen refinery before export to Britain. Local coal and coke supply was a problem and materials were being sourced from the distant Bowen Colliery. The smelter had a good run for almost a year except for a strike in July and another in December, which caused Corbould to close down the plant until New Year. In 1919, following relaxation of wartime controls by the British Metal Corporation, the copper price plunged from about £110 per ton at the start of the year to £75 per ton in April, dashing the company's optimism regarding treatment of low grade ores. The smelter finally closed after two months operation and most employees were laid off.
For much of the period 1919 to 1922, Corbould was in England trying to raise capital to reorganise the company's operations but he failed and resigned from the company in 1922. The Mount Elliott Company took over the assets of the other companies on the Cloncurry field in the 1920s - Mount Cuthbert in 1925 and Kuridala in 1926. Mount Isa Mines bought the Mount Elliott plant and machinery, including the three smelters, in 1943 for £2,300, enabling them to start copper production in the middle of the Second World War. The Mount Elliott Company was finally liquidated in 1953.
In 1950 A.E. Powell took up the Mount Elliott Reward Claim at Selwyn and worked close to the old smelter buildings. An open cut mine commenced at Starra, south of Mount Elliott and Selwyn, in 1988 and is Australia's third largest copper producer producing copper-gold concentrates from flotation and gold bullion from carbon-in-leach processing.
Profitable copper-gold ore bodies were recently proved at depth beneath the Mount Elliott smelter and old underground workings by Cyprus Gold Australia Pty Ltd. These deposits were subsequently acquired by Arimco Mining Pty Ltd for underground development which commenced in July 1993. A decline tunnel portal, ore and overburden dumps now occupy a large area of the Maggie Creek valley south-west of the smelter which was formerly the site of early miner's camps.
The Old Selwyn Township:
In 1907, the first hotel, run by H. Williams, was opened at the site. The township was surveyed later, around 1910, by the Mines Department. The town was to be situated north of the mine and smelter operations adjacent the railway, about 1.5km distant. It took its name from the nearby Selwyn Ranges which were named, during Burke's expedition, after the Victorian Government Geologist, A.R. Selwyn. The town has also been known by the name of Mount Elliott, after the nearby mines and smelter.
Many of the residents either worked at the Mount Elliott Mine and Smelter or worked in the service industries which grew around the mining and smelting operations. Little documentation exists about the everyday life of the town's residents. Surrounding sheep and cattle stations, however, meant that meat was available cheaply and vegetables grown in the area were delivered to the township by horse and cart. Imported commodities were, however, expensive.
By 1910 the town had four hotels. There was also an aerated water manufacturer, three stores, four fruiterers, a butcher, baker, saddler, garage, police, hospital, banks, post office (officially from 1906 to 1928, then unofficially until 1975) and a railway station. There was even an orchestra of ten players in 1912. The population of Selwyn rose from 1000 in 1911 to 1500 in 1918, before gradually declining.
Source: Queensland Heritage Register.
Taken in one of the the lower sections of Waggon Creek, a cut that runs for about 3.5km between steep limestone walls covered in moss and ferns. I had to swim the deeper sections using my pack for flotation, quite unnerving as the water was black with tanin and I had thoughts of massive eels biting my fingers off playing through my mind! A stunning place though, and one I would love to get back to again.
Take a look at my Waggon Creek album which contains this plus many more images taken along the length of the cut that I was able to explore. Unfortunately the water was very cold and the cut acted as a wind tunnel once the morning breeze came up, it wasn't too long before I was chilled to the bone and I had to turn back.
On this year's trip, the polar bears were really active and played in the water a lot. They especially loved to find sticks and logs and sometimes used them as a flotation device (although they float pretty well on their own).
Here's a video slideshow of the images I took during the trip:
The STRV-103 is a second generation MBT used by the Nordic Union. It was developed during the 1950s and served alongside the STRV 101 as the two primary MBTs of the Nordic Union.
From the very beginning of it's development, the STRV-103 was envisioned as being a very low-profile vehicle as studies showed that a high profile drastically increased the odds of being hit. It was thus decided to eliminate the turret entirely with the main gun being fixed to the hull.
The STRV 103 has many unique attributes which distinguish it apart from the competition.
-The S-tank has a hydro-pneumatic suspension system which allows it to raise and lower the angle and height of the entire vehicle.
- Secondly, the S-tank has both a 490hp turbine engine for high speed movement and a lower power conventional diesel for more silent performance and better aiming capability.
- Along with the low profile, the STRV-103 has tremendously sloped 100mm armor angled at 75 degrees for an effective 386mm of RHA. This is enough to defeat 105mm and 115mm guns but was found to be insufficient against the larger 120mm and 125mm guns commonly found on third generation MBTs.
- The STRV-103 is equipped with an 105mm L7 hooked up to an autoloader holding the tank's 50 rounds of ammunition which allows for an unrivaled sustained rate of fire of one shot every 3 seconds.
- Another unique feature is the slat armor bars on the front of the tank which provide very effective protection from HEAT, HESH, and HE ammunition by prematurely detonating the incoming threats before they can hit the upper hull. When combined with the well-sloped armor, the STRV-103 likely has the best frontal armor of any second generation MBT.
- Other interesting capabilities of note are the dozer blades on the front which allow STRV-103s to create better hull-down fighting positions, the S-tank is fully amphibious with the ability to use a flotation screen, and that the vehicle can drive in reverse just as fast and as well as it can forward due to an identical set of driver's controls in the rear of the vehicle.
While it is true that the STRV-103's design excels at defensive combat, there is an incorrect myth that it is a tank destroyer incapable of offensive operations.
During testing, the STRV-103 was found to have very good mechanical reliability, and when compared to other nation's second generation MBTs it was found that there was no disadvantage for firing on the move, with accuracy and time from target acquisition to firing being largely identical. Of course, third generation tanks with computer assisted aiming and stabilized guns have a significant advantage over the STRV-103, but they did not exist as of the time it was created.
STRV-103C (1.3 price reduction)
Armament: 105mm gun -1
Armor: +0 (+1 effective with super slope)
Speed: 65 kmh +0
Low Maintenance (+1)
Amphibious (+1)
Hydraulics (+1)
Slat Armor (+1)
Autoloader (0)
Super Slope (0)
Turretless MBT (-2)
Fuel Inefficient (-1)
Niagara Falls is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, which straddles the international border of the two countries. It is also known as the Canadian Falls. The smaller American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls lie within the United States. Bridal Veil Falls is separated from Horseshoe Falls by Goat Island and from American Falls by Luna Island, with both islands situated in New York.
