Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Leiden 1606 - Amsterdam 1669

Landschaft mit einer Steinbrücke / Landscape with a Stone Bridge (ca. 1638)

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

 

Rembrandt painted only a few landscapes, mostly imaginary mountain scenes. Although The Stone Bridge is composed of elements studied from reality, it probably does not represent a specific place. The painting’s magical quality derives from its dramatic illumination: a beam of sunlight breaks through the clouds, making the approaching storm seem twice as menacing.

 

Source: Rijksmuseum

Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes (/ˈsɛlɪbiːz, sɪˈliːbiːz/), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Within Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger populations.

 

The landmass of Sulawesi includes four peninsulas: the northern Minahasa Peninsula; the East Peninsula; the South Peninsula; and the Southeast Peninsula. Three gulfs separate these peninsulas: the Gulf of Tomini between the northern Minahasa and East peninsulas; the Tolo Gulf between the East and Southeast peninsulas; and the Bone Gulf between the South and Southeast peninsulas. The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island and separates the island from Borneo.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The name Sulawesi possibly comes from the words sula ("island") and besi ("iron") and may refer to the historical export of iron from the rich Lake Matano iron deposits. The name came into common use in English following Indonesian independence.

 

The name Celebes was originally given to the island by Portuguese explorers. While its direct translation is unclear, it may be considered a Portuguese rendering of the native name "Sulawesi".

 

GEOGRAPHY

Sulawesi is the world's eleventh-largest island, covering an area of 174,600 km2. The central part of the island is ruggedly mountainous, such that the island's peninsulas have traditionally been remote from each other, with better connections by sea than by road. The three bays that divide Sulawesi's peninsulas are, from north to south, the Tomini, the Tolo and the Boni. These separate the Minahassa or Northern Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the Southeast Peninsula and the South Peninsula.

 

The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island. The island is surrounded by Borneo to the west, by the Philippines to the north, by Maluku to the east, and by Flores and Timor to the south.

 

MINOR ISLANDS

The Selayar Islands make up a peninsula stretching southwards from Southwest Sulawesi into the Flores Sea are administratively part of Sulawesi. The Sangihe Islands and Talaud Islands stretch northward from the northeastern tip of Sulawesi, while Buton Island and its neighbours lie off its southeast peninsula, the Togian Islands are in the Gulf of Tomini, and Peleng Island and Banggai Islands form a cluster between Sulawesi and Maluku. All the above-mentioned islands, and many smaller ones are administratively part of Sulawesi's six provinces.

 

GEOLOGY

The island slopes up from the shores of the deep seas surrounding the island to a high, mostly non-volcanic, mountainous interior. Active volcanoes are found in the northern Minahassa Peninsula, stretching north to the Sangihe Islands. The northern peninsula contains several active volcanoes such as Mount Lokon, Mount Awu, Soputan and Karangetang.

 

According to plate reconstructions, the island is believed to have been formed by the collision of terranes from the Asian Plate (forming the west and southwest) and from the Australian Plate (forming the southeast and Banggai), with island arcs previously in the Pacific (forming the north and east peninsulas).[8] Because of its several tectonic origins, various faults scar the land and as a result the island is prone to earthquakes.

 

Sulawesi, in contrast to most of the other islands in the biogeographical region of Wallacea, is not truly oceanic, but a composite island at the centre of the Asia-Australia collision zone. Parts of the island were formerly attached to either the Asian or Australian continental margin and became separated from these areas by vicariant processes. In the west, the opening of the Makassar Strait separated West Sulawesi from Sundaland in the Eocene c. 45 Mya. In the east, the traditional view of collisions of multiple micro-continental fragments sliced from New Guinea with an active volcanic margin in West Sulawesi at different times since the Early Miocene c. 20 Mya has recently been replaced by the hypothesis that extensional fragmentation has followed a single Miocene collision of West Sulawesi with the Sula Spur, the western end of an ancient folded belt of Variscan origin in the Late Paleozoic.

 

PREHISTORY

Before October 2014, the settlement of South Sulawesi by modern humans had been dated to c. 30,000 BC on the basis of radiocarbon dates obtained from rock shelters in Maros. No earlier evidence of human occupation had at that point been found, but the island almost certainly formed part of the land bridge used for the settlement of Australia and New Guinea by at least 40,000 BCE. There is no evidence of Homo erectus having reached Sulawesi; crude stone tools first discovered in 1947 on the right bank of the Walennae River at Berru, Indonesia, which were thought to date to the Pleistocene on the basis of their association with vertebrate fossils, are now thought to date to perhaps 50,000 BC.

 

Following Peter Bellwood's model of a southward migration of Austronesian-speaking farmers (AN), radiocarbon dates from caves in Maros suggest a date in the mid-second millennium BC for the arrival of a group from east Borneo speaking a Proto-South Sulawesi language (PSS). Initial settlement was probably around the mouth of the Sa'dan river, on the northwest coast of the peninsula, although the south coast has also been suggested.

 

Subsequent migrations across the mountainous landscape resulted in the geographical isolation of PSS speakers and the evolution of their languages into the eight families of the South Sulawesi language group. If each group can be said to have a homeland, that of the Bugis – today the most numerous group – was around lakes Témpé and Sidénréng in the Walennaé depression. Here for some 2,000 years lived the linguistic group that would become the modern Bugis; the archaic name of this group (which is preserved in other local languages) was Ugiq. Despite the fact that today they are closely linked with the Makasar, the closest linguistic neighbours of the Bugis are the Toraja.

 

Pre-1200 Bugis society was most likely organised into chiefdoms. Some anthropologists have speculated these chiefdoms would have warred and, in times of peace, exchanged women with each other. Further, they have speculated that personal security would have been negligible and head-hunting an established cultural practice. The political economy would have been a mixture of hunting and gathering and swidden or shifting agriculture. Speculative planting of wet rice may have taken place along the margins of the lakes and rivers. In Central Sulawesi, there are over 400 granite megaliths, which various archaeological studies have dated to be from 3000 BC to AD 1300. They vary in size from a few centimetres to around 4.5 metres. The original purpose of the megaliths is unknown. About 30 of the megaliths represent human forms. Other megaliths are in form of large pots (Kalamba) and stone plates (Tutu'na).In October 2014 it was announced that cave paintings in Maros had been dated as being about 40,000 years old. Dr Maxime Aubert, of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said that the minimum age for the outline of a hand was 39,900 years old, which made it "the oldest hand stencil in the world" and added, "Next to it is a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one."

 

HISTORY

Starting in the 13th century, access to prestige trade goods and to sources of iron started to alter long-standing cultural patterns and to permit ambitious individuals to build larger political units. It is not known why these two ingredients appeared together; one was perhaps the product of the other.

 

In 1367, several identified polities, located on the island, were mentioned in the Javanese manuscript Nagarakretagama dated from the Majapahit period. Canto 14 mentioned polities including Gowa, Makassar, Luwu and Banggai. It seems that by the 14th century, polities in the island were connected in an archipelagic maritime trading network, centered in the Majapahit port in East Java. By 1400, a number of nascent agricultural principalities had arisen in the western Cenrana valley, as well as on the south coast and on the west coast near modern Parepare.

 

The first Europeans to visit the island (which they believed to be an archipelago due to its contorted shape) were the Portuguese sailors Simão de Abreu, in 1523, and Gomes de Sequeira (among others) in 1525, sent from the Moluccas in search of gold, which the islands had the reputation of producing. A Portuguese base was installed in Makassar in the first decades of the 16th century, lasting until 1665, when it was taken by the Dutch. The Dutch had arrived in Sulawesi in 1605 and were quickly followed by the English, who established a factory in Makassar. From 1660, the Dutch were at war with Gowa, the major Makassar west coast power. In 1669, Admiral Speelman forced the ruler, Sultan Hasanuddin, to sign the Treaty of Bongaya, which handed control of trade to the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch were aided in their conquest by the Bugis warlord Arung Palakka, ruler of the Bugis kingdom of Bone. The Dutch built a fort at Ujung Pandang, while Arung Palakka became the regional overlord and Bone the dominant kingdom. Political and cultural development seems to have slowed as a result of the status quo. In 1905 the entire island became part of the Dutch state colony of the Netherlands East Indies until Japanese occupation in the Second World War. During the Indonesian National Revolution, the Dutch Captain 'Turk' Westerling led campaigns in which hundreds, maybe thousands died during the South Sulawesi Campaign. Following the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949, Sulawesi became part of the federal United States of Indonesia, which in 1950 became absorbed into the unitary Republic of Indonesia.

 

CENTRAL SULAWESI

The Portuguese were rumoured to have a fort in Parigi in 1555. The Kaili were an important group based in the Palu valley and related to the Toraja. Scholars relate that their control swayed under Ternate and Makassar, but this might have been a decision by the Dutch to give their vassals a chance to govern a difficult group. Padbruge commented that in the 1700s Kaili numbers were significant and a highly militant society. In the 1850s a war erupted between the Kaili groups, including the Banawa, in which the Dutch decided to intervene. A complex conflict also involving the Sulu Island pirates and probably Wyndham (a British merchant who commented on being involved in arms dealing to the area in this period and causing a row).

 

In the late 19th century the Sarasins journeyed through the Palu valley as part of a major initiative to bring the Kaili under Dutch rule. Some very surprising and interesting photographs were taken of shamans called Tadulako. Further Christian religious missions entered the area to make one of the most detailed ethnographic studies in the early 20th century. A Swede by the name of Walter Kaudern later studied much of the literature and produced a synthesis. Erskine Downs in the 1950s produced a summary of Kruyts and Andrianis work: "The religion of the Bare'e-Speaking Toradja of Central Celebes," which is invaluable for English-speaking researchers. One of the most recent publications is "When the bones are left," a study of the material culture of central Sulawesi, offering extensive analysis. Also worthy of study are the brilliant works of Monnig Atkinson on the Wana shamans who live in the Mori area.

 

POPULATION

The 2000 census population of the provinces of Sulawesi was 14,946,488, about 7.25% of Indonesia's total population. By the 2010 Census the total had reached 17,371,782, and the latest official estimate (for January 2014) is 18,455,058. The largest city is Makassar.

 

RELIGION

Islam is the majority religion in Sulawesi. The conversion of the lowlands of the south western peninsula (South Sulawesi) to Islam occurred in the early 17th century. The kingdom of Luwu in the Gulf of Bone was the first to accept Islam in February 1605; the Makassar kingdom of Goa-Talloq, centred on the modern-day city of Makassar, followed suit in September. However, the Gorontalo and the Mongondow peoples of the northern peninsula largely converted to Islam only in the 19th century. Most Muslims are Sunnis.

  

POPULATION OF SULAWESI BY PROVINCE (2010)

South Sulawesi (46.4%)

Central Sulawesi (15%)

Southeast Sulawesi (13%)

North Sulawesi (13.0%)

West Sulawesi (6.6%)

Gorontalo (6%)

 

Christians form a substantial minority on the island. According to the demographer Toby Alice Volkman, 17% of Sulawesi's population is Protestant and less than 2% is Roman Catholic. Christians are concentrated on the tip of the northern peninsula around the city of Manado, which is inhabited by the Minahasa, a predominantly Protestant people, and the northernmost Sangir and Talaud Islands. The Toraja people of Tana Toraja in Central Sulawesi have largely converted to Christianity since Indonesia's independence. There are also substantial numbers of Christians around Lake Poso in Central Sulawesi, among the Pamona speaking peoples of Central Sulawesi, and near Mamasa.

 

Though most people identify themselves as Muslims or Christians, they often subscribe to local beliefs and deities as well. It is not uncommon for both groups to make offerings to local gods, goddesses, and spirits.

 

Smaller communities of Buddhists and Hindus are also found on Sulawesi, usually among the Chinese, Balinese and Indian communities.

 

AGMINISTRATION

The island is subdivided into six provinces: Gorontalo, West Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and North Sulawesi. West Sulawesi is a new province, created in 2004 from part of South Sulawesi. The largest cities on the island are Makassar, Manado, Palu, Kendari, Bitung, Gorontalo, Palopo and Baubau.

 

FLORA AND FAUNA

Sulawesi is part of Wallacea, meaning that it has a mix of both Indomalayan and Australasian species that reached the island by crossing deep-water oceanic barriers. The flora includes one native eucalypt, E. deglupta. There are 8 national parks on the island, of which 4 are mostly marine. The parks with the largest terrestrial area are Bogani Nani Wartabone with 2,871 km2 and Lore Lindu National Park with 2,290 km2. Bunaken National Park which protects a rich coral ecosystem has been proposed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

MAMMALS

Early in the Pleistocene, Sulawesi had a dwarf elephant and a dwarf form of Stegodon, (an elephant relative, S. sompoensis); later both were replaced by larger forms. A giant suid, Celebochoerus, was also formerly present. It is thought that many of the migrants to Sulawesi arrived via the Philippines, while Sulawesi in turn served as a way station for migrants to Flores. A Pleistocene faunal turnover is recognised, with the competitive displacement of several indigenous tarsiers by more recently arriving ones and by Celebochoerus by other medium-sized herbivores like the babirusa, anoa and Celebes warty pig.

 

There are 127 known extant native mammalian species in Sulawesi. A large percentage, 62% (79 species) are endemic, meaning that they are found nowhere else in the world. The largest of these are the two species of anoa or dwarf buffalo. Other artiodactyl species inhabiting Sulawesi are the warty pig and the babirusas, which are aberrant pigs. The only native carnivoran is the Sulawesi palm civet (Asian palm and Malayan civets have been introduced). Primates present include a number of tarsiers (T. fuscus, Dian's, Gursky's, Jatna's, Wallace's, the Lariang and pygmy tarsiers) as well as macaques (Heck's, the booted, crested black, Gorontalo, moor, and Tonkean macaques). While most of Sulawesi's mammals are placental and have Asian relatives, several species of cuscus, arboreal marsupials of Australasian origin, are also present (Ailurops ursinus and Strigocuscus celebensis).

 

Sulawesi is home to a large number of endemic rodent genera. Murid rodent genera endemic to Sulawesi and immediately adjacent islands (such as the Togian Islands, Buton Island, and Muna Island) are Bunomys, Echiothrix, Margaretamys, Taeromys and Tateomys as well as the single-species genera Eropeplus, Hyorhinomys, Melasmothrix, Paucidentomys, Paruromys and Sommeromys. Endemic sciurid genera are Hyosciurus, Prosciurillus, Rubrisciurus and Waiomys.

 

While over 20 bat species are present on Sulawesi, only a portion of these are endemic: Rhinolophus tatar, Scotophilus celebensis and the megabats Acerodon celebensis, Boneia bidens, Dobsonia exoleta, Harpyionycteris celebensis, Neopteryx frosti, Rousettus celebensis and Styloctenium wallacei.

 

Several endemic shrews, the Sulawesi shrew, Sulawesi tiny shrew and the Sulawesi white-handed shrew, are found on the island.

 

BIRDS

By contrast, Sulawesian bird species tend to be found on other nearby islands as well, such as Borneo; 31% of Sulawesi's birds are found nowhere else. One true endemic is the fiery-browed starling. Another endemic bird (also found on small neighboring islands) is the largely ground-dwelling, chicken-sized maleo, a megapode which uses hot sand close to the island's volcanic vents to incubate its eggs. Others include the flightless snoring rail, the Sulawesi masked owl, the Sulawesi myna and the grosbeak starling. There are around 350 known bird species in Sulawesi. An international partnership of conservationists, donors, and local people have formed the Alliance for Tompotika Conservation, in an effort to raise awareness and protect the nesting grounds of these birds on the central-eastern arm of the island.

 

REPTILES

The larger reptiles of Sulawesi are not endemic and include reticulated and Burmese pythons, king cobras, water monitors, sailfin lizards, saltwater crocodiles and green sea turtles. An extinct giant tortoise, Megalochelys atlas, was formerly present, but disappeared by 840,000 years ago, possibly because of the arrival of humans. Similarly, komodo dragons or similar lizards appear to have inhabited the island, being among its apex predators. The smaller snakes of Sulawesi include endemic forms such as Calamaria boesemani, Calamaria muelleri, Calamaria nuchalis, Cyclotyphlops, Enhydris matannensis, Ptyas dipsas, Rabdion grovesi, Tropidolaemus laticinctus and Typhlops conradi. Similarly, the smaller lizards of Sulawesi include nonendemic species such as Bronchocela jubata, Dibamus novaeguineae and Gekko smithii, as well as endemic species such as Lipinia infralineolata and Luperosaurus iskandari.

 

AMPHIBIANS

The amphibians of Sulawesi include the endemic frogs Hylarana celebensis, H. macrops, H. mocquardi, Ingerophrynus celebensis, Limnonectes arathooni, L. larvaepartus, L. microtympanum, Occidozyga celebensis, O. semipalmata and O. tompotika as well as the endemic "flying frogs" Rhacophorus edentulus and R. georgii.

 

FRESHWATER FISH

Sulawesi is home to more than 70 freshwater fish species, including more than 55 endemics. Among these are the genus Nomorhamphus, a species flock of viviparous halfbeaks containing 12 species that only are found on Sulawesi (others are from the Philippines). In addition to Nomorhamphus, the majority of Sulawesi's freshwater fish species are ricefishes, gobies (Glossogobius and Mugilogobius) and Telmatherinid sail-fin silversides. The last family is almost entirely restricted to Sulawesi, especially the Malili Lake system, consisting of Matano and Towuti, and the small Lontoa (Wawantoa), Mahalona and Masapi. Another unusual endemic is Lagusia micracanthus from rivers in South Sulawesi, which is the sole member of its genus and among the smallest grunters. The gudgeon Bostrychus microphthalmus from the Maros Karst is the only described species of cave-adapted fish from Sulawesi, but an apparently undescribed species from the same region and genus also exists.

 

FRESHWATER CRUSTACEANS AND SNAILS

Many species of Caridina freshwater shrimp and parathelphusid freshwater crabs (Migmathelphusa, Nautilothelphusa, Parathelphusa, Sundathelphusa and Syntripsa) are endemic to Sulawesi. Several of these species have become very popular in the aquarium hobby, and since most are restricted to a single lake system, they are potentially vulnerable to habitat loss and overexploitation. There are also several endemic cave-adapted shrimp and crabs, especially in the Maros Karst. This includes Cancrocaeca xenomorpha, which has been called the "most highly cave-adapted species of crab known in the world".

 

The genus Tylomelania of freshwater snails is also endemic to Sulawesi, with the majority of the species restricted to Lake Poso and the Malili Lake system.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

The mimic octopus is also present in the waters of Sulawesi's coast.

 

CONSERVATION

Sulawesi island was recently the subject of an Ecoregional Conservation Assessment, coordinated by The Nature Conservancy. Detailed reports about the vegetation of the island are available. The assessment produced a detailed and annotated list of 'conservation portfolio' sites. This information was widely distributed to local government agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Detailed conservation priorities have also been outlined in a recent publication.

 

The lowland forests on the island have mostly been removed. Because of the relative geological youth of the island and its dramatic and sharp topography, the lowland areas are naturally limited in their extent. The past decade has seen dramatic conversion of this rare and endangered habitat. The island also possesses one of the largest outcrops of serpentine soil in the world, which support an unusual and large community of specialized plant species. Overall, the flora and fauna of this unique center of global biodiversity is very poorly documented and understood and remains critically threatened.

 

The islands of Pepaya, Mas and Raja islands, located in Sumalata Village - North Gorontalo Regency (about 30 km from Saronde Island), have been named a nature reserve since the Dutch colonial time in 1936. Four of the only seven species of turtles can be found in the islands, the world's best turtle habitat. They include Penyu Hijau (Chelonia midas), Penyu Sisik (Eretmochelys imbricata), Penyu Tempayan (Caretta caretta) and Penyu Belimbing (Dermochelys coriacea). In 2011, the habitat was threatened by human activities such as illegal poaching and fish bombing activities; furthermore, a lot of coral reefs, which represent a source of food for turtles, have been damaged.

 

ENVIRONMENT

The largest environmental issue in Sulawesi is deforestation. In 2007, scientists found that 80 percent of Sulawesi's forest had been lost or degraded, especially centered in the lowlands and the mangroves. Forests have been felled for logging and large agricultural projects. Loss of forest has resulted in many of Sulawesi's endemic species becoming endangered. In addition, 99 percent of Sulawesi's wetlands have been lost or damaged.

 

Other environmental threats included bushmeat hunting and mining.

 

PARKS

The island of Sulawesi has six national parks and nineteen nature reserves. In addition, Sulawesi has three marine protected areas. Many of Sulawesi's parks are threatened by logging, mining, and deforestation for agriculture.

 

WIKIPEDIA

A different take on the workers' club concept, by Melnikov's friend Ilya Golosov. Like Melnikov, Golosov had a pre-revolutionary, Classical education, which he fused with avant-garde influences in the early Twenties; unlike Melnikov, he would later be able to successfully make the transition back to state-sanctioned Classicism in the early Thirties. Here we see his most famous building, the Zuev Club - or perhaps you know it better as Terragni's riff on the concept?

 

Melnikov's entry for this project was a string of five partial cylinders, strung in a line and overlapping each other. As Catherine Cooke points out, while Golosov's building was sometimes mislabeled as the work of Melnikov, there can be no mistaking the two:

 

Despite its dramatically glazed circular stairtower on the corner, Golosov's famous building is so much a piece of the cubic space-matrix of the street and the city that it could never, to the well familiarised eye, be by Melnikov. Melnikov's own scheme for that site (from which he claimed Golosov stole the circular motif), comprised four cylinders, freestanding from the party walls along this linear site. Where Golosov plugged in awkwardly to the cubic matrix of the city fabric, Melnikov would have stood free of it.

 

This is maybe a little unfair to Golosov's building; "awkward" thought it may be in some ways, it presents an exciting play between the solid, deeply-punched mass of the main volumes, and the dramatic transparency of the stair. Admittedly, the play of horizontal and vertical masses is a little clunky. One wishes the big horizontal band cantilevered out a little further or otherwise asserted its presence a little more cleanly. This was maybe a little less true in the original building; unfortunately, we're looking at a badly altered version, with balconies yanked off, windows sealed up, voids glazed over, and a Moscow-ready but unexciting pastel color scheme. Compare to the Thirties image partway down this page.

 

Anyway, quibbling about compositional niceties sort of misses the point. This is a fine bit of Constructivism with a couple of remarkable spaces (mainly the interior of the stair, though it's also suffered some unsympathetic renovations in my eyes). The promise was that the materials and forms of the factory could be repurposed to give the factory worker the kind of amenities previously only known to the upper classes - and with a bonus of light and air that the stuffy old bourgeois clubhouses could only dream of.

 

This building was completed in 1929 and could hold, what, five or six Villa Savoyes? Considering where Russian architecture was just before the Great War, it's remarkable to imagine, at this date, a building of this scale and budget being executed in such a stripped, abstract, elemental style. And there was a lot of this going on, as we'll see in the next few uploads...

A Genuine Example of One of the Eleven 1971 Hemi ‘Cuda Convertibles

 

500+hp, 425hp rated, 426 cu. in. vee eight-cylinder engine, dual four-barrel carburetors, four-speed manual transmission, Hurst pistol grip shifter, independent front suspension with torsion bars, live axle rear suspension with semi-elliptical leaf springs, front disc, rear drum power assisted hydraulic brakes. Wheelbase: 108"

 

Three times Chrysler Corporation has relied upon the Hemi to transform its products and image from dull to sparkling, and three times the Hemi has delivered. In an American car market that has been characterized by glitz, fins and bulk, the technical sophistication of Chrysler’s hemispherical combustion chamber V8 engine has been a refreshing demonstration of the appeal of elegant, thoughtful engineering.

 

In the late 60’s and early 70’s it also acquired a bad boy image of politically incorrect power and performance, establishing a mythical presence that has made the Hemi a legend.

 

Hemi History

 

During development work on World War II aircraft engines, Chrysler’s engineers had seen firsthand the potential for hemispherical combustion chamber engines. In addition to the thermal efficiency of the hemi chamber’s low surface area and its low-restriction cross-flow porting, the angle between the valves ideally disposed the ports for efficient breathing in a

vee-layout engine.

 

Chrysler was the ideal company to pursue the hemispherical combustion chamber V8. It had a longstanding tradition of investigating, developing and perfecting advanced engineering ideas. Unlike its major competitors, Chrysler had neither overhead valve nor vee-configuration engine history, and thus no preconceived notions of how it should be done. Its engine designers could – and did – explore every conceivable engine idea. Their research showed that the hemispherical combustion chamber not only gave better performance than a comparable wedge-chamber head but also tolerated appreciably higher compression ratios.

 

The hemispherical head V8 was introduced in the Chrysler line in 1951. With 331 cubic inches displacement in a short stroke oversquare design, Chrysler’s FirePower V8 delivered 180 horsepower at 4,000 rpm and 312 lb-ft torque at 2,000 rpm. The performance potential of the Hemi was quickly recognized, most famously with the Chrysler C300 and its successors, which set the pace both on the highway and on NASCAR’s speedways. By 1958, however, manufacturing economics swung the pendulum in favor of the wedge-chamber V8s. The Hemi was phased out in 1959 … but not for long.

 

In the early 60s the 413 and 426 Wedge engines were dominant in drag racing but lacked the continuous high rpm performance needed on NASCAR’s speedways. Dodge and Plymouth were being trounced, a situation that couldn’t be allowed to stand. Faced with a need to develop a high performance, free-breathing engine quickly, Chrysler’s engineers turned to the solution they already knew worked, the Hemi. They stuck with the overall dimensions of the Raised Block 426 Wedge so existing fixturing and machining setups could be employed and maintained the original Hemi’s dual rocker shafts and 58° valve included angle. To adapt the Hemi head to the Raised Block engine, the ingenious Chrysler engineers rotated the combustion chamber toward the engine’s centerline about 8 1/2°.

 

Completed and delivered to the track just days before the 1964 Daytona 500’s green flag, the 426 Hemis proved to be invincible, sweeping the top three places in NASCAR’s most important race.

 

Production of the second generation Hemi ended after the 1971 model year as emission restrictions and insurance surcharges gave horsepower, which had never been entirely socially acceptable, a distinctly antisocial taint. Chrysler would twice more resurrect the Hemi, however, first as a crate engine program for hot rodders and later as a third generation production engine that brought DaimlerChrysler back to the forefront of performance at the beginning of the 21st century. Like some other forms of antisocial behavior, horsepower has proven to be addictive.

 

The Hemi ‘Cuda

 

Of all the Street Hemis built, the most famous, attractive and desirable are the 1970-1971 E-body Plymouth ‘Cudas, combining the visceral delight of the Hemi’s power and torque with the ‘Cuda’s lightweight, streamlined and refined 2+2 platform.

 

The first Barracuda was introduced in 1964 and in the late 60’s Chrysler engineering and Hurst performance shoehorned Race Hemi engines into the Barracuda’s engine compartment for NHRA drag racing. Seventy-five were built, sold and successfully campaigned around the country. When the Barracuda was redesigned for the 1970 model year the engine compartment was made large enough for the legendary 425 horsepower 426 cubic inch Street Hemi.

 

The Plymouth Barracuda was the cleanest, most refined and elegant of all the pony car designs. Distinguished by its wide grille, long, flat hood, short rear deck and ominously raised rear fenders – deliberately shaped like the haunches of an animal crouching before a leap – the appearance of the ‘Cuda left no doubt that this was a serious performance car.

 

Hemi-powered ‘Cudas are surpassingly rare. Built for only two years, 1970 and 1971, their low production numbers reflect the undeniable fact that the combination of the ‘Cuda platform and the Street Hemi engine was irrationally fast. It also was expensive: $871.45 in 1970 and $883.90 in 1971, a prohibitive 70% more than the 390 horsepower 440 Six Barrel.

 

A Hemi ‘Cuda was not for the faint of heart nor for the cautious of pocketbook. Buying one took serious commitment, backed up by an ample budget. In 1971 there were only 119 souls brave and prosperous enough to make the commitment to check off E74, the Street Hemi’s order code, on the ‘Cuda order form.

 

• 108 of them ordered hardtops

• Only eleven stepped up for the top-of-the-line ‘Cuda convertible powered by the 426 cubic inch, 425 horsepower dual quad Street Hemi.

• Only three of those were confident enough of their driving skills to opt for the Hurst pistol grip shifted four-speed manual transmission.

• Only two of those were delivered in the U.S.

• Both U.S.-delivered ’71 Hemi ‘Cuda convertibles were B5 Blue with

matching interiors.

 

That’s only three, in all the world, that combined the Street Hemi engine with the ‘Cuda convertible body and 4-speed transmission in 1971. One of them is the car offered here, BS27R1B269588, the only one with white soft top and elastomeric front bumper cover.

 

The “Mountain Mopar” Hemi ‘Cuda Convertible

 

Built in February of 1971, this Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda convertible’s first owner, Ronald Ambach, lived in St. Louis, Missouri. He owned it only until the fall, accumulating the car’s only street miles, before selling it to its next owner, Nick Masciarelli, in Ohio. He decided to take the Hemi ‘Cuda Stock Eliminator drag racing and turned to renowned Detroit-area engine builder Tom Tignanelli for a hot Hemi V8. The new owner was in a hurry, and the quickest way to meet his request was to swap the original engine for a fresh race-prepared Tignanelli Hemi.

 

In May of 1973, the Hemi ‘Cuda convertible was sold to John Book and partner John Oliverio in West Virginia who raced it in East Coast and Mid-Atlantic events during 1973 and 1974. Its dramatic appearance, complete with gold-leaf “Mountain Mopar” identification, is documented in several period photos in the car’s documentation file.

 

Fortunately for today’s collectors, the “Mountain Mopar” Hemi ‘Cuda convertible was retired after 1974 and stored in a climate-controlled building in West Virginia. In 1989 it was sold to the Painter brothers. Two years later it was acquired by Milt Robson in Atlanta, Georgia, still in its as-raced condition. Robson commenced a comprehensive restoration using original or new-old-stock parts to its original, as-delivered condition in his shops, which was completed in the early 90’s. Stored inside for virtually its entire life, 269588 was never subjected to the vicissitudes of the elements which afflicted most of its siblings; its original sheet metal and interior are carefully restored and retained. The engine was rebuilt around a correct 1/19/1970 date-coded Chrysler NOS block.

 

In addition to the 426/425 horsepower dual quad Street Hemi and pistol grip Hurst shifted four-speed manual transmission, this unique 1971 Hemi ‘Cuda convertible is equipped with power steering, power brakes, Dana Super Track Pack and AM-FM radio. Importantly, it is the only ’71 Hemi ‘Cuda convertible known to have been delivered with the body-colored Elastomeric front bumper cover. Its original configuration is verified by two separate original build sheets; the ownership history is documented with a continuous sequence of titles. It has been personally viewed by Galen Govier and authenticated by him as one of the seven US-delivered ’71 Hemi ‘Cuda convertibles which have been included in the Chrysler Registry.

 

Finished in B5 Blue inside and out with a white vinyl top, it has been restored to better than showroom condition. Particular attention has been paid to the accuracy of its components and finishes and to the preservation of as much as possible of its almost unbelievable originality, including the carefully preserved original interior.

 

It has been shown only in local shows around Atlanta in the mid 90s, was featured a decade ago in a May 1995 Car Collector magazine article by Dennis Adler and has appeared in several books, copies of which come with the car.

 

Putting a free-breathing, high-rpm engine like the 426 Hemi in a lithe, frisky chassis like the ‘Cuda was exactly what the forces of political correctness inveighed against in the early 70s. In 1972 the Hemi was gone for the second time, its visceral appeal buried in a cascade of social responsibility, “net” horsepower and Highway Fuel Economy ratings. There is nothing politically correct, nothing socially responsible about a Hemi ‘Cuda. The 1971 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda convertible is wretched excess in a nearly unimaginably limited production package.

 

This is absolutely the most desirable, rare and handsome of all the American Muscle and Pony Cars. Combining the brute power and torque of the legendary dual quad Street Hemi engine with the sleek, aggressive lines of the ‘Cuda convertible, it is the ultimate combination of personal car style and Muscle Car performance, a singular example and the quintessential muscle car of all time.

 

[Text from RM Auctions]

 

www.rmauctions.com/lots/lot.cfm?lot_id=132126

 

This Lego miniland-scale Plymouth HEMI ' Cuda Convertible (1971), has been created for Flickr LUGNuts' 89th Build Challenge, - "Over a Million, Under a Thousand", - a challenge to build vehicles valued over one million (US) dollars, or under one thousand (US) dollars.

 

This particular vehicle was auctioned by the RM Auction house for US$2,420,000)

I first visited Dunnottar Castle summer 2017, this magnificent castle sits high on a hill, last time I visited I captured my shots from the cliffs overlooking the site, though today I made the journey up the hill and entered the castle walls , wow what a magnificent experience, just perfect with loads of great photo opportunities to capture real Scottish history,after two hours wandering around and capturing as many shots that caught my eye , I made my way home, a magnificent experience indeed.

 

Dunnottar Castle (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Fhoithear, "fort on the shelving slope" is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of Stonehaven.

 

The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th and 16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been fortified in the Early Middle Ages. Dunnottar has played a prominent role in the history of Scotland through to the 18th-century Jacobite risings because of its strategic location and defensive strength. Dunnottar is best known as the place where the Honours of Scotland, the Scottish crown jewels, were hidden from Oliver Cromwell's invading army in the 17th century. The property of the Keiths from the 14th century, and the seat of the Earl Marischal, Dunnottar declined after the last Earl forfeited his titles by taking part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

 

The castle was restored in the 20th century and is now open to the public.

 

The ruins of the castle are spread over 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres), surrounded by steep cliffs that drop to the North Sea, 50 metres (160 ft) below. A narrow strip of land joins the headland to the mainland, along which a steep path leads up to the gatehouse.

 

The various buildings within the castle include the 14th-century tower house as well as the 16th-century palace. Dunnottar Castle is a scheduled monument, and twelve structures on the site are listed buildings.

 

History

Early Middle Ages

A chapel at Dunnottar is said to have been founded by St Ninian in the 5th century, although it is not clear when the site was first fortified, but in any case the legend is late and highly implausible. Possibly the earliest written reference to the site is found in the Annals of Ulster which record two sieges of "Dún Foither" in 681 and 694.

 

The earlier event has been interpreted as an attack by Brude, the Pictish king of Fortriu, to extend his power over the north-east coast of Scotland. The Scottish Chronicle records that King Domnall II, the first ruler to be called rí Alban (King of Alba), was killed at Dunnottar during an attack by Vikings in 900. King Aethelstan of Wessex led a force into Scotland in 934, and raided as far north as Dunnottar according to the account of Symeon of Durham. W. D. Simpson speculated that a motte might lie under the present caste, but excavations in the 1980s failed to uncover substantive evidence of early medieval fortification.

 

The discovery of a group of Pictish stones at Dunnicaer, a nearby sea stack, has prompted speculation that "Dún Foither" was actually located on the adjacent headland of Bowduns, 0.5 kilometres (0.31 mi) to the north.

 

Later Middle Ages

During the reign of King William the Lion (ruled 1165–1214) Dunnottar was a center of local administration for The Mearns. The castle is named in the Roman de Fergus, an early 13th-century Arthurian romance, in which the hero Fergus must travel to Dunnottar to retrieve a magic shield.

 

In May 1276 a church on the site was consecrated by William Wishart, Bishop of St Andrews. The poet Blind Harry relates that William Wallace captured Dunnottar from the English in 1297, during the Wars of Scottish Independence. He is said to have imprisoned 4,000 defeated English soldiers in the church and burned them alive.

 

In 1336 Edward III of England ordered William Sinclair, 8th Baron of Roslin, to sail eight ships to the partially ruined Dunnottar for the purpose of rebuilding and fortifying the site as a forward resupply base for his northern campaign. Sinclair took with him 160 soldiers, horses, and a corps of masons and carpenters.

 

Edward himself visited in July, but the English efforts were undone before the end of the year when the Scottish Regent Sir Andrew Murray led a force that captured and again destroyed the defences of Dunnottar.

 

In the 14th century Dunnottar was granted to William de Moravia, 5th Earl of Sutherland (d.1370), and in 1346 a licence to crenellate was issued by David II. Around 1359 William Keith, Marischal of Scotland, married Margaret Fraser, niece of Robert the Bruce, and was granted the barony of Dunnottar at this time. Keith then gave the lands of Dunnottar to his daughter Christian and son-in-law William Lindsay of Byres, but in 1392 an excambion (exchange) was agreed whereby Keith regained Dunnottar and Lindsay took lands in Fife.

 

William Keith completed construction of the tower house at Dunnottar, but was excommunicated for building on the consecrated ground associated with the parish church. Keith had provided a new parish church closer to Stonehaven, but was forced to write to the Pope, Benedict XIII, who issued a bull in 1395 lifting the excommunication.William Keith's descendents were created Earls Marischal in the mid 15th century, and they held Dunottar until the 18th century.

 

16th century rebuilding

Through the 16th century the Keiths improved and expanded their principal seats: at Dunnottar and also at Keith Marischal in East Lothian. James IV visited Dunnottar in 1504, and in 1531 James V exempted the Earl's men from military service on the grounds that Dunnottar was one of the "principall strenthis of our realme".

 

Mary, Queen of Scots, visited in 1562 after the Battle of Corrichie, and returned in 1564.

 

James VI stayed for 10 days in 1580, as part of a progress through Fife and Angus, during which a meeting of the Privy Council was convened at Dunnottar.

 

During a rebellion of Catholic nobles in 1592, Dunnottar was captured by a Captain Carr on behalf of the Earl of Huntly, but was restored to Lord Marischal just a few weeks later.

 

In 1581 George Keith succeeded as 5th Earl Marischal, and began a large scale reconstruction that saw the medieval fortress converted into a more comfortable home. The founder of Marischal College in Aberdeen, the 5th Earl valued Dunnottar as much for its dramatic situation as for its security.

 

A "palace" comprising a series of ranges around a quadrangle was built on the north-eastern cliffs, creating luxurious living quarters with sea views. The 13th-century chapel was restored and incorporated into the quadrangle.

 

An impressive stone gatehouse was constructed, now known as Benholm's Lodging, featuring numerous gun ports facing the approach. Although impressive, these are likely to have been fashionable embellishments rather than genuine defensive features.

 

Civil wars

Further information: Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms

In 1639 William Keith, 7th Earl Marischal, came out in support of the Covenanters, a Presbyterian movement who opposed the established Episcopal Church and the changes which Charles I was attempting to impose. With James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, he marched against the Catholic James Gordon, 2nd Viscount Aboyne, Earl of Huntly, and defeated an attempt by the Royalists to seize Stonehaven. However, when Montrose changed sides to the Royalists and marched north, Marischal remained in Dunnottar, even when given command of the area by Parliament, and even when Montrose burned Stonehaven.

 

Marischal then joined with the Engager faction, who had made a deal with the king, and led a troop of horse to the Battle of Preston (1648) in support of the royalists.

 

Following the execution of Charles I in 1649, the Engagers gave their allegiance to his son and heir: Charles II was proclaimed king, arriving in Scotland in June 1650. He visited Dunnottar in July 1650, but his presence in Scotland prompted Oliver Cromwell to lead a force into Scotland, defeating the Scots at Dunbar in September 1650.

 

The Honours of Scotland

Charles II was crowned at Scone Palace on 1 January 1651, at which the Honours of Scotland (the regalia of crown, sword and sceptre) were used. However, with Cromwell's troops in Lothian, the honours could not be returned to Edinburgh. The Earl Marischal, as Marischal of Scotland, had formal responsibility for the honours, and in June the Privy Council duly decided to place them at Dunnottar.

 

They were brought to the castle by Katherine Drummond, hidden in sacks of wool. Sir George Ogilvie (or Ogilvy) of Barras was appointed lieutenant-governor of the castle, and given responsibility for its defence.

 

In November 1651 Cromwell's troops called on Ogilvie to surrender, but he refused. During the subsequent blockade of the castle, the removal of the Honours of Scotland was planned by Elizabeth Douglas, wife of Sir George Ogilvie, and Christian Fletcher, wife of James Granger, minister of Kinneff Parish Church. The king's papers were first removed from the castle by Anne Lindsay, a kinswoman of Elizabeth Douglas, who walked through the besieging force with the papers sewn into her clothes.

 

Two stories exist regarding the removal of the honours themselves. Fletcher stated in 1664 that over the course of three visits to the castle in February and March 1652, she carried away the crown, sceptre, sword and sword-case hidden amongst sacks of goods. Another account, given in the 18th century by a tutor to the Earl Marischal, records that the honours were lowered from the castle onto the beach, where they were collected by Fletcher's servant and carried off in a creel (basket) of seaweed. Having smuggled the honours from the castle, Fletcher and her husband buried them under the floor of the Old Kirk at Kinneff.

 

Meanwhile, by May 1652 the commander of the blockade, Colonel Thomas Morgan, had taken delivery of the artillery necessary for the reduction of Dunnottar. Ogilvie surrendered on 24 May, on condition that the garrison could go free. Finding the honours gone, the Cromwellians imprisoned Ogilvie and his wife in the castle until the following year, when a false story was put about suggesting that the honours had been taken overseas.

 

Much of the castle property was removed, including twenty-one brass cannons,[28] and Marischal was required to sell further lands and possessions to pay fines imposed by Cromwell's government.

 

At the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, the honours were removed from Kinneff Church and returned to the king. Ogilvie quarrelled with Marischal's mother over who would take credit for saving the honours, though he was eventually rewarded with a baronetcy. Fletcher was awarded 2,000 merks by Parliament but the sum was never paid.

  

Whigs and Jacobites

Religious and political conflicts continued to be played out at Dunnottar through the 17th and early 18th centuries. In 1685, during the rebellion of the Earl of Argyll against the new king James VII, 167 Covenanters were seized and held in a cellar at Dunnottar. The prisoners included 122 men and 45 women associated with the Whigs, an anti-Royalist group within the Covenanter movement, and had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the new king.

 

The Whigs were imprisoned from 24 May until late July. A group of 25 escaped, although two of these were killed in a fall from the cliffs, and another 15 were recaptured. Five prisoners died in the vault, and 37 of the Whigs were released after taking the oath of allegiance.

 

The remaining prisoners were transported to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, as part of a colonisation scheme devised by George Scot of Pitlochie. Many, like Scot himself, died on the voyage.

 

The cellar, located beneath the "King's Bedroom" in the 16th-century castle buildings, has since become known as the "Whigs' Vault".

 

Both the Jacobites (supporters of the exiled Stuarts) and the Hanoverians (supporters of George I and his descendents) used Dunnottar Castle. In 1689 during Viscount Dundee's campaign in support of the deposed James VII, the castle was garrisoned for William and Mary with Lord Marischal appointed captain.

 

Seventeen suspected Jacobites from Aberdeen were seized and held in the fortress for around three weeks, including George Liddell, professor of mathematics at Marischal College.

 

In the Jacobite Rising of 1715 George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, took an active role with the rebels, leading cavalry at the Battle of Sheriffmuir. After the subsequent abandonment of the rising Lord Marischal fled to the Continent, eventually becoming French ambassador for Frederick the Great of Prussia. Meanwhile, in 1716, his titles and estates including Dunnottar were declared forfeit to the crown.

 

Later history

The seized estates of the Earl Marischal were purchased in 1720 for £41,172, by the York Buildings Company who dismantled much of the castle.

 

In 1761 the Earl briefly returned to Scotland and bought back Dunnottar only to sell it five years later to Alexander Keith, an Edinburgh lawyer who served as Knight Marischal of Scotland.

 

Dunnottar was inherited in 1852 by Sir Patrick Keith-Murray of Ochtertyre, who in turn sold it in July 1873 to Major Alexander Innes of Cowie and Raemoir for about £80,000.

 

It was purchased by Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray, in 1925 after which his wife embarked on a programme of repairs.

 

Since that time the castle has remained in the family, and has been open to the public, attracting 52,500 visitors in 2009.

 

Dunnottar Castle, and the headland on which is stands, was designated as a scheduled monument in 1970.In 1972 twelve of the structures at Dunnottar were listed.

 

Three buildings are listed at category A as being of "national importance": the keep; the entrance gateway; and Benholm's Lodging.

 

The remaining listings are at category B as being of "regional importance".[39] The Hon. Charles Anthony Pearson, the younger son of the 3rd Viscount Cowdray, currently owns and runs Dunnottar Castle which is part of the 210-square-kilometre (52,000-acre) Dunecht Estates.

 

Portions of the 1990 film Hamlet, starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close, were shot there.

  

Description

Dunnottar's strategic location allowed its owners to control the coastal terrace between the North Sea cliffs and the hills of the Mounth, 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) inland, which enabled access to and from the north-east of Scotland.

 

The site is accessed via a steep, 800-metre (2,600 ft) footpath (with modern staircases) from a car park on the coastal road, or via a 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) cliff-top path from Stonehaven. Dunnottar's several buildings, put up between the 13th and 17th centuries, are arranged across a headland covering around 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres).

 

The dominant building, viewed from the land approach, is the 14th-century keep or tower house. The other principal buildings are the gatehouse; the chapel; and the 16th-century "palace" which incorporates the "Whigs' Vault".

 

Defences

The approach to the castle is overlooked by outworks on the "Fiddle Head", a promontory on the western side of the headland. The entrance is through the well-defended main gate, set in a curtain wall which entirely blocks a cleft in the rocky cliffs.

 

The gate has a portcullis and has been partly blocked up. Alongside the main gate is the 16th-century Benholm's Lodging, a five-storey building cut into the rock, which incorporated a prison with apartments above.

 

Three tiers of gun ports face outwards from the lower floors of Benholm's Lodging, while inside the main gate, a group of four gun ports face the entrance. The entrance passage then turns sharply to the left, running underground through two tunnels to emerge near the tower house.

 

Simpson contends that these defences are "without exception the strongest in Scotland", although later writers have doubted the effectiveness of the gun ports. Cruden notes that the alignment of the gun ports in Benholm's Lodging, facing across the approach rather than along, means that they are of limited efficiency.

 

The practicality of the gun ports facing the entrance has also been questioned, though an inventory of 1612 records that four brass cannons were placed here.

 

A second access to the castle leads up from a rocky cove, the aperture to a marine cave on the northern side of the Dunnottar cliffs into which a small boat could be brought. From here a steep path leads to the well-fortified postern gate on the cliff top, which in turn offers access to the castle via the Water Gate in the palace.

 

Artillery defences, taking the form of earthworks, surround the north-west corner of the castle, facing inland, and the south-east, facing seaward. A small sentry box or guard house stands by the eastern battery, overlooking the coast.

 

Tower house and surrounding buildings

The tower house of Dunnottar, viewed from the west

The late 14th-century tower house has a stone-vaulted basement, and originally had three further storeys and a garret above.

 

Measuring 12 by 11 metres (39 by 36 ft), the tower house stood 15 metres (49 ft) high to its gable. The principal rooms included a great hall and a private chamber for the lord, with bedrooms upstairs.

 

Beside the tower house is a storehouse, and a blacksmith's forge with a large chimney. A stable block is ranged along the southern edge of the headland. Nearby is Waterton's Lodging, also known as the Priest's House, built around 1574, possibly for the use of William Keith (died 1580), son of the 4th Earl Marischal.

 

This small self-contained house includes a hall and kitchen at ground level, with private chambers above, and has a projecting spiral stair on the north side. It is named for Thomas Forbes of Waterton, an attendant of the 7th Earl.

 

The palace

The palace, to the north-east of the headland, was built in the late 16th century and early to mid-17th century. It comprises three main wings set out around a quadrangle, and for the most part is probably the work of the 5th Earl Marischal who succeeded in 1581.

 

It provided extensive and comfortable accommodation to replace the rooms in the tower house. In its long, low design it has been compared to contemporary English buildings, in contrast to the Scottish tradition of taller towers still prevalent in the 16th century.

 

Seven identical lodgings are arranged along the west range, each opening onto the quadrangle and including windows and fireplace. Above the lodgings the west range comprised a 35-metre (115 ft) gallery. Now roofless, the gallery originally had an elaborate oak ceiling, and on display was a Roman tablet taken from the Antonine Wall.

 

At the north end of the gallery was a drawing room linked to the north range. The gallery could also be accessed from the Silver House to the south, which incorporated a broad stairway with a treasury above.

 

The basement of the north range incorporates kitchens and stores, with a dining room and great chamber above. At ground floor level is the Water Gate, between the north and west ranges, which gives access to the postern on the northern cliffs.

 

The east and north ranges are linked via a rectangular stair. The east range has a larder, brewhouse and bakery at ground level, with a suite of apartments for the Countess above. A north-east wing contains the Earl's apartments, and includes the "King's Bedroom" in which Charles II stayed. In this room is a carved stone inscribed with the arms of the 7th Earl and his wife, and the date 1654. Below these rooms is the Whigs' Vault, a cellar measuring 16 by 4.5 metres (52 by 15 ft). This cellar, in which the Covenanters were held in 1685, has a large eastern window, as well as a lower vault accessed via a trap-door in the floor.

 

Of the chambers in the palace, only the dining room and the Silver House remain roofed, having been restored in the 1920s. The central area contains a circular cistern or fish pond, 16 metres (52 ft) across and 7.6 metres (25 ft) deep, and a bowling green is located to the west.

 

At the south-east corner of the quadrangle is the chapel, consecrated in 1276 and largely rebuilt in the 16th century. Medieval walling and two 13th-century windows remain, and there is a graveyard to the south.

A Genuine Example of One of the Eleven 1971 Hemi ‘Cuda Convertibles

 

500+hp, 425hp rated, 426 cu. in. vee eight-cylinder engine, dual four-barrel carburetors, four-speed manual transmission, Hurst pistol grip shifter, independent front suspension with torsion bars, live axle rear suspension with semi-elliptical leaf springs, front disc, rear drum power assisted hydraulic brakes. Wheelbase: 108"

 

Three times Chrysler Corporation has relied upon the Hemi to transform its products and image from dull to sparkling, and three times the Hemi has delivered. In an American car market that has been characterized by glitz, fins and bulk, the technical sophistication of Chrysler’s hemispherical combustion chamber V8 engine has been a refreshing demonstration of the appeal of elegant, thoughtful engineering.

 

In the late 60’s and early 70’s it also acquired a bad boy image of politically incorrect power and performance, establishing a mythical presence that has made the Hemi a legend.

 

Hemi History

 

During development work on World War II aircraft engines, Chrysler’s engineers had seen firsthand the potential for hemispherical combustion chamber engines. In addition to the thermal efficiency of the hemi chamber’s low surface area and its low-restriction cross-flow porting, the angle between the valves ideally disposed the ports for efficient breathing in a

vee-layout engine.

 

Chrysler was the ideal company to pursue the hemispherical combustion chamber V8. It had a longstanding tradition of investigating, developing and perfecting advanced engineering ideas. Unlike its major competitors, Chrysler had neither overhead valve nor vee-configuration engine history, and thus no preconceived notions of how it should be done. Its engine designers could – and did – explore every conceivable engine idea. Their research showed that the hemispherical combustion chamber not only gave better performance than a comparable wedge-chamber head but also tolerated appreciably higher compression ratios.

 

The hemispherical head V8 was introduced in the Chrysler line in 1951. With 331 cubic inches displacement in a short stroke oversquare design, Chrysler’s FirePower V8 delivered 180 horsepower at 4,000 rpm and 312 lb-ft torque at 2,000 rpm. The performance potential of the Hemi was quickly recognized, most famously with the Chrysler C300 and its successors, which set the pace both on the highway and on NASCAR’s speedways. By 1958, however, manufacturing economics swung the pendulum in favor of the wedge-chamber V8s. The Hemi was phased out in 1959 … but not for long.

 

In the early 60s the 413 and 426 Wedge engines were dominant in drag racing but lacked the continuous high rpm performance needed on NASCAR’s speedways. Dodge and Plymouth were being trounced, a situation that couldn’t be allowed to stand. Faced with a need to develop a high performance, free-breathing engine quickly, Chrysler’s engineers turned to the solution they already knew worked, the Hemi. They stuck with the overall dimensions of the Raised Block 426 Wedge so existing fixturing and machining setups could be employed and maintained the original Hemi’s dual rocker shafts and 58° valve included angle. To adapt the Hemi head to the Raised Block engine, the ingenious Chrysler engineers rotated the combustion chamber toward the engine’s centerline about 8 1/2°.

 

Completed and delivered to the track just days before the 1964 Daytona 500’s green flag, the 426 Hemis proved to be invincible, sweeping the top three places in NASCAR’s most important race.

 

Production of the second generation Hemi ended after the 1971 model year as emission restrictions and insurance surcharges gave horsepower, which had never been entirely socially acceptable, a distinctly antisocial taint. Chrysler would twice more resurrect the Hemi, however, first as a crate engine program for hot rodders and later as a third generation production engine that brought DaimlerChrysler back to the forefront of performance at the beginning of the 21st century. Like some other forms of antisocial behavior, horsepower has proven to be addictive.

 

The Hemi ‘Cuda

 

Of all the Street Hemis built, the most famous, attractive and desirable are the 1970-1971 E-body Plymouth ‘Cudas, combining the visceral delight of the Hemi’s power and torque with the ‘Cuda’s lightweight, streamlined and refined 2+2 platform.

 

The first Barracuda was introduced in 1964 and in the late 60’s Chrysler engineering and Hurst performance shoehorned Race Hemi engines into the Barracuda’s engine compartment for NHRA drag racing. Seventy-five were built, sold and successfully campaigned around the country. When the Barracuda was redesigned for the 1970 model year the engine compartment was made large enough for the legendary 425 horsepower 426 cubic inch Street Hemi.

 

The Plymouth Barracuda was the cleanest, most refined and elegant of all the pony car designs. Distinguished by its wide grille, long, flat hood, short rear deck and ominously raised rear fenders – deliberately shaped like the haunches of an animal crouching before a leap – the appearance of the ‘Cuda left no doubt that this was a serious performance car.

 

Hemi-powered ‘Cudas are surpassingly rare. Built for only two years, 1970 and 1971, their low production numbers reflect the undeniable fact that the combination of the ‘Cuda platform and the Street Hemi engine was irrationally fast. It also was expensive: $871.45 in 1970 and $883.90 in 1971, a prohibitive 70% more than the 390 horsepower 440 Six Barrel.

 

A Hemi ‘Cuda was not for the faint of heart nor for the cautious of pocketbook. Buying one took serious commitment, backed up by an ample budget. In 1971 there were only 119 souls brave and prosperous enough to make the commitment to check off E74, the Street Hemi’s order code, on the ‘Cuda order form.

 

• 108 of them ordered hardtops

• Only eleven stepped up for the top-of-the-line ‘Cuda convertible powered by the 426 cubic inch, 425 horsepower dual quad Street Hemi.

• Only three of those were confident enough of their driving skills to opt for the Hurst pistol grip shifted four-speed manual transmission.

• Only two of those were delivered in the U.S.

• Both U.S.-delivered ’71 Hemi ‘Cuda convertibles were B5 Blue with

matching interiors.

 

That’s only three, in all the world, that combined the Street Hemi engine with the ‘Cuda convertible body and 4-speed transmission in 1971. One of them is the car offered here, BS27R1B269588, the only one with white soft top and elastomeric front bumper cover.

 

The “Mountain Mopar” Hemi ‘Cuda Convertible

 

Built in February of 1971, this Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda convertible’s first owner, Ronald Ambach, lived in St. Louis, Missouri. He owned it only until the fall, accumulating the car’s only street miles, before selling it to its next owner, Nick Masciarelli, in Ohio. He decided to take the Hemi ‘Cuda Stock Eliminator drag racing and turned to renowned Detroit-area engine builder Tom Tignanelli for a hot Hemi V8. The new owner was in a hurry, and the quickest way to meet his request was to swap the original engine for a fresh race-prepared Tignanelli Hemi.

 

In May of 1973, the Hemi ‘Cuda convertible was sold to John Book and partner John Oliverio in West Virginia who raced it in East Coast and Mid-Atlantic events during 1973 and 1974. Its dramatic appearance, complete with gold-leaf “Mountain Mopar” identification, is documented in several period photos in the car’s documentation file.

 

Fortunately for today’s collectors, the “Mountain Mopar” Hemi ‘Cuda convertible was retired after 1974 and stored in a climate-controlled building in West Virginia. In 1989 it was sold to the Painter brothers. Two years later it was acquired by Milt Robson in Atlanta, Georgia, still in its as-raced condition. Robson commenced a comprehensive restoration using original or new-old-stock parts to its original, as-delivered condition in his shops, which was completed in the early 90’s. Stored inside for virtually its entire life, 269588 was never subjected to the vicissitudes of the elements which afflicted most of its siblings; its original sheet metal and interior are carefully restored and retained. The engine was rebuilt around a correct 1/19/1970 date-coded Chrysler NOS block.

 

In addition to the 426/425 horsepower dual quad Street Hemi and pistol grip Hurst shifted four-speed manual transmission, this unique 1971 Hemi ‘Cuda convertible is equipped with power steering, power brakes, Dana Super Track Pack and AM-FM radio. Importantly, it is the only ’71 Hemi ‘Cuda convertible known to have been delivered with the body-colored Elastomeric front bumper cover. Its original configuration is verified by two separate original build sheets; the ownership history is documented with a continuous sequence of titles. It has been personally viewed by Galen Govier and authenticated by him as one of the seven US-delivered ’71 Hemi ‘Cuda convertibles which have been included in the Chrysler Registry.

 

Finished in B5 Blue inside and out with a white vinyl top, it has been restored to better than showroom condition. Particular attention has been paid to the accuracy of its components and finishes and to the preservation of as much as possible of its almost unbelievable originality, including the carefully preserved original interior.

 

It has been shown only in local shows around Atlanta in the mid 90s, was featured a decade ago in a May 1995 Car Collector magazine article by Dennis Adler and has appeared in several books, copies of which come with the car.

 

Putting a free-breathing, high-rpm engine like the 426 Hemi in a lithe, frisky chassis like the ‘Cuda was exactly what the forces of political correctness inveighed against in the early 70s. In 1972 the Hemi was gone for the second time, its visceral appeal buried in a cascade of social responsibility, “net” horsepower and Highway Fuel Economy ratings. There is nothing politically correct, nothing socially responsible about a Hemi ‘Cuda. The 1971 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda convertible is wretched excess in a nearly unimaginably limited production package.

 

This is absolutely the most desirable, rare and handsome of all the American Muscle and Pony Cars. Combining the brute power and torque of the legendary dual quad Street Hemi engine with the sleek, aggressive lines of the ‘Cuda convertible, it is the ultimate combination of personal car style and Muscle Car performance, a singular example and the quintessential muscle car of all time.

 

[Text from RM Auctions]

 

www.rmauctions.com/lots/lot.cfm?lot_id=132126

 

This Lego miniland-scale Plymouth HEMI ' Cuda Convertible (1971), has been created for Flickr LUGNuts' 89th Build Challenge, - "Over a Million, Under a Thousand", - a challenge to build vehicles valued over one million (US) dollars, or under one thousand (US) dollars.

 

This particular vehicle was auctioned by the RM Auction house for US$2,420,000)

Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes (/ˈsɛlɪbiːz, sɪˈliːbiːz/), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Within Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger populations.

 

The landmass of Sulawesi includes four peninsulas: the northern Minahasa Peninsula; the East Peninsula; the South Peninsula; and the Southeast Peninsula. Three gulfs separate these peninsulas: the Gulf of Tomini between the northern Minahasa and East peninsulas; the Tolo Gulf between the East and Southeast peninsulas; and the Bone Gulf between the South and Southeast peninsulas. The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island and separates the island from Borneo.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The name Sulawesi possibly comes from the words sula ("island") and besi ("iron") and may refer to the historical export of iron from the rich Lake Matano iron deposits. The name came into common use in English following Indonesian independence.

 

The name Celebes was originally given to the island by Portuguese explorers. While its direct translation is unclear, it may be considered a Portuguese rendering of the native name "Sulawesi".

 

GEOGRAPHY

Sulawesi is the world's eleventh-largest island, covering an area of 174,600 km2. The central part of the island is ruggedly mountainous, such that the island's peninsulas have traditionally been remote from each other, with better connections by sea than by road. The three bays that divide Sulawesi's peninsulas are, from north to south, the Tomini, the Tolo and the Boni. These separate the Minahassa or Northern Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the Southeast Peninsula and the South Peninsula.

 

The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island. The island is surrounded by Borneo to the west, by the Philippines to the north, by Maluku to the east, and by Flores and Timor to the south.

 

MINOR ISLANDS

The Selayar Islands make up a peninsula stretching southwards from Southwest Sulawesi into the Flores Sea are administratively part of Sulawesi. The Sangihe Islands and Talaud Islands stretch northward from the northeastern tip of Sulawesi, while Buton Island and its neighbours lie off its southeast peninsula, the Togian Islands are in the Gulf of Tomini, and Peleng Island and Banggai Islands form a cluster between Sulawesi and Maluku. All the above-mentioned islands, and many smaller ones are administratively part of Sulawesi's six provinces.

 

GEOLOGY

The island slopes up from the shores of the deep seas surrounding the island to a high, mostly non-volcanic, mountainous interior. Active volcanoes are found in the northern Minahassa Peninsula, stretching north to the Sangihe Islands. The northern peninsula contains several active volcanoes such as Mount Lokon, Mount Awu, Soputan and Karangetang.

 

According to plate reconstructions, the island is believed to have been formed by the collision of terranes from the Asian Plate (forming the west and southwest) and from the Australian Plate (forming the southeast and Banggai), with island arcs previously in the Pacific (forming the north and east peninsulas).[8] Because of its several tectonic origins, various faults scar the land and as a result the island is prone to earthquakes.

 

Sulawesi, in contrast to most of the other islands in the biogeographical region of Wallacea, is not truly oceanic, but a composite island at the centre of the Asia-Australia collision zone. Parts of the island were formerly attached to either the Asian or Australian continental margin and became separated from these areas by vicariant processes. In the west, the opening of the Makassar Strait separated West Sulawesi from Sundaland in the Eocene c. 45 Mya. In the east, the traditional view of collisions of multiple micro-continental fragments sliced from New Guinea with an active volcanic margin in West Sulawesi at different times since the Early Miocene c. 20 Mya has recently been replaced by the hypothesis that extensional fragmentation has followed a single Miocene collision of West Sulawesi with the Sula Spur, the western end of an ancient folded belt of Variscan origin in the Late Paleozoic.

 

PREHISTORY

Before October 2014, the settlement of South Sulawesi by modern humans had been dated to c. 30,000 BC on the basis of radiocarbon dates obtained from rock shelters in Maros. No earlier evidence of human occupation had at that point been found, but the island almost certainly formed part of the land bridge used for the settlement of Australia and New Guinea by at least 40,000 BCE. There is no evidence of Homo erectus having reached Sulawesi; crude stone tools first discovered in 1947 on the right bank of the Walennae River at Berru, Indonesia, which were thought to date to the Pleistocene on the basis of their association with vertebrate fossils, are now thought to date to perhaps 50,000 BC.

 

Following Peter Bellwood's model of a southward migration of Austronesian-speaking farmers (AN), radiocarbon dates from caves in Maros suggest a date in the mid-second millennium BC for the arrival of a group from east Borneo speaking a Proto-South Sulawesi language (PSS). Initial settlement was probably around the mouth of the Sa'dan river, on the northwest coast of the peninsula, although the south coast has also been suggested.

 

Subsequent migrations across the mountainous landscape resulted in the geographical isolation of PSS speakers and the evolution of their languages into the eight families of the South Sulawesi language group. If each group can be said to have a homeland, that of the Bugis – today the most numerous group – was around lakes Témpé and Sidénréng in the Walennaé depression. Here for some 2,000 years lived the linguistic group that would become the modern Bugis; the archaic name of this group (which is preserved in other local languages) was Ugiq. Despite the fact that today they are closely linked with the Makasar, the closest linguistic neighbours of the Bugis are the Toraja.

 

Pre-1200 Bugis society was most likely organised into chiefdoms. Some anthropologists have speculated these chiefdoms would have warred and, in times of peace, exchanged women with each other. Further, they have speculated that personal security would have been negligible and head-hunting an established cultural practice. The political economy would have been a mixture of hunting and gathering and swidden or shifting agriculture. Speculative planting of wet rice may have taken place along the margins of the lakes and rivers. In Central Sulawesi, there are over 400 granite megaliths, which various archaeological studies have dated to be from 3000 BC to AD 1300. They vary in size from a few centimetres to around 4.5 metres. The original purpose of the megaliths is unknown. About 30 of the megaliths represent human forms. Other megaliths are in form of large pots (Kalamba) and stone plates (Tutu'na).In October 2014 it was announced that cave paintings in Maros had been dated as being about 40,000 years old. Dr Maxime Aubert, of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said that the minimum age for the outline of a hand was 39,900 years old, which made it "the oldest hand stencil in the world" and added, "Next to it is a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one."

 

HISTORY

Starting in the 13th century, access to prestige trade goods and to sources of iron started to alter long-standing cultural patterns and to permit ambitious individuals to build larger political units. It is not known why these two ingredients appeared together; one was perhaps the product of the other.

 

In 1367, several identified polities, located on the island, were mentioned in the Javanese manuscript Nagarakretagama dated from the Majapahit period. Canto 14 mentioned polities including Gowa, Makassar, Luwu and Banggai. It seems that by the 14th century, polities in the island were connected in an archipelagic maritime trading network, centered in the Majapahit port in East Java. By 1400, a number of nascent agricultural principalities had arisen in the western Cenrana valley, as well as on the south coast and on the west coast near modern Parepare.

 

The first Europeans to visit the island (which they believed to be an archipelago due to its contorted shape) were the Portuguese sailors Simão de Abreu, in 1523, and Gomes de Sequeira (among others) in 1525, sent from the Moluccas in search of gold, which the islands had the reputation of producing. A Portuguese base was installed in Makassar in the first decades of the 16th century, lasting until 1665, when it was taken by the Dutch. The Dutch had arrived in Sulawesi in 1605 and were quickly followed by the English, who established a factory in Makassar. From 1660, the Dutch were at war with Gowa, the major Makassar west coast power. In 1669, Admiral Speelman forced the ruler, Sultan Hasanuddin, to sign the Treaty of Bongaya, which handed control of trade to the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch were aided in their conquest by the Bugis warlord Arung Palakka, ruler of the Bugis kingdom of Bone. The Dutch built a fort at Ujung Pandang, while Arung Palakka became the regional overlord and Bone the dominant kingdom. Political and cultural development seems to have slowed as a result of the status quo. In 1905 the entire island became part of the Dutch state colony of the Netherlands East Indies until Japanese occupation in the Second World War. During the Indonesian National Revolution, the Dutch Captain 'Turk' Westerling led campaigns in which hundreds, maybe thousands died during the South Sulawesi Campaign. Following the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949, Sulawesi became part of the federal United States of Indonesia, which in 1950 became absorbed into the unitary Republic of Indonesia.

 

CENTRAL SULAWESI

The Portuguese were rumoured to have a fort in Parigi in 1555. The Kaili were an important group based in the Palu valley and related to the Toraja. Scholars relate that their control swayed under Ternate and Makassar, but this might have been a decision by the Dutch to give their vassals a chance to govern a difficult group. Padbruge commented that in the 1700s Kaili numbers were significant and a highly militant society. In the 1850s a war erupted between the Kaili groups, including the Banawa, in which the Dutch decided to intervene. A complex conflict also involving the Sulu Island pirates and probably Wyndham (a British merchant who commented on being involved in arms dealing to the area in this period and causing a row).

 

In the late 19th century the Sarasins journeyed through the Palu valley as part of a major initiative to bring the Kaili under Dutch rule. Some very surprising and interesting photographs were taken of shamans called Tadulako. Further Christian religious missions entered the area to make one of the most detailed ethnographic studies in the early 20th century. A Swede by the name of Walter Kaudern later studied much of the literature and produced a synthesis. Erskine Downs in the 1950s produced a summary of Kruyts and Andrianis work: "The religion of the Bare'e-Speaking Toradja of Central Celebes," which is invaluable for English-speaking researchers. One of the most recent publications is "When the bones are left," a study of the material culture of central Sulawesi, offering extensive analysis. Also worthy of study are the brilliant works of Monnig Atkinson on the Wana shamans who live in the Mori area.

 

POPULATION

The 2000 census population of the provinces of Sulawesi was 14,946,488, about 7.25% of Indonesia's total population. By the 2010 Census the total had reached 17,371,782, and the latest official estimate (for January 2014) is 18,455,058. The largest city is Makassar.

