The Himalayas or Himalaya (/ˌhɪməˈleɪ.ə/ or /hɪˈmɑːləjə/) is a mountain range in the Indian subcontinent, which separates the Indo-Gangetic Plain from the Tibetan Plateau. Geopolitically, it covers the Himalayan states and regions. This range is home to nine of the ten highest peaks on Earth, including the highest above sea level, Mount Everest. The Himalayas have profoundly shaped the cultures of South Asia. Many Himalayan peaks are sacred in Dharmic religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism.

 

The Himalayas are bordered on the north by the Tibetan Plateau, on the south by the Indo-Gangetic Plain, on the northwest by the Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges and on the east by the Indian states of Sikkim, the Darjeeling district of West Bengal, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur. The Hindu Kush, Karakoram and Himalayas together form the "Hindu Kush Himalayan Region" (HKH). The western anchor of the Himalayas, Nanga Parbat, lies just south of the northernmost bend of the Indus River; the eastern anchor, Namcha Barwa, is just west of the great bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo River. The Himalayas span five countries: Nepal, India, Bhutan, China (Tibet), and Pakistan, the first three countries having sovereignty over most of the range.

 

Lifted by the collision of the Indian tectonic plate with the Eurasian Plate, the Himalayan range runs northwest to southeast in a 2,400-kilometre-long arc. The range varies in width from 400 kilometres in the west to 150 kilometres in the east. Besides the Greater Himalayas, there are several parallel lower ranges. The southernmost, along the northern edge of the Indian plains and reaching 1000 m in altitude, is the Sivalik Hills. Further north is a higher range, reaching 2000–3000 m, known as the Lower Himalayan Range.

 

Three of the world's major rivers (the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra) arise in the Himalayas. While the Indus and the Brahmaputra rise near Mount Kailash in Tibet, the Ganges rises in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. Their combined drainage basin is home to some 600 million people.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The name Himālaya is from Sanskrit: hima (snow) + ālaya (dwelling), and literally means "abode of snow"

 

ECOLOGY

The flora and fauna of the Himalayas vary with climate, rainfall, altitude, and soils. The climate ranges from tropical at the base of the mountains to permanent ice and snow at the highest elevations. The amount of yearly rainfall increases from west to east along the southern front of the range. This diversity of altitude, rainfall and soil conditions combined with the very high snow line supports a variety of distinct plant and animal communities. The extremes of high altitude (low atmospheric pressure) combined with extreme cold favor extremophile organisms.

 

The unique floral and faunal wealth of the Himalayas is undergoing structural and compositional changes due to climate change. The increase in temperature is shifting various species to higher elevations. The oak forest is being invaded by pine forests in the Garhwal Himalayan region. There are reports of early flowering and fruiting in some tree species, especially rhododendron, apple and box myrtle. The highest known tree species in the Himalayas is Juniperus tibetica located at 4,900 metres in Southeastern Tibet.

 

GEOLOGY

The Himalayan range is one of the youngest mountain ranges on the planet and consists mostly of uplifted sedimentary and metamorphic rock. According to the modern theory of plate tectonics, its formation is a result of a continental collision or orogeny along the convergent boundary between the Indo-Australian Plate and the Eurasian Plate. The Arakan Yoma highlands in Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal were also formed as a result of this collision.

 

During the Upper Cretaceous, about 70 million years ago, the north-moving Indo-Australian plate (which has subsequently broken into the Indian Plate and the Australian plate) was moving at about 15 cm per year. About 50 million years ago this fast moving Indo-Australian plate had completely closed the Tethys Ocean, the existence of which has been determined by sedimentary rocks settled on the ocean floor, and the volcanoes that fringed its edges. Since both plates were composed of low density continental crust, they were thrust faulted and folded into mountain ranges rather than subducting into the mantle along an oceanic trench. An often-cited fact used to illustrate this process is that the summit of Mount Everest is made of marine limestone from this ancient ocean.

 

Today, the Indian plate continues to be driven horizontally below the Tibetan Plateau, which forces the plateau to continue to move upwards. The Indian plate is still moving at 67 mm per year, and over the next 10 million years it will travel about 1,500 km into Asia. About 20 mm per year of the India-Asia convergence is absorbed by thrusting along the Himalaya southern front. This leads to the Himalayas rising by about 5 mm per year, making them geologically active. The movement of the Indian plate into the Asian plate also makes this region seismically active, leading to earthquakes from time to time.

 

During the last ice age, there was a connected ice stream of glaciers between Kangchenjunga in the east and Nanga Parbat in the west. In the west, the glaciers joined with the ice stream network in the Karakoram, and in the north, joined with the former Tibetan inland ice. To the south, outflow glaciers came to an end below an elevation of 1,000–2,000 metres. While the current valley glaciers of the Himalaya reach at most 20 to 32 kilometres in length, several of the main valley glaciers were 60 to 112 kilometres long during the ice age. The glacier snowline (the altitude where accumulation and ablation of a glacier are balanced) was about 1,400–1,660 metres lower than it is today. Thus, the climate was at least 7.0 to 8.3 °C colder than it is today.

 

HYDROLOGY

The Himalayas contain the third-largest deposit of ice and snow in the world, after Antarctica and the Arctic. The Himalayan range encompasses about 15,000 glaciers, which store about 12,000 km3 of fresh water. Its glaciers include the Gangotri and Yamunotri (Uttarakhand) and Khumbu glaciers (Mount Everest region), Langtang glacier (Langtang region) and Zemu (Sikkim).

 

Owing to the mountains' latitude near the Tropic of Cancer, the permanent snow line is among the highest in the world at typically around 5,500 metres. In contrast, equatorial mountains in New Guinea, the Rwenzoris and Colombia have a snow line some 900 metres lower. The higher regions of the Himalayas are snowbound throughout the year, in spite of their proximity to the tropics, and they form the sources of several large perennial rivers, most of which combine into two large river systems:

 

- The western rivers, of which the Indus is the largest, combine into the Indus Basin. The Indus begins in Tibet at the confluence of Sengge and Gar rivers and flows southwest through India and then through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. It is fed by the Jhelum, the Chenab, the Ravi, the Beas, and the Sutlej rivers, among others.

- Most of the other Himalayan rivers drain the Ganges-Brahmaputra Basin. Its main rivers are the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Yamuna, as well as other tributaries. The Brahmaputra originates as the Yarlung Tsangpo River in western Tibet, and flows east through Tibet and west through the plains of Assam. The Ganges and the Brahmaputra meet in Bangladesh, and drain into the Bay of Bengal through the world's largest river delta, the Sunderbans.

 

The easternmost Himalayan rivers feed the Irrawaddy River, which originates in eastern Tibet and flows south through Myanmar to drain into the Andaman Sea.

 

The Salween, Mekong, Yangtze and Huang He (Yellow River) all originate from parts of the Tibetan Plateau that are geologically distinct from the Himalaya mountains, and are therefore not considered true Himalayan rivers. Some geologists refer to all the rivers collectively as the circum-Himalayan rivers. In recent years, scientists have monitored a notable increase in the rate of glacier retreat across the region as a result of global climate change. For example, glacial lakes have been forming rapidly on the surface of debris-covered glaciers in the Bhutan Himalaya during the last few decades. Although the effect of this will not be known for many years, it potentially could mean disaster for the hundreds of millions of people who rely on the glaciers to feed the rivers during the dry seasons.

 

LAKES

The Himalayan region is dotted with hundreds of lakes. Most lakes are found at altitudes of less than 5,000 m, with the size of the lakes diminishing with altitude. Tilicho Lake in Nepal in the Annapurna massif is one of the highest lakes in the world. Pangong Tso, which is spread across the border between India and China, and Yamdrok Tso, located in central Tibet, are amongst the largest with surface areas of 700 km², and 638 km², respectively. Other notable lakes include She-Phoksundo Lake in the Shey Phoksundo National Park of Nepal, Gurudongmar Lake, in North Sikkim, Gokyo Lakes in Solukhumbu district of Nepal and Lake Tsongmo, near the Indo-China border in Sikkim.

 

Some of the lakes present a danger of a glacial lake outburst flood. The Tsho Rolpa glacier lake in the Rowaling Valley, in the Dolakha District of Nepal, is rated as the most dangerous. The lake, which is located at an altitude of 4,580 metres has grown considerably over the last 50 years due to glacial melting.

 

The mountain lakes are known to geographers as tarns if they are caused by glacial activity. Tarns are found mostly in the upper reaches of the Himalaya, above 5,500 metres.

 

IMPACT ON CLIMATE

The Himalayas have a profound effect on the climate of the Indian subcontinent and the Tibetan Plateau. They prevent frigid, dry winds from blowing south into the subcontinent, which keeps South Asia much warmer than corresponding temperate regions in the other continents. It also forms a barrier for the monsoon winds, keeping them from traveling northwards, and causing heavy rainfall in the Terai region. The Himalayas are also believed to play an important part in the formation of Central Asian deserts, such as the Taklamakan and Gobi.

 

RELIGIOUS OF THE REGION

In Hinduism, the Himalayas have been personified as the god Himavat, father of Ganga and Parvati.

 

Several places in the Himalayas are of religious significance in Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism. A notable example of a religious site is Paro Taktsang, where Padmasambhava is said to have founded Buddhism in Bhutan. Padmasambhava is also worshipped as the patron saint of Sikkim.

 

A number of Vajrayana Buddhist sites are situated in the Himalayas, in Tibet, Bhutan and in the Indian regions of Ladakh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Spiti and Darjeeling. There were over 6,000 monasteries in Tibet, including the residence of the Dalai Lama. Bhutan, Sikkim and Ladakh are also dotted with numerous monasteries. The Tibetan Muslims have their own mosques in Lhasa and Shigatse.

 

RESOURCES

The Himalayas are home to a diversity of medicinal resources. Plants from the forests have been used for millennia to treat conditions ranging from simple coughs to snake bites. Different parts of the plants - root, flower, stem, leaves, and bark - are used as remedies for different ailments. For example, a bark extract from an abies pindrow tree is used to treat coughs and bronchitis. Leaf and stem paste from an arachne cordifolia is used for wounds and as an antidote for snake bites. The bark of a callicarpa arborea is used for skin ailments. Nearly a fifth of the gymnosperms, angiosperms, and pteridophytes in the Himalayas are found to have medicinal properties, and more are likely to be discovered.

 

Most of the population in some Asian and African countries depend on medicinal plants rather than prescriptions and such (Gupta and Sharma, vii). Since so many people use medicinal plants as their only source of healing in the Himalayas, the plants are an important source of income. This contributes to economic and modern industrial development both inside and outside the region (Gupta and Sharma, 5). The only problem is that locals are rapidly clearing the forests on the Himalayas for wood, often illegally (Earth Island Journal, 2). This means that the number of medicinal plants is declining and that some of them might become rarer or, in some cases, go extinct.

 

Although locals are clearing out portions of the forests in the Himalayas, there is still a large amount of greenery ranging from the tropical forests to the Alpine forests. These forests provide wood for fuel and other raw materials for use by industries. There are also many pastures for animals to graze upon (Mohita, sec. Forest and Wealth). The many varieties of animals that live in these mountains do so based on the elevation. For example, elephants and rhinoceros live in the lower elevations of the Himalayas, also called the Terai region. Also, found in these mountains are the Kashmiri stag, black bears, musk deer, langur, and snow leopards. The Tibetan yak are also found on these mountains and are often used by the people for transportation. However, the populations of many of these animals and still others are declining and are on the verge of going extinct (Admin, sec. Flora and Fauna).

 

The Himalayas are also a source of many minerals and precious stones. Amongst the tertiary rocks, are vast potentials of mineral oil. There is coal located in Kashmir, and precious stones located in the Himalayas. There is also gold, silver, copper, zinc, and many other such minerals and metals located in at least 100 different places in these mountains (Mohita, sec. Minerals).

 

CULTURE

There are many cultural aspects of the Himalayas. For the Hindus, the Himalayas are personified as Himavath, the father of the goddess Parvati (Gupta and Sharma, 4). The Himalayas is also considered to be the father of the river Ganges. The Mountain Kailash is a sacred peak to the Hindus and is where the Lord Shiva is believed to live (Admin, sec. Centre of Religion). Two of the most sacred places of pilgrimage for the Hindus is the temple complex in Pashupatinath and Muktinath, also known as Saligrama because of the presence of the sacred black rocks called saligrams (Zurick, Julsun, Basanta, and Birendra, 153).

 

The Buddhists also lay a great deal of importance on the mountains of the Himalayas. Paro Taktsang is the holy place where Buddhism started in Bhutan (Admin, sec. Centre of Religion). The Muktinath is also a place of pilgrimage for the Tibetan Buddhists. They believe that the trees in the poplar grove came from the walking sticks of eighty-four ancient Indian Buddhist magicians or mahasiddhas. They consider the saligrams to be representatives of the Tibetan serpent deity known as Gawo Jagpa (Zurick, Julsun, Basanta, and Birendra, 153).

 

The Himalayan people’s diversity shows in many different ways. It shows through their architecture, their languages and dialects, their beliefs and rituals, as well as their clothing (Zurick, Julsun, Basanta, and Birendra, 78). The shapes and materials of the people’s homes reflect their practical needs and the beliefs. Another example of the diversity amongst the Himalayan peoples is that handwoven textiles display unique colors and patterns that coincide with their ethnic backgrounds. Finally, some people place a great importance on jewelry. The Rai and Limbu women wear big gold earrings and nose rings to show their wealth through their jewelry (Zurick, Julsun, Basanta, and Birendra, 79).