Formed by the Niagara River, which drains Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, the combined falls have the highest flow rate of any waterfall in North America that has a vertical drop of more than 50 m (160 ft). During peak daytime tourist hours, more than 168,000 m3 (5.9 million cu ft) of water goes over the crest of the falls every minute. Horseshoe Falls is the most powerful waterfall in North America, as measured by flow rate. Niagara Falls is famed for its beauty and is a valuable source of hydroelectric power. Balancing recreational, commercial, and industrial uses has been a challenge for the stewards of the falls since the 19th century.
Niagara Falls is 27 km (17 mi) northwest of Buffalo, New York, and 69 km (43 mi) southeast of Toronto, between the twin cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario, and Niagara Falls, New York. Niagara Falls was formed when glaciers receded at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation (the last ice age), and water from the newly formed Great Lakes carved a path over and through the Niagara Escarpment en route to the Atlantic Ocean.
Horseshoe Falls is about 57 m (187 ft) high, while the height of the American Falls varies between 21 and 30 m (69 and 98 ft) because of the presence of giant boulders at its base. The larger Horseshoe Falls is about 790 m (2,590 ft) wide, while the American Falls is 320 m (1,050 ft) wide. The distance between the American extremity of Niagara Falls and the Canadian extremity is 1,039 m (3,409 ft).
The peak flow over Horseshoe Falls was recorded at 6,370 m3 (225,000 cu ft) per second. The average annual flow rate is 2,400 m3 (85,000 cu ft) per second. Since the flow is a direct function of the Lake Erie water elevation, it typically peaks in late spring or early summer. During the summer months, at least 2,800 m3 (99,000 cu ft) per second of water traverse the falls, some 90% of which goes over Horseshoe Falls, while the balance is diverted to hydroelectric facilities and then on to American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls. This is accomplished by employing a weir – the International Control Dam – with movable gates upstream from Horseshoe Falls.
The water flow is halved at night and during the low tourist season winter months and only attains a minimum flow of 1,400 cubic metres (49,000 cu ft) per second. Water diversion is regulated by the 1950 Niagara Treaty and is administered by the International Niagara Board of Control. The verdant green color of the water flowing over Niagara Falls is a byproduct of the estimated 60 tonnes/minute of dissolved salts and rock flour (very finely ground rock) generated by the erosive force of the Niagara River.
The Niagara River is an Important Bird Area due to its impact on Bonaparte's gulls, ring-billed gulls, and herring gulls. Several thousand birds migrate and winter in the surrounding area.
The features that became Niagara Falls were created by the Wisconsin glaciation about 10,000 years ago. The retreat of the ice sheet left behind a large amount of meltwater (see Lake Algonquin, Lake Chicago, Glacial Lake Iroquois, and Champlain Sea) that filled up the basins that the glaciers had carved, thus creating the Great Lakes as we know them today. Scientists posit there is an old valley, St David's Buried Gorge, buried by glacial drift, at the approximate location of the present Welland Canal.
When the ice melted, the upper Great Lakes emptied into the Niagara River, which followed the rearranged topography across the Niagara Escarpment. In time, the river cut a gorge through the north-facing cliff, or cuesta. Because of the interactions of three major rock formations, the rocky bed did not erode evenly. The caprock formation is composed of hard, erosion-resistant limestone and dolomite of the Lockport Formation (Middle Silurian). That hard layer of stone eroded more slowly than the underlying materials. Immediately below the caprock lies the weaker, softer, sloping Rochester Formation (Lower Silurian). This formation is composed mainly of shale, though it has some thin limestone layers. It also contains ancient fossils. In time, the river eroded the soft layer that supported the hard layers, undercutting the hard caprock, which gave way in great chunks. This process repeated countless times, eventually carving out the falls. Submerged in the river in the lower valley, hidden from view, is the Queenston Formation (Upper Ordovician), which is composed of shales and fine sandstones. All three formations were laid down in an ancient sea, their differences of character deriving from changing conditions within that sea.
About 10,900 years ago, the Niagara Falls was between present-day Queenston, Ontario, and Lewiston, New York, but erosion of the crest caused the falls to retreat approximately 6.8 miles (10.9 km) southward. The shape of Horseshoe Falls has changed through the process of erosion, evolving from a small arch to a horseshoe bend to the present day V-shape. Just upstream from the falls' current location, Goat Island splits the course of the Niagara River, resulting in the separation of Horseshoe Falls to the west from the American and Bridal Veil Falls to the east. Engineering has slowed erosion and recession.
Future of the falls
The current rate of erosion is approximately 30 centimeters (0.98 feet) per year, down from a historical average of 0.91 m (3.0 ft) per year. At this rate, in about 50,000 years Niagara Falls will have eroded the remaining 32 km (20 mi) to Lake Erie, and the falls will cease to exist.
Preservation efforts
In the 1870s, sightseers had limited access to Niagara Falls and often had to pay for a glimpse, and industrialization threatened to carve up Goat Island to further expand commercial development. Other industrial encroachments and lack of public access led to a conservation movement in the U.S. known as Free Niagara, led by such notables as Hudson River School artist Frederic Edwin Church, landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted, and architect Henry Hobson Richardson. Church approached Lord Dufferin, governor-general of Canada, with a proposal for international discussions on the establishment of a public park.
Goat Island was one of the inspirations for the American side of the effort. William Dorsheimer, moved by the scene from the island, brought Olmsted to Buffalo in 1868 to design a city park system, which helped promote Olmsted's career. In 1879, the New York state legislature commissioned Olmsted and James T. Gardner to survey the falls and to create the single most important document in the Niagara preservation movement, a "Special Report on the preservation of Niagara Falls". The report advocated for state purchase, restoration and preservation through public ownership of the scenic lands surrounding Niagara Falls. Restoring the former beauty of the falls was described in the report as a "sacred obligation to mankind". In 1883, New York Governor Grover Cleveland drafted legislation authorizing acquisition of lands for a state reservation at Niagara, and the Niagara Falls Association, a private citizens group founded in 1882, mounted a great letter-writing campaign and petition drive in support of the park. Professor Charles Eliot Norton and Olmsted were among the leaders of the public campaign, while New York Governor Alonzo Cornell opposed.