 

RELIGION

Islam is the majority religion in Sulawesi. The conversion of the lowlands of the south western peninsula (South Sulawesi) to Islam occurred in the early 17th century. The kingdom of Luwu in the Gulf of Bone was the first to accept Islam in February 1605; the Makassar kingdom of Goa-Talloq, centred on the modern-day city of Makassar, followed suit in September. However, the Gorontalo and the Mongondow peoples of the northern peninsula largely converted to Islam only in the 19th century. Most Muslims are Sunnis.

  

POPULATION OF SULAWESI BY PROVINCE (2010)

South Sulawesi (46.4%)

Central Sulawesi (15%)

Southeast Sulawesi (13%)

North Sulawesi (13.0%)

West Sulawesi (6.6%)

Gorontalo (6%)

 

Christians form a substantial minority on the island. According to the demographer Toby Alice Volkman, 17% of Sulawesi's population is Protestant and less than 2% is Roman Catholic. Christians are concentrated on the tip of the northern peninsula around the city of Manado, which is inhabited by the Minahasa, a predominantly Protestant people, and the northernmost Sangir and Talaud Islands. The Toraja people of Tana Toraja in Central Sulawesi have largely converted to Christianity since Indonesia's independence. There are also substantial numbers of Christians around Lake Poso in Central Sulawesi, among the Pamona speaking peoples of Central Sulawesi, and near Mamasa.

 

Though most people identify themselves as Muslims or Christians, they often subscribe to local beliefs and deities as well. It is not uncommon for both groups to make offerings to local gods, goddesses, and spirits.

 

Smaller communities of Buddhists and Hindus are also found on Sulawesi, usually among the Chinese, Balinese and Indian communities.

 

AGMINISTRATION

The island is subdivided into six provinces: Gorontalo, West Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and North Sulawesi. West Sulawesi is a new province, created in 2004 from part of South Sulawesi. The largest cities on the island are Makassar, Manado, Palu, Kendari, Bitung, Gorontalo, Palopo and Baubau.

 

FLORA AND FAUNA

Sulawesi is part of Wallacea, meaning that it has a mix of both Indomalayan and Australasian species that reached the island by crossing deep-water oceanic barriers. The flora includes one native eucalypt, E. deglupta. There are 8 national parks on the island, of which 4 are mostly marine. The parks with the largest terrestrial area are Bogani Nani Wartabone with 2,871 km2 and Lore Lindu National Park with 2,290 km2. Bunaken National Park which protects a rich coral ecosystem has been proposed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

MAMMALS

Early in the Pleistocene, Sulawesi had a dwarf elephant and a dwarf form of Stegodon, (an elephant relative, S. sompoensis); later both were replaced by larger forms. A giant suid, Celebochoerus, was also formerly present. It is thought that many of the migrants to Sulawesi arrived via the Philippines, while Sulawesi in turn served as a way station for migrants to Flores. A Pleistocene faunal turnover is recognised, with the competitive displacement of several indigenous tarsiers by more recently arriving ones and by Celebochoerus by other medium-sized herbivores like the babirusa, anoa and Celebes warty pig.

 

There are 127 known extant native mammalian species in Sulawesi. A large percentage, 62% (79 species) are endemic, meaning that they are found nowhere else in the world. The largest of these are the two species of anoa or dwarf buffalo. Other artiodactyl species inhabiting Sulawesi are the warty pig and the babirusas, which are aberrant pigs. The only native carnivoran is the Sulawesi palm civet (Asian palm and Malayan civets have been introduced). Primates present include a number of tarsiers (T. fuscus, Dian's, Gursky's, Jatna's, Wallace's, the Lariang and pygmy tarsiers) as well as macaques (Heck's, the booted, crested black, Gorontalo, moor, and Tonkean macaques). While most of Sulawesi's mammals are placental and have Asian relatives, several species of cuscus, arboreal marsupials of Australasian origin, are also present (Ailurops ursinus and Strigocuscus celebensis).

 

Sulawesi is home to a large number of endemic rodent genera. Murid rodent genera endemic to Sulawesi and immediately adjacent islands (such as the Togian Islands, Buton Island, and Muna Island) are Bunomys, Echiothrix, Margaretamys, Taeromys and Tateomys as well as the single-species genera Eropeplus, Hyorhinomys, Melasmothrix, Paucidentomys, Paruromys and Sommeromys. Endemic sciurid genera are Hyosciurus, Prosciurillus, Rubrisciurus and Waiomys.

 

While over 20 bat species are present on Sulawesi, only a portion of these are endemic: Rhinolophus tatar, Scotophilus celebensis and the megabats Acerodon celebensis, Boneia bidens, Dobsonia exoleta, Harpyionycteris celebensis, Neopteryx frosti, Rousettus celebensis and Styloctenium wallacei.

 

Several endemic shrews, the Sulawesi shrew, Sulawesi tiny shrew and the Sulawesi white-handed shrew, are found on the island.

 

BIRDS

By contrast, Sulawesian bird species tend to be found on other nearby islands as well, such as Borneo; 31% of Sulawesi's birds are found nowhere else. One true endemic is the fiery-browed starling. Another endemic bird (also found on small neighboring islands) is the largely ground-dwelling, chicken-sized maleo, a megapode which uses hot sand close to the island's volcanic vents to incubate its eggs. Others include the flightless snoring rail, the Sulawesi masked owl, the Sulawesi myna and the grosbeak starling. There are around 350 known bird species in Sulawesi. An international partnership of conservationists, donors, and local people have formed the Alliance for Tompotika Conservation, in an effort to raise awareness and protect the nesting grounds of these birds on the central-eastern arm of the island.

 

REPTILES

The larger reptiles of Sulawesi are not endemic and include reticulated and Burmese pythons, king cobras, water monitors, sailfin lizards, saltwater crocodiles and green sea turtles. An extinct giant tortoise, Megalochelys atlas, was formerly present, but disappeared by 840,000 years ago, possibly because of the arrival of humans. Similarly, komodo dragons or similar lizards appear to have inhabited the island, being among its apex predators. The smaller snakes of Sulawesi include endemic forms such as Calamaria boesemani, Calamaria muelleri, Calamaria nuchalis, Cyclotyphlops, Enhydris matannensis, Ptyas dipsas, Rabdion grovesi, Tropidolaemus laticinctus and Typhlops conradi. Similarly, the smaller lizards of Sulawesi include nonendemic species such as Bronchocela jubata, Dibamus novaeguineae and Gekko smithii, as well as endemic species such as Lipinia infralineolata and Luperosaurus iskandari.

 

AMPHIBIANS

The amphibians of Sulawesi include the endemic frogs Hylarana celebensis, H. macrops, H. mocquardi, Ingerophrynus celebensis, Limnonectes arathooni, L. larvaepartus, L. microtympanum, Occidozyga celebensis, O. semipalmata and O. tompotika as well as the endemic "flying frogs" Rhacophorus edentulus and R. georgii.

 

FRESHWATER FISH

Sulawesi is home to more than 70 freshwater fish species, including more than 55 endemics. Among these are the genus Nomorhamphus, a species flock of viviparous halfbeaks containing 12 species that only are found on Sulawesi (others are from the Philippines). In addition to Nomorhamphus, the majority of Sulawesi's freshwater fish species are ricefishes, gobies (Glossogobius and Mugilogobius) and Telmatherinid sail-fin silversides. The last family is almost entirely restricted to Sulawesi, especially the Malili Lake system, consisting of Matano and Towuti, and the small Lontoa (Wawantoa), Mahalona and Masapi. Another unusual endemic is Lagusia micracanthus from rivers in South Sulawesi, which is the sole member of its genus and among the smallest grunters. The gudgeon Bostrychus microphthalmus from the Maros Karst is the only described species of cave-adapted fish from Sulawesi, but an apparently undescribed species from the same region and genus also exists.

 

FRESHWATER CRUSTACEANS AND SNAILS

Many species of Caridina freshwater shrimp and parathelphusid freshwater crabs (Migmathelphusa, Nautilothelphusa, Parathelphusa, Sundathelphusa and Syntripsa) are endemic to Sulawesi. Several of these species have become very popular in the aquarium hobby, and since most are restricted to a single lake system, they are potentially vulnerable to habitat loss and overexploitation. There are also several endemic cave-adapted shrimp and crabs, especially in the Maros Karst. This includes Cancrocaeca xenomorpha, which has been called the "most highly cave-adapted species of crab known in the world".

 

The genus Tylomelania of freshwater snails is also endemic to Sulawesi, with the majority of the species restricted to Lake Poso and the Malili Lake system.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

The mimic octopus is also present in the waters of Sulawesi's coast.

 

CONSERVATION

Sulawesi island was recently the subject of an Ecoregional Conservation Assessment, coordinated by The Nature Conservancy. Detailed reports about the vegetation of the island are available. The assessment produced a detailed and annotated list of 'conservation portfolio' sites. This information was widely distributed to local government agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Detailed conservation priorities have also been outlined in a recent publication.

 

The lowland forests on the island have mostly been removed. Because of the relative geological youth of the island and its dramatic and sharp topography, the lowland areas are naturally limited in their extent. The past decade has seen dramatic conversion of this rare and endangered habitat. The island also possesses one of the largest outcrops of serpentine soil in the world, which support an unusual and large community of specialized plant species. Overall, the flora and fauna of this unique center of global biodiversity is very poorly documented and understood and remains critically threatened.

 

The islands of Pepaya, Mas and Raja islands, located in Sumalata Village - North Gorontalo Regency (about 30 km from Saronde Island), have been named a nature reserve since the Dutch colonial time in 1936. Four of the only seven species of turtles can be found in the islands, the world's best turtle habitat. They include Penyu Hijau (Chelonia midas), Penyu Sisik (Eretmochelys imbricata), Penyu Tempayan (Caretta caretta) and Penyu Belimbing (Dermochelys coriacea). In 2011, the habitat was threatened by human activities such as illegal poaching and fish bombing activities; furthermore, a lot of coral reefs, which represent a source of food for turtles, have been damaged.

 

ENVIRONMENT

The largest environmental issue in Sulawesi is deforestation. In 2007, scientists found that 80 percent of Sulawesi's forest had been lost or degraded, especially centered in the lowlands and the mangroves. Forests have been felled for logging and large agricultural projects. Loss of forest has resulted in many of Sulawesi's endemic species becoming endangered. In addition, 99 percent of Sulawesi's wetlands have been lost or damaged.

 

Other environmental threats included bushmeat hunting and mining.

 

PARKS

The island of Sulawesi has six national parks and nineteen nature reserves. In addition, Sulawesi has three marine protected areas. Many of Sulawesi's parks are threatened by logging, mining, and deforestation for agriculture.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Mott Haven, The Bronx, New York City, New York, United States

 

Featuring robust brick facades and a high corner clock tower, the former Estey Piano Company Factory is a distinguished monument to an industry that was once one of the Bronx’s most important. Anchoring the northeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard since 1886, when its original portion was completed, the Estey building is the oldest-known former piano factory standing in the Bronx today. It is also one of the earliest large factories remaining in its Mott Haven neighborhood, dating from the period in which the area first experienced intensive industrial development. Today, as in decades past, the building’s signature clock tower and expansive facades—simply but elegantly detailed with terra cotta, patterned brick, and contrasting stone—are visible from the waterfront and nearby Harlem River bridges, making the Estey Factory a true neighborhood landmark.

 

Manufacturing blossomed in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx during the 1880s, when new factories started springing up in the area east of Third Avenue. Many of these produced pianos or their components, and by 1919, the Bronx had more than 60 such factories, making it one of America’s piano-manufacturing centers. One of the city’s first piano factories to be built in the Annexed District or North Side, as the western portions of the Bronx were known between 1874 and 1898, the Estey building was credited with providing “an unusual stimulus” for the movement of other piano makers there. Several of the manufacturers that followed Estey to the Annexed District, and later the Bronx, clustered within a few blocks of its factory, creating an important nucleus for the piano industry.

 

The Estey Piano Company was organized by Jacob Estey and John B. Simpson in 1885. Two decades before, Estey had established an organ works in Brattleboro, Vt. that had grown into one of the country’s largest producers of reed organs, thousands of which found their way into American parlors every year. Like other organ manufacturers in the late nineteenth century, Estey sought to diversify into the booming piano industry, and his partnership with Simpson—a pioneering North Side piano manufacturer—was a means to that end. When Estey Piano opened its factory, it manufactured upright and grand pianos that would become recognized for their “superior construction and workmanship.”

 

The original portion of the Estey Piano Factory was designed by the architectural firm of A.B. Ogden & Son. Many of this building’s features, including its L-shaped plan, flat roof, regular fenestration pattern and bay arrangement, and relatively narrow width to allow for daylight penetration, are characteristic of latenineteenth-century factory buildings. Its mixture of segmental- and round-headed window openings, and the Romanesque machicolations of its clock tower, place the Estey Factory within the tradition of the American round-arched style. Other features, including the factory’s distinctive, red-orange brick, dogtoothed and zigzagging patterned-brick stringcourses, recessed brick panels, terra cotta tiles featuring festoons, lions’ heads, and foliate motifs—and of course, its dramatic, projecting clock tower—speak of a building that sought to announce its presence on the urban landscape, projecting a strong public image for its owner. Indeed, the Estey Piano Company often included an illustration of this factory on its trade cards, which advertised the firm’s products.

 

The original building was extended to the east along Southern Boulevard in 1890, with a harmonious five-story addition designed by John B. Snook & Sons, and to the north, along Lincoln Avenue, with one-story additions in 1895. The Lincoln Avenue additions appear to have been combined and expanded, and then raised to three stories in 1909, and by an additional two stories in 1919; the 1919 addition near the southeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street features broad expanses of industrial sash that were characteristic of the “daylight factories” of the early twentieth century. Known today as the Clock Tower Building, the old Estey Piano Company Factory currently houses artists and their studios. With its historic fabric almost completely intact, the building remains, in the words of the AIA Guide to New York City, “the grande dame of the piano trade: not virgin, but all-together and proud.”

 

The Industrial Development of Mott Haven

 

Well before the 1898 creation of the borough of the Bronx, industrial activity was occurring in the area that is now the Bronx’s southernmost portion. In 1828, Jordan L. Mott, the inventor of a coal-burning iron cooking stove, opened a “modest little factory” on property he had purchased on the Harlem River near the present Third Avenue, in what was then the township of Morrisania. Mott started calling the area Mott Haven and, in 1850, seeking to attract additional industry to the area, he laid out the Mott Haven Canal, an artificial inlet from the Harlem River that would ultimately extend to just south of 144th Street. The canal, however, was slow to attract industrial firms, and by 1879, only a handful of substantial ones existed nearby, including a brass and iron works, a machine shop, and a few lumber and coal yards, all of which were below 138th Street. These were joined by a marble yard, lumber yard, and hotel west of the canal, near the tracks built by the New York & Harlem Railroad to connect Manhattan with what is now the Bronx, in 1841. Despite the presence of the large Harlem River & Port Chester Railroad yard, which stretched from Lincoln Avenue to Brown Place south of 132nd Street, few factories appear to have existed east of Third Avenue at the end of the 1870s.

 

In 1874, the townships of Morrisania, West Farms, and Kingsbridge—the sections of the present Bronx borough located west of the Bronx River—became part of New York City. Officially called the 23rd and 24th Wards, they were generally referred to as the “Annexed District” or “North Side,” but they remained fairly isolated. At that time, few links existed between the southern portion of the District and Manhattan; among those that did was a cast-iron bridge at Third Avenue which, in 1860, had replaced an old wood dam-bridge built in the 1790s at that location.

 

Soon after annexation, however, local residents, property owners, business owners, and booster groups like the North Side Association began agitating for improved infrastructure, including better connections with Manhattan. In the 1880s, new public works started to be built; among them was the Madison Avenue Bridge, completed in 1884, which spanned the Harlem River at 138th Street, about five blocks north of the Mott Iron Works complex. By 1885, additional industrial concerns—including a planing mill, cabinet maker, and nickel works, and factories making carpets and surgical instruments—had sprung up in Mott Haven, near and below 138th Street, and close to Third Avenue. The expanded rail yard below 132nd Street, at that point operated by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, connected directly to new docks at the foot of Willis Avenue. A few factories had sprouted up in the area east of Lincoln Avenue, as the Estey Piano Company Factory, then under construction at the northeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard, shared a block with the expansive works of the New York Lumber and Woodworking Company.

 

The 1886 opening of the Second Avenue Bridge just a few blocks from the Estey Factory provided a Harlem River crossing for the trains of the new Suburban Rapid Transit Company. The Suburban’s line, which would come to be known in the Bronx as the Third Avenue El, was the first to bring rapid transit service to the Annexed District. With its southern terminus on the Manhattan side of the Harlem, where it met Manhattan’s east-side elevated lines, the Suburban stopped at Southern Boulevard, before continuing northward; service on the line was expanded and improved between 1887 and 1902. While the Suburban was under construction, Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide predicted that it would have an enormous impact on the North Side, calling it, in 1885, “a great thing for the [Annexed District], as well as for New York City. It will furnish cheap homes for a poorer population, as well as choice rural habitations for the well-to-do. We may expect many light manufacturing industries to become naturalized on the other side of the Harlem.” And the line did come to play a crucial role in Mott Haven’s late-nineteenth-century development, spurring rowhouse construction in the late 1880s and 1890s. As new housing sprouted up, so too did industry; an 1894 drawing of the Harlem River east of Third Avenue shows a busy waterfront with docks and factories on both sides of the river, including the Estey Factory, with its distinctive clock tower clearly visible. In 1895, the New York Times noted that “that part of the 23rd Ward along the Harlem River”—that is, the southernmost portion of the Annexed District, including Mott Haven—was “a very busy manufacturing place.”

 

Improved rapid transit connections with Manhattan aided Mott Haven’s residential growth, but the area’s industrial development was spurred by its Harlem River location and the expansion of its freight-rail infrastructure. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the New York, New Haven & Hartford—with a freight depot located one block south of the Estey Factory, at Lincoln Avenue and 132nd Street—connected with dozens of railroads providing service throughout the eastern and midwestern United States, and into Canada. The New York Central system, with extensive yards close by in Melrose, was just as far-reaching. And the southern Bronx retained these transportation advantages into the twentieth century. Writing in 1908 about the proliferation of piano factories, many of which were in the southern Bronx, lifelong piano man William

 

P.H. Bacon pointed to the borough’s “superior transportation and shipping facilities, both by water and land,” as well as “the opportunity of getting land for the erection of commodious factories at reasonable figures.” In experiencing strong manufacturing growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Mott Haven was a microcosm of the Bronx and the city as a whole: by 1920, New York City had 12% of the country’s factory workers, and by 1927, the Bronx had 2,700 plants with more than 100,000 employees.

 

Industrial growth had been rapid in the southern Bronx; Bacon wrote, in 1908, of “the busy hum of commerce where but a few years ago, the lowing of cattle and other sylvan sounds were the only noises heard.” The end of World War II marked the apex of manufacturing in New York, as in 1947, more manufacturing jobs existed in the city than in Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia combined. But industrial activity in the Bronx would soon begin to decline, reflecting city-wide trends. By the 1950s, New York City was rapidly losing industrial jobs, with manufacturers leaving in droves for the suburbs, or departing the region entirely. Between 1969 and 1999, the number of manufacturing jobs in the city fell by twothirds. Contributing to the decline of industry in the southern Bronx was the destruction of manufacturing space with the construction of broad new highways; the building of the earliest portions of the Major Deegan Expressway through Mott Haven between 1935 and 1939, for example, wiped out several industrial buildings on the block immediately to the north of the Estey Factory, including the former factory of the Brambach Piano Company. In 1997, the New York City Department of City Planning, citing an underutilization of industrial space in Mott Haven, rezoned a portion of Bruckner Boulevard including the block containing the former Estey Factory, to allow for residential uses and community facilities. This special mixed-use zoning was expanded to blocks to the east, west, and south in 2005.

 

As Mott Haven becomes increasingly residential, the former Estey Factory is a reminder of the neighborhood’s early years of intensive industrial growth. Today, the Estey building is one of the oldest large factories standing in Mott Haven, and in the entire area of the southern Bronx below 149th Street.

 

The Estey Piano Company and Its Factory

 

The Estey Piano Company had its roots in the firm of Manner & Company, which manufactured pianos on the Bowery between 1866 and 1869. Manner called his piano the “Arion,” and in 1870, his firm’s name changed to the Arion Piano-Forte Company. In 1872, the company’s factory moved to 149th Street, in what is now the Bronx. John Boulton Simpson, who had been Arion’s secretary since 1871, took control of the company in 1875; in that year, the company apparently moved to a new factory on St. Ann’s Avenue and boasted that “Six years ago, there were none of our pianos in existence; to-day, there are over 7,500 in use.” In the following year, the firm’s name changed to Simpson & Company, although it also continued to be known by the Arion name. By the end of the 1870s, Simpson’s factory—stretching from Brook to St. Ann’s Avenues on the north side of 149th Street—was probably the largest piano factory in the Annexed District, but in 1880, it was sold to another piano maker, the William E. Wheelock Company.

 

While Simpson apparently continued to make “high grade pianos” following the Wheelock sale, the location of his factory in the early 1880s is unclear. Between 1881 and 1885, Simpson & Company continued to maintain a space, likely a showroom, at 5 East 14th Street—where it had been since 1876—but the company was also listed at 127 East 129th and 232 East 40th Streets, neither of which appears to have been the location of a substantial factory. These addresses do, however, link Simpson in the early 1880s with the respected tuner Stephen Brambach, who would play a crucial role in developing Estey’s first pianos; Brambach was located next door to Simpson between 1881 and 1883, and in the same building in 1884.

 

In 1885, the Estey Organ Company of Brattleboro, Vt. was hitting its peak. By the end of the 1880s, the firm, which had been founded in 1866 by Jacob Estey, would be the world’s largest producer of reed organs. Thousands of these instruments found their way into American parlors every year; they were also being distributed, by 1890, to Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America, and to major European cities. Despite the company’s success—it was described, in 1886, as doing “an immense business, amounting to over one million dollars annually”—and its rapid growth—production rose by a factor of seven between 1865 and 1886—the organ business was in decline. The piano business, however, was booming; and, likely noticing the 1882 entry of the renowned organ maker Mason & Hamlin into piano manufacturing, Estey and the company’s other principals, including Levi K. Fuller and Jacob’s son Julius, decided to take the same path.

 

Estey became a piano manufacturer by forming a partnership with Simpson, who was named president of the new Estey Piano Company; the Simpson piano was essentially re-branded as the new Estey model. Simpson, of course, had been a pioneer in Bronx piano manufacturing, and this may have played a role in Estey’s decision to build its plant on the North Side. A.B. Ogden & Son was hired to design the factory, but Simpson may have had some influence over its appearance and form, as he had dabbled in architecture, altering his home on West 129th Street in 1882 to give it a “picturesque exoticism.” Work began on the “large factory with modern appliances,” as it would later be described, in August of 1885; it was completed, at a cost of approximately $40,000, in February of 1886. While the factory was under construction, Estey Piano decided to construct three more buildings that would extend its complex by an additional 80 feet along Southern Boulevard. These brick structures, designed by Ogden’s firm and completed at the same time as the main factory, were a one-story extension, a one-story shed, and a two-story stable.

 

Estey Piano prospered in its early years, as “Estey grand and upright pianos soon became a dominant factor in the piano trade,” according to Alfred Dolge, who added that they often “carried off highest awards for superior construction and workmanship.” In 1887, the trade publication Musical Courier wrote that the Estey Piano Factory was “one of the most complete in the country”; two years later, it called the firm’s upright “a most beautiful specimen of piano manufacturing,” of which Estey would “find no difficulty in disposing … in the best musical circles in the land.” While trade journals’ opinions should be considered with caution, those of the respected piano tuner and regulator Daniel Spillane may be more reliable. Five years after the Estey Factory opened, Spillane called its piano “a very excellent instrument,” adding that “much of the technical and musical merit of these pianos is due to the competency and skill of [Stephen] Brambach, who is a gentleman of fine musical and mechanical sensibilities [and] … one of the best tuners in New York.” Although Brambach had apparently started his own piano company in 1885, he remained involved with Estey in 1890, originating “all new ideas in the mechanics and acoustics of the Estey piano.” Brambach’s brother Carl, “one of the most expert and artistic tuners and toners in the country,” was also employed by Estey Piano, according to Spillane.

 

Business was good, and only four years after the Estey Piano Factory opened, it underwent a huge expansion. In May of 1890, work began on a 100-foot-long east addition that would result in the demolition of the extension, shed, and stable on Southern Boulevard, and create the unified five-story, 200-foot-long Bruckner Boulevard façade that remains essentially unchanged today. The architect of this addition, which was completed in October of 1890 at a cost of about $23,000, was John B. Snook & Sons. This firm, then one of New York’s most prolific, traced its origins to the arrival of John B. Snook (1815-1901) in the United States, from England, in 1835. By 1842, Snook was working with Joseph Trench, and the two helped introduce the Anglo-Italianate style to New York with buildings such as the A.T. Stewart Store at 280 Broadway (1845-46, a Designated New York City Landmark). One of Snook’s best-known works was the first Grand Central Terminal (1869-71, demolished); in 1887, he took his three sons, James Henry (1847-1917), Samuel Booth (18571915), and Thomas Edward, and a son-in-law, John W. Boyleston, into his office, and changed his firm’s name to John B. Snook & Sons. Although Snook had designed a diverse array of buildings—including residential and commercial structures for some of New York’s most prominent families—his firm designed several manufacturing lofts in the 1880s and 1890s that would have made it an appropriate choice for the Estey addition. These industrial buildings, now located in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District—including 8 Greene Street (1883-84), 12 Wooster Street (1883-84), 127 Spring Street/87-89 Greene Street (1886-87), 391-393 West Broadway/77-81 Wooster Street (1889), 151 Spring Street (1889-90) and 361 Canal Street (1891-92)—were utilitarian brick buildings; but like the Estey Factory, they were also designed with an eye toward detail, featuring patterned and textured brickwork, and contrasting stone trim that enliven their facades.

 

The Estey Factory continued to grow in the 1890s. In 1895, the company extended the building 50 feet along Lincoln Avenue with a one-story, 69-foot-deep brick addition that apparently provided a fireproof home for its woodworking department; at the same time, Estey constructed a new, one-story brick lumber room running for an additional 38 feet along Lincoln, where it met a small, one-story brick building then existing at the southeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street. Both the extension and the new building—which appear to remain today as the base of the five-story portion of the factory north of the original building—were designed by Hewlett S. Baker of 492 East 138th Street. Little is known about Baker; he was described as “a property owner in the South Bronx” in a 1910 New York Times article, and as “a contractor and builder in the Bronx” in a 1912 article about his death. By 1900, the one-story buildings near the corner of Lincoln and 134th appear to have been extended to the east.

 

The portion of the factory north of the original building remained at one story until 1909, when Simpson and architect S. Gifford Slocum raised it to three stories. Slocum, an architect of some note, is remembered primarily for his large residences for wealthy clients, including several fine Queen Anne-style residences built in the Saratoga Springs area in the 1880s. Born in Jefferson County, N.Y., Slocum studied architecture at Cornell University from 1873 to 1875, and by 1885, he had offices in Saratoga and Glens Falls, N.Y. In 1888, Slocum moved to Philadelphia while retaining his Saratoga office; between 1890 and 1909, he practiced architecture in New York City. Simpson hired Slocum to design an alteration to his residence at 117 East 83rd Street, in 1900. Slocum’s two-story addition to the Estey Piano Factory was described as being of “similar construction to the present building” in its Buildings Department application, and it demonstrates continuity with the floor below and with the original building in its segmental-arch-headed window openings, and in its similar decorative details, including pilasters, stone sills supported by corbelled brick courses, and patterned-brick stringcourses. A drawing of the factory following the completion of Slocum’s addition appeared in a 1917 Estey Piano Company advertisement.

 

Over the previous years, the Estey Piano Company had undergone several changes, weathering the deaths—in 1890, 1896, and 1902, respectively—of Jacob Estey, Levi K. Fuller, and Julius Estey. The firm’s “warerooms” or showrooms, which had been at 5 East 14th Street since the time of the company’s founding, were at 97 Fifth Avenue by 1900 and 7 West 29th Street by 1909. They would move again—in 1912 to the since-demolished “Estey Building” at 23 West 42nd Street—and by 1916 to 12 West 45th Street. By 1912, Estey pianos were being sold at Loeser’s department store in Brooklyn; in its advertising, the company took advantage of its historical association with the Estey Organ Company, stating that “the world-renowned Estey Pianos … are just as reliable as the Estey Organs made famous by the same firm in the days of our parents.” On at least one occasion, the Estey Piano Factory witnessed strife between its employees and management, as in 1912, workers struck Estey and other Bronx piano manufacturers that would not recognize the piano makers’ union and refused to close their shop floors to non-union employees.

 

In 1917, John B. Simpson’s leadership of the Estey Piano Company came to an end, when George B. Gittins, the former president of piano manufacturer Kohler & Campbell, purchased a controlling interest in the firm. Gittins, an industry prodigy who was only 37 at the time he took Estey Piano’s helm, appears to have begun revamping the company’s product line almost immediately; an “at-the-factory” clearance sale held in November of 1917 was prompted by the company’s intention “to concentrate on the large-scale production of a few standard models.” Two years later, Gittins purchased M. Welte & Sons, Inc., which was originally the American arm of a German company that had invented the reproducing piano, a technologically advanced kind of player piano using special rolls that were able to express, to some extent, the subtleties of the renowned pianists who had “recorded” them. Following the 1907 introduction of Welte’s “Mignon” reproducing piano in the United States, dozens of the world’s most famous pianists made recordings for Welte, allowing Americans to experience, for the first time, something close to having Paderewski, Saint-Saens, and other virtuosi play for them in their homes.

 

Soon after acquiring Welte, Gittins started shutting down the firm’s Poughkeepsie, N.Y. plant—which had produced rolls, reproducing pianos with and without keyboards, Welte “Philharmonic” reproducing organs, orchestrions, and other products—and expanding the Estey Factory building and its complex. In 1919, architect George F. Hogue of 41 Union Square in Manhattan was hired to add two stories to the northern, three-story portion of the factory, and to add an elevator shaft. This alteration, which cost about $25,000, featured broad expanses of industrial sash typical of the “daylight” factories that were then being constructed around the country. By 1921, Gittins had also constructed a two-story building (not part of this Designation) facing Southern Boulevard and adjoining Snook’s 1890 addition, as well as a four-story factory for Welte (not part of this Designation) that remains today at 27 Bruckner Boulevard. In 1922, the Estey-Welte Corporation was created, which served as an umbrella organization for several Gittins holdings, including the Estey Piano Company and the Welte-Mignon Corporation. Estey, at that time, was manufacturing a variety of pianos, including an 88-note player piano, and manual and reproducing uprights and grands; the new four-story factory on Southern Boulevard made Welte-Mignon pianos and grands, actions for reproducing instruments, and Welte Philharmonic organs.

 

In 1925, perhaps sensing the end of the glory days for the piano and player piano, Gittins decided to diversify into the manufacture of pipe organs for churches, concert halls, theaters, and large residences. In the following year, Estey-Welte appeared to be perfectly healthy, but by January of 1927, a crash in its stock price brought the over-extended company to its knees. Estey-Welte was in serious trouble, and by summer of that year, it was reorganized as the Welte Company. Gittins was soon gone; by 1928 his old firm was reorganized again, as the Welte-Mignon Corp. This latest incarnation of the firm fell into receivership in 1929, when its chief assets were split up and its factory emptied; one investor, Donald F. Tripp, bought some of the organ business, and the Estey Piano Company was sold to the Settergren Piano Company of Bluffton, Ind. Tripp’s firm was bankrupt within two years; in 1935, Settergren was renamed the Estey Piano Company.

 

The Estey Piano name continued on for decades. Estey spinets were being advertised in Chicago in 1948, and the firm’s pianos appeared in Macy’s advertisements in the early-to-mid 1960s. The Estey Piano Company was still operating in 1972, when it received a loan from the Commerce Department to assist it in starting production of a plastic piano. At that time, Estey was described as having “an office in Union, N.J., and an old plant in Bluffton, Ind.”

 

After the old Estey Piano Company Factory was vacated in 1929, it passed through the hands of a number of different owners, and was occupied by many different industrial tenants. A sheet-metal works leased space there in 1932, and its occupants in 1937 included the Whitman Supply Company and Unique Balance Company. By 1939, the factory had been acquired by the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank. In February of 1940, Emigrant sold the five-story Estey Factory building and the adjacent two-story building constructed by Gittins to the S.H. Pomeroy Company, a manufacturer of window sashes that had been located on the same block as Estey Piano since 1923 or before. One month later, however, the owner of the building was the 120 Lincoln Avenue Realty Corporation, which was leasing space to Alta Furniture Factories. Until at least 1945, 120 Lincoln Avenue Realty remained the owner of the building; in 1969, it was occupied by the Ranger Plastics Corporation, and in 1973, it was home to a draperies manufacturer. At the end of the 1970s, the old Estey Piano Company Factory housed a maker of textile products and its outlet store, along with manufacturers of wire and “novelty” products. In 1995, when the building was mostly vacant, it was purchased by Truro College, which planned to convert it into student dormitories or a home for a liberal arts and sciences program. Those plans fell through, however, and the college sold the former Estey Factory, now known as the Clock Tower Building, to Carnegie Management, which remodeled its interior to accommodate live-in artists’ studios. It retains this use today.

 

Description

 

The Estey Piano Company Factory is an L-shaped, five-story building with a projecting clock tower at its southwest corner. Spanning the east side of Lincoln Avenue between Bruckner Boulevard and East 134th Street, the building has three primary street facades, all of which feature face brick laid in common bond: a 200-foot-long Bruckner Boulevard façade, a 200-foot-long Lincoln Avenue façade, and a façade on 134th Street that is approximately 69 feet in length and attached to an elevator shaft.

 

The original factory building, which was constructed in 1885-86, extended for 100 feet along Lincoln Avenue and for 100 feet along Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard. Comprising the westernmost 15 upper-story bays on the south façade and the southernmost 15 upper-story bays on the west façade of the existing building, including the clock tower, this original portion of the Estey Piano Factory was extended by 100 feet to the east along Bruckner Boulevard with the construction of a five-story addition in 1890. (The construction of the 1890 addition resulted in the demolition of three buildings of one and two stories that were completed at the same time as the original factory, and which had a combined street frontage of 80 feet.) Before the construction of the 1890 addition, the five-story portion of the south façade terminated, at its east, with a two-bay projection featuring round-headed windows, all set within a corbelled recess, at the first through fifth floors. This projection—which was identical to the two-bay projection that originally terminated the Lincoln Avenue façade, and remains virtually unchanged today—extended above the adjacent portion of the façade, and, like the clock tower, outward from the façade plane. With the completion of John B. Snook & Sons’ 1890 addition, the two-bay projection on the south façade was doubled in width—the two new bays matching the original two—and its parapet was raised to match, in height, the parapet above the then-new, three-bay projection at the eastern end of the extended façade. Both the raised and new parapets featured, just below their pressed-metal cornices, recessed square panels arranged in a row. Also at that time, the four-bay projection became the central feature of a broad, essentially symmetrical Southern Boulevard façade, with the new three-bay projection at the eastern end of the façade balancing the three-bay, projecting clock tower at the building’s corner.

 

The 1890 addition is virtually indistinguishable from the original portion of the factory, largely because it is faced in matching red-orange brick laid in common bond. It also features matching ornament, including stringcourses composed of decorative brick laid in a zigzagging pattern that align with the stringcourses on the original building; a dogtoothed, soldier-brick course just below the parapet that also aligns with the original; recessed, rectangular brick panels with corbelling, and terra cotta tiles arranged in a repeating three-tile pattern, with each of the three tiles featuring a different foliate design, at the roof parapets; projecting, molded sandstone stringcourses just below the parapets; and sandstone window sills, each supported by two courses of corbelled brick. The three-bay projection at the south façade’s eastern end largely duplicates the fenestration and ornament of the clock tower’s second through fifth floors, featuring segmental-headed window openings with arches composed of stone springers and three courses of header brick, set within a corbelled brick recess, at the second floor; square-headed windows at the third and fourth floors, and round-headed windows at the fifth floor; light-colored, contrasting stone trim, which wraps the heads of the rectangular openings and composes a short stringcourse at the springer level of the fifth-floor openings; and a belt course of terra cotta tiles that matches that of the clock tower, in an alternating festoon and lions’-head motif, just below a projecting stone sill course at the third floor. The easternmost three-bay projection, like the central four-bay projection on the south façade, is crowned by a stepped, pressed-metal cornice with a cyma profile at its top. The 1890 addition features seven basement-level openings with stone lintels that are larger than the five basement-level openings on the south façade of the original building; these five original openings retain their historic metal grilles. Aside from this difference, the addition continued the fenestration pattern of the original factory’s south façade: except for the openings on the three-bay east projection, the central four-bay projection, and the clock tower, all of the window openings on the Bruckner Boulevard façade are segmental-headed, each crowned by an arch composed of two header courses of brick.

 

The original part of the Lincoln Avenue façade not including the clock tower—the twelve-bay portion of this façade including, and south of, the five-story projection containing two bays of round-headed windows— is essentially identical to the original part of the Bruckner Boulevard façade, although some minor changes have been made at the first floor. A metal rooftop bulkhead is visible near this façade’s southern end, close to the clock tower. The later portions of the Lincoln Avenue façade north of the original factory, and the 134th Street façade, show evidence of their gradual construction between 1895 and 1919. Although the first through third floors of these facades show kinship with the original factory—particularly in their segmental-headed windows with sandstone sills supported by corbelled brick courses, and in the composition, of each window arch, of two courses of header brick—they also depart from the original façade in significant ways. The bay arrangement of the facades north of the original factory differs from the original bay arrangement, with the 134th Street façade and the northern half of the Lincoln Avenue façade each split into four bays of varying widths separated by austere brick pilasters. The fenestration is less regular than on the original buildings: it appears, for example, that no window opening ever existed at the second-floor, third-northernmost and tenth-northernmost bays on the Lincoln Avenue façade, or at the easternmost and fifth-easternmost second-floor bays on the 134th Street façade. Although the brick of the oldest, first-floor portions of these facades comes close to matching that of the original factory in color, the face brick of the two later two-story additions above—one built in 1909 and one in 1919—is redder in color. On both the Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street facades of the earliest, first-floor addition, and of the second-and-third-floor 1909 addition, stringcourses composed of zigzagging patterned brick align with the patterned-brick stringcourses of the original factory; an exposed horizontal metal beam between the second- and third-floor window openings is slightly lower than the corresponding patterned-brick stringcourse on the original factory. The 1919 addition differs the most of any of the additions from the original factory, featuring large window openings filled with multi-pane metal windows and with concrete lintels and projecting sills. Each of the windows, which are grouped in threes, fours, or fives within their openings, has a total of 12, 16, or 20 panes, and has a central, horizontally pivoting sash of four or six panes. At the eastern end of the north, or 134th Street façade, is an elevator shaft built in 1919 that features, at its ground floor, a large loading bay with a projecting concrete sill.

 

In addition to the Bruckner Boulevard, Lincoln Avenue, and 134th Street primary facades, the Estey Piano Company Factory has two visible secondary facades. The east façade of the Bruckner Boulevard leg of the building features red face brick laid in common bond. A brick rooftop bulkhead and rooftop chain-link fence are visible above this façade. The façade apparently was once painted with the words “ESTEY PIANO MANUFACTORY”; this lettering has either faded, or been partially removed. Visible on the east, or rear façade of the Lincoln Avenue leg of the building, to the south of the brick elevator shaft, are grouped fourth- and fifth-floor, historic metal sashes, apparently dating from 1919, within openings with concrete lintels and sills that are framed by austere brick pilasters. A metal fire escape extends to the roof; roof access is made possible by a break in the parapet.

 

The clock tower projects slightly from the façade plane. Each of the south and west faces of the tower has four window openings set within a two-story corbelled recess, with each of these openings featuring stone sills and headed by a segmental arch composed of three courses of header brick and light-colored stone springers. One pair of recessed brick panels is located below each of the first-floor openings on the tower’s west face, and a single recessed brick panel is located below each of the first-floor openings on its south face; stepped, recessed-brick panels are located below the second-floor openings on the west and south faces. A terra cotta stringcourse composed of terra cotta tiles with an alternating festoon and lions’-head motif above the second-floor windows is located below a projecting stone molding, which itself is just below the sill level of the third-floor window openings; these elements separate the lower two stories of the clock tower from its third through fifth floors. The vertically projecting top two stories of the clock tower are separated from the lower five stories by a projecting stone molding that has seen its profile softened over time. Above this, on each of the south and west faces of the clock tower, is a recessed, corbelled brick panel; faded lettering reading “ESTEY PIANO CO.” is visible within the south panel. The panels are located below two paired courses of corbelled brick that wrap all four sides of the tower. Each of the four sides of the tower contains a round clock with metal hands, with a face of metal and glass, and with metal roman numerals and minute ring; each clock face is surrounded by an inner soldier course of brick and an outer header course of brick, and is flanked by round-headed windows, each with a transom bar and stone sill. Above the clock faces, and wrapping all four sides of the tower, are a projecting stone molding; a terra cotta stringcourse similar to the one below the third-floor windows; four courses of corbelled brick; and a machicolated cornice composed of small, corbelled round arches. A parapet above this cornice is of concrete, or of stucco-covered brick. A segmental-headed opening at the sixth floor of the clock tower, on the tower’s east face, appears to provide access to the roof. Square metal wall anchors, which appear to be original to the building, are present at the first through fifth floors on the tower’s south and west faces, and on all four sides of the tower at the level of the clock faces.

 

Although the Estey Piano Company Factory remains remarkably intact for a building of its age, some alterations have occurred over time. On the 27-bay portion of the south façade east of the clock tower, the easternmost part of the ground floor has been altered with the installation of a three-bay brick projection containing two loading bays and an entrance set within a stepped recess. A projecting wall sign reading “PLUMBING SUPPLIES” on both of its display faces is attached at the easternmost portion of the second floor. The first-floor opening at the second-westernmost bay of the central four-bay projection has been enlarged to become a secondary entrance with a soldier-brick, round arch, and the westernmost first-floor window opening and second-easternmost window openings at the third, fourth, and fifth floors have been filled with brick. The westernmost first-floor window opening appears to be the only one on the south façade to have a concrete, rather than sandstone, sill. No historic windows appear to remain on this facade, except possibly at the easternmost second-, third-, and fourth-floor openings, which contain four-over-four, double-hung windows. These windows are paired at the second floor. The upper portions of the first-floor window openings have been filled with brick, as have the upper portions of the twelve second-floor openings immediately to the east of the clock tower; some of the infill panels at these windows have been punched through with rectangular or round openings. Non-historic metal grilles with lower privacy panels have been installed at the first-floor windows. Three through-the-wall air conditioners are present at the second floor, and numerous vents, satellite dishes, and other non-historic items are attached to the façade and the window sills at the second through fifth floors. A chain-link fence, visible from Bruckner Boulevard, is located on the roof behind the parapet.

 

On the original, twelve-bay portion of the Lincoln Avenue façade immediately to the north of the clock tower, none of the historic windows remain, except at the first floor. All eight first-floor windows on this portion of the façade have wood frames and wood upper sashes; the third- and fourth-northernmost of these windows have two-pane upper sashes with vertical muntins, and the rest have four-pane upper sashes. The second-northernmost window on the original portion of the factory features a round-headed, four-pane upper sash that may be original to the building. Non-historic metal window grilles have been installed at all of these windows; all except the third-southernmost of these have lower privacy panels. The historic entrance, originally located at the second bay north of the clock tower, has been removed; north of the clock tower, a former window opening has been altered to allow for the installation of a non-historic entrance featuring a surround of curved brick in varying shades, a non-historic metal-and-glass door and side panel with a metal intercom, and a non-historic transom light reading “Clock Tower 112.” The openings originally located south of this entrance have been filled with brick that does not match the original; the upper portions of the three southernmost, second-floor window openings have been filled with brick; a through-the-wall air conditioner is present below the second-southernmost, second-floor window opening; and numerous louvers, vents, signs, satellite dishes, and other non-historic items, including electrical conduit below the fourth-through-sixth-southernmost second-floor window openings, are present on this façade. The base of the façade between the entrance and the clock tower is of concrete.

 

On the northern half of the Lincoln Avenue façade—those portions of the façade dating from 1895 and later—alterations include, at the first floor, the enlargement of an opening at the southernmost bay, and its modification into a loading bay; the filling of the second-southernmost opening with brick; the modification of the opening at the seventh-southernmost bay into a secondary entrance; and the infilling of the third-northernmost opening with brick. At the second floor, the second-southernmost opening has been partially filled with brick, and a narrow window has been installed within the reduced opening. At the third floor, the second-southernmost window opening has been filled with brick. The nine remaining first-floor windows on the northern portion of the Lincoln Avenue façade have wood frames and wood top sashes. Non-historic metal grilles have been installed in front of all of these windows. The northernmost and second-, third-, and fifth-northernmost windows feature two-pane top sashes with vertical muntins; the fourth-northernmost window features a four-pane top sash; and the four southernmost of these windows feature four-pane upper and lower sashes, all of which are wood. The fourth and fifth floors appear to contain their historic, multi-pane metal windows with horizontally pivoting sashes, dating from 1919; five of the fourth-floor windows have been altered with the removal of panes for the installation of vents, air conditioners, and satellite dishes. The southernmost fifth-floor window has also been altered with the installation of an air-conditioning unit. Numerous vents, a satellite dish attached to the northernmost fifth-floor window sill, and other non-historic items are present on this façade.

 

The primary north, or 134th Street façade, has also seen alterations, with the filling of the fourthwesternmost first-floor window opening with brick. A non-historic metal gate with gate housing and exposed mechanism has been installed at the first floor, and four vents have been installed on this façade. Vertical wiring, wrapped in insulation, has been installed below the second floor. One window at the fourth floor, and one window at the fifth floor have been altered to allow for the installation of window air conditioning units. The fourth and fifth floors appear to contain their historic, multi-pane metal windows with horizontally pivoting sashes, dating from 1919. The five first-floor windows on the Lincoln Avenue façade have wood frames and wood top sashes; each of the easternmost, third-easternmost, and westernmost of these windows has a two-pane top sash with a vertical muntin, and the others feature four-pane upper sashes. Non-historic metal grilles with privacy panels have been installed in front of the first-floor windows. Two visible satellite dishes have been installed on top of the pilasters on the visible secondary east façade of the Lincoln Avenue leg of the building.

 

Alterations at the clock tower include the removal of the historic entrance on the tower’s south face, at the second-westernmost first-floor bay, and its modification into a window opening; the installation of a metal drainage pipe, which penetrates a terra cotta tile on the east face of the clock tower, above the clock face; and changes to the parapet, which appears to have originally been brick with rectangular, corbelled brick recesses. None of the windows on the clock tower appear to be historic except for the third-southernmost, four-overfour, double-hung wood window at the fourth floor on the west face of the tower; one pane of this window has been removed to allow for the installation of a vent. Brick infill has been installed within the upper portions of the first- and second-floor window openings. Through-the-wall air conditioners have been installed below the second-westernmost opening on the south face, and below the second-southernmost opening on the west face of the tower.

 

- From the 2006 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

The Los Angeles California Temple (formerly the Los Angeles Temple), the tenth operating and the second-largest temple operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is on Santa Monica Boulevard in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California. When it was dedicated in 1956, it was the largest temple of the church, later surpassed by the Salt Lake Temple with its additions and annexations. The temple serves 41 stakes in Los Angeles, Ventura, Kern, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties. The grounds includes a visitors' center open to the public, the Los Angeles Regional Family History Center, also open to the public, and the headquarters for the Los Angeles mission.

 

The Los Angeles Temple was announced when the church purchased 24.23 acres (98,000 m²) from the Harold Lloyd Motion Picture Company on March 23, 1937, by president Heber J. Grant. Construction was to begin soon thereafter, but financial difficulties relating to the Great Depression and World War II delayed the groundbreaking until 1951.

 

The temple plans were revised at this time to include a priesthood assembly room, an unusual feature in temples built after the Salt Lake Temple. It was also expanded to accommodate an unprecedented 300 patrons per session.

 

Located at 10777 W. Santa Monica Boulevard in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California, the temple sits atop a small hill above the intersection of Overland Avenue and Santa Monica Boulevard.

 

The well manicured grounds, open to the public, are filled with a various plants, including Canary Island Pine trees, several varieties of palm trees, Bird of Paradise trees, olive trees, and rare Chinese Ginkgo trees. At the left and right of the temple are two fountains, and at the front is a large reflection pool. Several family-themed statues further beautify the grounds. In December temple grounds are all aglow with thousands of multi-colored lights in celebration of Christmas.

 

While not as regionally prominent as the temples in Oakland, San Diego, and Washington, the Los Angeles California Temple is still one of the most distinctive features of Los Angeles' Westside. Thousands of commuters pass it every day on busy Santa Monica Boulevard. The proliferation of high-rise buildings along the Wilshire Boulevard corridor and in nearby Century City has reduced its prominence in the Westside skyline. However, its dramatic night lighting and sheer size still make an imposing sight, particularly for travelers exiting the Santa Monica Freeway northbound on Overland.

 

Numerous Church facilities are on its grounds including a meetinghouse, a baseball field, the headquarters of the Church's California Los Angeles Mission, and apartments (used by missionaries, temple workers, temple patrons, and visiting church officials).

 

The remaining land, along Manning Avenue, was subdivided for residential lots, the sale of which considerably offset the expense of constructing the temple. Because it was the church's first temple (save the roughly contemporaneous Bern Switzerland Temple) built outside of an LDS-dominated settlement, the Los Angeles Temple was the first LDS temple explicitly designed for automobile accessibility: its parking facilities were larger than those of any temple built previously, and there is no direct pedestrian connection between the front doors and Santa Monica Boulevard.

 

The temple's architecture is generally Modernist, an aesthetic that extends to the choice of exterior cladding: 146,000 square feet (14,000 m²) of Mo-Sai pre-cast concrete facing, a mixture of crushed quartz and white Portland cement quarried in Utah and Nevada. The very light brown pigmentation of the Mo-Sai blend has the advantage of concealing the thin layer of soot that accumulates on most buildings in Los Angeles. The temple is 369 feet (112 m) long, 269 feet (82 m) wide and has an overall height of 257 feet (78 m). Atop the temple stands a 15 foot (5 m) tall statue of the angel Moroni.

 

The rooms include a baptistry, celestial room, four ordinance rooms, ten sealing rooms, and an assembly room that stretches the entire length of the temple. The Los Angeles temple features murals on the walls of its progressive-style ordinance rooms including the celestial room. The only other temple with celestial room murals is the Idaho Falls Idaho Temple.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_California_Temple

 

View from Mt Difficulty winery and restaurant where we had lunch. March 6, 2014 South Island, New Zealand.

 

Mt Difficulty Wines is located in Bannockburn and the Cellar Door at Mt Difficulty Wines is known as much for its dramatic views of rugged rock and thyme landscapes as it is for its stylish wine and food.

 

All wines that carry the Mt Difficulty Bannockburn Estate label are subject to two strict criteria: they have to be sourced from vineyards situated in a very specific area – Bannockburn, south of the Kawarau River – and they are to be under the umbrella of the Mt Difficulty management team. The reasons for these self-imposed constraints are that we believe this to be an area with very special qualities for growing grapes, and that the management of the vineyard is reflected in the quality of the ultimate product.

For More Info: www.mtdifficulty.co.nz/vineyards/bannockburn-map.html

  

A Stellar Nursery in Orion's Sword, credit to my son who's new to astro photography and captured this with his iphone attached to a Celestron telescope.

  

Behold the Orion Nebula, also known as Messier 42 or simply M42 – one of the most breathtaking deep-sky objects in the night sky and the closest major star-forming region to Earth at about 1,350–1,500 light-years away.Hanging like a cosmic jewel in the "sword" of the constellation Orion (just below the famous Belt of three stars), this glowing cloud of gas and dust is visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy patch under dark skies. With an apparent magnitude of around 4.0, it's bright enough for binoculars or a small telescope to reveal its stunning details: swirling pink and red hydrogen gas excited by intense radiation from hot young stars, mixed with blue reflection nebulae and dark lanes of dust.At its heart lies the Trapezium Cluster – four massive, blazing stars that power the nebula's glow and sculpt its dramatic shapes. This is a true stellar nursery, only about 2 million years old (a baby in cosmic terms!), where thousands of new stars are being born from collapsing clouds of gas. Recent views from telescopes like Hubble and JWST have even captured planet-forming disks and intriguing features like rogue planet pairs.For astrophotographers, Orion season (winter in the Northern Hemisphere) is prime time – and right now in early 2026, Orion is riding high in the evening sky.

   

Crarae Garden is a tranquil site, with its dramatic gorge, rippling burn, waterfalls and cliffs. The informal hillside layout of mature woody plants radiating out from the burn creates a wonderful natural effect.

 

Near the banks of Loch Fyne, on the west coast, immerse yourself in Britain's finest example of an exotic Himalayan-style woodland garden.

   

Mike and I arrived at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale around 11am. After parking and checking in at Cruise Terminal 4, we boarded the Celebrity Constellation and set off to explore the ship. I loved this airy vestibule on Deck 11, which features a stunning chandelier by glass artist Dale Chihuly. I took photos of the chandelier from several angles to show its dramatic size and detail.

A Genuine Example of One of the Eleven 1971 Hemi ‘Cuda Convertibles

 

500+hp, 425hp rated, 426 cu. in. vee eight-cylinder engine, dual four-barrel carburetors, four-speed manual transmission, Hurst pistol grip shifter, independent front suspension with torsion bars, live axle rear suspension with semi-elliptical leaf springs, front disc, rear drum power assisted hydraulic brakes. Wheelbase: 108"

 

Three times Chrysler Corporation has relied upon the Hemi to transform its products and image from dull to sparkling, and three times the Hemi has delivered. In an American car market that has been characterized by glitz, fins and bulk, the technical sophistication of Chrysler’s hemispherical combustion chamber V8 engine has been a refreshing demonstration of the appeal of elegant, thoughtful engineering.

 

In the late 60’s and early 70’s it also acquired a bad boy image of politically incorrect power and performance, establishing a mythical presence that has made the Hemi a legend.

 

Hemi History

 

During development work on World War II aircraft engines, Chrysler’s engineers had seen firsthand the potential for hemispherical combustion chamber engines. In addition to the thermal efficiency of the hemi chamber’s low surface area and its low-restriction cross-flow porting, the angle between the valves ideally disposed the ports for efficient breathing in a

vee-layout engine.

 

Chrysler was the ideal company to pursue the hemispherical combustion chamber V8. It had a longstanding tradition of investigating, developing and perfecting advanced engineering ideas. Unlike its major competitors, Chrysler had neither overhead valve nor vee-configuration engine history, and thus no preconceived notions of how it should be done. Its engine designers could – and did – explore every conceivable engine idea. Their research showed that the hemispherical combustion chamber not only gave better performance than a comparable wedge-chamber head but also tolerated appreciably higher compression ratios.

 

The hemispherical head V8 was introduced in the Chrysler line in 1951. With 331 cubic inches displacement in a short stroke oversquare design, Chrysler’s FirePower V8 delivered 180 horsepower at 4,000 rpm and 312 lb-ft torque at 2,000 rpm. The performance potential of the Hemi was quickly recognized, most famously with the Chrysler C300 and its successors, which set the pace both on the highway and on NASCAR’s speedways. By 1958, however, manufacturing economics swung the pendulum in favor of the wedge-chamber V8s. The Hemi was phased out in 1959 … but not for long.

 

In the early 60s the 413 and 426 Wedge engines were dominant in drag racing but lacked the continuous high rpm performance needed on NASCAR’s speedways. Dodge and Plymouth were being trounced, a situation that couldn’t be allowed to stand. Faced with a need to develop a high performance, free-breathing engine quickly, Chrysler’s engineers turned to the solution they already knew worked, the Hemi. They stuck with the overall dimensions of the Raised Block 426 Wedge so existing fixturing and machining setups could be employed and maintained the original Hemi’s dual rocker shafts and 58° valve included angle. To adapt the Hemi head to the Raised Block engine, the ingenious Chrysler engineers rotated the combustion chamber toward the engine’s centerline about 8 1/2°.

 

Completed and delivered to the track just days before the 1964 Daytona 500’s green flag, the 426 Hemis proved to be invincible, sweeping the top three places in NASCAR’s most important race.

 

Production of the second generation Hemi ended after the 1971 model year as emission restrictions and insurance surcharges gave horsepower, which had never been entirely socially acceptable, a distinctly antisocial taint. Chrysler would twice more resurrect the Hemi, however, first as a crate engine program for hot rodders and later as a third generation production engine that brought DaimlerChrysler back to the forefront of performance at the beginning of the 21st century. Like some other forms of antisocial behavior, horsepower has proven to be addictive.

 

The Hemi ‘Cuda

 

Of all the Street Hemis built, the most famous, attractive and desirable are the 1970-1971 E-body Plymouth ‘Cudas, combining the visceral delight of the Hemi’s power and torque with the ‘Cuda’s lightweight, streamlined and refined 2+2 platform.

 

The first Barracuda was introduced in 1964 and in the late 60’s Chrysler engineering and Hurst performance shoehorned Race Hemi engines into the Barracuda’s engine compartment for NHRA drag racing. Seventy-five were built, sold and successfully campaigned around the country. When the Barracuda was redesigned for the 1970 model year the engine compartment was made large enough for the legendary 425 horsepower 426 cubic inch Street Hemi.

 

The Plymouth Barracuda was the cleanest, most refined and elegant of all the pony car designs. Distinguished by its wide grille, long, flat hood, short rear deck and ominously raised rear fenders – deliberately shaped like the haunches of an animal crouching before a leap – the appearance of the ‘Cuda left no doubt that this was a serious performance car.

 

Hemi-powered ‘Cudas are surpassingly rare. Built for only two years, 1970 and 1971, their low production numbers reflect the undeniable fact that the combination of the ‘Cuda platform and the Street Hemi engine was irrationally fast. It also was expensive: $871.45 in 1970 and $883.90 in 1971, a prohibitive 70% more than the 390 horsepower 440 Six Barrel.

 

A Hemi ‘Cuda was not for the faint of heart nor for the cautious of pocketbook. Buying one took serious commitment, backed up by an ample budget. In 1971 there were only 119 souls brave and prosperous enough to make the commitment to check off E74, the Street Hemi’s order code, on the ‘Cuda order form.

 

• 108 of them ordered hardtops

• Only eleven stepped up for the top-of-the-line ‘Cuda convertible powered by the 426 cubic inch, 425 horsepower dual quad Street Hemi.

• Only three of those were confident enough of their driving skills to opt for the Hurst pistol grip shifted four-speed manual transmission.

• Only two of those were delivered in the U.S.

• Both U.S.-delivered ’71 Hemi ‘Cuda convertibles were B5 Blue with

matching interiors.

 

That’s only three, in all the world, that combined the Street Hemi engine with the ‘Cuda convertible body and 4-speed transmission in 1971. One of them is the car offered here, BS27R1B269588, the only one with white soft top and elastomeric front bumper cover.

 

The “Mountain Mopar” Hemi ‘Cuda Convertible

 

Built in February of 1971, this Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda convertible’s first owner, Ronald Ambach, lived in St. Louis, Missouri. He owned it only until the fall, accumulating the car’s only street miles, before selling it to its next owner, Nick Masciarelli, in Ohio. He decided to take the Hemi ‘Cuda Stock Eliminator drag racing and turned to renowned Detroit-area engine builder Tom Tignanelli for a hot Hemi V8. The new owner was in a hurry, and the quickest way to meet his request was to swap the original engine for a fresh race-prepared Tignanelli Hemi.

 

In May of 1973, the Hemi ‘Cuda convertible was sold to John Book and partner John Oliverio in West Virginia who raced it in East Coast and Mid-Atlantic events during 1973 and 1974. Its dramatic appearance, complete with gold-leaf “Mountain Mopar” identification, is documented in several period photos in the car’s documentation file.

 

Fortunately for today’s collectors, the “Mountain Mopar” Hemi ‘Cuda convertible was retired after 1974 and stored in a climate-controlled building in West Virginia. In 1989 it was sold to the Painter brothers. Two years later it was acquired by Milt Robson in Atlanta, Georgia, still in its as-raced condition. Robson commenced a comprehensive restoration using original or new-old-stock parts to its original, as-delivered condition in his shops, which was completed in the early 90’s. Stored inside for virtually its entire life, 269588 was never subjected to the vicissitudes of the elements which afflicted most of its siblings; its original sheet metal and interior are carefully restored and retained. The engine was rebuilt around a correct 1/19/1970 date-coded Chrysler NOS block.

 

In addition to the 426/425 horsepower dual quad Street Hemi and pistol grip Hurst shifted four-speed manual transmission, this unique 1971 Hemi ‘Cuda convertible is equipped with power steering, power brakes, Dana Super Track Pack and AM-FM radio. Importantly, it is the only ’71 Hemi ‘Cuda convertible known to have been delivered with the body-colored Elastomeric front bumper cover. Its original configuration is verified by two separate original build sheets; the ownership history is documented with a continuous sequence of titles. It has been personally viewed by Galen Govier and authenticated by him as one of the seven US-delivered ’71 Hemi ‘Cuda convertibles which have been included in the Chrysler Registry.

 

Finished in B5 Blue inside and out with a white vinyl top, it has been restored to better than showroom condition. Particular attention has been paid to the accuracy of its components and finishes and to the preservation of as much as possible of its almost unbelievable originality, including the carefully preserved original interior.

 

It has been shown only in local shows around Atlanta in the mid 90s, was featured a decade ago in a May 1995 Car Collector magazine article by Dennis Adler and has appeared in several books, copies of which come with the car.

 

Putting a free-breathing, high-rpm engine like the 426 Hemi in a lithe, frisky chassis like the ‘Cuda was exactly what the forces of political correctness inveighed against in the early 70s. In 1972 the Hemi was gone for the second time, its visceral appeal buried in a cascade of social responsibility, “net” horsepower and Highway Fuel Economy ratings. There is nothing politically correct, nothing socially responsible about a Hemi ‘Cuda. The 1971 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda convertible is wretched excess in a nearly unimaginably limited production package.

 

This is absolutely the most desirable, rare and handsome of all the American Muscle and Pony Cars. Combining the brute power and torque of the legendary dual quad Street Hemi engine with the sleek, aggressive lines of the ‘Cuda convertible, it is the ultimate combination of personal car style and Muscle Car performance, a singular example and the quintessential muscle car of all time.

 

[Text from RM Auctions]

 

www.rmauctions.com/lots/lot.cfm?lot_id=132126

 

This Lego miniland-scale Plymouth HEMI ' Cuda Convertible (1971), has been created for Flickr LUGNuts' 89th Build Challenge, - "Over a Million, Under a Thousand", - a challenge to build vehicles valued over one million (US) dollars, or under one thousand (US) dollars.

 

This particular vehicle was auctioned by the RM Auction house for US$2,420,000)

The Sleeping Giant seen from the back side on the Sibley Peninsula across Lake Mary Lousie.

A reversal some say is the Female Version.

  

The Sleeping Giant is a formation of mesas and sills on Sibley Peninsula which resembles a giant lying on its back when viewed from the west to north-northwest section of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. As one moves southward along the shoreline toward Squaw Bay the Sleeping Giant starts to separate into its various sections. Most distinctly in the view from the cliffs at Squaw Bay the Giant appears to have an Adam's Apple. The formation is part of Sleeping Giant Provincial Park. Its dramatic steep cliffs are among the highest in Ontario (250 m). The southernmost point is known as Thunder Cape, depicted by many early Canadian artists such as William Armstrong.

 

One Ojibway legend identifies the giant as Nanabijou, who was turned to stone when the secret location of a rich silver mine now known as Silver Islet was disclosed to white men

Explore Apr 10, 2011 #121

 

This Passion Vine (Passiflora vitifolia) grows along fences, over shrubs and garages here in South Florida. The leaves are glossy green and grape-leaf like. But what will simply knock your socks off are its dramatic, outrageous flowers! Surely they come from another planet! But no, they come from South America.

 

Legend and romance surround the passion flower... legend because of historical associations with Christianity. And romance because of its suggestion of romantic passion. Early explorers and missionaries to the Southern hemisphere named these dramatic vines Passiflora or Passion Flower to help in their conversion of native Americans to Christianity. They used the beautiful intricate flower parts to tell the story of the death of Jesus, making the story more memorable to listeners. The family name, Passifloraceae, means "Flower of the Passion" or "Flower of the Cross."

 

The color symbolized the blood shed on the cross; the 10 petals and sepals represented the 10 apostles present of the crucifixion; the 5 stamens, the 5 wounds, the 3 styles, the 3 nails ( or, in some versions, Christ and the 2 thieves crucified with him); the vine tendrils, the ropes and scourges; the 3 secondary leaf bracts, the holy trinity. The flower is usually open 3 days representing the 3 years of Christ's ministry on Earth. Source: "Florida's Fabulous Flowers, Their Stories" by Winston Williams.

 

See my sets Tantalizing Flowers and Blossoms and Passionate Passion Vines for more images of this amazing exotic, erotic flower.

Biscayne Park, FL

www.susanfordcollins.com

 

Scotland baked in the sun today 25/5/2018, with the sun beating down it felt like a day to get out and about, I decided to revisit one of my favourite sites

Dunnottar Castle as it is located

40 minutes drive from my home in Aberdeen,a piper played as visitors and tourists arrived , what a magnificent sight.

 

I wandered along the base of the castle and enjoyed the bay with its calm waters and great views, after an hour or so it was time to leave and climb the numerous stairs back up the hill to the car park.

 

Castles History.

 

Dunnottar Castle (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Fhoithear, "fort on the shelving slope" is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of Stonehaven.

 

The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th and 16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been fortified in the Early Middle Ages. Dunnottar has played a prominent role in the history of Scotland through to the 18th-century Jacobite risings because of its strategic location and defensive strength. Dunnottar is best known as the place where the Honours of Scotland, the Scottish crown jewels, were hidden from Oliver Cromwell's invading army in the 17th century. The property of the Keiths from the 14th century, and the seat of the Earl Marischal, Dunnottar declined after the last Earl forfeited his titles by taking part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

 

The castle was restored in the 20th century and is now open to the public.

 

The ruins of the castle are spread over 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres), surrounded by steep cliffs that drop to the North Sea, 50 metres (160 ft) below. A narrow strip of land joins the headland to the mainland, along which a steep path leads up to the gatehouse.

 

The various buildings within the castle include the 14th-century tower house as well as the 16th-century palace. Dunnottar Castle is a scheduled monument, and twelve structures on the site are listed buildings.

 

History

Early Middle Ages

A chapel at Dunnottar is said to have been founded by St Ninian in the 5th century, although it is not clear when the site was first fortified, but in any case the legend is late and highly implausible. Possibly the earliest written reference to the site is found in the Annals of Ulster which record two sieges of "Dún Foither" in 681 and 694.

 

The earlier event has been interpreted as an attack by Brude, the Pictish king of Fortriu, to extend his power over the north-east coast of Scotland. The Scottish Chronicle records that King Domnall II, the first ruler to be called rí Alban (King of Alba), was killed at Dunnottar during an attack by Vikings in 900. King Aethelstan of Wessex led a force into Scotland in 934, and raided as far north as Dunnottar according to the account of Symeon of Durham. W. D. Simpson speculated that a motte might lie under the present caste, but excavations in the 1980s failed to uncover substantive evidence of early medieval fortification.

 

The discovery of a group of Pictish stones at Dunnicaer, a nearby sea stack, has prompted speculation that "Dún Foither" was actually located on the adjacent headland of Bowduns, 0.5 kilometres (0.31 mi) to the north.

 

Later Middle Ages

During the reign of King William the Lion (ruled 1165–1214) Dunnottar was a center of local administration for The Mearns. The castle is named in the Roman de Fergus, an early 13th-century Arthurian romance, in which the hero Fergus must travel to Dunnottar to retrieve a magic shield.

 

In May 1276 a church on the site was consecrated by William Wishart, Bishop of St Andrews. The poet Blind Harry relates that William Wallace captured Dunnottar from the English in 1297, during the Wars of Scottish Independence. He is said to have imprisoned 4,000 defeated English soldiers in the church and burned them alive.