 

WIKIPEDIA

highest point in Nottinghamshire

Designed by Robert Stevenson and first lit in 1833, Barra Head Lighthouse is the highest above sea level in the UK at 208 metres. There is nothing between here and America. When it was manned keepers reported finding fish at the top of the cliffs such is the power of sea in this place.

[1]

Broadway Tower was inspired by the famous Capability Brown and completed in 1799 from designs by the renowned architect James Wyatt. It was built for the Earl of Coventry as a folly to his Springhill Estate and dedicated to his wife Peggy.

 

Legend has it Broadway Tower was used as a signalling tower between Springhill Estate and Croome Court near Worcester, which can be seen from the roof platform.

 

Many famous people have had association with Broadway Tower, including Sir Thomas Phillips and the pre-Raphaelite artists William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones and Rosetti.

 

Broadway Tower is open to the public allowing you to travel into the past of this important building and visit the viewing platform constituting the highest point in the Cotswolds at 1089 feet or 331.6 metres altitude.

 

[2]

Broadway Tower is a folly located on Broadway Hill, near the village of Broadway, in the English county of Worcestershire, at the second highest point of the Cotswolds after Cleeve Hill. Broadway Tower's base is 1,024 feet (312 metres) above sea level. The tower itself stands 55 feet (17 metres) high.

 

The "Saxon" tower was designed by James Wyatt in 1794 to resemble a mock castle, and built for Lady Coventry in 1799. The tower was built on a "beacon" hill, where beacons were lit on special occasions. Lady Coventry wondered if a beacon on this hill could be seen from her house in Worcester - approximately 22 miles (35 km) away - and sponsored the construction of the folly to find out. The beacon could be seen clearly.

 

Over the years, the tower was home to the printing press of Sir Thomas Phillips, and served as a country retreat for artists including William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones who rented it together in the 1880s.

 

Today, the tower is a tourist attraction and the centre of a country park with various exhibitions open to the public at a fee as well as a gift shop. The place is on the Cotswold Way and can be reached by following the Cotswold Way from the A44 road at Fish Hill, or by a steep climb out of Broadway village. Near the tower is a memorial to the crew of an A.W.38 Whitley bomber that crashed there during a training mission in June 1943.

in front of the Jbel Ayyachi with 3747 m East-Morocs highest mountains!

Highest position on Explore: #148 on Wednesday, March 9, 2011

555-room Shanghai Grand Hyatt hotel which occupies floors 53 to 87. It is one of the highest hotels in the world.

this view is from the 87th floor.

 

The Hyatt's famous barrel-vaulted atrium starts at the 56th floor and extends upwards to the 85th. Lined with 28 annular corridors and staircases arrayed in a spiral, it is 27 m in diameter with a clear height of approximately 115 m. It is one of the tallest atriums in the world.

 

54/F: The hotel lobby and Grand café, served by an express elevator from the tower's ground floor.

55/F: Canton, a high-end Cantonese restaurant that takes up the entire floor.

56/F: On Fifty-Six, a collection of restaurants including The Grill, the Italian Cucina, the Japanese Kobachi, and the Patio Lounge, which is located at the base of the atrium.

57/F: Club Oasis, a fitness club featuring the world's highest swimming pool.

85/F: Highest rooms; this is also a transfer level for the elevators going to the two floors above.

86/F: Club Jin Mao, a Shanghainese restaurant.

 

The observatorium is nice to have a round view of Shanghai...if weather is on your side. For this image you can save the entrance fee for the observatorium and just take elevators to the rooms.

Highest Explore Position #416 ~ On Thursday November 5th 2009.

 

Fennec Fox - Colchester Zoo, Colchester, Essex, England - Monday November 2nd 2009.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Fennec Fox (Vulpes zerda) is a small nocturnal fox found in the north of the Sahara Desert of North Africa which has distinctively large ears. Its name comes from the Arabic fenek, a term for various fur-bearing animals.

The Fennec Fox weighs up to 1.5 kg (3 lb) with a body length of up to 40 cm (16 in). The tail is an additional 25 cm (10 in) or so, and the ears can be 15 cm (6 in) long. The coats are often a sandy color, allowing them to blend with their desert surroundings. Its characteristic ears serve to dissipate heat and to hear the movement of prey at night. Its ears are sensitive enough to hear large insects, such as beetles and locusts, walk on the sand.[citation needed] Its coat reflects sunlight during the day and conserves heat at night. The soles of its feet are protected from the hot sand by thick fur.

The Fennec Fox is a nocturnal omnivore. At night, it hunts rodents, insects, birds, and eggs of birds. Much of the diet is desert vegetation, from which the Fennec Fox gets most of its water. This consists of grasses, some roots, and some fruit and berries.

 

Reproduction ~ Breeding season normally starts in January then runs through March. After about 52 days of gestation, a female gives birth to a litter of 2-5 young. She keeps males out of the den until the offspring are older. The young rely on their mother's milk for about a month. The mother usually gives birth once a year, twice a year is possible but very rare.

Population ~ The Fennec Fox is classified under CITES as an Appendix II species: species not necessarily threatened with extinction, but whose trade must be controlled to avoid utilization incompatible with their survival. It is often hunted by humans, though it does not cause any direct harm to human interests. Like other foxes, it is prized for its fur by the indigenous people of the Sahara and Sinai.

 

Classification ~ There is debate among scientists as to whether the Fennec Fox belongs to the genus Vulpes (true foxes). It has uncharacteristic behaviors, such as packs called 'harems' while all other foxes are solitary. It also has only 32 chromosome pairs, while other foxes have 35 to 39. This has led to two conflicting classifications: Vulpes zerda, implying that the Fennec Fox is a true fox, and Fennecus zerda, implying that the Fennec Fox belongs to its own genus.

 

As Pets ~ The Fennec Fox is considered the only species of fox which can properly be kept as a pet. Although it cannot be considered domesticated, it can be kept in a domestic setting similar to dogs or cats. This is legal in the USA, Canada, Japan and other countries. In the United States and Canada there is a relatively established community of Fennec Fox owners and breeders.

 

Pet Fennec Foxes, being the most social among foxes, are usually very friendly towards strangers and other household pets. However, they are extremely active, and need outlets for their energy; they may exhaust other household pets with their playfulness. Moreover, instinctual behaviors, such as hiding caches of food in case of famine and attempting to burrow into furniture to build a nest, can also add to the difficulty of their care. Fennec Foxes are often not able to be housebroken, although a few owners have reported being able to litter-train their Fennec Foxes.

Several factors make it important to ensure that a pet does not escape. Its speed and agility (they can jump four times their own body length), along with their natural chase instinct, creates the risk of a Fennec Fox slipping its harness or collar. Since it is also an adept digger (it can dig up to 20 feet (6.1 m) a night in its natural environment), outdoor pens and fences must be extended several feet below ground. Escaped Fennec Foxes are extremely difficult to recapture.

Any diet in a domestic setting should reflect their diet in the wild. Though omnivorous, a great deal of their diet consists of meat and protein sources like insects. Food sources commonly used include high quality meat-rich dog food, wild canine food brands, cat food, raw meats, insects, mealworms and custom dietary mixtures.

The legality of owning a Fennec Fox varies by jurisdiction, as with many exotic pets. Also, being considered an exotic animal, not all veterinarians will treat them.

View from Mt Ossa, Tasmania's highest mountain, to Pelion West. Feb 82

 

This highest range version of the mighty Montego, the Vanden Plas version did not feature a huge chrome nose like previous Leyland models, but instead was styled internally by the company to give a highly competitive luxury motor for the discerning business executive, complete with walnut veneer and leather seats.

 

Jointly, this was British Leyland's last model to be released before the company was rebranded as the Rover Group. Carrying the Austin badge, the car was built to kill off many ageing British Leyland products, including the Austin Allegro, the Austin Ambassador (an updated version of the Princess) and the Morris Ital (an updated version of the Marina). Competing with the likes of the Vauxhall Cavalier and the Ford Sierra, the Montego was built to similar principals as the Austin Maestro (essentially a hatchback version of this model).

 

After 1986, the Austin badge was dropped and the Montego was sold with no badge apart from its name. Despite being a rather humdrum motor, it was in fact quite profitable, especially the very spacious family estate version. Production of this car ceased in 1994, bringing an end to what was essentially the last Austin. However, a bootlegged version of both the Maestro and the Montego was produced in China from 1998 onwards, combining the nose of a Montego with the body of a Maestro. One of these essential Rip-offs was featured in an episode of Top Gear.

 

I personally always had a love for the Montego and Maestro as they always seemed like very happy cars, the Montego especially. It was also a very desirable machine back in the 1990's when I was growing up, with a lot of my friends parents owning either this or the Maestro, citing its apparently good build quality and spacious interior. Needless to say the cars they owned were later models built in the early 1990's!

[1]

Broadway Tower was inspired by the famous Capability Brown and completed in 1799 from designs by the renowned architect James Wyatt. It was built for the Earl of Coventry as a folly to his Springhill Estate and dedicated to his wife Peggy.

 

Legend has it Broadway Tower was used as a signalling tower between Springhill Estate and Croome Court near Worcester, which can be seen from the roof platform.

 

Many famous people have had association with Broadway Tower, including Sir Thomas Phillips and the pre-Raphaelite artists William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones and Rosetti.

 

Broadway Tower is open to the public allowing you to travel into the past of this important building and visit the viewing platform constituting the highest point in the Cotswolds at 1089 feet or 331.6 metres altitude.

 

[2]

Broadway Tower is a folly located on Broadway Hill, near the village of Broadway, in the English county of Worcestershire, at the second highest point of the Cotswolds after Cleeve Hill. Broadway Tower's base is 1,024 feet (312 metres) above sea level. The tower itself stands 55 feet (17 metres) high.

 

The "Saxon" tower was designed by James Wyatt in 1794 to resemble a mock castle, and built for Lady Coventry in 1799. The tower was built on a "beacon" hill, where beacons were lit on special occasions. Lady Coventry wondered if a beacon on this hill could be seen from her house in Worcester - approximately 22 miles (35 km) away - and sponsored the construction of the folly to find out. The beacon could be seen clearly.

 

Over the years, the tower was home to the printing press of Sir Thomas Phillips, and served as a country retreat for artists including William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones who rented it together in the 1880s.

 

Today, the tower is a tourist attraction and the centre of a country park with various exhibitions open to the public at a fee as well as a gift shop. The place is on the Cotswold Way and can be reached by following the Cotswold Way from the A44 road at Fish Hill, or by a steep climb out of Broadway village. Near the tower is a memorial to the crew of an A.W.38 Whitley bomber that crashed there during a training mission in June 1943.

The new highest!

Highest Explore Position #324 ~ On Saturday 31st October 2009.

 

Red Deer Stag - Richmond Park, Richmond, London, England - Sunday October 25th 2009.

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From ~ www.ypte.org.uk/animal/deer-red-/68 ~ ~ Red deer~ : Cervus elaphus .

 

Distribution~: in Britain it is mainly present in Scotland and the Scottish Islands, the Lake District, Exmoor, Quantock Hills, New Forest, & Thetford Forest.

 

Habitat~: grassland, forest, mountains & moorland; most numerous on moorland & upland grassland in the Scottish Highlands.

 

Description~: bright red-brown summer coat, longer, thicker & browner in winter. Buff-coloured rump. Male (stag) has antlers.

 

Size~: height at withers up to 122cm. Length from 175cm to 285cm. Female (hind) is slightly smaller than stag: Weight :- 100 - 120 kg.

 

Life-span~: stag about 10 years, hind 12 years.

 

Food~: mainly grasses, heather, leaves and twigs.

 

The red deer is Britain's largest land mammal. Although native to Britain, it is also found in southern Scandinavia, Turkey and as far as China and Mongolia. It has been introduced to Argentina, Australia and New Zealand.

Red Deer Habits ~ ~ Territory ~ . Stags and hinds live in separate herds for most of the year, each keeping to a well-defined territory. Deer in woodland live in small groups but highland deer usually live in larger herds, moving up the hillsides by day to feed and shelter in the deeper heather or woods at night. Summer and winter territories are different. In winter the herds move to lower ground where there is more shelter, and in summer they keep to the higher slopes.

Habitat & Feeding. The natural habitat of the red deer is forest, but as the great forests of Britain were felled over the centuries, most of them were forced to live on exposed moorland, moving into wooded plantations during severe winter weather.

The deer are browsers by nature, pulling off leaves from oak, birch and rowan trees. They will also eat twigs, ivy and lichen from trees, especially during the winter. In open habitats, the deer become mainly grazers, cropping grass and browsing from small shrubs such as heather. Feeding takes place mainly during the early morning and evening, the deer resting and ruminating (chewing the cud) by day.

Breeding. From about mid-September until the end of October, the 'rutting' season takes place, when the herds split up and the mature stags try to collect a harem of hinds together. A stag of about five years old is in his prime at the start of the rut, with fully developed antlers, a thick neck with a heavy mane and plenty of fat reserves.

A stag will go to a peaty bog or muddy pool to wallow, covering its body with mud which helps to spread its strong rutting scent all over the body. Rutting stags also roar at each other - a deep bellowing sound - challenging each other. Two rival stags may sometimes walk slowly beside each other, a little apart, assessing each other's strength. The weaker one may walk away but if they seem to be evenly matched then they may begin to fight. They may clash their foreheads or just spar with their antlers. The stags may become injured during a fight but they rarely kill each other. On rare occasions the antlers of fighting stags become entangled so they cannot unlock them and they both starve to death.