Preservationists' efforts were rewarded on April 30, 1885, when Governor David B. Hill signed legislation creating the Niagara Reservation, New York's first state park. New York State began to purchase land from developers, under the charter of the Niagara Reservation State Park. In the same year, the province of Ontario established the Queen Victoria Niagara Falls Park for the same purpose. On the Canadian side, the Niagara Parks Commission governs land usage along the entire course of the Niagara River, from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario.
In 1887, Olmsted and Calvert Vaux issued a supplemental report detailing plans to restore the falls. Their intent was "to restore and conserve the natural surroundings of the Falls of Niagara, rather than to attempt to add anything thereto", and the report anticipated fundamental questions, such as how to provide access without destroying the beauty of the falls, and how to restore natural landscapes damaged by man. They planned a park with scenic roadways, paths and a few shelters designed to protect the landscape while allowing large numbers of visitors to enjoy the falls. Commemorative statues, shops, restaurants, and a 1959 glass and metal observation tower were added later. Preservationists continue to strive to strike a balance between Olmsted's idyllic vision and the realities of administering a popular scenic attraction.
Preservation efforts continued well into the 20th century. J. Horace McFarland, the Sierra Club, and the Appalachian Mountain Club persuaded the United States Congress in 1906 to enact legislation to preserve the falls by regulating the waters of the Niagara River. The act sought, in cooperation with the Canadian government, to restrict diversion of water, and a treaty resulted in 1909 that limited the total amount of water diverted from the falls by both nations to approximately 56,000 cubic feet per second (1,600 m3/s). That limitation remained in effect until 1950.
Erosion control efforts have always been of importance. Underwater weirs redirect the most damaging currents, and the top of the falls has been strengthened. In June 1969, the Niagara River was completely diverted from American Falls for several months through construction of a temporary rock and earth dam. During this time, two bodies were removed from under the falls, including a man who had been seen jumping over the falls, and the body of a woman, which was discovered once the falls dried. While Horseshoe Falls absorbed the extra flow, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers studied the riverbed and mechanically bolted and strengthened any faults they found; faults that would, if left untreated, have hastened the retreat of American Falls. A plan to remove the huge mound of talus deposited in 1954 was abandoned owing to cost, and in November 1969, the temporary dam was dynamited, restoring flow to American Falls. Even after these undertakings, Luna Island, the small piece of land between the American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls, remained off limits to the public for years owing to fears that it was unstable and could collapse into the gorge.
Commercial interests have continued to encroach on the land surrounding the state park, including the construction of several tall buildings (most of them hotels) on the Canadian side. The result is a significant alteration and urbanisation of the landscape. One study found that the tall buildings changed the breeze patterns and increased the number of mist days from 29 per year to 68 per year, but another study disputed this idea.
In 2013, New York State began an effort to renovate Three Sisters Islands located south of Goat Island. Funds were used from the re-licensing of the New York Power Authority hydroelectric plant downriver in Lewiston, New York, to rebuild walking paths on the Three Sisters Islands and to plant native vegetation on the islands. The state also renovated the area around Prospect Point at the brink of American Falls in the state park.
Toponymy
Theories differ as to the origin of the name of the falls. The Native American word Ongiara means thundering water; The New York Times used this in 1925. According to Iroquoian scholar Bruce Trigger, Niagara is derived from the name given to a branch of the local native Neutral Confederacy, who are described as the Niagagarega people on several late-17th-century French maps of the area. According to George R. Stewart, it comes from the name of an Iroquois town called Onguiaahra, meaning "point of land cut in two". In 1847, an Iroquois interpreter stated that the name came from Jaonniaka-re, meaning "noisy point or portage". To Mohawks, the name refers to "the neck", pronounced "onyara"; the portage or neck of land between lakes Erie and Ontario onyara.
History
Many figures have been suggested as first circulating a European eyewitness description of Niagara Falls. The Frenchman Samuel de Champlain visited the area as early as 1604 during his exploration of what is now Canada, and members of his party reported to him the spectacular waterfalls, which he described in his journals. The first description of the falls is credited to Belgian missionary, Father Louis Hennepin in 1677, after traveling with the explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, thus bringing the falls to the attention of Europeans. French Jesuit missionary Paul Ragueneau likely visited the falls some 35 years before Hennepin's visit while working among the Huron First Nation in Canada. Jean de Brébeuf also may have visited the falls, while spending time with the Neutral Nation. The Finnish-Swedish naturalist Pehr Kalm explored the area in the early 18th century and is credited with the first scientific description of the falls. In 1762, Captain Thomas Davies, a British Army officer and artist, surveyed the area and painted the watercolor, An East View of the Great Cataract of Niagara, the first eyewitness painting of the falls.
During the 19th century, tourism became popular, and by the mid-century, it was the area's main industry. Theodosia Burr Alston (daughter of Vice President Aaron Burr) and her husband Joseph Alston were the first recorded couple to honeymoon there in 1801. Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Jérôme visited with his bride in the early 19th century. In 1825, British explorer John Franklin visited the falls while passing through New York en route to Cumberland House as part of his second Arctic expedition, calling them "so justly celebrated as the first in the world for grandeur".
In 1843, Frederick Douglass joined the American Anti-Slavery Society's "One Hundred Conventions" tour throughout New York and the midwest. Sometime on this tour, Douglass visited Niagara Falls and wrote a brief account of the experience: "When I came into its awful presence the power of discription failed me, an irrisistible power closed my lips." Being on the Canadian border, Niagara Falls was on one of the routes of the Underground Railroad. The falls were also a popular tourist attraction for Southern slaveowners, who would bring their enslaved workers on the trip. "Many a time the trusted body-servant, or slave-girl, would leave master or mistress in the discharge of some errand, and never come back." This sometimes led to conflict. Early town father Peter Porter assisted slavecatchers in finding runaway slaves, even leading, in the case of runaway Solomon Moseby, to a riot in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada. Much of this history is memorialized in the Niagara Falls Underground Railroad Heritage Center. After the American Civil War, the New York Central Railroad publicized Niagara Falls as a focus of pleasure and honeymoon visits. After World War II, the auto industry, along with local tourism boards, began to promote Niagara honeymoons.