 

In 1336 Edward III of England ordered William Sinclair, 8th Baron of Roslin, to sail eight ships to the partially ruined Dunnottar for the purpose of rebuilding and fortifying the site as a forward resupply base for his northern campaign. Sinclair took with him 160 soldiers, horses, and a corps of masons and carpenters.

 

Edward himself visited in July, but the English efforts were undone before the end of the year when the Scottish Regent Sir Andrew Murray led a force that captured and again destroyed the defences of Dunnottar.

 

In the 14th century Dunnottar was granted to William de Moravia, 5th Earl of Sutherland (d.1370), and in 1346 a licence to crenellate was issued by David II. Around 1359 William Keith, Marischal of Scotland, married Margaret Fraser, niece of Robert the Bruce, and was granted the barony of Dunnottar at this time. Keith then gave the lands of Dunnottar to his daughter Christian and son-in-law William Lindsay of Byres, but in 1392 an excambion (exchange) was agreed whereby Keith regained Dunnottar and Lindsay took lands in Fife.

 

William Keith completed construction of the tower house at Dunnottar, but was excommunicated for building on the consecrated ground associated with the parish church. Keith had provided a new parish church closer to Stonehaven, but was forced to write to the Pope, Benedict XIII, who issued a bull in 1395 lifting the excommunication.William Keith's descendents were created Earls Marischal in the mid 15th century, and they held Dunottar until the 18th century.

 

16th century rebuilding

Through the 16th century the Keiths improved and expanded their principal seats: at Dunnottar and also at Keith Marischal in East Lothian. James IV visited Dunnottar in 1504, and in 1531 James V exempted the Earl's men from military service on the grounds that Dunnottar was one of the "principall strenthis of our realme".

 

Mary, Queen of Scots, visited in 1562 after the Battle of Corrichie, and returned in 1564.

 

James VI stayed for 10 days in 1580, as part of a progress through Fife and Angus, during which a meeting of the Privy Council was convened at Dunnottar.

 

During a rebellion of Catholic nobles in 1592, Dunnottar was captured by a Captain Carr on behalf of the Earl of Huntly, but was restored to Lord Marischal just a few weeks later.

 

In 1581 George Keith succeeded as 5th Earl Marischal, and began a large scale reconstruction that saw the medieval fortress converted into a more comfortable home. The founder of Marischal College in Aberdeen, the 5th Earl valued Dunnottar as much for its dramatic situation as for its security.

 

A "palace" comprising a series of ranges around a quadrangle was built on the north-eastern cliffs, creating luxurious living quarters with sea views. The 13th-century chapel was restored and incorporated into the quadrangle.

 

An impressive stone gatehouse was constructed, now known as Benholm's Lodging, featuring numerous gun ports facing the approach. Although impressive, these are likely to have been fashionable embellishments rather than genuine defensive features.

 

Civil wars

Further information: Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms

In 1639 William Keith, 7th Earl Marischal, came out in support of the Covenanters, a Presbyterian movement who opposed the established Episcopal Church and the changes which Charles I was attempting to impose. With James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, he marched against the Catholic James Gordon, 2nd Viscount Aboyne, Earl of Huntly, and defeated an attempt by the Royalists to seize Stonehaven. However, when Montrose changed sides to the Royalists and marched north, Marischal remained in Dunnottar, even when given command of the area by Parliament, and even when Montrose burned Stonehaven.

 

Marischal then joined with the Engager faction, who had made a deal with the king, and led a troop of horse to the Battle of Preston (1648) in support of the royalists.

 

Following the execution of Charles I in 1649, the Engagers gave their allegiance to his son and heir: Charles II was proclaimed king, arriving in Scotland in June 1650. He visited Dunnottar in July 1650, but his presence in Scotland prompted Oliver Cromwell to lead a force into Scotland, defeating the Scots at Dunbar in September 1650.

 

The Honours of Scotland

Charles II was crowned at Scone Palace on 1 January 1651, at which the Honours of Scotland (the regalia of crown, sword and sceptre) were used. However, with Cromwell's troops in Lothian, the honours could not be returned to Edinburgh. The Earl Marischal, as Marischal of Scotland, had formal responsibility for the honours, and in June the Privy Council duly decided to place them at Dunnottar.

 

They were brought to the castle by Katherine Drummond, hidden in sacks of wool. Sir George Ogilvie (or Ogilvy) of Barras was appointed lieutenant-governor of the castle, and given responsibility for its defence.

 

In November 1651 Cromwell's troops called on Ogilvie to surrender, but he refused. During the subsequent blockade of the castle, the removal of the Honours of Scotland was planned by Elizabeth Douglas, wife of Sir George Ogilvie, and Christian Fletcher, wife of James Granger, minister of Kinneff Parish Church. The king's papers were first removed from the castle by Anne Lindsay, a kinswoman of Elizabeth Douglas, who walked through the besieging force with the papers sewn into her clothes.

 

Two stories exist regarding the removal of the honours themselves. Fletcher stated in 1664 that over the course of three visits to the castle in February and March 1652, she carried away the crown, sceptre, sword and sword-case hidden amongst sacks of goods. Another account, given in the 18th century by a tutor to the Earl Marischal, records that the honours were lowered from the castle onto the beach, where they were collected by Fletcher's servant and carried off in a creel (basket) of seaweed. Having smuggled the honours from the castle, Fletcher and her husband buried them under the floor of the Old Kirk at Kinneff.

 

Meanwhile, by May 1652 the commander of the blockade, Colonel Thomas Morgan, had taken delivery of the artillery necessary for the reduction of Dunnottar. Ogilvie surrendered on 24 May, on condition that the garrison could go free. Finding the honours gone, the Cromwellians imprisoned Ogilvie and his wife in the castle until the following year, when a false story was put about suggesting that the honours had been taken overseas.

 

Much of the castle property was removed, including twenty-one brass cannons,[28] and Marischal was required to sell further lands and possessions to pay fines imposed by Cromwell's government.

 

At the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, the honours were removed from Kinneff Church and returned to the king. Ogilvie quarrelled with Marischal's mother over who would take credit for saving the honours, though he was eventually rewarded with a baronetcy. Fletcher was awarded 2,000 merks by Parliament but the sum was never paid.

  

Whigs and Jacobites

Religious and political conflicts continued to be played out at Dunnottar through the 17th and early 18th centuries. In 1685, during the rebellion of the Earl of Argyll against the new king James VII, 167 Covenanters were seized and held in a cellar at Dunnottar. The prisoners included 122 men and 45 women associated with the Whigs, an anti-Royalist group within the Covenanter movement, and had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the new king.

 

The Whigs were imprisoned from 24 May until late July. A group of 25 escaped, although two of these were killed in a fall from the cliffs, and another 15 were recaptured. Five prisoners died in the vault, and 37 of the Whigs were released after taking the oath of allegiance.

 

The remaining prisoners were transported to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, as part of a colonisation scheme devised by George Scot of Pitlochie. Many, like Scot himself, died on the voyage.

 

The cellar, located beneath the "King's Bedroom" in the 16th-century castle buildings, has since become known as the "Whigs' Vault".

 

Both the Jacobites (supporters of the exiled Stuarts) and the Hanoverians (supporters of George I and his descendents) used Dunnottar Castle. In 1689 during Viscount Dundee's campaign in support of the deposed James VII, the castle was garrisoned for William and Mary with Lord Marischal appointed captain.

 

Seventeen suspected Jacobites from Aberdeen were seized and held in the fortress for around three weeks, including George Liddell, professor of mathematics at Marischal College.

 

In the Jacobite Rising of 1715 George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, took an active role with the rebels, leading cavalry at the Battle of Sheriffmuir. After the subsequent abandonment of the rising Lord Marischal fled to the Continent, eventually becoming French ambassador for Frederick the Great of Prussia. Meanwhile, in 1716, his titles and estates including Dunnottar were declared forfeit to the crown.

 

Later history

The seized estates of the Earl Marischal were purchased in 1720 for £41,172, by the York Buildings Company who dismantled much of the castle.

 

In 1761 the Earl briefly returned to Scotland and bought back Dunnottar only to sell it five years later to Alexander Keith, an Edinburgh lawyer who served as Knight Marischal of Scotland.

 

Dunnottar was inherited in 1852 by Sir Patrick Keith-Murray of Ochtertyre, who in turn sold it in July 1873 to Major Alexander Innes of Cowie and Raemoir for about £80,000.

 

It was purchased by Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray, in 1925 after which his wife embarked on a programme of repairs.

 

Since that time the castle has remained in the family, and has been open to the public, attracting 52,500 visitors in 2009.

 

Dunnottar Castle, and the headland on which is stands, was designated as a scheduled monument in 1970.In 1972 twelve of the structures at Dunnottar were listed.

 

Three buildings are listed at category A as being of "national importance": the keep; the entrance gateway; and Benholm's Lodging.

 

The remaining listings are at category B as being of "regional importance".[39] The Hon. Charles Anthony Pearson, the younger son of the 3rd Viscount Cowdray, currently owns and runs Dunnottar Castle which is part of the 210-square-kilometre (52,000-acre) Dunecht Estates.

 

Portions of the 1990 film Hamlet, starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close, were shot there.

  

Description

Dunnottar's strategic location allowed its owners to control the coastal terrace between the North Sea cliffs and the hills of the Mounth, 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) inland, which enabled access to and from the north-east of Scotland.

 

The site is accessed via a steep, 800-metre (2,600 ft) footpath (with modern staircases) from a car park on the coastal road, or via a 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) cliff-top path from Stonehaven. Dunnottar's several buildings, put up between the 13th and 17th centuries, are arranged across a headland covering around 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres).

 

The dominant building, viewed from the land approach, is the 14th-century keep or tower house. The other principal buildings are the gatehouse; the chapel; and the 16th-century "palace" which incorporates the "Whigs' Vault".

 

Defences

The approach to the castle is overlooked by outworks on the "Fiddle Head", a promontory on the western side of the headland. The entrance is through the well-defended main gate, set in a curtain wall which entirely blocks a cleft in the rocky cliffs.

 

The gate has a portcullis and has been partly blocked up. Alongside the main gate is the 16th-century Benholm's Lodging, a five-storey building cut into the rock, which incorporated a prison with apartments above.

 

Three tiers of gun ports face outwards from the lower floors of Benholm's Lodging, while inside the main gate, a group of four gun ports face the entrance. The entrance passage then turns sharply to the left, running underground through two tunnels to emerge near the tower house.

 

Simpson contends that these defences are "without exception the strongest in Scotland", although later writers have doubted the effectiveness of the gun ports. Cruden notes that the alignment of the gun ports in Benholm's Lodging, facing across the approach rather than along, means that they are of limited efficiency.

 

The practicality of the gun ports facing the entrance has also been questioned, though an inventory of 1612 records that four brass cannons were placed here.

 

A second access to the castle leads up from a rocky cove, the aperture to a marine cave on the northern side of the Dunnottar cliffs into which a small boat could be brought. From here a steep path leads to the well-fortified postern gate on the cliff top, which in turn offers access to the castle via the Water Gate in the palace.

 

Artillery defences, taking the form of earthworks, surround the north-west corner of the castle, facing inland, and the south-east, facing seaward. A small sentry box or guard house stands by the eastern battery, overlooking the coast.

 

Tower house and surrounding buildings

The tower house of Dunnottar, viewed from the west

The late 14th-century tower house has a stone-vaulted basement, and originally had three further storeys and a garret above.

 

Measuring 12 by 11 metres (39 by 36 ft), the tower house stood 15 metres (49 ft) high to its gable. The principal rooms included a great hall and a private chamber for the lord, with bedrooms upstairs.

 

Beside the tower house is a storehouse, and a blacksmith's forge with a large chimney. A stable block is ranged along the southern edge of the headland. Nearby is Waterton's Lodging, also known as the Priest's House, built around 1574, possibly for the use of William Keith (died 1580), son of the 4th Earl Marischal.

 

This small self-contained house includes a hall and kitchen at ground level, with private chambers above, and has a projecting spiral stair on the north side. It is named for Thomas Forbes of Waterton, an attendant of the 7th Earl.

 

The palace

The palace, to the north-east of the headland, was built in the late 16th century and early to mid-17th century. It comprises three main wings set out around a quadrangle, and for the most part is probably the work of the 5th Earl Marischal who succeeded in 1581.

 

It provided extensive and comfortable accommodation to replace the rooms in the tower house. In its long, low design it has been compared to contemporary English buildings, in contrast to the Scottish tradition of taller towers still prevalent in the 16th century.

 

Seven identical lodgings are arranged along the west range, each opening onto the quadrangle and including windows and fireplace. Above the lodgings the west range comprised a 35-metre (115 ft) gallery. Now roofless, the gallery originally had an elaborate oak ceiling, and on display was a Roman tablet taken from the Antonine Wall.

 

At the north end of the gallery was a drawing room linked to the north range. The gallery could also be accessed from the Silver House to the south, which incorporated a broad stairway with a treasury above.

 

The basement of the north range incorporates kitchens and stores, with a dining room and great chamber above. At ground floor level is the Water Gate, between the north and west ranges, which gives access to the postern on the northern cliffs.

 

The east and north ranges are linked via a rectangular stair. The east range has a larder, brewhouse and bakery at ground level, with a suite of apartments for the Countess above. A north-east wing contains the Earl's apartments, and includes the "King's Bedroom" in which Charles II stayed. In this room is a carved stone inscribed with the arms of the 7th Earl and his wife, and the date 1654. Below these rooms is the Whigs' Vault, a cellar measuring 16 by 4.5 metres (52 by 15 ft). This cellar, in which the Covenanters were held in 1685, has a large eastern window, as well as a lower vault accessed via a trap-door in the floor.

 

Of the chambers in the palace, only the dining room and the Silver House remain roofed, having been restored in the 1920s. The central area contains a circular cistern or fish pond, 16 metres (52 ft) across and 7.6 metres (25 ft) deep, and a bowling green is located to the west.

 

At the south-east corner of the quadrangle is the chapel, consecrated in 1276 and largely rebuilt in the 16th century. Medieval walling and two 13th-century windows remain, and there is a graveyard to the south.

First visit of 2019 for me to this stunning castle today Thursday 28th March 2019.

 

Dunnottar Castle.

 

The rock the Castle sits upon was forced to the surface 440 million years ago during the Silurian period. A red rock conglomerate with boulders up to 1m across known as Pudding Stone is incredibly durable.

 

The ancient Highland rock pebbles and cementing matter is so tough that faults or cracks pass through the pebbles themselves.

 

I first visited Dunnottar Castle summer 2017, this magnificent castle sits high on a hill, last time I visited I captured my shots from the cliffs overlooking the site, though today I made the journey up the hill and entered the castle walls , wow what a magnificent experience, just perfect with loads of great photo opportunities to capture real Scottish history,after two hours wandering around and capturing as many shots that caught my eye , I made my way home, a magnificent experience indeed.

 

Dunnottar Castle (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Fhoithear, "fort on the shelving slope" is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of Stonehaven.

 

The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th and 16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been fortified in the Early Middle Ages. Dunnottar has played a prominent role in the history of Scotland through to the 18th-century Jacobite risings because of its strategic location and defensive strength. Dunnottar is best known as the place where the Honours of Scotland, the Scottish crown jewels, were hidden from Oliver Cromwell's invading army in the 17th century. The property of the Keiths from the 14th century, and the seat of the Earl Marischal, Dunnottar declined after the last Earl forfeited his titles by taking part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

 

The castle was restored in the 20th century and is now open to the public.

 

The ruins of the castle are spread over 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres), surrounded by steep cliffs that drop to the North Sea, 50 metres (160 ft) below. A narrow strip of land joins the headland to the mainland, along which a steep path leads up to the gatehouse.

 

The various buildings within the castle include the 14th-century tower house as well as the 16th-century palace. Dunnottar Castle is a scheduled monument, and twelve structures on the site are listed buildings.

 

History

Early Middle Ages

A chapel at Dunnottar is said to have been founded by St Ninian in the 5th century, although it is not clear when the site was first fortified, but in any case the legend is late and highly implausible. Possibly the earliest written reference to the site is found in the Annals of Ulster which record two sieges of "Dún Foither" in 681 and 694.

 

The earlier event has been interpreted as an attack by Brude, the Pictish king of Fortriu, to extend his power over the north-east coast of Scotland. The Scottish Chronicle records that King Domnall II, the first ruler to be called rí Alban (King of Alba), was killed at Dunnottar during an attack by Vikings in 900. King Aethelstan of Wessex led a force into Scotland in 934, and raided as far north as Dunnottar according to the account of Symeon of Durham. W. D. Simpson speculated that a motte might lie under the present caste, but excavations in the 1980s failed to uncover substantive evidence of early medieval fortification.

 

The discovery of a group of Pictish stones at Dunnicaer, a nearby sea stack, has prompted speculation that "Dún Foither" was actually located on the adjacent headland of Bowduns, 0.5 kilometres (0.31 mi) to the north.

 

Later Middle Ages

During the reign of King William the Lion (ruled 1165–1214) Dunnottar was a center of local administration for The Mearns. The castle is named in the Roman de Fergus, an early 13th-century Arthurian romance, in which the hero Fergus must travel to Dunnottar to retrieve a magic shield.

 

In May 1276 a church on the site was consecrated by William Wishart, Bishop of St Andrews. The poet Blind Harry relates that William Wallace captured Dunnottar from the English in 1297, during the Wars of Scottish Independence. He is said to have imprisoned 4,000 defeated English soldiers in the church and burned them alive.

 

In 1336 Edward III of England ordered William Sinclair, 8th Baron of Roslin, to sail eight ships to the partially ruined Dunnottar for the purpose of rebuilding and fortifying the site as a forward resupply base for his northern campaign. Sinclair took with him 160 soldiers, horses, and a corps of masons and carpenters.

 

Edward himself visited in July, but the English efforts were undone before the end of the year when the Scottish Regent Sir Andrew Murray led a force that captured and again destroyed the defences of Dunnottar.

 

In the 14th century Dunnottar was granted to William de Moravia, 5th Earl of Sutherland (d.1370), and in 1346 a licence to crenellate was issued by David II. Around 1359 William Keith, Marischal of Scotland, married Margaret Fraser, niece of Robert the Bruce, and was granted the barony of Dunnottar at this time. Keith then gave the lands of Dunnottar to his daughter Christian and son-in-law William Lindsay of Byres, but in 1392 an excambion (exchange) was agreed whereby Keith regained Dunnottar and Lindsay took lands in Fife.

 

William Keith completed construction of the tower house at Dunnottar, but was excommunicated for building on the consecrated ground associated with the parish church. Keith had provided a new parish church closer to Stonehaven, but was forced to write to the Pope, Benedict XIII, who issued a bull in 1395 lifting the excommunication.William Keith's descendents were created Earls Marischal in the mid 15th century, and they held Dunottar until the 18th century.

 

16th century rebuilding

Through the 16th century the Keiths improved and expanded their principal seats: at Dunnottar and also at Keith Marischal in East Lothian. James IV visited Dunnottar in 1504, and in 1531 James V exempted the Earl's men from military service on the grounds that Dunnottar was one of the "principall strenthis of our realme".

 

Mary, Queen of Scots, visited in 1562 after the Battle of Corrichie, and returned in 1564.

 

James VI stayed for 10 days in 1580, as part of a progress through Fife and Angus, during which a meeting of the Privy Council was convened at Dunnottar.

 

During a rebellion of Catholic nobles in 1592, Dunnottar was captured by a Captain Carr on behalf of the Earl of Huntly, but was restored to Lord Marischal just a few weeks later.

 

In 1581 George Keith succeeded as 5th Earl Marischal, and began a large scale reconstruction that saw the medieval fortress converted into a more comfortable home. The founder of Marischal College in Aberdeen, the 5th Earl valued Dunnottar as much for its dramatic situation as for its security.

 

A "palace" comprising a series of ranges around a quadrangle was built on the north-eastern cliffs, creating luxurious living quarters with sea views. The 13th-century chapel was restored and incorporated into the quadrangle.

 

An impressive stone gatehouse was constructed, now known as Benholm's Lodging, featuring numerous gun ports facing the approach. Although impressive, these are likely to have been fashionable embellishments rather than genuine defensive features.

 

Civil wars

Further information: Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms

In 1639 William Keith, 7th Earl Marischal, came out in support of the Covenanters, a Presbyterian movement who opposed the established Episcopal Church and the changes which Charles I was attempting to impose. With James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, he marched against the Catholic James Gordon, 2nd Viscount Aboyne, Earl of Huntly, and defeated an attempt by the Royalists to seize Stonehaven. However, when Montrose changed sides to the Royalists and marched north, Marischal remained in Dunnottar, even when given command of the area by Parliament, and even when Montrose burned Stonehaven.

 

Marischal then joined with the Engager faction, who had made a deal with the king, and led a troop of horse to the Battle of Preston (1648) in support of the royalists.

 

Following the execution of Charles I in 1649, the Engagers gave their allegiance to his son and heir: Charles II was proclaimed king, arriving in Scotland in June 1650. He visited Dunnottar in July 1650, but his presence in Scotland prompted Oliver Cromwell to lead a force into Scotland, defeating the Scots at Dunbar in September 1650.

 

The Honours of Scotland

Charles II was crowned at Scone Palace on 1 January 1651, at which the Honours of Scotland (the regalia of crown, sword and sceptre) were used. However, with Cromwell's troops in Lothian, the honours could not be returned to Edinburgh. The Earl Marischal, as Marischal of Scotland, had formal responsibility for the honours, and in June the Privy Council duly decided to place them at Dunnottar.

 

They were brought to the castle by Katherine Drummond, hidden in sacks of wool. Sir George Ogilvie (or Ogilvy) of Barras was appointed lieutenant-governor of the castle, and given responsibility for its defence.

 

In November 1651 Cromwell's troops called on Ogilvie to surrender, but he refused. During the subsequent blockade of the castle, the removal of the Honours of Scotland was planned by Elizabeth Douglas, wife of Sir George Ogilvie, and Christian Fletcher, wife of James Granger, minister of Kinneff Parish Church. The king's papers were first removed from the castle by Anne Lindsay, a kinswoman of Elizabeth Douglas, who walked through the besieging force with the papers sewn into her clothes.

 

Two stories exist regarding the removal of the honours themselves. Fletcher stated in 1664 that over the course of three visits to the castle in February and March 1652, she carried away the crown, sceptre, sword and sword-case hidden amongst sacks of goods. Another account, given in the 18th century by a tutor to the Earl Marischal, records that the honours were lowered from the castle onto the beach, where they were collected by Fletcher's servant and carried off in a creel (basket) of seaweed. Having smuggled the honours from the castle, Fletcher and her husband buried them under the floor of the Old Kirk at Kinneff.

 

Meanwhile, by May 1652 the commander of the blockade, Colonel Thomas Morgan, had taken delivery of the artillery necessary for the reduction of Dunnottar. Ogilvie surrendered on 24 May, on condition that the garrison could go free. Finding the honours gone, the Cromwellians imprisoned Ogilvie and his wife in the castle until the following year, when a false story was put about suggesting that the honours had been taken overseas.

 

Much of the castle property was removed, including twenty-one brass cannons,[28] and Marischal was required to sell further lands and possessions to pay fines imposed by Cromwell's government.

 

At the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, the honours were removed from Kinneff Church and returned to the king. Ogilvie quarrelled with Marischal's mother over who would take credit for saving the honours, though he was eventually rewarded with a baronetcy. Fletcher was awarded 2,000 merks by Parliament but the sum was never paid.

  

Whigs and Jacobites

Religious and political conflicts continued to be played out at Dunnottar through the 17th and early 18th centuries. In 1685, during the rebellion of the Earl of Argyll against the new king James VII, 167 Covenanters were seized and held in a cellar at Dunnottar. The prisoners included 122 men and 45 women associated with the Whigs, an anti-Royalist group within the Covenanter movement, and had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the new king.

 

The Whigs were imprisoned from 24 May until late July. A group of 25 escaped, although two of these were killed in a fall from the cliffs, and another 15 were recaptured. Five prisoners died in the vault, and 37 of the Whigs were released after taking the oath of allegiance.

 

The remaining prisoners were transported to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, as part of a colonisation scheme devised by George Scot of Pitlochie. Many, like Scot himself, died on the voyage.

 

The cellar, located beneath the "King's Bedroom" in the 16th-century castle buildings, has since become known as the "Whigs' Vault".

 

Both the Jacobites (supporters of the exiled Stuarts) and the Hanoverians (supporters of George I and his descendents) used Dunnottar Castle. In 1689 during Viscount Dundee's campaign in support of the deposed James VII, the castle was garrisoned for William and Mary with Lord Marischal appointed captain.

 

Seventeen suspected Jacobites from Aberdeen were seized and held in the fortress for around three weeks, including George Liddell, professor of mathematics at Marischal College.

 

In the Jacobite Rising of 1715 George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, took an active role with the rebels, leading cavalry at the Battle of Sheriffmuir. After the subsequent abandonment of the rising Lord Marischal fled to the Continent, eventually becoming French ambassador for Frederick the Great of Prussia. Meanwhile, in 1716, his titles and estates including Dunnottar were declared forfeit to the crown.

 

Later history

The seized estates of the Earl Marischal were purchased in 1720 for £41,172, by the York Buildings Company who dismantled much of the castle.

 

In 1761 the Earl briefly returned to Scotland and bought back Dunnottar only to sell it five years later to Alexander Keith, an Edinburgh lawyer who served as Knight Marischal of Scotland.

 

Dunnottar was inherited in 1852 by Sir Patrick Keith-Murray of Ochtertyre, who in turn sold it in July 1873 to Major Alexander Innes of Cowie and Raemoir for about £80,000.

 

It was purchased by Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray, in 1925 after which his wife embarked on a programme of repairs.

 

Since that time the castle has remained in the family, and has been open to the public, attracting 52,500 visitors in 2009.

 

Dunnottar Castle, and the headland on which is stands, was designated as a scheduled monument in 1970.In 1972 twelve of the structures at Dunnottar were listed.

 

Three buildings are listed at category A as being of "national importance": the keep; the entrance gateway; and Benholm's Lodging.

 

The remaining listings are at category B as being of "regional importance".[39] The Hon. Charles Anthony Pearson, the younger son of the 3rd Viscount Cowdray, currently owns and runs Dunnottar Castle which is part of the 210-square-kilometre (52,000-acre) Dunecht Estates.

 

Portions of the 1990 film Hamlet, starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close, were shot there.

  

Description

Dunnottar's strategic location allowed its owners to control the coastal terrace between the North Sea cliffs and the hills of the Mounth, 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) inland, which enabled access to and from the north-east of Scotland.

 

The site is accessed via a steep, 800-metre (2,600 ft) footpath (with modern staircases) from a car park on the coastal road, or via a 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) cliff-top path from Stonehaven. Dunnottar's several buildings, put up between the 13th and 17th centuries, are arranged across a headland covering around 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres).

 

The dominant building, viewed from the land approach, is the 14th-century keep or tower house. The other principal buildings are the gatehouse; the chapel; and the 16th-century "palace" which incorporates the "Whigs' Vault".

 

Defences

The approach to the castle is overlooked by outworks on the "Fiddle Head", a promontory on the western side of the headland. The entrance is through the well-defended main gate, set in a curtain wall which entirely blocks a cleft in the rocky cliffs.

 

The gate has a portcullis and has been partly blocked up. Alongside the main gate is the 16th-century Benholm's Lodging, a five-storey building cut into the rock, which incorporated a prison with apartments above.

 

Three tiers of gun ports face outwards from the lower floors of Benholm's Lodging, while inside the main gate, a group of four gun ports face the entrance. The entrance passage then turns sharply to the left, running underground through two tunnels to emerge near the tower house.

 

Simpson contends that these defences are "without exception the strongest in Scotland", although later writers have doubted the effectiveness of the gun ports. Cruden notes that the alignment of the gun ports in Benholm's Lodging, facing across the approach rather than along, means that they are of limited efficiency.

 

The practicality of the gun ports facing the entrance has also been questioned, though an inventory of 1612 records that four brass cannons were placed here.

 

A second access to the castle leads up from a rocky cove, the aperture to a marine cave on the northern side of the Dunnottar cliffs into which a small boat could be brought. From here a steep path leads to the well-fortified postern gate on the cliff top, which in turn offers access to the castle via the Water Gate in the palace.

 

Artillery defences, taking the form of earthworks, surround the north-west corner of the castle, facing inland, and the south-east, facing seaward. A small sentry box or guard house stands by the eastern battery, overlooking the coast.

 

Tower house and surrounding buildings

The tower house of Dunnottar, viewed from the west

The late 14th-century tower house has a stone-vaulted basement, and originally had three further storeys and a garret above.

 

Measuring 12 by 11 metres (39 by 36 ft), the tower house stood 15 metres (49 ft) high to its gable. The principal rooms included a great hall and a private chamber for the lord, with bedrooms upstairs.

 

Beside the tower house is a storehouse, and a blacksmith's forge with a large chimney. A stable block is ranged along the southern edge of the headland. Nearby is Waterton's Lodging, also known as the Priest's House, built around 1574, possibly for the use of William Keith (died 1580), son of the 4th Earl Marischal.

 

This small self-contained house includes a hall and kitchen at ground level, with private chambers above, and has a projecting spiral stair on the north side. It is named for Thomas Forbes of Waterton, an attendant of the 7th Earl.

 

The palace

The palace, to the north-east of the headland, was built in the late 16th century and early to mid-17th century. It comprises three main wings set out around a quadrangle, and for the most part is probably the work of the 5th Earl Marischal who succeeded in 1581.

 

It provided extensive and comfortable accommodation to replace the rooms in the tower house. In its long, low design it has been compared to contemporary English buildings, in contrast to the Scottish tradition of taller towers still prevalent in the 16th century.

 

Seven identical lodgings are arranged along the west range, each opening onto the quadrangle and including windows and fireplace. Above the lodgings the west range comprised a 35-metre (115 ft) gallery. Now roofless, the gallery originally had an elaborate oak ceiling, and on display was a Roman tablet taken from the Antonine Wall.

 

At the north end of the gallery was a drawing room linked to the north range. The gallery could also be accessed from the Silver House to the south, which incorporated a broad stairway with a treasury above.

 

The basement of the north range incorporates kitchens and stores, with a dining room and great chamber above. At ground floor level is the Water Gate, between the north and west ranges, which gives access to the postern on the northern cliffs.

 

The east and north ranges are linked via a rectangular stair. The east range has a larder, brewhouse and bakery at ground level, with a suite of apartments for the Countess above. A north-east wing contains the Earl's apartments, and includes the "King's Bedroom" in which Charles II stayed. In this room is a carved stone inscribed with the arms of the 7th Earl and his wife, and the date 1654. Below these rooms is the Whigs' Vault, a cellar measuring 16 by 4.5 metres (52 by 15 ft). This cellar, in which the Covenanters were held in 1685, has a large eastern window, as well as a lower vault accessed via a trap-door in the floor.

 

Of the chambers in the palace, only the dining room and the Silver House remain roofed, having been restored in the 1920s. The central area contains a circular cistern or fish pond, 16 metres (52 ft) across and 7.6 metres (25 ft) deep, and a bowling green is located to the west.

 

At the south-east corner of the quadrangle is the chapel, consecrated in 1276 and largely rebuilt in the 16th century. Medieval walling and two 13th-century windows remain, and there is a graveyard to the south.

First visit of 2019 for me to this stunning castle today Thursday 28th March 2019.

 

Dunnottar Castle.

 

The rock the Castle sits upon was forced to the surface 440 million years ago during the Silurian period. A red rock conglomerate with boulders up to 1m across known as Pudding Stone is incredibly durable.

 

The ancient Highland rock pebbles and cementing matter is so tough that faults or cracks pass through the pebbles themselves.

 

I first visited Dunnottar Castle summer 2017, this magnificent castle sits high on a hill, last time I visited I captured my shots from the cliffs overlooking the site, though today I made the journey up the hill and entered the castle walls , wow what a magnificent experience, just perfect with loads of great photo opportunities to capture real Scottish history,after two hours wandering around and capturing as many shots that caught my eye , I made my way home, a magnificent experience indeed.

 

Dunnottar Castle (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Fhoithear, "fort on the shelving slope" is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of Stonehaven.

 

The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th and 16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been fortified in the Early Middle Ages. Dunnottar has played a prominent role in the history of Scotland through to the 18th-century Jacobite risings because of its strategic location and defensive strength. Dunnottar is best known as the place where the Honours of Scotland, the Scottish crown jewels, were hidden from Oliver Cromwell's invading army in the 17th century. The property of the Keiths from the 14th century, and the seat of the Earl Marischal, Dunnottar declined after the last Earl forfeited his titles by taking part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

 

The castle was restored in the 20th century and is now open to the public.

 

The ruins of the castle are spread over 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres), surrounded by steep cliffs that drop to the North Sea, 50 metres (160 ft) below. A narrow strip of land joins the headland to the mainland, along which a steep path leads up to the gatehouse.

 

The various buildings within the castle include the 14th-century tower house as well as the 16th-century palace. Dunnottar Castle is a scheduled monument, and twelve structures on the site are listed buildings.

 

History

Early Middle Ages

A chapel at Dunnottar is said to have been founded by St Ninian in the 5th century, although it is not clear when the site was first fortified, but in any case the legend is late and highly implausible. Possibly the earliest written reference to the site is found in the Annals of Ulster which record two sieges of "Dún Foither" in 681 and 694.

 

The earlier event has been interpreted as an attack by Brude, the Pictish king of Fortriu, to extend his power over the north-east coast of Scotland. The Scottish Chronicle records that King Domnall II, the first ruler to be called rí Alban (King of Alba), was killed at Dunnottar during an attack by Vikings in 900. King Aethelstan of Wessex led a force into Scotland in 934, and raided as far north as Dunnottar according to the account of Symeon of Durham. W. D. Simpson speculated that a motte might lie under the present caste, but excavations in the 1980s failed to uncover substantive evidence of early medieval fortification.

 

The discovery of a group of Pictish stones at Dunnicaer, a nearby sea stack, has prompted speculation that "Dún Foither" was actually located on the adjacent headland of Bowduns, 0.5 kilometres (0.31 mi) to the north.

 

Later Middle Ages

During the reign of King William the Lion (ruled 1165–1214) Dunnottar was a center of local administration for The Mearns. The castle is named in the Roman de Fergus, an early 13th-century Arthurian romance, in which the hero Fergus must travel to Dunnottar to retrieve a magic shield.

 

In May 1276 a church on the site was consecrated by William Wishart, Bishop of St Andrews. The poet Blind Harry relates that William Wallace captured Dunnottar from the English in 1297, during the Wars of Scottish Independence. He is said to have imprisoned 4,000 defeated English soldiers in the church and burned them alive.

 

In 1336 Edward III of England ordered William Sinclair, 8th Baron of Roslin, to sail eight ships to the partially ruined Dunnottar for the purpose of rebuilding and fortifying the site as a forward resupply base for his northern campaign. Sinclair took with him 160 soldiers, horses, and a corps of masons and carpenters.

 

Edward himself visited in July, but the English efforts were undone before the end of the year when the Scottish Regent Sir Andrew Murray led a force that captured and again destroyed the defences of Dunnottar.

 

In the 14th century Dunnottar was granted to William de Moravia, 5th Earl of Sutherland (d.1370), and in 1346 a licence to crenellate was issued by David II. Around 1359 William Keith, Marischal of Scotland, married Margaret Fraser, niece of Robert the Bruce, and was granted the barony of Dunnottar at this time. Keith then gave the lands of Dunnottar to his daughter Christian and son-in-law William Lindsay of Byres, but in 1392 an excambion (exchange) was agreed whereby Keith regained Dunnottar and Lindsay took lands in Fife.

 

William Keith completed construction of the tower house at Dunnottar, but was excommunicated for building on the consecrated ground associated with the parish church. Keith had provided a new parish church closer to Stonehaven, but was forced to write to the Pope, Benedict XIII, who issued a bull in 1395 lifting the excommunication.William Keith's descendents were created Earls Marischal in the mid 15th century, and they held Dunottar until the 18th century.

 

16th century rebuilding

Through the 16th century the Keiths improved and expanded their principal seats: at Dunnottar and also at Keith Marischal in East Lothian. James IV visited Dunnottar in 1504, and in 1531 James V exempted the Earl's men from military service on the grounds that Dunnottar was one of the "principall strenthis of our realme".

 

Mary, Queen of Scots, visited in 1562 after the Battle of Corrichie, and returned in 1564.

 

James VI stayed for 10 days in 1580, as part of a progress through Fife and Angus, during which a meeting of the Privy Council was convened at Dunnottar.

 

During a rebellion of Catholic nobles in 1592, Dunnottar was captured by a Captain Carr on behalf of the Earl of Huntly, but was restored to Lord Marischal just a few weeks later.

 

In 1581 George Keith succeeded as 5th Earl Marischal, and began a large scale reconstruction that saw the medieval fortress converted into a more comfortable home. The founder of Marischal College in Aberdeen, the 5th Earl valued Dunnottar as much for its dramatic situation as for its security.

 

A "palace" comprising a series of ranges around a quadrangle was built on the north-eastern cliffs, creating luxurious living quarters with sea views. The 13th-century chapel was restored and incorporated into the quadrangle.

 

An impressive stone gatehouse was constructed, now known as Benholm's Lodging, featuring numerous gun ports facing the approach. Although impressive, these are likely to have been fashionable embellishments rather than genuine defensive features.

 

Civil wars

Further information: Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms

In 1639 William Keith, 7th Earl Marischal, came out in support of the Covenanters, a Presbyterian movement who opposed the established Episcopal Church and the changes which Charles I was attempting to impose. With James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, he marched against the Catholic James Gordon, 2nd Viscount Aboyne, Earl of Huntly, and defeated an attempt by the Royalists to seize Stonehaven. However, when Montrose changed sides to the Royalists and marched north, Marischal remained in Dunnottar, even when given command of the area by Parliament, and even when Montrose burned Stonehaven.

 

Marischal then joined with the Engager faction, who had made a deal with the king, and led a troop of horse to the Battle of Preston (1648) in support of the royalists.

 

Following the execution of Charles I in 1649, the Engagers gave their allegiance to his son and heir: Charles II was proclaimed king, arriving in Scotland in June 1650. He visited Dunnottar in July 1650, but his presence in Scotland prompted Oliver Cromwell to lead a force into Scotland, defeating the Scots at Dunbar in September 1650.

 

The Honours of Scotland

Charles II was crowned at Scone Palace on 1 January 1651, at which the Honours of Scotland (the regalia of crown, sword and sceptre) were used. However, with Cromwell's troops in Lothian, the honours could not be returned to Edinburgh. The Earl Marischal, as Marischal of Scotland, had formal responsibility for the honours, and in June the Privy Council duly decided to place them at Dunnottar.

 

They were brought to the castle by Katherine Drummond, hidden in sacks of wool. Sir George Ogilvie (or Ogilvy) of Barras was appointed lieutenant-governor of the castle, and given responsibility for its defence.

 

In November 1651 Cromwell's troops called on Ogilvie to surrender, but he refused. During the subsequent blockade of the castle, the removal of the Honours of Scotland was planned by Elizabeth Douglas, wife of Sir George Ogilvie, and Christian Fletcher, wife of James Granger, minister of Kinneff Parish Church. The king's papers were first removed from the castle by Anne Lindsay, a kinswoman of Elizabeth Douglas, who walked through the besieging force with the papers sewn into her clothes.

 

Two stories exist regarding the removal of the honours themselves. Fletcher stated in 1664 that over the course of three visits to the castle in February and March 1652, she carried away the crown, sceptre, sword and sword-case hidden amongst sacks of goods. Another account, given in the 18th century by a tutor to the Earl Marischal, records that the honours were lowered from the castle onto the beach, where they were collected by Fletcher's servant and carried off in a creel (basket) of seaweed. Having smuggled the honours from the castle, Fletcher and her husband buried them under the floor of the Old Kirk at Kinneff.

 

Meanwhile, by May 1652 the commander of the blockade, Colonel Thomas Morgan, had taken delivery of the artillery necessary for the reduction of Dunnottar. Ogilvie surrendered on 24 May, on condition that the garrison could go free. Finding the honours gone, the Cromwellians imprisoned Ogilvie and his wife in the castle until the following year, when a false story was put about suggesting that the honours had been taken overseas.

 

Much of the castle property was removed, including twenty-one brass cannons,[28] and Marischal was required to sell further lands and possessions to pay fines imposed by Cromwell's government.

 

At the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, the honours were removed from Kinneff Church and returned to the king. Ogilvie quarrelled with Marischal's mother over who would take credit for saving the honours, though he was eventually rewarded with a baronetcy. Fletcher was awarded 2,000 merks by Parliament but the sum was never paid.

  

Whigs and Jacobites

Religious and political conflicts continued to be played out at Dunnottar through the 17th and early 18th centuries. In 1685, during the rebellion of the Earl of Argyll against the new king James VII, 167 Covenanters were seized and held in a cellar at Dunnottar. The prisoners included 122 men and 45 women associated with the Whigs, an anti-Royalist group within the Covenanter movement, and had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the new king.

 

The Whigs were imprisoned from 24 May until late July. A group of 25 escaped, although two of these were killed in a fall from the cliffs, and another 15 were recaptured. Five prisoners died in the vault, and 37 of the Whigs were released after taking the oath of allegiance.

 

The remaining prisoners were transported to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, as part of a colonisation scheme devised by George Scot of Pitlochie. Many, like Scot himself, died on the voyage.

 

The cellar, located beneath the "King's Bedroom" in the 16th-century castle buildings, has since become known as the "Whigs' Vault".

 

Both the Jacobites (supporters of the exiled Stuarts) and the Hanoverians (supporters of George I and his descendents) used Dunnottar Castle. In 1689 during Viscount Dundee's campaign in support of the deposed James VII, the castle was garrisoned for William and Mary with Lord Marischal appointed captain.

 

Seventeen suspected Jacobites from Aberdeen were seized and held in the fortress for around three weeks, including George Liddell, professor of mathematics at Marischal College.

 

In the Jacobite Rising of 1715 George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, took an active role with the rebels, leading cavalry at the Battle of Sheriffmuir. After the subsequent abandonment of the rising Lord Marischal fled to the Continent, eventually becoming French ambassador for Frederick the Great of Prussia. Meanwhile, in 1716, his titles and estates including Dunnottar were declared forfeit to the crown.

 

Later history

The seized estates of the Earl Marischal were purchased in 1720 for £41,172, by the York Buildings Company who dismantled much of the castle.

 

In 1761 the Earl briefly returned to Scotland and bought back Dunnottar only to sell it five years later to Alexander Keith, an Edinburgh lawyer who served as Knight Marischal of Scotland.

 

Dunnottar was inherited in 1852 by Sir Patrick Keith-Murray of Ochtertyre, who in turn sold it in July 1873 to Major Alexander Innes of Cowie and Raemoir for about £80,000.

 

It was purchased by Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray, in 1925 after which his wife embarked on a programme of repairs.

 

Since that time the castle has remained in the family, and has been open to the public, attracting 52,500 visitors in 2009.

 

Dunnottar Castle, and the headland on which is stands, was designated as a scheduled monument in 1970.In 1972 twelve of the structures at Dunnottar were listed.

 

Three buildings are listed at category A as being of "national importance": the keep; the entrance gateway; and Benholm's Lodging.

 

The remaining listings are at category B as being of "regional importance".[39] The Hon. Charles Anthony Pearson, the younger son of the 3rd Viscount Cowdray, currently owns and runs Dunnottar Castle which is part of the 210-square-kilometre (52,000-acre) Dunecht Estates.

 

Portions of the 1990 film Hamlet, starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close, were shot there.

  

Description

Dunnottar's strategic location allowed its owners to control the coastal terrace between the North Sea cliffs and the hills of the Mounth, 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) inland, which enabled access to and from the north-east of Scotland.

 

The site is accessed via a steep, 800-metre (2,600 ft) footpath (with modern staircases) from a car park on the coastal road, or via a 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) cliff-top path from Stonehaven. Dunnottar's several buildings, put up between the 13th and 17th centuries, are arranged across a headland covering around 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres).

 

The dominant building, viewed from the land approach, is the 14th-century keep or tower house. The other principal buildings are the gatehouse; the chapel; and the 16th-century "palace" which incorporates the "Whigs' Vault".

 

Defences

The approach to the castle is overlooked by outworks on the "Fiddle Head", a promontory on the western side of the headland. The entrance is through the well-defended main gate, set in a curtain wall which entirely blocks a cleft in the rocky cliffs.

 

The gate has a portcullis and has been partly blocked up. Alongside the main gate is the 16th-century Benholm's Lodging, a five-storey building cut into the rock, which incorporated a prison with apartments above.

 

Three tiers of gun ports face outwards from the lower floors of Benholm's Lodging, while inside the main gate, a group of four gun ports face the entrance. The entrance passage then turns sharply to the left, running underground through two tunnels to emerge near the tower house.

 

Simpson contends that these defences are "without exception the strongest in Scotland", although later writers have doubted the effectiveness of the gun ports. Cruden notes that the alignment of the gun ports in Benholm's Lodging, facing across the approach rather than along, means that they are of limited efficiency.

 

The practicality of the gun ports facing the entrance has also been questioned, though an inventory of 1612 records that four brass cannons were placed here.

 

A second access to the castle leads up from a rocky cove, the aperture to a marine cave on the northern side of the Dunnottar cliffs into which a small boat could be brought. From here a steep path leads to the well-fortified postern gate on the cliff top, which in turn offers access to the castle via the Water Gate in the palace.

 

Artillery defences, taking the form of earthworks, surround the north-west corner of the castle, facing inland, and the south-east, facing seaward. A small sentry box or guard house stands by the eastern battery, overlooking the coast.

 

Tower house and surrounding buildings

The tower house of Dunnottar, viewed from the west

The late 14th-century tower house has a stone-vaulted basement, and originally had three further storeys and a garret above.

 

Measuring 12 by 11 metres (39 by 36 ft), the tower house stood 15 metres (49 ft) high to its gable. The principal rooms included a great hall and a private chamber for the lord, with bedrooms upstairs.

 

Beside the tower house is a storehouse, and a blacksmith's forge with a large chimney. A stable block is ranged along the southern edge of the headland. Nearby is Waterton's Lodging, also known as the Priest's House, built around 1574, possibly for the use of William Keith (died 1580), son of the 4th Earl Marischal.

 

This small self-contained house includes a hall and kitchen at ground level, with private chambers above, and has a projecting spiral stair on the north side. It is named for Thomas Forbes of Waterton, an attendant of the 7th Earl.

 

The palace

The palace, to the north-east of the headland, was built in the late 16th century and early to mid-17th century. It comprises three main wings set out around a quadrangle, and for the most part is probably the work of the 5th Earl Marischal who succeeded in 1581.

 

It provided extensive and comfortable accommodation to replace the rooms in the tower house. In its long, low design it has been compared to contemporary English buildings, in contrast to the Scottish tradition of taller towers still prevalent in the 16th century.

 

Seven identical lodgings are arranged along the west range, each opening onto the quadrangle and including windows and fireplace. Above the lodgings the west range comprised a 35-metre (115 ft) gallery. Now roofless, the gallery originally had an elaborate oak ceiling, and on display was a Roman tablet taken from the Antonine Wall.

 

At the north end of the gallery was a drawing room linked to the north range. The gallery could also be accessed from the Silver House to the south, which incorporated a broad stairway with a treasury above.

 

The basement of the north range incorporates kitchens and stores, with a dining room and great chamber above. At ground floor level is the Water Gate, between the north and west ranges, which gives access to the postern on the northern cliffs.

 

The east and north ranges are linked via a rectangular stair. The east range has a larder, brewhouse and bakery at ground level, with a suite of apartments for the Countess above. A north-east wing contains the Earl's apartments, and includes the "King's Bedroom" in which Charles II stayed. In this room is a carved stone inscribed with the arms of the 7th Earl and his wife, and the date 1654. Below these rooms is the Whigs' Vault, a cellar measuring 16 by 4.5 metres (52 by 15 ft). This cellar, in which the Covenanters were held in 1685, has a large eastern window, as well as a lower vault accessed via a trap-door in the floor.

 

Of the chambers in the palace, only the dining room and the Silver House remain roofed, having been restored in the 1920s. The central area contains a circular cistern or fish pond, 16 metres (52 ft) across and 7.6 metres (25 ft) deep, and a bowling green is located to the west.

 

At the south-east corner of the quadrangle is the chapel, consecrated in 1276 and largely rebuilt in the 16th century. Medieval walling and two 13th-century windows remain, and there is a graveyard to the south.

First visit of 2019 for me to this stunning castle today Thursday 28th March 2019.

 

Dunnottar Castle.

 

The rock the Castle sits upon was forced to the surface 440 million years ago during the Silurian period. A red rock conglomerate with boulders up to 1m across known as Pudding Stone is incredibly durable.

 

The ancient Highland rock pebbles and cementing matter is so tough that faults or cracks pass through the pebbles themselves.

 

I first visited Dunnottar Castle summer 2017, this magnificent castle sits high on a hill, last time I visited I captured my shots from the cliffs overlooking the site, though today I made the journey up the hill and entered the castle walls , wow what a magnificent experience, just perfect with loads of great photo opportunities to capture real Scottish history,after two hours wandering around and capturing as many shots that caught my eye , I made my way home, a magnificent experience indeed.

 

Dunnottar Castle (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Fhoithear, "fort on the shelving slope" is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of Stonehaven.

 

The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th and 16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been fortified in the Early Middle Ages. Dunnottar has played a prominent role in the history of Scotland through to the 18th-century Jacobite risings because of its strategic location and defensive strength. Dunnottar is best known as the place where the Honours of Scotland, the Scottish crown jewels, were hidden from Oliver Cromwell's invading army in the 17th century. The property of the Keiths from the 14th century, and the seat of the Earl Marischal, Dunnottar declined after the last Earl forfeited his titles by taking part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

 

The castle was restored in the 20th century and is now open to the public.

 

The ruins of the castle are spread over 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres), surrounded by steep cliffs that drop to the North Sea, 50 metres (160 ft) below. A narrow strip of land joins the headland to the mainland, along which a steep path leads up to the gatehouse.

 

The various buildings within the castle include the 14th-century tower house as well as the 16th-century palace. Dunnottar Castle is a scheduled monument, and twelve structures on the site are listed buildings.

 

History

Early Middle Ages

A chapel at Dunnottar is said to have been founded by St Ninian in the 5th century, although it is not clear when the site was first fortified, but in any case the legend is late and highly implausible. Possibly the earliest written reference to the site is found in the Annals of Ulster which record two sieges of "Dún Foither" in 681 and 694.

 

The earlier event has been interpreted as an attack by Brude, the Pictish king of Fortriu, to extend his power over the north-east coast of Scotland. The Scottish Chronicle records that King Domnall II, the first ruler to be called rí Alban (King of Alba), was killed at Dunnottar during an attack by Vikings in 900. King Aethelstan of Wessex led a force into Scotland in 934, and raided as far north as Dunnottar according to the account of Symeon of Durham. W. D. Simpson speculated that a motte might lie under the present caste, but excavations in the 1980s failed to uncover substantive evidence of early medieval fortification.

 

The discovery of a group of Pictish stones at Dunnicaer, a nearby sea stack, has prompted speculation that "Dún Foither" was actually located on the adjacent headland of Bowduns, 0.5 kilometres (0.31 mi) to the north.

 

Later Middle Ages

During the reign of King William the Lion (ruled 1165–1214) Dunnottar was a center of local administration for The Mearns. The castle is named in the Roman de Fergus, an early 13th-century Arthurian romance, in which the hero Fergus must travel to Dunnottar to retrieve a magic shield.

 

In May 1276 a church on the site was consecrated by William Wishart, Bishop of St Andrews. The poet Blind Harry relates that William Wallace captured Dunnottar from the English in 1297, during the Wars of Scottish Independence. He is said to have imprisoned 4,000 defeated English soldiers in the church and burned them alive.

 

In 1336 Edward III of England ordered William Sinclair, 8th Baron of Roslin, to sail eight ships to the partially ruined Dunnottar for the purpose of rebuilding and fortifying the site as a forward resupply base for his northern campaign. Sinclair took with him 160 soldiers, horses, and a corps of masons and carpenters.

 

Edward himself visited in July, but the English efforts were undone before the end of the year when the Scottish Regent Sir Andrew Murray led a force that captured and again destroyed the defences of Dunnottar.

 

In the 14th century Dunnottar was granted to William de Moravia, 5th Earl of Sutherland (d.1370), and in 1346 a licence to crenellate was issued by David II. Around 1359 William Keith, Marischal of Scotland, married Margaret Fraser, niece of Robert the Bruce, and was granted the barony of Dunnottar at this time. Keith then gave the lands of Dunnottar to his daughter Christian and son-in-law William Lindsay of Byres, but in 1392 an excambion (exchange) was agreed whereby Keith regained Dunnottar and Lindsay took lands in Fife.

 

William Keith completed construction of the tower house at Dunnottar, but was excommunicated for building on the consecrated ground associated with the parish church. Keith had provided a new parish church closer to Stonehaven, but was forced to write to the Pope, Benedict XIII, who issued a bull in 1395 lifting the excommunication.William Keith's descendents were created Earls Marischal in the mid 15th century, and they held Dunottar until the 18th century.

 

16th century rebuilding

Through the 16th century the Keiths improved and expanded their principal seats: at Dunnottar and also at Keith Marischal in East Lothian. James IV visited Dunnottar in 1504, and in 1531 James V exempted the Earl's men from military service on the grounds that Dunnottar was one of the "principall strenthis of our realme".

 

Mary, Queen of Scots, visited in 1562 after the Battle of Corrichie, and returned in 1564.

 

James VI stayed for 10 days in 1580, as part of a progress through Fife and Angus, during which a meeting of the Privy Council was convened at Dunnottar.

 

During a rebellion of Catholic nobles in 1592, Dunnottar was captured by a Captain Carr on behalf of the Earl of Huntly, but was restored to Lord Marischal just a few weeks later.

 

In 1581 George Keith succeeded as 5th Earl Marischal, and began a large scale reconstruction that saw the medieval fortress converted into a more comfortable home. The founder of Marischal College in Aberdeen, the 5th Earl valued Dunnottar as much for its dramatic situation as for its security.

 

A "palace" comprising a series of ranges around a quadrangle was built on the north-eastern cliffs, creating luxurious living quarters with sea views. The 13th-century chapel was restored and incorporated into the quadrangle.

 

An impressive stone gatehouse was constructed, now known as Benholm's Lodging, featuring numerous gun ports facing the approach. Although impressive, these are likely to have been fashionable embellishments rather than genuine defensive features.

 

Civil wars

Further information: Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms

In 1639 William Keith, 7th Earl Marischal, came out in support of the Covenanters, a Presbyterian movement who opposed the established Episcopal Church and the changes which Charles I was attempting to impose. With James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, he marched against the Catholic James Gordon, 2nd Viscount Aboyne, Earl of Huntly, and defeated an attempt by the Royalists to seize Stonehaven. However, when Montrose changed sides to the Royalists and marched north, Marischal remained in Dunnottar, even when given command of the area by Parliament, and even when Montrose burned Stonehaven.

 

Marischal then joined with the Engager faction, who had made a deal with the king, and led a troop of horse to the Battle of Preston (1648) in support of the royalists.

 

Following the execution of Charles I in 1649, the Engagers gave their allegiance to his son and heir: Charles II was proclaimed king, arriving in Scotland in June 1650. He visited Dunnottar in July 1650, but his presence in Scotland prompted Oliver Cromwell to lead a force into Scotland, defeating the Scots at Dunbar in September 1650.

 

The Honours of Scotland

Charles II was crowned at Scone Palace on 1 January 1651, at which the Honours of Scotland (the regalia of crown, sword and sceptre) were used. However, with Cromwell's troops in Lothian, the honours could not be returned to Edinburgh. The Earl Marischal, as Marischal of Scotland, had formal responsibility for the honours, and in June the Privy Council duly decided to place them at Dunnottar.

 

They were brought to the castle by Katherine Drummond, hidden in sacks of wool. Sir George Ogilvie (or Ogilvy) of Barras was appointed lieutenant-governor of the castle, and given responsibility for its defence.

 

In November 1651 Cromwell's troops called on Ogilvie to surrender, but he refused. During the subsequent blockade of the castle, the removal of the Honours of Scotland was planned by Elizabeth Douglas, wife of Sir George Ogilvie, and Christian Fletcher, wife of James Granger, minister of Kinneff Parish Church. The king's papers were first removed from the castle by Anne Lindsay, a kinswoman of Elizabeth Douglas, who walked through the besieging force with the papers sewn into her clothes.

 

Two stories exist regarding the removal of the honours themselves. Fletcher stated in 1664 that over the course of three visits to the castle in February and March 1652, she carried away the crown, sceptre, sword and sword-case hidden amongst sacks of goods. Another account, given in the 18th century by a tutor to the Earl Marischal, records that the honours were lowered from the castle onto the beach, where they were collected by Fletcher's servant and carried off in a creel (basket) of seaweed. Having smuggled the honours from the castle, Fletcher and her husband buried them under the floor of the Old Kirk at Kinneff.

 

Meanwhile, by May 1652 the commander of the blockade, Colonel Thomas Morgan, had taken delivery of the artillery necessary for the reduction of Dunnottar. Ogilvie surrendered on 24 May, on condition that the garrison could go free. Finding the honours gone, the Cromwellians imprisoned Ogilvie and his wife in the castle until the following year, when a false story was put about suggesting that the honours had been taken overseas.

 

Much of the castle property was removed, including twenty-one brass cannons,[28] and Marischal was required to sell further lands and possessions to pay fines imposed by Cromwell's government.

 

At the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, the honours were removed from Kinneff Church and returned to the king. Ogilvie quarrelled with Marischal's mother over who would take credit for saving the honours, though he was eventually rewarded with a baronetcy. Fletcher was awarded 2,000 merks by Parliament but the sum was never paid.

  

Whigs and Jacobites

Religious and political conflicts continued to be played out at Dunnottar through the 17th and early 18th centuries. In 1685, during the rebellion of the Earl of Argyll against the new king James VII, 167 Covenanters were seized and held in a cellar at Dunnottar. The prisoners included 122 men and 45 women associated with the Whigs, an anti-Royalist group within the Covenanter movement, and had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the new king.

 

The Whigs were imprisoned from 24 May until late July. A group of 25 escaped, although two of these were killed in a fall from the cliffs, and another 15 were recaptured. Five prisoners died in the vault, and 37 of the Whigs were released after taking the oath of allegiance.

 

The remaining prisoners were transported to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, as part of a colonisation scheme devised by George Scot of Pitlochie. Many, like Scot himself, died on the voyage.

 

The cellar, located beneath the "King's Bedroom" in the 16th-century castle buildings, has since become known as the "Whigs' Vault".

 

Both the Jacobites (supporters of the exiled Stuarts) and the Hanoverians (supporters of George I and his descendents) used Dunnottar Castle. In 1689 during Viscount Dundee's campaign in support of the deposed James VII, the castle was garrisoned for William and Mary with Lord Marischal appointed captain.

 

Seventeen suspected Jacobites from Aberdeen were seized and held in the fortress for around three weeks, including George Liddell, professor of mathematics at Marischal College.

 

In the Jacobite Rising of 1715 George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, took an active role with the rebels, leading cavalry at the Battle of Sheriffmuir. After the subsequent abandonment of the rising Lord Marischal fled to the Continent, eventually becoming French ambassador for Frederick the Great of Prussia. Meanwhile, in 1716, his titles and estates including Dunnottar were declared forfeit to the crown.

 

Later history

The seized estates of the Earl Marischal were purchased in 1720 for £41,172, by the York Buildings Company who dismantled much of the castle.

 

In 1761 the Earl briefly returned to Scotland and bought back Dunnottar only to sell it five years later to Alexander Keith, an Edinburgh lawyer who served as Knight Marischal of Scotland.

 

Dunnottar was inherited in 1852 by Sir Patrick Keith-Murray of Ochtertyre, who in turn sold it in July 1873 to Major Alexander Innes of Cowie and Raemoir for about £80,000.

 

It was purchased by Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray, in 1925 after which his wife embarked on a programme of repairs.

 

Since that time the castle has remained in the family, and has been open to the public, attracting 52,500 visitors in 2009.

 

Dunnottar Castle, and the headland on which is stands, was designated as a scheduled monument in 1970.In 1972 twelve of the structures at Dunnottar were listed.

 

Three buildings are listed at category A as being of "national importance": the keep; the entrance gateway; and Benholm's Lodging.

 

The remaining listings are at category B as being of "regional importance".[39] The Hon. Charles Anthony Pearson, the younger son of the 3rd Viscount Cowdray, currently owns and runs Dunnottar Castle which is part of the 210-square-kilometre (52,000-acre) Dunecht Estates.

 

Portions of the 1990 film Hamlet, starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close, were shot there.

  

Description

Dunnottar's strategic location allowed its owners to control the coastal terrace between the North Sea cliffs and the hills of the Mounth, 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) inland, which enabled access to and from the north-east of Scotland.

 

The site is accessed via a steep, 800-metre (2,600 ft) footpath (with modern staircases) from a car park on the coastal road, or via a 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) cliff-top path from Stonehaven. Dunnottar's several buildings, put up between the 13th and 17th centuries, are arranged across a headland covering around 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres).

 

The dominant building, viewed from the land approach, is the 14th-century keep or tower house. The other principal buildings are the gatehouse; the chapel; and the 16th-century "palace" which incorporates the "Whigs' Vault".

 

Defences

The approach to the castle is overlooked by outworks on the "Fiddle Head", a promontory on the western side of the headland. The entrance is through the well-defended main gate, set in a curtain wall which entirely blocks a cleft in the rocky cliffs.

 

The gate has a portcullis and has been partly blocked up. Alongside the main gate is the 16th-century Benholm's Lodging, a five-storey building cut into the rock, which incorporated a prison with apartments above.

 

Three tiers of gun ports face outwards from the lower floors of Benholm's Lodging, while inside the main gate, a group of four gun ports face the entrance. The entrance passage then turns sharply to the left, running underground through two tunnels to emerge near the tower house.

 

Simpson contends that these defences are "without exception the strongest in Scotland", although later writers have doubted the effectiveness of the gun ports. Cruden notes that the alignment of the gun ports in Benholm's Lodging, facing across the approach rather than along, means that they are of limited efficiency.

 

The practicality of the gun ports facing the entrance has also been questioned, though an inventory of 1612 records that four brass cannons were placed here.

 

A second access to the castle leads up from a rocky cove, the aperture to a marine cave on the northern side of the Dunnottar cliffs into which a small boat could be brought. From here a steep path leads to the well-fortified postern gate on the cliff top, which in turn offers access to the castle via the Water Gate in the palace.

 

Artillery defences, taking the form of earthworks, surround the north-west corner of the castle, facing inland, and the south-east, facing seaward. A small sentry box or guard house stands by the eastern battery, overlooking the coast.

 

Tower house and surrounding buildings

The tower house of Dunnottar, viewed from the west

The late 14th-century tower house has a stone-vaulted basement, and originally had three further storeys and a garret above.

 

Measuring 12 by 11 metres (39 by 36 ft), the tower house stood 15 metres (49 ft) high to its gable. The principal rooms included a great hall and a private chamber for the lord, with bedrooms upstairs.

 

Beside the tower house is a storehouse, and a blacksmith's forge with a large chimney. A stable block is ranged along the southern edge of the headland. Nearby is Waterton's Lodging, also known as the Priest's House, built around 1574, possibly for the use of William Keith (died 1580), son of the 4th Earl Marischal.

 

This small self-contained house includes a hall and kitchen at ground level, with private chambers above, and has a projecting spiral stair on the north side. It is named for Thomas Forbes of Waterton, an attendant of the 7th Earl.

 

The palace

The palace, to the north-east of the headland, was built in the late 16th century and early to mid-17th century. It comprises three main wings set out around a quadrangle, and for the most part is probably the work of the 5th Earl Marischal who succeeded in 1581.

 

It provided extensive and comfortable accommodation to replace the rooms in the tower house. In its long, low design it has been compared to contemporary English buildings, in contrast to the Scottish tradition of taller towers still prevalent in the 16th century.

 

Seven identical lodgings are arranged along the west range, each opening onto the quadrangle and including windows and fireplace. Above the lodgings the west range comprised a 35-metre (115 ft) gallery. Now roofless, the gallery originally had an elaborate oak ceiling, and on display was a Roman tablet taken from the Antonine Wall.

 

At the north end of the gallery was a drawing room linked to the north range. The gallery could also be accessed from the Silver House to the south, which incorporated a broad stairway with a treasury above.

 

The basement of the north range incorporates kitchens and stores, with a dining room and great chamber above. At ground floor level is the Water Gate, between the north and west ranges, which gives access to the postern on the northern cliffs.

 

The east and north ranges are linked via a rectangular stair. The east range has a larder, brewhouse and bakery at ground level, with a suite of apartments for the Countess above. A north-east wing contains the Earl's apartments, and includes the "King's Bedroom" in which Charles II stayed. In this room is a carved stone inscribed with the arms of the 7th Earl and his wife, and the date 1654. Below these rooms is the Whigs' Vault, a cellar measuring 16 by 4.5 metres (52 by 15 ft). This cellar, in which the Covenanters were held in 1685, has a large eastern window, as well as a lower vault accessed via a trap-door in the floor.

 

Of the chambers in the palace, only the dining room and the Silver House remain roofed, having been restored in the 1920s. The central area contains a circular cistern or fish pond, 16 metres (52 ft) across and 7.6 metres (25 ft) deep, and a bowling green is located to the west.

 

At the south-east corner of the quadrangle is the chapel, consecrated in 1276 and largely rebuilt in the 16th century. Medieval walling and two 13th-century windows remain, and there is a graveyard to the south.

Size: 28.5" x 40.75"

Condition: Near Mint

 

Few designers achieve more than a half century of professional longevity—let alone continue in that time to find new solutions and challenges in their work. But the President of the Japan Graphic Designers Association, Inc. (JAGDA) Yusaku Kamekura has accomplished this and more in his lifetime.

 

Kamekura was born on April 6, 1915 in Japan’s Niigata Prefecture. He studied at a particularly unique design school for that time: the Bauhaus-oriented Institute of New Architecture and Industrial Arts built by Ranahichiro Kawakita.

 

Immediately after graduation he went to work for Nippon Kobo, publishers of Nippon magazine and the Thai publication Kaupapu. In 1960 Kamekura became the publishing house's managing director. During his early years he also designed posters for Daido Worsted Mills and Nikon, and an identity program for Nippon Kagaku, K.K. In 1956 in Japan, the Advertising Art Club Exhibition awarded him the Membership Prize for his Peacefully Use Atomic Energy poster which included the collage work of his friend the Ikebana artist Sofu Tashigahara.

 

Despite the post-war western influences of modernism on design in Japan, Kamekura has managed to find a synthesis between the rational, logical and functional design systems of the west and the classical grace of traditional Japanese design. Most known for his use of uncluttered, solid shapes in an elementally sparse plane, one can also find unexpected lyricism behind these solid forms.

  

Kamekura's utilization of a distinctly traditional sensitivity has brought a unique style to his work that reaches far beyond the admitted western influences of Cassandre, Herbert Bayer and the Bauhausian design school. A pair of 1993 posters entitled ''I'm Here" incorporate Kamekura's distinct, colorfully minimalist approach with the obvious adaptation of an Oskar Schlemmer piece appearing as the central figure. Throughout his career, Kamekura's analyses of his observations of both the occidental and oriental has subsequently strongly influenced design in Japan today.

 

Kamekura has never become enslaved by corporate executive policy. He will only work for a company if he is convinced that the work is something that he can conceptually and ethically agree with and work on directly with the executives.

 

"No matter how much money I am offered, I will not do work that I am not convinced is right. This means that I refuse to do any work for political parties or religious groups because I find that I usually cannot agree with their ideals and purposes … I simply cannot get inspiration to do work that does not seem worthwhile and of interest to me," he stated in an article in Graphic Design magazine. "My work is only valid if I am involved in creating the image for the entire company in terms of logos and poster designs and so forth, and I don't like to leave even a single poster design in an ambivalent stage of development."

 

This type of commitment was part of his working strategy when he became a freelance designer in 1962 and is best exemplified in one of his most famous design programs. Kamekura has always been a sports enthusiast—specifically fast sports like motorboats and skiing. He admits that he forgets everything he knows about design during ski season. His trademark poster for the 18th Olympics—consisting of the Olympic five-ring symbol, Tokyo 1964, and the red sun of the Japanese flag—was selected for its simplicity, strength and freshness from an artist roster that included Kohel Suguira, Kazumasa Nagai and Ikko Tanaka. It was Kamekura's poster series, with its dramatically-angled photographic images of swimmers and runners, that lent the publicity campaign its active punch. He also won gold and silver awards from the Tokyo Art Directors Club, Mainichi Industrial Design, and Japan Advertising Art Club.