The most successful stags manage to collect up to forty hinds in their harems and they spend most of their time endlessly patrolling a circle of ground around the hinds, chasing away any challengers, trying to prevent the hinds from straying and mating with each one as she becomes receptive. They hardly have any time to eat, and by the end of the rut, the stags are thin and exhausted.

The gestation period of the Red Deer is 225 - 270 days and the hind gives birth to a single calf (rarely two) in May to mid June. A hind about to give birth leaves her herd and finds a secluded spot, perhaps among bracken, to drop her calf. A young calf is brown with white spots and is well-camouflaged against a background of vegetation. It can get to its feet within a few minutes, can suckle ten minutes later and is able to run after a few hours. During the first few days of life, the calf is left hidden in the undergrowth when the hind is away feeding. After three or four weeks, the calf will follow the same routine as the adults. A calf is weaned at 8 - 10 months but stays with its mother until she gives birth again. Young stags stay with the hind herds until about three years of age.

Antlers ~ . A young stag's first antlers are normally small spikes and at this stage he is known as a 'knobber'. Stags over two years old begin to grow branching antlers and more points or 'tines' are added each time a new set of antlers is grown, until there are twelve points, the head of antlers then being a 'royal'. Antlers are made of solid bone and as soon as they are shed, usually in March or April, a skin (called velvet) grows over the bony stump; this is richly supplied with blood vessels and nerves and bone is laid down within it. When the antlers have reached full size the blood supply to the velvet is cut off. The velvet begins to die and the stag rubs it off against branches and young trees, and eats it.

The size of the antlers is related to the quality of the diet of the stag. Those living in forests have larger antlers than those grazing on moorland. If some minerals or vitamins are lacking then the antlers may be stunted. Stags in the Highlands chew their old antlers when they drop off to replace the minerals needed to grow a new set, which are missing from the peaty soil of their habitat.

Red Deer and Man ~ The red deer has always been hunted by man for its meat, known as venison, and for sport. In Roman times, coaches were pulled by teams of red deer during ceremonial processions connected with the worship of Diana, the goddess of hunting.

Today, man is the adult deer's only predator. Calves are sometimes taken by carnivores such as foxes, Scottish wild cats and golden eagles, but the wolf, which may well have once been the red deer's main predator, became extinct in Britain during the 18th Century.

Most British herds are managed by keepers and herds have to be culled (selectively killed) each year, so that their numbers do not outgrow the food supply. Culling also removes the sick, weak and old individuals so that the herd is made up of strong and healthy animals. The venison is usually sold to help to pay for the upkeep of the herd.

The red deer is quite common in suitable habitats and even increasing. It is protected both as a game animal for hunting and as an ornamental animal in parks. Red deer farming is becoming increasingly popular, the animals being raised in a similar way to cattle.

Shot with a "macro lense for Fuji Cheki". Focus distance about 30cm, distance mode at 0.8m.

LOMO LC-A/Lomography X-Pro100(X-processed)

Capital of Chiang Mai province with a city population of 148,477 (2008).The city is 700 km ( 435 miles ) north of Bangkok and covers an area of 20,107 sq km .The province has some of the highest mountains in Thailand and the city stands on the river Ping, which is a major tributary of the Chao Phraya river which runs through Bangkok.The people speak Khan Muang also known as Northern Thai or Lanna.Chaing Mai has one of the most famous temples in Thailand standing on the Doi Suthip, a hill to the north west of the city. Known as Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep this temple dates from 1383.However that being said Chiang Mai province has over 300 temples.

Also there is the National Park at Doi Inthanon, Dokmai gardens which has over 650 plant species including 120 different vegetables.There is the Elephant nature park 60 km ( 37 miles ) north of the city where many rescued elephants reside. Hillside tribe tourism and trekking which mostly involves visits to the various local hill tribes including Akha / Hmong / Karen & Lisa tribes.

Shopping is great in Chaing Mai with the local night bazaar that stretches over many main streets, side streets and shopping mall areas. On Sunday evening the handicraft and food market is held at Rachadamnoen road. Getting to Chiang Mai from Bangkok could not be easier there are up to 14 trains a day which takes about 12 to 15 hours overnight. Flights from BKK up to 28 a day and takes about one hour ten minutes. Hotels and tours are well catered for within the airport at Chiang Mai.

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep is a Theravada Wat in Chiang Mai Province, Thailand. The temple is often referred to as Doi Suthep although this is actually the name of the mountain where it's located. It is a sacred site to many Thai people. The temple is 15 kilometres ( 9.3 miles ) from the city of Chiang Mai. From the temple, impressive views of Chiang Mai can be seen. is the wondrous and holy temple of Wat Phra That which is located near the top of Doi Suthep ( Mount Suthep ). The temple is simply referred to as Doi Suthep by most people. Every tuk-tuk and Songthaew driver in Chiang Mai will offer to take you on the 15 kilometre trip up the winding mountain road to Doi Suthep. Built as a Buddhist monastery in 1383 it is still a working monastery today. Funds raised by donations and the lift fee go to support the monks living there and for maintenance of the various temple buildings. The architecture, statues, murals and shrines seen here are nothing short of breathtaking.

On arrival at Doi Suthep you will be in a large car park, the temple complex is up the side of the mountain beside the car park. Starting with a walk up the 300 steps of the intricately carved mythical Naga Serpent Staircase you begin to marvel at the splendour of your surroundings. For those that do not fancy the 300 step climb up to the complex, you can go up the lift for 30 Baht and walk down the staircase when you have finished. On reaching the top you are greeted with the sight of the golden spire which decorates the centre of the mountain top temple. The walls around the spire form a mini enclave and are richly decorated with historical murals and shrines. Here you find a beautiful copy of the Emerald Buddha statue on display. The real Emerald Buddha statue is now in Bangkok.

Doi Suthep mountain rises about 1000 metres ( 3,542 ft ) above sea level; there are fine views over the city of Chiang Mai to be had from the temple's lower terrace. The terrace is surrounded by large bells that are rung by pilgrims to bring good luck. On the northwest corner of the terrace is a statue of the legendary elephant who chose the site of the temple.

The monastery was established in 1383 by King Keu Naone to enshrine a piece of bone, said to be from the shoulder of the historical Buddha. The bone was brought to Lanna by a wandering monk from Sukhothai and it broke into two pieces at the base of the mountain, with one piece being enshrined at Wat Suan Dok. The second fragment was mounted onto a sacred white elephant who wandered the jungle until it died, in the process selecting the spot where the monastery was later founded.

Outside this central enclave area you will find the shrine to the White Elephant and the story of how the temple on Doi Suthep was founded. There is a wide walkway around the main temple which leads you to a large viewing terrace with terrific views down over Chiang Mai, weather permitting. Just past the viewing terrace is one of the worlds largest gongs, which makes an earthly rich sound when struck.

The Wat can be reached by road from Chiang Mai. From the car park at the temple's base visitors can climb 309 steps to reach the pagodas or take a tram. Once inside the temple grounds visitors must be appropriately dressed and must remove footwear. The original copper plated chedi is the most holy area of the temple grounds. Within the site are pagodas, statues, bells, a museum, and shrines. Aspects of the wat draw from both Buddhism and Hinduism. There is a model of the Emerald Buddha and a statue of the Hindu God Ganesh. Views of Chiang Mai can be seen on the far side of the temple.

Mai Rim Snake Farm and Show, Mae Rim, Chiang Mai.This snake farm show wide species of both non-poisonous and poisonous snakes, with cobras show as their the highlight. Guests can hold a live cobra and python. Show times are at 11.30 a.m., 2.15 p.m. and 3.30 p.m.

 

On the highest point of the mountain, Syagha,[7] the remains of a Byzantine church and monastery were discovered in 1933.[8] The church was first constructed in the second half of the 4th century to commemorate the place of Moses' death. The church design follows a typical basilica pattern. It was enlarged in the late fifth century A.D. and rebuilt in A.D. 597. The church is first mentioned in an account of a pilgrimage made by a lady Aetheria in A.D. 394. Six tombs have been found hollowed from the natural rock beneath the mosaic-covered floor of the church. In the modern chapel presbytery, built to protect the site and provide worship space, remnants of mosaic floors from different periods can be seen. The earliest of these is a panel with a braided cross presently placed on the east end of the south wall.

Wat Pho (Thai: วัดโพธิ์, IPA: [wát pʰoː]), also spelt Wat Po, is a Buddhist temple complex in the Phra Nakhon District, Bangkok, Thailand. It is on Rattanakosin Island, directly south of the Grand Palace. Known also as the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, its official name is Wat Phra Chetuphon Vimolmangklararm Rajwaramahaviharn (Thai: วัดพระเชตุพนวิมลมังคลารามราชวรมหาวิหาร; rtgs: Wat Phra Chettuphon Wimonmangkhlaram Ratchaworamahawihan; IPA: [wát pʰráʔ tɕʰê:t.tù.pʰon wíʔ.mon.maŋ.kʰlaː.raːm râːt.tɕʰá.wɔː.ráʔ.má.hǎː.wíʔ.hǎːn]). The more commonly known name, Wat Pho, is a contraction its older name Wat Photaram (Thai: วัดโพธาราม; rtgs: Wat Photharam).

 

The temple is first on the list of six temples in Thailand classed as the highest grade of the first-class royal temples. It is associated with King Rama I who rebuilt the temple complex on an earlier temple site, and became his main temple where some of his ashes are enshrined. The temple was later expanded and extensively renovated by Rama III. The temple complex houses the largest collection of Buddha images in Thailand, including a 46 m long reclining Buddha. The temple was also the earliest centre for public education in Thailand, and still houses a school of Thai medicine. It is known as the birthplace of traditional Thai massage which is still taught and practiced at the temple.

 

HISTORY

Wat Pho is one of Bangkok's oldest temples. It existed before Bangkok was established as the capital by King Rama I. It was originally named Wat Photaram or Podharam, from which the name Wat Pho is derived. The name refers the monastery of the Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, India where Buddha is believed to have attained enlightenment. The older temple is thought to have been built or expanded some time in the reign of King Phetracha (1688–1703) of the Ayuthaya period on an even earlier temple site, but its founder is unknown. After the fall of Ayutthaya to the Burmese, King Taksin moved the capital to Thonburi where he located his palace beside Wat Arun on the opposite side of the river from Wat Pho, and the proximity of Wat Pho to this royal palace elevated it to the status of a wat luang (royal monastery).

 

In 1782, King Rama I moved the capital from Thonburi across the river to Bangkok and built the Grand Palace adjacent to Wat Pho. In 1788, he ordered the construction and renovation at the old temple site of Wat Pho, which had by then become dilapidated. The site, which was marshy and uneven, was drained and filled in before construction began. During its construction Rama I also initiated a project to remove Buddha images from abandoned temples in Ayutthaya, Sukhothai, as well other sites in Thailand, and many of these Buddha images were kept at Wat Pho. These include the remnants of an enormous Buddha image from Ayuthaya's Wat Phra Si Sanphet destroyed by the Burmese in 1767, and these were incorporated into a chedi in the complex. The rebuilding took over seven years to complete, and 12 years after work began, in 1801, the new temple complex was renamed Phra Chetuphon Vimolmangklavas in reference to the vihara of Jetavana, and became the main temple for Rama I. The complex underwent significant changes in the next 260 years, particularly during the reign of Rama III (1824-1851 CE). In 1832, King Rama III began renovating and enlarging the temple complex, a process that took 16 years and seven months to complete. The ground of the temple complex was expanded to 22 acres, and most of the structures in Wat Pho were either built or rebuilt in this period, including the chapel of the reclining Buddha. He also turned the temple complex into a public center of learning by decorating the walls of the buildings with diagrams and inscriptions on various subjects.:90 These marble inscriptions have received recognition in the Memory of the World Programme launched by UNESCO on 21 February 2008. Wat Pho is regarded as Thailand’s first university and a center for traditional Thai massage. It served as a medical teaching center in the mid-19th century before the advent of modern medicine, and the temple remains a center for traditional medicine today where a private school for Thai medicine founded in 1957 still operates. The name of the complex was changed again to Wat Phra Chetuphon Vimolmangklararm during the reign of King Rama IV. Apart from the construction of a fourth great chedi and minor modifications by Rama IV, there had been no significant changes to Wat Pho since. Repair work, however, is a continuing process, often funded by devotees of the temple. The temple was restored again in 1982 before the Bangkok Bicentennial Celebration.

 

THE TEMPLE COMPLEX

Wat Pho is one of the largest and oldest wats in Bangkok with an area of 50 rai, 80,000 square metres, and is home to more than one thousand Buddha images, as well as one of the largest single Buddha images at 46 m in length. The Wat Pho complex consists of two walled compounds bisected by Chetuphon Road running in the east–west direction. The larger northern walled compound, the phutthawat, is the part open to visitors and contains the finest buildings dedicated to the Buddha, including the bot with its four directional viharn, and the temple housing the reclining Buddha.< The southern compound, the sankhawat, contains the residential quarters of the monks and a school. The perimeter wall of the main temple complex has sixteen gates, two of which serve as entrances for the public (one on Chetuphon Road, the other near the northwest corner). The temple grounds contain 91 small chedis (stupas or mounds), four great chedis, two belfries, a bot (central shrine), a number of viharas (halls) and other buildings such as pavilions, as well as gardens and a small temple museum. Architecturally the chedis and buildings in the complex are different in style and sizes. A number of large Chinese statues, some of which depict Europeans, are also found within the complex guarding the gates of the perimeter walls as well as other gates within the compound. These stone statues were originally imported as ballast on ships trading with China. Wat Pho was intended to serve as a place of education for the general public. To this end a pictorial encyclopedia was engraved on granite slabs covering eight subject areas, namely history, medicine, health, custom, literature, proverbs, lexicography, and the Buddhist religion. These plaques, inscribed with texts and illustration on medicine, Thai traditional massage, and other subjects, are placed around the temple, for example, within the Sala Rai or satellite open pavilions. Dotted around the complex are 24 small rock gardens (Khao Mor) illustrating rock formations of Thailand, and one, called the Contorting Hermit Hill, contains some statues showing methods of massage and yoga positions. There are also drawings of constellations on the wall of the library, inscriptions on local administration, as well as paintings of folk tales and animal husbandry. These illustrations and inscriptions in Wat Pho have been registered by UNESCO in its Memory of the World Programme set up to promote, preserve and propagate the wisdom of the world heritage.