In about 1840, the English industrial chemist Hugh Lee Pattinson traveled to Canada, stopping at Niagara Falls long enough to make the earliest known photograph of the falls, a daguerreotype in the collection of Newcastle University. It was once believed that the small figure standing silhouetted with a top hat was added by an engraver working from imagination as well as the daguerreotype as his source, but the figure is clearly present in the photograph. Because of the very long exposure required, of ten minutes or more, the figure is assumed by Canada's Niagara Parks agency to be Pattinson. The image is left-right inverted and taken from the Canadian side. Pattinson made other photographs of Horseshoe Falls; these were then transferred to engravings to illustrate Noël Marie Paymal Lerebours' Excursions Daguerriennes (Paris, 1841–1864).[55]
On August 6, 1918, an iron scow became stuck on the rocks above the falls. The two men on the scow were rescued, but the vessel remained trapped on rocks in the river, and is still visible there in a deteriorated state, although its position shifted by 50 meters (160 ft) during a storm on October 31, 2019. Daredevil William "Red" Hill Sr. was particularly praised for his role in the rescue.
After the First World War, tourism boomed as automobiles made getting to the falls much easier. The story of Niagara Falls in the 20th century is largely that of efforts to harness the energy of the falls for hydroelectric power, and to control the development on both sides that threaten the area's natural beauty. Before the late 20th century, the northeastern end of Horseshoe Falls was in the United States, flowing around the Terrapin Rocks, which were once connected to Goat Island by a series of bridges. In 1955, the area between the rocks and Goat Island was filled in, creating Terrapin Point. In the early 1980s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers filled in more land and built diversion dams and retaining walls to force the water away from Terrapin Point. Altogether, 400 ft (120 m) of Horseshoe Falls were eliminated, including 100 ft (30 m) on the Canadian side. According to author Ginger Strand, the Horseshoe Falls is now entirely in Canada. Other sources say "most of" Horseshoe Falls is in Canada.
The only recorded freeze-up of the river and falls was caused by an ice jam on March 29, 1848. No water (or at best a trickle) fell for as much as 40 hours. Waterwheels stopped, and mills and factories shut down for having no power. In 1912, American Falls was completely frozen, but the other two falls kept flowing. Although the falls commonly ice up most winters, the river and the falls do not freeze completely. The years 1885, 1902, 1906, 1911, 1932, 1936, 2014, 2017 and 2019 are noted for partial freezing of the falls. A so-called ice bridge was common in certain years at the base of the falls and was used by people who wanted to cross the river before bridges had been built. During some winters, the ice sheet was as thick as 40 to 100 feet (12 to 30 m), but that thickness has not occurred since 1954. The ice bridge of 1841 was said to be at least 100 feet thick. On February 12, 1912, the ice bridge which had formed on January 15 began breaking up while people were still on it. Many escaped, but three died during the event, later named the Ice Bridge Tragedy.
Bridge crossings
A number of bridges have spanned the Niagara River in the general vicinity of the falls. The first, not far from the whirlpool, was a suspension bridge above the gorge. It opened for use by the public in July 1848 and remained in use until 1855. A second bridge in the Upper Falls area was commissioned, with two levels or decks, one for use by the Great Western Railway. This Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge opened in 1855. It was used by conductors on the Underground Railroad to escort runaway slaves to Canada. In 1882, the Grand Trunk Railway took over control of the second deck after it absorbed the Great Western company. Significant structural improvements were made in the late 1870s and then in 1886; this bridge remained in use until 1897.
Because of the volume of traffic, the decision was made to construct a new arch bridge nearby, under and around the existing bridge. After it opened in September 1897, a decision was made to remove and scrap the railway suspension bridge. This new bridge was initially known as the Niagara Railway Arch, or Lower Steel Arch Bridge; it had two decks, the lower one used for carriages and the upper for trains. In 1937, it was renamed the Whirlpool Rapids Bridge and remains in use today. All of the structures built up to that time were referred to as Lower Niagara bridges and were some distance from the falls.
The first bridge in the so-called Upper Niagara area (closer to the falls) was a two-level suspension structure that opened in January 1869; it was destroyed during a severe storm in January 1889. The replacement was built quickly and opened in May 1889. In order to handle heavy traffic, a second bridge was commissioned, slightly closer to American Falls. This one was a steel bridge and opened to traffic in June 1897; it was known as the Upper Steel Arch Bridge but was often called the Honeymoon Bridge. The single level included a track for trolleys and space for carriages and pedestrians. The design led to the bridge being very close to the surface of the river and in January 1938, an ice jam twisted the steel frame of the bridge which later collapsed on January 27, 1938.
Another Lower Niagara bridge had been commissioned in 1883 by Cornelius Vanderbilt for use by railways at a location roughly approximately 200 feet south of the Railway Suspension Bridge. This one was of an entirely different design; it was a cantilever bridge to provide greater strength. The Niagara Cantilever Bridge had two cantilevers which were joined by steel sections; it opened officially in December 1883, and improvements were made over the years for a stronger structure. As rail traffic was increasing, the Michigan Central Railroad company decided to build a new bridge in 1923, to be located between the Lower Steel Arch Bridge and the Cantilever Bridge. The Michigan Central Railway Bridge opened in February 1925 and remained in use until the early 21st century. The Cantilever Bridge was removed and scrapped after the new rail bridge opened. Nonetheless, it was inducted into the North America Railway Hall of Fame in 2006.
There was a lengthy dispute as to which agency should build the replacement for the Niagara Railway Arch, or Lower Steel Arch Bridge in the Upper Niagara area. When that was resolved, construction of a steel bridge commenced in February 1940. Named the Rainbow Bridge, and featuring two lanes for traffic separated by a barrier, it opened in November 1941 and remains in use today.
Industry and commerce
The enormous energy of Niagara Falls has long been recognized as a potential source of power. The first known effort to harness the waters was in 1750, when Daniel Joncaire built a small canal above the falls to power his sawmill. Augustus and Peter Porter purchased this area and all of American Falls in 1805 from the New York state government, and enlarged the original canal to provide hydraulic power for their gristmill and tannery. In 1853, the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power and Mining Company was chartered, which eventually constructed the canals that would be used to generate electricity. In 1881, under the leadership of Jacob F. Schoellkopf, the Niagara River's first hydroelectric generating station was built. The water fell 86 feet (26 m) and generated direct current electricity, which ran the machinery of local mills and lit up some of the village streets.