 

Aside from his work on the 18th Olympic Games, a number of other projects are considered by many to be his masterworks. His poster design for the Japan EXPO '70 was recognized by the Tokyo ADC, the Warsaw International Poster Biennale and Milan International Travel Poster Exhibition. Another distinctive piece is his Hiroshima Appeals poster, illustrated by Akira Yokoyama which won First Prize at the Lahti Poster Biennale.

 

He received a grand prize from the Ministry of Education in 1961. He has received numerous awards including a 1980 Purple Ribbon Medal, a 1985 Third Class Order of the Sacred Treasure, a 1991 Person of Cultural Merits, Gold, Silver, Art and Special Awards from the Warsaw International Poster Biennales from 1960 through 1992, awards from the Brno International Graphic Design Biennales, and the Osaka 6th International Design Award in 1993.

 

Since 1989, Kamekura has been the editor, cover designer, and organizer of Creation Magazine, a series of publications limited to twenty issues which focus on international graphic design, art, and illustration work by a variety of artists.

I first visited Dunnottar Castle summer 2017, this magnificent castle sits high on a hill, last time I visited I captured my shots from the cliffs overlooking the site, though today I made the journey up the hill and entered the castle walls , wow what a magnificent experience, just perfect with loads of great photo opportunities to capture real Scottish history,after two hours wandering around and capturing as many shots that caught my eye , I made my way home, a magnificent experience indeed.

 

Dunnottar Castle (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Fhoithear, "fort on the shelving slope" is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of Stonehaven.

 

The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th and 16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been fortified in the Early Middle Ages. Dunnottar has played a prominent role in the history of Scotland through to the 18th-century Jacobite risings because of its strategic location and defensive strength. Dunnottar is best known as the place where the Honours of Scotland, the Scottish crown jewels, were hidden from Oliver Cromwell's invading army in the 17th century. The property of the Keiths from the 14th century, and the seat of the Earl Marischal, Dunnottar declined after the last Earl forfeited his titles by taking part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

 

The castle was restored in the 20th century and is now open to the public.

 

The ruins of the castle are spread over 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres), surrounded by steep cliffs that drop to the North Sea, 50 metres (160 ft) below. A narrow strip of land joins the headland to the mainland, along which a steep path leads up to the gatehouse.

 

The various buildings within the castle include the 14th-century tower house as well as the 16th-century palace. Dunnottar Castle is a scheduled monument, and twelve structures on the site are listed buildings.

 

History

Early Middle Ages

A chapel at Dunnottar is said to have been founded by St Ninian in the 5th century, although it is not clear when the site was first fortified, but in any case the legend is late and highly implausible. Possibly the earliest written reference to the site is found in the Annals of Ulster which record two sieges of "Dún Foither" in 681 and 694.

 

The earlier event has been interpreted as an attack by Brude, the Pictish king of Fortriu, to extend his power over the north-east coast of Scotland. The Scottish Chronicle records that King Domnall II, the first ruler to be called rí Alban (King of Alba), was killed at Dunnottar during an attack by Vikings in 900. King Aethelstan of Wessex led a force into Scotland in 934, and raided as far north as Dunnottar according to the account of Symeon of Durham. W. D. Simpson speculated that a motte might lie under the present caste, but excavations in the 1980s failed to uncover substantive evidence of early medieval fortification.

 

The discovery of a group of Pictish stones at Dunnicaer, a nearby sea stack, has prompted speculation that "Dún Foither" was actually located on the adjacent headland of Bowduns, 0.5 kilometres (0.31 mi) to the north.

 

Later Middle Ages

During the reign of King William the Lion (ruled 1165–1214) Dunnottar was a center of local administration for The Mearns. The castle is named in the Roman de Fergus, an early 13th-century Arthurian romance, in which the hero Fergus must travel to Dunnottar to retrieve a magic shield.

 

In May 1276 a church on the site was consecrated by William Wishart, Bishop of St Andrews. The poet Blind Harry relates that William Wallace captured Dunnottar from the English in 1297, during the Wars of Scottish Independence. He is said to have imprisoned 4,000 defeated English soldiers in the church and burned them alive.

 

In 1336 Edward III of England ordered William Sinclair, 8th Baron of Roslin, to sail eight ships to the partially ruined Dunnottar for the purpose of rebuilding and fortifying the site as a forward resupply base for his northern campaign. Sinclair took with him 160 soldiers, horses, and a corps of masons and carpenters.

 

Edward himself visited in July, but the English efforts were undone before the end of the year when the Scottish Regent Sir Andrew Murray led a force that captured and again destroyed the defences of Dunnottar.

 

In the 14th century Dunnottar was granted to William de Moravia, 5th Earl of Sutherland (d.1370), and in 1346 a licence to crenellate was issued by David II. Around 1359 William Keith, Marischal of Scotland, married Margaret Fraser, niece of Robert the Bruce, and was granted the barony of Dunnottar at this time. Keith then gave the lands of Dunnottar to his daughter Christian and son-in-law William Lindsay of Byres, but in 1392 an excambion (exchange) was agreed whereby Keith regained Dunnottar and Lindsay took lands in Fife.

 

William Keith completed construction of the tower house at Dunnottar, but was excommunicated for building on the consecrated ground associated with the parish church. Keith had provided a new parish church closer to Stonehaven, but was forced to write to the Pope, Benedict XIII, who issued a bull in 1395 lifting the excommunication.William Keith's descendents were created Earls Marischal in the mid 15th century, and they held Dunottar until the 18th century.

 

16th century rebuilding

Through the 16th century the Keiths improved and expanded their principal seats: at Dunnottar and also at Keith Marischal in East Lothian. James IV visited Dunnottar in 1504, and in 1531 James V exempted the Earl's men from military service on the grounds that Dunnottar was one of the "principall strenthis of our realme".

 

Mary, Queen of Scots, visited in 1562 after the Battle of Corrichie, and returned in 1564.

 

James VI stayed for 10 days in 1580, as part of a progress through Fife and Angus, during which a meeting of the Privy Council was convened at Dunnottar.

 

During a rebellion of Catholic nobles in 1592, Dunnottar was captured by a Captain Carr on behalf of the Earl of Huntly, but was restored to Lord Marischal just a few weeks later.

 

In 1581 George Keith succeeded as 5th Earl Marischal, and began a large scale reconstruction that saw the medieval fortress converted into a more comfortable home. The founder of Marischal College in Aberdeen, the 5th Earl valued Dunnottar as much for its dramatic situation as for its security.

 

A "palace" comprising a series of ranges around a quadrangle was built on the north-eastern cliffs, creating luxurious living quarters with sea views. The 13th-century chapel was restored and incorporated into the quadrangle.

 

An impressive stone gatehouse was constructed, now known as Benholm's Lodging, featuring numerous gun ports facing the approach. Although impressive, these are likely to have been fashionable embellishments rather than genuine defensive features.

 

Civil wars

Further information: Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms

In 1639 William Keith, 7th Earl Marischal, came out in support of the Covenanters, a Presbyterian movement who opposed the established Episcopal Church and the changes which Charles I was attempting to impose. With James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, he marched against the Catholic James Gordon, 2nd Viscount Aboyne, Earl of Huntly, and defeated an attempt by the Royalists to seize Stonehaven. However, when Montrose changed sides to the Royalists and marched north, Marischal remained in Dunnottar, even when given command of the area by Parliament, and even when Montrose burned Stonehaven.

 

Marischal then joined with the Engager faction, who had made a deal with the king, and led a troop of horse to the Battle of Preston (1648) in support of the royalists.

 

Following the execution of Charles I in 1649, the Engagers gave their allegiance to his son and heir: Charles II was proclaimed king, arriving in Scotland in June 1650. He visited Dunnottar in July 1650, but his presence in Scotland prompted Oliver Cromwell to lead a force into Scotland, defeating the Scots at Dunbar in September 1650.

 

The Honours of Scotland

Charles II was crowned at Scone Palace on 1 January 1651, at which the Honours of Scotland (the regalia of crown, sword and sceptre) were used. However, with Cromwell's troops in Lothian, the honours could not be returned to Edinburgh. The Earl Marischal, as Marischal of Scotland, had formal responsibility for the honours, and in June the Privy Council duly decided to place them at Dunnottar.

 

They were brought to the castle by Katherine Drummond, hidden in sacks of wool. Sir George Ogilvie (or Ogilvy) of Barras was appointed lieutenant-governor of the castle, and given responsibility for its defence.

 

In November 1651 Cromwell's troops called on Ogilvie to surrender, but he refused. During the subsequent blockade of the castle, the removal of the Honours of Scotland was planned by Elizabeth Douglas, wife of Sir George Ogilvie, and Christian Fletcher, wife of James Granger, minister of Kinneff Parish Church. The king's papers were first removed from the castle by Anne Lindsay, a kinswoman of Elizabeth Douglas, who walked through the besieging force with the papers sewn into her clothes.

 

Two stories exist regarding the removal of the honours themselves. Fletcher stated in 1664 that over the course of three visits to the castle in February and March 1652, she carried away the crown, sceptre, sword and sword-case hidden amongst sacks of goods. Another account, given in the 18th century by a tutor to the Earl Marischal, records that the honours were lowered from the castle onto the beach, where they were collected by Fletcher's servant and carried off in a creel (basket) of seaweed. Having smuggled the honours from the castle, Fletcher and her husband buried them under the floor of the Old Kirk at Kinneff.

 

Meanwhile, by May 1652 the commander of the blockade, Colonel Thomas Morgan, had taken delivery of the artillery necessary for the reduction of Dunnottar. Ogilvie surrendered on 24 May, on condition that the garrison could go free. Finding the honours gone, the Cromwellians imprisoned Ogilvie and his wife in the castle until the following year, when a false story was put about suggesting that the honours had been taken overseas.

 

Much of the castle property was removed, including twenty-one brass cannons,[28] and Marischal was required to sell further lands and possessions to pay fines imposed by Cromwell's government.

 

At the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, the honours were removed from Kinneff Church and returned to the king. Ogilvie quarrelled with Marischal's mother over who would take credit for saving the honours, though he was eventually rewarded with a baronetcy. Fletcher was awarded 2,000 merks by Parliament but the sum was never paid.

  

Whigs and Jacobites

Religious and political conflicts continued to be played out at Dunnottar through the 17th and early 18th centuries. In 1685, during the rebellion of the Earl of Argyll against the new king James VII, 167 Covenanters were seized and held in a cellar at Dunnottar. The prisoners included 122 men and 45 women associated with the Whigs, an anti-Royalist group within the Covenanter movement, and had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the new king.

 

The Whigs were imprisoned from 24 May until late July. A group of 25 escaped, although two of these were killed in a fall from the cliffs, and another 15 were recaptured. Five prisoners died in the vault, and 37 of the Whigs were released after taking the oath of allegiance.

 

The remaining prisoners were transported to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, as part of a colonisation scheme devised by George Scot of Pitlochie. Many, like Scot himself, died on the voyage.

 

The cellar, located beneath the "King's Bedroom" in the 16th-century castle buildings, has since become known as the "Whigs' Vault".

 

Both the Jacobites (supporters of the exiled Stuarts) and the Hanoverians (supporters of George I and his descendents) used Dunnottar Castle. In 1689 during Viscount Dundee's campaign in support of the deposed James VII, the castle was garrisoned for William and Mary with Lord Marischal appointed captain.

 

Seventeen suspected Jacobites from Aberdeen were seized and held in the fortress for around three weeks, including George Liddell, professor of mathematics at Marischal College.

 

In the Jacobite Rising of 1715 George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, took an active role with the rebels, leading cavalry at the Battle of Sheriffmuir. After the subsequent abandonment of the rising Lord Marischal fled to the Continent, eventually becoming French ambassador for Frederick the Great of Prussia. Meanwhile, in 1716, his titles and estates including Dunnottar were declared forfeit to the crown.

 

Later history

The seized estates of the Earl Marischal were purchased in 1720 for £41,172, by the York Buildings Company who dismantled much of the castle.

 

In 1761 the Earl briefly returned to Scotland and bought back Dunnottar only to sell it five years later to Alexander Keith, an Edinburgh lawyer who served as Knight Marischal of Scotland.

 

Dunnottar was inherited in 1852 by Sir Patrick Keith-Murray of Ochtertyre, who in turn sold it in July 1873 to Major Alexander Innes of Cowie and Raemoir for about £80,000.

 

It was purchased by Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray, in 1925 after which his wife embarked on a programme of repairs.

 

Since that time the castle has remained in the family, and has been open to the public, attracting 52,500 visitors in 2009.

 

Dunnottar Castle, and the headland on which is stands, was designated as a scheduled monument in 1970.In 1972 twelve of the structures at Dunnottar were listed.

 

Three buildings are listed at category A as being of "national importance": the keep; the entrance gateway; and Benholm's Lodging.

 

The remaining listings are at category B as being of "regional importance".[39] The Hon. Charles Anthony Pearson, the younger son of the 3rd Viscount Cowdray, currently owns and runs Dunnottar Castle which is part of the 210-square-kilometre (52,000-acre) Dunecht Estates.

 

Portions of the 1990 film Hamlet, starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close, were shot there.

  

Description

Dunnottar's strategic location allowed its owners to control the coastal terrace between the North Sea cliffs and the hills of the Mounth, 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) inland, which enabled access to and from the north-east of Scotland.

 

The site is accessed via a steep, 800-metre (2,600 ft) footpath (with modern staircases) from a car park on the coastal road, or via a 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) cliff-top path from Stonehaven. Dunnottar's several buildings, put up between the 13th and 17th centuries, are arranged across a headland covering around 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres).

 

The dominant building, viewed from the land approach, is the 14th-century keep or tower house. The other principal buildings are the gatehouse; the chapel; and the 16th-century "palace" which incorporates the "Whigs' Vault".

 

Defences

The approach to the castle is overlooked by outworks on the "Fiddle Head", a promontory on the western side of the headland. The entrance is through the well-defended main gate, set in a curtain wall which entirely blocks a cleft in the rocky cliffs.

 

The gate has a portcullis and has been partly blocked up. Alongside the main gate is the 16th-century Benholm's Lodging, a five-storey building cut into the rock, which incorporated a prison with apartments above.

 

Three tiers of gun ports face outwards from the lower floors of Benholm's Lodging, while inside the main gate, a group of four gun ports face the entrance. The entrance passage then turns sharply to the left, running underground through two tunnels to emerge near the tower house.

 

Simpson contends that these defences are "without exception the strongest in Scotland", although later writers have doubted the effectiveness of the gun ports. Cruden notes that the alignment of the gun ports in Benholm's Lodging, facing across the approach rather than along, means that they are of limited efficiency.

 

The practicality of the gun ports facing the entrance has also been questioned, though an inventory of 1612 records that four brass cannons were placed here.

 

A second access to the castle leads up from a rocky cove, the aperture to a marine cave on the northern side of the Dunnottar cliffs into which a small boat could be brought. From here a steep path leads to the well-fortified postern gate on the cliff top, which in turn offers access to the castle via the Water Gate in the palace.

 

Artillery defences, taking the form of earthworks, surround the north-west corner of the castle, facing inland, and the south-east, facing seaward. A small sentry box or guard house stands by the eastern battery, overlooking the coast.

 

Tower house and surrounding buildings

The tower house of Dunnottar, viewed from the west

The late 14th-century tower house has a stone-vaulted basement, and originally had three further storeys and a garret above.

 

Measuring 12 by 11 metres (39 by 36 ft), the tower house stood 15 metres (49 ft) high to its gable. The principal rooms included a great hall and a private chamber for the lord, with bedrooms upstairs.

 

Beside the tower house is a storehouse, and a blacksmith's forge with a large chimney. A stable block is ranged along the southern edge of the headland. Nearby is Waterton's Lodging, also known as the Priest's House, built around 1574, possibly for the use of William Keith (died 1580), son of the 4th Earl Marischal.

 

This small self-contained house includes a hall and kitchen at ground level, with private chambers above, and has a projecting spiral stair on the north side. It is named for Thomas Forbes of Waterton, an attendant of the 7th Earl.

 

The palace

The palace, to the north-east of the headland, was built in the late 16th century and early to mid-17th century. It comprises three main wings set out around a quadrangle, and for the most part is probably the work of the 5th Earl Marischal who succeeded in 1581.

 

It provided extensive and comfortable accommodation to replace the rooms in the tower house. In its long, low design it has been compared to contemporary English buildings, in contrast to the Scottish tradition of taller towers still prevalent in the 16th century.

 

Seven identical lodgings are arranged along the west range, each opening onto the quadrangle and including windows and fireplace. Above the lodgings the west range comprised a 35-metre (115 ft) gallery. Now roofless, the gallery originally had an elaborate oak ceiling, and on display was a Roman tablet taken from the Antonine Wall.

 

At the north end of the gallery was a drawing room linked to the north range. The gallery could also be accessed from the Silver House to the south, which incorporated a broad stairway with a treasury above.

 

The basement of the north range incorporates kitchens and stores, with a dining room and great chamber above. At ground floor level is the Water Gate, between the north and west ranges, which gives access to the postern on the northern cliffs.

 

The east and north ranges are linked via a rectangular stair. The east range has a larder, brewhouse and bakery at ground level, with a suite of apartments for the Countess above. A north-east wing contains the Earl's apartments, and includes the "King's Bedroom" in which Charles II stayed. In this room is a carved stone inscribed with the arms of the 7th Earl and his wife, and the date 1654. Below these rooms is the Whigs' Vault, a cellar measuring 16 by 4.5 metres (52 by 15 ft). This cellar, in which the Covenanters were held in 1685, has a large eastern window, as well as a lower vault accessed via a trap-door in the floor.

 

Of the chambers in the palace, only the dining room and the Silver House remain roofed, having been restored in the 1920s. The central area contains a circular cistern or fish pond, 16 metres (52 ft) across and 7.6 metres (25 ft) deep, and a bowling green is located to the west.

 

At the south-east corner of the quadrangle is the chapel, consecrated in 1276 and largely rebuilt in the 16th century. Medieval walling and two 13th-century windows remain, and there is a graveyard to the south.

A Genuine Example of One of the Eleven 1971 Hemi ‘Cuda Convertibles

 

500+hp, 425hp rated, 426 cu. in. vee eight-cylinder engine, dual four-barrel carburetors, four-speed manual transmission, Hurst pistol grip shifter, independent front suspension with torsion bars, live axle rear suspension with semi-elliptical leaf springs, front disc, rear drum power assisted hydraulic brakes. Wheelbase: 108"

 

Three times Chrysler Corporation has relied upon the Hemi to transform its products and image from dull to sparkling, and three times the Hemi has delivered. In an American car market that has been characterized by glitz, fins and bulk, the technical sophistication of Chrysler’s hemispherical combustion chamber V8 engine has been a refreshing demonstration of the appeal of elegant, thoughtful engineering.

 

In the late 60’s and early 70’s it also acquired a bad boy image of politically incorrect power and performance, establishing a mythical presence that has made the Hemi a legend.

 

Hemi History

 

During development work on World War II aircraft engines, Chrysler’s engineers had seen firsthand the potential for hemispherical combustion chamber engines. In addition to the thermal efficiency of the hemi chamber’s low surface area and its low-restriction cross-flow porting, the angle between the valves ideally disposed the ports for efficient breathing in a

vee-layout engine.

 

Chrysler was the ideal company to pursue the hemispherical combustion chamber V8. It had a longstanding tradition of investigating, developing and perfecting advanced engineering ideas. Unlike its major competitors, Chrysler had neither overhead valve nor vee-configuration engine history, and thus no preconceived notions of how it should be done. Its engine designers could – and did – explore every conceivable engine idea. Their research showed that the hemispherical combustion chamber not only gave better performance than a comparable wedge-chamber head but also tolerated appreciably higher compression ratios.

 

The hemispherical head V8 was introduced in the Chrysler line in 1951. With 331 cubic inches displacement in a short stroke oversquare design, Chrysler’s FirePower V8 delivered 180 horsepower at 4,000 rpm and 312 lb-ft torque at 2,000 rpm. The performance potential of the Hemi was quickly recognized, most famously with the Chrysler C300 and its successors, which set the pace both on the highway and on NASCAR’s speedways. By 1958, however, manufacturing economics swung the pendulum in favor of the wedge-chamber V8s. The Hemi was phased out in 1959 … but not for long.

 

In the early 60s the 413 and 426 Wedge engines were dominant in drag racing but lacked the continuous high rpm performance needed on NASCAR’s speedways. Dodge and Plymouth were being trounced, a situation that couldn’t be allowed to stand. Faced with a need to develop a high performance, free-breathing engine quickly, Chrysler’s engineers turned to the solution they already knew worked, the Hemi. They stuck with the overall dimensions of the Raised Block 426 Wedge so existing fixturing and machining setups could be employed and maintained the original Hemi’s dual rocker shafts and 58° valve included angle. To adapt the Hemi head to the Raised Block engine, the ingenious Chrysler engineers rotated the combustion chamber toward the engine’s centerline about 8 1/2°.

 

Completed and delivered to the track just days before the 1964 Daytona 500’s green flag, the 426 Hemis proved to be invincible, sweeping the top three places in NASCAR’s most important race.

 

Production of the second generation Hemi ended after the 1971 model year as emission restrictions and insurance surcharges gave horsepower, which had never been entirely socially acceptable, a distinctly antisocial taint. Chrysler would twice more resurrect the Hemi, however, first as a crate engine program for hot rodders and later as a third generation production engine that brought DaimlerChrysler back to the forefront of performance at the beginning of the 21st century. Like some other forms of antisocial behavior, horsepower has proven to be addictive.

 

The Hemi ‘Cuda

 

Of all the Street Hemis built, the most famous, attractive and desirable are the 1970-1971 E-body Plymouth ‘Cudas, combining the visceral delight of the Hemi’s power and torque with the ‘Cuda’s lightweight, streamlined and refined 2+2 platform.

 

The first Barracuda was introduced in 1964 and in the late 60’s Chrysler engineering and Hurst performance shoehorned Race Hemi engines into the Barracuda’s engine compartment for NHRA drag racing. Seventy-five were built, sold and successfully campaigned around the country. When the Barracuda was redesigned for the 1970 model year the engine compartment was made large enough for the legendary 425 horsepower 426 cubic inch Street Hemi.

 

The Plymouth Barracuda was the cleanest, most refined and elegant of all the pony car designs. Distinguished by its wide grille, long, flat hood, short rear deck and ominously raised rear fenders – deliberately shaped like the haunches of an animal crouching before a leap – the appearance of the ‘Cuda left no doubt that this was a serious performance car.

 

Hemi-powered ‘Cudas are surpassingly rare. Built for only two years, 1970 and 1971, their low production numbers reflect the undeniable fact that the combination of the ‘Cuda platform and the Street Hemi engine was irrationally fast. It also was expensive: $871.45 in 1970 and $883.90 in 1971, a prohibitive 70% more than the 390 horsepower 440 Six Barrel.

 

A Hemi ‘Cuda was not for the faint of heart nor for the cautious of pocketbook. Buying one took serious commitment, backed up by an ample budget. In 1971 there were only 119 souls brave and prosperous enough to make the commitment to check off E74, the Street Hemi’s order code, on the ‘Cuda order form.

 

• 108 of them ordered hardtops

• Only eleven stepped up for the top-of-the-line ‘Cuda convertible powered by the 426 cubic inch, 425 horsepower dual quad Street Hemi.

• Only three of those were confident enough of their driving skills to opt for the Hurst pistol grip shifted four-speed manual transmission.

• Only two of those were delivered in the U.S.

• Both U.S.-delivered ’71 Hemi ‘Cuda convertibles were B5 Blue with

matching interiors.

 

That’s only three, in all the world, that combined the Street Hemi engine with the ‘Cuda convertible body and 4-speed transmission in 1971. One of them is the car offered here, BS27R1B269588, the only one with white soft top and elastomeric front bumper cover.

 

The “Mountain Mopar” Hemi ‘Cuda Convertible

 

Built in February of 1971, this Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda convertible’s first owner, Ronald Ambach, lived in St. Louis, Missouri. He owned it only until the fall, accumulating the car’s only street miles, before selling it to its next owner, Nick Masciarelli, in Ohio. He decided to take the Hemi ‘Cuda Stock Eliminator drag racing and turned to renowned Detroit-area engine builder Tom Tignanelli for a hot Hemi V8. The new owner was in a hurry, and the quickest way to meet his request was to swap the original engine for a fresh race-prepared Tignanelli Hemi.

 

In May of 1973, the Hemi ‘Cuda convertible was sold to John Book and partner John Oliverio in West Virginia who raced it in East Coast and Mid-Atlantic events during 1973 and 1974. Its dramatic appearance, complete with gold-leaf “Mountain Mopar” identification, is documented in several period photos in the car’s documentation file.

 

Fortunately for today’s collectors, the “Mountain Mopar” Hemi ‘Cuda convertible was retired after 1974 and stored in a climate-controlled building in West Virginia. In 1989 it was sold to the Painter brothers. Two years later it was acquired by Milt Robson in Atlanta, Georgia, still in its as-raced condition. Robson commenced a comprehensive restoration using original or new-old-stock parts to its original, as-delivered condition in his shops, which was completed in the early 90’s. Stored inside for virtually its entire life, 269588 was never subjected to the vicissitudes of the elements which afflicted most of its siblings; its original sheet metal and interior are carefully restored and retained. The engine was rebuilt around a correct 1/19/1970 date-coded Chrysler NOS block.

 

In addition to the 426/425 horsepower dual quad Street Hemi and pistol grip Hurst shifted four-speed manual transmission, this unique 1971 Hemi ‘Cuda convertible is equipped with power steering, power brakes, Dana Super Track Pack and AM-FM radio. Importantly, it is the only ’71 Hemi ‘Cuda convertible known to have been delivered with the body-colored Elastomeric front bumper cover. Its original configuration is verified by two separate original build sheets; the ownership history is documented with a continuous sequence of titles. It has been personally viewed by Galen Govier and authenticated by him as one of the seven US-delivered ’71 Hemi ‘Cuda convertibles which have been included in the Chrysler Registry.

 

Finished in B5 Blue inside and out with a white vinyl top, it has been restored to better than showroom condition. Particular attention has been paid to the accuracy of its components and finishes and to the preservation of as much as possible of its almost unbelievable originality, including the carefully preserved original interior.

 

It has been shown only in local shows around Atlanta in the mid 90s, was featured a decade ago in a May 1995 Car Collector magazine article by Dennis Adler and has appeared in several books, copies of which come with the car.

 

Putting a free-breathing, high-rpm engine like the 426 Hemi in a lithe, frisky chassis like the ‘Cuda was exactly what the forces of political correctness inveighed against in the early 70s. In 1972 the Hemi was gone for the second time, its visceral appeal buried in a cascade of social responsibility, “net” horsepower and Highway Fuel Economy ratings. There is nothing politically correct, nothing socially responsible about a Hemi ‘Cuda. The 1971 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda convertible is wretched excess in a nearly unimaginably limited production package.

 

This is absolutely the most desirable, rare and handsome of all the American Muscle and Pony Cars. Combining the brute power and torque of the legendary dual quad Street Hemi engine with the sleek, aggressive lines of the ‘Cuda convertible, it is the ultimate combination of personal car style and Muscle Car performance, a singular example and the quintessential muscle car of all time.

 

[Text from RM Auctions]

 

www.rmauctions.com/lots/lot.cfm?lot_id=132126

 

This Lego miniland-scale Plymouth HEMI ' Cuda Convertible (1971), has been created for Flickr LUGNuts' 89th Build Challenge, - "Over a Million, Under a Thousand", - a challenge to build vehicles valued over one million (US) dollars, or under one thousand (US) dollars.

 

This particular vehicle was auctioned by the RM Auction house for US$2,420,000)

The Colorado River is the principal river of the Southwestern United States and northwest Mexico. The 1,450-mile (2,330 km) river drains an expansive, arid watershed that encompasses parts of seven U.S. and two Mexican states. Rising in the central Rocky Mountains in the U.S., the river flows generally southwest across the Colorado Plateau and through the Grand Canyon before reaching Lake Mead on the Arizona–Nevada line, where it turns south toward the international border. After entering Mexico, the Colorado approaches the large Colorado River Delta where it naturally emptied into the Gulf of California between Baja California and Sonora, though it no longer reaches its delta or the sea.

 

Known for its dramatic canyons and whitewater rapids, the Colorado is a vital source of water for agricultural and urban areas in the southwestern desert lands of North America. The river and its tributaries are controlled by an extensive system of dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts, which divert 90% of its water in the U.S. alone to furnish irrigation and municipal water supply for almost 40 million people both inside and outside the watershed. The Colorado's large flow and steep gradient are used for generating hydroelectric power, and its major dams regulate peaking power demands in much of the Intermountain West. Since the mid-20th century, intensive water consumption has dried the lower 100 miles (160 km) of the river such that it has not consistently reached the sea since the 1960s.

 

After the greater Colorado River basin became part of the U.S. in 1846, the bulk of the river's course was still largely the subject of myths and speculation. Several expeditions charted the Colorado in the mid-19th century, one of which, led by John Wesley Powell in 1869, was the first to run the rapids of the Grand Canyon. American explorers collected valuable information that would later be used to develop the river for navigation and water supply. Large-scale settlement of the lower basin began in the mid- to late-19th century, with steamboats providing transportation from the Gulf of California to landings along the Colorado River that linked to wagon roads into the interior of New Mexico Territory. Lesser numbers settled in the upper basin, which was the scene of major gold strikes in Arizona and Nevada in the 1860s and 1870s.

 

Major engineering of the river basin began around the start of the 20th century, with many guidelines established in a series of domestic and international treaties known as the "Law of the River". The U.S. federal government was the main driving force behind the construction of hydraulic engineering projects in the river system, although many state and local water agencies were also involved. Most of the major dams in the river basin were built between 1910 and 1970, and the system keystone, Hoover Dam, was completed in 1935. The Colorado is now considered among the most controlled and litigated rivers in the world, with every drop of its water fully allocated.

 

The damming and diversion of the Colorado River system have been flashpoint issues for the environmental movement in the American Southwest because of their impacts on the ecology and natural beauty of the river and its tributaries. During the construction of Glen Canyon Dam, environmental organizations vowed to block any further development of the river, and a number of later dam and aqueduct proposals were defeated by citizen opposition. As demands for Colorado River water continue to rise, the level of human development and control of the river continues to generate controversy.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River

 

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

Mott Haven, The Bronx, New York City, New York, United States

 

Featuring robust brick facades and a high corner clock tower, the former Estey Piano Company Factory is a distinguished monument to an industry that was once one of the Bronx’s most important. Anchoring the northeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard since 1886, when its original portion was completed, the Estey building is the oldest-known former piano factory standing in the Bronx today. It is also one of the earliest large factories remaining in its Mott Haven neighborhood, dating from the period in which the area first experienced intensive industrial development. Today, as in decades past, the building’s signature clock tower and expansive facades—simply but elegantly detailed with terra cotta, patterned brick, and contrasting stone—are visible from the waterfront and nearby Harlem River bridges, making the Estey Factory a true neighborhood landmark.

 

Manufacturing blossomed in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx during the 1880s, when new factories started springing up in the area east of Third Avenue. Many of these produced pianos or their components, and by 1919, the Bronx had more than 60 such factories, making it one of America’s piano-manufacturing centers. One of the city’s first piano factories to be built in the Annexed District or North Side, as the western portions of the Bronx were known between 1874 and 1898, the Estey building was credited with providing “an unusual stimulus” for the movement of other piano makers there. Several of the manufacturers that followed Estey to the Annexed District, and later the Bronx, clustered within a few blocks of its factory, creating an important nucleus for the piano industry.

 

The Estey Piano Company was organized by Jacob Estey and John B. Simpson in 1885. Two decades before, Estey had established an organ works in Brattleboro, Vt. that had grown into one of the country’s largest producers of reed organs, thousands of which found their way into American parlors every year. Like other organ manufacturers in the late nineteenth century, Estey sought to diversify into the booming piano industry, and his partnership with Simpson—a pioneering North Side piano manufacturer—was a means to that end. When Estey Piano opened its factory, it manufactured upright and grand pianos that would become recognized for their “superior construction and workmanship.”

 

The original portion of the Estey Piano Factory was designed by the architectural firm of A.B. Ogden & Son. Many of this building’s features, including its L-shaped plan, flat roof, regular fenestration pattern and bay arrangement, and relatively narrow width to allow for daylight penetration, are characteristic of latenineteenth-century factory buildings. Its mixture of segmental- and round-headed window openings, and the Romanesque machicolations of its clock tower, place the Estey Factory within the tradition of the American round-arched style. Other features, including the factory’s distinctive, red-orange brick, dogtoothed and zigzagging patterned-brick stringcourses, recessed brick panels, terra cotta tiles featuring festoons, lions’ heads, and foliate motifs—and of course, its dramatic, projecting clock tower—speak of a building that sought to announce its presence on the urban landscape, projecting a strong public image for its owner. Indeed, the Estey Piano Company often included an illustration of this factory on its trade cards, which advertised the firm’s products.

 

The original building was extended to the east along Southern Boulevard in 1890, with a harmonious five-story addition designed by John B. Snook & Sons, and to the north, along Lincoln Avenue, with one-story additions in 1895. The Lincoln Avenue additions appear to have been combined and expanded, and then raised to three stories in 1909, and by an additional two stories in 1919; the 1919 addition near the southeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street features broad expanses of industrial sash that were characteristic of the “daylight factories” of the early twentieth century. Known today as the Clock Tower Building, the old Estey Piano Company Factory currently houses artists and their studios. With its historic fabric almost completely intact, the building remains, in the words of the AIA Guide to New York City, “the grande dame of the piano trade: not virgin, but all-together and proud.”

 

The Industrial Development of Mott Haven

 

Well before the 1898 creation of the borough of the Bronx, industrial activity was occurring in the area that is now the Bronx’s southernmost portion. In 1828, Jordan L. Mott, the inventor of a coal-burning iron cooking stove, opened a “modest little factory” on property he had purchased on the Harlem River near the present Third Avenue, in what was then the township of Morrisania. Mott started calling the area Mott Haven and, in 1850, seeking to attract additional industry to the area, he laid out the Mott Haven Canal, an artificial inlet from the Harlem River that would ultimately extend to just south of 144th Street. The canal, however, was slow to attract industrial firms, and by 1879, only a handful of substantial ones existed nearby, including a brass and iron works, a machine shop, and a few lumber and coal yards, all of which were below 138th Street. These were joined by a marble yard, lumber yard, and hotel west of the canal, near the tracks built by the New York & Harlem Railroad to connect Manhattan with what is now the Bronx, in 1841. Despite the presence of the large Harlem River & Port Chester Railroad yard, which stretched from Lincoln Avenue to Brown Place south of 132nd Street, few factories appear to have existed east of Third Avenue at the end of the 1870s.

 

In 1874, the townships of Morrisania, West Farms, and Kingsbridge—the sections of the present Bronx borough located west of the Bronx River—became part of New York City. Officially called the 23rd and 24th Wards, they were generally referred to as the “Annexed District” or “North Side,” but they remained fairly isolated. At that time, few links existed between the southern portion of the District and Manhattan; among those that did was a cast-iron bridge at Third Avenue which, in 1860, had replaced an old wood dam-bridge built in the 1790s at that location.

 

Soon after annexation, however, local residents, property owners, business owners, and booster groups like the North Side Association began agitating for improved infrastructure, including better connections with Manhattan. In the 1880s, new public works started to be built; among them was the Madison Avenue Bridge, completed in 1884, which spanned the Harlem River at 138th Street, about five blocks north of the Mott Iron Works complex. By 1885, additional industrial concerns—including a planing mill, cabinet maker, and nickel works, and factories making carpets and surgical instruments—had sprung up in Mott Haven, near and below 138th Street, and close to Third Avenue. The expanded rail yard below 132nd Street, at that point operated by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, connected directly to new docks at the foot of Willis Avenue. A few factories had sprouted up in the area east of Lincoln Avenue, as the Estey Piano Company Factory, then under construction at the northeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard, shared a block with the expansive works of the New York Lumber and Woodworking Company.

 

The 1886 opening of the Second Avenue Bridge just a few blocks from the Estey Factory provided a Harlem River crossing for the trains of the new Suburban Rapid Transit Company. The Suburban’s line, which would come to be known in the Bronx as the Third Avenue El, was the first to bring rapid transit service to the Annexed District. With its southern terminus on the Manhattan side of the Harlem, where it met Manhattan’s east-side elevated lines, the Suburban stopped at Southern Boulevard, before continuing northward; service on the line was expanded and improved between 1887 and 1902. While the Suburban was under construction, Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide predicted that it would have an enormous impact on the North Side, calling it, in 1885, “a great thing for the [Annexed District], as well as for New York City. It will furnish cheap homes for a poorer population, as well as choice rural habitations for the well-to-do. We may expect many light manufacturing industries to become naturalized on the other side of the Harlem.” And the line did come to play a crucial role in Mott Haven’s late-nineteenth-century development, spurring rowhouse construction in the late 1880s and 1890s. As new housing sprouted up, so too did industry; an 1894 drawing of the Harlem River east of Third Avenue shows a busy waterfront with docks and factories on both sides of the river, including the Estey Factory, with its distinctive clock tower clearly visible. In 1895, the New York Times noted that “that part of the 23rd Ward along the Harlem River”—that is, the southernmost portion of the Annexed District, including Mott Haven—was “a very busy manufacturing place.”

 

Improved rapid transit connections with Manhattan aided Mott Haven’s residential growth, but the area’s industrial development was spurred by its Harlem River location and the expansion of its freight-rail infrastructure. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the New York, New Haven & Hartford—with a freight depot located one block south of the Estey Factory, at Lincoln Avenue and 132nd Street—connected with dozens of railroads providing service throughout the eastern and midwestern United States, and into Canada. The New York Central system, with extensive yards close by in Melrose, was just as far-reaching. And the southern Bronx retained these transportation advantages into the twentieth century. Writing in 1908 about the proliferation of piano factories, many of which were in the southern Bronx, lifelong piano man William

 

P.H. Bacon pointed to the borough’s “superior transportation and shipping facilities, both by water and land,” as well as “the opportunity of getting land for the erection of commodious factories at reasonable figures.” In experiencing strong manufacturing growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Mott Haven was a microcosm of the Bronx and the city as a whole: by 1920, New York City had 12% of the country’s factory workers, and by 1927, the Bronx had 2,700 plants with more than 100,000 employees.

 

Industrial growth had been rapid in the southern Bronx; Bacon wrote, in 1908, of “the busy hum of commerce where but a few years ago, the lowing of cattle and other sylvan sounds were the only noises heard.” The end of World War II marked the apex of manufacturing in New York, as in 1947, more manufacturing jobs existed in the city than in Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia combined. But industrial activity in the Bronx would soon begin to decline, reflecting city-wide trends. By the 1950s, New York City was rapidly losing industrial jobs, with manufacturers leaving in droves for the suburbs, or departing the region entirely. Between 1969 and 1999, the number of manufacturing jobs in the city fell by twothirds. Contributing to the decline of industry in the southern Bronx was the destruction of manufacturing space with the construction of broad new highways; the building of the earliest portions of the Major Deegan Expressway through Mott Haven between 1935 and 1939, for example, wiped out several industrial buildings on the block immediately to the north of the Estey Factory, including the former factory of the Brambach Piano Company. In 1997, the New York City Department of City Planning, citing an underutilization of industrial space in Mott Haven, rezoned a portion of Bruckner Boulevard including the block containing the former Estey Factory, to allow for residential uses and community facilities. This special mixed-use zoning was expanded to blocks to the east, west, and south in 2005.

 

As Mott Haven becomes increasingly residential, the former Estey Factory is a reminder of the neighborhood’s early years of intensive industrial growth. Today, the Estey building is one of the oldest large factories standing in Mott Haven, and in the entire area of the southern Bronx below 149th Street.

 

The Estey Piano Company and Its Factory

 

The Estey Piano Company had its roots in the firm of Manner & Company, which manufactured pianos on the Bowery between 1866 and 1869. Manner called his piano the “Arion,” and in 1870, his firm’s name changed to the Arion Piano-Forte Company. In 1872, the company’s factory moved to 149th Street, in what is now the Bronx. John Boulton Simpson, who had been Arion’s secretary since 1871, took control of the company in 1875; in that year, the company apparently moved to a new factory on St. Ann’s Avenue and boasted that “Six years ago, there were none of our pianos in existence; to-day, there are over 7,500 in use.” In the following year, the firm’s name changed to Simpson & Company, although it also continued to be known by the Arion name. By the end of the 1870s, Simpson’s factory—stretching from Brook to St. Ann’s Avenues on the north side of 149th Street—was probably the largest piano factory in the Annexed District, but in 1880, it was sold to another piano maker, the William E. Wheelock Company.

 

While Simpson apparently continued to make “high grade pianos” following the Wheelock sale, the location of his factory in the early 1880s is unclear. Between 1881 and 1885, Simpson & Company continued to maintain a space, likely a showroom, at 5 East 14th Street—where it had been since 1876—but the company was also listed at 127 East 129th and 232 East 40th Streets, neither of which appears to have been the location of a substantial factory. These addresses do, however, link Simpson in the early 1880s with the respected tuner Stephen Brambach, who would play a crucial role in developing Estey’s first pianos; Brambach was located next door to Simpson between 1881 and 1883, and in the same building in 1884.

 

In 1885, the Estey Organ Company of Brattleboro, Vt. was hitting its peak. By the end of the 1880s, the firm, which had been founded in 1866 by Jacob Estey, would be the world’s largest producer of reed organs. Thousands of these instruments found their way into American parlors every year; they were also being distributed, by 1890, to Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America, and to major European cities. Despite the company’s success—it was described, in 1886, as doing “an immense business, amounting to over one million dollars annually”—and its rapid growth—production rose by a factor of seven between 1865 and 1886—the organ business was in decline. The piano business, however, was booming; and, likely noticing the 1882 entry of the renowned organ maker Mason & Hamlin into piano manufacturing, Estey and the company’s other principals, including Levi K. Fuller and Jacob’s son Julius, decided to take the same path.

 

Estey became a piano manufacturer by forming a partnership with Simpson, who was named president of the new Estey Piano Company; the Simpson piano was essentially re-branded as the new Estey model. Simpson, of course, had been a pioneer in Bronx piano manufacturing, and this may have played a role in Estey’s decision to build its plant on the North Side. A.B. Ogden & Son was hired to design the factory, but Simpson may have had some influence over its appearance and form, as he had dabbled in architecture, altering his home on West 129th Street in 1882 to give it a “picturesque exoticism.” Work began on the “large factory with modern appliances,” as it would later be described, in August of 1885; it was completed, at a cost of approximately $40,000, in February of 1886. While the factory was under construction, Estey Piano decided to construct three more buildings that would extend its complex by an additional 80 feet along Southern Boulevard. These brick structures, designed by Ogden’s firm and completed at the same time as the main factory, were a one-story extension, a one-story shed, and a two-story stable.

 

Estey Piano prospered in its early years, as “Estey grand and upright pianos soon became a dominant factor in the piano trade,” according to Alfred Dolge, who added that they often “carried off highest awards for superior construction and workmanship.” In 1887, the trade publication Musical Courier wrote that the Estey Piano Factory was “one of the most complete in the country”; two years later, it called the firm’s upright “a most beautiful specimen of piano manufacturing,” of which Estey would “find no difficulty in disposing … in the best musical circles in the land.” While trade journals’ opinions should be considered with caution, those of the respected piano tuner and regulator Daniel Spillane may be more reliable. Five years after the Estey Factory opened, Spillane called its piano “a very excellent instrument,” adding that “much of the technical and musical merit of these pianos is due to the competency and skill of [Stephen] Brambach, who is a gentleman of fine musical and mechanical sensibilities [and] … one of the best tuners in New York.” Although Brambach had apparently started his own piano company in 1885, he remained involved with Estey in 1890, originating “all new ideas in the mechanics and acoustics of the Estey piano.” Brambach’s brother Carl, “one of the most expert and artistic tuners and toners in the country,” was also employed by Estey Piano, according to Spillane.

 

Business was good, and only four years after the Estey Piano Factory opened, it underwent a huge expansion. In May of 1890, work began on a 100-foot-long east addition that would result in the demolition of the extension, shed, and stable on Southern Boulevard, and create the unified five-story, 200-foot-long Bruckner Boulevard façade that remains essentially unchanged today. The architect of this addition, which was completed in October of 1890 at a cost of about $23,000, was John B. Snook & Sons. This firm, then one of New York’s most prolific, traced its origins to the arrival of John B. Snook (1815-1901) in the United States, from England, in 1835. By 1842, Snook was working with Joseph Trench, and the two helped introduce the Anglo-Italianate style to New York with buildings such as the A.T. Stewart Store at 280 Broadway (1845-46, a Designated New York City Landmark). One of Snook’s best-known works was the first Grand Central Terminal (1869-71, demolished); in 1887, he took his three sons, James Henry (1847-1917), Samuel Booth (18571915), and Thomas Edward, and a son-in-law, John W. Boyleston, into his office, and changed his firm’s name to John B. Snook & Sons. Although Snook had designed a diverse array of buildings—including residential and commercial structures for some of New York’s most prominent families—his firm designed several manufacturing lofts in the 1880s and 1890s that would have made it an appropriate choice for the Estey addition. These industrial buildings, now located in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District—including 8 Greene Street (1883-84), 12 Wooster Street (1883-84), 127 Spring Street/87-89 Greene Street (1886-87), 391-393 West Broadway/77-81 Wooster Street (1889), 151 Spring Street (1889-90) and 361 Canal Street (1891-92)—were utilitarian brick buildings; but like the Estey Factory, they were also designed with an eye toward detail, featuring patterned and textured brickwork, and contrasting stone trim that enliven their facades.

 

The Estey Factory continued to grow in the 1890s. In 1895, the company extended the building 50 feet along Lincoln Avenue with a one-story, 69-foot-deep brick addition that apparently provided a fireproof home for its woodworking department; at the same time, Estey constructed a new, one-story brick lumber room running for an additional 38 feet along Lincoln, where it met a small, one-story brick building then existing at the southeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street. Both the extension and the new building—which appear to remain today as the base of the five-story portion of the factory north of the original building—were designed by Hewlett S. Baker of 492 East 138th Street. Little is known about Baker; he was described as “a property owner in the South Bronx” in a 1910 New York Times article, and as “a contractor and builder in the Bronx” in a 1912 article about his death. By 1900, the one-story buildings near the corner of Lincoln and 134th appear to have been extended to the east.

 

The portion of the factory north of the original building remained at one story until 1909, when Simpson and architect S. Gifford Slocum raised it to three stories. Slocum, an architect of some note, is remembered primarily for his large residences for wealthy clients, including several fine Queen Anne-style residences built in the Saratoga Springs area in the 1880s. Born in Jefferson County, N.Y., Slocum studied architecture at Cornell University from 1873 to 1875, and by 1885, he had offices in Saratoga and Glens Falls, N.Y. In 1888, Slocum moved to Philadelphia while retaining his Saratoga office; between 1890 and 1909, he practiced architecture in New York City. Simpson hired Slocum to design an alteration to his residence at 117 East 83rd Street, in 1900. Slocum’s two-story addition to the Estey Piano Factory was described as being of “similar construction to the present building” in its Buildings Department application, and it demonstrates continuity with the floor below and with the original building in its segmental-arch-headed window openings, and in its similar decorative details, including pilasters, stone sills supported by corbelled brick courses, and patterned-brick stringcourses. A drawing of the factory following the completion of Slocum’s addition appeared in a 1917 Estey Piano Company advertisement.

 

Over the previous years, the Estey Piano Company had undergone several changes, weathering the deaths—in 1890, 1896, and 1902, respectively—of Jacob Estey, Levi K. Fuller, and Julius Estey. The firm’s “warerooms” or showrooms, which had been at 5 East 14th Street since the time of the company’s founding, were at 97 Fifth Avenue by 1900 and 7 West 29th Street by 1909. They would move again—in 1912 to the since-demolished “Estey Building” at 23 West 42nd Street—and by 1916 to 12 West 45th Street. By 1912, Estey pianos were being sold at Loeser’s department store in Brooklyn; in its advertising, the company took advantage of its historical association with the Estey Organ Company, stating that “the world-renowned Estey Pianos … are just as reliable as the Estey Organs made famous by the same firm in the days of our parents.” On at least one occasion, the Estey Piano Factory witnessed strife between its employees and management, as in 1912, workers struck Estey and other Bronx piano manufacturers that would not recognize the piano makers’ union and refused to close their shop floors to non-union employees.

 

In 1917, John B. Simpson’s leadership of the Estey Piano Company came to an end, when George B. Gittins, the former president of piano manufacturer Kohler & Campbell, purchased a controlling interest in the firm. Gittins, an industry prodigy who was only 37 at the time he took Estey Piano’s helm, appears to have begun revamping the company’s product line almost immediately; an “at-the-factory” clearance sale held in November of 1917 was prompted by the company’s intention “to concentrate on the large-scale production of a few standard models.” Two years later, Gittins purchased M. Welte & Sons, Inc., which was originally the American arm of a German company that had invented the reproducing piano, a technologically advanced kind of player piano using special rolls that were able to express, to some extent, the subtleties of the renowned pianists who had “recorded” them. Following the 1907 introduction of Welte’s “Mignon” reproducing piano in the United States, dozens of the world’s most famous pianists made recordings for Welte, allowing Americans to experience, for the first time, something close to having Paderewski, Saint-Saens, and other virtuosi play for them in their homes.

 

Soon after acquiring Welte, Gittins started shutting down the firm’s Poughkeepsie, N.Y. plant—which had produced rolls, reproducing pianos with and without keyboards, Welte “Philharmonic” reproducing organs, orchestrions, and other products—and expanding the Estey Factory building and its complex. In 1919, architect George F. Hogue of 41 Union Square in Manhattan was hired to add two stories to the northern, three-story portion of the factory, and to add an elevator shaft. This alteration, which cost about $25,000, featured broad expanses of industrial sash typical of the “daylight” factories that were then being constructed around the country. By 1921, Gittins had also constructed a two-story building (not part of this Designation) facing Southern Boulevard and adjoining Snook’s 1890 addition, as well as a four-story factory for Welte (not part of this Designation) that remains today at 27 Bruckner Boulevard. In 1922, the Estey-Welte Corporation was created, which served as an umbrella organization for several Gittins holdings, including the Estey Piano Company and the Welte-Mignon Corporation. Estey, at that time, was manufacturing a variety of pianos, including an 88-note player piano, and manual and reproducing uprights and grands; the new four-story factory on Southern Boulevard made Welte-Mignon pianos and grands, actions for reproducing instruments, and Welte Philharmonic organs.

 

In 1925, perhaps sensing the end of the glory days for the piano and player piano, Gittins decided to diversify into the manufacture of pipe organs for churches, concert halls, theaters, and large residences. In the following year, Estey-Welte appeared to be perfectly healthy, but by January of 1927, a crash in its stock price brought the over-extended company to its knees. Estey-Welte was in serious trouble, and by summer of that year, it was reorganized as the Welte Company. Gittins was soon gone; by 1928 his old firm was reorganized again, as the Welte-Mignon Corp. This latest incarnation of the firm fell into receivership in 1929, when its chief assets were split up and its factory emptied; one investor, Donald F. Tripp, bought some of the organ business, and the Estey Piano Company was sold to the Settergren Piano Company of Bluffton, Ind. Tripp’s firm was bankrupt within two years; in 1935, Settergren was renamed the Estey Piano Company.

 

The Estey Piano name continued on for decades. Estey spinets were being advertised in Chicago in 1948, and the firm’s pianos appeared in Macy’s advertisements in the early-to-mid 1960s. The Estey Piano Company was still operating in 1972, when it received a loan from the Commerce Department to assist it in starting production of a plastic piano. At that time, Estey was described as having “an office in Union, N.J., and an old plant in Bluffton, Ind.”

 

After the old Estey Piano Company Factory was vacated in 1929, it passed through the hands of a number of different owners, and was occupied by many different industrial tenants. A sheet-metal works leased space there in 1932, and its occupants in 1937 included the Whitman Supply Company and Unique Balance Company. By 1939, the factory had been acquired by the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank. In February of 1940, Emigrant sold the five-story Estey Factory building and the adjacent two-story building constructed by Gittins to the S.H. Pomeroy Company, a manufacturer of window sashes that had been located on the same block as Estey Piano since 1923 or before. One month later, however, the owner of the building was the 120 Lincoln Avenue Realty Corporation, which was leasing space to Alta Furniture Factories. Until at least 1945, 120 Lincoln Avenue Realty remained the owner of the building; in 1969, it was occupied by the Ranger Plastics Corporation, and in 1973, it was home to a draperies manufacturer. At the end of the 1970s, the old Estey Piano Company Factory housed a maker of textile products and its outlet store, along with manufacturers of wire and “novelty” products. In 1995, when the building was mostly vacant, it was purchased by Truro College, which planned to convert it into student dormitories or a home for a liberal arts and sciences program. Those plans fell through, however, and the college sold the former Estey Factory, now known as the Clock Tower Building, to Carnegie Management, which remodeled its interior to accommodate live-in artists’ studios. It retains this use today.

 

Description

 

The Estey Piano Company Factory is an L-shaped, five-story building with a projecting clock tower at its southwest corner. Spanning the east side of Lincoln Avenue between Bruckner Boulevard and East 134th Street, the building has three primary street facades, all of which feature face brick laid in common bond: a 200-foot-long Bruckner Boulevard façade, a 200-foot-long Lincoln Avenue façade, and a façade on 134th Street that is approximately 69 feet in length and attached to an elevator shaft.

 

The original factory building, which was constructed in 1885-86, extended for 100 feet along Lincoln Avenue and for 100 feet along Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard. Comprising the westernmost 15 upper-story bays on the south façade and the southernmost 15 upper-story bays on the west façade of the existing building, including the clock tower, this original portion of the Estey Piano Factory was extended by 100 feet to the east along Bruckner Boulevard with the construction of a five-story addition in 1890. (The construction of the 1890 addition resulted in the demolition of three buildings of one and two stories that were completed at the same time as the original factory, and which had a combined street frontage of 80 feet.) Before the construction of the 1890 addition, the five-story portion of the south façade terminated, at its east, with a two-bay projection featuring round-headed windows, all set within a corbelled recess, at the first through fifth floors. This projection—which was identical to the two-bay projection that originally terminated the Lincoln Avenue façade, and remains virtually unchanged today—extended above the adjacent portion of the façade, and, like the clock tower, outward from the façade plane. With the completion of John B. Snook & Sons’ 1890 addition, the two-bay projection on the south façade was doubled in width—the two new bays matching the original two—and its parapet was raised to match, in height, the parapet above the then-new, three-bay projection at the eastern end of the extended façade. Both the raised and new parapets featured, just below their pressed-metal cornices, recessed square panels arranged in a row. Also at that time, the four-bay projection became the central feature of a broad, essentially symmetrical Southern Boulevard façade, with the new three-bay projection at the eastern end of the façade balancing the three-bay, projecting clock tower at the building’s corner.

 

The 1890 addition is virtually indistinguishable from the original portion of the factory, largely because it is faced in matching red-orange brick laid in common bond. It also features matching ornament, including stringcourses composed of decorative brick laid in a zigzagging pattern that align with the stringcourses on the original building; a dogtoothed, soldier-brick course just below the parapet that also aligns with the original; recessed, rectangular brick panels with corbelling, and terra cotta tiles arranged in a repeating three-tile pattern, with each of the three tiles featuring a different foliate design, at the roof parapets; projecting, molded sandstone stringcourses just below the parapets; and sandstone window sills, each supported by two courses of corbelled brick. The three-bay projection at the south façade’s eastern end largely duplicates the fenestration and ornament of the clock tower’s second through fifth floors, featuring segmental-headed window openings with arches composed of stone springers and three courses of header brick, set within a corbelled brick recess, at the second floor; square-headed windows at the third and fourth floors, and round-headed windows at the fifth floor; light-colored, contrasting stone trim, which wraps the heads of the rectangular openings and composes a short stringcourse at the springer level of the fifth-floor openings; and a belt course of terra cotta tiles that matches that of the clock tower, in an alternating festoon and lions’-head motif, just below a projecting stone sill course at the third floor. The easternmost three-bay projection, like the central four-bay projection on the south façade, is crowned by a stepped, pressed-metal cornice with a cyma profile at its top. The 1890 addition features seven basement-level openings with stone lintels that are larger than the five basement-level openings on the south façade of the original building; these five original openings retain their historic metal grilles. Aside from this difference, the addition continued the fenestration pattern of the original factory’s south façade: except for the openings on the three-bay east projection, the central four-bay projection, and the clock tower, all of the window openings on the Bruckner Boulevard façade are segmental-headed, each crowned by an arch composed of two header courses of brick.

 

The original part of the Lincoln Avenue façade not including the clock tower—the twelve-bay portion of this façade including, and south of, the five-story projection containing two bays of round-headed windows— is essentially identical to the original part of the Bruckner Boulevard façade, although some minor changes have been made at the first floor. A metal rooftop bulkhead is visible near this façade’s southern end, close to the clock tower. The later portions of the Lincoln Avenue façade north of the original factory, and the 134th Street façade, show evidence of their gradual construction between 1895 and 1919. Although the first through third floors of these facades show kinship with the original factory—particularly in their segmental-headed windows with sandstone sills supported by corbelled brick courses, and in the composition, of each window arch, of two courses of header brick—they also depart from the original façade in significant ways. The bay arrangement of the facades north of the original factory differs from the original bay arrangement, with the 134th Street façade and the northern half of the Lincoln Avenue façade each split into four bays of varying widths separated by austere brick pilasters. The fenestration is less regular than on the original buildings: it appears, for example, that no window opening ever existed at the second-floor, third-northernmost and tenth-northernmost bays on the Lincoln Avenue façade, or at the easternmost and fifth-easternmost second-floor bays on the 134th Street façade. Although the brick of the oldest, first-floor portions of these facades comes close to matching that of the original factory in color, the face brick of the two later two-story additions above—one built in 1909 and one in 1919—is redder in color. On both the Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street facades of the earliest, first-floor addition, and of the second-and-third-floor 1909 addition, stringcourses composed of zigzagging patterned brick align with the patterned-brick stringcourses of the original factory; an exposed horizontal metal beam between the second- and third-floor window openings is slightly lower than the corresponding patterned-brick stringcourse on the original factory. The 1919 addition differs the most of any of the additions from the original factory, featuring large window openings filled with multi-pane metal windows and with concrete lintels and projecting sills. Each of the windows, which are grouped in threes, fours, or fives within their openings, has a total of 12, 16, or 20 panes, and has a central, horizontally pivoting sash of four or six panes. At the eastern end of the north, or 134th Street façade, is an elevator shaft built in 1919 that features, at its ground floor, a large loading bay with a projecting concrete sill.

 

In addition to the Bruckner Boulevard, Lincoln Avenue, and 134th Street primary facades, the Estey Piano Company Factory has two visible secondary facades. The east façade of the Bruckner Boulevard leg of the building features red face brick laid in common bond. A brick rooftop bulkhead and rooftop chain-link fence are visible above this façade. The façade apparently was once painted with the words “ESTEY PIANO MANUFACTORY”; this lettering has either faded, or been partially removed. Visible on the east, or rear façade of the Lincoln Avenue leg of the building, to the south of the brick elevator shaft, are grouped fourth- and fifth-floor, historic metal sashes, apparently dating from 1919, within openings with concrete lintels and sills that are framed by austere brick pilasters. A metal fire escape extends to the roof; roof access is made possible by a break in the parapet.

 

The clock tower projects slightly from the façade plane. Each of the south and west faces of the tower has four window openings set within a two-story corbelled recess, with each of these openings featuring stone sills and headed by a segmental arch composed of three courses of header brick and light-colored stone springers. One pair of recessed brick panels is located below each of the first-floor openings on the tower’s west face, and a single recessed brick panel is located below each of the first-floor openings on its south face; stepped, recessed-brick panels are located below the second-floor openings on the west and south faces. A terra cotta stringcourse composed of terra cotta tiles with an alternating festoon and lions’-head motif above the second-floor windows is located below a projecting stone molding, which itself is just below the sill level of the third-floor window openings; these elements separate the lower two stories of the clock tower from its third through fifth floors. The vertically projecting top two stories of the clock tower are separated from the lower five stories by a projecting stone molding that has seen its profile softened over time. Above this, on each of the south and west faces of the clock tower, is a recessed, corbelled brick panel; faded lettering reading “ESTEY PIANO CO.” is visible within the south panel. The panels are located below two paired courses of corbelled brick that wrap all four sides of the tower. Each of the four sides of the tower contains a round clock with metal hands, with a face of metal and glass, and with metal roman numerals and minute ring; each clock face is surrounded by an inner soldier course of brick and an outer header course of brick, and is flanked by round-headed windows, each with a transom bar and stone sill. Above the clock faces, and wrapping all four sides of the tower, are a projecting stone molding; a terra cotta stringcourse similar to the one below the third-floor windows; four courses of corbelled brick; and a machicolated cornice composed of small, corbelled round arches. A parapet above this cornice is of concrete, or of stucco-covered brick. A segmental-headed opening at the sixth floor of the clock tower, on the tower’s east face, appears to provide access to the roof. Square metal wall anchors, which appear to be original to the building, are present at the first through fifth floors on the tower’s south and west faces, and on all four sides of the tower at the level of the clock faces.

 

Although the Estey Piano Company Factory remains remarkably intact for a building of its age, some alterations have occurred over time. On the 27-bay portion of the south façade east of the clock tower, the easternmost part of the ground floor has been altered with the installation of a three-bay brick projection containing two loading bays and an entrance set within a stepped recess. A projecting wall sign reading “PLUMBING SUPPLIES” on both of its display faces is attached at the easternmost portion of the second floor. The first-floor opening at the second-westernmost bay of the central four-bay projection has been enlarged to become a secondary entrance with a soldier-brick, round arch, and the westernmost first-floor window opening and second-easternmost window openings at the third, fourth, and fifth floors have been filled with brick. The westernmost first-floor window opening appears to be the only one on the south façade to have a concrete, rather than sandstone, sill. No historic windows appear to remain on this facade, except possibly at the easternmost second-, third-, and fourth-floor openings, which contain four-over-four, double-hung windows. These windows are paired at the second floor. The upper portions of the first-floor window openings have been filled with brick, as have the upper portions of the twelve second-floor openings immediately to the east of the clock tower; some of the infill panels at these windows have been punched through with rectangular or round openings. Non-historic metal grilles with lower privacy panels have been installed at the first-floor windows. Three through-the-wall air conditioners are present at the second floor, and numerous vents, satellite dishes, and other non-historic items are attached to the façade and the window sills at the second through fifth floors. A chain-link fence, visible from Bruckner Boulevard, is located on the roof behind the parapet.

 

On the original, twelve-bay portion of the Lincoln Avenue façade immediately to the north of the clock tower, none of the historic windows remain, except at the first floor. All eight first-floor windows on this portion of the façade have wood frames and wood upper sashes; the third- and fourth-northernmost of these windows have two-pane upper sashes with vertical muntins, and the rest have four-pane upper sashes. The second-northernmost window on the original portion of the factory features a round-headed, four-pane upper sash that may be original to the building. Non-historic metal window grilles have been installed at all of these windows; all except the third-southernmost of these have lower privacy panels. The historic entrance, originally located at the second bay north of the clock tower, has been removed; north of the clock tower, a former window opening has been altered to allow for the installation of a non-historic entrance featuring a surround of curved brick in varying shades, a non-historic metal-and-glass door and side panel with a metal intercom, and a non-historic transom light reading “Clock Tower 112.” The openings originally located south of this entrance have been filled with brick that does not match the original; the upper portions of the three southernmost, second-floor window openings have been filled with brick; a through-the-wall air conditioner is present below the second-southernmost, second-floor window opening; and numerous louvers, vents, signs, satellite dishes, and other non-historic items, including electrical conduit below the fourth-through-sixth-southernmost second-floor window openings, are present on this façade. The base of the façade between the entrance and the clock tower is of concrete.

 

On the northern half of the Lincoln Avenue façade—those portions of the façade dating from 1895 and later—alterations include, at the first floor, the enlargement of an opening at the southernmost bay, and its modification into a loading bay; the filling of the second-southernmost opening with brick; the modification of the opening at the seventh-southernmost bay into a secondary entrance; and the infilling of the third-northernmost opening with brick. At the second floor, the second-southernmost opening has been partially filled with brick, and a narrow window has been installed within the reduced opening. At the third floor, the second-southernmost window opening has been filled with brick. The nine remaining first-floor windows on the northern portion of the Lincoln Avenue façade have wood frames and wood top sashes. Non-historic metal grilles have been installed in front of all of these windows. The northernmost and second-, third-, and fifth-northernmost windows feature two-pane top sashes with vertical muntins; the fourth-northernmost window features a four-pane top sash; and the four southernmost of these windows feature four-pane upper and lower sashes, all of which are wood. The fourth and fifth floors appear to contain their historic, multi-pane metal windows with horizontally pivoting sashes, dating from 1919; five of the fourth-floor windows have been altered with the removal of panes for the installation of vents, air conditioners, and satellite dishes. The southernmost fifth-floor window has also been altered with the installation of an air-conditioning unit. Numerous vents, a satellite dish attached to the northernmost fifth-floor window sill, and other non-historic items are present on this façade.

 

The primary north, or 134th Street façade, has also seen alterations, with the filling of the fourthwesternmost first-floor window opening with brick. A non-historic metal gate with gate housing and exposed mechanism has been installed at the first floor, and four vents have been installed on this façade. Vertical wiring, wrapped in insulation, has been installed below the second floor. One window at the fourth floor, and one window at the fifth floor have been altered to allow for the installation of window air conditioning units. The fourth and fifth floors appear to contain their historic, multi-pane metal windows with horizontally pivoting sashes, dating from 1919. The five first-floor windows on the Lincoln Avenue façade have wood frames and wood top sashes; each of the easternmost, third-easternmost, and westernmost of these windows has a two-pane top sash with a vertical muntin, and the others feature four-pane upper sashes. Non-historic metal grilles with privacy panels have been installed in front of the first-floor windows. Two visible satellite dishes have been installed on top of the pilasters on the visible secondary east façade of the Lincoln Avenue leg of the building.

 

Alterations at the clock tower include the removal of the historic entrance on the tower’s south face, at the second-westernmost first-floor bay, and its modification into a window opening; the installation of a metal drainage pipe, which penetrates a terra cotta tile on the east face of the clock tower, above the clock face; and changes to the parapet, which appears to have originally been brick with rectangular, corbelled brick recesses. None of the windows on the clock tower appear to be historic except for the third-southernmost, four-overfour, double-hung wood window at the fourth floor on the west face of the tower; one pane of this window has been removed to allow for the installation of a vent. Brick infill has been installed within the upper portions of the first- and second-floor window openings. Through-the-wall air conditioners have been installed below the second-westernmost opening on the south face, and below the second-southernmost opening on the west face of the tower.

 

- From the 2006 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Kirkjufell, or 'Church Mountain', is a distinctly shaped peak found on the north shore of Iceland’s Snæfellsnes Peninsula, only a short distance away from the town of Grundarfjörður. It is often called ‘the most photographed mountain in Iceland’ due to its dramatic formation and perfect coastal location.

Kirkjufell takes its name from its resemblance to a church steeple, sharpened at the top with long curved sides. From other angles, the mountain has been compared to a witch’s hat or even a freshly scooped ice cream.

 

Visit : www.refordgardens.com/

From Wikipedia:

Elsie Stephen Meighen - born January 22, 1872, Perth, Ontario - and Robert Wilson Reford - born in 1867, Montreal - got married on June 12, 1894.

Elsie Reford was a pioneer of Canadian horticulture, creating one of the largest private gardens in Canada on her estate, Estevan Lodge in eastern Québec. Located in Grand-Métis on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, her gardens have been open to the public since 1962 and operate under the name Les Jardins de Métis and Reford Gardens.