 

PHRA UBOSOT

Phra Ubosot (Phra Uposatha) or bot is the ordination hall, the main hall used for performing Buddhist rituals, and the most sacred building of the complex. It was constructed by King Rama I in the Ayuthaya style, and later enlarged and reconstructed in the Rattanakosin style by Rama III. The bot was dedicated in 1791, before the rebuilding of Wat Pho was completed. This building is raised on a marble platform, and the ubosot lies in the center of courtyard enclosed by a double cloister (Phra Rabiang).Inside the ubosot is a gold and crystal three-tiered pedestal topped with a gilded Buddha made of a gold-copper alloy, and over the statue is a nine-tiered umbrella representing the authority of Thailand. The Buddha image, known as Phra Buddha Theva Patimakorn and thought to be from the Ayutthaya period, was moved here by Rama I from Wat Sala Si Na (now called Wat Khuhasawa) in Thonburi. Rama IV later placed some ashes of Rama I under the pedestal of the Buddha image so that the public may pay homage to both Rama I and the Buddha at the same time. There are also ten images of Buddha's disciples in the hall, Moggalana on its left and Sariputta on its right, and a further eight Arahants below. The exterior balustrade surrounding the main hall has around 150 depictions in stone of the epic, Ramakien, the ultimate message of which is transcendence from secular to spiritual dimensions. The stone panels were recovered from a temple in Ayuthaya. The ubosot is enclosed by a low wall called kamphaeng kaew, which is punctuated by gateways guarded by mythological lions, as well as eight structures that house the bai sema stone markers that delineate the sacred space of the bot.

 

- Phra Rabiang - This double cloister contains around 400 images of Buddha from northern Thailand selected out of the 1,200 originally brought by King Rama I. Of these Buddha images, 150 are located on the inner side of the double cloister, another 244 images are on the outer side. These Buddha figures, some standing and some seated, are evenly mounted on matching gilded pedestals. These images are from different periods, such as Chiangsaen, Sukhothai, U-Thong, and Ayutthaya, but were renovated by Rama I and covered with stucco and gold leaves to make them look similar.

 

The viharn in the east contains an 8 metre tall standing Buddha, the Buddha Lokanatha, originally from Ayutthaya. In its antechamber is Buddha Maravichai, sitting under a bodhi tree, originally from Sawankhalok of the late Sukhothai period. The one on the west has a seated Buddha sheltered by a naga, the Buddha Chinnasri, while the Buddha on the south, the Buddha Chinnaraja, has five disciples seated in front listening to his first sermon. Both Buddhas were brought from Sukhothai by Rama I. The Buddha in the north viharn called Buddha Palilai was cast in the reign of Rama I. The viharn on the west also contains a small museum.

 

- Phra Prang - There are four towers, or phra prang, at each corner of the courtyard around the bot. Each of the towers is tiled with marbles and contains four Khmer-style statues which are the guardian divinities of the Four Cardinal Points.

 

PHRA MAHA CHEDI SI RAJAKARN

This is a group of four large stupas, each 42 metres high. These four chedis are dedicated to the first four Chakri kings. The first, in green mosaic tiles, was constructed by Rama I to house the remnants of the great Buddha from Ayuthaya, which was scorched to remove its gold covering by the Burmese. Two more were built by Rama III, one in white tiles to hold the ashes of his father Rama II, another in yellow for himself. A fourth in blue was built by Rama IV who then enclosed the four chedis leaving no space for more to be built.

 

VIHARN PHRANORN

The viharn or wihan contains the reclining Buddha and was constructed in the reign of Rama III emulating the Ayutthaya-style. The interior is decorated with panels of mural.

 

Adjacent to this building is a small raised garden (Missakawan Park) with a Chinese-style pavilion; the centrepiece of the garden is a bodhi tree which was propagated from the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi tree in Sri Lanka that is believed to have originally came from a tree in India where Buddha sat while awaiting enlightenment.

 

PHRA MONDOB

Phra Mondob or the ho trai is the Scripture Hall containing a small library of Buddhist scriptures. The building is not generally open to the public as the scriptures which are inscribed on palm leaves need to kept in a controlled environment for preservation. The library was built by Rama III. Guarding its entrance are figures of giants called Yak Wat Pho placed in niches beside the gates. Around Phra Mondob are three pavilions with mural paintings of the beginning of Ramayana.

 

OTHER STRUCTURES

- Phra Chedi Rai - Outside the Phra Rabiang cloisters are dotted many smaller chedis, called Phra Chedi Rai. Seventy-one of these small chedis were built by Rama III, each five metres in height. There are also four groups of five chedis that shared a single base built by Rama I, one on each corner outside the cloister. The 71 chedis of smaller size contain the ashes of the royal family, and 20 slightly larger ones clustered in groups of five contain the relics of Buddha.

- Sala Karn Parien - This hall is next to the Phra Mondob at the southwest corner of the compound, and is thought to date from the Ayutthaya period. It serves as a learning and meditation hall. The building contains the original Buddha image from the bot which was moved to make way for the Buddha image currently in the bot. Next to it is a garden called The Crocodile Pond.

- Sala Rai - There are 16 satellite pavilions, most of them placed around the edge of the compound, and murals depicting the life of Buddha may be found in some of these. Two of these are the medical pavilions between Phra Maha Chedi Si Ratchakarn and the main chapel. The north medicine pavilion contains Thai traditional massage inscriptions with 32 drawings of massage positions on the walls while the one to the south has a collection of inscriptions on guardian angel that protects the newborn.

- Phra Viharn Kod - This is the gallery which consists of four viharas, one on each corner outside the Phra Rabiang.

- Tamnak Wasukri - Also called the poet's house, this is the former residence of Prince Patriarch Paramanujita Jinorasa, a Thai poet. This building is in the living quarters of the monks in the southern compound and is open once a year on his birthday.

 

RECLINING BUDDHA

The chapel and the reclining Buddha (Phra Buddhasaiyas, Thai พระพุทธไสยาสน์) were built by Rama III in 1832. The image of the reclining Buddha represents the entry of Buddha into Nirvana and the end of all reincarnations. The posture of the image is referred to as sihasaiyas, the posture of a sleeping or reclining lion. The figure is 15 m high and 46 m long, and it is one of the largest Buddha statues in Thailand. The right arm of the Buddha supports the head with tight curls, which rests on two box-pillows richly encrusted with glass mosaics. The figure has a brick core, which was modelled and shaped with plaster, then gilded.

 

The soles of the feet of the Buddha are 3 m high and 4.5 m long, and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. They are each divided into 108 arranged panels, displaying the auspicious symbols by which Buddha can be identified, such as flowers, dancers, white elephants, tigers, and altar accessories. At the center of each foot is a circle representing a chakra or energy point. There are 108 bronze bowls in the corridor representing the 108 auspicious characters of Buddha. Visitors may drop coins in these bowls as it is believed to bring good fortune, and it also helps the monks to maintain the wat.

 

Although the reclining Buddha is not a pilgrimage centre, it remains an object of popular piety. An annual celebration for the reclining Buddha is held around the time of the Siamese Songkran or New Year in April, which also helps raise funds for the upkeep of Wat Pho.

 

THAI MASSAGE

The temple is considered the first public university of Thailand, teaching students in the fields of religion, science, and literature through murals and sculptures. A school for traditional medicine and massage was established at the temple in 1955, and now offers four courses in Thai medicine: Thai pharmacy, Thai medical practice, Thai midwifery, and Thai massage. This, the Wat Pho Thai Traditional Medical and Massage School, is the first school of Thai medicine approved by the Thai Ministry of Education, and one of the earliest massage schools. It remains the national headquarters and the center of education of traditional Thai medicine and massage to this day. Courses on Thai massage are held in Wat Pho, and these may last a few weeks to a year. Two pavilions at the eastern edge of the Wat Pho compound are used as classrooms for practising Thai traditional massage and herbal massage, and visitors can received massage treatment here for a fee.There are many medical inscriptions and illustrations placed in various buildings around the temple complex, some of which serve as instructions for Thai massage therapists, particularly those in the north medical pavilion. Among these are 60 inscribed plaques, 30 each for the front and back of human body, showing pressure points used in traditional Thai massage. These therapeutic points and energy pathways, known as sen, are engraved on the human figures, with explanations given on the walls next to the plaques. They are based on the principle of energy flow similar to that of Chinese acupuncture. The understanding so far is that the figures represent relationships between anatomical locations and effects produced by massage treatment at those locations, but full research on the diagrams has yet to be completed.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Shimshal is a farming and herding community of some 1100 inhabitants, situated at the north-eastern extreme of both the former principality of Hunza (now part of Gilgit Administrative District), and the modern state of Pakistan. The settlement occupies the upper portion of a valley of the same name, which descends west into the Hunza River valley at Passu, and which separates the Ghujerab and Hispar Mustagh ranges of the Karakoram mountain system.

The cultivated area, covering about 250 hectares, lies between 3000 and 3300 meters above sea level, at the upper limits of single crop cultivation. They grow hardy cereals (wheat and barley), potatoes, peas and beans, apricots and apples.

 

They complement their irrigated agriculture with extensive herding of sheep, goats, cattle and yaks. Shimshal pastures cover about 2700 square kilometers of the Central Karakoram.

 

Also within Shimshal territory are innumerable peaks, glaciers and trekking routes, including nine peaks above 7,000 meters. Although the environmental potential for adventure tourism is high, relatively few trekkers visit Shimshal.

 

Simshal's only direct communication with Hunza and the rest of Pakistan is by path along the Shimshal River to Passu and the Karakoram Highway. Despite its location 60 kilometers and two days walk from the nearest road Shimshalis interact extensively with the outside world. The majority of households have members working and/or studying in lowland Pakistan, or in the Middle East. Most migrants return to live and work in the community, so that school teachers, animal and crop specialists, dispensers, V.O. leaders, etc. are all Shimshalis who have been trained outside.

 

courtesy: www.snt.org.pk

Hidden away amongst the remote Cambrian Mountains of central Wales, the sprawling massif of Pumlumon (“Five Stacks”) rises to a height of 2,467 feet and is the highest ground between Snowdonia and the Brecon Beacons. The hill is located approximately half way between Aberystwyth (“Mouth of the [River] Ystwyth”) and Llanidloes (“Church of [St] Idloes”), in northern Ceredigion, where it dominates a large area of wilderness that is sometimes referred to as “The Green Desert of Wales”.

 

Pumlumon is predominantly grassy in character and lacks the narrow ridges and imposing cliff faces of Snowdonia, although on its northern slopes there is a fine glacial corrie that holds an upland lake called Llyn Llygad Rheidol (“Eye of the Rheidol Lake”). The hill is in fact a vast upland plateau. Its highest point overlooks Llyn Llygad Rheidol and is called Pumlumon Fawr (“Big Five Stacks”). Other notable tops on the plateau are called Pen Pumlumon Arwystli (“Five Stacks Top of Arystli”), Y Garn (“The Cairn”), Pen Pumlumon Llygad-bychan (“Five Stacks Top of the Small Stream Source”) and Pumlumon Fach (“Little Five Stacks”). Three major rivers have their source on Pumlumon. The Rheidiol flows down to the Welsh coast at Aberystwyth, and the Gwy (Wye) and the Harfen (Severn) commence their long journey south-eastwards to drain eventually into the Bristol Channel.

 

Pumlumon has long been associated with human activity and on its upper slopes there are the remnants of a number of Bronze Age burial cairns. In 1401 the Battle of Hyddgen was fought under the northern slopes of the hill. It began when English settlers, reinforced by a large force of professional soldiers and Flemish mercenaries, attacked the much smaller insurgent Welsh army of Owain Glyndwr (circa 1359-1416), which was encamped at the bottom of the Hyddgen Valley. The result was a resounding victory for Glyndwr that initiated a brief period of Welsh liberation. The battle is little known in England but is remembered with much pride in Wales. In 1964 the upper valley of the Rheidol was dammed to create Nant-y-moch Reservoir. The reservoir also lies below the northern slopes of Pumlumon and is part of the Cwm Rheidol hydroelectric power scheme. According to folklore, Pumlumon is the resting place of a notorious robber giant called Dillus Farfawc. He was slain by a couple of likely lads named Cai and Bedwyr. They needed a mighty hunting hound called Drudwyn to capture a ferocious wild boar named Twrch Trwyth. Apparently only a leash made from the beard of Dillus Farfawc would be sufficiently strong to hold such a mighty hound, so they fell upon the giant when he was asleep, pushed him into a pit, plucked out his beard and killed him!