The Niagara Falls Power Company, a descendant of Schoellkopf's firm, formed the Cataract Company headed by Edward Dean Adams, with the intent of expanding Niagara Falls' power capacity. In 1890, a five-member International Niagara Commission headed by Sir William Thomson among other distinguished scientists deliberated on the expansion of Niagara hydroelectric capacity based on seventeen proposals but could not select any as the best combined project for hydraulic development and distribution. In 1893, Westinghouse Electric (which had built the smaller-scale Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant near Ophir, Colorado, two years earlier) was hired to design a system to generate alternating current on Niagara Falls, and three years after that a large-scale AC power system was created (activated on August 26, 1895). The Adams Power Plant Transformer House remains as a landmark of the original system.
By 1896, financing from moguls including J. P. Morgan, John Jacob Astor IV, and the Vanderbilts had fueled the construction of giant underground conduits leading to turbines generating upwards of 100,000 horsepower (75 MW), sent as far as Buffalo, 20 mi (32 km) away. Some of the original designs for the power transmission plants were created by the Swiss firm Faesch & Piccard, which also constructed the original 5,000 hp (3.7 MW) waterwheels. Private companies on the Canadian side also began to harness the energy of the falls. The Government of Ontario eventually brought power transmission operations under public control in 1906, distributing Niagara's energy to various parts of the Canadian province.
Other hydropower plants were being built along the Niagara River. But in 1956, disaster struck when the region's largest hydropower station was partially destroyed in a landslide. This drastically reduced power production and put tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs at stake. In 1957, Congress passed the Niagara Redevelopment Act, which granted the New York Power Authority the right to fully develop the United States' share of the Niagara River's hydroelectric potential.
In 1961, when the Niagara Falls hydroelectric project went online, it was the largest hydropower facility in the Western world. Today, Niagara is still the largest electricity producer in New York state, with a generating capacity of 2.4 GW. Up to 1,420 cubic metres (380,000 US gal) of water per second is diverted from the Niagara River through conduits under the city of Niagara Falls to the Lewiston and Robert Moses power plants. Currently between 50% and 75% of the Niagara River's flow is diverted via four huge tunnels that arise far upstream from the waterfalls. The water then passes through hydroelectric turbines that supply power to nearby areas of Canada and the United States before returning to the river well past the falls. When electrical demand is low, the Lewiston units can operate as pumps to transport water from the lower bay back up to the plant's reservoir, allowing this water to be used again during the daytime when electricity use peaks. During peak electrical demand, the same Lewiston pumps are reversed and become generators.
To preserve Niagara Falls' natural beauty, a 1950 treaty signed by the U.S. and Canada limited water usage by the power plants. The treaty allows higher summertime diversion at night when tourists are fewer and during the winter months when there are even fewer tourists. This treaty, designed to ensure an "unbroken curtain of water" flowing over the falls, states that during daylight time during the tourist season (April 1 to October 31) there must be 100,000 cubic feet per second (2,800 m3/s) of water flowing over the falls, and during the night and off-tourist season there must be 50,000 cubic feet per second (1,400 m3/s) of water flowing over the falls. This treaty is monitored by the International Niagara Board of Control, using a NOAA gauging station above the falls. During winter, the Power Authority of New York works with Ontario Power Generation to prevent ice on the Niagara River from interfering with power production or causing flooding of shoreline property. One of their joint efforts is an 8,800-foot-long (2,700 m) ice boom, which prevents the buildup of ice, yet allows water to continue flowing downstream. In addition to minimum water volume, the crest of Horseshoe falls was reduced to maintain an uninterrupted "curtain of water".
In August 2005, Ontario Power Generation, which is responsible for the Sir Adam Beck stations, started a major civil engineering project, called the Niagara Tunnel Project, to increase power production by building a new 12.7-metre (42 ft) diameter, 10.2-kilometre-long (6.3 mi) water diversion tunnel. It was officially placed into service in March 2013, helping to increase the generating complex's nameplate capacity by 150 megawatts. It did so by tapping water from farther up the Niagara River than was possible with the preexisting arrangement. The tunnel provided new hydroelectricity for approximately 160,000 homes.
Transport
Ships can bypass Niagara Falls by means of the Welland Canal, which was improved and incorporated into the Saint Lawrence Seaway in the mid-1950s. While the seaway diverted water traffic from nearby Buffalo and led to the demise of its steel and grain mills, other industries in the Niagara River valley flourished with the help of the electric power produced by the river. However, since the 1970s the region has declined economically.
The cities of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, and Niagara Falls, New York, United States, are connected by two international bridges. The Rainbow Bridge, just downriver from the falls, affords the closest view of the falls and is open to non-commercial vehicle traffic and pedestrians. The Whirlpool Rapids Bridge lies one mile (1.6 km) north of the Rainbow Bridge and is the oldest bridge over the Niagara River. Nearby Niagara Falls International Airport and Buffalo Niagara International Airport were named after the waterfall, as were Niagara University, countless local businesses, and even an asteroid.
Over the falls
The first recorded publicity stunt using the Falls was the wreck of the schooner Michigan in 1827. Local hotel owners acquired a former Lake Erie freighter, loaded it with animals and effigies of people, towed it to a spot above the falls and let it plunge over the brink. Admission of fifty cents was charged.
In October 1829, Sam Patch, who called himself "the Yankee Leapster", jumped from a high tower into the gorge below the falls and survived; this began a long tradition of daredevils trying to go over the falls. Englishman Captain Matthew Webb, the first man to swim the English Channel, drowned in 1883 trying to swim the rapids downriver from the falls.