Born January 22, 1872 at Perth, Ontario, Elsie Reford was the eldest of three children born to Robert Meighen and Elsie Stephen. Coming from modest backgrounds themselves, Elsie’s parents ensured that their children received a good education. After being educated in Montreal, she was sent to finishing school in Dresden and Paris, returning to Montreal fluent in both German and French, and ready to take her place in society.

She married Robert Wilson Reford on June 12, 1894. She gave birth to two sons, Bruce in 1895 and Eric in 1900. Robert and Elsie Reford were, by many accounts, an ideal couple. In 1902, they built a house on Drummond Street in Montreal. They both loved the outdoors and they spend several weeks a year in a log cabin they built at Lac Caribou, south of Rimouski. In the autumn they hunted for caribou, deer, and ducks. They returned in winter to ski and snowshoe. Elsie Reford also liked to ride. She had learned as a girl and spent many hours riding on the slopes of Mount Royal. And of course, there was salmon-fishing – a sport at which she excelled.

In her day, she was known for her civic, social, and political activism. She was engaged in philanthropic activities, particularly for the Montreal Maternity Hospital and she was also the moving force behind the creation of the Women’s Canadian Club of Montreal, the first women club in Canada. She believed it important that the women become involved in debates over the great issues of the day, « something beyond the local gossip of the hour ». Her acquaintance with Lord Grey, the Governor-General of Canada from 1904 to 1911, led to her involvement in organizing, in 1908, Québec City’s tercentennial celebrations. The event was one of many to which she devoted herself in building bridges with French-Canadian community.

During the First World War, she joined her two sons in England and did volunteer work at the War Office, translating documents from German into English. After the war, she was active in the Victorian Order of Nurses, the Montreal Council of Social Agencies, and the National Association of Conservative Women.

In 1925 at the age of 53 years, Elsie Reford was operated for appendicitis and during her convalescence, her doctor counselled against fishing, fearing that she did not have the strength to return to the river.”Why not take up gardening?” he said, thinking this a more suitable pastime for a convalescent woman of a certain age. That is why she began laying out the gardens and supervising their construction. The gardens would take ten years to build, and would extend over more than twenty acres.

Elsie Reford had to overcome many difficulties in bringing her garden to life. First among them were the allergies that sometimes left her bedridden for days on end. The second obstacle was the property itself. Estevan was first and foremost a fishing lodge. The site was chosen because of its proximity to a salmon river and its dramatic views – not for the quality of the soil.

To counter-act nature’s deficiencies, she created soil for each of the plants she had selected, bringing peat and sand from nearby farms. This exchange was fortuitous to the local farmers, suffering through the Great Depression. Then, as now, the gardens provided much-needed work to an area with high unemployment. Elsie Reford’s genius as a gardener was born of the knowledge she developed of the needs of plants. Over the course of her long life, she became an expert plantsman. By the end of her life, Elsie Reford was able to counsel other gardeners, writing in the journals of the Royal Horticultural Society and the North American Lily Society. Elsie Reford was not a landscape architect and had no training of any kind as a garden designer. While she collected and appreciated art, she claimed no talents as an artist.

Elsie Stephen Reford died at her Drummond Street home on November 8, 1967 in her ninety-sixth year.

 

In 1995, the Reford Gardens ("Jardins de Métis") in Grand-Métis were designated a National Historic Site of Canada, as being an excellent Canadian example of the English-inspired garden.(Wikipedia)

Visit : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_Reford

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LES JARDINS DE MÉTIS

Créés par Elsie Reford de 1926 à 1958, ces jardins témoignent de façon remarquable de l’art paysager à l’anglaise. Disposés dans un cadre naturel, un ensemble de jardins exhibent fleurs vivaces, arbres et arbustes. Le jardin des pommetiers, les rocailles et l’Allée royale évoquent l’œuvre de cette dame passionnée d’horticulture. Agrémenté d’un ruisseau et de sentiers sinueux, ce site jouit d’un microclimat favorable à la croissance d’espèces uniques au Canada. Les pavots bleus et les lis, privilégiés par Mme Reford, y fleurissent toujours et contribuent , avec d’autres plantes exotiques et indigènes, à l’harmonie de ces lieux.

 

Created by Elsie Reford between 1926 and 1958, these gardens are an inspired example of the English art of the garden. Woven into a natural setting, a series of gardens display perennials, trees and shrubs. A crab-apple orchard, a rock garden, and the Long Walk are also the legacy of this dedicated horticulturist. A microclimate favours the growth of species found nowhere else in Canada, while the stream and winding paths add to the charm. Elsie Reford’s beloved blue poppies and lilies still bloom and contribute, with other exotic and indigenous plants, to the harmony of the site.

 

Commission des lieux et monuments historiques du Canada

Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.

Gouvernement du Canada – Government of Canada

 

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Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes (/ˈsɛlɪbiːz, sɪˈliːbiːz/), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Within Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger populations.

 

The landmass of Sulawesi includes four peninsulas: the northern Minahasa Peninsula; the East Peninsula; the South Peninsula; and the Southeast Peninsula. Three gulfs separate these peninsulas: the Gulf of Tomini between the northern Minahasa and East peninsulas; the Tolo Gulf between the East and Southeast peninsulas; and the Bone Gulf between the South and Southeast peninsulas. The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island and separates the island from Borneo.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The name Sulawesi possibly comes from the words sula ("island") and besi ("iron") and may refer to the historical export of iron from the rich Lake Matano iron deposits. The name came into common use in English following Indonesian independence.

 

The name Celebes was originally given to the island by Portuguese explorers. While its direct translation is unclear, it may be considered a Portuguese rendering of the native name "Sulawesi".

 

GEOGRAPHY

Sulawesi is the world's eleventh-largest island, covering an area of 174,600 km2. The central part of the island is ruggedly mountainous, such that the island's peninsulas have traditionally been remote from each other, with better connections by sea than by road. The three bays that divide Sulawesi's peninsulas are, from north to south, the Tomini, the Tolo and the Boni. These separate the Minahassa or Northern Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the Southeast Peninsula and the South Peninsula.

 

The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island. The island is surrounded by Borneo to the west, by the Philippines to the north, by Maluku to the east, and by Flores and Timor to the south.

 

MINOR ISLANDS

The Selayar Islands make up a peninsula stretching southwards from Southwest Sulawesi into the Flores Sea are administratively part of Sulawesi. The Sangihe Islands and Talaud Islands stretch northward from the northeastern tip of Sulawesi, while Buton Island and its neighbours lie off its southeast peninsula, the Togian Islands are in the Gulf of Tomini, and Peleng Island and Banggai Islands form a cluster between Sulawesi and Maluku. All the above-mentioned islands, and many smaller ones are administratively part of Sulawesi's six provinces.

 

GEOLOGY

The island slopes up from the shores of the deep seas surrounding the island to a high, mostly non-volcanic, mountainous interior. Active volcanoes are found in the northern Minahassa Peninsula, stretching north to the Sangihe Islands. The northern peninsula contains several active volcanoes such as Mount Lokon, Mount Awu, Soputan and Karangetang.

 

According to plate reconstructions, the island is believed to have been formed by the collision of terranes from the Asian Plate (forming the west and southwest) and from the Australian Plate (forming the southeast and Banggai), with island arcs previously in the Pacific (forming the north and east peninsulas).[8] Because of its several tectonic origins, various faults scar the land and as a result the island is prone to earthquakes.

 

Sulawesi, in contrast to most of the other islands in the biogeographical region of Wallacea, is not truly oceanic, but a composite island at the centre of the Asia-Australia collision zone. Parts of the island were formerly attached to either the Asian or Australian continental margin and became separated from these areas by vicariant processes. In the west, the opening of the Makassar Strait separated West Sulawesi from Sundaland in the Eocene c. 45 Mya. In the east, the traditional view of collisions of multiple micro-continental fragments sliced from New Guinea with an active volcanic margin in West Sulawesi at different times since the Early Miocene c. 20 Mya has recently been replaced by the hypothesis that extensional fragmentation has followed a single Miocene collision of West Sulawesi with the Sula Spur, the western end of an ancient folded belt of Variscan origin in the Late Paleozoic.

 

PREHISTORY

Before October 2014, the settlement of South Sulawesi by modern humans had been dated to c. 30,000 BC on the basis of radiocarbon dates obtained from rock shelters in Maros. No earlier evidence of human occupation had at that point been found, but the island almost certainly formed part of the land bridge used for the settlement of Australia and New Guinea by at least 40,000 BCE. There is no evidence of Homo erectus having reached Sulawesi; crude stone tools first discovered in 1947 on the right bank of the Walennae River at Berru, Indonesia, which were thought to date to the Pleistocene on the basis of their association with vertebrate fossils, are now thought to date to perhaps 50,000 BC.

 

Following Peter Bellwood's model of a southward migration of Austronesian-speaking farmers (AN), radiocarbon dates from caves in Maros suggest a date in the mid-second millennium BC for the arrival of a group from east Borneo speaking a Proto-South Sulawesi language (PSS). Initial settlement was probably around the mouth of the Sa'dan river, on the northwest coast of the peninsula, although the south coast has also been suggested.

 

Subsequent migrations across the mountainous landscape resulted in the geographical isolation of PSS speakers and the evolution of their languages into the eight families of the South Sulawesi language group. If each group can be said to have a homeland, that of the Bugis – today the most numerous group – was around lakes Témpé and Sidénréng in the Walennaé depression. Here for some 2,000 years lived the linguistic group that would become the modern Bugis; the archaic name of this group (which is preserved in other local languages) was Ugiq. Despite the fact that today they are closely linked with the Makasar, the closest linguistic neighbours of the Bugis are the Toraja.

 

Pre-1200 Bugis society was most likely organised into chiefdoms. Some anthropologists have speculated these chiefdoms would have warred and, in times of peace, exchanged women with each other. Further, they have speculated that personal security would have been negligible and head-hunting an established cultural practice. The political economy would have been a mixture of hunting and gathering and swidden or shifting agriculture. Speculative planting of wet rice may have taken place along the margins of the lakes and rivers. In Central Sulawesi, there are over 400 granite megaliths, which various archaeological studies have dated to be from 3000 BC to AD 1300. They vary in size from a few centimetres to around 4.5 metres. The original purpose of the megaliths is unknown. About 30 of the megaliths represent human forms. Other megaliths are in form of large pots (Kalamba) and stone plates (Tutu'na).In October 2014 it was announced that cave paintings in Maros had been dated as being about 40,000 years old. Dr Maxime Aubert, of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said that the minimum age for the outline of a hand was 39,900 years old, which made it "the oldest hand stencil in the world" and added, "Next to it is a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one."

 

HISTORY

Starting in the 13th century, access to prestige trade goods and to sources of iron started to alter long-standing cultural patterns and to permit ambitious individuals to build larger political units. It is not known why these two ingredients appeared together; one was perhaps the product of the other.

 

In 1367, several identified polities, located on the island, were mentioned in the Javanese manuscript Nagarakretagama dated from the Majapahit period. Canto 14 mentioned polities including Gowa, Makassar, Luwu and Banggai. It seems that by the 14th century, polities in the island were connected in an archipelagic maritime trading network, centered in the Majapahit port in East Java. By 1400, a number of nascent agricultural principalities had arisen in the western Cenrana valley, as well as on the south coast and on the west coast near modern Parepare.

 

The first Europeans to visit the island (which they believed to be an archipelago due to its contorted shape) were the Portuguese sailors Simão de Abreu, in 1523, and Gomes de Sequeira (among others) in 1525, sent from the Moluccas in search of gold, which the islands had the reputation of producing. A Portuguese base was installed in Makassar in the first decades of the 16th century, lasting until 1665, when it was taken by the Dutch. The Dutch had arrived in Sulawesi in 1605 and were quickly followed by the English, who established a factory in Makassar. From 1660, the Dutch were at war with Gowa, the major Makassar west coast power. In 1669, Admiral Speelman forced the ruler, Sultan Hasanuddin, to sign the Treaty of Bongaya, which handed control of trade to the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch were aided in their conquest by the Bugis warlord Arung Palakka, ruler of the Bugis kingdom of Bone. The Dutch built a fort at Ujung Pandang, while Arung Palakka became the regional overlord and Bone the dominant kingdom. Political and cultural development seems to have slowed as a result of the status quo. In 1905 the entire island became part of the Dutch state colony of the Netherlands East Indies until Japanese occupation in the Second World War. During the Indonesian National Revolution, the Dutch Captain 'Turk' Westerling led campaigns in which hundreds, maybe thousands died during the South Sulawesi Campaign. Following the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949, Sulawesi became part of the federal United States of Indonesia, which in 1950 became absorbed into the unitary Republic of Indonesia.

 

CENTRAL SULAWESI

The Portuguese were rumoured to have a fort in Parigi in 1555. The Kaili were an important group based in the Palu valley and related to the Toraja. Scholars relate that their control swayed under Ternate and Makassar, but this might have been a decision by the Dutch to give their vassals a chance to govern a difficult group. Padbruge commented that in the 1700s Kaili numbers were significant and a highly militant society. In the 1850s a war erupted between the Kaili groups, including the Banawa, in which the Dutch decided to intervene. A complex conflict also involving the Sulu Island pirates and probably Wyndham (a British merchant who commented on being involved in arms dealing to the area in this period and causing a row).

 

In the late 19th century the Sarasins journeyed through the Palu valley as part of a major initiative to bring the Kaili under Dutch rule. Some very surprising and interesting photographs were taken of shamans called Tadulako. Further Christian religious missions entered the area to make one of the most detailed ethnographic studies in the early 20th century. A Swede by the name of Walter Kaudern later studied much of the literature and produced a synthesis. Erskine Downs in the 1950s produced a summary of Kruyts and Andrianis work: "The religion of the Bare'e-Speaking Toradja of Central Celebes," which is invaluable for English-speaking researchers. One of the most recent publications is "When the bones are left," a study of the material culture of central Sulawesi, offering extensive analysis. Also worthy of study are the brilliant works of Monnig Atkinson on the Wana shamans who live in the Mori area.

 

POPULATION

The 2000 census population of the provinces of Sulawesi was 14,946,488, about 7.25% of Indonesia's total population. By the 2010 Census the total had reached 17,371,782, and the latest official estimate (for January 2014) is 18,455,058. The largest city is Makassar.

 

RELIGION

Islam is the majority religion in Sulawesi. The conversion of the lowlands of the south western peninsula (South Sulawesi) to Islam occurred in the early 17th century. The kingdom of Luwu in the Gulf of Bone was the first to accept Islam in February 1605; the Makassar kingdom of Goa-Talloq, centred on the modern-day city of Makassar, followed suit in September. However, the Gorontalo and the Mongondow peoples of the northern peninsula largely converted to Islam only in the 19th century. Most Muslims are Sunnis.

  

POPULATION OF SULAWESI BY PROVINCE (2010)

South Sulawesi (46.4%)

Central Sulawesi (15%)

Southeast Sulawesi (13%)

North Sulawesi (13.0%)

West Sulawesi (6.6%)

Gorontalo (6%)

 

Christians form a substantial minority on the island. According to the demographer Toby Alice Volkman, 17% of Sulawesi's population is Protestant and less than 2% is Roman Catholic. Christians are concentrated on the tip of the northern peninsula around the city of Manado, which is inhabited by the Minahasa, a predominantly Protestant people, and the northernmost Sangir and Talaud Islands. The Toraja people of Tana Toraja in Central Sulawesi have largely converted to Christianity since Indonesia's independence. There are also substantial numbers of Christians around Lake Poso in Central Sulawesi, among the Pamona speaking peoples of Central Sulawesi, and near Mamasa.

 

Though most people identify themselves as Muslims or Christians, they often subscribe to local beliefs and deities as well. It is not uncommon for both groups to make offerings to local gods, goddesses, and spirits.

 

Smaller communities of Buddhists and Hindus are also found on Sulawesi, usually among the Chinese, Balinese and Indian communities.

 

AGMINISTRATION

The island is subdivided into six provinces: Gorontalo, West Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and North Sulawesi. West Sulawesi is a new province, created in 2004 from part of South Sulawesi. The largest cities on the island are Makassar, Manado, Palu, Kendari, Bitung, Gorontalo, Palopo and Baubau.

 

FLORA AND FAUNA

Sulawesi is part of Wallacea, meaning that it has a mix of both Indomalayan and Australasian species that reached the island by crossing deep-water oceanic barriers. The flora includes one native eucalypt, E. deglupta. There are 8 national parks on the island, of which 4 are mostly marine. The parks with the largest terrestrial area are Bogani Nani Wartabone with 2,871 km2 and Lore Lindu National Park with 2,290 km2. Bunaken National Park which protects a rich coral ecosystem has been proposed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

MAMMALS

Early in the Pleistocene, Sulawesi had a dwarf elephant and a dwarf form of Stegodon, (an elephant relative, S. sompoensis); later both were replaced by larger forms. A giant suid, Celebochoerus, was also formerly present. It is thought that many of the migrants to Sulawesi arrived via the Philippines, while Sulawesi in turn served as a way station for migrants to Flores. A Pleistocene faunal turnover is recognised, with the competitive displacement of several indigenous tarsiers by more recently arriving ones and by Celebochoerus by other medium-sized herbivores like the babirusa, anoa and Celebes warty pig.

 

There are 127 known extant native mammalian species in Sulawesi. A large percentage, 62% (79 species) are endemic, meaning that they are found nowhere else in the world. The largest of these are the two species of anoa or dwarf buffalo. Other artiodactyl species inhabiting Sulawesi are the warty pig and the babirusas, which are aberrant pigs. The only native carnivoran is the Sulawesi palm civet (Asian palm and Malayan civets have been introduced). Primates present include a number of tarsiers (T. fuscus, Dian's, Gursky's, Jatna's, Wallace's, the Lariang and pygmy tarsiers) as well as macaques (Heck's, the booted, crested black, Gorontalo, moor, and Tonkean macaques). While most of Sulawesi's mammals are placental and have Asian relatives, several species of cuscus, arboreal marsupials of Australasian origin, are also present (Ailurops ursinus and Strigocuscus celebensis).

 

Sulawesi is home to a large number of endemic rodent genera. Murid rodent genera endemic to Sulawesi and immediately adjacent islands (such as the Togian Islands, Buton Island, and Muna Island) are Bunomys, Echiothrix, Margaretamys, Taeromys and Tateomys as well as the single-species genera Eropeplus, Hyorhinomys, Melasmothrix, Paucidentomys, Paruromys and Sommeromys. Endemic sciurid genera are Hyosciurus, Prosciurillus, Rubrisciurus and Waiomys.

 

While over 20 bat species are present on Sulawesi, only a portion of these are endemic: Rhinolophus tatar, Scotophilus celebensis and the megabats Acerodon celebensis, Boneia bidens, Dobsonia exoleta, Harpyionycteris celebensis, Neopteryx frosti, Rousettus celebensis and Styloctenium wallacei.

 

Several endemic shrews, the Sulawesi shrew, Sulawesi tiny shrew and the Sulawesi white-handed shrew, are found on the island.

 

BIRDS

By contrast, Sulawesian bird species tend to be found on other nearby islands as well, such as Borneo; 31% of Sulawesi's birds are found nowhere else. One true endemic is the fiery-browed starling. Another endemic bird (also found on small neighboring islands) is the largely ground-dwelling, chicken-sized maleo, a megapode which uses hot sand close to the island's volcanic vents to incubate its eggs. Others include the flightless snoring rail, the Sulawesi masked owl, the Sulawesi myna and the grosbeak starling. There are around 350 known bird species in Sulawesi. An international partnership of conservationists, donors, and local people have formed the Alliance for Tompotika Conservation, in an effort to raise awareness and protect the nesting grounds of these birds on the central-eastern arm of the island.

 

REPTILES

The larger reptiles of Sulawesi are not endemic and include reticulated and Burmese pythons, king cobras, water monitors, sailfin lizards, saltwater crocodiles and green sea turtles. An extinct giant tortoise, Megalochelys atlas, was formerly present, but disappeared by 840,000 years ago, possibly because of the arrival of humans. Similarly, komodo dragons or similar lizards appear to have inhabited the island, being among its apex predators. The smaller snakes of Sulawesi include endemic forms such as Calamaria boesemani, Calamaria muelleri, Calamaria nuchalis, Cyclotyphlops, Enhydris matannensis, Ptyas dipsas, Rabdion grovesi, Tropidolaemus laticinctus and Typhlops conradi. Similarly, the smaller lizards of Sulawesi include nonendemic species such as Bronchocela jubata, Dibamus novaeguineae and Gekko smithii, as well as endemic species such as Lipinia infralineolata and Luperosaurus iskandari.

 

AMPHIBIANS

The amphibians of Sulawesi include the endemic frogs Hylarana celebensis, H. macrops, H. mocquardi, Ingerophrynus celebensis, Limnonectes arathooni, L. larvaepartus, L. microtympanum, Occidozyga celebensis, O. semipalmata and O. tompotika as well as the endemic "flying frogs" Rhacophorus edentulus and R. georgii.

 

FRESHWATER FISH

Sulawesi is home to more than 70 freshwater fish species, including more than 55 endemics. Among these are the genus Nomorhamphus, a species flock of viviparous halfbeaks containing 12 species that only are found on Sulawesi (others are from the Philippines). In addition to Nomorhamphus, the majority of Sulawesi's freshwater fish species are ricefishes, gobies (Glossogobius and Mugilogobius) and Telmatherinid sail-fin silversides. The last family is almost entirely restricted to Sulawesi, especially the Malili Lake system, consisting of Matano and Towuti, and the small Lontoa (Wawantoa), Mahalona and Masapi. Another unusual endemic is Lagusia micracanthus from rivers in South Sulawesi, which is the sole member of its genus and among the smallest grunters. The gudgeon Bostrychus microphthalmus from the Maros Karst is the only described species of cave-adapted fish from Sulawesi, but an apparently undescribed species from the same region and genus also exists.

 

FRESHWATER CRUSTACEANS AND SNAILS

Many species of Caridina freshwater shrimp and parathelphusid freshwater crabs (Migmathelphusa, Nautilothelphusa, Parathelphusa, Sundathelphusa and Syntripsa) are endemic to Sulawesi. Several of these species have become very popular in the aquarium hobby, and since most are restricted to a single lake system, they are potentially vulnerable to habitat loss and overexploitation. There are also several endemic cave-adapted shrimp and crabs, especially in the Maros Karst. This includes Cancrocaeca xenomorpha, which has been called the "most highly cave-adapted species of crab known in the world".

 

The genus Tylomelania of freshwater snails is also endemic to Sulawesi, with the majority of the species restricted to Lake Poso and the Malili Lake system.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

The mimic octopus is also present in the waters of Sulawesi's coast.

 

CONSERVATION

Sulawesi island was recently the subject of an Ecoregional Conservation Assessment, coordinated by The Nature Conservancy. Detailed reports about the vegetation of the island are available. The assessment produced a detailed and annotated list of 'conservation portfolio' sites. This information was widely distributed to local government agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Detailed conservation priorities have also been outlined in a recent publication.

 

The lowland forests on the island have mostly been removed. Because of the relative geological youth of the island and its dramatic and sharp topography, the lowland areas are naturally limited in their extent. The past decade has seen dramatic conversion of this rare and endangered habitat. The island also possesses one of the largest outcrops of serpentine soil in the world, which support an unusual and large community of specialized plant species. Overall, the flora and fauna of this unique center of global biodiversity is very poorly documented and understood and remains critically threatened.

 

The islands of Pepaya, Mas and Raja islands, located in Sumalata Village - North Gorontalo Regency (about 30 km from Saronde Island), have been named a nature reserve since the Dutch colonial time in 1936. Four of the only seven species of turtles can be found in the islands, the world's best turtle habitat. They include Penyu Hijau (Chelonia midas), Penyu Sisik (Eretmochelys imbricata), Penyu Tempayan (Caretta caretta) and Penyu Belimbing (Dermochelys coriacea). In 2011, the habitat was threatened by human activities such as illegal poaching and fish bombing activities; furthermore, a lot of coral reefs, which represent a source of food for turtles, have been damaged.

 

ENVIRONMENT

The largest environmental issue in Sulawesi is deforestation. In 2007, scientists found that 80 percent of Sulawesi's forest had been lost or degraded, especially centered in the lowlands and the mangroves. Forests have been felled for logging and large agricultural projects. Loss of forest has resulted in many of Sulawesi's endemic species becoming endangered. In addition, 99 percent of Sulawesi's wetlands have been lost or damaged.

 

Other environmental threats included bushmeat hunting and mining.

 

PARKS

The island of Sulawesi has six national parks and nineteen nature reserves. In addition, Sulawesi has three marine protected areas. Many of Sulawesi's parks are threatened by logging, mining, and deforestation for agriculture.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes (/ˈsɛlɪbiːz, sɪˈliːbiːz/), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Within Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger populations.

 

The landmass of Sulawesi includes four peninsulas: the northern Minahasa Peninsula; the East Peninsula; the South Peninsula; and the Southeast Peninsula. Three gulfs separate these peninsulas: the Gulf of Tomini between the northern Minahasa and East peninsulas; the Tolo Gulf between the East and Southeast peninsulas; and the Bone Gulf between the South and Southeast peninsulas. The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island and separates the island from Borneo.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The name Sulawesi possibly comes from the words sula ("island") and besi ("iron") and may refer to the historical export of iron from the rich Lake Matano iron deposits. The name came into common use in English following Indonesian independence.

 

The name Celebes was originally given to the island by Portuguese explorers. While its direct translation is unclear, it may be considered a Portuguese rendering of the native name "Sulawesi".

 

GEOGRAPHY

Sulawesi is the world's eleventh-largest island, covering an area of 174,600 km2. The central part of the island is ruggedly mountainous, such that the island's peninsulas have traditionally been remote from each other, with better connections by sea than by road. The three bays that divide Sulawesi's peninsulas are, from north to south, the Tomini, the Tolo and the Boni. These separate the Minahassa or Northern Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the Southeast Peninsula and the South Peninsula.

 

The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island. The island is surrounded by Borneo to the west, by the Philippines to the north, by Maluku to the east, and by Flores and Timor to the south.

 

MINOR ISLANDS

The Selayar Islands make up a peninsula stretching southwards from Southwest Sulawesi into the Flores Sea are administratively part of Sulawesi. The Sangihe Islands and Talaud Islands stretch northward from the northeastern tip of Sulawesi, while Buton Island and its neighbours lie off its southeast peninsula, the Togian Islands are in the Gulf of Tomini, and Peleng Island and Banggai Islands form a cluster between Sulawesi and Maluku. All the above-mentioned islands, and many smaller ones are administratively part of Sulawesi's six provinces.

 

GEOLOGY

The island slopes up from the shores of the deep seas surrounding the island to a high, mostly non-volcanic, mountainous interior. Active volcanoes are found in the northern Minahassa Peninsula, stretching north to the Sangihe Islands. The northern peninsula contains several active volcanoes such as Mount Lokon, Mount Awu, Soputan and Karangetang.

 

According to plate reconstructions, the island is believed to have been formed by the collision of terranes from the Asian Plate (forming the west and southwest) and from the Australian Plate (forming the southeast and Banggai), with island arcs previously in the Pacific (forming the north and east peninsulas).[8] Because of its several tectonic origins, various faults scar the land and as a result the island is prone to earthquakes.

 

Sulawesi, in contrast to most of the other islands in the biogeographical region of Wallacea, is not truly oceanic, but a composite island at the centre of the Asia-Australia collision zone. Parts of the island were formerly attached to either the Asian or Australian continental margin and became separated from these areas by vicariant processes. In the west, the opening of the Makassar Strait separated West Sulawesi from Sundaland in the Eocene c. 45 Mya. In the east, the traditional view of collisions of multiple micro-continental fragments sliced from New Guinea with an active volcanic margin in West Sulawesi at different times since the Early Miocene c. 20 Mya has recently been replaced by the hypothesis that extensional fragmentation has followed a single Miocene collision of West Sulawesi with the Sula Spur, the western end of an ancient folded belt of Variscan origin in the Late Paleozoic.

 

PREHISTORY

Before October 2014, the settlement of South Sulawesi by modern humans had been dated to c. 30,000 BC on the basis of radiocarbon dates obtained from rock shelters in Maros. No earlier evidence of human occupation had at that point been found, but the island almost certainly formed part of the land bridge used for the settlement of Australia and New Guinea by at least 40,000 BCE. There is no evidence of Homo erectus having reached Sulawesi; crude stone tools first discovered in 1947 on the right bank of the Walennae River at Berru, Indonesia, which were thought to date to the Pleistocene on the basis of their association with vertebrate fossils, are now thought to date to perhaps 50,000 BC.

 

Following Peter Bellwood's model of a southward migration of Austronesian-speaking farmers (AN), radiocarbon dates from caves in Maros suggest a date in the mid-second millennium BC for the arrival of a group from east Borneo speaking a Proto-South Sulawesi language (PSS). Initial settlement was probably around the mouth of the Sa'dan river, on the northwest coast of the peninsula, although the south coast has also been suggested.

 

Subsequent migrations across the mountainous landscape resulted in the geographical isolation of PSS speakers and the evolution of their languages into the eight families of the South Sulawesi language group. If each group can be said to have a homeland, that of the Bugis – today the most numerous group – was around lakes Témpé and Sidénréng in the Walennaé depression. Here for some 2,000 years lived the linguistic group that would become the modern Bugis; the archaic name of this group (which is preserved in other local languages) was Ugiq. Despite the fact that today they are closely linked with the Makasar, the closest linguistic neighbours of the Bugis are the Toraja.

 

Pre-1200 Bugis society was most likely organised into chiefdoms. Some anthropologists have speculated these chiefdoms would have warred and, in times of peace, exchanged women with each other. Further, they have speculated that personal security would have been negligible and head-hunting an established cultural practice. The political economy would have been a mixture of hunting and gathering and swidden or shifting agriculture. Speculative planting of wet rice may have taken place along the margins of the lakes and rivers. In Central Sulawesi, there are over 400 granite megaliths, which various archaeological studies have dated to be from 3000 BC to AD 1300. They vary in size from a few centimetres to around 4.5 metres. The original purpose of the megaliths is unknown. About 30 of the megaliths represent human forms. Other megaliths are in form of large pots (Kalamba) and stone plates (Tutu'na).In October 2014 it was announced that cave paintings in Maros had been dated as being about 40,000 years old. Dr Maxime Aubert, of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said that the minimum age for the outline of a hand was 39,900 years old, which made it "the oldest hand stencil in the world" and added, "Next to it is a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one."

 

HISTORY

Starting in the 13th century, access to prestige trade goods and to sources of iron started to alter long-standing cultural patterns and to permit ambitious individuals to build larger political units. It is not known why these two ingredients appeared together; one was perhaps the product of the other.

 

In 1367, several identified polities, located on the island, were mentioned in the Javanese manuscript Nagarakretagama dated from the Majapahit period. Canto 14 mentioned polities including Gowa, Makassar, Luwu and Banggai. It seems that by the 14th century, polities in the island were connected in an archipelagic maritime trading network, centered in the Majapahit port in East Java. By 1400, a number of nascent agricultural principalities had arisen in the western Cenrana valley, as well as on the south coast and on the west coast near modern Parepare.

 

The first Europeans to visit the island (which they believed to be an archipelago due to its contorted shape) were the Portuguese sailors Simão de Abreu, in 1523, and Gomes de Sequeira (among others) in 1525, sent from the Moluccas in search of gold, which the islands had the reputation of producing. A Portuguese base was installed in Makassar in the first decades of the 16th century, lasting until 1665, when it was taken by the Dutch. The Dutch had arrived in Sulawesi in 1605 and were quickly followed by the English, who established a factory in Makassar. From 1660, the Dutch were at war with Gowa, the major Makassar west coast power. In 1669, Admiral Speelman forced the ruler, Sultan Hasanuddin, to sign the Treaty of Bongaya, which handed control of trade to the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch were aided in their conquest by the Bugis warlord Arung Palakka, ruler of the Bugis kingdom of Bone. The Dutch built a fort at Ujung Pandang, while Arung Palakka became the regional overlord and Bone the dominant kingdom. Political and cultural development seems to have slowed as a result of the status quo. In 1905 the entire island became part of the Dutch state colony of the Netherlands East Indies until Japanese occupation in the Second World War. During the Indonesian National Revolution, the Dutch Captain 'Turk' Westerling led campaigns in which hundreds, maybe thousands died during the South Sulawesi Campaign. Following the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949, Sulawesi became part of the federal United States of Indonesia, which in 1950 became absorbed into the unitary Republic of Indonesia.

 

CENTRAL SULAWESI

The Portuguese were rumoured to have a fort in Parigi in 1555. The Kaili were an important group based in the Palu valley and related to the Toraja. Scholars relate that their control swayed under Ternate and Makassar, but this might have been a decision by the Dutch to give their vassals a chance to govern a difficult group. Padbruge commented that in the 1700s Kaili numbers were significant and a highly militant society. In the 1850s a war erupted between the Kaili groups, including the Banawa, in which the Dutch decided to intervene. A complex conflict also involving the Sulu Island pirates and probably Wyndham (a British merchant who commented on being involved in arms dealing to the area in this period and causing a row).

 

In the late 19th century the Sarasins journeyed through the Palu valley as part of a major initiative to bring the Kaili under Dutch rule. Some very surprising and interesting photographs were taken of shamans called Tadulako. Further Christian religious missions entered the area to make one of the most detailed ethnographic studies in the early 20th century. A Swede by the name of Walter Kaudern later studied much of the literature and produced a synthesis. Erskine Downs in the 1950s produced a summary of Kruyts and Andrianis work: "The religion of the Bare'e-Speaking Toradja of Central Celebes," which is invaluable for English-speaking researchers. One of the most recent publications is "When the bones are left," a study of the material culture of central Sulawesi, offering extensive analysis. Also worthy of study are the brilliant works of Monnig Atkinson on the Wana shamans who live in the Mori area.

 

POPULATION

The 2000 census population of the provinces of Sulawesi was 14,946,488, about 7.25% of Indonesia's total population. By the 2010 Census the total had reached 17,371,782, and the latest official estimate (for January 2014) is 18,455,058. The largest city is Makassar.

 

RELIGION

Islam is the majority religion in Sulawesi. The conversion of the lowlands of the south western peninsula (South Sulawesi) to Islam occurred in the early 17th century. The kingdom of Luwu in the Gulf of Bone was the first to accept Islam in February 1605; the Makassar kingdom of Goa-Talloq, centred on the modern-day city of Makassar, followed suit in September. However, the Gorontalo and the Mongondow peoples of the northern peninsula largely converted to Islam only in the 19th century. Most Muslims are Sunnis.

  

POPULATION OF SULAWESI BY PROVINCE (2010)

South Sulawesi (46.4%)

Central Sulawesi (15%)

Southeast Sulawesi (13%)

North Sulawesi (13.0%)

West Sulawesi (6.6%)

Gorontalo (6%)

 

Christians form a substantial minority on the island. According to the demographer Toby Alice Volkman, 17% of Sulawesi's population is Protestant and less than 2% is Roman Catholic. Christians are concentrated on the tip of the northern peninsula around the city of Manado, which is inhabited by the Minahasa, a predominantly Protestant people, and the northernmost Sangir and Talaud Islands. The Toraja people of Tana Toraja in Central Sulawesi have largely converted to Christianity since Indonesia's independence. There are also substantial numbers of Christians around Lake Poso in Central Sulawesi, among the Pamona speaking peoples of Central Sulawesi, and near Mamasa.

 

Though most people identify themselves as Muslims or Christians, they often subscribe to local beliefs and deities as well. It is not uncommon for both groups to make offerings to local gods, goddesses, and spirits.

 

Smaller communities of Buddhists and Hindus are also found on Sulawesi, usually among the Chinese, Balinese and Indian communities.

 

AGMINISTRATION

The island is subdivided into six provinces: Gorontalo, West Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and North Sulawesi. West Sulawesi is a new province, created in 2004 from part of South Sulawesi. The largest cities on the island are Makassar, Manado, Palu, Kendari, Bitung, Gorontalo, Palopo and Baubau.

 

FLORA AND FAUNA

Sulawesi is part of Wallacea, meaning that it has a mix of both Indomalayan and Australasian species that reached the island by crossing deep-water oceanic barriers. The flora includes one native eucalypt, E. deglupta. There are 8 national parks on the island, of which 4 are mostly marine. The parks with the largest terrestrial area are Bogani Nani Wartabone with 2,871 km2 and Lore Lindu National Park with 2,290 km2. Bunaken National Park which protects a rich coral ecosystem has been proposed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

MAMMALS

Early in the Pleistocene, Sulawesi had a dwarf elephant and a dwarf form of Stegodon, (an elephant relative, S. sompoensis); later both were replaced by larger forms. A giant suid, Celebochoerus, was also formerly present. It is thought that many of the migrants to Sulawesi arrived via the Philippines, while Sulawesi in turn served as a way station for migrants to Flores. A Pleistocene faunal turnover is recognised, with the competitive displacement of several indigenous tarsiers by more recently arriving ones and by Celebochoerus by other medium-sized herbivores like the babirusa, anoa and Celebes warty pig.

 

There are 127 known extant native mammalian species in Sulawesi. A large percentage, 62% (79 species) are endemic, meaning that they are found nowhere else in the world. The largest of these are the two species of anoa or dwarf buffalo. Other artiodactyl species inhabiting Sulawesi are the warty pig and the babirusas, which are aberrant pigs. The only native carnivoran is the Sulawesi palm civet (Asian palm and Malayan civets have been introduced). Primates present include a number of tarsiers (T. fuscus, Dian's, Gursky's, Jatna's, Wallace's, the Lariang and pygmy tarsiers) as well as macaques (Heck's, the booted, crested black, Gorontalo, moor, and Tonkean macaques). While most of Sulawesi's mammals are placental and have Asian relatives, several species of cuscus, arboreal marsupials of Australasian origin, are also present (Ailurops ursinus and Strigocuscus celebensis).

 

Sulawesi is home to a large number of endemic rodent genera. Murid rodent genera endemic to Sulawesi and immediately adjacent islands (such as the Togian Islands, Buton Island, and Muna Island) are Bunomys, Echiothrix, Margaretamys, Taeromys and Tateomys as well as the single-species genera Eropeplus, Hyorhinomys, Melasmothrix, Paucidentomys, Paruromys and Sommeromys. Endemic sciurid genera are Hyosciurus, Prosciurillus, Rubrisciurus and Waiomys.

 

While over 20 bat species are present on Sulawesi, only a portion of these are endemic: Rhinolophus tatar, Scotophilus celebensis and the megabats Acerodon celebensis, Boneia bidens, Dobsonia exoleta, Harpyionycteris celebensis, Neopteryx frosti, Rousettus celebensis and Styloctenium wallacei.

 

Several endemic shrews, the Sulawesi shrew, Sulawesi tiny shrew and the Sulawesi white-handed shrew, are found on the island.

 

BIRDS

By contrast, Sulawesian bird species tend to be found on other nearby islands as well, such as Borneo; 31% of Sulawesi's birds are found nowhere else. One true endemic is the fiery-browed starling. Another endemic bird (also found on small neighboring islands) is the largely ground-dwelling, chicken-sized maleo, a megapode which uses hot sand close to the island's volcanic vents to incubate its eggs. Others include the flightless snoring rail, the Sulawesi masked owl, the Sulawesi myna and the grosbeak starling. There are around 350 known bird species in Sulawesi. An international partnership of conservationists, donors, and local people have formed the Alliance for Tompotika Conservation, in an effort to raise awareness and protect the nesting grounds of these birds on the central-eastern arm of the island.

 

REPTILES

The larger reptiles of Sulawesi are not endemic and include reticulated and Burmese pythons, king cobras, water monitors, sailfin lizards, saltwater crocodiles and green sea turtles. An extinct giant tortoise, Megalochelys atlas, was formerly present, but disappeared by 840,000 years ago, possibly because of the arrival of humans. Similarly, komodo dragons or similar lizards appear to have inhabited the island, being among its apex predators. The smaller snakes of Sulawesi include endemic forms such as Calamaria boesemani, Calamaria muelleri, Calamaria nuchalis, Cyclotyphlops, Enhydris matannensis, Ptyas dipsas, Rabdion grovesi, Tropidolaemus laticinctus and Typhlops conradi. Similarly, the smaller lizards of Sulawesi include nonendemic species such as Bronchocela jubata, Dibamus novaeguineae and Gekko smithii, as well as endemic species such as Lipinia infralineolata and Luperosaurus iskandari.

 

AMPHIBIANS

The amphibians of Sulawesi include the endemic frogs Hylarana celebensis, H. macrops, H. mocquardi, Ingerophrynus celebensis, Limnonectes arathooni, L. larvaepartus, L. microtympanum, Occidozyga celebensis, O. semipalmata and O. tompotika as well as the endemic "flying frogs" Rhacophorus edentulus and R. georgii.

 

FRESHWATER FISH

Sulawesi is home to more than 70 freshwater fish species, including more than 55 endemics. Among these are the genus Nomorhamphus, a species flock of viviparous halfbeaks containing 12 species that only are found on Sulawesi (others are from the Philippines). In addition to Nomorhamphus, the majority of Sulawesi's freshwater fish species are ricefishes, gobies (Glossogobius and Mugilogobius) and Telmatherinid sail-fin silversides. The last family is almost entirely restricted to Sulawesi, especially the Malili Lake system, consisting of Matano and Towuti, and the small Lontoa (Wawantoa), Mahalona and Masapi. Another unusual endemic is Lagusia micracanthus from rivers in South Sulawesi, which is the sole member of its genus and among the smallest grunters. The gudgeon Bostrychus microphthalmus from the Maros Karst is the only described species of cave-adapted fish from Sulawesi, but an apparently undescribed species from the same region and genus also exists.

 

FRESHWATER CRUSTACEANS AND SNAILS

Many species of Caridina freshwater shrimp and parathelphusid freshwater crabs (Migmathelphusa, Nautilothelphusa, Parathelphusa, Sundathelphusa and Syntripsa) are endemic to Sulawesi. Several of these species have become very popular in the aquarium hobby, and since most are restricted to a single lake system, they are potentially vulnerable to habitat loss and overexploitation. There are also several endemic cave-adapted shrimp and crabs, especially in the Maros Karst. This includes Cancrocaeca xenomorpha, which has been called the "most highly cave-adapted species of crab known in the world".

 

The genus Tylomelania of freshwater snails is also endemic to Sulawesi, with the majority of the species restricted to Lake Poso and the Malili Lake system.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

The mimic octopus is also present in the waters of Sulawesi's coast.

 

CONSERVATION

Sulawesi island was recently the subject of an Ecoregional Conservation Assessment, coordinated by The Nature Conservancy. Detailed reports about the vegetation of the island are available. The assessment produced a detailed and annotated list of 'conservation portfolio' sites. This information was widely distributed to local government agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Detailed conservation priorities have also been outlined in a recent publication.

 

The lowland forests on the island have mostly been removed. Because of the relative geological youth of the island and its dramatic and sharp topography, the lowland areas are naturally limited in their extent. The past decade has seen dramatic conversion of this rare and endangered habitat. The island also possesses one of the largest outcrops of serpentine soil in the world, which support an unusual and large community of specialized plant species. Overall, the flora and fauna of this unique center of global biodiversity is very poorly documented and understood and remains critically threatened.

 

The islands of Pepaya, Mas and Raja islands, located in Sumalata Village - North Gorontalo Regency (about 30 km from Saronde Island), have been named a nature reserve since the Dutch colonial time in 1936. Four of the only seven species of turtles can be found in the islands, the world's best turtle habitat. They include Penyu Hijau (Chelonia midas), Penyu Sisik (Eretmochelys imbricata), Penyu Tempayan (Caretta caretta) and Penyu Belimbing (Dermochelys coriacea). In 2011, the habitat was threatened by human activities such as illegal poaching and fish bombing activities; furthermore, a lot of coral reefs, which represent a source of food for turtles, have been damaged.

 

ENVIRONMENT

The largest environmental issue in Sulawesi is deforestation. In 2007, scientists found that 80 percent of Sulawesi's forest had been lost or degraded, especially centered in the lowlands and the mangroves. Forests have been felled for logging and large agricultural projects. Loss of forest has resulted in many of Sulawesi's endemic species becoming endangered. In addition, 99 percent of Sulawesi's wetlands have been lost or damaged.

 

Other environmental threats included bushmeat hunting and mining.

 

PARKS

The island of Sulawesi has six national parks and nineteen nature reserves. In addition, Sulawesi has three marine protected areas. Many of Sulawesi's parks are threatened by logging, mining, and deforestation for agriculture.

 

WIKIPEDIA

I first visited Dunnottar Castle summer 2017, this magnificent castle sits high on a hill, last time I visited I captured my shots from the cliffs overlooking the site, though today I made the journey up the hill and entered the castle walls , wow what a magnificent experience, just perfect with loads of great photo opportunities to capture real Scottish history,after two hours wandering around and capturing as many shots that caught my eye , I made my way home, a magnificent experience indeed.

 

Dunnottar Castle (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Fhoithear, "fort on the shelving slope" is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of Stonehaven.

 

The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th and 16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been fortified in the Early Middle Ages. Dunnottar has played a prominent role in the history of Scotland through to the 18th-century Jacobite risings because of its strategic location and defensive strength. Dunnottar is best known as the place where the Honours of Scotland, the Scottish crown jewels, were hidden from Oliver Cromwell's invading army in the 17th century. The property of the Keiths from the 14th century, and the seat of the Earl Marischal, Dunnottar declined after the last Earl forfeited his titles by taking part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

 

The castle was restored in the 20th century and is now open to the public.

 

The ruins of the castle are spread over 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres), surrounded by steep cliffs that drop to the North Sea, 50 metres (160 ft) below. A narrow strip of land joins the headland to the mainland, along which a steep path leads up to the gatehouse.

 

The various buildings within the castle include the 14th-century tower house as well as the 16th-century palace. Dunnottar Castle is a scheduled monument, and twelve structures on the site are listed buildings.

 

History

Early Middle Ages

A chapel at Dunnottar is said to have been founded by St Ninian in the 5th century, although it is not clear when the site was first fortified, but in any case the legend is late and highly implausible. Possibly the earliest written reference to the site is found in the Annals of Ulster which record two sieges of "Dún Foither" in 681 and 694.

 

The earlier event has been interpreted as an attack by Brude, the Pictish king of Fortriu, to extend his power over the north-east coast of Scotland. The Scottish Chronicle records that King Domnall II, the first ruler to be called rí Alban (King of Alba), was killed at Dunnottar during an attack by Vikings in 900. King Aethelstan of Wessex led a force into Scotland in 934, and raided as far north as Dunnottar according to the account of Symeon of Durham. W. D. Simpson speculated that a motte might lie under the present caste, but excavations in the 1980s failed to uncover substantive evidence of early medieval fortification.

 

The discovery of a group of Pictish stones at Dunnicaer, a nearby sea stack, has prompted speculation that "Dún Foither" was actually located on the adjacent headland of Bowduns, 0.5 kilometres (0.31 mi) to the north.

 

Later Middle Ages

During the reign of King William the Lion (ruled 1165–1214) Dunnottar was a center of local administration for The Mearns. The castle is named in the Roman de Fergus, an early 13th-century Arthurian romance, in which the hero Fergus must travel to Dunnottar to retrieve a magic shield.

 

In May 1276 a church on the site was consecrated by William Wishart, Bishop of St Andrews. The poet Blind Harry relates that William Wallace captured Dunnottar from the English in 1297, during the Wars of Scottish Independence. He is said to have imprisoned 4,000 defeated English soldiers in the church and burned them alive.

 

In 1336 Edward III of England ordered William Sinclair, 8th Baron of Roslin, to sail eight ships to the partially ruined Dunnottar for the purpose of rebuilding and fortifying the site as a forward resupply base for his northern campaign. Sinclair took with him 160 soldiers, horses, and a corps of masons and carpenters.

 

Edward himself visited in July, but the English efforts were undone before the end of the year when the Scottish Regent Sir Andrew Murray led a force that captured and again destroyed the defences of Dunnottar.

 

In the 14th century Dunnottar was granted to William de Moravia, 5th Earl of Sutherland (d.1370), and in 1346 a licence to crenellate was issued by David II. Around 1359 William Keith, Marischal of Scotland, married Margaret Fraser, niece of Robert the Bruce, and was granted the barony of Dunnottar at this time. Keith then gave the lands of Dunnottar to his daughter Christian and son-in-law William Lindsay of Byres, but in 1392 an excambion (exchange) was agreed whereby Keith regained Dunnottar and Lindsay took lands in Fife.

 

William Keith completed construction of the tower house at Dunnottar, but was excommunicated for building on the consecrated ground associated with the parish church. Keith had provided a new parish church closer to Stonehaven, but was forced to write to the Pope, Benedict XIII, who issued a bull in 1395 lifting the excommunication.William Keith's descendents were created Earls Marischal in the mid 15th century, and they held Dunottar until the 18th century.

 

16th century rebuilding

Through the 16th century the Keiths improved and expanded their principal seats: at Dunnottar and also at Keith Marischal in East Lothian. James IV visited Dunnottar in 1504, and in 1531 James V exempted the Earl's men from military service on the grounds that Dunnottar was one of the "principall strenthis of our realme".

 

Mary, Queen of Scots, visited in 1562 after the Battle of Corrichie, and returned in 1564.

 

James VI stayed for 10 days in 1580, as part of a progress through Fife and Angus, during which a meeting of the Privy Council was convened at Dunnottar.

 

During a rebellion of Catholic nobles in 1592, Dunnottar was captured by a Captain Carr on behalf of the Earl of Huntly, but was restored to Lord Marischal just a few weeks later.

 

In 1581 George Keith succeeded as 5th Earl Marischal, and began a large scale reconstruction that saw the medieval fortress converted into a more comfortable home. The founder of Marischal College in Aberdeen, the 5th Earl valued Dunnottar as much for its dramatic situation as for its security.

 

A "palace" comprising a series of ranges around a quadrangle was built on the north-eastern cliffs, creating luxurious living quarters with sea views. The 13th-century chapel was restored and incorporated into the quadrangle.

 

An impressive stone gatehouse was constructed, now known as Benholm's Lodging, featuring numerous gun ports facing the approach. Although impressive, these are likely to have been fashionable embellishments rather than genuine defensive features.

 

Civil wars

Further information: Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms

In 1639 William Keith, 7th Earl Marischal, came out in support of the Covenanters, a Presbyterian movement who opposed the established Episcopal Church and the changes which Charles I was attempting to impose. With James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, he marched against the Catholic James Gordon, 2nd Viscount Aboyne, Earl of Huntly, and defeated an attempt by the Royalists to seize Stonehaven. However, when Montrose changed sides to the Royalists and marched north, Marischal remained in Dunnottar, even when given command of the area by Parliament, and even when Montrose burned Stonehaven.

 

Marischal then joined with the Engager faction, who had made a deal with the king, and led a troop of horse to the Battle of Preston (1648) in support of the royalists.

 

Following the execution of Charles I in 1649, the Engagers gave their allegiance to his son and heir: Charles II was proclaimed king, arriving in Scotland in June 1650. He visited Dunnottar in July 1650, but his presence in Scotland prompted Oliver Cromwell to lead a force into Scotland, defeating the Scots at Dunbar in September 1650.

 

The Honours of Scotland

Charles II was crowned at Scone Palace on 1 January 1651, at which the Honours of Scotland (the regalia of crown, sword and sceptre) were used. However, with Cromwell's troops in Lothian, the honours could not be returned to Edinburgh. The Earl Marischal, as Marischal of Scotland, had formal responsibility for the honours, and in June the Privy Council duly decided to place them at Dunnottar.

 

They were brought to the castle by Katherine Drummond, hidden in sacks of wool. Sir George Ogilvie (or Ogilvy) of Barras was appointed lieutenant-governor of the castle, and given responsibility for its defence.

 

In November 1651 Cromwell's troops called on Ogilvie to surrender, but he refused. During the subsequent blockade of the castle, the removal of the Honours of Scotland was planned by Elizabeth Douglas, wife of Sir George Ogilvie, and Christian Fletcher, wife of James Granger, minister of Kinneff Parish Church. The king's papers were first removed from the castle by Anne Lindsay, a kinswoman of Elizabeth Douglas, who walked through the besieging force with the papers sewn into her clothes.

 

Two stories exist regarding the removal of the honours themselves. Fletcher stated in 1664 that over the course of three visits to the castle in February and March 1652, she carried away the crown, sceptre, sword and sword-case hidden amongst sacks of goods. Another account, given in the 18th century by a tutor to the Earl Marischal, records that the honours were lowered from the castle onto the beach, where they were collected by Fletcher's servant and carried off in a creel (basket) of seaweed. Having smuggled the honours from the castle, Fletcher and her husband buried them under the floor of the Old Kirk at Kinneff.

 

Meanwhile, by May 1652 the commander of the blockade, Colonel Thomas Morgan, had taken delivery of the artillery necessary for the reduction of Dunnottar. Ogilvie surrendered on 24 May, on condition that the garrison could go free. Finding the honours gone, the Cromwellians imprisoned Ogilvie and his wife in the castle until the following year, when a false story was put about suggesting that the honours had been taken overseas.

 

Much of the castle property was removed, including twenty-one brass cannons,[28] and Marischal was required to sell further lands and possessions to pay fines imposed by Cromwell's government.

 

At the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, the honours were removed from Kinneff Church and returned to the king. Ogilvie quarrelled with Marischal's mother over who would take credit for saving the honours, though he was eventually rewarded with a baronetcy. Fletcher was awarded 2,000 merks by Parliament but the sum was never paid.

  

Whigs and Jacobites

Religious and political conflicts continued to be played out at Dunnottar through the 17th and early 18th centuries. In 1685, during the rebellion of the Earl of Argyll against the new king James VII, 167 Covenanters were seized and held in a cellar at Dunnottar. The prisoners included 122 men and 45 women associated with the Whigs, an anti-Royalist group within the Covenanter movement, and had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the new king.

 

The Whigs were imprisoned from 24 May until late July. A group of 25 escaped, although two of these were killed in a fall from the cliffs, and another 15 were recaptured. Five prisoners died in the vault, and 37 of the Whigs were released after taking the oath of allegiance.

 

The remaining prisoners were transported to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, as part of a colonisation scheme devised by George Scot of Pitlochie. Many, like Scot himself, died on the voyage.

 

The cellar, located beneath the "King's Bedroom" in the 16th-century castle buildings, has since become known as the "Whigs' Vault".

 

Both the Jacobites (supporters of the exiled Stuarts) and the Hanoverians (supporters of George I and his descendents) used Dunnottar Castle. In 1689 during Viscount Dundee's campaign in support of the deposed James VII, the castle was garrisoned for William and Mary with Lord Marischal appointed captain.

 

Seventeen suspected Jacobites from Aberdeen were seized and held in the fortress for around three weeks, including George Liddell, professor of mathematics at Marischal College.

 

In the Jacobite Rising of 1715 George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, took an active role with the rebels, leading cavalry at the Battle of Sheriffmuir. After the subsequent abandonment of the rising Lord Marischal fled to the Continent, eventually becoming French ambassador for Frederick the Great of Prussia. Meanwhile, in 1716, his titles and estates including Dunnottar were declared forfeit to the crown.

 

Later history

The seized estates of the Earl Marischal were purchased in 1720 for £41,172, by the York Buildings Company who dismantled much of the castle.

 

In 1761 the Earl briefly returned to Scotland and bought back Dunnottar only to sell it five years later to Alexander Keith, an Edinburgh lawyer who served as Knight Marischal of Scotland.

 

Dunnottar was inherited in 1852 by Sir Patrick Keith-Murray of Ochtertyre, who in turn sold it in July 1873 to Major Alexander Innes of Cowie and Raemoir for about £80,000.

 

It was purchased by Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray, in 1925 after which his wife embarked on a programme of repairs.

 

Since that time the castle has remained in the family, and has been open to the public, attracting 52,500 visitors in 2009.

 

Dunnottar Castle, and the headland on which is stands, was designated as a scheduled monument in 1970.In 1972 twelve of the structures at Dunnottar were listed.

 

Three buildings are listed at category A as being of "national importance": the keep; the entrance gateway; and Benholm's Lodging.

 

The remaining listings are at category B as being of "regional importance".[39] The Hon. Charles Anthony Pearson, the younger son of the 3rd Viscount Cowdray, currently owns and runs Dunnottar Castle which is part of the 210-square-kilometre (52,000-acre) Dunecht Estates.

 

Portions of the 1990 film Hamlet, starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close, were shot there.

  

Description

Dunnottar's strategic location allowed its owners to control the coastal terrace between the North Sea cliffs and the hills of the Mounth, 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) inland, which enabled access to and from the north-east of Scotland.

 

The site is accessed via a steep, 800-metre (2,600 ft) footpath (with modern staircases) from a car park on the coastal road, or via a 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) cliff-top path from Stonehaven. Dunnottar's several buildings, put up between the 13th and 17th centuries, are arranged across a headland covering around 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres).

 

The dominant building, viewed from the land approach, is the 14th-century keep or tower house. The other principal buildings are the gatehouse; the chapel; and the 16th-century "palace" which incorporates the "Whigs' Vault".

 

Defences

The approach to the castle is overlooked by outworks on the "Fiddle Head", a promontory on the western side of the headland. The entrance is through the well-defended main gate, set in a curtain wall which entirely blocks a cleft in the rocky cliffs.

 

The gate has a portcullis and has been partly blocked up. Alongside the main gate is the 16th-century Benholm's Lodging, a five-storey building cut into the rock, which incorporated a prison with apartments above.

 

Three tiers of gun ports face outwards from the lower floors of Benholm's Lodging, while inside the main gate, a group of four gun ports face the entrance. The entrance passage then turns sharply to the left, running underground through two tunnels to emerge near the tower house.

 

Simpson contends that these defences are "without exception the strongest in Scotland", although later writers have doubted the effectiveness of the gun ports. Cruden notes that the alignment of the gun ports in Benholm's Lodging, facing across the approach rather than along, means that they are of limited efficiency.

 

The practicality of the gun ports facing the entrance has also been questioned, though an inventory of 1612 records that four brass cannons were placed here.

 

A second access to the castle leads up from a rocky cove, the aperture to a marine cave on the northern side of the Dunnottar cliffs into which a small boat could be brought. From here a steep path leads to the well-fortified postern gate on the cliff top, which in turn offers access to the castle via the Water Gate in the palace.

 

Artillery defences, taking the form of earthworks, surround the north-west corner of the castle, facing inland, and the south-east, facing seaward. A small sentry box or guard house stands by the eastern battery, overlooking the coast.

 

Tower house and surrounding buildings

The tower house of Dunnottar, viewed from the west

The late 14th-century tower house has a stone-vaulted basement, and originally had three further storeys and a garret above.

 

Measuring 12 by 11 metres (39 by 36 ft), the tower house stood 15 metres (49 ft) high to its gable. The principal rooms included a great hall and a private chamber for the lord, with bedrooms upstairs.

 

Beside the tower house is a storehouse, and a blacksmith's forge with a large chimney. A stable block is ranged along the southern edge of the headland. Nearby is Waterton's Lodging, also known as the Priest's House, built around 1574, possibly for the use of William Keith (died 1580), son of the 4th Earl Marischal.

 

This small self-contained house includes a hall and kitchen at ground level, with private chambers above, and has a projecting spiral stair on the north side. It is named for Thomas Forbes of Waterton, an attendant of the 7th Earl.

 

The palace

The palace, to the north-east of the headland, was built in the late 16th century and early to mid-17th century. It comprises three main wings set out around a quadrangle, and for the most part is probably the work of the 5th Earl Marischal who succeeded in 1581.

 

It provided extensive and comfortable accommodation to replace the rooms in the tower house. In its long, low design it has been compared to contemporary English buildings, in contrast to the Scottish tradition of taller towers still prevalent in the 16th century.

 

Seven identical lodgings are arranged along the west range, each opening onto the quadrangle and including windows and fireplace. Above the lodgings the west range comprised a 35-metre (115 ft) gallery. Now roofless, the gallery originally had an elaborate oak ceiling, and on display was a Roman tablet taken from the Antonine Wall.

 

At the north end of the gallery was a drawing room linked to the north range. The gallery could also be accessed from the Silver House to the south, which incorporated a broad stairway with a treasury above.

 

The basement of the north range incorporates kitchens and stores, with a dining room and great chamber above. At ground floor level is the Water Gate, between the north and west ranges, which gives access to the postern on the northern cliffs.

 

The east and north ranges are linked via a rectangular stair. The east range has a larder, brewhouse and bakery at ground level, with a suite of apartments for the Countess above. A north-east wing contains the Earl's apartments, and includes the "King's Bedroom" in which Charles II stayed. In this room is a carved stone inscribed with the arms of the 7th Earl and his wife, and the date 1654. Below these rooms is the Whigs' Vault, a cellar measuring 16 by 4.5 metres (52 by 15 ft). This cellar, in which the Covenanters were held in 1685, has a large eastern window, as well as a lower vault accessed via a trap-door in the floor.

 

Of the chambers in the palace, only the dining room and the Silver House remain roofed, having been restored in the 1920s. The central area contains a circular cistern or fish pond, 16 metres (52 ft) across and 7.6 metres (25 ft) deep, and a bowling green is located to the west.

 

At the south-east corner of the quadrangle is the chapel, consecrated in 1276 and largely rebuilt in the 16th century. Medieval walling and two 13th-century windows remain, and there is a graveyard to the south.

More info here - www.thevisitor.co.uk/visitor-features/Ship-wreck-still-in...

 

Ship wreck still interests Heysham inhabitants

 

Published Date: 08 November 2007

A shipwreck off Heysham has fascinated inhabitants of the village and its surrounding area since the vessel ran aground over 100 years ago.

Retired ship engineer and Heysham resident KEN CALVERLEY tells GREG LAMBERT how he fell in love with the sunken cargo ship – The Vanadis of Jakobstad in Finland – and how he researched its dramatic history, then

rescued and restored the ship's cannon, which he hopes will be put on display in Heysham for future generations...

 

IT was a sunny day, September 20 2005, when Ken Calverley walked out across the Heysham sands to get a close-up view of the wreck of the Vanadis.

 

After a 20-minute walk accompanied by his grandson Thomas, he reached the sunken hull of the ship that had been wrecked at Half Moon Bay for his entire life.

 

"We were surprised how long the hull was and what good condition the wood was in to say it had been buried in the sand and wrecked over 100 years ago," he says.

 

"As I stood and looked at the wreck I thought to myself what would life have been like on board the Vanadis.

 

"It must have been a terrible experience when the Vanadis went on the sandbank and was pounded by the raging sea and damaged by gale force winds."

 

Ken, who worked on ship maintenance at Heysham Harbour for more than 33 years, knew the basics of the story – that the Vanadis had been wrecked off Heysham in a storm in 1903, before being blown ashore and coming to rest at Half Moon Bay.

 

When they returned home, he found himself looking at pictures of the wreck taken by his grandson - curious to find out more about the Vanadis and exactly how it came about its demise.

 

Fascinated by the shipwreck, Ken made regular walks out onto the sand over the ensuing weeks.

 

On one visit, he came across a most interesting find in the stern of the rotten hull.

 

"Covered in rust and scale and buried partly in the sand we found a cannon, about three feet in length.

 

"We did not think a sailing ship would need to carry a cannon in 1903. When we got home I telephoned the Lancaster Maritime Museum and told them of our find. After some days they got in touch and said they had no room for the cannon.

 

"I couldn't believe it. If this isn't maritime history I don't know what is."

 

Disappointed but undeterred, Ken looked up the Vanadis on the Internet but most of the information he discovered was written in Swedish.

So he wrote to the museum in Jakobstad, Finland, where the ship was first built.

 

"To my surprise they soon answered my letter and sent me pictures of the Vanadis in her sailing days," he says.

 

"They thanked me for the photographs and information I sent them about the Vanadis and said they had some diaries written by crew members in Swedish, but they would translate it for me if I was interested.

 

"I wrote back and said yes. I received them a few weeks later – they told me about the terrible weather and crossings of the Atlantic Ocean that the ship had been through.

 

"They also said the ship had a cannon because there could have been rogue (pirate) ships in the Eastern seas during its early days at sea."

According to the information Ken received from Jakobstad museum, the Vanadis was built in Jakobstad in 1874.

 

In Nordic mythology Vanadis is another name for Freya – the goddess of fertility, youth, beauty and the dead – and she was represented in the ship's figurehead.

 

The cargo ship, originally owned by a rich Finnish shipping merchant called Otto Malm, was 185 feet long and 35.1 breadth with a gross tonnage of 1.1019 tonnes.

 

The Vanadis made its first journey to England on November 12, 1874 – destination Hull. Other early journeys took the ship to Singapore, Java and New York.

 

Tragedy struck the frigate on December 7, 1882, when in the English Channel, heavy seas washed over the ship and pulled five men overboard to their deaths. A sixth casualty of the same journey died of stomach trouble.

 

In July 1894 the Vanadis was hit by a hurricane as it sailed towards the Florida coast. The ship was battered for many hours by storm force winds but arrived in Pensacola, despite all sails having been blown to shreds and severe damage to masts and rigging.

 

On August 25 1898 the Vanadis left Plymouth heading for the north American coast to pick up a cargo of timber. On October 2 they were hit by another massive hurricane north of the Bahamas. The main top sails were torn to pieces and the mast was destroyed.

 

Somehow the crew survived, and set to work to put up masts out of the wreckage left on the decks, and rig up the sails and get the ship sailing again.

 

In a subsequent letter to his wife, first mate Frans Hagglund described this hurricane as so devastating the Vanadis could easily have been wrecked and "lost with all hands".

 

But after a few more days at sea the ship was able to limp into the city of Savannah in Georgia.

 

The Vanadis stayed there until early 1899 as repairs took many months. The ship was then sold to John Anderson from the Island of Aland in Finland.

 

Over the next four years the frigate continued to sail, mainly bringing timber to Europe from America.

 

Its final trip began on February 22, 1903, headed from Darien in Georgia, USA with a cargo of timber to the port of Fleetwood.

 

But the following day the Vanadis ran into a storm, this time in Morecambe Bay as gales reached storm force in Heysham Lake.

 

The ship rang aground on Sunderland bank in the entrance to the River Lune in extremely rough seas. A Fleetwood lifeboat, the Maude pick-up, was sent out to rescue nine of the crew and the other members of the 20-strong crew managed to make their own escape in a boat. All survived.

 

The ship then floated off Sunderland bank and drifted up past the entrance of the new Heysham Harbour – which was not open to ships until 1904. The Vanadis was then was blown ashore in Half Moon Bay about five miles from Sunderland bank.

 

"It's amazing that the ship survived two hurricanes, yet was eventually wrecked in Morecambe Bay," says Ken.

 

According to records supplied by Jakobstad museum, the new owners had not maintained the ship's windlass and both the captain and the pilot agreed this was the cause of the wreck. After the wreck, the cargo was removed by horse and cart and sold to the highest bidder. As she lay on the shore the ship was stripped of her decking and broken masts.

 

"On the day the Vanadis was blown ashore and wrecked, the people of Heysham would have been on the shore looking for bits of the wreck," says Ken.

 

He says a local blacksmith salvaged some of the yellow metal sheathing from the hull, while the ship's figurehead was retrieved and became a feature of the rose gardens of Heysham Head, until it was sold when the Head was closed down many years ago.

 

As years went by the hull of the Vanadis was slowly covered with sand before gradually being re-exposed by the elements about a decade ago.

Shortly after his phone call to Lancaster Maritime Museum, Ken and his friend, fisherman Trevor Owen from Sunderland Point, decided to rescue the cannon he had uncovered in the wreck.

 

"After all, you don't find a 100-year-old cannon every day!" says Ken.

On Sunday November 11, 2005, Ken and Trevor ventured out onto the sands on a quad bike on their rescue mission.

 

"The cannon was very heavy and it was hard work to get it on the back of the quad bike," says Ken.

 

The pair attracted attention from some dog walkers, who reported them to the police – saying someone was looting the over 100-year-old wreck!

 

"I told the police I had contacted the museum, they said they had no room for it so we decided to go and save it as it was a bit of Heysham's heritage," says Ken. "They agreed it was a good idea.

 

"We put the cannon in fresh water for the winter months until May 2006 to get the salt out of it. Most of the rust was removed with a wire brush and it was in quite good condition to say it had been under sand and sea for over a century."

 

Using pitch pine wood washed up on Middleton Sands from the old Heysham Harbour jetty, Ken built a carriage for the restored cannon to sit on.

"We had a hard job getting four iron wheels for the carriage but I know a local scrap dealer Howard who found us some after a long search. I can't thank him, and Trevor, enough for their help."