 

Pumlumon is best climbed from the north via Llyn Llygad Rheidol. The summit is a superb viewpoint and on a clear day virtually all of Wales stretches out before you. Of particular prominence are Cadair Idris and the Tarrens, which lie to the north-west across the Dovey valley, and the vast arc of Cardigan Bay which lies to the west. The Arrans and the Berwyns dominate the view to the north-east and to the south lie the Black Mountains and the Brecon Beacons. The whole character of this wild and beautiful part of the country may very well be ruined in the near future, however, as Scottish & Southern Energy is proposing to build a particularly large wind farm on the hills north of Nant y Moch reservoir. The company have put their plans “on hold” for the time being but all those who wish to preserve this area for future generations MUST make their opinions heard now.

 

The picture I have uploaded was taken looking southwards across the valley of the Afon Hengwn towards Pumlumon Fawr from Banc Llechwedd-mawr. Llyn Llygad Rheidol can just be made out in the corrie below the summit.

Bolivia is a landlocked country located in western-central South America.

 

There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment.

 

Taking an image, freezing a moment, reveals how rich reality truly is.

 

Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving.

A country of extremes, landlocked Bolivia is the highest and most isolated country in South America.

 

La Paz, Bolivia, is the most extraordinary city.

 

La Paz, city, administrative capital of Bolivia, west-central Bolivia. It is situated some 68 km southeast of Lake Titicaca.

 

Sitting in a valley in the Andes Mountains, La Paz is the city that touches the clouds.

 

The most colorful thing in the world is black and white, it contains all colors and at the same time excludes all.

 

Color is descriptive. Black and white is interpretive.

 

Alternative Surfaces use only the highest quality, commercial grade coatings on the market – providing superior durability and finish over conventional coatings, for a floor that is long lasting and easy to maintain.

 

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Edited Cassini PR image of the highest color resolution image of the rings of Saturn. Color/processing variant.

 

Image source: photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21628

 

Original caption: These are the highest-resolution color images of any part of Saturn's rings, to date, showing a portion of the inner-central part of the planet's B Ring. The view is a mosaic of two images that show a region that lies between 61,300 and 65,600 miles (98,600 and 105,500 kilometers) from Saturn's center.

 

This image is a natural color composite, created using images taken with red, green and blue spectral filters. The pale tan color is generally not perceptible with the naked eye in telescope views, especially given that Saturn has a similar hue.

 

The material responsible for bestowing this color on the rings -- which are mostly water ice and would otherwise appear white -- is a matter of intense debate among ring scientists that will hopefully be settled by new in-situ observations before the end of Cassini's mission.

 

The different ringlets seen here are part of what is called the "irregular structure" of the B ring. Cassini radio occultations of the rings have shown that these features have extremely sharp boundaries on even smaller scales (radially, or along the direction outward from Saturn) than the camera can resolve here. Closer to Saturn, the irregular structures become fuzzier and more rounded, less opaque, and their color contrast diminishes.

 

The narrow ringlets in the middle of this scene are each about 25 miles (40 kilometers) wide, and the broader bands at right are about 200 to 300 miles (300 to 500 kilometers) across. It remains unclear exactly what causes the variable brightness of these ringlets and bands -- the basic brightness of the ring particles themselves, shadowing on their surfaces, their absolute abundance, and how densely the particles are packed, may all play a role.

 

The second image (Figure 1) is a color-enhanced version. Blue colors represent areas where the spectrum at visible wavelengths is less reddish (meaning the spectrum is flatter toward red wavelengths), while red colors represent areas that are spectrally redder (meaning the spectrum has a steeper spectrum toward red wavelengths). Observations from the Voyager mission and Cassini's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer previously showed these color variations at lower resolution, but it was not known that such well-defined color contrasts would be this sharply defined down to the scale (radial scale) of a couple of miles or kilometers, as seen here.

 

Analysis of additional images from this observation, taken using infrared spectral filters sensitive to absorption of light by water ice, indicates that the areas that appear more visibly reddish in the color-enhanced version are also richer in water ice.

 

The third image (Figure 2) is a composite of the "true" and "enhanced" color images for easy comparison.

 

This image was taken on July 6, 2017, with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera. The image was acquired on the sunlit side of the rings from a distance of 47,000 miles (76,000 kilometers) away from the area pictured. The image scale is about 2 miles (3 kilometers) per pixel. The phase angle, or sun-ring-spacecraft angle, is 90 degrees.

 

The Cassini mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (the European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

 

For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit saturn.jpl.nasa.gov and www.nasa.gov/cassini. The Cassini imaging team homepage is at ciclops.org.

 

Image Credit:

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

 

Image Addition Date:

2017-09-07

Berkeley Kite Festival 2009

Cesar Chavez Park, Berkeley, California

 

Each year one kite with long streamers flies far above the rest.

This beauty took that honor this year.

NEW LONDON, Conn. – Incoming first-year students, or swabs, arrive to join the Class of 2020 here during “Reporting-In Day,” or R-Day, at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, June 27, 2016. This year’s incoming class of 312 swabs is made up of 38 percent women and 33 percent underrepresented minorities. The class of 2020 has the highest female enrollment in the Academy’s history. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Lisa A. Ferdinando

Mount Whitney is the highest summit in the contiguous United States with an elevation of 14,505 feet (4,421 m). It is on the boundary between California's Inyo and Tulare counties, 84.6 miles (136.2 km) west-northwest of the lowest point in North America at Badwater in Death Valley National Park at 282 ft (86 m) below sea level. The west slope of the mountain is in Sequoia National Park and the summit is the south end of the John Muir Trail which runs 211.9 mi (341.0 km) from Happy Isles in Yosemite Valley. The east slope is in the Inyo National Forest in Inyo County.

 

The summit of Whitney is on the Sierra Crest and near many of the highest peaks of the Sierra Nevada. The peak rises 10,778 ft (3,285 m) or just over two miles above the town of Lone Pine 15 miles to the east, in the Owens Valley.

 

Mount Whitney is above the tree line and has an alpine climate and ecology. Very few plants grow near the summit: one example is the Sky Pilot, a cushion plant that grows low to the ground. The only animals are transient, such as the butterfly Parnassius phoebus and the Gray-crowned Rosy Finch.

 

The estimated elevation of the summit of Mount Whitney has changed over the years. The technology of elevation measurement has become more refined and, more importantly, the vertical coordinate system has changed. The peak was commonly said to be at 14,494 ft (4,418 m) and this is the elevation stamped on the USGS brass benchmark disk on the summit. An older plaque on the summit (sheet metal with black lettering on white enamel) reads "elevation 14,496.811 feet" but this was estimated using the older vertical datum (NGVD29) from 1929. Since then the shape of the Earth (the geoid) has been estimated more accurately. Using a new vertical datum established in 1988 (NAVD88) the benchmark is now estimated to be at 14,505 ft (4,421 m).

 

The eastern slope of Whitney is far steeper than its western slope. This is because the entire Sierra Nevada is the result of a fault-block that is analogous to a cellar door: the door is hinged on the west and is slowly rising on the east. The rise is caused by a normal fault system that runs along the eastern base of the Sierra, below Mount Whitney. Thus, the granite that forms Mount Whitney is the same as the granite that forms the Alabama Hills thousands of feet below. The raising of Whitney (and the downdrop of the Owens Valley) is due to the same geological forces that cause the Basin and Range Province: the crust of much of the intermontane west is slowly being stretched.

 

The most popular route to the summit is by way of the Mount Whitney Trail which starts at Whitney Portal, at an elevation of 8,360 ft (2,550 m), 13 mi (21 km) west of the town of Lone Pine. The hike is about 22 mi (35 km) round trip with an elevation gain of over 6,100 ft (1,900 m). Permits are required year round, and to prevent overuse a limited number of permits are issued by the Forest Service between May 1 and November 1. Most hikers do the trip in two days. Those in good physical condition sometimes attempt to reach the summit and return to Whitney Portal in one day, thus requiring only a somewhat easier-to-obtain "day use" permit rather than the overnight permit. This is considered an "extreme" day hike, which normally involves leaving Whitney Portal before sunrise and 12 to 18 hours of strenuous hiking, while struggling with altitude sickness, cold air, and occasionally treacherous surface conditions (because snow and/or ice are normally present on parts of the trail, except for a short period from early July to late September).

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Whitney

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_...

For my video; youtu.be/5FQP9Tw7g94,

The highest waterfall in Northland, 46 metes Taheke Falls is found in Taheke Reserve, 20 minutes' drive away from Whangarei. The waterfall's top can be viewed from a wooden platform. Unfortunately, a side track to the lower viewing platform has been closed permanently due to Kauri dieback, so the lower waterfall can't be seen anymore.

Highest Explore Position #246 ~ On Sunday October 25th 2009.

 

Buffy Headed Capuchin - Colchester Zoo, Colchester, Essex, England - Monday August 3rd 2009.

Click here to see My most interesting images

  

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ~ The Golden-bellied Capuchin (Cebus xanthosternos), also known as the Yellow-breasted or Buffy-headed Capuchin, is one of several species of New World monkeys.

 

Although there are differences between individuals as well as between the sexes and across age groups, C. xanthosternos is described as having a distinctive yellow to golden red chest, belly and upper arms. Its face is a light brown and its cap for which the capuchins were first named is a dark brown/black or light brown. Formerly thought to be a subspecies of Tufted Capuchin (C. apella), it was elevated to the status of species. Despite this previous classification, C. xanthosternos does not have very evident tufts, as they are oriented towards the rear of the skull and are hardly noticeable. A band of short hair around the upper part of the face with speckled colouring contrasts with the darker surrounding areas. The limbs and tail are also darkly coloured.

Populations of C. xanthosternos are restricted to the Atlantic forest of south-eastern Bahia, Brazil, due possibly to high degrees of interference from man. Historically they probably would have inhabited the entire area east of, and north to, the Rio São Francisco.

Only 301 individuals survive, the last one was born on 07/21/2009

 

From ~ www.actionforthewild.org/index.cfm?fa=campaign.detail&... ~ The yellow-breasted capuchin is endemic to Brazil and originally inhabited an area of forest in Brazil larger than 100km wide. Due to extensive cattle ranching over the years, this species is now limited to forests in Southern Bahia, where the population is still declining due to threats of habitat destruction and the pet trade.

 

CEPA is now in its 6th year working in the Southern Bahia state. It is essential to know the ecological needs of these capuchins in order to successfully manage the species in the wild. In 2003, CEPA initiated ecological and behavioural surveys of this species. Research enables the identification of environmental disturbances that threaten the species survival. The results will help scientists to choose priority areas to concentrate conservation efforts and attend to urgent demands of remaining populations.

 

Information on these ecological and behavioural needs will provide strong bases for the development of conservation strategies to avoid this species’ extinction. For instance, home range size and use of habitat are useful to establish the size of a suitable area to protect a population and also to determine actions, such as connecting isolated fragments or expanding areas for the protection of a minimum viable population. Furthermore, in order to translocate or reintroduce this species, comprehension of their reproduction, ecological needs and social system are essential to form stable groups, avoiding animals’ dispersion after release.

 

The ecology and behaviour study is conducted in three different areas. The Una Biological Reserve is mostly covered by preserved forest and is protected against hunting, Private Reserve Capitão is covered by logged forest and was only recently protected so hunting still occurs in the surrounding area, and the third area, Plantações Michelin da Bahia, is protected by its owner, is connected to other large forest patches and is surrounded by rubber plantation.

 

During the first year of study (2003-2004) CEPA developed activities mainly in Una Biological Reserve. In 2004-2005, they started to work in Capitão Private Reserve and in August 2007 started fieldwork in Plantações Michelin da Bahia. The habituation in this latter area should be easier as it has been protected from poaching for the last 15 years. Habituation commenced at the Una Reserve, with individuals seen only 188 times in two years. A capture and collaring protocol was then established and to date seven individuals have been radio collared at both Una and Capitão. It is thought that there are 27 individuals at Una and 10 at Capitão, although more individuals occupy the surrounding area. Reproductive behaviours have been recording, as has data on the diet of the species, which was seen to feed on 93 plant species between January 2007 and August 2008 and to even predate on five baby porcupines between 2006 and 2008. The individuals at Capitão have been impossible to habituate, possibly because of the continued poaching threat that these individuals face. Habituation has however begun on the individuals at Plantações Michelin da Bahia and in September 2008, the scientists started capturing individuals.

 

The buffy-headed capuchin has a lower density than all other capuchin species in the Bahia State. In the future CEPA aims to increase the number of protected areas and support of farmers in implementing private reserves, to produce environmental education materials, to organise the captive breeding of yellow breasted capuchins and to train local people in conservation work.

 

Photo gallery highest quality pictures from March of Dimes Fundraiser at Caesar’s Palace Casino with famous 12th Annual Signature Chefs of Las Vegas listing images of

Chef James Boyer, Canyon Ranch Grill

Chef Todd Clore, Todd's Unique Dining

Chef Paul Del Favero, Mesa Grill

Chef Olivier Dubreuil, The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino

Chef Mimmo Ferraro, Mimmo Ferraro's Italian Restaurant

Chef Roberto Hernandez, Dos Caminos

Chef Michael & Wendy Jordan, Rosemary's Restaurant

Chef Josette LeBlond, Josette's Bistro

Chef Eric Lhuillier, Pinot Brasserie

Chef Tom Moloney, AquaKnox

Chef Percy Oani, Roy's Restaurant

Chef Laurent Pillard, Burger Bar

Chef Marco Porccedu, Ago

Chef Mark Purdy, Alize at the Top of the Palms

Chef Linda Rodriguez, Hachi

Chef Ryan Ross, Roy's Restaurant

Chef Dan Rossi, David Burke Las Vegas

Chef Mark Sandoval, Wolfgang Puck's Postrio

Chef Kuldeep Singh, Origin India

Chef Jonathan Snyder, Rare 120

Chef Simon To, Zine Noodles Dim Sum

Chef Abe Tsaualakaglou, John Cutter

Chef Pieter Van Staden, Creative Catering

Chef Daniel Waked, Nero’s

Chef Todd Williams, Bradley Ogden

Chef John Zamarchi, Sedona Restaurant

 

Serving as the host chef of the 12th Annual March of Dimes Signature Chefs fundraiser in the Palace Ballroom at Caesars Palace last night was Caesars Palace executive chef Eric Damidot. Farmers Insurance Group underwrote the March Dimes 12th annual wine-and-dine Signature Chefs event, which included a cocktail reception, silent auction, fine dining samples from the finest chefs in Las Vegas, and wine from Southern Wine and Spirits. Capping off the night was a live auction which got everyone involved.