On October 24, 1901, 63-year-old Michigan school teacher Annie Edson Taylor became the first person to go over the falls in a barrel as a publicity stunt; she survived, bleeding, but otherwise unharmed. Soon after exiting the barrel, she said, "No one ought ever do that again." Days before Taylor's attempt, her domestic cat was sent over the falls in her barrel to test its strength. The cat survived the plunge unharmed and later posed with Taylor in photographs. Since Taylor's historic ride, over a dozen people have intentionally gone over the falls in or on a device, despite her advice. Some have survived unharmed, but others have drowned or been severely injured. Survivors face charges and stiff fines, as it is now illegal, on both sides of the border, to attempt to go over the falls. Charles Stephens, a 58-year-old barber from Bristol, England, went over the falls in a wooden barrel in July 1920 and was the first person to die in an endeavor of this type. Bobby Leach went over Horseshoe Falls in a crude steel barrel in 1911 and needed rescuing by William "Red" Hill Sr. Hill again came to the rescue of Leach following his failed attempt to swim the Niagara Gorge in 1920. In 1928, "Smiling Jean" Lussier tried an entirely different concept, going over the falls in a large rubber ball; he was successful and survived the ordeal.
Annie Edson Taylor posing with her wooden barrel (1901)
In the "Miracle at Niagara", on July 9, 1960, Roger Woodward, a seven-year-old American boy, was swept over Horseshoe Falls after the boat in which he was cruising lost power; two tourists pulled his 17-year-old sister Deanne from the river only 20 ft (6.1 m) from the lip of the Horseshoe Falls at Goat Island. Minutes later, Woodward was plucked from the roiling plunge pool beneath Horseshoe Falls after grabbing a life ring thrown to him by the crew of the Maid of the Mist boat. The children's uncle, Jim Honeycutt, who had been steering the boat, was swept over the edge to his death.
On July 2, 1984, Canadian Karel Soucek from Hamilton, Ontario, plunged over Horseshoe Falls in a barrel with only minor injuries. Soucek was fined $500 for performing the stunt without a license. In 1985, he was fatally injured while attempting to re-create the Niagara drop at the Houston Astrodome. His aim was to climb into a barrel hoisted to the rafters of the Astrodome and to drop 180 ft (55 m) into a water tank on the floor. After his barrel released prematurely, it hit the side of the tank, and he died the next day from his injuries.
In August 1985, Steve Trotter, an aspiring stuntman from Rhode Island, became the youngest person ever (age 22) and the first American in 25 years to go over the falls in a barrel. Ten years later, Trotter went over the falls again, becoming the second person to go over the falls twice and survive. It was also the second "duo"; Lori Martin joined Trotter for the barrel ride over the falls. They survived the fall, but their barrel became stuck at the bottom of the falls, requiring a rescue.
On September 28, 1989, Niagara natives Peter DeBernardi and Jeffery James Petkovich became the first "team" to make it over the falls in a two-person barrel. The stunt was conceived by DeBenardi, who wanted to discourage youth from following in his path of addictive drug use. The pair emerged shortly after going over with minor injuries and were charged with performing an illegal stunt under the Niagara Parks Act.
On June 5, 1990, Jesse Sharp, a whitewater canoeist from Tennessee paddled over the falls in a closed deck canoe. He chose not to wear a helmet to make his face more visible for photographs of the event. He also did not wear a life vest because he believed it would hinder his escape from the hydraulics at the base of the falls. His boat flushed out of the falls, but his body was never found. On September 27, 1993, John "David" Munday, of Caistor Centre, Ontario, completed his second journey over the falls. On October 1, 1995, Robert Douglas "Firecracker" Overacker went over the falls on a Jet Ski to raise awareness for the homeless. His rocket-propelled parachute failed to open and he plunged to his death. Overacker's body was recovered before he was pronounced dead at Niagara General Hospital.
Kirk Jones of Canton, Michigan, became the first known person to survive a plunge over Horseshoe Falls without a flotation device on October 20, 2003. According to some reports, Jones had attempted to commit suicide, but he survived the fall with only battered ribs, scrapes, and bruises. Jones tried going over the falls again in 2017, using a large inflatable ball, but died in the process. Later reports revealed that Jones had arranged for a friend to shoot video clips of his stunt.
On March 11, 2009, a man survived an unprotected trip over Horseshoe Falls. When rescued from the river he suffered from severe hypothermia and a large wound to his head. His identity was never released. Eyewitnesses reported seeing the man intentionally enter the water. On May 21, 2012, an unidentified man became the fourth person to survive an unprotected trip over Horseshoe Falls. Eyewitness reports show he "deliberately jumped" into the Niagara River after climbing over a railing. On July 8, 2019, at roughly 4 am, officers responded to a report of a person in crisis at the brink of the Canadian side of the falls. Once officers got to the scene, the man climbed the retaining wall, jumped into the river and went over Horseshoe Falls. Authorities subsequently began to search the lower Niagara River basin, where the man was found alive but injured sitting on the rocks at the water's edge.
Tightrope walkers
Tightrope walkers drew huge crowds to witness their exploits. Their wires ran across the gorge, near the current Rainbow Bridge, not over the waterfall. Jean François "Blondin" Gravelet was the first to cross Niagara Gorge on June 30, 1859, and did so again eight times that year. His most difficult crossing occurred on August 14, when he carried his manager, Harry Colcord, on his back.[114] His final crossing, on September 8, 1860, was witnessed by the Prince of Wales. Author Ginger Strand argues that these performances may have had symbolic meanings at the time relating to slavery and abolition.
Between 1859 and 1896 a wire-walking craze emerged, resulting in frequent feats over the river below the falls. One inexperienced walker slid down his safety rope. Only one man fell to his death, at night and under mysterious circumstances, at the anchoring place for his wire.
Maria Spelterini, a 23-year-old Italian was the first and only woman to cross the Niagara River gorge; she did so on a tightrope on July 8, 1876. She repeated the stunt several times during the same month. During one crossing she was blindfolded and during another, her ankles and wrists were handcuffed.
Among the many competitors was Ontario's William Hunt, who billed himself as "The Great Farini"; his first crossing was in 1860. Farini competed with Blondin in performing outrageous stunts over the gorge. On August 8, 1864, however, an attempt failed and he needed to be rescued.
On June 15, 2012, high wire artist Nik Wallenda became the first person to walk across the falls area in 116 years, after receiving special permission from both governments. The full length of his tightrope was 1,800 feet (550 m). Wallenda crossed near the brink of Horseshoe Falls, unlike walkers who had crossed farther downstream. According to Wallenda, it was the longest unsupported tightrope walk in history. He carried his passport on the trip and was required to present it upon arrival on the Canadian side of the falls.