 

Ken says he looks at the finished cannon and realises the whole experience has been worthwhile.

 

"When I returned to the wreck some weeks after rescuing the cannon, the rollers and iron work that had been with the cannon had gone, washed out of the stern end and sunk in the sand, lost forever."

 

Ken thinks it won't be long before the wreck itself is completely covered again.

 

"I went out again in July and the middle of the hull's back was broken, and filled with sand.

 

"The surrounding sand isn't safe to walk on now, it's quicksand.

"I don't think I'll go out again – I think the winter gales might finish her off."

 

The cannon is currently in storage, but Ken intends to talk to the Heysham Heritage Centre in Heysham Village to see if they can put it on permanent display.

 

"I've said all along that it should belong to the Village," explains Ken.

 

"After all, it is an important part of Heysham's heritage. "

n OUR thanks to Charlie Overett and Ian Miller for helping us take photos of the Vanadis.

Bronx, New York City, New York, United States of America

 

If you want to know more about my walks and photos, check out my blog.

 

Summary

 

Featuring robust brick facades and a high corner clock tower, the former Estey Piano Company Factory is a distinguished monument to an industry that was once one of the Bronx’s most important. Anchoring the northeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard since 1886, when its original portion was completed, the Estey building is the oldest-known former piano factory standing in the Bronx today. It is also one of the earliest large factories remaining in its Mott Haven neighborhood, dating from the period in which the area first experienced intensive industrial development. Today, as in decades past, the building’s signature clock tower and expansive facades—simply but elegantly detailed with terra cotta, patterned brick, and contrasting stone—are visible from the waterfront and nearby Harlem River bridges, making the Estey Factory a true neighborhood landmark.

 

Manufacturing blossomed in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx during the 1880s, when new factories started springing up in the area east of Third Avenue. Many of these produced pianos or their components, and by 1919, the Bronx had more than 60 such factories, making it one of America’s piano-manufacturing centers. One of the city’s first piano factories to be built in the Annexed District or North Side, as the western portions of the Bronx were known between 1874 and 1898, the Estey building was credited with providing “an unusual stimulus” for the movement of other piano makers there. Several of the manufacturers that followed Estey to the Annexed District, and later the Bronx, clustered within a few blocks of its factory, creating an important nucleus for the piano industry.

 

The Estey Piano Company was organized by Jacob Estey and John B. Simpson in 1885. Two decades before, Estey had established an organ works in Brattleboro, Vt. that had grown into one of the country’s largest producers of reed organs, thousands of which found their way into American parlors every year. Like other organ manufacturers in the late nineteenth century, Estey sought to diversify into the booming piano industry, and his partnership with Simpson—a pioneering North Side piano manufacturer—was a means to that end. When Estey Piano opened its factory, it manufactured upright and grand pianos that would become recognized for their “superior construction and workmanship.”

 

The original portion of the Estey Piano Factory was designed by the architectural firm of A.B. Ogden & Son. Many of this building’s features, including its L-shaped plan, flat roof, regular fenestration pattern and bay arrangement, and relatively narrow width to allow for daylight penetration, are characteristic of latenineteenth-century factory buildings. Its mixture of segmental- and round-headed window openings, and the Romanesque machicolations of its clock tower, place the Estey Factory within the tradition of the American round-arched style. Other features, including the factory’s distinctive, red-orange brick, dogtoothed and zigzagging patterned-brick stringcourses, recessed brick panels, terra cotta tiles featuring festoons, lions’ heads, and foliate motifs—and of course, its dramatic, projecting clock tower—speak of a building that sought to announce its presence on the urban landscape, projecting a strong public image for its owner. Indeed, the Estey Piano Company often included an illustration of this factory on its trade cards, which advertised the firm’s products.

 

The original building was extended to the east along Southern Boulevard in 1890, with a harmonious five-story addition designed by John B. Snook & Sons, and to the north, along Lincoln Avenue, with one-story additions in 1895. The Lincoln Avenue additions appear to have been combined and expanded, and then raised to three stories in 1909, and by an additional two stories in 1919; the 1919 addition near the southeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street features broad expanses of industrial sash that were characteristic of the “daylight factories” of the early twentieth century. Known today as the Clock Tower Building, the old Estey Piano Company Factory currently houses artists and their studios. With its historic fabric almost completely intact, the building remains, in the words of the AIA Guide to New York City, “the grande dame of the piano trade: not virgin, but all-together and proud.”

 

The Industrial Development of Mott Haven

 

Well before the 1898 creation of the borough of the Bronx, industrial activity was occurring in the area that is now the Bronx’s southernmost portion. In 1828, Jordan L. Mott, the inventor of a coal-burning iron cooking stove, opened a “modest little factory” on property he had purchased on the Harlem River near the present Third Avenue, in what was then the township of Morrisania. Mott started calling the area Mott Haven and, in 1850, seeking to attract additional industry to the area, he laid out the Mott Haven Canal, an artificial inlet from the Harlem River that would ultimately extend to just south of 144th Street. The canal, however, was slow to attract industrial firms, and by 1879, only a handful of substantial ones existed nearby, including a brass and iron works, a machine shop, and a few lumber and coal yards, all of which were below 138th Street. These were joined by a marble yard, lumber yard, and hotel west of the canal, near the tracks built by the New York & Harlem Railroad to connect Manhattan with what is now the Bronx, in 1841. Despite the presence of the large Harlem River & Port Chester Railroad yard, which stretched from Lincoln Avenue to Brown Place south of 132nd Street, few factories appear to have existed east of Third Avenue at the end of the 1870s.

 

In 1874, the townships of Morrisania, West Farms, and Kingsbridge—the sections of the present Bronx borough located west of the Bronx River—became part of New York City. Officially called the 23rd and 24th Wards, they were generally referred to as the “Annexed District” or “North Side,” but they remained fairly isolated. At that time, few links existed between the southern portion of the District and Manhattan; among those that did was a cast-iron bridge at Third Avenue which, in 1860, had replaced an old wood dam-bridge built in the 1790s at that location.

 

Soon after annexation, however, local residents, property owners, business owners, and booster groups like the North Side Association began agitating for improved infrastructure, including better connections with Manhattan. In the 1880s, new public works started to be built; among them was the Madison Avenue Bridge, completed in 1884, which spanned the Harlem River at 138th Street, about five blocks north of the Mott Iron Works complex. By 1885, additional industrial concerns—including a planing mill, cabinet maker, and nickel works, and factories making carpets and surgical instruments—had sprung up in Mott Haven, near and below 138th Street, and close to Third Avenue. The expanded rail yard below 132nd Street, at that point operated by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, connected directly to new docks at the foot of Willis Avenue. A few factories had sprouted up in the area east of Lincoln Avenue, as the Estey Piano Company Factory, then under construction at the northeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard, shared a block with the expansive works of the New York Lumber and Woodworking Company.

 

The 1886 opening of the Second Avenue Bridge just a few blocks from the Estey Factory provided a Harlem River crossing for the trains of the new Suburban Rapid Transit Company. The Suburban’s line, which would come to be known in the Bronx as the Third Avenue El, was the first to bring rapid transit service to the Annexed District. With its southern terminus on the Manhattan side of the Harlem, where it met Manhattan’s east-side elevated lines, the Suburban stopped at Southern Boulevard, before continuing northward; service on the line was expanded and improved between 1887 and 1902. While the Suburban was under construction, Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide predicted that it would have an enormous impact on the North Side, calling it, in 1885, “a great thing for the [Annexed District], as well as for New York City. It will furnish cheap homes for a poorer population, as well as choice rural habitations for the well-to-do. We may expect many light manufacturing industries to become naturalized on the other side of the Harlem.” And the line did come to play a crucial role in Mott Haven’s late-nineteenth-century development, spurring rowhouse construction in the late 1880s and 1890s. As new housing sprouted up, so too did industry; an 1894 drawing of the Harlem River east of Third Avenue shows a busy waterfront with docks and factories on both sides of the river, including the Estey Factory, with its distinctive clock tower clearly visible. In 1895, the New York Times noted that “that part of the 23rd Ward along the Harlem River”—that is, the southernmost portion of the Annexed District, including Mott Haven—was “a very busy manufacturing place.”

 

Improved rapid transit connections with Manhattan aided Mott Haven’s residential growth, but the area’s industrial development was spurred by its Harlem River location and the expansion of its freight-rail infrastructure. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the New York, New Haven & Hartford—with a freight depot located one block south of the Estey Factory, at Lincoln Avenue and 132nd Street—connected with dozens of railroads providing service throughout the eastern and midwestern United States, and into Canada. The New York Central system, with extensive yards close by in Melrose, was just as far-reaching. And the southern Bronx retained these transportation advantages into the twentieth century. Writing in 1908 about the proliferation of piano factories, many of which were in the southern Bronx, lifelong piano man William

 

P.H. Bacon pointed to the borough’s “superior transportation and shipping facilities, both by water and land,” as well as “the opportunity of getting land for the erection of commodious factories at reasonable figures.” In experiencing strong manufacturing growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Mott Haven was a microcosm of the Bronx and the city as a whole: by 1920, New York City had 12% of the country’s factory workers, and by 1927, the Bronx had 2,700 plants with more than 100,000 employees.

 

Industrial growth had been rapid in the southern Bronx; Bacon wrote, in 1908, of “the busy hum of commerce where but a few years ago, the lowing of cattle and other sylvan sounds were the only noises heard.” The end of World War II marked the apex of manufacturing in New York, as in 1947, more manufacturing jobs existed in the city than in Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia combined. But industrial activity in the Bronx would soon begin to decline, reflecting city-wide trends. By the 1950s, New York City was rapidly losing industrial jobs, with manufacturers leaving in droves for the suburbs, or departing the region entirely. Between 1969 and 1999, the number of manufacturing jobs in the city fell by twothirds. Contributing to the decline of industry in the southern Bronx was the destruction of manufacturing space with the construction of broad new highways; the building of the earliest portions of the Major Deegan Expressway through Mott Haven between 1935 and 1939, for example, wiped out several industrial buildings on the block immediately to the north of the Estey Factory, including the former factory of the Brambach Piano Company. In 1997, the New York City Department of City Planning, citing an underutilization of industrial space in Mott Haven, rezoned a portion of Bruckner Boulevard including the block containing the former Estey Factory, to allow for residential uses and community facilities. This special mixed-use zoning was expanded to blocks to the east, west, and south in 2005.

 

As Mott Haven becomes increasingly residential, the former Estey Factory is a reminder of the neighborhood’s early years of intensive industrial growth. Today, the Estey building is one of the oldest large factories standing in Mott Haven, and in the entire area of the southern Bronx below 149th Street.

 

The Estey Piano Company and Its Factory

 

The Estey Piano Company had its roots in the firm of Manner & Company, which manufactured pianos on the Bowery between 1866 and 1869. Manner called his piano the “Arion,” and in 1870, his firm’s name changed to the Arion Piano-Forte Company. In 1872, the company’s factory moved to 149th Street, in what is now the Bronx. John Boulton Simpson, who had been Arion’s secretary since 1871, took control of the company in 1875; in that year, the company apparently moved to a new factory on St. Ann’s Avenue and boasted that “Six years ago, there were none of our pianos in existence; to-day, there are over 7,500 in use.” In the following year, the firm’s name changed to Simpson & Company, although it also continued to be known by the Arion name. By the end of the 1870s, Simpson’s factory—stretching from Brook to St. Ann’s Avenues on the north side of 149th Street—was probably the largest piano factory in the Annexed District, but in 1880, it was sold to another piano maker, the William E. Wheelock Company.

 

While Simpson apparently continued to make “high grade pianos” following the Wheelock sale, the location of his factory in the early 1880s is unclear. Between 1881 and 1885, Simpson & Company continued to maintain a space, likely a showroom, at 5 East 14th Street—where it had been since 1876—but the company was also listed at 127 East 129th and 232 East 40th Streets, neither of which appears to have been the location of a substantial factory. These addresses do, however, link Simpson in the early 1880s with the respected tuner Stephen Brambach, who would play a crucial role in developing Estey’s first pianos; Brambach was located next door to Simpson between 1881 and 1883, and in the same building in 1884.

 

In 1885, the Estey Organ Company of Brattleboro, Vt. was hitting its peak. By the end of the 1880s, the firm, which had been founded in 1866 by Jacob Estey, would be the world’s largest producer of reed organs. Thousands of these instruments found their way into American parlors every year; they were also being distributed, by 1890, to Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America, and to major European cities. Despite the company’s success—it was described, in 1886, as doing “an immense business, amounting to over one million dollars annually”—and its rapid growth—production rose by a factor of seven between 1865 and 1886—the organ business was in decline. The piano business, however, was booming; and, likely noticing the 1882 entry of the renowned organ maker Mason & Hamlin into piano manufacturing, Estey and the company’s other principals, including Levi K. Fuller and Jacob’s son Julius, decided to take the same path.

 

Estey became a piano manufacturer by forming a partnership with Simpson, who was named president of the new Estey Piano Company; the Simpson piano was essentially re-branded as the new Estey model. Simpson, of course, had been a pioneer in Bronx piano manufacturing, and this may have played a role in Estey’s decision to build its plant on the North Side. A.B. Ogden & Son was hired to design the factory, but Simpson may have had some influence over its appearance and form, as he had dabbled in architecture, altering his home on West 129th Street in 1882 to give it a “picturesque exoticism.” Work began on the “large factory with modern appliances,” as it would later be described, in August of 1885; it was completed, at a cost of approximately $40,000, in February of 1886. While the factory was under construction, Estey Piano decided to construct three more buildings that would extend its complex by an additional 80 feet along Southern Boulevard. These brick structures, designed by Ogden’s firm and completed at the same time as the main factory, were a one-story extension, a one-story shed, and a two-story stable.

 

Estey Piano prospered in its early years, as “Estey grand and upright pianos soon became a dominant factor in the piano trade,” according to Alfred Dolge, who added that they often “carried off highest awards for superior construction and workmanship.” In 1887, the trade publication Musical Courier wrote that the Estey Piano Factory was “one of the most complete in the country”; two years later, it called the firm’s upright “a most beautiful specimen of piano manufacturing,” of which Estey would “find no difficulty in disposing … in the best musical circles in the land.” While trade journals’ opinions should be considered with caution, those of the respected piano tuner and regulator Daniel Spillane may be more reliable. Five years after the Estey Factory opened, Spillane called its piano “a very excellent instrument,” adding that “much of the technical and musical merit of these pianos is due to the competency and skill of [Stephen] Brambach, who is a gentleman of fine musical and mechanical sensibilities [and] … one of the best tuners in New York.” Although Brambach had apparently started his own piano company in 1885, he remained involved with Estey in 1890, originating “all new ideas in the mechanics and acoustics of the Estey piano.” Brambach’s brother Carl, “one of the most expert and artistic tuners and toners in the country,” was also employed by Estey Piano, according to Spillane.

 

Business was good, and only four years after the Estey Piano Factory opened, it underwent a huge expansion. In May of 1890, work began on a 100-foot-long east addition that would result in the demolition of the extension, shed, and stable on Southern Boulevard, and create the unified five-story, 200-foot-long Bruckner Boulevard façade that remains essentially unchanged today. The architect of this addition, which was completed in October of 1890 at a cost of about $23,000, was John B. Snook & Sons. This firm, then one of New York’s most prolific, traced its origins to the arrival of John B. Snook (1815-1901) in the United States, from England, in 1835. By 1842, Snook was working with Joseph Trench, and the two helped introduce the Anglo-Italianate style to New York with buildings such as the A.T. Stewart Store at 280 Broadway (1845-46, a Designated New York City Landmark). One of Snook’s best-known works was the first Grand Central Terminal (1869-71, demolished); in 1887, he took his three sons, James Henry (1847-1917), Samuel Booth (18571915), and Thomas Edward, and a son-in-law, John W. Boyleston, into his office, and changed his firm’s name to John B. Snook & Sons. Although Snook had designed a diverse array of buildings—including residential and commercial structures for some of New York’s most prominent families—his firm designed several manufacturing lofts in the 1880s and 1890s that would have made it an appropriate choice for the Estey addition. These industrial buildings, now located in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District—including 8 Greene Street (1883-84), 12 Wooster Street (1883-84), 127 Spring Street/87-89 Greene Street (1886-87), 391-393 West Broadway/77-81 Wooster Street (1889), 151 Spring Street (1889-90) and 361 Canal Street (1891-92)—were utilitarian brick buildings; but like the Estey Factory, they were also designed with an eye toward detail, featuring patterned and textured brickwork, and contrasting stone trim that enliven their facades.

 

The Estey Factory continued to grow in the 1890s. In 1895, the company extended the building 50 feet along Lincoln Avenue with a one-story, 69-foot-deep brick addition that apparently provided a fireproof home for its woodworking department; at the same time, Estey constructed a new, one-story brick lumber room running for an additional 38 feet along Lincoln, where it met a small, one-story brick building then existing at the southeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street. Both the extension and the new building—which appear to remain today as the base of the five-story portion of the factory north of the original building—were designed by Hewlett S. Baker of 492 East 138th Street. Little is known about Baker; he was described as “a property owner in the South Bronx” in a 1910 New York Times article, and as “a contractor and builder in the Bronx” in a 1912 article about his death. By 1900, the one-story buildings near the corner of Lincoln and 134th appear to have been extended to the east.

 

The portion of the factory north of the original building remained at one story until 1909, when Simpson and architect S. Gifford Slocum raised it to three stories. Slocum, an architect of some note, is remembered primarily for his large residences for wealthy clients, including several fine Queen Anne-style residences built in the Saratoga Springs area in the 1880s. Born in Jefferson County, N.Y., Slocum studied architecture at Cornell University from 1873 to 1875, and by 1885, he had offices in Saratoga and Glens Falls, N.Y. In 1888, Slocum moved to Philadelphia while retaining his Saratoga office; between 1890 and 1909, he practiced architecture in New York City. Simpson hired Slocum to design an alteration to his residence at 117 East 83rd Street, in 1900. Slocum’s two-story addition to the Estey Piano Factory was described as being of “similar construction to the present building” in its Buildings Department application, and it demonstrates continuity with the floor below and with the original building in its segmental-arch-headed window openings, and in its similar decorative details, including pilasters, stone sills supported by corbelled brick courses, and patterned-brick stringcourses. A drawing of the factory following the completion of Slocum’s addition appeared in a 1917 Estey Piano Company advertisement.

 

Over the previous years, the Estey Piano Company had undergone several changes, weathering the deaths—in 1890, 1896, and 1902, respectively—of Jacob Estey, Levi K. Fuller, and Julius Estey. The firm’s “warerooms” or showrooms, which had been at 5 East 14th Street since the time of the company’s founding, were at 97 Fifth Avenue by 1900 and 7 West 29th Street by 1909. They would move again—in 1912 to the since-demolished “Estey Building” at 23 West 42nd Street—and by 1916 to 12 West 45th Street. By 1912, Estey pianos were being sold at Loeser’s department store in Brooklyn; in its advertising, the company took advantage of its historical association with the Estey Organ Company, stating that “the world-renowned Estey Pianos … are just as reliable as the Estey Organs made famous by the same firm in the days of our parents.” On at least one occasion, the Estey Piano Factory witnessed strife between its employees and management, as in 1912, workers struck Estey and other Bronx piano manufacturers that would not recognize the piano makers’ union and refused to close their shop floors to non-union employees.

 

In 1917, John B. Simpson’s leadership of the Estey Piano Company came to an end, when George B. Gittins, the former president of piano manufacturer Kohler & Campbell, purchased a controlling interest in the firm. Gittins, an industry prodigy who was only 37 at the time he took Estey Piano’s helm, appears to have begun revamping the company’s product line almost immediately; an “at-the-factory” clearance sale held in November of 1917 was prompted by the company’s intention “to concentrate on the large-scale production of a few standard models.” Two years later, Gittins purchased M. Welte & Sons, Inc., which was originally the American arm of a German company that had invented the reproducing piano, a technologically advanced kind of player piano using special rolls that were able to express, to some extent, the subtleties of the renowned pianists who had “recorded” them. Following the 1907 introduction of Welte’s “Mignon” reproducing piano in the United States, dozens of the world’s most famous pianists made recordings for Welte, allowing Americans to experience, for the first time, something close to having Paderewski, Saint-Saens, and other virtuosi play for them in their homes.

 

Soon after acquiring Welte, Gittins started shutting down the firm’s Poughkeepsie, N.Y. plant—which had produced rolls, reproducing pianos with and without keyboards, Welte “Philharmonic” reproducing organs, orchestrions, and other products—and expanding the Estey Factory building and its complex. In 1919, architect George F. Hogue of 41 Union Square in Manhattan was hired to add two stories to the northern, three-story portion of the factory, and to add an elevator shaft. This alteration, which cost about $25,000, featured broad expanses of industrial sash typical of the “daylight” factories that were then being constructed around the country. By 1921, Gittins had also constructed a two-story building (not part of this Designation) facing Southern Boulevard and adjoining Snook’s 1890 addition, as well as a four-story factory for Welte (not part of this Designation) that remains today at 27 Bruckner Boulevard. In 1922, the Estey-Welte Corporation was created, which served as an umbrella organization for several Gittins holdings, including the Estey Piano Company and the Welte-Mignon Corporation. Estey, at that time, was manufacturing a variety of pianos, including an 88-note player piano, and manual and reproducing uprights and grands; the new four-story factory on Southern Boulevard made Welte-Mignon pianos and grands, actions for reproducing instruments, and Welte Philharmonic organs.

 

In 1925, perhaps sensing the end of the glory days for the piano and player piano, Gittins decided to diversify into the manufacture of pipe organs for churches, concert halls, theaters, and large residences. In the following year, Estey-Welte appeared to be perfectly healthy, but by January of 1927, a crash in its stock price brought the over-extended company to its knees. Estey-Welte was in serious trouble, and by summer of that year, it was reorganized as the Welte Company. Gittins was soon gone; by 1928 his old firm was reorganized again, as the Welte-Mignon Corp. This latest incarnation of the firm fell into receivership in 1929, when its chief assets were split up and its factory emptied; one investor, Donald F. Tripp, bought some of the organ business, and the Estey Piano Company was sold to the Settergren Piano Company of Bluffton, Ind. Tripp’s firm was bankrupt within two years; in 1935, Settergren was renamed the Estey Piano Company.

 

The Estey Piano name continued on for decades. Estey spinets were being advertised in Chicago in 1948, and the firm’s pianos appeared in Macy’s advertisements in the early-to-mid 1960s. The Estey Piano Company was still operating in 1972, when it received a loan from the Commerce Department to assist it in starting production of a plastic piano. At that time, Estey was described as having “an office in Union, N.J., and an old plant in Bluffton, Ind.”

 

After the old Estey Piano Company Factory was vacated in 1929, it passed through the hands of a number of different owners, and was occupied by many different industrial tenants. A sheet-metal works leased space there in 1932, and its occupants in 1937 included the Whitman Supply Company and Unique Balance Company. By 1939, the factory had been acquired by the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank. In February of 1940, Emigrant sold the five-story Estey Factory building and the adjacent two-story building constructed by Gittins to the S.H. Pomeroy Company, a manufacturer of window sashes that had been located on the same block as Estey Piano since 1923 or before. One month later, however, the owner of the building was the 120 Lincoln Avenue Realty Corporation, which was leasing space to Alta Furniture Factories. Until at least 1945, 120 Lincoln Avenue Realty remained the owner of the building; in 1969, it was occupied by the Ranger Plastics Corporation, and in 1973, it was home to a draperies manufacturer. At the end of the 1970s, the old Estey Piano Company Factory housed a maker of textile products and its outlet store, along with manufacturers of wire and “novelty” products. In 1995, when the building was mostly vacant, it was purchased by Truro College, which planned to convert it into student dormitories or a home for a liberal arts and sciences program. Those plans fell through, however, and the college sold the former Estey Factory, now known as the Clock Tower Building, to Carnegie Management, which remodeled its interior to accommodate live-in artists’ studios. It retains this use today.

 

Description

 

The Estey Piano Company Factory is an L-shaped, five-story building with a projecting clock tower at its southwest corner. Spanning the east side of Lincoln Avenue between Bruckner Boulevard and East 134th Street, the building has three primary street facades, all of which feature face brick laid in common bond: a 200-foot-long Bruckner Boulevard façade, a 200-foot-long Lincoln Avenue façade, and a façade on 134th Street that is approximately 69 feet in length and attached to an elevator shaft.

 

The original factory building, which was constructed in 1885-86, extended for 100 feet along Lincoln Avenue and for 100 feet along Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard. Comprising the westernmost 15 upper-story bays on the south façade and the southernmost 15 upper-story bays on the west façade of the existing building, including the clock tower, this original portion of the Estey Piano Factory was extended by 100 feet to the east along Bruckner Boulevard with the construction of a five-story addition in 1890. (The construction of the 1890 addition resulted in the demolition of three buildings of one and two stories that were completed at the same time as the original factory, and which had a combined street frontage of 80 feet.) Before the construction of the 1890 addition, the five-story portion of the south façade terminated, at its east, with a two-bay projection featuring round-headed windows, all set within a corbelled recess, at the first through fifth floors. This projection—which was identical to the two-bay projection that originally terminated the Lincoln Avenue façade, and remains virtually unchanged today—extended above the adjacent portion of the façade, and, like the clock tower, outward from the façade plane. With the completion of John B. Snook & Sons’ 1890 addition, the two-bay projection on the south façade was doubled in width—the two new bays matching the original two—and its parapet was raised to match, in height, the parapet above the then-new, three-bay projection at the eastern end of the extended façade. Both the raised and new parapets featured, just below their pressed-metal cornices, recessed square panels arranged in a row. Also at that time, the four-bay projection became the central feature of a broad, essentially symmetrical Southern Boulevard façade, with the new three-bay projection at the eastern end of the façade balancing the three-bay, projecting clock tower at the building’s corner.

 

The 1890 addition is virtually indistinguishable from the original portion of the factory, largely because it is faced in matching red-orange brick laid in common bond. It also features matching ornament, including stringcourses composed of decorative brick laid in a zigzagging pattern that align with the stringcourses on the original building; a dogtoothed, soldier-brick course just below the parapet that also aligns with the original; recessed, rectangular brick panels with corbelling, and terra cotta tiles arranged in a repeating three-tile pattern, with each of the three tiles featuring a different foliate design, at the roof parapets; projecting, molded sandstone stringcourses just below the parapets; and sandstone window sills, each supported by two courses of corbelled brick. The three-bay projection at the south façade’s eastern end largely duplicates the fenestration and ornament of the clock tower’s second through fifth floors, featuring segmental-headed window openings with arches composed of stone springers and three courses of header brick, set within a corbelled brick recess, at the second floor; square-headed windows at the third and fourth floors, and round-headed windows at the fifth floor; light-colored, contrasting stone trim, which wraps the heads of the rectangular openings and composes a short stringcourse at the springer level of the fifth-floor openings; and a belt course of terra cotta tiles that matches that of the clock tower, in an alternating festoon and lions’-head motif, just below a projecting stone sill course at the third floor. The easternmost three-bay projection, like the central four-bay projection on the south façade, is crowned by a stepped, pressed-metal cornice with a cyma profile at its top. The 1890 addition features seven basement-level openings with stone lintels that are larger than the five basement-level openings on the south façade of the original building; these five original openings retain their historic metal grilles. Aside from this difference, the addition continued the fenestration pattern of the original factory’s south façade: except for the openings on the three-bay east projection, the central four-bay projection, and the clock tower, all of the window openings on the Bruckner Boulevard façade are segmental-headed, each crowned by an arch composed of two header courses of brick.

 

The original part of the Lincoln Avenue façade not including the clock tower—the twelve-bay portion of this façade including, and south of, the five-story projection containing two bays of round-headed windows— is essentially identical to the original part of the Bruckner Boulevard façade, although some minor changes have been made at the first floor. A metal rooftop bulkhead is visible near this façade’s southern end, close to the clock tower. The later portions of the Lincoln Avenue façade north of the original factory, and the 134th Street façade, show evidence of their gradual construction between 1895 and 1919. Although the first through third floors of these facades show kinship with the original factory—particularly in their segmental-headed windows with sandstone sills supported by corbelled brick courses, and in the composition, of each window arch, of two courses of header brick—they also depart from the original façade in significant ways. The bay arrangement of the facades north of the original factory differs from the original bay arrangement, with the 134th Street façade and the northern half of the Lincoln Avenue façade each split into four bays of varying widths separated by austere brick pilasters. The fenestration is less regular than on the original buildings: it appears, for example, that no window opening ever existed at the second-floor, third-northernmost and tenth-northernmost bays on the Lincoln Avenue façade, or at the easternmost and fifth-easternmost second-floor bays on the 134th Street façade. Although the brick of the oldest, first-floor portions of these facades comes close to matching that of the original factory in color, the face brick of the two later two-story additions above—one built in 1909 and one in 1919—is redder in color. On both the Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street facades of the earliest, first-floor addition, and of the second-and-third-floor 1909 addition, stringcourses composed of zigzagging patterned brick align with the patterned-brick stringcourses of the original factory; an exposed horizontal metal beam between the second- and third-floor window openings is slightly lower than the corresponding patterned-brick stringcourse on the original factory. The 1919 addition differs the most of any of the additions from the original factory, featuring large window openings filled with multi-pane metal windows and with concrete lintels and projecting sills. Each of the windows, which are grouped in threes, fours, or fives within their openings, has a total of 12, 16, or 20 panes, and has a central, horizontally pivoting sash of four or six panes. At the eastern end of the north, or 134th Street façade, is an elevator shaft built in 1919 that features, at its ground floor, a large loading bay with a projecting concrete sill.

 

In addition to the Bruckner Boulevard, Lincoln Avenue, and 134th Street primary facades, the Estey Piano Company Factory has two visible secondary facades. The east façade of the Bruckner Boulevard leg of the building features red face brick laid in common bond. A brick rooftop bulkhead and rooftop chain-link fence are visible above this façade. The façade apparently was once painted with the words “ESTEY PIANO MANUFACTORY”; this lettering has either faded, or been partially removed. Visible on the east, or rear façade of the Lincoln Avenue leg of the building, to the south of the brick elevator shaft, are grouped fourth- and fifth-floor, historic metal sashes, apparently dating from 1919, within openings with concrete lintels and sills that are framed by austere brick pilasters. A metal fire escape extends to the roof; roof access is made possible by a break in the parapet.

 

The clock tower projects slightly from the façade plane. Each of the south and west faces of the tower has four window openings set within a two-story corbelled recess, with each of these openings featuring stone sills and headed by a segmental arch composed of three courses of header brick and light-colored stone springers. One pair of recessed brick panels is located below each of the first-floor openings on the tower’s west face, and a single recessed brick panel is located below each of the first-floor openings on its south face; stepped, recessed-brick panels are located below the second-floor openings on the west and south faces. A terra cotta stringcourse composed of terra cotta tiles with an alternating festoon and lions’-head motif above the second-floor windows is located below a projecting stone molding, which itself is just below the sill level of the third-floor window openings; these elements separate the lower two stories of the clock tower from its third through fifth floors. The vertically projecting top two stories of the clock tower are separated from the lower five stories by a projecting stone molding that has seen its profile softened over time. Above this, on each of the south and west faces of the clock tower, is a recessed, corbelled brick panel; faded lettering reading “ESTEY PIANO CO.” is visible within the south panel. The panels are located below two paired courses of corbelled brick that wrap all four sides of the tower. Each of the four sides of the tower contains a round clock with metal hands, with a face of metal and glass, and with metal roman numerals and minute ring; each clock face is surrounded by an inner soldier course of brick and an outer header course of brick, and is flanked by round-headed windows, each with a transom bar and stone sill. Above the clock faces, and wrapping all four sides of the tower, are a projecting stone molding; a terra cotta stringcourse similar to the one below the third-floor windows; four courses of corbelled brick; and a machicolated cornice composed of small, corbelled round arches. A parapet above this cornice is of concrete, or of stucco-covered brick. A segmental-headed opening at the sixth floor of the clock tower, on the tower’s east face, appears to provide access to the roof. Square metal wall anchors, which appear to be original to the building, are present at the first through fifth floors on the tower’s south and west faces, and on all four sides of the tower at the level of the clock faces.

 

Although the Estey Piano Company Factory remains remarkably intact for a building of its age, some alterations have occurred over time. On the 27-bay portion of the south façade east of the clock tower, the easternmost part of the ground floor has been altered with the installation of a three-bay brick projection containing two loading bays and an entrance set within a stepped recess. A projecting wall sign reading “PLUMBING SUPPLIES” on both of its display faces is attached at the easternmost portion of the second floor. The first-floor opening at the second-westernmost bay of the central four-bay projection has been enlarged to become a secondary entrance with a soldier-brick, round arch, and the westernmost first-floor window opening and second-easternmost window openings at the third, fourth, and fifth floors have been filled with brick. The westernmost first-floor window opening appears to be the only one on the south façade to have a concrete, rather than sandstone, sill. No historic windows appear to remain on this facade, except possibly at the easternmost second-, third-, and fourth-floor openings, which contain four-over-four, double-hung windows. These windows are paired at the second floor. The upper portions of the first-floor window openings have been filled with brick, as have the upper portions of the twelve second-floor openings immediately to the east of the clock tower; some of the infill panels at these windows have been punched through with rectangular or round openings. Non-historic metal grilles with lower privacy panels have been installed at the first-floor windows. Three through-the-wall air conditioners are present at the second floor, and numerous vents, satellite dishes, and other non-historic items are attached to the façade and the window sills at the second through fifth floors. A chain-link fence, visible from Bruckner Boulevard, is located on the roof behind the parapet.

 

On the original, twelve-bay portion of the Lincoln Avenue façade immediately to the north of the clock tower, none of the historic windows remain, except at the first floor. All eight first-floor windows on this portion of the façade have wood frames and wood upper sashes; the third- and fourth-northernmost of these windows have two-pane upper sashes with vertical muntins, and the rest have four-pane upper sashes. The second-northernmost window on the original portion of the factory features a round-headed, four-pane upper sash that may be original to the building. Non-historic metal window grilles have been installed at all of these windows; all except the third-southernmost of these have lower privacy panels. The historic entrance, originally located at the second bay north of the clock tower, has been removed; north of the clock tower, a former window opening has been altered to allow for the installation of a non-historic entrance featuring a surround of curved brick in varying shades, a non-historic metal-and-glass door and side panel with a metal intercom, and a non-historic transom light reading “Clock Tower 112.” The openings originally located south of this entrance have been filled with brick that does not match the original; the upper portions of the three southernmost, second-floor window openings have been filled with brick; a through-the-wall air conditioner is present below the second-southernmost, second-floor window opening; and numerous louvers, vents, signs, satellite dishes, and other non-historic items, including electrical conduit below the fourth-through-sixth-southernmost second-floor window openings, are present on this façade. The base of the façade between the entrance and the clock tower is of concrete.

 

On the northern half of the Lincoln Avenue façade—those portions of the façade dating from 1895 and later—alterations include, at the first floor, the enlargement of an opening at the southernmost bay, and its modification into a loading bay; the filling of the second-southernmost opening with brick; the modification of the opening at the seventh-southernmost bay into a secondary entrance; and the infilling of the third-northernmost opening with brick. At the second floor, the second-southernmost opening has been partially filled with brick, and a narrow window has been installed within the reduced opening. At the third floor, the second-southernmost window opening has been filled with brick. The nine remaining first-floor windows on the northern portion of the Lincoln Avenue façade have wood frames and wood top sashes. Non-historic metal grilles have been installed in front of all of these windows. The northernmost and second-, third-, and fifth-northernmost windows feature two-pane top sashes with vertical muntins; the fourth-northernmost window features a four-pane top sash; and the four southernmost of these windows feature four-pane upper and lower sashes, all of which are wood. The fourth and fifth floors appear to contain their historic, multi-pane metal windows with horizontally pivoting sashes, dating from 1919; five of the fourth-floor windows have been altered with the removal of panes for the installation of vents, air conditioners, and satellite dishes. The southernmost fifth-floor window has also been altered with the installation of an air-conditioning unit. Numerous vents, a satellite dish attached to the northernmost fifth-floor window sill, and other non-historic items are present on this façade.

 

The primary north, or 134th Street façade, has also seen alterations, with the filling of the fourthwesternmost first-floor window opening with brick. A non-historic metal gate with gate housing and exposed mechanism has been installed at the first floor, and four vents have been installed on this façade. Vertical wiring, wrapped in insulation, has been installed below the second floor. One window at the fourth floor, and one window at the fifth floor have been altered to allow for the installation of window air conditioning units. The fourth and fifth floors appear to contain their historic, multi-pane metal windows with horizontally pivoting sashes, dating from 1919. The five first-floor windows on the Lincoln Avenue façade have wood frames and wood top sashes; each of the easternmost, third-easternmost, and westernmost of these windows has a two-pane top sash with a vertical muntin, and the others feature four-pane upper sashes. Non-historic metal grilles with privacy panels have been installed in front of the first-floor windows. Two visible satellite dishes have been installed on top of the pilasters on the visible secondary east façade of the Lincoln Avenue leg of the building.

 

Alterations at the clock tower include the removal of the historic entrance on the tower’s south face, at the second-westernmost first-floor bay, and its modification into a window opening; the installation of a metal drainage pipe, which penetrates a terra cotta tile on the east face of the clock tower, above the clock face; and changes to the parapet, which appears to have originally been brick with rectangular, corbelled brick recesses. None of the windows on the clock tower appear to be historic except for the third-southernmost, four-overfour, double-hung wood window at the fourth floor on the west face of the tower; one pane of this window has been removed to allow for the installation of a vent. Brick infill has been installed within the upper portions of the first- and second-floor window openings. Through-the-wall air conditioners have been installed below the second-westernmost opening on the south face, and below the second-southernmost opening on the west face of the tower.

 

- From the 2006 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes (/ˈsɛlɪbiːz, sɪˈliːbiːz/), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Within Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger populations.

 

The landmass of Sulawesi includes four peninsulas: the northern Minahasa Peninsula; the East Peninsula; the South Peninsula; and the Southeast Peninsula. Three gulfs separate these peninsulas: the Gulf of Tomini between the northern Minahasa and East peninsulas; the Tolo Gulf between the East and Southeast peninsulas; and the Bone Gulf between the South and Southeast peninsulas. The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island and separates the island from Borneo.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The name Sulawesi possibly comes from the words sula ("island") and besi ("iron") and may refer to the historical export of iron from the rich Lake Matano iron deposits. The name came into common use in English following Indonesian independence.

 

The name Celebes was originally given to the island by Portuguese explorers. While its direct translation is unclear, it may be considered a Portuguese rendering of the native name "Sulawesi".

 

GEOGRAPHY

Sulawesi is the world's eleventh-largest island, covering an area of 174,600 km2. The central part of the island is ruggedly mountainous, such that the island's peninsulas have traditionally been remote from each other, with better connections by sea than by road. The three bays that divide Sulawesi's peninsulas are, from north to south, the Tomini, the Tolo and the Boni. These separate the Minahassa or Northern Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the Southeast Peninsula and the South Peninsula.

 

The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island. The island is surrounded by Borneo to the west, by the Philippines to the north, by Maluku to the east, and by Flores and Timor to the south.

 

MINOR ISLANDS

The Selayar Islands make up a peninsula stretching southwards from Southwest Sulawesi into the Flores Sea are administratively part of Sulawesi. The Sangihe Islands and Talaud Islands stretch northward from the northeastern tip of Sulawesi, while Buton Island and its neighbours lie off its southeast peninsula, the Togian Islands are in the Gulf of Tomini, and Peleng Island and Banggai Islands form a cluster between Sulawesi and Maluku. All the above-mentioned islands, and many smaller ones are administratively part of Sulawesi's six provinces.

 

GEOLOGY

The island slopes up from the shores of the deep seas surrounding the island to a high, mostly non-volcanic, mountainous interior. Active volcanoes are found in the northern Minahassa Peninsula, stretching north to the Sangihe Islands. The northern peninsula contains several active volcanoes such as Mount Lokon, Mount Awu, Soputan and Karangetang.

 

According to plate reconstructions, the island is believed to have been formed by the collision of terranes from the Asian Plate (forming the west and southwest) and from the Australian Plate (forming the southeast and Banggai), with island arcs previously in the Pacific (forming the north and east peninsulas).[8] Because of its several tectonic origins, various faults scar the land and as a result the island is prone to earthquakes.

 

Sulawesi, in contrast to most of the other islands in the biogeographical region of Wallacea, is not truly oceanic, but a composite island at the centre of the Asia-Australia collision zone. Parts of the island were formerly attached to either the Asian or Australian continental margin and became separated from these areas by vicariant processes. In the west, the opening of the Makassar Strait separated West Sulawesi from Sundaland in the Eocene c. 45 Mya. In the east, the traditional view of collisions of multiple micro-continental fragments sliced from New Guinea with an active volcanic margin in West Sulawesi at different times since the Early Miocene c. 20 Mya has recently been replaced by the hypothesis that extensional fragmentation has followed a single Miocene collision of West Sulawesi with the Sula Spur, the western end of an ancient folded belt of Variscan origin in the Late Paleozoic.

 

PREHISTORY

Before October 2014, the settlement of South Sulawesi by modern humans had been dated to c. 30,000 BC on the basis of radiocarbon dates obtained from rock shelters in Maros. No earlier evidence of human occupation had at that point been found, but the island almost certainly formed part of the land bridge used for the settlement of Australia and New Guinea by at least 40,000 BCE. There is no evidence of Homo erectus having reached Sulawesi; crude stone tools first discovered in 1947 on the right bank of the Walennae River at Berru, Indonesia, which were thought to date to the Pleistocene on the basis of their association with vertebrate fossils, are now thought to date to perhaps 50,000 BC.

 

Following Peter Bellwood's model of a southward migration of Austronesian-speaking farmers (AN), radiocarbon dates from caves in Maros suggest a date in the mid-second millennium BC for the arrival of a group from east Borneo speaking a Proto-South Sulawesi language (PSS). Initial settlement was probably around the mouth of the Sa'dan river, on the northwest coast of the peninsula, although the south coast has also been suggested.

 

Subsequent migrations across the mountainous landscape resulted in the geographical isolation of PSS speakers and the evolution of their languages into the eight families of the South Sulawesi language group. If each group can be said to have a homeland, that of the Bugis – today the most numerous group – was around lakes Témpé and Sidénréng in the Walennaé depression. Here for some 2,000 years lived the linguistic group that would become the modern Bugis; the archaic name of this group (which is preserved in other local languages) was Ugiq. Despite the fact that today they are closely linked with the Makasar, the closest linguistic neighbours of the Bugis are the Toraja.

 

Pre-1200 Bugis society was most likely organised into chiefdoms. Some anthropologists have speculated these chiefdoms would have warred and, in times of peace, exchanged women with each other. Further, they have speculated that personal security would have been negligible and head-hunting an established cultural practice. The political economy would have been a mixture of hunting and gathering and swidden or shifting agriculture. Speculative planting of wet rice may have taken place along the margins of the lakes and rivers. In Central Sulawesi, there are over 400 granite megaliths, which various archaeological studies have dated to be from 3000 BC to AD 1300. They vary in size from a few centimetres to around 4.5 metres. The original purpose of the megaliths is unknown. About 30 of the megaliths represent human forms. Other megaliths are in form of large pots (Kalamba) and stone plates (Tutu'na).In October 2014 it was announced that cave paintings in Maros had been dated as being about 40,000 years old. Dr Maxime Aubert, of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said that the minimum age for the outline of a hand was 39,900 years old, which made it "the oldest hand stencil in the world" and added, "Next to it is a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one."

 

HISTORY

Starting in the 13th century, access to prestige trade goods and to sources of iron started to alter long-standing cultural patterns and to permit ambitious individuals to build larger political units. It is not known why these two ingredients appeared together; one was perhaps the product of the other.

 

In 1367, several identified polities, located on the island, were mentioned in the Javanese manuscript Nagarakretagama dated from the Majapahit period. Canto 14 mentioned polities including Gowa, Makassar, Luwu and Banggai. It seems that by the 14th century, polities in the island were connected in an archipelagic maritime trading network, centered in the Majapahit port in East Java. By 1400, a number of nascent agricultural principalities had arisen in the western Cenrana valley, as well as on the south coast and on the west coast near modern Parepare.

 

The first Europeans to visit the island (which they believed to be an archipelago due to its contorted shape) were the Portuguese sailors Simão de Abreu, in 1523, and Gomes de Sequeira (among others) in 1525, sent from the Moluccas in search of gold, which the islands had the reputation of producing. A Portuguese base was installed in Makassar in the first decades of the 16th century, lasting until 1665, when it was taken by the Dutch. The Dutch had arrived in Sulawesi in 1605 and were quickly followed by the English, who established a factory in Makassar. From 1660, the Dutch were at war with Gowa, the major Makassar west coast power. In 1669, Admiral Speelman forced the ruler, Sultan Hasanuddin, to sign the Treaty of Bongaya, which handed control of trade to the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch were aided in their conquest by the Bugis warlord Arung Palakka, ruler of the Bugis kingdom of Bone. The Dutch built a fort at Ujung Pandang, while Arung Palakka became the regional overlord and Bone the dominant kingdom. Political and cultural development seems to have slowed as a result of the status quo. In 1905 the entire island became part of the Dutch state colony of the Netherlands East Indies until Japanese occupation in the Second World War. During the Indonesian National Revolution, the Dutch Captain 'Turk' Westerling led campaigns in which hundreds, maybe thousands died during the South Sulawesi Campaign. Following the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949, Sulawesi became part of the federal United States of Indonesia, which in 1950 became absorbed into the unitary Republic of Indonesia.

 

CENTRAL SULAWESI

The Portuguese were rumoured to have a fort in Parigi in 1555. The Kaili were an important group based in the Palu valley and related to the Toraja. Scholars relate that their control swayed under Ternate and Makassar, but this might have been a decision by the Dutch to give their vassals a chance to govern a difficult group. Padbruge commented that in the 1700s Kaili numbers were significant and a highly militant society. In the 1850s a war erupted between the Kaili groups, including the Banawa, in which the Dutch decided to intervene. A complex conflict also involving the Sulu Island pirates and probably Wyndham (a British merchant who commented on being involved in arms dealing to the area in this period and causing a row).

 

In the late 19th century the Sarasins journeyed through the Palu valley as part of a major initiative to bring the Kaili under Dutch rule. Some very surprising and interesting photographs were taken of shamans called Tadulako. Further Christian religious missions entered the area to make one of the most detailed ethnographic studies in the early 20th century. A Swede by the name of Walter Kaudern later studied much of the literature and produced a synthesis. Erskine Downs in the 1950s produced a summary of Kruyts and Andrianis work: "The religion of the Bare'e-Speaking Toradja of Central Celebes," which is invaluable for English-speaking researchers. One of the most recent publications is "When the bones are left," a study of the material culture of central Sulawesi, offering extensive analysis. Also worthy of study are the brilliant works of Monnig Atkinson on the Wana shamans who live in the Mori area.

 

POPULATION

The 2000 census population of the provinces of Sulawesi was 14,946,488, about 7.25% of Indonesia's total population. By the 2010 Census the total had reached 17,371,782, and the latest official estimate (for January 2014) is 18,455,058. The largest city is Makassar.

 

RELIGION

Islam is the majority religion in Sulawesi. The conversion of the lowlands of the south western peninsula (South Sulawesi) to Islam occurred in the early 17th century. The kingdom of Luwu in the Gulf of Bone was the first to accept Islam in February 1605; the Makassar kingdom of Goa-Talloq, centred on the modern-day city of Makassar, followed suit in September. However, the Gorontalo and the Mongondow peoples of the northern peninsula largely converted to Islam only in the 19th century. Most Muslims are Sunnis.

  

POPULATION OF SULAWESI BY PROVINCE (2010)

South Sulawesi (46.4%)

Central Sulawesi (15%)

Southeast Sulawesi (13%)

North Sulawesi (13.0%)

West Sulawesi (6.6%)

Gorontalo (6%)

 

Christians form a substantial minority on the island. According to the demographer Toby Alice Volkman, 17% of Sulawesi's population is Protestant and less than 2% is Roman Catholic. Christians are concentrated on the tip of the northern peninsula around the city of Manado, which is inhabited by the Minahasa, a predominantly Protestant people, and the northernmost Sangir and Talaud Islands. The Toraja people of Tana Toraja in Central Sulawesi have largely converted to Christianity since Indonesia's independence. There are also substantial numbers of Christians around Lake Poso in Central Sulawesi, among the Pamona speaking peoples of Central Sulawesi, and near Mamasa.

 

Though most people identify themselves as Muslims or Christians, they often subscribe to local beliefs and deities as well. It is not uncommon for both groups to make offerings to local gods, goddesses, and spirits.

 

Smaller communities of Buddhists and Hindus are also found on Sulawesi, usually among the Chinese, Balinese and Indian communities.

 

AGMINISTRATION

The island is subdivided into six provinces: Gorontalo, West Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and North Sulawesi. West Sulawesi is a new province, created in 2004 from part of South Sulawesi. The largest cities on the island are Makassar, Manado, Palu, Kendari, Bitung, Gorontalo, Palopo and Baubau.

 

FLORA AND FAUNA

Sulawesi is part of Wallacea, meaning that it has a mix of both Indomalayan and Australasian species that reached the island by crossing deep-water oceanic barriers. The flora includes one native eucalypt, E. deglupta. There are 8 national parks on the island, of which 4 are mostly marine. The parks with the largest terrestrial area are Bogani Nani Wartabone with 2,871 km2 and Lore Lindu National Park with 2,290 km2. Bunaken National Park which protects a rich coral ecosystem has been proposed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

MAMMALS

Early in the Pleistocene, Sulawesi had a dwarf elephant and a dwarf form of Stegodon, (an elephant relative, S. sompoensis); later both were replaced by larger forms. A giant suid, Celebochoerus, was also formerly present. It is thought that many of the migrants to Sulawesi arrived via the Philippines, while Sulawesi in turn served as a way station for migrants to Flores. A Pleistocene faunal turnover is recognised, with the competitive displacement of several indigenous tarsiers by more recently arriving ones and by Celebochoerus by other medium-sized herbivores like the babirusa, anoa and Celebes warty pig.

 

There are 127 known extant native mammalian species in Sulawesi. A large percentage, 62% (79 species) are endemic, meaning that they are found nowhere else in the world. The largest of these are the two species of anoa or dwarf buffalo. Other artiodactyl species inhabiting Sulawesi are the warty pig and the babirusas, which are aberrant pigs. The only native carnivoran is the Sulawesi palm civet (Asian palm and Malayan civets have been introduced). Primates present include a number of tarsiers (T. fuscus, Dian's, Gursky's, Jatna's, Wallace's, the Lariang and pygmy tarsiers) as well as macaques (Heck's, the booted, crested black, Gorontalo, moor, and Tonkean macaques). While most of Sulawesi's mammals are placental and have Asian relatives, several species of cuscus, arboreal marsupials of Australasian origin, are also present (Ailurops ursinus and Strigocuscus celebensis).

 

Sulawesi is home to a large number of endemic rodent genera. Murid rodent genera endemic to Sulawesi and immediately adjacent islands (such as the Togian Islands, Buton Island, and Muna Island) are Bunomys, Echiothrix, Margaretamys, Taeromys and Tateomys as well as the single-species genera Eropeplus, Hyorhinomys, Melasmothrix, Paucidentomys, Paruromys and Sommeromys. Endemic sciurid genera are Hyosciurus, Prosciurillus, Rubrisciurus and Waiomys.

 

While over 20 bat species are present on Sulawesi, only a portion of these are endemic: Rhinolophus tatar, Scotophilus celebensis and the megabats Acerodon celebensis, Boneia bidens, Dobsonia exoleta, Harpyionycteris celebensis, Neopteryx frosti, Rousettus celebensis and Styloctenium wallacei.

 

Several endemic shrews, the Sulawesi shrew, Sulawesi tiny shrew and the Sulawesi white-handed shrew, are found on the island.

 

BIRDS

By contrast, Sulawesian bird species tend to be found on other nearby islands as well, such as Borneo; 31% of Sulawesi's birds are found nowhere else. One true endemic is the fiery-browed starling. Another endemic bird (also found on small neighboring islands) is the largely ground-dwelling, chicken-sized maleo, a megapode which uses hot sand close to the island's volcanic vents to incubate its eggs. Others include the flightless snoring rail, the Sulawesi masked owl, the Sulawesi myna and the grosbeak starling. There are around 350 known bird species in Sulawesi. An international partnership of conservationists, donors, and local people have formed the Alliance for Tompotika Conservation, in an effort to raise awareness and protect the nesting grounds of these birds on the central-eastern arm of the island.

 

REPTILES

The larger reptiles of Sulawesi are not endemic and include reticulated and Burmese pythons, king cobras, water monitors, sailfin lizards, saltwater crocodiles and green sea turtles. An extinct giant tortoise, Megalochelys atlas, was formerly present, but disappeared by 840,000 years ago, possibly because of the arrival of humans. Similarly, komodo dragons or similar lizards appear to have inhabited the island, being among its apex predators. The smaller snakes of Sulawesi include endemic forms such as Calamaria boesemani, Calamaria muelleri, Calamaria nuchalis, Cyclotyphlops, Enhydris matannensis, Ptyas dipsas, Rabdion grovesi, Tropidolaemus laticinctus and Typhlops conradi. Similarly, the smaller lizards of Sulawesi include nonendemic species such as Bronchocela jubata, Dibamus novaeguineae and Gekko smithii, as well as endemic species such as Lipinia infralineolata and Luperosaurus iskandari.

 

AMPHIBIANS

The amphibians of Sulawesi include the endemic frogs Hylarana celebensis, H. macrops, H. mocquardi, Ingerophrynus celebensis, Limnonectes arathooni, L. larvaepartus, L. microtympanum, Occidozyga celebensis, O. semipalmata and O. tompotika as well as the endemic "flying frogs" Rhacophorus edentulus and R. georgii.

 

FRESHWATER FISH

Sulawesi is home to more than 70 freshwater fish species, including more than 55 endemics. Among these are the genus Nomorhamphus, a species flock of viviparous halfbeaks containing 12 species that only are found on Sulawesi (others are from the Philippines). In addition to Nomorhamphus, the majority of Sulawesi's freshwater fish species are ricefishes, gobies (Glossogobius and Mugilogobius) and Telmatherinid sail-fin silversides. The last family is almost entirely restricted to Sulawesi, especially the Malili Lake system, consisting of Matano and Towuti, and the small Lontoa (Wawantoa), Mahalona and Masapi. Another unusual endemic is Lagusia micracanthus from rivers in South Sulawesi, which is the sole member of its genus and among the smallest grunters. The gudgeon Bostrychus microphthalmus from the Maros Karst is the only described species of cave-adapted fish from Sulawesi, but an apparently undescribed species from the same region and genus also exists.

 

FRESHWATER CRUSTACEANS AND SNAILS

Many species of Caridina freshwater shrimp and parathelphusid freshwater crabs (Migmathelphusa, Nautilothelphusa, Parathelphusa, Sundathelphusa and Syntripsa) are endemic to Sulawesi. Several of these species have become very popular in the aquarium hobby, and since most are restricted to a single lake system, they are potentially vulnerable to habitat loss and overexploitation. There are also several endemic cave-adapted shrimp and crabs, especially in the Maros Karst. This includes Cancrocaeca xenomorpha, which has been called the "most highly cave-adapted species of crab known in the world".

 

The genus Tylomelania of freshwater snails is also endemic to Sulawesi, with the majority of the species restricted to Lake Poso and the Malili Lake system.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

The mimic octopus is also present in the waters of Sulawesi's coast.

 

CONSERVATION

Sulawesi island was recently the subject of an Ecoregional Conservation Assessment, coordinated by The Nature Conservancy. Detailed reports about the vegetation of the island are available. The assessment produced a detailed and annotated list of 'conservation portfolio' sites. This information was widely distributed to local government agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Detailed conservation priorities have also been outlined in a recent publication.

 

The lowland forests on the island have mostly been removed. Because of the relative geological youth of the island and its dramatic and sharp topography, the lowland areas are naturally limited in their extent. The past decade has seen dramatic conversion of this rare and endangered habitat. The island also possesses one of the largest outcrops of serpentine soil in the world, which support an unusual and large community of specialized plant species. Overall, the flora and fauna of this unique center of global biodiversity is very poorly documented and understood and remains critically threatened.

 

The islands of Pepaya, Mas and Raja islands, located in Sumalata Village - North Gorontalo Regency (about 30 km from Saronde Island), have been named a nature reserve since the Dutch colonial time in 1936. Four of the only seven species of turtles can be found in the islands, the world's best turtle habitat. They include Penyu Hijau (Chelonia midas), Penyu Sisik (Eretmochelys imbricata), Penyu Tempayan (Caretta caretta) and Penyu Belimbing (Dermochelys coriacea). In 2011, the habitat was threatened by human activities such as illegal poaching and fish bombing activities; furthermore, a lot of coral reefs, which represent a source of food for turtles, have been damaged.

 

ENVIRONMENT

The largest environmental issue in Sulawesi is deforestation. In 2007, scientists found that 80 percent of Sulawesi's forest had been lost or degraded, especially centered in the lowlands and the mangroves. Forests have been felled for logging and large agricultural projects. Loss of forest has resulted in many of Sulawesi's endemic species becoming endangered. In addition, 99 percent of Sulawesi's wetlands have been lost or damaged.

 

Other environmental threats included bushmeat hunting and mining.

 

PARKS

The island of Sulawesi has six national parks and nineteen nature reserves. In addition, Sulawesi has three marine protected areas. Many of Sulawesi's parks are threatened by logging, mining, and deforestation for agriculture.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Hot Wheels really do seem to have got the hang of producing some really stunning little models of European supercars recently. One of their latest is the extreme looking Lamborghini Aventador J with its dramatic roofless profile and eye-catching yellow finish. The only thing really which lets it down because it is so visible is the really really basic dashboard and steering wheel. Budget toy manufacturers such as Welly, Realtoy and even Majorette make the effort to produce realistic interiors but Mattel don't seem to bother with such things and that includes the Matchbox brand too. Mint and boxed.

First visit of 2019 for me to this stunning castle today Thursday 28th March 2019.

 

Dunnottar Castle.

 

The rock the Castle sits upon was forced to the surface 440 million years ago during the Silurian period. A red rock conglomerate with boulders up to 1m across known as Pudding Stone is incredibly durable.

 

The ancient Highland rock pebbles and cementing matter is so tough that faults or cracks pass through the pebbles themselves.

 

I first visited Dunnottar Castle summer 2017, this magnificent castle sits high on a hill, last time I visited I captured my shots from the cliffs overlooking the site, though today I made the journey up the hill and entered the castle walls , wow what a magnificent experience, just perfect with loads of great photo opportunities to capture real Scottish history,after two hours wandering around and capturing as many shots that caught my eye , I made my way home, a magnificent experience indeed.

 

Dunnottar Castle (Scottish Gaelic: Dùn Fhoithear, "fort on the shelving slope" is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the north-east coast of Scotland, about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) south of Stonehaven.

 

The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th and 16th centuries, but the site is believed to have been fortified in the Early Middle Ages. Dunnottar has played a prominent role in the history of Scotland through to the 18th-century Jacobite risings because of its strategic location and defensive strength. Dunnottar is best known as the place where the Honours of Scotland, the Scottish crown jewels, were hidden from Oliver Cromwell's invading army in the 17th century. The property of the Keiths from the 14th century, and the seat of the Earl Marischal, Dunnottar declined after the last Earl forfeited his titles by taking part in the Jacobite rebellion of 1715.

 

The castle was restored in the 20th century and is now open to the public.

 

The ruins of the castle are spread over 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres), surrounded by steep cliffs that drop to the North Sea, 50 metres (160 ft) below. A narrow strip of land joins the headland to the mainland, along which a steep path leads up to the gatehouse.

 

The various buildings within the castle include the 14th-century tower house as well as the 16th-century palace. Dunnottar Castle is a scheduled monument, and twelve structures on the site are listed buildings.

 

History

Early Middle Ages

A chapel at Dunnottar is said to have been founded by St Ninian in the 5th century, although it is not clear when the site was first fortified, but in any case the legend is late and highly implausible. Possibly the earliest written reference to the site is found in the Annals of Ulster which record two sieges of "Dún Foither" in 681 and 694.

 

The earlier event has been interpreted as an attack by Brude, the Pictish king of Fortriu, to extend his power over the north-east coast of Scotland. The Scottish Chronicle records that King Domnall II, the first ruler to be called rí Alban (King of Alba), was killed at Dunnottar during an attack by Vikings in 900. King Aethelstan of Wessex led a force into Scotland in 934, and raided as far north as Dunnottar according to the account of Symeon of Durham. W. D. Simpson speculated that a motte might lie under the present caste, but excavations in the 1980s failed to uncover substantive evidence of early medieval fortification.

 

The discovery of a group of Pictish stones at Dunnicaer, a nearby sea stack, has prompted speculation that "Dún Foither" was actually located on the adjacent headland of Bowduns, 0.5 kilometres (0.31 mi) to the north.

 

Later Middle Ages

During the reign of King William the Lion (ruled 1165–1214) Dunnottar was a center of local administration for The Mearns. The castle is named in the Roman de Fergus, an early 13th-century Arthurian romance, in which the hero Fergus must travel to Dunnottar to retrieve a magic shield.

 

In May 1276 a church on the site was consecrated by William Wishart, Bishop of St Andrews. The poet Blind Harry relates that William Wallace captured Dunnottar from the English in 1297, during the Wars of Scottish Independence. He is said to have imprisoned 4,000 defeated English soldiers in the church and burned them alive.

 

In 1336 Edward III of England ordered William Sinclair, 8th Baron of Roslin, to sail eight ships to the partially ruined Dunnottar for the purpose of rebuilding and fortifying the site as a forward resupply base for his northern campaign. Sinclair took with him 160 soldiers, horses, and a corps of masons and carpenters.

 

Edward himself visited in July, but the English efforts were undone before the end of the year when the Scottish Regent Sir Andrew Murray led a force that captured and again destroyed the defences of Dunnottar.

 

In the 14th century Dunnottar was granted to William de Moravia, 5th Earl of Sutherland (d.1370), and in 1346 a licence to crenellate was issued by David II. Around 1359 William Keith, Marischal of Scotland, married Margaret Fraser, niece of Robert the Bruce, and was granted the barony of Dunnottar at this time. Keith then gave the lands of Dunnottar to his daughter Christian and son-in-law William Lindsay of Byres, but in 1392 an excambion (exchange) was agreed whereby Keith regained Dunnottar and Lindsay took lands in Fife.

 

William Keith completed construction of the tower house at Dunnottar, but was excommunicated for building on the consecrated ground associated with the parish church. Keith had provided a new parish church closer to Stonehaven, but was forced to write to the Pope, Benedict XIII, who issued a bull in 1395 lifting the excommunication.William Keith's descendents were created Earls Marischal in the mid 15th century, and they held Dunottar until the 18th century.

 

16th century rebuilding

Through the 16th century the Keiths improved and expanded their principal seats: at Dunnottar and also at Keith Marischal in East Lothian. James IV visited Dunnottar in 1504, and in 1531 James V exempted the Earl's men from military service on the grounds that Dunnottar was one of the "principall strenthis of our realme".

 

Mary, Queen of Scots, visited in 1562 after the Battle of Corrichie, and returned in 1564.

 

James VI stayed for 10 days in 1580, as part of a progress through Fife and Angus, during which a meeting of the Privy Council was convened at Dunnottar.

 

During a rebellion of Catholic nobles in 1592, Dunnottar was captured by a Captain Carr on behalf of the Earl of Huntly, but was restored to Lord Marischal just a few weeks later.

 

In 1581 George Keith succeeded as 5th Earl Marischal, and began a large scale reconstruction that saw the medieval fortress converted into a more comfortable home. The founder of Marischal College in Aberdeen, the 5th Earl valued Dunnottar as much for its dramatic situation as for its security.

 

A "palace" comprising a series of ranges around a quadrangle was built on the north-eastern cliffs, creating luxurious living quarters with sea views. The 13th-century chapel was restored and incorporated into the quadrangle.

 

An impressive stone gatehouse was constructed, now known as Benholm's Lodging, featuring numerous gun ports facing the approach. Although impressive, these are likely to have been fashionable embellishments rather than genuine defensive features.

 

Civil wars

Further information: Scotland in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms

In 1639 William Keith, 7th Earl Marischal, came out in support of the Covenanters, a Presbyterian movement who opposed the established Episcopal Church and the changes which Charles I was attempting to impose. With James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, he marched against the Catholic James Gordon, 2nd Viscount Aboyne, Earl of Huntly, and defeated an attempt by the Royalists to seize Stonehaven. However, when Montrose changed sides to the Royalists and marched north, Marischal remained in Dunnottar, even when given command of the area by Parliament, and even when Montrose burned Stonehaven.

 

Marischal then joined with the Engager faction, who had made a deal with the king, and led a troop of horse to the Battle of Preston (1648) in support of the royalists.

 

Following the execution of Charles I in 1649, the Engagers gave their allegiance to his son and heir: Charles II was proclaimed king, arriving in Scotland in June 1650. He visited Dunnottar in July 1650, but his presence in Scotland prompted Oliver Cromwell to lead a force into Scotland, defeating the Scots at Dunbar in September 1650.

 

The Honours of Scotland

Charles II was crowned at Scone Palace on 1 January 1651, at which the Honours of Scotland (the regalia of crown, sword and sceptre) were used. However, with Cromwell's troops in Lothian, the honours could not be returned to Edinburgh. The Earl Marischal, as Marischal of Scotland, had formal responsibility for the honours, and in June the Privy Council duly decided to place them at Dunnottar.

 

They were brought to the castle by Katherine Drummond, hidden in sacks of wool. Sir George Ogilvie (or Ogilvy) of Barras was appointed lieutenant-governor of the castle, and given responsibility for its defence.

 

In November 1651 Cromwell's troops called on Ogilvie to surrender, but he refused. During the subsequent blockade of the castle, the removal of the Honours of Scotland was planned by Elizabeth Douglas, wife of Sir George Ogilvie, and Christian Fletcher, wife of James Granger, minister of Kinneff Parish Church. The king's papers were first removed from the castle by Anne Lindsay, a kinswoman of Elizabeth Douglas, who walked through the besieging force with the papers sewn into her clothes.

 

Two stories exist regarding the removal of the honours themselves. Fletcher stated in 1664 that over the course of three visits to the castle in February and March 1652, she carried away the crown, sceptre, sword and sword-case hidden amongst sacks of goods. Another account, given in the 18th century by a tutor to the Earl Marischal, records that the honours were lowered from the castle onto the beach, where they were collected by Fletcher's servant and carried off in a creel (basket) of seaweed. Having smuggled the honours from the castle, Fletcher and her husband buried them under the floor of the Old Kirk at Kinneff.

 

Meanwhile, by May 1652 the commander of the blockade, Colonel Thomas Morgan, had taken delivery of the artillery necessary for the reduction of Dunnottar. Ogilvie surrendered on 24 May, on condition that the garrison could go free. Finding the honours gone, the Cromwellians imprisoned Ogilvie and his wife in the castle until the following year, when a false story was put about suggesting that the honours had been taken overseas.

 

Much of the castle property was removed, including twenty-one brass cannons,[28] and Marischal was required to sell further lands and possessions to pay fines imposed by Cromwell's government.

 

At the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, the honours were removed from Kinneff Church and returned to the king. Ogilvie quarrelled with Marischal's mother over who would take credit for saving the honours, though he was eventually rewarded with a baronetcy. Fletcher was awarded 2,000 merks by Parliament but the sum was never paid.

  

Whigs and Jacobites

Religious and political conflicts continued to be played out at Dunnottar through the 17th and early 18th centuries. In 1685, during the rebellion of the Earl of Argyll against the new king James VII, 167 Covenanters were seized and held in a cellar at Dunnottar. The prisoners included 122 men and 45 women associated with the Whigs, an anti-Royalist group within the Covenanter movement, and had refused to take an oath of allegiance to the new king.

 

The Whigs were imprisoned from 24 May until late July. A group of 25 escaped, although two of these were killed in a fall from the cliffs, and another 15 were recaptured. Five prisoners died in the vault, and 37 of the Whigs were released after taking the oath of allegiance.

 

The remaining prisoners were transported to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, as part of a colonisation scheme devised by George Scot of Pitlochie. Many, like Scot himself, died on the voyage.