Signature Chefs raised $200,000 to go to the March of Dimes for its mission to improve the health of babies. The live Fund a Mission donation drive raised $35,000 which included a $10,00 matching donation from Farmers Insurance. Finally the Super Silent Auction and Live Auction were matched were generously matched at 100 percent by MasterCard.

 

Photograph download for personal use with the credit "Photography by Mark Bowers for www.ChefJosette.com";

 

Photographs by Mark Bowers Copyright All Rights Reserved.

 

Chef Josette LeBlond Normandie Bakery Los Angeles at 3022 Cochran Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90016 (323) 939-5528

13 November 2012. El Geneina: (right) Naema Adam Ali, staff member of the Sudanese Red Crescent, conducts a workshop on healthcare and Yellow Fever prevention in a community center in Al Riad camp for Internally Displaced Persons, in West Darfur, in collaboration with the international NGO Terre Des Hommes.

West Darfur is currently one of the states with the highest rates of yellow fever cases.

The Teaching Hospital in El Geneina has already treated 106 cases of Yellow Fever since the disease began to spread one month ago. Among these cases, 38 people have died, most of them farmers from El Geneina, Mornei, Habila, Kreink, Beida and Forobaranga. The Sudanese Ministry of Health is working closely with the African Union - United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID), UN agencies and international and national nongovernmental

organisations to fumigate, distribute vaccines and implement awareness campaigns. The epidemic has no precedent in the region. Photo by Albert González Farran, UNAMID.

A look back to see what I was doing in May 2014.

Highest Quality Advertising Inflatables www.advertisinginflatablesolutions.com

Contact : jeevanraj@advertisinginflatablesolutions.com

Mob : 0091 95739 60 123

York Minster is a Gothic cathedral in York, England and is the largest of its kind in Northern Europe. It is the seat of the Archbishop of York (the second-highest office of the Church of England), and cathedral for the Diocese of York, and is run by a Dean and Chapter under the Dean of York. The services are sometimes regarded as on the high church Anglo-Catholicism side of the Anglican scale.

 

It has a very wide Decorated Gothic nave and chapter house, a Perpendicular Gothic choir and east end, and Early English north and south transepts. The nave contains the West Window, constructed in 1338, and over the Lady Chapel in the east end is the Great East Window, (finished in 1408), the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world. In the north transept is the Five Sisters Window, each lancet being over 16 metres high. The south transept contains the famous Rose window.

   

History

York has had a Christian presence from the 300s. The first church on the site was a wooden structure built hurriedly in 627 to provide a place to baptise Edwin, King of Northumbria. Moves toward a more substantial building began in the 630s. A stone structure was completed in 637 by Oswald and was dedicated to Saint Peter. The church soon fell into disrepair and was dilapidated by 670 when Saint Wilfrid ascended to the see of York; he put in place efforts to repair and renew the structure.

 

In 741 the church was destroyed in a fire. It was rebuilt as a more impressive structure, containing thirty altars. The church and the entire area then passed through the hands of numerous invaders, and its history is obscure until the 10th century. There was a series of Benedictine archbishops, including Saint Oswald, Wulfstan, and Ealdred, who travelled to Westminster to crown William in 1066. Ealdred died in 1069 and was buried in the church.

 

The church was damaged in 1069, but the first Norman archbishop, arriving in 1070, organised repairs. The Danes destroyed the church in 1075, but it was again rebuilt from 1080. Built in the Norman style, it was 365 feet long and rendered in white and red lines. The new structure was damaged by fire in 1137 but was soon repaired. The choir and crypt were remodelled in 1154, and a new chapel was built, all in the Norman style.

 

The Gothic style in cathedrals had arrived in the mid 12th century. Walter de Gray was made archbishop in 1215 and ordered the construction of a Gothic structure to compare to Canterbury; building began in 1220. The north and south transepts were the first new structures; completed in the 1250s, both were built in the Early English Gothic style but had markedly different walls. A substantial central tower was also completed, with a wooden spire. Building continued into the 15th century.

 

The Chapter House was begun in the 1260s, and it was completed before 1296. The wide nave was constructed from the 1280s on the Norman foundations. The outer roof was completed in the 1330s, but the vaulting was not finished until 1360. Construction then moved on to the eastern arm and chapels, with the last Norman structure, the choir, being demolished in the 1390s. Work here finished around 1405. In 1407 the central tower collapsed; the piers were then reinforced, and a new tower was built from 1420. The western towers were added between 1433 and 1472. The cathedral was declared complete and consecrated in 1472.

 

The English Reformation led to the first Anglican archbishop, the looting of much of the cathedral's treasures, and the loss of much of the church lands. Under Elizabeth I there was a concerted effort to remove all traces of the Roman Catholic Church from the cathedral; there was much destruction of tombs, windows, and altars. In the English Civil War the city was besieged and fell to the forces of Cromwell in 1644, but Thomas Fairfax prevented any further damage to the cathedral.

 

Following the easing of religious tensions there was some work to restore the cathedral. From 1730 to 1736 the whole floor of the Minster was relaid in patterned marble, and from 1802 there was a major restoration. However, on 2 February 1829 an arson attack by non-conformist Jonathan Martin inflicted heavy damage on the east arm, and an accidental fire in 1840 left the nave, south west tower, and south aisle roofless, blackened shells. The cathedral slumped deeply into debt, and in the 1850s services were suspended, but from 1858 Augustus Duncome worked successfully to revive the cathedral.

 

During the 20th century there was more concerted preservation work, especially following a 1967 survey that revealed the building, in particular the central tower, was close to collapse. £2,000,000 was raised and spent by 1972 to reinforce and strengthen the building foundations and roof. During the excavations that were carried out, remains of the north corner of the Roman Principia were found under the south transept. A fire in 1984 destroyed the roof in the south transept, and around £2.5 million was spent on repairs. Restoration work was completed in 1988, and included new roof bosses to designs which had won a competition organised by BBC Television's Blue Peter programme. In 2007 renovation began on the east front, including the Great East Window, at an estimated cost of £23 million.

 

York Minster is the second largest Gothic cathedral of Northern Europe and clearly charts the development of English Gothic architecture from Early English through to the Perpendicular Period. The present building was begun in about 1230 and completed in 1472. The stone used for the building is magnesian limestone, a creamy-white coloured rock that was quarried in nearby Tadcaster. The Minster is 148 metres long and each of its three towers are 60 metres high. The choir, which has an interior height of 31 metres, is only surpassed in height in England by the choir of Westminster Abbey.

 

The North and South transepts were the first parts of the new church to be built. They have simple lancet windows, the most famous being the Five Sisters in the north transept. These are five lancets, each 16 m high and glazed with grey (grisaille) glass, rather than narrative scenes or symbolic motifs that are usually seen in medieval stained glass windows. In the south transept is the famous Rose Window whose glass dates from about 1500 and commemorates the union of the royal houses of York and Lancaster. The roofs of the transepts are of wood, that of the south transept was burnt in the fire of 1984 and was replaced in the restoration work which was completed in 1988. New designs were used for the bosses, five of which were designed by winners of a competition organised by the BBC's Blue Peter television programme.

 

The chapter house is octagonal, as is the case in many cathedrals, but is notable in that it has no central column supporting the roof. The wooden roof, which was of an innovative design, is light enough to be able to be supported by the buttressed walls. The chapter house has many sculptured heads above the canopies, representing some of the finest Gothic sculpture in the country. There are human heads, no two alike, and some pulling faces; angels; animals and grotesques. Unique to the transepts and chapter house is the use of Purbeck marble to adorn the piers, adding to the richness of decoration.

 

The nave was built between 1291 and c. 1350 and is also in the decorated Gothic style. It is the widest Gothic nave in England and has a wooden roof (painted so as to appear like stone) and the aisles have vaulted stone roofs. At its west end is the Great West Window, known as the 'Heart of Yorkshire' which features flowing tracery of the later decorated gothic period.

 

The East end of the Minster was built between 1361 and 1405 in the Perpendicular Gothic style. Behind the high altar is the Great East Window, the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world.

 

The sparsely decorated Central Tower was built between 1407 and 1472 and is also in the Perpendicular style. Below this, separating the choir from the crossing and nave is the striking fifteenth century choir screen. It contains sculptures of the kings of England from William the Conqueror to Henry VI with stone and gilded canopies set against a red background. Above the screen is the organ, which dates from 1832. The West Towers, in contrast with the central tower, are heavily decorated and are topped with battlements and eigh

The Himalayas or Himalaya (/ˌhɪməˈleɪ.ə/ or /hɪˈmɑːləjə/) is a mountain range in the Indian subcontinent, which separates the Indo-Gangetic Plain from the Tibetan Plateau. Geopolitically, it covers the Himalayan states and regions. This range is home to nine of the ten highest peaks on Earth, including the highest above sea level, Mount Everest. The Himalayas have profoundly shaped the cultures of South Asia. Many Himalayan peaks are sacred in Dharmic religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism.

 

The Himalayas are bordered on the north by the Tibetan Plateau, on the south by the Indo-Gangetic Plain, on the northwest by the Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges and on the east by the Indian states of Sikkim, the Darjeeling district of West Bengal, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur. The Hindu Kush, Karakoram and Himalayas together form the "Hindu Kush Himalayan Region" (HKH). The western anchor of the Himalayas, Nanga Parbat, lies just south of the northernmost bend of the Indus River; the eastern anchor, Namcha Barwa, is just west of the great bend of the Yarlung Tsangpo River. The Himalayas span five countries: Nepal, India, Bhutan, China (Tibet), and Pakistan, the first three countries having sovereignty over most of the range.

 

Lifted by the collision of the Indian tectonic plate with the Eurasian Plate, the Himalayan range runs northwest to southeast in a 2,400-kilometre-long arc. The range varies in width from 400 kilometres in the west to 150 kilometres in the east. Besides the Greater Himalayas, there are several parallel lower ranges. The southernmost, along the northern edge of the Indian plains and reaching 1000 m in altitude, is the Sivalik Hills. Further north is a higher range, reaching 2000–3000 m, known as the Lower Himalayan Range.

 

Three of the world's major rivers (the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra) arise in the Himalayas. While the Indus and the Brahmaputra rise near Mount Kailash in Tibet, the Ganges rises in the Indian state of Uttarakhand. Their combined drainage basin is home to some 600 million people.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The name Himālaya is from Sanskrit: hima (snow) + ālaya (dwelling), and literally means "abode of snow"

 

ECOLOGY

The flora and fauna of the Himalayas vary with climate, rainfall, altitude, and soils. The climate ranges from tropical at the base of the mountains to permanent ice and snow at the highest elevations. The amount of yearly rainfall increases from west to east along the southern front of the range. This diversity of altitude, rainfall and soil conditions combined with the very high snow line supports a variety of distinct plant and animal communities. The extremes of high altitude (low atmospheric pressure) combined with extreme cold favor extremophile organisms.

 

The unique floral and faunal wealth of the Himalayas is undergoing structural and compositional changes due to climate change. The increase in temperature is shifting various species to higher elevations. The oak forest is being invaded by pine forests in the Garhwal Himalayan region. There are reports of early flowering and fruiting in some tree species, especially rhododendron, apple and box myrtle. The highest known tree species in the Himalayas is Juniperus tibetica located at 4,900 metres in Southeastern Tibet.

 

GEOLOGY

The Himalayan range is one of the youngest mountain ranges on the planet and consists mostly of uplifted sedimentary and metamorphic rock. According to the modern theory of plate tectonics, its formation is a result of a continental collision or orogeny along the convergent boundary between the Indo-Australian Plate and the Eurasian Plate. The Arakan Yoma highlands in Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal were also formed as a result of this collision.

 

During the Upper Cretaceous, about 70 million years ago, the north-moving Indo-Australian plate (which has subsequently broken into the Indian Plate and the Australian plate) was moving at about 15 cm per year. About 50 million years ago this fast moving Indo-Australian plate had completely closed the Tethys Ocean, the existence of which has been determined by sedimentary rocks settled on the ocean floor, and the volcanoes that fringed its edges. Since both plates were composed of low density continental crust, they were thrust faulted and folded into mountain ranges rather than subducting into the mantle along an oceanic trench. An often-cited fact used to illustrate this process is that the summit of Mount Everest is made of marine limestone from this ancient ocean.

 

Today, the Indian plate continues to be driven horizontally below the Tibetan Plateau, which forces the plateau to continue to move upwards. The Indian plate is still moving at 67 mm per year, and over the next 10 million years it will travel about 1,500 km into Asia. About 20 mm per year of the India-Asia convergence is absorbed by thrusting along the Himalaya southern front. This leads to the Himalayas rising by about 5 mm per year, making them geologically active. The movement of the Indian plate into the Asian plate also makes this region seismically active, leading to earthquakes from time to time.