Tourism
A ring-billed gull flies by a rainbow over the Horseshoe Falls
Peak visitor traffic occurs in the summertime, when Niagara Falls is both a daytime and evening attraction. From the Canadian side, floodlights illuminate both sides of the falls for several hours after dark (until midnight). The number of visitors in 2007 was expected to total 20 million, and by 2009 the annual rate was expected to top 28 million tourists.
The oldest and best known tourist attraction at Niagara Falls is the Maid of the Mist boat cruise, named for an alleged ancient Ongiara Indian mythical character, which has carried passengers into the rapids immediately below the falls since 1846. Cruise boats operate from boat docks on both sides of the falls, with the Maid of the Mist operating from the American side and Hornblower Cruises (originally Maid of the Mist until 2014) from the Canadian side. In 1996, Native American groups threatened to boycott the boat companies if they would not stop playing what they said was a fake story on their boats. The Maid of the Mist dropped the audio.
From the U.S. side, American Falls can be viewed from walkways along Prospect Point Park, which also features the Prospect Point Observation Tower and a boat dock for the Maid of the Mist. Goat Island offers more views of the falls and is accessible by foot and automobile traffic by bridge above American Falls. From Goat Island, the Cave of the Winds is accessible by elevator and leads hikers to a point beneath Bridal Veil Falls. Also on Goat Island are the Three Sisters Islands, the Power Portal where a statue of Nikola Tesla (the inventor whose patents for the AC induction motor and other devices for AC power transmission helped make the harnessing of the falls possible) can be seen, and a walking path that enables views of the rapids, the Niagara River, the gorge, and all of the falls. Most of these attractions lie within the Niagara Falls State Park.
The Niagara Scenic Trolley offers guided trips along American Falls and around Goat Island. Panoramic and aerial views of the falls can also be viewed by helicopter. The Niagara Gorge Discovery Center showcases the natural and local history of Niagara Falls and the Niagara Gorge. A casino and luxury hotel was opened in Niagara Falls, New York, by the Seneca Indian tribe. The Seneca Niagara Casino & Hotel occupies the former Niagara Falls Convention Center. The new hotel is the first addition to the city's skyline since completion of the United Office Building in the 1920s.
On the Canadian side, Queen Victoria Park features manicured gardens, platforms offering views of American, Bridal Veil, and Horseshoe Falls, and underground walkways leading into observation rooms that yield the illusion of being within the falling waters. Along the Niagara River, the Niagara River Recreational Trail runs 35 mi (56 km) from Fort Erie to Fort George, and includes many historical sites from the War of 1812.
The observation deck of the nearby Skylon Tower offers the highest view of the falls, and in the opposite direction gives views as far as Toronto. Along with the Tower Hotel (built as the Seagrams Tower, later renamed the Heritage Tower, the Royal Inn Tower, the Royal Center Tower, the Panasonic Tower, the Minolta Tower, and most recently the Konica Minolta Tower before receiving its current name in 2010), it is one of two towers in Canada with a view of the falls. The Whirlpool Aero Car, built in 1916 from a design by Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres Quevedo, is a cable car that takes passengers over the Niagara Whirlpool on the Canadian side. The Journey Behind the Falls consists of an observation platform and series of tunnels near the bottom of the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side. There are two casinos on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, the Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort and Casino Niagara.
Touring by helicopter over the falls, from both the US and the Canadian side, was described by The New York Times as still popular a year after a serious crash. Although The New York Times had long before described attempting to tour the falls as "bent on suicide" and despite a number of fatal crashes, the "as many as 100 eight-minute rides each day" are hard to regulate; two countries and various government agencies would have to coordinate. These flights have been available "since the early 1960s."
The morning of this shoot was cold and rainy and I was sure we would have to call it off. I met the model at the Beach location and again asked if she wanted to go ahead....off she went to change into her Baywatch Swimmers. Down we went to the Lifeguard Tower along a wet and deserted beach where the Rescue squad were huddled inside in their Winter jackets drinking coffee! When Gigi bounced in they lit up like a Xmas tree and couldn't do enough to help set up the shoot! We only wanted the yellow flotation Bouy...they gave us the whole boat to go with it!
Model: Gigi Coppleman
HMU:Mishel Vounatsos Bratsos.
The Block 10 mine, one of the original BHP leases, was floated as the BHP Block 10 Co. Ltd in 1888. A concentration mill was erected at the mine in the 1890s to treat sulphide ore. Underground subsidence seriously affected the mill and, as a result, a new mill was erected on this hill in 1903, about 600 metres from the mine.
An aerial ropeway, the first at Broken Hill, was completed in 1904. This transported broken ore from the mine to a large storage bin above the mill. The mill cost £50 000 and could treat 3500 tons of ore per week.
The mine produced 2.5 million tons of ore and paid £1.5 million in dividends up to 1923 when it and the mill closed and were purchased by BHP. The mine was reworked by Broken Hill South Ltd between 1946 and 1960. Much of the mine site is now covered by overburden dumps from modern open-cut operations.
The concrete foundations on site are the remnants of the Block 10 concentration mill erected in 1903. The mill, designed by Captain John Warren and containing many of his inventions, was the first all electric mill in Broken Hill.
The aerial ropeway delivered broken ore from the mine to a storage bin above the mill. Broken ore was fed to crushing rolls and then passed to cylindrical trommels and hydraulic classifiers for sizing. Subsequent treatment consisted of wet concentration by jigs, Wilfley tables and vanners. These relied on specific gravity to separate the heavier lead and silver minerals from the zinc minerals. The resultant concentrate contained about two-thirds of the lead and one-half of the silver in the original ore, but very little zinc.
Flotation units were added to the mill in 1910 to produce a zinc concentrate from the tailings. Combined gravity-flotation concentration mills were standard at Broken Hill until after 1930 when the first all-flotation plants were installed.
Source: City Of Broken Hill.
When the beginners in the Avila Beach Junior Lifeguard Program swam out into the ocean and got tired on the way back, there were always some more experienced youngsters around with flotation devices to help them get back to shore.