 

The cellar, located beneath the "King's Bedroom" in the 16th-century castle buildings, has since become known as the "Whigs' Vault".

 

Both the Jacobites (supporters of the exiled Stuarts) and the Hanoverians (supporters of George I and his descendents) used Dunnottar Castle. In 1689 during Viscount Dundee's campaign in support of the deposed James VII, the castle was garrisoned for William and Mary with Lord Marischal appointed captain.

 

Seventeen suspected Jacobites from Aberdeen were seized and held in the fortress for around three weeks, including George Liddell, professor of mathematics at Marischal College.

 

In the Jacobite Rising of 1715 George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, took an active role with the rebels, leading cavalry at the Battle of Sheriffmuir. After the subsequent abandonment of the rising Lord Marischal fled to the Continent, eventually becoming French ambassador for Frederick the Great of Prussia. Meanwhile, in 1716, his titles and estates including Dunnottar were declared forfeit to the crown.

 

Later history

The seized estates of the Earl Marischal were purchased in 1720 for £41,172, by the York Buildings Company who dismantled much of the castle.

 

In 1761 the Earl briefly returned to Scotland and bought back Dunnottar only to sell it five years later to Alexander Keith, an Edinburgh lawyer who served as Knight Marischal of Scotland.

 

Dunnottar was inherited in 1852 by Sir Patrick Keith-Murray of Ochtertyre, who in turn sold it in July 1873 to Major Alexander Innes of Cowie and Raemoir for about £80,000.

 

It was purchased by Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray, in 1925 after which his wife embarked on a programme of repairs.

 

Since that time the castle has remained in the family, and has been open to the public, attracting 52,500 visitors in 2009.

 

Dunnottar Castle, and the headland on which is stands, was designated as a scheduled monument in 1970.In 1972 twelve of the structures at Dunnottar were listed.

 

Three buildings are listed at category A as being of "national importance": the keep; the entrance gateway; and Benholm's Lodging.

 

The remaining listings are at category B as being of "regional importance".[39] The Hon. Charles Anthony Pearson, the younger son of the 3rd Viscount Cowdray, currently owns and runs Dunnottar Castle which is part of the 210-square-kilometre (52,000-acre) Dunecht Estates.

 

Portions of the 1990 film Hamlet, starring Mel Gibson and Glenn Close, were shot there.

  

Description

Dunnottar's strategic location allowed its owners to control the coastal terrace between the North Sea cliffs and the hills of the Mounth, 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) inland, which enabled access to and from the north-east of Scotland.

 

The site is accessed via a steep, 800-metre (2,600 ft) footpath (with modern staircases) from a car park on the coastal road, or via a 3-kilometre (1.9 mi) cliff-top path from Stonehaven. Dunnottar's several buildings, put up between the 13th and 17th centuries, are arranged across a headland covering around 1.4 hectares (3.5 acres).

 

The dominant building, viewed from the land approach, is the 14th-century keep or tower house. The other principal buildings are the gatehouse; the chapel; and the 16th-century "palace" which incorporates the "Whigs' Vault".

 

Defences

The approach to the castle is overlooked by outworks on the "Fiddle Head", a promontory on the western side of the headland. The entrance is through the well-defended main gate, set in a curtain wall which entirely blocks a cleft in the rocky cliffs.

 

The gate has a portcullis and has been partly blocked up. Alongside the main gate is the 16th-century Benholm's Lodging, a five-storey building cut into the rock, which incorporated a prison with apartments above.

 

Three tiers of gun ports face outwards from the lower floors of Benholm's Lodging, while inside the main gate, a group of four gun ports face the entrance. The entrance passage then turns sharply to the left, running underground through two tunnels to emerge near the tower house.

 

Simpson contends that these defences are "without exception the strongest in Scotland", although later writers have doubted the effectiveness of the gun ports. Cruden notes that the alignment of the gun ports in Benholm's Lodging, facing across the approach rather than along, means that they are of limited efficiency.

 

The practicality of the gun ports facing the entrance has also been questioned, though an inventory of 1612 records that four brass cannons were placed here.

 

A second access to the castle leads up from a rocky cove, the aperture to a marine cave on the northern side of the Dunnottar cliffs into which a small boat could be brought. From here a steep path leads to the well-fortified postern gate on the cliff top, which in turn offers access to the castle via the Water Gate in the palace.

 

Artillery defences, taking the form of earthworks, surround the north-west corner of the castle, facing inland, and the south-east, facing seaward. A small sentry box or guard house stands by the eastern battery, overlooking the coast.

 

Tower house and surrounding buildings

The tower house of Dunnottar, viewed from the west

The late 14th-century tower house has a stone-vaulted basement, and originally had three further storeys and a garret above.

 

Measuring 12 by 11 metres (39 by 36 ft), the tower house stood 15 metres (49 ft) high to its gable. The principal rooms included a great hall and a private chamber for the lord, with bedrooms upstairs.

 

Beside the tower house is a storehouse, and a blacksmith's forge with a large chimney. A stable block is ranged along the southern edge of the headland. Nearby is Waterton's Lodging, also known as the Priest's House, built around 1574, possibly for the use of William Keith (died 1580), son of the 4th Earl Marischal.

 

This small self-contained house includes a hall and kitchen at ground level, with private chambers above, and has a projecting spiral stair on the north side. It is named for Thomas Forbes of Waterton, an attendant of the 7th Earl.

 

The palace

The palace, to the north-east of the headland, was built in the late 16th century and early to mid-17th century. It comprises three main wings set out around a quadrangle, and for the most part is probably the work of the 5th Earl Marischal who succeeded in 1581.

 

It provided extensive and comfortable accommodation to replace the rooms in the tower house. In its long, low design it has been compared to contemporary English buildings, in contrast to the Scottish tradition of taller towers still prevalent in the 16th century.

 

Seven identical lodgings are arranged along the west range, each opening onto the quadrangle and including windows and fireplace. Above the lodgings the west range comprised a 35-metre (115 ft) gallery. Now roofless, the gallery originally had an elaborate oak ceiling, and on display was a Roman tablet taken from the Antonine Wall.

 

At the north end of the gallery was a drawing room linked to the north range. The gallery could also be accessed from the Silver House to the south, which incorporated a broad stairway with a treasury above.

 

The basement of the north range incorporates kitchens and stores, with a dining room and great chamber above. At ground floor level is the Water Gate, between the north and west ranges, which gives access to the postern on the northern cliffs.

 

The east and north ranges are linked via a rectangular stair. The east range has a larder, brewhouse and bakery at ground level, with a suite of apartments for the Countess above. A north-east wing contains the Earl's apartments, and includes the "King's Bedroom" in which Charles II stayed. In this room is a carved stone inscribed with the arms of the 7th Earl and his wife, and the date 1654. Below these rooms is the Whigs' Vault, a cellar measuring 16 by 4.5 metres (52 by 15 ft). This cellar, in which the Covenanters were held in 1685, has a large eastern window, as well as a lower vault accessed via a trap-door in the floor.

 

Of the chambers in the palace, only the dining room and the Silver House remain roofed, having been restored in the 1920s. The central area contains a circular cistern or fish pond, 16 metres (52 ft) across and 7.6 metres (25 ft) deep, and a bowling green is located to the west.

 

At the south-east corner of the quadrangle is the chapel, consecrated in 1276 and largely rebuilt in the 16th century. Medieval walling and two 13th-century windows remain, and there is a graveyard to the south.

Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes (/ˈsɛlɪbiːz, sɪˈliːbiːz/), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Within Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger populations.

 

The landmass of Sulawesi includes four peninsulas: the northern Minahasa Peninsula; the East Peninsula; the South Peninsula; and the Southeast Peninsula. Three gulfs separate these peninsulas: the Gulf of Tomini between the northern Minahasa and East peninsulas; the Tolo Gulf between the East and Southeast peninsulas; and the Bone Gulf between the South and Southeast peninsulas. The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island and separates the island from Borneo.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The name Sulawesi possibly comes from the words sula ("island") and besi ("iron") and may refer to the historical export of iron from the rich Lake Matano iron deposits. The name came into common use in English following Indonesian independence.

 

The name Celebes was originally given to the island by Portuguese explorers. While its direct translation is unclear, it may be considered a Portuguese rendering of the native name "Sulawesi".

 

GEOGRAPHY

Sulawesi is the world's eleventh-largest island, covering an area of 174,600 km2. The central part of the island is ruggedly mountainous, such that the island's peninsulas have traditionally been remote from each other, with better connections by sea than by road. The three bays that divide Sulawesi's peninsulas are, from north to south, the Tomini, the Tolo and the Boni. These separate the Minahassa or Northern Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the Southeast Peninsula and the South Peninsula.

 

The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island. The island is surrounded by Borneo to the west, by the Philippines to the north, by Maluku to the east, and by Flores and Timor to the south.

 

MINOR ISLANDS

The Selayar Islands make up a peninsula stretching southwards from Southwest Sulawesi into the Flores Sea are administratively part of Sulawesi. The Sangihe Islands and Talaud Islands stretch northward from the northeastern tip of Sulawesi, while Buton Island and its neighbours lie off its southeast peninsula, the Togian Islands are in the Gulf of Tomini, and Peleng Island and Banggai Islands form a cluster between Sulawesi and Maluku. All the above-mentioned islands, and many smaller ones are administratively part of Sulawesi's six provinces.

 

GEOLOGY

The island slopes up from the shores of the deep seas surrounding the island to a high, mostly non-volcanic, mountainous interior. Active volcanoes are found in the northern Minahassa Peninsula, stretching north to the Sangihe Islands. The northern peninsula contains several active volcanoes such as Mount Lokon, Mount Awu, Soputan and Karangetang.

 

According to plate reconstructions, the island is believed to have been formed by the collision of terranes from the Asian Plate (forming the west and southwest) and from the Australian Plate (forming the southeast and Banggai), with island arcs previously in the Pacific (forming the north and east peninsulas).[8] Because of its several tectonic origins, various faults scar the land and as a result the island is prone to earthquakes.

 

Sulawesi, in contrast to most of the other islands in the biogeographical region of Wallacea, is not truly oceanic, but a composite island at the centre of the Asia-Australia collision zone. Parts of the island were formerly attached to either the Asian or Australian continental margin and became separated from these areas by vicariant processes. In the west, the opening of the Makassar Strait separated West Sulawesi from Sundaland in the Eocene c. 45 Mya. In the east, the traditional view of collisions of multiple micro-continental fragments sliced from New Guinea with an active volcanic margin in West Sulawesi at different times since the Early Miocene c. 20 Mya has recently been replaced by the hypothesis that extensional fragmentation has followed a single Miocene collision of West Sulawesi with the Sula Spur, the western end of an ancient folded belt of Variscan origin in the Late Paleozoic.

 

PREHISTORY

Before October 2014, the settlement of South Sulawesi by modern humans had been dated to c. 30,000 BC on the basis of radiocarbon dates obtained from rock shelters in Maros. No earlier evidence of human occupation had at that point been found, but the island almost certainly formed part of the land bridge used for the settlement of Australia and New Guinea by at least 40,000 BCE. There is no evidence of Homo erectus having reached Sulawesi; crude stone tools first discovered in 1947 on the right bank of the Walennae River at Berru, Indonesia, which were thought to date to the Pleistocene on the basis of their association with vertebrate fossils, are now thought to date to perhaps 50,000 BC.

 

Following Peter Bellwood's model of a southward migration of Austronesian-speaking farmers (AN), radiocarbon dates from caves in Maros suggest a date in the mid-second millennium BC for the arrival of a group from east Borneo speaking a Proto-South Sulawesi language (PSS). Initial settlement was probably around the mouth of the Sa'dan river, on the northwest coast of the peninsula, although the south coast has also been suggested.

 

Subsequent migrations across the mountainous landscape resulted in the geographical isolation of PSS speakers and the evolution of their languages into the eight families of the South Sulawesi language group. If each group can be said to have a homeland, that of the Bugis – today the most numerous group – was around lakes Témpé and Sidénréng in the Walennaé depression. Here for some 2,000 years lived the linguistic group that would become the modern Bugis; the archaic name of this group (which is preserved in other local languages) was Ugiq. Despite the fact that today they are closely linked with the Makasar, the closest linguistic neighbours of the Bugis are the Toraja.

 

Pre-1200 Bugis society was most likely organised into chiefdoms. Some anthropologists have speculated these chiefdoms would have warred and, in times of peace, exchanged women with each other. Further, they have speculated that personal security would have been negligible and head-hunting an established cultural practice. The political economy would have been a mixture of hunting and gathering and swidden or shifting agriculture. Speculative planting of wet rice may have taken place along the margins of the lakes and rivers. In Central Sulawesi, there are over 400 granite megaliths, which various archaeological studies have dated to be from 3000 BC to AD 1300. They vary in size from a few centimetres to around 4.5 metres. The original purpose of the megaliths is unknown. About 30 of the megaliths represent human forms. Other megaliths are in form of large pots (Kalamba) and stone plates (Tutu'na).In October 2014 it was announced that cave paintings in Maros had been dated as being about 40,000 years old. Dr Maxime Aubert, of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said that the minimum age for the outline of a hand was 39,900 years old, which made it "the oldest hand stencil in the world" and added, "Next to it is a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one."

 

HISTORY

Starting in the 13th century, access to prestige trade goods and to sources of iron started to alter long-standing cultural patterns and to permit ambitious individuals to build larger political units. It is not known why these two ingredients appeared together; one was perhaps the product of the other.

 

In 1367, several identified polities, located on the island, were mentioned in the Javanese manuscript Nagarakretagama dated from the Majapahit period. Canto 14 mentioned polities including Gowa, Makassar, Luwu and Banggai. It seems that by the 14th century, polities in the island were connected in an archipelagic maritime trading network, centered in the Majapahit port in East Java. By 1400, a number of nascent agricultural principalities had arisen in the western Cenrana valley, as well as on the south coast and on the west coast near modern Parepare.

 

The first Europeans to visit the island (which they believed to be an archipelago due to its contorted shape) were the Portuguese sailors Simão de Abreu, in 1523, and Gomes de Sequeira (among others) in 1525, sent from the Moluccas in search of gold, which the islands had the reputation of producing. A Portuguese base was installed in Makassar in the first decades of the 16th century, lasting until 1665, when it was taken by the Dutch. The Dutch had arrived in Sulawesi in 1605 and were quickly followed by the English, who established a factory in Makassar. From 1660, the Dutch were at war with Gowa, the major Makassar west coast power. In 1669, Admiral Speelman forced the ruler, Sultan Hasanuddin, to sign the Treaty of Bongaya, which handed control of trade to the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch were aided in their conquest by the Bugis warlord Arung Palakka, ruler of the Bugis kingdom of Bone. The Dutch built a fort at Ujung Pandang, while Arung Palakka became the regional overlord and Bone the dominant kingdom. Political and cultural development seems to have slowed as a result of the status quo. In 1905 the entire island became part of the Dutch state colony of the Netherlands East Indies until Japanese occupation in the Second World War. During the Indonesian National Revolution, the Dutch Captain 'Turk' Westerling led campaigns in which hundreds, maybe thousands died during the South Sulawesi Campaign. Following the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949, Sulawesi became part of the federal United States of Indonesia, which in 1950 became absorbed into the unitary Republic of Indonesia.

 

CENTRAL SULAWESI

The Portuguese were rumoured to have a fort in Parigi in 1555. The Kaili were an important group based in the Palu valley and related to the Toraja. Scholars relate that their control swayed under Ternate and Makassar, but this might have been a decision by the Dutch to give their vassals a chance to govern a difficult group. Padbruge commented that in the 1700s Kaili numbers were significant and a highly militant society. In the 1850s a war erupted between the Kaili groups, including the Banawa, in which the Dutch decided to intervene. A complex conflict also involving the Sulu Island pirates and probably Wyndham (a British merchant who commented on being involved in arms dealing to the area in this period and causing a row).

 

In the late 19th century the Sarasins journeyed through the Palu valley as part of a major initiative to bring the Kaili under Dutch rule. Some very surprising and interesting photographs were taken of shamans called Tadulako. Further Christian religious missions entered the area to make one of the most detailed ethnographic studies in the early 20th century. A Swede by the name of Walter Kaudern later studied much of the literature and produced a synthesis. Erskine Downs in the 1950s produced a summary of Kruyts and Andrianis work: "The religion of the Bare'e-Speaking Toradja of Central Celebes," which is invaluable for English-speaking researchers. One of the most recent publications is "When the bones are left," a study of the material culture of central Sulawesi, offering extensive analysis. Also worthy of study are the brilliant works of Monnig Atkinson on the Wana shamans who live in the Mori area.

 

POPULATION

The 2000 census population of the provinces of Sulawesi was 14,946,488, about 7.25% of Indonesia's total population. By the 2010 Census the total had reached 17,371,782, and the latest official estimate (for January 2014) is 18,455,058. The largest city is Makassar.

 

RELIGION

Islam is the majority religion in Sulawesi. The conversion of the lowlands of the south western peninsula (South Sulawesi) to Islam occurred in the early 17th century. The kingdom of Luwu in the Gulf of Bone was the first to accept Islam in February 1605; the Makassar kingdom of Goa-Talloq, centred on the modern-day city of Makassar, followed suit in September. However, the Gorontalo and the Mongondow peoples of the northern peninsula largely converted to Islam only in the 19th century. Most Muslims are Sunnis.

  

POPULATION OF SULAWESI BY PROVINCE (2010)

South Sulawesi (46.4%)

Central Sulawesi (15%)

Southeast Sulawesi (13%)

North Sulawesi (13.0%)

West Sulawesi (6.6%)

Gorontalo (6%)

 

Christians form a substantial minority on the island. According to the demographer Toby Alice Volkman, 17% of Sulawesi's population is Protestant and less than 2% is Roman Catholic. Christians are concentrated on the tip of the northern peninsula around the city of Manado, which is inhabited by the Minahasa, a predominantly Protestant people, and the northernmost Sangir and Talaud Islands. The Toraja people of Tana Toraja in Central Sulawesi have largely converted to Christianity since Indonesia's independence. There are also substantial numbers of Christians around Lake Poso in Central Sulawesi, among the Pamona speaking peoples of Central Sulawesi, and near Mamasa.

 

Though most people identify themselves as Muslims or Christians, they often subscribe to local beliefs and deities as well. It is not uncommon for both groups to make offerings to local gods, goddesses, and spirits.

 

Smaller communities of Buddhists and Hindus are also found on Sulawesi, usually among the Chinese, Balinese and Indian communities.

 

AGMINISTRATION

The island is subdivided into six provinces: Gorontalo, West Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and North Sulawesi. West Sulawesi is a new province, created in 2004 from part of South Sulawesi. The largest cities on the island are Makassar, Manado, Palu, Kendari, Bitung, Gorontalo, Palopo and Baubau.

 

FLORA AND FAUNA

Sulawesi is part of Wallacea, meaning that it has a mix of both Indomalayan and Australasian species that reached the island by crossing deep-water oceanic barriers. The flora includes one native eucalypt, E. deglupta. There are 8 national parks on the island, of which 4 are mostly marine. The parks with the largest terrestrial area are Bogani Nani Wartabone with 2,871 km2 and Lore Lindu National Park with 2,290 km2. Bunaken National Park which protects a rich coral ecosystem has been proposed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

MAMMALS

Early in the Pleistocene, Sulawesi had a dwarf elephant and a dwarf form of Stegodon, (an elephant relative, S. sompoensis); later both were replaced by larger forms. A giant suid, Celebochoerus, was also formerly present. It is thought that many of the migrants to Sulawesi arrived via the Philippines, while Sulawesi in turn served as a way station for migrants to Flores. A Pleistocene faunal turnover is recognised, with the competitive displacement of several indigenous tarsiers by more recently arriving ones and by Celebochoerus by other medium-sized herbivores like the babirusa, anoa and Celebes warty pig.

 

There are 127 known extant native mammalian species in Sulawesi. A large percentage, 62% (79 species) are endemic, meaning that they are found nowhere else in the world. The largest of these are the two species of anoa or dwarf buffalo. Other artiodactyl species inhabiting Sulawesi are the warty pig and the babirusas, which are aberrant pigs. The only native carnivoran is the Sulawesi palm civet (Asian palm and Malayan civets have been introduced). Primates present include a number of tarsiers (T. fuscus, Dian's, Gursky's, Jatna's, Wallace's, the Lariang and pygmy tarsiers) as well as macaques (Heck's, the booted, crested black, Gorontalo, moor, and Tonkean macaques). While most of Sulawesi's mammals are placental and have Asian relatives, several species of cuscus, arboreal marsupials of Australasian origin, are also present (Ailurops ursinus and Strigocuscus celebensis).

 

Sulawesi is home to a large number of endemic rodent genera. Murid rodent genera endemic to Sulawesi and immediately adjacent islands (such as the Togian Islands, Buton Island, and Muna Island) are Bunomys, Echiothrix, Margaretamys, Taeromys and Tateomys as well as the single-species genera Eropeplus, Hyorhinomys, Melasmothrix, Paucidentomys, Paruromys and Sommeromys. Endemic sciurid genera are Hyosciurus, Prosciurillus, Rubrisciurus and Waiomys.

 

While over 20 bat species are present on Sulawesi, only a portion of these are endemic: Rhinolophus tatar, Scotophilus celebensis and the megabats Acerodon celebensis, Boneia bidens, Dobsonia exoleta, Harpyionycteris celebensis, Neopteryx frosti, Rousettus celebensis and Styloctenium wallacei.

 

Several endemic shrews, the Sulawesi shrew, Sulawesi tiny shrew and the Sulawesi white-handed shrew, are found on the island.

 

BIRDS

By contrast, Sulawesian bird species tend to be found on other nearby islands as well, such as Borneo; 31% of Sulawesi's birds are found nowhere else. One true endemic is the fiery-browed starling. Another endemic bird (also found on small neighboring islands) is the largely ground-dwelling, chicken-sized maleo, a megapode which uses hot sand close to the island's volcanic vents to incubate its eggs. Others include the flightless snoring rail, the Sulawesi masked owl, the Sulawesi myna and the grosbeak starling. There are around 350 known bird species in Sulawesi. An international partnership of conservationists, donors, and local people have formed the Alliance for Tompotika Conservation, in an effort to raise awareness and protect the nesting grounds of these birds on the central-eastern arm of the island.

 

REPTILES

The larger reptiles of Sulawesi are not endemic and include reticulated and Burmese pythons, king cobras, water monitors, sailfin lizards, saltwater crocodiles and green sea turtles. An extinct giant tortoise, Megalochelys atlas, was formerly present, but disappeared by 840,000 years ago, possibly because of the arrival of humans. Similarly, komodo dragons or similar lizards appear to have inhabited the island, being among its apex predators. The smaller snakes of Sulawesi include endemic forms such as Calamaria boesemani, Calamaria muelleri, Calamaria nuchalis, Cyclotyphlops, Enhydris matannensis, Ptyas dipsas, Rabdion grovesi, Tropidolaemus laticinctus and Typhlops conradi. Similarly, the smaller lizards of Sulawesi include nonendemic species such as Bronchocela jubata, Dibamus novaeguineae and Gekko smithii, as well as endemic species such as Lipinia infralineolata and Luperosaurus iskandari.

 

AMPHIBIANS

The amphibians of Sulawesi include the endemic frogs Hylarana celebensis, H. macrops, H. mocquardi, Ingerophrynus celebensis, Limnonectes arathooni, L. larvaepartus, L. microtympanum, Occidozyga celebensis, O. semipalmata and O. tompotika as well as the endemic "flying frogs" Rhacophorus edentulus and R. georgii.

 

FRESHWATER FISH

Sulawesi is home to more than 70 freshwater fish species, including more than 55 endemics. Among these are the genus Nomorhamphus, a species flock of viviparous halfbeaks containing 12 species that only are found on Sulawesi (others are from the Philippines). In addition to Nomorhamphus, the majority of Sulawesi's freshwater fish species are ricefishes, gobies (Glossogobius and Mugilogobius) and Telmatherinid sail-fin silversides. The last family is almost entirely restricted to Sulawesi, especially the Malili Lake system, consisting of Matano and Towuti, and the small Lontoa (Wawantoa), Mahalona and Masapi. Another unusual endemic is Lagusia micracanthus from rivers in South Sulawesi, which is the sole member of its genus and among the smallest grunters. The gudgeon Bostrychus microphthalmus from the Maros Karst is the only described species of cave-adapted fish from Sulawesi, but an apparently undescribed species from the same region and genus also exists.

 

FRESHWATER CRUSTACEANS AND SNAILS

Many species of Caridina freshwater shrimp and parathelphusid freshwater crabs (Migmathelphusa, Nautilothelphusa, Parathelphusa, Sundathelphusa and Syntripsa) are endemic to Sulawesi. Several of these species have become very popular in the aquarium hobby, and since most are restricted to a single lake system, they are potentially vulnerable to habitat loss and overexploitation. There are also several endemic cave-adapted shrimp and crabs, especially in the Maros Karst. This includes Cancrocaeca xenomorpha, which has been called the "most highly cave-adapted species of crab known in the world".

 

The genus Tylomelania of freshwater snails is also endemic to Sulawesi, with the majority of the species restricted to Lake Poso and the Malili Lake system.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

The mimic octopus is also present in the waters of Sulawesi's coast.

 

CONSERVATION

Sulawesi island was recently the subject of an Ecoregional Conservation Assessment, coordinated by The Nature Conservancy. Detailed reports about the vegetation of the island are available. The assessment produced a detailed and annotated list of 'conservation portfolio' sites. This information was widely distributed to local government agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Detailed conservation priorities have also been outlined in a recent publication.

 

The lowland forests on the island have mostly been removed. Because of the relative geological youth of the island and its dramatic and sharp topography, the lowland areas are naturally limited in their extent. The past decade has seen dramatic conversion of this rare and endangered habitat. The island also possesses one of the largest outcrops of serpentine soil in the world, which support an unusual and large community of specialized plant species. Overall, the flora and fauna of this unique center of global biodiversity is very poorly documented and understood and remains critically threatened.

 

The islands of Pepaya, Mas and Raja islands, located in Sumalata Village - North Gorontalo Regency (about 30 km from Saronde Island), have been named a nature reserve since the Dutch colonial time in 1936. Four of the only seven species of turtles can be found in the islands, the world's best turtle habitat. They include Penyu Hijau (Chelonia midas), Penyu Sisik (Eretmochelys imbricata), Penyu Tempayan (Caretta caretta) and Penyu Belimbing (Dermochelys coriacea). In 2011, the habitat was threatened by human activities such as illegal poaching and fish bombing activities; furthermore, a lot of coral reefs, which represent a source of food for turtles, have been damaged.

 

ENVIRONMENT

The largest environmental issue in Sulawesi is deforestation. In 2007, scientists found that 80 percent of Sulawesi's forest had been lost or degraded, especially centered in the lowlands and the mangroves. Forests have been felled for logging and large agricultural projects. Loss of forest has resulted in many of Sulawesi's endemic species becoming endangered. In addition, 99 percent of Sulawesi's wetlands have been lost or damaged.

 

Other environmental threats included bushmeat hunting and mining.

 

PARKS

The island of Sulawesi has six national parks and nineteen nature reserves. In addition, Sulawesi has three marine protected areas. Many of Sulawesi's parks are threatened by logging, mining, and deforestation for agriculture.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Clash of the Cosmos: 6 Hours with the Fighting Dragons of Ara

Venturing deep into the heart of the Dragons of Ara, I captured the majestic NGC 6188 and its celestial companions NGC 6164/6165 (Dragon’s egg) in about 6 hours of dedicated observation, exploring this vibrant region known for its dramatic dust lanes and lively star-forming activities. These images not only showcase the raw beauty of distant nebulae but also reflect the powerful dynamics of creation and destruction in our universe. Join me in marvelling at these cosmic dragons, guardians of stellar nurseries, where stars are born from chaos!

Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes (/ˈsɛlɪbiːz, sɪˈliːbiːz/), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Within Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger populations.

 

The landmass of Sulawesi includes four peninsulas: the northern Minahasa Peninsula; the East Peninsula; the South Peninsula; and the Southeast Peninsula. Three gulfs separate these peninsulas: the Gulf of Tomini between the northern Minahasa and East peninsulas; the Tolo Gulf between the East and Southeast peninsulas; and the Bone Gulf between the South and Southeast peninsulas. The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island and separates the island from Borneo.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The name Sulawesi possibly comes from the words sula ("island") and besi ("iron") and may refer to the historical export of iron from the rich Lake Matano iron deposits. The name came into common use in English following Indonesian independence.

 

The name Celebes was originally given to the island by Portuguese explorers. While its direct translation is unclear, it may be considered a Portuguese rendering of the native name "Sulawesi".

 

GEOGRAPHY

Sulawesi is the world's eleventh-largest island, covering an area of 174,600 km2. The central part of the island is ruggedly mountainous, such that the island's peninsulas have traditionally been remote from each other, with better connections by sea than by road. The three bays that divide Sulawesi's peninsulas are, from north to south, the Tomini, the Tolo and the Boni. These separate the Minahassa or Northern Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the Southeast Peninsula and the South Peninsula.

 

The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island. The island is surrounded by Borneo to the west, by the Philippines to the north, by Maluku to the east, and by Flores and Timor to the south.

 

MINOR ISLANDS

The Selayar Islands make up a peninsula stretching southwards from Southwest Sulawesi into the Flores Sea are administratively part of Sulawesi. The Sangihe Islands and Talaud Islands stretch northward from the northeastern tip of Sulawesi, while Buton Island and its neighbours lie off its southeast peninsula, the Togian Islands are in the Gulf of Tomini, and Peleng Island and Banggai Islands form a cluster between Sulawesi and Maluku. All the above-mentioned islands, and many smaller ones are administratively part of Sulawesi's six provinces.

 

GEOLOGY

The island slopes up from the shores of the deep seas surrounding the island to a high, mostly non-volcanic, mountainous interior. Active volcanoes are found in the northern Minahassa Peninsula, stretching north to the Sangihe Islands. The northern peninsula contains several active volcanoes such as Mount Lokon, Mount Awu, Soputan and Karangetang.

 

According to plate reconstructions, the island is believed to have been formed by the collision of terranes from the Asian Plate (forming the west and southwest) and from the Australian Plate (forming the southeast and Banggai), with island arcs previously in the Pacific (forming the north and east peninsulas).[8] Because of its several tectonic origins, various faults scar the land and as a result the island is prone to earthquakes.

 

Sulawesi, in contrast to most of the other islands in the biogeographical region of Wallacea, is not truly oceanic, but a composite island at the centre of the Asia-Australia collision zone. Parts of the island were formerly attached to either the Asian or Australian continental margin and became separated from these areas by vicariant processes. In the west, the opening of the Makassar Strait separated West Sulawesi from Sundaland in the Eocene c. 45 Mya. In the east, the traditional view of collisions of multiple micro-continental fragments sliced from New Guinea with an active volcanic margin in West Sulawesi at different times since the Early Miocene c. 20 Mya has recently been replaced by the hypothesis that extensional fragmentation has followed a single Miocene collision of West Sulawesi with the Sula Spur, the western end of an ancient folded belt of Variscan origin in the Late Paleozoic.

 

PREHISTORY

Before October 2014, the settlement of South Sulawesi by modern humans had been dated to c. 30,000 BC on the basis of radiocarbon dates obtained from rock shelters in Maros. No earlier evidence of human occupation had at that point been found, but the island almost certainly formed part of the land bridge used for the settlement of Australia and New Guinea by at least 40,000 BCE. There is no evidence of Homo erectus having reached Sulawesi; crude stone tools first discovered in 1947 on the right bank of the Walennae River at Berru, Indonesia, which were thought to date to the Pleistocene on the basis of their association with vertebrate fossils, are now thought to date to perhaps 50,000 BC.

 

Following Peter Bellwood's model of a southward migration of Austronesian-speaking farmers (AN), radiocarbon dates from caves in Maros suggest a date in the mid-second millennium BC for the arrival of a group from east Borneo speaking a Proto-South Sulawesi language (PSS). Initial settlement was probably around the mouth of the Sa'dan river, on the northwest coast of the peninsula, although the south coast has also been suggested.

 

Subsequent migrations across the mountainous landscape resulted in the geographical isolation of PSS speakers and the evolution of their languages into the eight families of the South Sulawesi language group. If each group can be said to have a homeland, that of the Bugis – today the most numerous group – was around lakes Témpé and Sidénréng in the Walennaé depression. Here for some 2,000 years lived the linguistic group that would become the modern Bugis; the archaic name of this group (which is preserved in other local languages) was Ugiq. Despite the fact that today they are closely linked with the Makasar, the closest linguistic neighbours of the Bugis are the Toraja.

 

Pre-1200 Bugis society was most likely organised into chiefdoms. Some anthropologists have speculated these chiefdoms would have warred and, in times of peace, exchanged women with each other. Further, they have speculated that personal security would have been negligible and head-hunting an established cultural practice. The political economy would have been a mixture of hunting and gathering and swidden or shifting agriculture. Speculative planting of wet rice may have taken place along the margins of the lakes and rivers. In Central Sulawesi, there are over 400 granite megaliths, which various archaeological studies have dated to be from 3000 BC to AD 1300. They vary in size from a few centimetres to around 4.5 metres. The original purpose of the megaliths is unknown. About 30 of the megaliths represent human forms. Other megaliths are in form of large pots (Kalamba) and stone plates (Tutu'na).In October 2014 it was announced that cave paintings in Maros had been dated as being about 40,000 years old. Dr Maxime Aubert, of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said that the minimum age for the outline of a hand was 39,900 years old, which made it "the oldest hand stencil in the world" and added, "Next to it is a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one."

 

HISTORY

Starting in the 13th century, access to prestige trade goods and to sources of iron started to alter long-standing cultural patterns and to permit ambitious individuals to build larger political units. It is not known why these two ingredients appeared together; one was perhaps the product of the other.

 

In 1367, several identified polities, located on the island, were mentioned in the Javanese manuscript Nagarakretagama dated from the Majapahit period. Canto 14 mentioned polities including Gowa, Makassar, Luwu and Banggai. It seems that by the 14th century, polities in the island were connected in an archipelagic maritime trading network, centered in the Majapahit port in East Java. By 1400, a number of nascent agricultural principalities had arisen in the western Cenrana valley, as well as on the south coast and on the west coast near modern Parepare.

 

The first Europeans to visit the island (which they believed to be an archipelago due to its contorted shape) were the Portuguese sailors Simão de Abreu, in 1523, and Gomes de Sequeira (among others) in 1525, sent from the Moluccas in search of gold, which the islands had the reputation of producing. A Portuguese base was installed in Makassar in the first decades of the 16th century, lasting until 1665, when it was taken by the Dutch. The Dutch had arrived in Sulawesi in 1605 and were quickly followed by the English, who established a factory in Makassar. From 1660, the Dutch were at war with Gowa, the major Makassar west coast power. In 1669, Admiral Speelman forced the ruler, Sultan Hasanuddin, to sign the Treaty of Bongaya, which handed control of trade to the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch were aided in their conquest by the Bugis warlord Arung Palakka, ruler of the Bugis kingdom of Bone. The Dutch built a fort at Ujung Pandang, while Arung Palakka became the regional overlord and Bone the dominant kingdom. Political and cultural development seems to have slowed as a result of the status quo. In 1905 the entire island became part of the Dutch state colony of the Netherlands East Indies until Japanese occupation in the Second World War. During the Indonesian National Revolution, the Dutch Captain 'Turk' Westerling led campaigns in which hundreds, maybe thousands died during the South Sulawesi Campaign. Following the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949, Sulawesi became part of the federal United States of Indonesia, which in 1950 became absorbed into the unitary Republic of Indonesia.

 

CENTRAL SULAWESI

The Portuguese were rumoured to have a fort in Parigi in 1555. The Kaili were an important group based in the Palu valley and related to the Toraja. Scholars relate that their control swayed under Ternate and Makassar, but this might have been a decision by the Dutch to give their vassals a chance to govern a difficult group. Padbruge commented that in the 1700s Kaili numbers were significant and a highly militant society. In the 1850s a war erupted between the Kaili groups, including the Banawa, in which the Dutch decided to intervene. A complex conflict also involving the Sulu Island pirates and probably Wyndham (a British merchant who commented on being involved in arms dealing to the area in this period and causing a row).

 

In the late 19th century the Sarasins journeyed through the Palu valley as part of a major initiative to bring the Kaili under Dutch rule. Some very surprising and interesting photographs were taken of shamans called Tadulako. Further Christian religious missions entered the area to make one of the most detailed ethnographic studies in the early 20th century. A Swede by the name of Walter Kaudern later studied much of the literature and produced a synthesis. Erskine Downs in the 1950s produced a summary of Kruyts and Andrianis work: "The religion of the Bare'e-Speaking Toradja of Central Celebes," which is invaluable for English-speaking researchers. One of the most recent publications is "When the bones are left," a study of the material culture of central Sulawesi, offering extensive analysis. Also worthy of study are the brilliant works of Monnig Atkinson on the Wana shamans who live in the Mori area.

 

POPULATION

The 2000 census population of the provinces of Sulawesi was 14,946,488, about 7.25% of Indonesia's total population. By the 2010 Census the total had reached 17,371,782, and the latest official estimate (for January 2014) is 18,455,058. The largest city is Makassar.

 

RELIGION

Islam is the majority religion in Sulawesi. The conversion of the lowlands of the south western peninsula (South Sulawesi) to Islam occurred in the early 17th century. The kingdom of Luwu in the Gulf of Bone was the first to accept Islam in February 1605; the Makassar kingdom of Goa-Talloq, centred on the modern-day city of Makassar, followed suit in September. However, the Gorontalo and the Mongondow peoples of the northern peninsula largely converted to Islam only in the 19th century. Most Muslims are Sunnis.

  

POPULATION OF SULAWESI BY PROVINCE (2010)

South Sulawesi (46.4%)

Central Sulawesi (15%)

Southeast Sulawesi (13%)

North Sulawesi (13.0%)

West Sulawesi (6.6%)

Gorontalo (6%)

 

Christians form a substantial minority on the island. According to the demographer Toby Alice Volkman, 17% of Sulawesi's population is Protestant and less than 2% is Roman Catholic. Christians are concentrated on the tip of the northern peninsula around the city of Manado, which is inhabited by the Minahasa, a predominantly Protestant people, and the northernmost Sangir and Talaud Islands. The Toraja people of Tana Toraja in Central Sulawesi have largely converted to Christianity since Indonesia's independence. There are also substantial numbers of Christians around Lake Poso in Central Sulawesi, among the Pamona speaking peoples of Central Sulawesi, and near Mamasa.

 

Though most people identify themselves as Muslims or Christians, they often subscribe to local beliefs and deities as well. It is not uncommon for both groups to make offerings to local gods, goddesses, and spirits.

 

Smaller communities of Buddhists and Hindus are also found on Sulawesi, usually among the Chinese, Balinese and Indian communities.

 

AGMINISTRATION

The island is subdivided into six provinces: Gorontalo, West Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and North Sulawesi. West Sulawesi is a new province, created in 2004 from part of South Sulawesi. The largest cities on the island are Makassar, Manado, Palu, Kendari, Bitung, Gorontalo, Palopo and Baubau.

 

FLORA AND FAUNA

Sulawesi is part of Wallacea, meaning that it has a mix of both Indomalayan and Australasian species that reached the island by crossing deep-water oceanic barriers. The flora includes one native eucalypt, E. deglupta. There are 8 national parks on the island, of which 4 are mostly marine. The parks with the largest terrestrial area are Bogani Nani Wartabone with 2,871 km2 and Lore Lindu National Park with 2,290 km2. Bunaken National Park which protects a rich coral ecosystem has been proposed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

MAMMALS

Early in the Pleistocene, Sulawesi had a dwarf elephant and a dwarf form of Stegodon, (an elephant relative, S. sompoensis); later both were replaced by larger forms. A giant suid, Celebochoerus, was also formerly present. It is thought that many of the migrants to Sulawesi arrived via the Philippines, while Sulawesi in turn served as a way station for migrants to Flores. A Pleistocene faunal turnover is recognised, with the competitive displacement of several indigenous tarsiers by more recently arriving ones and by Celebochoerus by other medium-sized herbivores like the babirusa, anoa and Celebes warty pig.

 

There are 127 known extant native mammalian species in Sulawesi. A large percentage, 62% (79 species) are endemic, meaning that they are found nowhere else in the world. The largest of these are the two species of anoa or dwarf buffalo. Other artiodactyl species inhabiting Sulawesi are the warty pig and the babirusas, which are aberrant pigs. The only native carnivoran is the Sulawesi palm civet (Asian palm and Malayan civets have been introduced). Primates present include a number of tarsiers (T. fuscus, Dian's, Gursky's, Jatna's, Wallace's, the Lariang and pygmy tarsiers) as well as macaques (Heck's, the booted, crested black, Gorontalo, moor, and Tonkean macaques). While most of Sulawesi's mammals are placental and have Asian relatives, several species of cuscus, arboreal marsupials of Australasian origin, are also present (Ailurops ursinus and Strigocuscus celebensis).

 

Sulawesi is home to a large number of endemic rodent genera. Murid rodent genera endemic to Sulawesi and immediately adjacent islands (such as the Togian Islands, Buton Island, and Muna Island) are Bunomys, Echiothrix, Margaretamys, Taeromys and Tateomys as well as the single-species genera Eropeplus, Hyorhinomys, Melasmothrix, Paucidentomys, Paruromys and Sommeromys. Endemic sciurid genera are Hyosciurus, Prosciurillus, Rubrisciurus and Waiomys.

 

While over 20 bat species are present on Sulawesi, only a portion of these are endemic: Rhinolophus tatar, Scotophilus celebensis and the megabats Acerodon celebensis, Boneia bidens, Dobsonia exoleta, Harpyionycteris celebensis, Neopteryx frosti, Rousettus celebensis and Styloctenium wallacei.

 

Several endemic shrews, the Sulawesi shrew, Sulawesi tiny shrew and the Sulawesi white-handed shrew, are found on the island.

 

BIRDS

By contrast, Sulawesian bird species tend to be found on other nearby islands as well, such as Borneo; 31% of Sulawesi's birds are found nowhere else. One true endemic is the fiery-browed starling. Another endemic bird (also found on small neighboring islands) is the largely ground-dwelling, chicken-sized maleo, a megapode which uses hot sand close to the island's volcanic vents to incubate its eggs. Others include the flightless snoring rail, the Sulawesi masked owl, the Sulawesi myna and the grosbeak starling. There are around 350 known bird species in Sulawesi. An international partnership of conservationists, donors, and local people have formed the Alliance for Tompotika Conservation, in an effort to raise awareness and protect the nesting grounds of these birds on the central-eastern arm of the island.

 

REPTILES

The larger reptiles of Sulawesi are not endemic and include reticulated and Burmese pythons, king cobras, water monitors, sailfin lizards, saltwater crocodiles and green sea turtles. An extinct giant tortoise, Megalochelys atlas, was formerly present, but disappeared by 840,000 years ago, possibly because of the arrival of humans. Similarly, komodo dragons or similar lizards appear to have inhabited the island, being among its apex predators. The smaller snakes of Sulawesi include endemic forms such as Calamaria boesemani, Calamaria muelleri, Calamaria nuchalis, Cyclotyphlops, Enhydris matannensis, Ptyas dipsas, Rabdion grovesi, Tropidolaemus laticinctus and Typhlops conradi. Similarly, the smaller lizards of Sulawesi include nonendemic species such as Bronchocela jubata, Dibamus novaeguineae and Gekko smithii, as well as endemic species such as Lipinia infralineolata and Luperosaurus iskandari.

 

AMPHIBIANS

The amphibians of Sulawesi include the endemic frogs Hylarana celebensis, H. macrops, H. mocquardi, Ingerophrynus celebensis, Limnonectes arathooni, L. larvaepartus, L. microtympanum, Occidozyga celebensis, O. semipalmata and O. tompotika as well as the endemic "flying frogs" Rhacophorus edentulus and R. georgii.

 

FRESHWATER FISH

Sulawesi is home to more than 70 freshwater fish species, including more than 55 endemics. Among these are the genus Nomorhamphus, a species flock of viviparous halfbeaks containing 12 species that only are found on Sulawesi (others are from the Philippines). In addition to Nomorhamphus, the majority of Sulawesi's freshwater fish species are ricefishes, gobies (Glossogobius and Mugilogobius) and Telmatherinid sail-fin silversides. The last family is almost entirely restricted to Sulawesi, especially the Malili Lake system, consisting of Matano and Towuti, and the small Lontoa (Wawantoa), Mahalona and Masapi. Another unusual endemic is Lagusia micracanthus from rivers in South Sulawesi, which is the sole member of its genus and among the smallest grunters. The gudgeon Bostrychus microphthalmus from the Maros Karst is the only described species of cave-adapted fish from Sulawesi, but an apparently undescribed species from the same region and genus also exists.

 

FRESHWATER CRUSTACEANS AND SNAILS

Many species of Caridina freshwater shrimp and parathelphusid freshwater crabs (Migmathelphusa, Nautilothelphusa, Parathelphusa, Sundathelphusa and Syntripsa) are endemic to Sulawesi. Several of these species have become very popular in the aquarium hobby, and since most are restricted to a single lake system, they are potentially vulnerable to habitat loss and overexploitation. There are also several endemic cave-adapted shrimp and crabs, especially in the Maros Karst. This includes Cancrocaeca xenomorpha, which has been called the "most highly cave-adapted species of crab known in the world".

 

The genus Tylomelania of freshwater snails is also endemic to Sulawesi, with the majority of the species restricted to Lake Poso and the Malili Lake system.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

The mimic octopus is also present in the waters of Sulawesi's coast.

 

CONSERVATION

Sulawesi island was recently the subject of an Ecoregional Conservation Assessment, coordinated by The Nature Conservancy. Detailed reports about the vegetation of the island are available. The assessment produced a detailed and annotated list of 'conservation portfolio' sites. This information was widely distributed to local government agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Detailed conservation priorities have also been outlined in a recent publication.

 

The lowland forests on the island have mostly been removed. Because of the relative geological youth of the island and its dramatic and sharp topography, the lowland areas are naturally limited in their extent. The past decade has seen dramatic conversion of this rare and endangered habitat. The island also possesses one of the largest outcrops of serpentine soil in the world, which support an unusual and large community of specialized plant species. Overall, the flora and fauna of this unique center of global biodiversity is very poorly documented and understood and remains critically threatened.

 

The islands of Pepaya, Mas and Raja islands, located in Sumalata Village - North Gorontalo Regency (about 30 km from Saronde Island), have been named a nature reserve since the Dutch colonial time in 1936. Four of the only seven species of turtles can be found in the islands, the world's best turtle habitat. They include Penyu Hijau (Chelonia midas), Penyu Sisik (Eretmochelys imbricata), Penyu Tempayan (Caretta caretta) and Penyu Belimbing (Dermochelys coriacea). In 2011, the habitat was threatened by human activities such as illegal poaching and fish bombing activities; furthermore, a lot of coral reefs, which represent a source of food for turtles, have been damaged.

 

ENVIRONMENT

The largest environmental issue in Sulawesi is deforestation. In 2007, scientists found that 80 percent of Sulawesi's forest had been lost or degraded, especially centered in the lowlands and the mangroves. Forests have been felled for logging and large agricultural projects. Loss of forest has resulted in many of Sulawesi's endemic species becoming endangered. In addition, 99 percent of Sulawesi's wetlands have been lost or damaged.

 

Other environmental threats included bushmeat hunting and mining.

 

PARKS

The island of Sulawesi has six national parks and nineteen nature reserves. In addition, Sulawesi has three marine protected areas. Many of Sulawesi's parks are threatened by logging, mining, and deforestation for agriculture.

 

WIKIPEDIA

I love this building and its dramatic frontage. The Millenium Centre in Cardiff. Tonight the sun makes the bronze glow.

The Rathskeller in the Seelbach Hotel, Louisville, Kentucky

The 1907 addition to The Seelbach in Louisville, Kentucky, included a German rathskeller made of Rookwood Pottery created in nearby Cincinnati, Ohio, by workers hired from the Art Academy. Rookwood Pottery was founded by Maria Longworth Nichols (later Mrs. Bellamy Storer Jr.) in 1880.

 

According to "The Seelbach Hotel, A History of Louisville Tradition" by J. Theriot in August, 1988, "In making this expensive type of pottery, decorations were drawn by hand on the clay before firing, making the design part of the ware. After baking, various glazes were added in subsequent firings. The floors, columns and walls of the eighty-foot square room were made of the pottery. The ceiling is fine-tooled leather."

 

To complement the room, The Seelbach Realty Company's president, Charles C. Vogt, presented the hotel with a $10,000 gift, a Rookwood-faced clock. Such a collection of Rookwood was very rare and, today, The Rathskeller is one of only two surviving ensembles of this art form.

 

The Rathskeller (ratskellar, a German word meaning restaurant in the town-hall cellar) was built in Bavarian tradition. The Seelbach's Rathskeller menu offers this description: "As a matter of fact the Rathskeller in every essential, artistic detail, is a reproduction of the underground drinking and council hall of one of the famous castles on the Rhine."

 

The graceful arches supported by noble columns give a cathedral-like effect. The archway pillars are encircled with Rookwood pelican frescoes, a symbol of good luck, and the ceiling above the bar is covered with hand-painted 24K gold leaf leather detailing the signs of the zodiac.

 

The Rathskeller achieved immediate popularity. The July 1912 edition of Hotel Monthly describes it as having a "seating capacity from 300 to 400." Not only was it a beautiful nightspot, conveniently located for the after-theater crowds, but it was also one of the first air-conditioned rooms ever built. The Seelbachs vowed to keep the room at least 10 degrees cooler than the outside summer temperatures. To do so required 40 tons of steam-produced refrigeration every 24 hours.

 

When the hotel was sold to Abraham Liebling, one of the first improvements was for the managers to lease a corner of the first floor to Walgreen Drugs. The Seelbach welcomed this renovation. Since prohibition and the nationwide ban on alcohol sales, the first floor bar had closed and The Rathskeller was little more than an extension of a restaurant. With the drug store on the main floor, the restaurant simply found a home downstairs in the basement. Several years later after prohibition ended, management moved the restaurant back up to the renovated first floor and closed The Rathskeller for extensive changes. In April 1934, it re-opened with a 56-foot bar staffed by six bartenders. With these renovations, the basement bar moved into a new era. Instead of simply providing a stopping place for late-night theater patrons, The Rathskeller would now offer its own musical and dramatic entertainment featuring local bands and occasional first-run theater.

 

When Walgreen's lease expired in 1941, management opted to open a new nightclub, tentatively called The Seelbach Café-Bar. The club took away from The Rathskeller and in 1945, when the Legionaries offered to rent the basement, including The Rathskeller, for a members-only club, the managers agreed. Today, The Seelbach's most treasured heirloom, The Rathskeller, with its dramatic design, lighting, and hand-carved architectural details, is again operated by The Seelbach and is available for private events.

  

The RathskellerThe Rathskeller is the only surviving room in the world completely encrusted in Rookwood pottery. Rookwood pelicans pervade the area, and although the Hotel’s tourist information likes to cheerfully note that the pelicans are there “for good luck,” it’s also true that the pelican is regarded in some occult mythologies as a symbol of resurrecting one’s children after having killed them oneself, by anointing them with one’s own blood. The pelican has also long been synonymous with the Phoenix (the mythological bird of occult initiation, wherein one is reborn into a new awareness or gnosis) and with Henet (a pelican goddess from pyramid-era Egypt, who appears on walls of ancient tombs and in royal funerary texts).

 

The Seelbach Hotel was the dream of two German immigrants, and over the past century it has gained the reputation of one of the finest hotels in the area.

 

"They opened the doors in 1905, the original cost was approximately $990,000 dollars," says Larry Johnson, who is now the lobby concierge at Louisville's Seelbach Hotel.

 

"The poker room had the distinction of being where Al Capone came to play poker," Johnson says. "He probably would have stopped here on his way back to Chicago from being in eastern Kentucky, where he picked up his moonshine." It was the era of Prohibition and Al Capone played it safe at the hotel, always facing a mirror in the poker room to keep an eye on his competition ... and on his back. And Johnson says there were "lookouts" throughout the hotel. "Whenever the police came into the lobby, somebody would step on the button and the doors going into the poker room would automatically close and he would know to get out."

 

And secret passageways -- now sealed up -- allowed just that. "One of the doors went out and down to the street, and the other door went downstairs to the tunnels underneath the hotel. They would go down into the tunnels and he could go anywhere from a block to a mile away form the hotel without being seen."

 

Louisville police never caught up with Capone, whether he was escaping a card game or from another room he favored: the Rathskeller. Now a backdrop for corporate events and other parties, Johnson says the Rathskeller was a "big night club back in the 20s and 30s, it was a USO in World War I and World War II. During Prohibition, it was a dinner club."

 

Capone wasn't the only well-known character to frequent the Seelbach. An Army captain stationed at Camp Taylor also gained quite a reputation at the hotel. F. Scott Fitzgerald, he frequented the bar and supposedly he was kicked out on several occasions for being a booze hound and being a little rowdy," Johnson says. Despite his brushes with the law, Fitzgerald loved the opulent hotel. So much so he wrote about it years later in the Great Gatsby.

 

Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes (/ˈsɛlɪbiːz, sɪˈliːbiːz/), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Within Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger populations.

 

The landmass of Sulawesi includes four peninsulas: the northern Minahasa Peninsula; the East Peninsula; the South Peninsula; and the Southeast Peninsula. Three gulfs separate these peninsulas: the Gulf of Tomini between the northern Minahasa and East peninsulas; the Tolo Gulf between the East and Southeast peninsulas; and the Bone Gulf between the South and Southeast peninsulas. The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island and separates the island from Borneo.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The name Sulawesi possibly comes from the words sula ("island") and besi ("iron") and may refer to the historical export of iron from the rich Lake Matano iron deposits. The name came into common use in English following Indonesian independence.

 

The name Celebes was originally given to the island by Portuguese explorers. While its direct translation is unclear, it may be considered a Portuguese rendering of the native name "Sulawesi".

 

GEOGRAPHY

Sulawesi is the world's eleventh-largest island, covering an area of 174,600 km2. The central part of the island is ruggedly mountainous, such that the island's peninsulas have traditionally been remote from each other, with better connections by sea than by road. The three bays that divide Sulawesi's peninsulas are, from north to south, the Tomini, the Tolo and the Boni. These separate the Minahassa or Northern Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the Southeast Peninsula and the South Peninsula.

 

The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island. The island is surrounded by Borneo to the west, by the Philippines to the north, by Maluku to the east, and by Flores and Timor to the south.

 

MINOR ISLANDS

The Selayar Islands make up a peninsula stretching southwards from Southwest Sulawesi into the Flores Sea are administratively part of Sulawesi. The Sangihe Islands and Talaud Islands stretch northward from the northeastern tip of Sulawesi, while Buton Island and its neighbours lie off its southeast peninsula, the Togian Islands are in the Gulf of Tomini, and Peleng Island and Banggai Islands form a cluster between Sulawesi and Maluku. All the above-mentioned islands, and many smaller ones are administratively part of Sulawesi's six provinces.

 

GEOLOGY

The island slopes up from the shores of the deep seas surrounding the island to a high, mostly non-volcanic, mountainous interior. Active volcanoes are found in the northern Minahassa Peninsula, stretching north to the Sangihe Islands. The northern peninsula contains several active volcanoes such as Mount Lokon, Mount Awu, Soputan and Karangetang.

 

According to plate reconstructions, the island is believed to have been formed by the collision of terranes from the Asian Plate (forming the west and southwest) and from the Australian Plate (forming the southeast and Banggai), with island arcs previously in the Pacific (forming the north and east peninsulas).[8] Because of its several tectonic origins, various faults scar the land and as a result the island is prone to earthquakes.

 

Sulawesi, in contrast to most of the other islands in the biogeographical region of Wallacea, is not truly oceanic, but a composite island at the centre of the Asia-Australia collision zone. Parts of the island were formerly attached to either the Asian or Australian continental margin and became separated from these areas by vicariant processes. In the west, the opening of the Makassar Strait separated West Sulawesi from Sundaland in the Eocene c. 45 Mya. In the east, the traditional view of collisions of multiple micro-continental fragments sliced from New Guinea with an active volcanic margin in West Sulawesi at different times since the Early Miocene c. 20 Mya has recently been replaced by the hypothesis that extensional fragmentation has followed a single Miocene collision of West Sulawesi with the Sula Spur, the western end of an ancient folded belt of Variscan origin in the Late Paleozoic.

 

PREHISTORY

Before October 2014, the settlement of South Sulawesi by modern humans had been dated to c. 30,000 BC on the basis of radiocarbon dates obtained from rock shelters in Maros. No earlier evidence of human occupation had at that point been found, but the island almost certainly formed part of the land bridge used for the settlement of Australia and New Guinea by at least 40,000 BCE. There is no evidence of Homo erectus having reached Sulawesi; crude stone tools first discovered in 1947 on the right bank of the Walennae River at Berru, Indonesia, which were thought to date to the Pleistocene on the basis of their association with vertebrate fossils, are now thought to date to perhaps 50,000 BC.

 

Following Peter Bellwood's model of a southward migration of Austronesian-speaking farmers (AN), radiocarbon dates from caves in Maros suggest a date in the mid-second millennium BC for the arrival of a group from east Borneo speaking a Proto-South Sulawesi language (PSS). Initial settlement was probably around the mouth of the Sa'dan river, on the northwest coast of the peninsula, although the south coast has also been suggested.

 

Subsequent migrations across the mountainous landscape resulted in the geographical isolation of PSS speakers and the evolution of their languages into the eight families of the South Sulawesi language group. If each group can be said to have a homeland, that of the Bugis – today the most numerous group – was around lakes Témpé and Sidénréng in the Walennaé depression. Here for some 2,000 years lived the linguistic group that would become the modern Bugis; the archaic name of this group (which is preserved in other local languages) was Ugiq. Despite the fact that today they are closely linked with the Makasar, the closest linguistic neighbours of the Bugis are the Toraja.

 

Pre-1200 Bugis society was most likely organised into chiefdoms. Some anthropologists have speculated these chiefdoms would have warred and, in times of peace, exchanged women with each other. Further, they have speculated that personal security would have been negligible and head-hunting an established cultural practice. The political economy would have been a mixture of hunting and gathering and swidden or shifting agriculture. Speculative planting of wet rice may have taken place along the margins of the lakes and rivers. In Central Sulawesi, there are over 400 granite megaliths, which various archaeological studies have dated to be from 3000 BC to AD 1300. They vary in size from a few centimetres to around 4.5 metres. The original purpose of the megaliths is unknown. About 30 of the megaliths represent human forms. Other megaliths are in form of large pots (Kalamba) and stone plates (Tutu'na).In October 2014 it was announced that cave paintings in Maros had been dated as being about 40,000 years old. Dr Maxime Aubert, of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said that the minimum age for the outline of a hand was 39,900 years old, which made it "the oldest hand stencil in the world" and added, "Next to it is a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one."

 

HISTORY

Starting in the 13th century, access to prestige trade goods and to sources of iron started to alter long-standing cultural patterns and to permit ambitious individuals to build larger political units. It is not known why these two ingredients appeared together; one was perhaps the product of the other.

 

In 1367, several identified polities, located on the island, were mentioned in the Javanese manuscript Nagarakretagama dated from the Majapahit period. Canto 14 mentioned polities including Gowa, Makassar, Luwu and Banggai. It seems that by the 14th century, polities in the island were connected in an archipelagic maritime trading network, centered in the Majapahit port in East Java. By 1400, a number of nascent agricultural principalities had arisen in the western Cenrana valley, as well as on the south coast and on the west coast near modern Parepare.

 

The first Europeans to visit the island (which they believed to be an archipelago due to its contorted shape) were the Portuguese sailors Simão de Abreu, in 1523, and Gomes de Sequeira (among others) in 1525, sent from the Moluccas in search of gold, which the islands had the reputation of producing. A Portuguese base was installed in Makassar in the first decades of the 16th century, lasting until 1665, when it was taken by the Dutch. The Dutch had arrived in Sulawesi in 1605 and were quickly followed by the English, who established a factory in Makassar. From 1660, the Dutch were at war with Gowa, the major Makassar west coast power. In 1669, Admiral Speelman forced the ruler, Sultan Hasanuddin, to sign the Treaty of Bongaya, which handed control of trade to the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch were aided in their conquest by the Bugis warlord Arung Palakka, ruler of the Bugis kingdom of Bone. The Dutch built a fort at Ujung Pandang, while Arung Palakka became the regional overlord and Bone the dominant kingdom. Political and cultural development seems to have slowed as a result of the status quo. In 1905 the entire island became part of the Dutch state colony of the Netherlands East Indies until Japanese occupation in the Second World War. During the Indonesian National Revolution, the Dutch Captain 'Turk' Westerling led campaigns in which hundreds, maybe thousands died during the South Sulawesi Campaign. Following the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949, Sulawesi became part of the federal United States of Indonesia, which in 1950 became absorbed into the unitary Republic of Indonesia.

 

CENTRAL SULAWESI

The Portuguese were rumoured to have a fort in Parigi in 1555. The Kaili were an important group based in the Palu valley and related to the Toraja. Scholars relate that their control swayed under Ternate and Makassar, but this might have been a decision by the Dutch to give their vassals a chance to govern a difficult group. Padbruge commented that in the 1700s Kaili numbers were significant and a highly militant society. In the 1850s a war erupted between the Kaili groups, including the Banawa, in which the Dutch decided to intervene. A complex conflict also involving the Sulu Island pirates and probably Wyndham (a British merchant who commented on being involved in arms dealing to the area in this period and causing a row).

 

In the late 19th century the Sarasins journeyed through the Palu valley as part of a major initiative to bring the Kaili under Dutch rule. Some very surprising and interesting photographs were taken of shamans called Tadulako. Further Christian religious missions entered the area to make one of the most detailed ethnographic studies in the early 20th century. A Swede by the name of Walter Kaudern later studied much of the literature and produced a synthesis. Erskine Downs in the 1950s produced a summary of Kruyts and Andrianis work: "The religion of the Bare'e-Speaking Toradja of Central Celebes," which is invaluable for English-speaking researchers. One of the most recent publications is "When the bones are left," a study of the material culture of central Sulawesi, offering extensive analysis. Also worthy of study are the brilliant works of Monnig Atkinson on the Wana shamans who live in the Mori area.

 

POPULATION

The 2000 census population of the provinces of Sulawesi was 14,946,488, about 7.25% of Indonesia's total population. By the 2010 Census the total had reached 17,371,782, and the latest official estimate (for January 2014) is 18,455,058. The largest city is Makassar.

 

RELIGION

Islam is the majority religion in Sulawesi. The conversion of the lowlands of the south western peninsula (South Sulawesi) to Islam occurred in the early 17th century. The kingdom of Luwu in the Gulf of Bone was the first to accept Islam in February 1605; the Makassar kingdom of Goa-Talloq, centred on the modern-day city of Makassar, followed suit in September. However, the Gorontalo and the Mongondow peoples of the northern peninsula largely converted to Islam only in the 19th century. Most Muslims are Sunnis.

  

POPULATION OF SULAWESI BY PROVINCE (2010)

South Sulawesi (46.4%)

Central Sulawesi (15%)

Southeast Sulawesi (13%)

North Sulawesi (13.0%)

West Sulawesi (6.6%)

Gorontalo (6%)

 

Christians form a substantial minority on the island. According to the demographer Toby Alice Volkman, 17% of Sulawesi's population is Protestant and less than 2% is Roman Catholic. Christians are concentrated on the tip of the northern peninsula around the city of Manado, which is inhabited by the Minahasa, a predominantly Protestant people, and the northernmost Sangir and Talaud Islands. The Toraja people of Tana Toraja in Central Sulawesi have largely converted to Christianity since Indonesia's independence. There are also substantial numbers of Christians around Lake Poso in Central Sulawesi, among the Pamona speaking peoples of Central Sulawesi, and near Mamasa.

 

Though most people identify themselves as Muslims or Christians, they often subscribe to local beliefs and deities as well. It is not uncommon for both groups to make offerings to local gods, goddesses, and spirits.

 

Smaller communities of Buddhists and Hindus are also found on Sulawesi, usually among the Chinese, Balinese and Indian communities.

 

AGMINISTRATION

The island is subdivided into six provinces: Gorontalo, West Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and North Sulawesi. West Sulawesi is a new province, created in 2004 from part of South Sulawesi. The largest cities on the island are Makassar, Manado, Palu, Kendari, Bitung, Gorontalo, Palopo and Baubau.

 

FLORA AND FAUNA

Sulawesi is part of Wallacea, meaning that it has a mix of both Indomalayan and Australasian species that reached the island by crossing deep-water oceanic barriers. The flora includes one native eucalypt, E. deglupta. There are 8 national parks on the island, of which 4 are mostly marine. The parks with the largest terrestrial area are Bogani Nani Wartabone with 2,871 km2 and Lore Lindu National Park with 2,290 km2. Bunaken National Park which protects a rich coral ecosystem has been proposed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

MAMMALS

Early in the Pleistocene, Sulawesi had a dwarf elephant and a dwarf form of Stegodon, (an elephant relative, S. sompoensis); later both were replaced by larger forms. A giant suid, Celebochoerus, was also formerly present. It is thought that many of the migrants to Sulawesi arrived via the Philippines, while Sulawesi in turn served as a way station for migrants to Flores. A Pleistocene faunal turnover is recognised, with the competitive displacement of several indigenous tarsiers by more recently arriving ones and by Celebochoerus by other medium-sized herbivores like the babirusa, anoa and Celebes warty pig.

 

There are 127 known extant native mammalian species in Sulawesi. A large percentage, 62% (79 species) are endemic, meaning that they are found nowhere else in the world. The largest of these are the two species of anoa or dwarf buffalo. Other artiodactyl species inhabiting Sulawesi are the warty pig and the babirusas, which are aberrant pigs. The only native carnivoran is the Sulawesi palm civet (Asian palm and Malayan civets have been introduced). Primates present include a number of tarsiers (T. fuscus, Dian's, Gursky's, Jatna's, Wallace's, the Lariang and pygmy tarsiers) as well as macaques (Heck's, the booted, crested black, Gorontalo, moor, and Tonkean macaques). While most of Sulawesi's mammals are placental and have Asian relatives, several species of cuscus, arboreal marsupials of Australasian origin, are also present (Ailurops ursinus and Strigocuscus celebensis).

 

Sulawesi is home to a large number of endemic rodent genera. Murid rodent genera endemic to Sulawesi and immediately adjacent islands (such as the Togian Islands, Buton Island, and Muna Island) are Bunomys, Echiothrix, Margaretamys, Taeromys and Tateomys as well as the single-species genera Eropeplus, Hyorhinomys, Melasmothrix, Paucidentomys, Paruromys and Sommeromys. Endemic sciurid genera are Hyosciurus, Prosciurillus, Rubrisciurus and Waiomys.

 

While over 20 bat species are present on Sulawesi, only a portion of these are endemic: Rhinolophus tatar, Scotophilus celebensis and the megabats Acerodon celebensis, Boneia bidens, Dobsonia exoleta, Harpyionycteris celebensis, Neopteryx frosti, Rousettus celebensis and Styloctenium wallacei.

 

Several endemic shrews, the Sulawesi shrew, Sulawesi tiny shrew and the Sulawesi white-handed shrew, are found on the island.

 

BIRDS

By contrast, Sulawesian bird species tend to be found on other nearby islands as well, such as Borneo; 31% of Sulawesi's birds are found nowhere else. One true endemic is the fiery-browed starling. Another endemic bird (also found on small neighboring islands) is the largely ground-dwelling, chicken-sized maleo, a megapode which uses hot sand close to the island's volcanic vents to incubate its eggs. Others include the flightless snoring rail, the Sulawesi masked owl, the Sulawesi myna and the grosbeak starling. There are around 350 known bird species in Sulawesi. An international partnership of conservationists, donors, and local people have formed the Alliance for Tompotika Conservation, in an effort to raise awareness and protect the nesting grounds of these birds on the central-eastern arm of the island.