 

During the last ice age, there was a connected ice stream of glaciers between Kangchenjunga in the east and Nanga Parbat in the west. In the west, the glaciers joined with the ice stream network in the Karakoram, and in the north, joined with the former Tibetan inland ice. To the south, outflow glaciers came to an end below an elevation of 1,000–2,000 metres. While the current valley glaciers of the Himalaya reach at most 20 to 32 kilometres in length, several of the main valley glaciers were 60 to 112 kilometres long during the ice age. The glacier snowline (the altitude where accumulation and ablation of a glacier are balanced) was about 1,400–1,660 metres lower than it is today. Thus, the climate was at least 7.0 to 8.3 °C colder than it is today.

 

HYDROLOGY

The Himalayas contain the third-largest deposit of ice and snow in the world, after Antarctica and the Arctic. The Himalayan range encompasses about 15,000 glaciers, which store about 12,000 km3 of fresh water. Its glaciers include the Gangotri and Yamunotri (Uttarakhand) and Khumbu glaciers (Mount Everest region), Langtang glacier (Langtang region) and Zemu (Sikkim).

 

Owing to the mountains' latitude near the Tropic of Cancer, the permanent snow line is among the highest in the world at typically around 5,500 metres. In contrast, equatorial mountains in New Guinea, the Rwenzoris and Colombia have a snow line some 900 metres lower. The higher regions of the Himalayas are snowbound throughout the year, in spite of their proximity to the tropics, and they form the sources of several large perennial rivers, most of which combine into two large river systems:

 

- The western rivers, of which the Indus is the largest, combine into the Indus Basin. The Indus begins in Tibet at the confluence of Sengge and Gar rivers and flows southwest through India and then through Pakistan to the Arabian Sea. It is fed by the Jhelum, the Chenab, the Ravi, the Beas, and the Sutlej rivers, among others.

- Most of the other Himalayan rivers drain the Ganges-Brahmaputra Basin. Its main rivers are the Ganges, the Brahmaputra and the Yamuna, as well as other tributaries. The Brahmaputra originates as the Yarlung Tsangpo River in western Tibet, and flows east through Tibet and west through the plains of Assam. The Ganges and the Brahmaputra meet in Bangladesh, and drain into the Bay of Bengal through the world's largest river delta, the Sunderbans.

 

The easternmost Himalayan rivers feed the Irrawaddy River, which originates in eastern Tibet and flows south through Myanmar to drain into the Andaman Sea.

 

The Salween, Mekong, Yangtze and Huang He (Yellow River) all originate from parts of the Tibetan Plateau that are geologically distinct from the Himalaya mountains, and are therefore not considered true Himalayan rivers. Some geologists refer to all the rivers collectively as the circum-Himalayan rivers. In recent years, scientists have monitored a notable increase in the rate of glacier retreat across the region as a result of global climate change. For example, glacial lakes have been forming rapidly on the surface of debris-covered glaciers in the Bhutan Himalaya during the last few decades. Although the effect of this will not be known for many years, it potentially could mean disaster for the hundreds of millions of people who rely on the glaciers to feed the rivers during the dry seasons.

 

LAKES

The Himalayan region is dotted with hundreds of lakes. Most lakes are found at altitudes of less than 5,000 m, with the size of the lakes diminishing with altitude. Tilicho Lake in Nepal in the Annapurna massif is one of the highest lakes in the world. Pangong Tso, which is spread across the border between India and China, and Yamdrok Tso, located in central Tibet, are amongst the largest with surface areas of 700 km², and 638 km², respectively. Other notable lakes include She-Phoksundo Lake in the Shey Phoksundo National Park of Nepal, Gurudongmar Lake, in North Sikkim, Gokyo Lakes in Solukhumbu district of Nepal and Lake Tsongmo, near the Indo-China border in Sikkim.

 

Some of the lakes present a danger of a glacial lake outburst flood. The Tsho Rolpa glacier lake in the Rowaling Valley, in the Dolakha District of Nepal, is rated as the most dangerous. The lake, which is located at an altitude of 4,580 metres has grown considerably over the last 50 years due to glacial melting.

 

The mountain lakes are known to geographers as tarns if they are caused by glacial activity. Tarns are found mostly in the upper reaches of the Himalaya, above 5,500 metres.

 

IMPACT ON CLIMATE

The Himalayas have a profound effect on the climate of the Indian subcontinent and the Tibetan Plateau. They prevent frigid, dry winds from blowing south into the subcontinent, which keeps South Asia much warmer than corresponding temperate regions in the other continents. It also forms a barrier for the monsoon winds, keeping them from traveling northwards, and causing heavy rainfall in the Terai region. The Himalayas are also believed to play an important part in the formation of Central Asian deserts, such as the Taklamakan and Gobi.

 

RELIGIOUS OF THE REGION

In Hinduism, the Himalayas have been personified as the god Himavat, father of Ganga and Parvati.

 

Several places in the Himalayas are of religious significance in Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism. A notable example of a religious site is Paro Taktsang, where Padmasambhava is said to have founded Buddhism in Bhutan. Padmasambhava is also worshipped as the patron saint of Sikkim.

 

A number of Vajrayana Buddhist sites are situated in the Himalayas, in Tibet, Bhutan and in the Indian regions of Ladakh, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Spiti and Darjeeling. There were over 6,000 monasteries in Tibet, including the residence of the Dalai Lama. Bhutan, Sikkim and Ladakh are also dotted with numerous monasteries. The Tibetan Muslims have their own mosques in Lhasa and Shigatse.

 

RESOURCES

The Himalayas are home to a diversity of medicinal resources. Plants from the forests have been used for millennia to treat conditions ranging from simple coughs to snake bites. Different parts of the plants - root, flower, stem, leaves, and bark - are used as remedies for different ailments. For example, a bark extract from an abies pindrow tree is used to treat coughs and bronchitis. Leaf and stem paste from an arachne cordifolia is used for wounds and as an antidote for snake bites. The bark of a callicarpa arborea is used for skin ailments. Nearly a fifth of the gymnosperms, angiosperms, and pteridophytes in the Himalayas are found to have medicinal properties, and more are likely to be discovered.

 

Most of the population in some Asian and African countries depend on medicinal plants rather than prescriptions and such (Gupta and Sharma, vii). Since so many people use medicinal plants as their only source of healing in the Himalayas, the plants are an important source of income. This contributes to economic and modern industrial development both inside and outside the region (Gupta and Sharma, 5). The only problem is that locals are rapidly clearing the forests on the Himalayas for wood, often illegally (Earth Island Journal, 2). This means that the number of medicinal plants is declining and that some of them might become rarer or, in some cases, go extinct.

 

Although locals are clearing out portions of the forests in the Himalayas, there is still a large amount of greenery ranging from the tropical forests to the Alpine forests. These forests provide wood for fuel and other raw materials for use by industries. There are also many pastures for animals to graze upon (Mohita, sec. Forest and Wealth). The many varieties of animals that live in these mountains do so based on the elevation. For example, elephants and rhinoceros live in the lower elevations of the Himalayas, also called the Terai region. Also, found in these mountains are the Kashmiri stag, black bears, musk deer, langur, and snow leopards. The Tibetan yak are also found on these mountains and are often used by the people for transportation. However, the populations of many of these animals and still others are declining and are on the verge of going extinct (Admin, sec. Flora and Fauna).

 

The Himalayas are also a source of many minerals and precious stones. Amongst the tertiary rocks, are vast potentials of mineral oil. There is coal located in Kashmir, and precious stones located in the Himalayas. There is also gold, silver, copper, zinc, and many other such minerals and metals located in at least 100 different places in these mountains (Mohita, sec. Minerals).

 

CULTURE

There are many cultural aspects of the Himalayas. For the Hindus, the Himalayas are personified as Himavath, the father of the goddess Parvati (Gupta and Sharma, 4). The Himalayas is also considered to be the father of the river Ganges. The Mountain Kailash is a sacred peak to the Hindus and is where the Lord Shiva is believed to live (Admin, sec. Centre of Religion). Two of the most sacred places of pilgrimage for the Hindus is the temple complex in Pashupatinath and Muktinath, also known as Saligrama because of the presence of the sacred black rocks called saligrams (Zurick, Julsun, Basanta, and Birendra, 153).

 

The Buddhists also lay a great deal of importance on the mountains of the Himalayas. Paro Taktsang is the holy place where Buddhism started in Bhutan (Admin, sec. Centre of Religion). The Muktinath is also a place of pilgrimage for the Tibetan Buddhists. They believe that the trees in the poplar grove came from the walking sticks of eighty-four ancient Indian Buddhist magicians or mahasiddhas. They consider the saligrams to be representatives of the Tibetan serpent deity known as Gawo Jagpa (Zurick, Julsun, Basanta, and Birendra, 153).

 

The Himalayan people’s diversity shows in many different ways. It shows through their architecture, their languages and dialects, their beliefs and rituals, as well as their clothing (Zurick, Julsun, Basanta, and Birendra, 78). The shapes and materials of the people’s homes reflect their practical needs and the beliefs. Another example of the diversity amongst the Himalayan peoples is that handwoven textiles display unique colors and patterns that coincide with their ethnic backgrounds. Finally, some people place a great importance on jewelry. The Rai and Limbu women wear big gold earrings and nose rings to show their wealth through their jewelry (Zurick, Julsun, Basanta, and Birendra, 79).

 

WIKIPEDIA

 

from april 3rd 2017:

 

the highest park & the monet movement, scott richard

 

fantasies of the outdoors play an important part in the history of art.

 

landscape art and paintings with or of people are generally the big top sellers in a historical sense.

 

the world of cold architecture has changed all of this immeasurably over the past six decades, though, pushing us toward the abstract and the monolithic.

 

also, the impact of film has smashed to bits the old paradigms about sound and vision. storytelling has blown into full motion with flashbacks and revisionistic imaginings.

 

but there are several things we can learn from the art of light in the post-camera golden age of france in the 1860s.

 

the first thing is that motion is best achieved visually as sideways motion. the truth of vertical motion is rare. at least 98% of all movement happens laterally in a world that we understand based on ideas like gravity and circular earth, etc.

 

let the light splash sideways!

that is its nature visually. it may fall down, but it is broken sideways by all matter

 

and another thing that the camera had taught those that had come into contact with its magical power in the those mid 1850s was this notion that there was no true black in reality.

 

you could dodge something out of existence with white or try to burn something into blackness, but dodging just works better. so those studying the effects began to realize that GRAY was much more present in reality the way a camera saw things than BLACK had ever been.

 

and in translation, that means that the traditional use of SHADES -- colors formed using black and a prima color to mix shadows -- could be infiltrated by the same concept but switching BLACK out for a type of GRAY.

 

and gray can be warm or cool when you add colors. and heat and the idea of temperature give light FEELING which lends our eyes the illusion of an IMPRESSION.

 

and so impressionism is a world of painting filled with colors and sunlight with shadows made from bright orange grays or cool shimmering blue grays, but very little black.

 

instead, that artist goes chasing off after WHAT THE CAMERA CAN SEE and the secrets about light and perspective that it was in turn teaching the "modern" world of france and the surrounds.

 

contemporary people tend to underthink the importance of the camera and its affect on all art from the 1820s and on.

 

interestingly, impressionism is also tourist art of a sorts.

 

the subject matter of most impressionism idealizes the outdoor sunlight and creates reveries and fantasies for one to ponder.

 

when monet honeymooned with his wife, they stayed purposefully at a lookeysee resort hotel for three months to soak up the promenade lifestyle, to see the fancy style of the fashionable set, to copy from life the tastes of the day.

 

and monet's work is very nice for dispaly. the museum shop is literally filled with (and i quote) thousands and thousands of retail dollars worth of coffee mugs and plates and scarves and calendars and books and postcards and cards and magnets and shirts and keyrings and pencils and pretty much ANYTHING they can put his stuff onto. there is an entire room of knockoff repro work from this guy.

 

i sometimes imagine how much money per year changes hands for monet reproductions.

 

it must be thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars worldwide every day. it's like its own religion in a way.

 

and i got to admit, the guy knew what he was doing and kept nailing it.

  

Photo gallery highest quality pictures from March of Dimes Fundraiser at Caesar’s Palace Casino with famous 12th Annual Signature Chefs of Las Vegas listing images of

Chef James Boyer, Canyon Ranch Grill

Chef Todd Clore, Todd's Unique Dining

Chef Paul Del Favero, Mesa Grill

Chef Olivier Dubreuil, The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino

Chef Mimmo Ferraro, Mimmo Ferraro's Italian Restaurant

Chef Roberto Hernandez, Dos Caminos

Chef Michael & Wendy Jordan, Rosemary's Restaurant

Chef Josette LeBlond, Josette's Bistro

Chef Eric Lhuillier, Pinot Brasserie

Chef Tom Moloney, AquaKnox

Chef Percy Oani, Roy's Restaurant

Chef Laurent Pillard, Burger Bar

Chef Marco Porccedu, Ago

Chef Mark Purdy, Alize at the Top of the Palms

Chef Linda Rodriguez, Hachi

Chef Ryan Ross, Roy's Restaurant

Chef Dan Rossi, David Burke Las Vegas

Chef Mark Sandoval, Wolfgang Puck's Postrio

Chef Kuldeep Singh, Origin India

Chef Jonathan Snyder, Rare 120

Chef Simon To, Zine Noodles Dim Sum

Chef Abe Tsaualakaglou, John Cutter

Chef Pieter Van Staden, Creative Catering

Chef Daniel Waked, Nero’s

Chef Todd Williams, Bradley Ogden

Chef John Zamarchi, Sedona Restaurant

 

Serving as the host chef of the 12th Annual March of Dimes Signature Chefs fundraiser in the Palace Ballroom at Caesars Palace last night was Caesars Palace executive chef Eric Damidot. Farmers Insurance Group underwrote the March Dimes 12th annual wine-and-dine Signature Chefs event, which included a cocktail reception, silent auction, fine dining samples from the finest chefs in Las Vegas, and wine from Southern Wine and Spirits. Capping off the night was a live auction which got everyone involved.