The following wonderful extracts provide information regarding CM-007/007A, the first specifically pertaining to the circumstances of the photograph. I highly recommend reading both in their entirety:
From an article by Amy Shira Teitel for Popular Science magazine online:
”Spacecraft 007 arrived at NASA’s Manned Spaceflight Center in Houston on April 18, 1966. Designed to test the spacecraft’s post-landing systems – the crew egress, survival, communications, location, power, and ventilation systems astronauts would rely on after returning from the Moon – this test article was a Block I version of the command module with the same configuration as flight articles. There was just one key difference: in place of the ablative heat shield, spacecraft 007’s was made of cork.
The first test in a natural body of water was the first delayed recovery test and it took place in the Gulf of Mexico. It was a run through to see what would happen if, after splashdown, adverse weather or rough seas kept recovery forces from collecting the crew from the ocean. The spacecraft’s systems could give engineers technical data, but they needed human factors data as well and this meant the test had to be manned. In this case, the crew was three volunteer “astronauts” associated with the Apollo program: Texas M. Ward, head of the Apollo egress training program, fellow Apollo astronaut trainer Louis DeWolf, and member of the Apollo Landing and Recovery Division Harry Clancy. Each of these three men knew that sitting in for astronauts on this test would give them a unique perspective on their work, but none were sure what lay in store sitting in a spacecraft at sea for two days.
The test started on Friday, September 30 at 4pm once the main test requirement was met: the water was rough enough to produce the desired three-to-four-foot waves. The three volunteers were strapped into their couches, the hatch was closed, and spacecraft 007 was lowered from the deck of the Motor Vessel Retriever.
The first part of the test was a test of the spacecraft’s ability to right itself. Spacecraft 007 was immediately flipped upside-down to its Stable-Two position (the thin end of the cone was facing down into the water and the heat shield was facing the sky), which left Ward, DeWolf, and Clancy suspended from their harnesses. Before long, the spacecraft’s two electric air compressors inflated the three uprighting bags, flipping the command module to its Stable-One position, the upright (heat shield down) position that had the stand-in astronauts lying comfortably in their couches.
This first objective achieved, the less exciting duration test began. Spacecraft 007 drifted south for 24 hours before starting to move parallel to the coast while a weather front moved through the test area generating waves 12 feet high. All the while, the Retriever was nearby keeping an eye on the spacecraft and establishing voice communication with the crew at least once an hour on the hour. As would be the case on the first two manned Apollo missions, one man out of three men was awake at all times to monitor the spacecraft systems and keep the test operators in the loop.
The test ended on Sunday night, and for the crew this meant a very welcome shower, shave, and steak dinner. The three men unanimously agreed that the test had overall been quite a ride. Especially when things got rough during the flip to Stable-Two and when the waves picked up; during these dynamic moments there was little for the volunteer astronauts to do but hang on. But more importantly, the spacecraft had weathered the rough waves and lengthy float very well. Ward noted that the Apollo spacecraft was a far better boat than the Gemini spacecraft, more stable and comfortable. All in all, the test subjects agreed it was a “pretty seaworthy craft.”
At:
www.popsci.com/blog-network/vintage-space/when-astronauts...
Along with:
“CM-007/007A is a North American Aviation production-line Apollo Command Module (CM) spacecraft designated as a ground test vehicle for water impact, acoustic and vibration, and postlanding tests. The CM was skinned with cork on the aft and crew compartment heat shields to simulate the flight ablator. CM-007 was in the Block I configuration and initially used in impact and acoustic testing at the manufacturer in Downey, California. It was the first Apollo Command Module delivered to the NASA-Manned Spacecraft Center (NASA-MSC) and was assigned to be used in manned postlanding tests to be conducted by the Landing and Recovery Division. These tests included systems operational and crew compatibility tests for uprighting, postlanding ECS, postlanding communications systems and recovery.
After delivery to Houston in April, 1966, CM-007 was prepared for open water tests in the Gulf of Mexico to operationally qualify the Block I CM postlanding systems. The manned Block I 48-hour open water tests in the Gulf of Mexico were successfully conducted with a NASA test subject crew (Harry Clancy, Tex Ward, Lou DeWolf) onboard CM-007 on September 30-October 2, 1966. Following completion of the Block I tests, CM-007 was shipped back to North American Rockwell in 1967 for modification to Block II (CM-101/Apollo 7 had a two-hatch configuration in the tunnel as compared to subsequent missions which had a single unified tunnel hatch configuration.) After modification, CM-007 was designated CM-007A and returned to NASA-MSC for testing. After the modifications, the manned Block II 48-hour open water tests in the Gulf of Mexico were successfully conducted with an astronaut crew (James A. Lovell, Jr., Stuart A. Roosa, and Charles M. Duke, Jr.) onboard CM007A on April 5-7, 1968. After returning to NASA/MSC, the tunnel hatch was reconfigured to the single unified hatch by a contractor team. Additional static water testing of the uprighting system bag failure modes continued in 1968 in NASA-MSC Building-260 water tank.”
At:
www.jonessite.net/upload/LRD/stories/CM007A.pdf
Credit: Coye Mac Jones' website
I wish I had more information regarding Mr. Jones! Other than:
“Welcome to Broomfield in the Denver/Boulder Colorado area. We moved here from Pagosa Springs Colorado almost three years after CMJ retired from NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston TX on 1/3/03 after 38 years of service, including the historic Project Apollo and Space Shuttle Program. We love our cats Rusty and Berry.”
Also:
photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPBNJ4rFImUqIJsn2mpVVvFrwZr0...
Credit: Coye Jones/Google Photos
Finally:
www.museumofflight.org/spacecraft/north-american-aviation...
Credit: 'The Museum of Flight' website
Tangential but pertinent:
ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19730010171/downloads/1973001...
Someone forgot their flotation device at the pool. Elvis noted it on a rainy evening and decided to make a work of art out of it. Made with a Sony Rx1rm2. For more go to www.elviskennedy.com
A Navy helicopter arrives to recover the Apollo 10 astronauts, seen entering a life raft, as the Command Module "Charlie Brown" floats in the South Pacific. U.S. Navy underwater demolition team swimmers assist in the recovery operations. Splashdown occurred at 12:53 p.m. eastern time, May 26, 1969, about 400 miles east of American Samoa. Note that in this photo the divers have attached a flotation collar to the spacecraft.
Credit: NASA
Image Number: S69-21036
Date: May 26, 1969