Signature Chefs raised $200,000 to go to the March of Dimes for its mission to improve the health of babies. The live Fund a Mission donation drive raised $35,000 which included a $10,00 matching donation from Farmers Insurance. Finally the Super Silent Auction and Live Auction were matched were generously matched at 100 percent by MasterCard.

 

Photograph download for personal use with the credit "Photography by Mark Bowers for www.ChefJosette.com&quot;

 

Photographs by Mark Bowers Copyright All Rights Reserved.

[1]

Broadway Tower was inspired by the famous Capability Brown and completed in 1799 from designs by the renowned architect James Wyatt. It was built for the Earl of Coventry as a folly to his Springhill Estate and dedicated to his wife Peggy.

 

Legend has it Broadway Tower was used as a signalling tower between Springhill Estate and Croome Court near Worcester, which can be seen from the roof platform.

 

Many famous people have had association with Broadway Tower, including Sir Thomas Phillips and the pre-Raphaelite artists William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones and Rosetti.

 

Broadway Tower is open to the public allowing you to travel into the past of this important building and visit the viewing platform constituting the highest point in the Cotswolds at 1089 feet or 331.6 metres altitude.

 

[2]

Broadway Tower is a folly located on Broadway Hill, near the village of Broadway, in the English county of Worcestershire, at the second highest point of the Cotswolds after Cleeve Hill. Broadway Tower's base is 1,024 feet (312 metres) above sea level. The tower itself stands 55 feet (17 metres) high.

 

The "Saxon" tower was designed by James Wyatt in 1794 to resemble a mock castle, and built for Lady Coventry in 1799. The tower was built on a "beacon" hill, where beacons were lit on special occasions. Lady Coventry wondered if a beacon on this hill could be seen from her house in Worcester - approximately 22 miles (35 km) away - and sponsored the construction of the folly to find out. The beacon could be seen clearly.

 

Over the years, the tower was home to the printing press of Sir Thomas Phillips, and served as a country retreat for artists including William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones who rented it together in the 1880s.

 

Today, the tower is a tourist attraction and the centre of a country park with various exhibitions open to the public at a fee as well as a gift shop. The place is on the Cotswold Way and can be reached by following the Cotswold Way from the A44 road at Fish Hill, or by a steep climb out of Broadway village. Near the tower is a memorial to the crew of an A.W.38 Whitley bomber that crashed there during a training mission in June 1943.

Highest position: 419 on Saturday, July 21, 2007

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Hollywood is recognized as a best film industry of earth with great actors and actresses.Holly wood actors are also very famous particularly in Asian countries and every one like and admire them.Every one like their performance,they are earning a lot for their good performance and every one i...

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Dear best friend..

 

All students in batch 13 in Etisalat College of Engineering would like to congratulate you for..

 

geting the highest score in the TOFEL exam ;) ;) ;)

 

(SAY MASHALLAH)

mashaaaallah 3aleek

 

MabrOOOOOOOoooook bro

we hope for you all the best all the time =)

 

-----

www.flickr.com/photos/umisal

 

Highest Explorer position 231 on Saturday, September 29, 2007

The Pine Mountain Range is a long ridge in Meriwether County, Georgia, Harris County, Georgia, and Talbot County, Georgia. In fact, the highest altitudes in all three of these west Georgia counties can be found along the range.

 

The Pine Mountain Range is part of a larger geological feature known as the Pine Mountain Terrane, which extends into eastern Alabama. The ridge in Georgia exceeds 1,100 feet of elevation for a distance of about 20 miles. These are the highest elevations at so southerly a latitude in the eastern half of the continental United States. (The entire Pine Mountain Terrane is geologically distinct from the Appalachian Range, which terminates farther north in Georgia and Alabama.)

 

The high point on the ridge (1395 ft.) is at Dowdell's Knob. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had a brick oven and picnic area constructed at this location for use during his many stays at his house in nearby Warm Springs. The Pine Mountain range begins around Lake Harding. At the extreme eastern end of the Pine Mountain ridge, it is intersected by the Flint River, forming the steep bluffs of Sprewell Bluff State Park.

 

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Mountain_Range

 

© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.

   

Grade I listed historic cathedral.

 

"The Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Saint Peter in York, commonly known as York Minster, is the cathedral of York, England, and is one of the largest of its kind in Northern Europe. The minster is the seat of the Archbishop of York, the third-highest office of the Church of England (after the monarch as Supreme Governor and the Archbishop of Canterbury), and is the mother church for the Diocese of York and the Province of York. It is run by a dean and chapter, under the Dean of York. The title "minster" is attributed to churches established in the Anglo-Saxon period as missionary teaching churches, and serves now as an honorific title. Services in the minster are sometimes regarded as on the High Church or Anglo-Catholic end of the Anglican continuum.

 

The minster, devoted to Saint Peter, has a very wide Decorated Gothic nave and chapter house, a Perpendicular Gothic quire and east end and Early English North and South transepts. The nave contains the West Window, constructed in 1338, and over the Lady Chapel in the east end is the Great East Window (finished in 1408), the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world. In the north transept is the Five Sisters Window, each lancet being over 53 feet (16.3 m) high. The south transept contains a rose window, while the West Window contains a heart-shaped design colloquially known as The Heart of Yorkshire.

 

A bishop of York was summoned to the Council of Arles in 314 indicating the presence of a Christian community in York at this time; however, archaeological evidence of Christianity in Roman York is limited. The first recorded church on the site was a wooden structure built hurriedly in 627 to provide a place to baptise Edwin, King of Northumbria. Moves toward a more substantial building began in the decade of the 630s. A stone structure was completed in 637 by Oswald and was dedicated to Saint Peter. The church soon fell into disrepair and was dilapidated by 670 when Saint Wilfrid ascended to the See of York. He repaired and renewed the structure. The attached school and library were established and by the 8th century were some of the most substantial in Northern Europe.

 

In 741, the church was destroyed in a fire. It was rebuilt as a more impressive structure containing thirty altars. The church and the entire area then passed through the hands of numerous invaders, and its history is obscure until the 10th century. There were a series of Benedictine archbishops, including Saint Oswald of Worcester, Wulfstan and Ealdred, who travelled to Westminster to crown William in 1066. Ealdred died in 1069 and was buried in the church.

 

The church was damaged in 1069 during William the Conqueror's harrying of the North, but the first Norman archbishop, Thomas of Bayeux, arriving in 1070, organised repairs. The Danes destroyed the church in 1075, but it was again rebuilt from 1080. Built in the Norman style, it was 111 m (364.173 ft) long and rendered in white and red lines. The new structure was damaged by fire in 1137 but was soon repaired. The choir and crypt were remodelled in 1154, and a new chapel was built, all in the Norman style.

 

The Gothic style in cathedrals had arrived in the mid 12th century. Walter de Gray was made archbishop in 1215 and ordered the construction of a Gothic structure to compare to Canterbury; building began in 1220. The north and south transepts were the first new structures; completed in the 1250s, both were built in the Early English Gothic style but had markedly different wall elevations. A substantial central tower was also completed, with a wooden spire. Building continued into the 15th century.

 

The Chapter House was begun in the 1260s and was completed before 1296. The wide nave was constructed from the 1280s on the Norman foundations. The outer roof was completed in the 1330s, but the vaulting was not finished until 1360. Construction then moved on to the eastern arm and chapels, with the last Norman structure, the choir, being demolished in the 1390s. Work here finished around 1405. In 1407 the central tower collapsed; the piers were then reinforced, and a new tower was built from 1420. The western towers were added between 1433 and 1472. The cathedral was declared complete and consecrated in 1472.

 

The English Reformation led to the looting of much of the cathedral's treasures and the loss of much of the church lands. Under Elizabeth I there was a concerted effort to remove all traces of Roman Catholicism from the cathedral; there was much destruction of tombs, windows and altars. In the English Civil War the city was besieged and fell to the forces of Cromwell in 1644, but Thomas Fairfax prevented any further damage to the cathedral.

 

Following the easing of religious tensions there was some work to restore the cathedral. From 1730 to 1736 the whole floor of the minster was relaid in patterned marble and from 1802 there was a major restoration. However, on 2 February 1829, an arson attack by Jonathan Martin inflicted heavy damage on the east arm. An accidental fire in 1840 left the nave, south west tower and south aisle roofless and blackened shells. The cathedral slumped deeply into debt and in the 1850s services were suspended. From 1858 Augustus Duncombe worked successfully to revive the cathedral. In 1866, there were six residentiary canonries: of which one was the Chancellor's, one the Sub-Dean's, and another annexed to the Archdeaconry of York.

 

During the 20th century there was more concerted preservation work, especially following a 1967 survey that revealed the building, in particular the central tower, was close to collapse. £2,000,000 was raised and spent by 1972 to reinforce and strengthen the building foundations and roof. During the excavations that were carried out, remains of the north corner of the Roman Principia (headquarters of the Roman fort, Eboracum) were found under the south transept. This area, as well as remains of the Norman cathedral, re-opened to the public in spring 2013 as part of the new exhibition exploring the history of the building of York Minster.

 

York is a cathedral city and unitary authority area in North Yorkshire, England. The population of the council area which includes nearby villages was 208,200 as of 2017 and the population of the urban area was 153,717 at the 2011 census. Located at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss, it is the county town of the historic county of Yorkshire. The city is known for its famous historical landmarks such as York Minster and the city walls, as well as a variety of cultural and sporting activities, which makes it a popular tourist destination in England. The local authority is the City of York Council, a single tier governing body responsible for providing all local services and facilities throughout the city. The City of York local government district includes rural areas beyond the old city boundaries. It is about 25 miles north-east of Leeds and 34 miles north-west of Kingston upon Hull. York is the largest settlement in the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire.

 

The city was founded by the Romans as Eboracum in 71 AD. It became the capital of the Roman province of Britannia Inferior, and later of the kingdoms of Deira, Northumbria and Jórvík. In the Middle Ages, York grew as a major wool trading centre and became the capital of the northern ecclesiastical province of the Church of England, a role it has retained. In the 19th century, York became a major hub of the railway network and a confectionery manufacturing centre, a status it maintained well into the 20th century. During the Second World War, York was bombed as part of the Baedeker Blitz. Although less affected by bombing than other northern cities, several historic buildings were gutted and restoration efforts continued into the 1960s.

 

The economy of York is dominated by services. The University of York and National Health Service are major employers, whilst tourism has become an important element of the local economy. In 2016, York became sister cities with the Chinese city of Nanjing, as per an agreement signed by the Lord Mayor of York, focusing on building links in tourism, education, science, technology and culture. Today, the city is a popular tourist attraction, especially for international visitors from America, Germany, France and China. In 2017, York became UK's first human rights city, which formalised the city's aim to use human rights in decision making." - info from Wikipedia.

 

Summer 2019 I did a solo cycling tour across Europe through 12 countries over the course of 3 months. I began my adventure in Edinburgh, Scotland and finished in Florence, Italy cycling 8,816 km. During my trip I took 47,000 photos.

 

Now on Instagram.

 

Become a patron to my photography on Patreon.

Ceremony on 27 November 2014: ICC Permanent Premises celebrates reaching its highest point – The Hague (The Netherlands)

Chancellor Michael Harris, IU Kokomo hits highest-ever enrollment in 67-year history, Unprecedented Enrollment, פרופסור מייקל הריס

 

Led by Chancellor Michael Harris Indiana University Kokomo hits highest-ever enrollment in 67-year history - a result of a new vision www.flickr.com/photos/iukokomo/7784699686/

 

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kokomoperspective.com/news/local_news/perspective-names-p...

  

kokomoperspective.com/kp/perspective-s-people-of-the-year...

 

kokomoperspective.com/xtra/education/iu-kokomo-prepares-h...

  

kokomoperspective.com/local_sports/cougar-women-s-volleyb...

  

whotalking.com/flickr/Chancellor

 

m.kokomoperspective.com/joe-biden-michael-harris-barack-o...

 

kokomoperspective.com/milt-cole-and-chancellor-michael-ha...

 

kokomoperspective.com/search/?t=article&q=michael+harris

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Harris_%28academic%29

 

www.ncslcollege.com/bio/39/

 

homepages.indiana.edu/web/page/normal/20760.html

  

homepages.indiana.edu/web/page/normal/17736.html

  

newsroom.iuk.edu/campus.html?start=270

  

www.facultyfocus.com/articles/academic-leadership/academi...

 

www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?ID=51072

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD3exIJ-hGs

 

tackk.com/michaelharrischancellor

 

www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/indiana-university-kokom...

 

www.indianaeconomicdigest.net/main.asp?SectionID=31&S...

 

blogs.forbes.com/people/michaelharrischancellor/

 

www.insideindianabusiness.com/newsitem.asp?id=54350

  

Highest Explore position: #210. Straightened and replaced with full size version on 15 May 2008.

The highest numbered PX05-registered Dart on Willowholme`s allocation is seen on Brookside, Carlisle operating on service 68.

 

16.4.14