 

REPTILES

The larger reptiles of Sulawesi are not endemic and include reticulated and Burmese pythons, king cobras, water monitors, sailfin lizards, saltwater crocodiles and green sea turtles. An extinct giant tortoise, Megalochelys atlas, was formerly present, but disappeared by 840,000 years ago, possibly because of the arrival of humans. Similarly, komodo dragons or similar lizards appear to have inhabited the island, being among its apex predators. The smaller snakes of Sulawesi include endemic forms such as Calamaria boesemani, Calamaria muelleri, Calamaria nuchalis, Cyclotyphlops, Enhydris matannensis, Ptyas dipsas, Rabdion grovesi, Tropidolaemus laticinctus and Typhlops conradi. Similarly, the smaller lizards of Sulawesi include nonendemic species such as Bronchocela jubata, Dibamus novaeguineae and Gekko smithii, as well as endemic species such as Lipinia infralineolata and Luperosaurus iskandari.

 

AMPHIBIANS

The amphibians of Sulawesi include the endemic frogs Hylarana celebensis, H. macrops, H. mocquardi, Ingerophrynus celebensis, Limnonectes arathooni, L. larvaepartus, L. microtympanum, Occidozyga celebensis, O. semipalmata and O. tompotika as well as the endemic "flying frogs" Rhacophorus edentulus and R. georgii.

 

FRESHWATER FISH

Sulawesi is home to more than 70 freshwater fish species, including more than 55 endemics. Among these are the genus Nomorhamphus, a species flock of viviparous halfbeaks containing 12 species that only are found on Sulawesi (others are from the Philippines). In addition to Nomorhamphus, the majority of Sulawesi's freshwater fish species are ricefishes, gobies (Glossogobius and Mugilogobius) and Telmatherinid sail-fin silversides. The last family is almost entirely restricted to Sulawesi, especially the Malili Lake system, consisting of Matano and Towuti, and the small Lontoa (Wawantoa), Mahalona and Masapi. Another unusual endemic is Lagusia micracanthus from rivers in South Sulawesi, which is the sole member of its genus and among the smallest grunters. The gudgeon Bostrychus microphthalmus from the Maros Karst is the only described species of cave-adapted fish from Sulawesi, but an apparently undescribed species from the same region and genus also exists.

 

FRESHWATER CRUSTACEANS AND SNAILS

Many species of Caridina freshwater shrimp and parathelphusid freshwater crabs (Migmathelphusa, Nautilothelphusa, Parathelphusa, Sundathelphusa and Syntripsa) are endemic to Sulawesi. Several of these species have become very popular in the aquarium hobby, and since most are restricted to a single lake system, they are potentially vulnerable to habitat loss and overexploitation. There are also several endemic cave-adapted shrimp and crabs, especially in the Maros Karst. This includes Cancrocaeca xenomorpha, which has been called the "most highly cave-adapted species of crab known in the world".

 

The genus Tylomelania of freshwater snails is also endemic to Sulawesi, with the majority of the species restricted to Lake Poso and the Malili Lake system.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

The mimic octopus is also present in the waters of Sulawesi's coast.

 

CONSERVATION

Sulawesi island was recently the subject of an Ecoregional Conservation Assessment, coordinated by The Nature Conservancy. Detailed reports about the vegetation of the island are available. The assessment produced a detailed and annotated list of 'conservation portfolio' sites. This information was widely distributed to local government agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Detailed conservation priorities have also been outlined in a recent publication.

 

The lowland forests on the island have mostly been removed. Because of the relative geological youth of the island and its dramatic and sharp topography, the lowland areas are naturally limited in their extent. The past decade has seen dramatic conversion of this rare and endangered habitat. The island also possesses one of the largest outcrops of serpentine soil in the world, which support an unusual and large community of specialized plant species. Overall, the flora and fauna of this unique center of global biodiversity is very poorly documented and understood and remains critically threatened.

 

The islands of Pepaya, Mas and Raja islands, located in Sumalata Village - North Gorontalo Regency (about 30 km from Saronde Island), have been named a nature reserve since the Dutch colonial time in 1936. Four of the only seven species of turtles can be found in the islands, the world's best turtle habitat. They include Penyu Hijau (Chelonia midas), Penyu Sisik (Eretmochelys imbricata), Penyu Tempayan (Caretta caretta) and Penyu Belimbing (Dermochelys coriacea). In 2011, the habitat was threatened by human activities such as illegal poaching and fish bombing activities; furthermore, a lot of coral reefs, which represent a source of food for turtles, have been damaged.

 

ENVIRONMENT

The largest environmental issue in Sulawesi is deforestation. In 2007, scientists found that 80 percent of Sulawesi's forest had been lost or degraded, especially centered in the lowlands and the mangroves. Forests have been felled for logging and large agricultural projects. Loss of forest has resulted in many of Sulawesi's endemic species becoming endangered. In addition, 99 percent of Sulawesi's wetlands have been lost or damaged.

 

Other environmental threats included bushmeat hunting and mining.

 

PARKS

The island of Sulawesi has six national parks and nineteen nature reserves. In addition, Sulawesi has three marine protected areas. Many of Sulawesi's parks are threatened by logging, mining, and deforestation for agriculture.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes (/ˈsɛlɪbiːz, sɪˈliːbiːz/), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Within Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger populations.

 

The landmass of Sulawesi includes four peninsulas: the northern Minahasa Peninsula; the East Peninsula; the South Peninsula; and the Southeast Peninsula. Three gulfs separate these peninsulas: the Gulf of Tomini between the northern Minahasa and East peninsulas; the Tolo Gulf between the East and Southeast peninsulas; and the Bone Gulf between the South and Southeast peninsulas. The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island and separates the island from Borneo.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The name Sulawesi possibly comes from the words sula ("island") and besi ("iron") and may refer to the historical export of iron from the rich Lake Matano iron deposits. The name came into common use in English following Indonesian independence.

 

The name Celebes was originally given to the island by Portuguese explorers. While its direct translation is unclear, it may be considered a Portuguese rendering of the native name "Sulawesi".

 

GEOGRAPHY

Sulawesi is the world's eleventh-largest island, covering an area of 174,600 km2. The central part of the island is ruggedly mountainous, such that the island's peninsulas have traditionally been remote from each other, with better connections by sea than by road. The three bays that divide Sulawesi's peninsulas are, from north to south, the Tomini, the Tolo and the Boni. These separate the Minahassa or Northern Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the Southeast Peninsula and the South Peninsula.

 

The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island. The island is surrounded by Borneo to the west, by the Philippines to the north, by Maluku to the east, and by Flores and Timor to the south.

 

MINOR ISLANDS

The Selayar Islands make up a peninsula stretching southwards from Southwest Sulawesi into the Flores Sea are administratively part of Sulawesi. The Sangihe Islands and Talaud Islands stretch northward from the northeastern tip of Sulawesi, while Buton Island and its neighbours lie off its southeast peninsula, the Togian Islands are in the Gulf of Tomini, and Peleng Island and Banggai Islands form a cluster between Sulawesi and Maluku. All the above-mentioned islands, and many smaller ones are administratively part of Sulawesi's six provinces.

 

GEOLOGY

The island slopes up from the shores of the deep seas surrounding the island to a high, mostly non-volcanic, mountainous interior. Active volcanoes are found in the northern Minahassa Peninsula, stretching north to the Sangihe Islands. The northern peninsula contains several active volcanoes such as Mount Lokon, Mount Awu, Soputan and Karangetang.

 

According to plate reconstructions, the island is believed to have been formed by the collision of terranes from the Asian Plate (forming the west and southwest) and from the Australian Plate (forming the southeast and Banggai), with island arcs previously in the Pacific (forming the north and east peninsulas).[8] Because of its several tectonic origins, various faults scar the land and as a result the island is prone to earthquakes.

 

Sulawesi, in contrast to most of the other islands in the biogeographical region of Wallacea, is not truly oceanic, but a composite island at the centre of the Asia-Australia collision zone. Parts of the island were formerly attached to either the Asian or Australian continental margin and became separated from these areas by vicariant processes. In the west, the opening of the Makassar Strait separated West Sulawesi from Sundaland in the Eocene c. 45 Mya. In the east, the traditional view of collisions of multiple micro-continental fragments sliced from New Guinea with an active volcanic margin in West Sulawesi at different times since the Early Miocene c. 20 Mya has recently been replaced by the hypothesis that extensional fragmentation has followed a single Miocene collision of West Sulawesi with the Sula Spur, the western end of an ancient folded belt of Variscan origin in the Late Paleozoic.

 

PREHISTORY

Before October 2014, the settlement of South Sulawesi by modern humans had been dated to c. 30,000 BC on the basis of radiocarbon dates obtained from rock shelters in Maros. No earlier evidence of human occupation had at that point been found, but the island almost certainly formed part of the land bridge used for the settlement of Australia and New Guinea by at least 40,000 BCE. There is no evidence of Homo erectus having reached Sulawesi; crude stone tools first discovered in 1947 on the right bank of the Walennae River at Berru, Indonesia, which were thought to date to the Pleistocene on the basis of their association with vertebrate fossils, are now thought to date to perhaps 50,000 BC.

 

Following Peter Bellwood's model of a southward migration of Austronesian-speaking farmers (AN), radiocarbon dates from caves in Maros suggest a date in the mid-second millennium BC for the arrival of a group from east Borneo speaking a Proto-South Sulawesi language (PSS). Initial settlement was probably around the mouth of the Sa'dan river, on the northwest coast of the peninsula, although the south coast has also been suggested.

 

Subsequent migrations across the mountainous landscape resulted in the geographical isolation of PSS speakers and the evolution of their languages into the eight families of the South Sulawesi language group. If each group can be said to have a homeland, that of the Bugis – today the most numerous group – was around lakes Témpé and Sidénréng in the Walennaé depression. Here for some 2,000 years lived the linguistic group that would become the modern Bugis; the archaic name of this group (which is preserved in other local languages) was Ugiq. Despite the fact that today they are closely linked with the Makasar, the closest linguistic neighbours of the Bugis are the Toraja.

 

Pre-1200 Bugis society was most likely organised into chiefdoms. Some anthropologists have speculated these chiefdoms would have warred and, in times of peace, exchanged women with each other. Further, they have speculated that personal security would have been negligible and head-hunting an established cultural practice. The political economy would have been a mixture of hunting and gathering and swidden or shifting agriculture. Speculative planting of wet rice may have taken place along the margins of the lakes and rivers. In Central Sulawesi, there are over 400 granite megaliths, which various archaeological studies have dated to be from 3000 BC to AD 1300. They vary in size from a few centimetres to around 4.5 metres. The original purpose of the megaliths is unknown. About 30 of the megaliths represent human forms. Other megaliths are in form of large pots (Kalamba) and stone plates (Tutu'na).In October 2014 it was announced that cave paintings in Maros had been dated as being about 40,000 years old. Dr Maxime Aubert, of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said that the minimum age for the outline of a hand was 39,900 years old, which made it "the oldest hand stencil in the world" and added, "Next to it is a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one."

 

HISTORY

Starting in the 13th century, access to prestige trade goods and to sources of iron started to alter long-standing cultural patterns and to permit ambitious individuals to build larger political units. It is not known why these two ingredients appeared together; one was perhaps the product of the other.

 

In 1367, several identified polities, located on the island, were mentioned in the Javanese manuscript Nagarakretagama dated from the Majapahit period. Canto 14 mentioned polities including Gowa, Makassar, Luwu and Banggai. It seems that by the 14th century, polities in the island were connected in an archipelagic maritime trading network, centered in the Majapahit port in East Java. By 1400, a number of nascent agricultural principalities had arisen in the western Cenrana valley, as well as on the south coast and on the west coast near modern Parepare.

 

The first Europeans to visit the island (which they believed to be an archipelago due to its contorted shape) were the Portuguese sailors Simão de Abreu, in 1523, and Gomes de Sequeira (among others) in 1525, sent from the Moluccas in search of gold, which the islands had the reputation of producing. A Portuguese base was installed in Makassar in the first decades of the 16th century, lasting until 1665, when it was taken by the Dutch. The Dutch had arrived in Sulawesi in 1605 and were quickly followed by the English, who established a factory in Makassar. From 1660, the Dutch were at war with Gowa, the major Makassar west coast power. In 1669, Admiral Speelman forced the ruler, Sultan Hasanuddin, to sign the Treaty of Bongaya, which handed control of trade to the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch were aided in their conquest by the Bugis warlord Arung Palakka, ruler of the Bugis kingdom of Bone. The Dutch built a fort at Ujung Pandang, while Arung Palakka became the regional overlord and Bone the dominant kingdom. Political and cultural development seems to have slowed as a result of the status quo. In 1905 the entire island became part of the Dutch state colony of the Netherlands East Indies until Japanese occupation in the Second World War. During the Indonesian National Revolution, the Dutch Captain 'Turk' Westerling led campaigns in which hundreds, maybe thousands died during the South Sulawesi Campaign. Following the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949, Sulawesi became part of the federal United States of Indonesia, which in 1950 became absorbed into the unitary Republic of Indonesia.

 

CENTRAL SULAWESI

The Portuguese were rumoured to have a fort in Parigi in 1555. The Kaili were an important group based in the Palu valley and related to the Toraja. Scholars relate that their control swayed under Ternate and Makassar, but this might have been a decision by the Dutch to give their vassals a chance to govern a difficult group. Padbruge commented that in the 1700s Kaili numbers were significant and a highly militant society. In the 1850s a war erupted between the Kaili groups, including the Banawa, in which the Dutch decided to intervene. A complex conflict also involving the Sulu Island pirates and probably Wyndham (a British merchant who commented on being involved in arms dealing to the area in this period and causing a row).

 

In the late 19th century the Sarasins journeyed through the Palu valley as part of a major initiative to bring the Kaili under Dutch rule. Some very surprising and interesting photographs were taken of shamans called Tadulako. Further Christian religious missions entered the area to make one of the most detailed ethnographic studies in the early 20th century. A Swede by the name of Walter Kaudern later studied much of the literature and produced a synthesis. Erskine Downs in the 1950s produced a summary of Kruyts and Andrianis work: "The religion of the Bare'e-Speaking Toradja of Central Celebes," which is invaluable for English-speaking researchers. One of the most recent publications is "When the bones are left," a study of the material culture of central Sulawesi, offering extensive analysis. Also worthy of study are the brilliant works of Monnig Atkinson on the Wana shamans who live in the Mori area.

 

POPULATION

The 2000 census population of the provinces of Sulawesi was 14,946,488, about 7.25% of Indonesia's total population. By the 2010 Census the total had reached 17,371,782, and the latest official estimate (for January 2014) is 18,455,058. The largest city is Makassar.

 

RELIGION

Islam is the majority religion in Sulawesi. The conversion of the lowlands of the south western peninsula (South Sulawesi) to Islam occurred in the early 17th century. The kingdom of Luwu in the Gulf of Bone was the first to accept Islam in February 1605; the Makassar kingdom of Goa-Talloq, centred on the modern-day city of Makassar, followed suit in September. However, the Gorontalo and the Mongondow peoples of the northern peninsula largely converted to Islam only in the 19th century. Most Muslims are Sunnis.

  

POPULATION OF SULAWESI BY PROVINCE (2010)

South Sulawesi (46.4%)

Central Sulawesi (15%)

Southeast Sulawesi (13%)

North Sulawesi (13.0%)

West Sulawesi (6.6%)

Gorontalo (6%)

 

Christians form a substantial minority on the island. According to the demographer Toby Alice Volkman, 17% of Sulawesi's population is Protestant and less than 2% is Roman Catholic. Christians are concentrated on the tip of the northern peninsula around the city of Manado, which is inhabited by the Minahasa, a predominantly Protestant people, and the northernmost Sangir and Talaud Islands. The Toraja people of Tana Toraja in Central Sulawesi have largely converted to Christianity since Indonesia's independence. There are also substantial numbers of Christians around Lake Poso in Central Sulawesi, among the Pamona speaking peoples of Central Sulawesi, and near Mamasa.

 

Though most people identify themselves as Muslims or Christians, they often subscribe to local beliefs and deities as well. It is not uncommon for both groups to make offerings to local gods, goddesses, and spirits.

 

Smaller communities of Buddhists and Hindus are also found on Sulawesi, usually among the Chinese, Balinese and Indian communities.

 

AGMINISTRATION

The island is subdivided into six provinces: Gorontalo, West Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and North Sulawesi. West Sulawesi is a new province, created in 2004 from part of South Sulawesi. The largest cities on the island are Makassar, Manado, Palu, Kendari, Bitung, Gorontalo, Palopo and Baubau.

 

FLORA AND FAUNA

Sulawesi is part of Wallacea, meaning that it has a mix of both Indomalayan and Australasian species that reached the island by crossing deep-water oceanic barriers. The flora includes one native eucalypt, E. deglupta. There are 8 national parks on the island, of which 4 are mostly marine. The parks with the largest terrestrial area are Bogani Nani Wartabone with 2,871 km2 and Lore Lindu National Park with 2,290 km2. Bunaken National Park which protects a rich coral ecosystem has been proposed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

MAMMALS

Early in the Pleistocene, Sulawesi had a dwarf elephant and a dwarf form of Stegodon, (an elephant relative, S. sompoensis); later both were replaced by larger forms. A giant suid, Celebochoerus, was also formerly present. It is thought that many of the migrants to Sulawesi arrived via the Philippines, while Sulawesi in turn served as a way station for migrants to Flores. A Pleistocene faunal turnover is recognised, with the competitive displacement of several indigenous tarsiers by more recently arriving ones and by Celebochoerus by other medium-sized herbivores like the babirusa, anoa and Celebes warty pig.

 

There are 127 known extant native mammalian species in Sulawesi. A large percentage, 62% (79 species) are endemic, meaning that they are found nowhere else in the world. The largest of these are the two species of anoa or dwarf buffalo. Other artiodactyl species inhabiting Sulawesi are the warty pig and the babirusas, which are aberrant pigs. The only native carnivoran is the Sulawesi palm civet (Asian palm and Malayan civets have been introduced). Primates present include a number of tarsiers (T. fuscus, Dian's, Gursky's, Jatna's, Wallace's, the Lariang and pygmy tarsiers) as well as macaques (Heck's, the booted, crested black, Gorontalo, moor, and Tonkean macaques). While most of Sulawesi's mammals are placental and have Asian relatives, several species of cuscus, arboreal marsupials of Australasian origin, are also present (Ailurops ursinus and Strigocuscus celebensis).

 

Sulawesi is home to a large number of endemic rodent genera. Murid rodent genera endemic to Sulawesi and immediately adjacent islands (such as the Togian Islands, Buton Island, and Muna Island) are Bunomys, Echiothrix, Margaretamys, Taeromys and Tateomys as well as the single-species genera Eropeplus, Hyorhinomys, Melasmothrix, Paucidentomys, Paruromys and Sommeromys. Endemic sciurid genera are Hyosciurus, Prosciurillus, Rubrisciurus and Waiomys.

 

While over 20 bat species are present on Sulawesi, only a portion of these are endemic: Rhinolophus tatar, Scotophilus celebensis and the megabats Acerodon celebensis, Boneia bidens, Dobsonia exoleta, Harpyionycteris celebensis, Neopteryx frosti, Rousettus celebensis and Styloctenium wallacei.

 

Several endemic shrews, the Sulawesi shrew, Sulawesi tiny shrew and the Sulawesi white-handed shrew, are found on the island.

 

BIRDS

By contrast, Sulawesian bird species tend to be found on other nearby islands as well, such as Borneo; 31% of Sulawesi's birds are found nowhere else. One true endemic is the fiery-browed starling. Another endemic bird (also found on small neighboring islands) is the largely ground-dwelling, chicken-sized maleo, a megapode which uses hot sand close to the island's volcanic vents to incubate its eggs. Others include the flightless snoring rail, the Sulawesi masked owl, the Sulawesi myna and the grosbeak starling. There are around 350 known bird species in Sulawesi. An international partnership of conservationists, donors, and local people have formed the Alliance for Tompotika Conservation, in an effort to raise awareness and protect the nesting grounds of these birds on the central-eastern arm of the island.

 

REPTILES

The larger reptiles of Sulawesi are not endemic and include reticulated and Burmese pythons, king cobras, water monitors, sailfin lizards, saltwater crocodiles and green sea turtles. An extinct giant tortoise, Megalochelys atlas, was formerly present, but disappeared by 840,000 years ago, possibly because of the arrival of humans. Similarly, komodo dragons or similar lizards appear to have inhabited the island, being among its apex predators. The smaller snakes of Sulawesi include endemic forms such as Calamaria boesemani, Calamaria muelleri, Calamaria nuchalis, Cyclotyphlops, Enhydris matannensis, Ptyas dipsas, Rabdion grovesi, Tropidolaemus laticinctus and Typhlops conradi. Similarly, the smaller lizards of Sulawesi include nonendemic species such as Bronchocela jubata, Dibamus novaeguineae and Gekko smithii, as well as endemic species such as Lipinia infralineolata and Luperosaurus iskandari.

 

AMPHIBIANS

The amphibians of Sulawesi include the endemic frogs Hylarana celebensis, H. macrops, H. mocquardi, Ingerophrynus celebensis, Limnonectes arathooni, L. larvaepartus, L. microtympanum, Occidozyga celebensis, O. semipalmata and O. tompotika as well as the endemic "flying frogs" Rhacophorus edentulus and R. georgii.

 

FRESHWATER FISH

Sulawesi is home to more than 70 freshwater fish species, including more than 55 endemics. Among these are the genus Nomorhamphus, a species flock of viviparous halfbeaks containing 12 species that only are found on Sulawesi (others are from the Philippines). In addition to Nomorhamphus, the majority of Sulawesi's freshwater fish species are ricefishes, gobies (Glossogobius and Mugilogobius) and Telmatherinid sail-fin silversides. The last family is almost entirely restricted to Sulawesi, especially the Malili Lake system, consisting of Matano and Towuti, and the small Lontoa (Wawantoa), Mahalona and Masapi. Another unusual endemic is Lagusia micracanthus from rivers in South Sulawesi, which is the sole member of its genus and among the smallest grunters. The gudgeon Bostrychus microphthalmus from the Maros Karst is the only described species of cave-adapted fish from Sulawesi, but an apparently undescribed species from the same region and genus also exists.

 

FRESHWATER CRUSTACEANS AND SNAILS

Many species of Caridina freshwater shrimp and parathelphusid freshwater crabs (Migmathelphusa, Nautilothelphusa, Parathelphusa, Sundathelphusa and Syntripsa) are endemic to Sulawesi. Several of these species have become very popular in the aquarium hobby, and since most are restricted to a single lake system, they are potentially vulnerable to habitat loss and overexploitation. There are also several endemic cave-adapted shrimp and crabs, especially in the Maros Karst. This includes Cancrocaeca xenomorpha, which has been called the "most highly cave-adapted species of crab known in the world".

 

The genus Tylomelania of freshwater snails is also endemic to Sulawesi, with the majority of the species restricted to Lake Poso and the Malili Lake system.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

The mimic octopus is also present in the waters of Sulawesi's coast.

 

CONSERVATION

Sulawesi island was recently the subject of an Ecoregional Conservation Assessment, coordinated by The Nature Conservancy. Detailed reports about the vegetation of the island are available. The assessment produced a detailed and annotated list of 'conservation portfolio' sites. This information was widely distributed to local government agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Detailed conservation priorities have also been outlined in a recent publication.

 

The lowland forests on the island have mostly been removed. Because of the relative geological youth of the island and its dramatic and sharp topography, the lowland areas are naturally limited in their extent. The past decade has seen dramatic conversion of this rare and endangered habitat. The island also possesses one of the largest outcrops of serpentine soil in the world, which support an unusual and large community of specialized plant species. Overall, the flora and fauna of this unique center of global biodiversity is very poorly documented and understood and remains critically threatened.

 

The islands of Pepaya, Mas and Raja islands, located in Sumalata Village - North Gorontalo Regency (about 30 km from Saronde Island), have been named a nature reserve since the Dutch colonial time in 1936. Four of the only seven species of turtles can be found in the islands, the world's best turtle habitat. They include Penyu Hijau (Chelonia midas), Penyu Sisik (Eretmochelys imbricata), Penyu Tempayan (Caretta caretta) and Penyu Belimbing (Dermochelys coriacea). In 2011, the habitat was threatened by human activities such as illegal poaching and fish bombing activities; furthermore, a lot of coral reefs, which represent a source of food for turtles, have been damaged.

 

ENVIRONMENT

The largest environmental issue in Sulawesi is deforestation. In 2007, scientists found that 80 percent of Sulawesi's forest had been lost or degraded, especially centered in the lowlands and the mangroves. Forests have been felled for logging and large agricultural projects. Loss of forest has resulted in many of Sulawesi's endemic species becoming endangered. In addition, 99 percent of Sulawesi's wetlands have been lost or damaged.

 

Other environmental threats included bushmeat hunting and mining.

 

PARKS

The island of Sulawesi has six national parks and nineteen nature reserves. In addition, Sulawesi has three marine protected areas. Many of Sulawesi's parks are threatened by logging, mining, and deforestation for agriculture.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes (/ˈsɛlɪbiːz, sɪˈliːbiːz/), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Within Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger populations.

 

The landmass of Sulawesi includes four peninsulas: the northern Minahasa Peninsula; the East Peninsula; the South Peninsula; and the Southeast Peninsula. Three gulfs separate these peninsulas: the Gulf of Tomini between the northern Minahasa and East peninsulas; the Tolo Gulf between the East and Southeast peninsulas; and the Bone Gulf between the South and Southeast peninsulas. The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island and separates the island from Borneo.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The name Sulawesi possibly comes from the words sula ("island") and besi ("iron") and may refer to the historical export of iron from the rich Lake Matano iron deposits. The name came into common use in English following Indonesian independence.

 

The name Celebes was originally given to the island by Portuguese explorers. While its direct translation is unclear, it may be considered a Portuguese rendering of the native name "Sulawesi".

 

GEOGRAPHY

Sulawesi is the world's eleventh-largest island, covering an area of 174,600 km2. The central part of the island is ruggedly mountainous, such that the island's peninsulas have traditionally been remote from each other, with better connections by sea than by road. The three bays that divide Sulawesi's peninsulas are, from north to south, the Tomini, the Tolo and the Boni. These separate the Minahassa or Northern Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the Southeast Peninsula and the South Peninsula.

 

The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island. The island is surrounded by Borneo to the west, by the Philippines to the north, by Maluku to the east, and by Flores and Timor to the south.

 

MINOR ISLANDS

The Selayar Islands make up a peninsula stretching southwards from Southwest Sulawesi into the Flores Sea are administratively part of Sulawesi. The Sangihe Islands and Talaud Islands stretch northward from the northeastern tip of Sulawesi, while Buton Island and its neighbours lie off its southeast peninsula, the Togian Islands are in the Gulf of Tomini, and Peleng Island and Banggai Islands form a cluster between Sulawesi and Maluku. All the above-mentioned islands, and many smaller ones are administratively part of Sulawesi's six provinces.

 

GEOLOGY

The island slopes up from the shores of the deep seas surrounding the island to a high, mostly non-volcanic, mountainous interior. Active volcanoes are found in the northern Minahassa Peninsula, stretching north to the Sangihe Islands. The northern peninsula contains several active volcanoes such as Mount Lokon, Mount Awu, Soputan and Karangetang.

 

According to plate reconstructions, the island is believed to have been formed by the collision of terranes from the Asian Plate (forming the west and southwest) and from the Australian Plate (forming the southeast and Banggai), with island arcs previously in the Pacific (forming the north and east peninsulas).[8] Because of its several tectonic origins, various faults scar the land and as a result the island is prone to earthquakes.

 

Sulawesi, in contrast to most of the other islands in the biogeographical region of Wallacea, is not truly oceanic, but a composite island at the centre of the Asia-Australia collision zone. Parts of the island were formerly attached to either the Asian or Australian continental margin and became separated from these areas by vicariant processes. In the west, the opening of the Makassar Strait separated West Sulawesi from Sundaland in the Eocene c. 45 Mya. In the east, the traditional view of collisions of multiple micro-continental fragments sliced from New Guinea with an active volcanic margin in West Sulawesi at different times since the Early Miocene c. 20 Mya has recently been replaced by the hypothesis that extensional fragmentation has followed a single Miocene collision of West Sulawesi with the Sula Spur, the western end of an ancient folded belt of Variscan origin in the Late Paleozoic.

 

PREHISTORY

Before October 2014, the settlement of South Sulawesi by modern humans had been dated to c. 30,000 BC on the basis of radiocarbon dates obtained from rock shelters in Maros. No earlier evidence of human occupation had at that point been found, but the island almost certainly formed part of the land bridge used for the settlement of Australia and New Guinea by at least 40,000 BCE. There is no evidence of Homo erectus having reached Sulawesi; crude stone tools first discovered in 1947 on the right bank of the Walennae River at Berru, Indonesia, which were thought to date to the Pleistocene on the basis of their association with vertebrate fossils, are now thought to date to perhaps 50,000 BC.

 

Following Peter Bellwood's model of a southward migration of Austronesian-speaking farmers (AN), radiocarbon dates from caves in Maros suggest a date in the mid-second millennium BC for the arrival of a group from east Borneo speaking a Proto-South Sulawesi language (PSS). Initial settlement was probably around the mouth of the Sa'dan river, on the northwest coast of the peninsula, although the south coast has also been suggested.

 

Subsequent migrations across the mountainous landscape resulted in the geographical isolation of PSS speakers and the evolution of their languages into the eight families of the South Sulawesi language group. If each group can be said to have a homeland, that of the Bugis – today the most numerous group – was around lakes Témpé and Sidénréng in the Walennaé depression. Here for some 2,000 years lived the linguistic group that would become the modern Bugis; the archaic name of this group (which is preserved in other local languages) was Ugiq. Despite the fact that today they are closely linked with the Makasar, the closest linguistic neighbours of the Bugis are the Toraja.

 

Pre-1200 Bugis society was most likely organised into chiefdoms. Some anthropologists have speculated these chiefdoms would have warred and, in times of peace, exchanged women with each other. Further, they have speculated that personal security would have been negligible and head-hunting an established cultural practice. The political economy would have been a mixture of hunting and gathering and swidden or shifting agriculture. Speculative planting of wet rice may have taken place along the margins of the lakes and rivers. In Central Sulawesi, there are over 400 granite megaliths, which various archaeological studies have dated to be from 3000 BC to AD 1300. They vary in size from a few centimetres to around 4.5 metres. The original purpose of the megaliths is unknown. About 30 of the megaliths represent human forms. Other megaliths are in form of large pots (Kalamba) and stone plates (Tutu'na).In October 2014 it was announced that cave paintings in Maros had been dated as being about 40,000 years old. Dr Maxime Aubert, of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said that the minimum age for the outline of a hand was 39,900 years old, which made it "the oldest hand stencil in the world" and added, "Next to it is a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one."

 

HISTORY

Starting in the 13th century, access to prestige trade goods and to sources of iron started to alter long-standing cultural patterns and to permit ambitious individuals to build larger political units. It is not known why these two ingredients appeared together; one was perhaps the product of the other.

 

In 1367, several identified polities, located on the island, were mentioned in the Javanese manuscript Nagarakretagama dated from the Majapahit period. Canto 14 mentioned polities including Gowa, Makassar, Luwu and Banggai. It seems that by the 14th century, polities in the island were connected in an archipelagic maritime trading network, centered in the Majapahit port in East Java. By 1400, a number of nascent agricultural principalities had arisen in the western Cenrana valley, as well as on the south coast and on the west coast near modern Parepare.

 

The first Europeans to visit the island (which they believed to be an archipelago due to its contorted shape) were the Portuguese sailors Simão de Abreu, in 1523, and Gomes de Sequeira (among others) in 1525, sent from the Moluccas in search of gold, which the islands had the reputation of producing. A Portuguese base was installed in Makassar in the first decades of the 16th century, lasting until 1665, when it was taken by the Dutch. The Dutch had arrived in Sulawesi in 1605 and were quickly followed by the English, who established a factory in Makassar. From 1660, the Dutch were at war with Gowa, the major Makassar west coast power. In 1669, Admiral Speelman forced the ruler, Sultan Hasanuddin, to sign the Treaty of Bongaya, which handed control of trade to the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch were aided in their conquest by the Bugis warlord Arung Palakka, ruler of the Bugis kingdom of Bone. The Dutch built a fort at Ujung Pandang, while Arung Palakka became the regional overlord and Bone the dominant kingdom. Political and cultural development seems to have slowed as a result of the status quo. In 1905 the entire island became part of the Dutch state colony of the Netherlands East Indies until Japanese occupation in the Second World War. During the Indonesian National Revolution, the Dutch Captain 'Turk' Westerling led campaigns in which hundreds, maybe thousands died during the South Sulawesi Campaign. Following the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949, Sulawesi became part of the federal United States of Indonesia, which in 1950 became absorbed into the unitary Republic of Indonesia.

 

CENTRAL SULAWESI

The Portuguese were rumoured to have a fort in Parigi in 1555. The Kaili were an important group based in the Palu valley and related to the Toraja. Scholars relate that their control swayed under Ternate and Makassar, but this might have been a decision by the Dutch to give their vassals a chance to govern a difficult group. Padbruge commented that in the 1700s Kaili numbers were significant and a highly militant society. In the 1850s a war erupted between the Kaili groups, including the Banawa, in which the Dutch decided to intervene. A complex conflict also involving the Sulu Island pirates and probably Wyndham (a British merchant who commented on being involved in arms dealing to the area in this period and causing a row).

 

In the late 19th century the Sarasins journeyed through the Palu valley as part of a major initiative to bring the Kaili under Dutch rule. Some very surprising and interesting photographs were taken of shamans called Tadulako. Further Christian religious missions entered the area to make one of the most detailed ethnographic studies in the early 20th century. A Swede by the name of Walter Kaudern later studied much of the literature and produced a synthesis. Erskine Downs in the 1950s produced a summary of Kruyts and Andrianis work: "The religion of the Bare'e-Speaking Toradja of Central Celebes," which is invaluable for English-speaking researchers. One of the most recent publications is "When the bones are left," a study of the material culture of central Sulawesi, offering extensive analysis. Also worthy of study are the brilliant works of Monnig Atkinson on the Wana shamans who live in the Mori area.

 

POPULATION

The 2000 census population of the provinces of Sulawesi was 14,946,488, about 7.25% of Indonesia's total population. By the 2010 Census the total had reached 17,371,782, and the latest official estimate (for January 2014) is 18,455,058. The largest city is Makassar.

 

RELIGION

Islam is the majority religion in Sulawesi. The conversion of the lowlands of the south western peninsula (South Sulawesi) to Islam occurred in the early 17th century. The kingdom of Luwu in the Gulf of Bone was the first to accept Islam in February 1605; the Makassar kingdom of Goa-Talloq, centred on the modern-day city of Makassar, followed suit in September. However, the Gorontalo and the Mongondow peoples of the northern peninsula largely converted to Islam only in the 19th century. Most Muslims are Sunnis.

  

POPULATION OF SULAWESI BY PROVINCE (2010)

South Sulawesi (46.4%)

Central Sulawesi (15%)

Southeast Sulawesi (13%)

North Sulawesi (13.0%)

West Sulawesi (6.6%)

Gorontalo (6%)

 

Christians form a substantial minority on the island. According to the demographer Toby Alice Volkman, 17% of Sulawesi's population is Protestant and less than 2% is Roman Catholic. Christians are concentrated on the tip of the northern peninsula around the city of Manado, which is inhabited by the Minahasa, a predominantly Protestant people, and the northernmost Sangir and Talaud Islands. The Toraja people of Tana Toraja in Central Sulawesi have largely converted to Christianity since Indonesia's independence. There are also substantial numbers of Christians around Lake Poso in Central Sulawesi, among the Pamona speaking peoples of Central Sulawesi, and near Mamasa.

 

Though most people identify themselves as Muslims or Christians, they often subscribe to local beliefs and deities as well. It is not uncommon for both groups to make offerings to local gods, goddesses, and spirits.

 

Smaller communities of Buddhists and Hindus are also found on Sulawesi, usually among the Chinese, Balinese and Indian communities.

 

AGMINISTRATION

The island is subdivided into six provinces: Gorontalo, West Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and North Sulawesi. West Sulawesi is a new province, created in 2004 from part of South Sulawesi. The largest cities on the island are Makassar, Manado, Palu, Kendari, Bitung, Gorontalo, Palopo and Baubau.

 

FLORA AND FAUNA

Sulawesi is part of Wallacea, meaning that it has a mix of both Indomalayan and Australasian species that reached the island by crossing deep-water oceanic barriers. The flora includes one native eucalypt, E. deglupta. There are 8 national parks on the island, of which 4 are mostly marine. The parks with the largest terrestrial area are Bogani Nani Wartabone with 2,871 km2 and Lore Lindu National Park with 2,290 km2. Bunaken National Park which protects a rich coral ecosystem has been proposed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

MAMMALS

Early in the Pleistocene, Sulawesi had a dwarf elephant and a dwarf form of Stegodon, (an elephant relative, S. sompoensis); later both were replaced by larger forms. A giant suid, Celebochoerus, was also formerly present. It is thought that many of the migrants to Sulawesi arrived via the Philippines, while Sulawesi in turn served as a way station for migrants to Flores. A Pleistocene faunal turnover is recognised, with the competitive displacement of several indigenous tarsiers by more recently arriving ones and by Celebochoerus by other medium-sized herbivores like the babirusa, anoa and Celebes warty pig.

 

There are 127 known extant native mammalian species in Sulawesi. A large percentage, 62% (79 species) are endemic, meaning that they are found nowhere else in the world. The largest of these are the two species of anoa or dwarf buffalo. Other artiodactyl species inhabiting Sulawesi are the warty pig and the babirusas, which are aberrant pigs. The only native carnivoran is the Sulawesi palm civet (Asian palm and Malayan civets have been introduced). Primates present include a number of tarsiers (T. fuscus, Dian's, Gursky's, Jatna's, Wallace's, the Lariang and pygmy tarsiers) as well as macaques (Heck's, the booted, crested black, Gorontalo, moor, and Tonkean macaques). While most of Sulawesi's mammals are placental and have Asian relatives, several species of cuscus, arboreal marsupials of Australasian origin, are also present (Ailurops ursinus and Strigocuscus celebensis).

 

Sulawesi is home to a large number of endemic rodent genera. Murid rodent genera endemic to Sulawesi and immediately adjacent islands (such as the Togian Islands, Buton Island, and Muna Island) are Bunomys, Echiothrix, Margaretamys, Taeromys and Tateomys as well as the single-species genera Eropeplus, Hyorhinomys, Melasmothrix, Paucidentomys, Paruromys and Sommeromys. Endemic sciurid genera are Hyosciurus, Prosciurillus, Rubrisciurus and Waiomys.

 

While over 20 bat species are present on Sulawesi, only a portion of these are endemic: Rhinolophus tatar, Scotophilus celebensis and the megabats Acerodon celebensis, Boneia bidens, Dobsonia exoleta, Harpyionycteris celebensis, Neopteryx frosti, Rousettus celebensis and Styloctenium wallacei.

 

Several endemic shrews, the Sulawesi shrew, Sulawesi tiny shrew and the Sulawesi white-handed shrew, are found on the island.

 

BIRDS

By contrast, Sulawesian bird species tend to be found on other nearby islands as well, such as Borneo; 31% of Sulawesi's birds are found nowhere else. One true endemic is the fiery-browed starling. Another endemic bird (also found on small neighboring islands) is the largely ground-dwelling, chicken-sized maleo, a megapode which uses hot sand close to the island's volcanic vents to incubate its eggs. Others include the flightless snoring rail, the Sulawesi masked owl, the Sulawesi myna and the grosbeak starling. There are around 350 known bird species in Sulawesi. An international partnership of conservationists, donors, and local people have formed the Alliance for Tompotika Conservation, in an effort to raise awareness and protect the nesting grounds of these birds on the central-eastern arm of the island.

 

REPTILES

The larger reptiles of Sulawesi are not endemic and include reticulated and Burmese pythons, king cobras, water monitors, sailfin lizards, saltwater crocodiles and green sea turtles. An extinct giant tortoise, Megalochelys atlas, was formerly present, but disappeared by 840,000 years ago, possibly because of the arrival of humans. Similarly, komodo dragons or similar lizards appear to have inhabited the island, being among its apex predators. The smaller snakes of Sulawesi include endemic forms such as Calamaria boesemani, Calamaria muelleri, Calamaria nuchalis, Cyclotyphlops, Enhydris matannensis, Ptyas dipsas, Rabdion grovesi, Tropidolaemus laticinctus and Typhlops conradi. Similarly, the smaller lizards of Sulawesi include nonendemic species such as Bronchocela jubata, Dibamus novaeguineae and Gekko smithii, as well as endemic species such as Lipinia infralineolata and Luperosaurus iskandari.

 

AMPHIBIANS

The amphibians of Sulawesi include the endemic frogs Hylarana celebensis, H. macrops, H. mocquardi, Ingerophrynus celebensis, Limnonectes arathooni, L. larvaepartus, L. microtympanum, Occidozyga celebensis, O. semipalmata and O. tompotika as well as the endemic "flying frogs" Rhacophorus edentulus and R. georgii.

 

FRESHWATER FISH

Sulawesi is home to more than 70 freshwater fish species, including more than 55 endemics. Among these are the genus Nomorhamphus, a species flock of viviparous halfbeaks containing 12 species that only are found on Sulawesi (others are from the Philippines). In addition to Nomorhamphus, the majority of Sulawesi's freshwater fish species are ricefishes, gobies (Glossogobius and Mugilogobius) and Telmatherinid sail-fin silversides. The last family is almost entirely restricted to Sulawesi, especially the Malili Lake system, consisting of Matano and Towuti, and the small Lontoa (Wawantoa), Mahalona and Masapi. Another unusual endemic is Lagusia micracanthus from rivers in South Sulawesi, which is the sole member of its genus and among the smallest grunters. The gudgeon Bostrychus microphthalmus from the Maros Karst is the only described species of cave-adapted fish from Sulawesi, but an apparently undescribed species from the same region and genus also exists.

 

FRESHWATER CRUSTACEANS AND SNAILS

Many species of Caridina freshwater shrimp and parathelphusid freshwater crabs (Migmathelphusa, Nautilothelphusa, Parathelphusa, Sundathelphusa and Syntripsa) are endemic to Sulawesi. Several of these species have become very popular in the aquarium hobby, and since most are restricted to a single lake system, they are potentially vulnerable to habitat loss and overexploitation. There are also several endemic cave-adapted shrimp and crabs, especially in the Maros Karst. This includes Cancrocaeca xenomorpha, which has been called the "most highly cave-adapted species of crab known in the world".

 

The genus Tylomelania of freshwater snails is also endemic to Sulawesi, with the majority of the species restricted to Lake Poso and the Malili Lake system.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

The mimic octopus is also present in the waters of Sulawesi's coast.

 

CONSERVATION

Sulawesi island was recently the subject of an Ecoregional Conservation Assessment, coordinated by The Nature Conservancy. Detailed reports about the vegetation of the island are available. The assessment produced a detailed and annotated list of 'conservation portfolio' sites. This information was widely distributed to local government agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Detailed conservation priorities have also been outlined in a recent publication.

 

The lowland forests on the island have mostly been removed. Because of the relative geological youth of the island and its dramatic and sharp topography, the lowland areas are naturally limited in their extent. The past decade has seen dramatic conversion of this rare and endangered habitat. The island also possesses one of the largest outcrops of serpentine soil in the world, which support an unusual and large community of specialized plant species. Overall, the flora and fauna of this unique center of global biodiversity is very poorly documented and understood and remains critically threatened.

 

The islands of Pepaya, Mas and Raja islands, located in Sumalata Village - North Gorontalo Regency (about 30 km from Saronde Island), have been named a nature reserve since the Dutch colonial time in 1936. Four of the only seven species of turtles can be found in the islands, the world's best turtle habitat. They include Penyu Hijau (Chelonia midas), Penyu Sisik (Eretmochelys imbricata), Penyu Tempayan (Caretta caretta) and Penyu Belimbing (Dermochelys coriacea). In 2011, the habitat was threatened by human activities such as illegal poaching and fish bombing activities; furthermore, a lot of coral reefs, which represent a source of food for turtles, have been damaged.

 

ENVIRONMENT

The largest environmental issue in Sulawesi is deforestation. In 2007, scientists found that 80 percent of Sulawesi's forest had been lost or degraded, especially centered in the lowlands and the mangroves. Forests have been felled for logging and large agricultural projects. Loss of forest has resulted in many of Sulawesi's endemic species becoming endangered. In addition, 99 percent of Sulawesi's wetlands have been lost or damaged.

 

Other environmental threats included bushmeat hunting and mining.

 

PARKS

The island of Sulawesi has six national parks and nineteen nature reserves. In addition, Sulawesi has three marine protected areas. Many of Sulawesi's parks are threatened by logging, mining, and deforestation for agriculture.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Union Square, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

 

The Century Building is a rare surviving Queen Anne style commercial building in New York City. Designed by William Schickel and built in 1880-81, it has been a major presence in Union Square for over a century.

 

Schickel, a German-born architect who practiced in New York, rose to prominence as a leading late-19th century designer of churches and institutional buildings in the United States. He designed the Century Building as a speculative venture for his major clients, the owners of the Arnold Constable department stores.

 

Schickel designed the Century Building in the Queen Anne style, an English import defined by a picturesque use of 17th- and 18th-century motifs. More usually associated in this country with residential architecture, the Queen Anne was also used in commercial buildings, but few of these survive in New York City.

 

The Century is an unusually handsome example of the Queen Anne, notable particularly for its richly carved stonework, its two-story oriel window, its gairforel roof framed by massive chimney stacks, and its terra-cotta details including sunflowers, the trademark of the style.

 

For over three decades the building housed the Century Publ ishing Company, publishers of the Century and St. Nicholas magazines. The Century was considered by many critics to be one of the finest general periodicals in the world during the last two decades of the 19th century.

 

Today, the Century Building survives as one of the most picturesque structures in New York, and is a physical reminder of one of New York's 19th-century literary giants.

 

The Development of Union Square

 

At the beginning of the 19th century as New York entered a period of expansion that would lead to its emergence as the largest and richest city in the country, it was realized that some means was needed to control growth and clearly establish property boundaries so that titles could be transferred.

 

Accordingly in 1807, the New York State Legislature appointed a commission to survey the city north of present-day Houston Street and to lay out streets, roads, and public squares.

 

Although the new streets were generally planned in a rectangular grid, certain established roads were allowed to retain their traditional orientation. John Randall, Jr., chief surveyor for the Commission, recalled that at the time of the survey, the Bowery met Broadway at 16th Street forming an acute angle "which when further intersected by the streets crossing it left so small an amount of ground for building purposes that the commissioners instructed me to lay out the ground, at the Union of those streets and roads, for a public square, which from that circumstance they named Union Place."

 

Initially Union Place extended from 10th to 17th Streets. However, city officials soon objected to keeping so much potentially valuable real estate undeveloped and untaxed and in 1812 recommended that Union Place be "discountinued."

 

The state legislature did not go so far, but did reduce the size of the area in 1814. Then, as the city expanded northward and land use intensified, the need for open spaces became apparent. In 1831, at the urging of local residents, Union Place was set aside as a public space.

 

A year later, additional land was acquired to regularize the area into a "parallelogram something after the plan of the Rue de la Paix and the Place Vendome." Graded, paved, and fenced, Union Square Park opened to the public in July 1839. Three years later it received its first principal adornment, a fountain supplied by the waters of the newly opened Croton Aqueduct. Within ten years, the square was surrounded by fashionable residences including some of the most splendid mansions in the city.

 

On 17th Street, north of the Square, in the block where the Century Building now stands, were the homes of Henry Parish, Henry Young, Daniel Miller and Dr. William Moffat. All of these were four-story Italianate houses, built between 1847 and 1851 on lots at least 28 feet wide that extended through the block to 18th Street.

 

In 1853, the Everett House, an elegant hotel catering to a first-class clientele, was constructed on the northwest corner of 17th Street and Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue South). Soon a number of hotels followed and these in turn brought shops and theaters. By the end of the Civil War, many of the mansions on the Square had been converted to first-class boarding houses or stores.

 

It was during this transitional period, in spring 1867, that Aaron Arnold, founder of the Arnold Constable Department Store, acquired the two properties west of the Everett House which were to become the site of the Century Building.

 

Arnold Constable & Company and Real Estate Development

 

When Aaron Arnold (1794-1876) purchased the Union Square properties in 1867, his company was one of the oldest and most prestigious drygoods firms in the city. ^ Born on the Isle of Wight in 1794, Arnold came to this country in 1823, landing in Philadelphia. After investigating the merits of several cities, he decided that New York, with its Atlantic port and access to the West via the soon to be completed Erie Canal, offered the best opportunity for success in the retail trade. In 1825 he opened a drygoods store at 91 Pine Street.

 

His business was a success from the start and the next year he moved to larger quarters at 156 Front Street. At this time commercial pressure was beginning to transform areas of lower Manhattan which had traditionally been residential neighborhoods or prime shopping areas into wholesale and warehouse districts. Many first-class shops were moving northward into residential areas and in 1827 when Arnold again felt the need to expand his operations he decided to move his store to 58 Canal Street on the edge of the Eighth Ward, then the fastest growing and most populous district in the City.

 

He was to remain in the same area for over forty years, establishing his firm on Howard Street near Mercer. During that period he formed a number of partnerships. His wife's cousins James and George Hearn joined the firm in 1828, remaining until 1842 when they formed their own extremely successful drygoods business.

 

After the Hearns' departure James Constable, Arnold's best salesman, bought an interest in the firm. Constable subsequently married Arnold's daughter, Henrietta, and became a full partner. Then in 1853 the firm was expanded once again to admit Arnold's son Richard. In 1856-57, Arnold Constable & Company, as the firm was now called, built an impressive new store at 305 Canal Street with entrances on Mercer and Howard Streets.

 

Known as the "Marble House" this Italianate palazzo was fitted up in the most elegant style with niceties such as horsehair-covered seats at all the counters. Offering lace parasol covers for $500 and imported lace at $1,000 a yard, the store attracted an elite clientele that included several Presidential wives and members of the Rhinelander, Van Rensselaer, de Peyster, Prince and Kips families.

 

After the war, Arnold recognized that fashionable New York was once again on the march uptown. Believing that it was best to be near his customers and that the retail trade would soon follow, he began looking for a suitable "uptown" site.

 

According to Moses King, the Union Square houses were purchased with this end in view. That Arnold intended to build on the site is confirmed by an agreement made in 1867 with the owners of the Everett House that ensured the preservation of a light court at the rear of the hotel and granted Arnold the right to have shutters from any building he might erect project over the court-

 

He soon seems to have changed his mind, however, for the Union Square houses remained standing and an alternative site at 19th Street and Broadway was purchased for the store in April 1868.

 

Having decided on this property Arnold took immediate steps to build. Within two months Griffith Thomas, a prominent designer of hotels and commercial buildings, filed plans for a cast-iron palazzo that was to be even grander and more ostentatious than the Canal Street store.

 

As soon as the foundations for the new building were laid, Aaron Arnold retired, leaving his business in the hands of his son-in-law James Constable and his son Richard.

 

Constable turned out to have a flair for merchandising and gradually assumed control of the store which continued to flourish.19 Richard Arnold, on the other hand, "was an expert in real estate." Using the store's considerable profits, he knew when and where to invest, and during the panicky years succeeding 1873 purchased a vast amount of Fifth Avenue property in the Eighties where he later erected a block of houses. Lots in the rear of Broadway and all along Nineteenth Street were purchased and an extension added for the use of the wholesale department....the entire establishment now filling the entire block from Broadway to Fifth Avenue.

 

These purchases together with others Richard made throughout the city and the property Aaron Arnold had amassed prior to his death in 1877 were held in common by Henrietta Constable and Richard Arnold. Following their deaths (in 1884 and 1886 respectively), later generations of Arnolds and Constables continued the families' real estate activities.

 

In 1897, the Arnold-Constable estate was ranked fifth in a list of New York City land owners compiled by the New York Herald.

 

It was the policy of the family to hold property for long periods of time, improving the lots with buildings that would provide rental income. For many years Griffith Thomas acted as the Arnold-Constable family designer, planning not only the additions to their department store, but also their private homes at 83rd and Fifth and 84th and Madison and speculative brownstones on 81st Street near Fifth (these last are located within the Metropolitan Museum Historic District.)

 

When Thomas became ill in 1878, the family transferred its business to a young architect, William Schickel, who had offices in the same building as Thomas at 346 Broadway. In 1879, the Constables turned their attention to the Union Square site which they had not used for the store, and retained Schickel to design a speculative commercial building.

 

William Schickel

 

During the last quarter of the 19th century, William Schickel (1850-1907) was one of the most successful architects practicing in New York. Born and educated in Germany he came to this country at the age of 20 in the summer of 1870. On the day after his arrival in New York, he was hired by Richard Morris Hunt, one of this country's most eminent and influential architects in the second half of the 19th century. Schickel worked for Hunt for about six months.

 

Schickel then went to work for Henry Fernbach, a German-born architect who practiced in New York between 1855 and 1883.

 

Schickel worked for Fernbach for about two and a half years, eventually becoming his foreman and establishing a close friendship which lasted until Fernbach's death in 1883. In January 1873, Schickel set up his own practice in the New York Life Insurance Company Building at 346 Broadway where Fernbach and Griffith Thomas also had offices.

 

His first commissions were from fellow Germans for tenement houses on the Lower East Side. Despite a decline in the building trades following the financial panic of 1873, his practice expanded rapidly. Throughout the 1870s he designed a number of tenements and private houses. In addition he worked extensively for Catholic institutions in New York, Brooklyn, and New Jersey, planning such buildings as Our Lady of Sorrows School, Pitt and Stanton Streets (1874); St. Benedict's Church, Fulton Street, Brooklyn (1874); and St. Catherine's Hospital, Bushwick Avenue, Brooklyn (1874-75). By 1875, he was well enough known as an ecclesiastical designer to secure a commission for a major church in Boston, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, which was illustrated in the American Architect and Building News in July 1877.

 

Aside from religious institutions, Schickel's most important client during this period was undoubtedly Oswald Ottendorfer, publisher of the German language paper, the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung. Presumably the two had met in 1871-72 when Schickel as Fernbach's foreman would have been involved in his employer's project for the Staats-Zeitung's new office building at Chatham Street and Tryon Row.

 

In the seventies, Schickel designed several buildings for Ottendorfer and his wife Anna including stables, a greenhouse, and a pavilion at their suburban retreat on 136th Street, west of Broadway (1878-79), and the Bella Apartment House at Fourth Avenue and 26th Street (1877), the latter project based in large part on Richard Morris Hunt's Stuyvesant Apartments.

 

In the 'eighties Schickel served as architect for three institutions that were founded by Ottendorfer and his wife Anna: the German Dispensary (now Stuyvesant Polyclinic), the Freie Bibliothek und Lesehalle (now the Ottendorfer Branch of the New York Public Library, 1883-84) and the Isabella Heimath at Tenth Avenue and 190th Street (1887-89).

 

The clinic and library constructed together on lower Second Avenue are today designated New York City Landmarks.

 

Schickel's first commission from the Arnold-Constable families came on November of 1878 and was for two brownstones on the west side of Madison Avenue near 83rd Street. The following year he received another commission for seven houses on 72nd Street west of Park Avenue. He may also have begun planning the Century Building late in that year since the tax records of 1879 indicate that the houses on the site had recently been torn down.

 

Plans for the Century Building were filed at the beginning of February 1880. This was Schickel's first commercial building and appears to be his only extant commercial work in the Queen Anne style.

 

Interestingly, the Century Building has a secondary facade an 18th Street where Queen Anne elements are combined with neo-Grec motifs. In Schickel's second commercial project, for a pair of store and loft buildings at 27-33 West 23rd Street, also built for the Arnold-Constable family in 1880-81, he created an entirely neo-Grec design.

 

He then began working with a mixture of historic styles, producing designs that became increasingly simpler and more articulative of structure. These culminated in the giant arched warehouse at 93-99 Prince Street of 1887-88, where the building's internal structure is expressed on the facade by piers of varying width — widest at the corners where there are bearing walls, narrower at the center where there is a party wall, and narrowest in the intermediate bays where the piers align with rows of cast-iron columns.

 

Then in 1889 and 1892 Schickel designed two richly ornamented cast-iron front department stores, Ehrich Brothers, at 363-371 Sixth Avenue, and Stern Brothers, at 32-46 West 23rd Street, the latter a massive addition to and reworking of Fernbach's 1878 design. Later Schickel commercial buildings tend to be less exuberant, but within the classicizing tradition of the period.

 

Notable examples include the powerful Lexington Cable Company Building of 1894-96 and the handsome neo-Renaissance Constable Building of 1894-95 at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 18th Street adjoining the Arnold Constable Department Store.

 

Here, Schickel moved his offices in 1895, symbolizing his close ties with the Arnold-Constable families for whom he would continue to act as architect until 1904, designing stores, office buildings, stables, summer homes and even Frederick A. Constable's vault at Wood lawn Cemetery.

 

Although Schickel made significant contributions to the field of commercial architecture, it is for his religious and institutional buildings that he is best known. In the 'eighties and 'nineties his firm was responsible for such major projects as the Convent of Sacred Heart in Manhattanville and St. Joseph's Seminary for the Archdiocese of New York in Yonkers, both done in severe Romanesque Style.

 

Also dating from this period are a nurtber of impressive churches, including several in Brooklyn and the neo-Renaissance style St. Ignatius Loyola, (1895-1900) on Park Avenue, a designated New York City Landmark.

 

Schickel seems also to have been a recognized authority in the field of hospital design. He was responsible for many of the buildings at the German Hospital (now Lenox Hill) and at St. Vincent's Hospital. In addition he did considerable work at Bellevue; St. Francis Hospital; St. Joseph's Hospital; the New York Foundling Hospital; Seton Hospital; St. John's Hospital, Long Island City; St. Elizabeth's Hospital, Dayton, Ohio; and East End Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

 

According to Schickel's son Norbert, he also acted as consulting architect to Mount Sinai Hospital at Fifth Avenue and 100th Street.

 

The Century Building and the Queen Anne Style

 

In 1879 when Richard Arnold and Henrietta Constable decided to improve the property they had inherited on Union Square, there was every reason for optimism.

 

The period of stagnation following the Panic of 1873 had ended and according to A History of Real Estate Building and Architecture in New York City, "Prices were still low and money cheap and abundant, population had greatly increased and was pressing somewhat upon the domiciliary and mercantile accommodations of the city."

 

The Real Estate Record and Guide reported that in response to these favorable conditions, "Fourteenth Street, Union Square and Twenty-third Street are being crowded by the retail establishment of heavy firms and everywhere firms like Arnold Constable & Co., A. T. Stewart & Co., McCreery and the like, continue to build more Dalatial warehouses either for their accommodation or for investment."

 

Apparently the Arnold Constable Union Square building, constructed between April 1880 and March 1881 at a cost of almost $300,000, was a purely speculative investment made without a prime tenant in view.

 

As it turned out, the owners were able to lease the building on a floor-by-floor basis to a remarkably stable and in some cases prestigious group of tenants. One of the first tenants, the Century Company, publishers of the Century and St. Nicholas magazines, who moved to the building's fifth floor in September 1881, were attracted by "the advantages of a central location...united with the verdure and sunshine of a beautiful park," by the spaciousness of the offices which on one floor offered "an area...equal to an eight-story building covering an ordinary city lot," and by the excellence of the building's design which they considered "architecturally speaking...the finest on Union Squre."

 

Other tenants included Johnson & Faulkner, upholsterers, who moved to the building's ground floor in 1883 and were to remain for over forty-five years, and the noted architect

 

George Browne Post, who was a tenant from 1890 to 1905/06, during which time he designed the Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building at the Chicago Exposition (1893), the Saint Paul Building (1897-99), the College of the City of New York (1897-1908) and the New York Stock Exchange (1904-07).

 

By November 1882, the Century Company's sign was prominently located just below the attic, a factor which probably led to the building's becoming popularly known as the Century Building.

 

Undoubtedly a significant factor in the success of this business building was William Schickel's Queen Anne design. Popular in this country in the late 1870s and early 1880s, the Queen Anne style came to the United States from England where it had begun to develop in the early 1850s.

 

In its first stages Queen Anne can be seen both as a rejection of the "massiveness" and "muscularity" of High Victorian Gothic and as an outgrowth of that style. Instead of employing Gothic details Queen Anne architects used elements derived mainly from seventeenth-and-eighteenth century domestic architecture in a way that showed their Gothic Revival training.

 

They abandoned symmetry whenever it was convenient to do so, and concentrated on features in which, as Morris later put it, 'some of the Gothic feeling was left'.

 

Their buildings were generally brick with stone trim and had high-pitched roofs often broken by such picturesque features as shaped-gables, dormers, or ribbed chimney stacks. The windows were frequently composed of small panes either leaded or held in place by wooden glazing muntins.

 

Favorite decorative motifs included ribbed and gauged brickwork, keystones, swags, grotesques, rondels, classical moldings, and inset frieze panels inspired by 17th-century pargetting. Sunflowers, adopted from Pre-Raphaelite painting, became an emblem of the style.

 

Initally, Queen Anne was used exclusively for domestic architecture, primarily country and suburban houses. In 1871, however, Norman Shaw's design for the New Zealand Chambers Building in London demonstrated that the style could be applied with equal success for a business building. The four-story New Zealand Chambers had a three-bay wide brick facade distinguished by a pedimented doorway, small-paned shopfronts, two-story oriels set between massive piers, and a pitched roof broken by gabled dormers. Two aspects of this facade are especially worthy of note — the pedimented oriel incorporating a Palladian motif (a device apparently borrowed from the 17th-century Sparrowe's House, Ipswich) and the interjection of an irregular element, the off-center entrance, into an otherwise symmetrical design.

 

Both motifs were to become hallmarks of urban Queen Anne, made famous in large part by the New Zealand Chambers, perhaps the most prestigious and widely published of all Queen Anne buildings.

 

Shaw's designs began being published in this country in several periodicals, notably The American Architect and Building News which made something of a specialty of the style.

 

Through its pages one can trace the dissemination of the style, first, as in England, in country and suburban house design, then starting about 1879 in urban design as well. However, even when Queen Anne was at the height of its popularity, it was used chiefly for domestic architecture. In New York, moreover, many of the most prominent commercial buildings in the style such as George Harney's office building at 14-18 Wall Street (1879) and Edward Kendall's Washington Building at Broadway and Battery Place (1882) have since been replaced by larger buildings.

 

Among the few important examples left in New York are William Schickel's Century 3uilding; N. G. Starkweather's Potter Building, 38 Park Row (1883); Edward Kendall's Gorham Building, 889-891 Broadway (1883-84); Henry Hardenbergh's Western Union Building, 186 Fifth Avenue (1884); and Sillijnan and Farnsworth's Temple Court Building, 125 Nassau Street (1889-90).

 

Of these, Schickel's Century Building stands out as a particularly distinguished design and as a rare example of the three-bay store and office building type that Norman Shaw had introduced in his New Zealand Chambers Building.

 

Specific features of the Century that relate to Shaw's design include the two-story oriel window, the asymmetrically placed entranceway, and the giant brick pilasters with floriated relief panel capitals. Other notable features of the facade include the richly carved stonework, featuring 17th-and 18th-century motifs including garlands, shells, grotesques, and an overdoor panel depicting feeding birds set amid tendril forms; the delicate ironwork cast by J. B. Cornell and Sons, and the handsome relief panels and moldings in terra cotta, a material that had only just come into use for large-scale commercial and public buildings.

 

Equally impressive is the fishscale-shingled gambrel roof framed by massive chimney stacks and punctuated by dormers, a brick and terra-cotta balustrade, and a cresting of terra-cotta sunflowers. Initially the dormers were crowned by pedimented tablets, a favorite Queen Anne motif; however, in 1913 S. Edison Gage added a second tier of dormers repeating the basic articulation of the original dormers, but substituting terra cotta for brick.

 

Aside from this change, the Union Square facade has remained largely intact and is something of a rarity in that it has retained its original cast-iron and plate-glass storefront. Unfortunately, many of the building's small-paned leaded-glass windows, so characteristic of the Queen Anne style, have been lost in recent years.

 

However, there are still leaded-glass transoms in the side bays of the oriel and in all but the westernmost window bay on the fifth floor and leaded-glass upper sashes in the eastern and western sixth floor dormers.

 

For the secondary facade on 18th Street, which also served as an entrance to the ground floor store, Schickel designed a simpler, more utilitarian version of his 17th Street facade incorporating some Queen Anne motifs, notable the terra-cotta sunflower panels, taken directly from the 17th Street front, into a neo-Grec design. Specific features of his design which may be considered neo-Grec include the treatment of the ground floor iron pilasters with their stylized cabled flutings and capitals in the form of consoles and the incised decorations on both the capitals of the lower set of giant pilasters and the attic piers.

 

In addition, the overall flatness of the facade and the gridlike treatment of the piers and the lintels are characteristic of the style. This concern with expressing the underlying structure was to become increasingly important for Schickel.

 

The Century Magaz ine and Richard Watson Gilder

 

The Century was considered by many critics to be "the best general periodical in the world" during the last two decades of the 19th century.^® First published as the Century in 1881, the magazine was in fact a continuation of Scribner's Illustrated Monthly, a general interest magazine founded in 1868 by a book publisher Charles Scribner, author/editor Josiah Holland, and businessman Roswell Smith.

 

During the late 1870s, the Scribner Company, a separate entity from Scribner Books, experienced tremendous growth due to the success of both Scribner's Magaz ine and its juvenile counterpart, Saint Nicholas Magazine, which had been established in 1873.

 

Seeking to take advantage of the company's reputation in religious and juvenile literature, Holland and Smith planned to introduce a line of books. This brought them into conflict with Charles Scribner II, who had inherited control of his father's forty percent interest in the Scribner (Magazine) Company as well as the presidency of the Scribner Book Company.

 

By no means enamored with the prospect of competing with himself, Scribner attempted to block the book-publishing venture. Failing to do so, he agreed to sell the family interest in the magazine company with the proviso that the Scribner name cease to be used for the company and its publications. It was assistant editor Richard Watson Gilder who proposed that the magazine take the name of the Century Club, then the foremost club in the city for artists and men-of-letters.

 

As the magazine's office had been located on the third floor of the Scribner Bookstore Building at 743 Broadway, new headquarters were also necessary, hence the move to Arnold Constable's new building on Union Square. Just as the first issue was off the press, editor Holland died, and Gilder, who had been gradually assuming greater control of the magazine took over as editor of the new Century.

 

Thus, in many ways, the magazine entered a new era with its move to Union Square.

 

Under Gilder's leadership, the Century "reached a pinnacle of prestige and influence unprecedented in American magazine history". A talented poet himself, Gilder was considered one of the most perceptive literary editors of his age. It is indicative of his standing in the literary community that three of the most prominent American writers of the 19th century — Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, and Henry James — contributed major works to the Century. In fact, one memorable issue in February 1885 carried sections of Howell's The Rise of Silas Lapham, Twain's Huckleberry Finn, and James' The Bostonians, making it, in the words of literary historian Herbert Smith "probably the greatest twenty-five cents worth of original American literature in the history of American periodicals.

 

In poetry, the Century featured the works of Walt Whitman, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Herman Melville. It was largely due to Gilder that Scribner's became the first important American magazine to publish a serious appraisal of Whitman's work. Later, the Century was to carry Whitman's recollections of his years as a volunteer nurse for the Union Army and a number of poems.

 

While the Century is today best known for its contribution to American literature, the magazine was also an important forum for disseminating new idea on the arts, public affairs, history, and society. Undoubtedly the most prestigious of its achievements was the monumental "War Series".

 

This unbiased and thorough account of the Civil War, told through the recollections of former participants, was perhaps the most widely-read magazine series in America during the 19th century. Other notable series included "Abraham Lincoln: A History" by his former secretaries John Hay and John G. Nicolay, and John Kennan's "Siberia and the Exile System", an expose of tsarist prison administration.

 

Most articles were profusely illustrated with engravings by such artists as Joseph Pennell, Frederick Remington, Howard Pyle, and Charles Dana Gibson.

 

In addition, the Century published regular features on the arts by the foremost critics of the day including William Coffin on John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer, Charles De Kay on Alfred Pinkham Ryder, and Royal Cortissoz on the muralists John La Farge and Edwin Austin Abbey. Coffin also wrote appreciations of the sculptors Daniel Chester French and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Architecture was the province of Marianna Van Rensselaer, who wrote a monthly column for over two decades acquainting the Century's readers with "Recent Architecture in America" and the "Cathedral Churches of England and France."

 

For all its emphasis on the arts, the Century was also deeply committed to social and political reform. A vocal critic of corruption in government, Gilder used the editorial pages of the magazine to press continually for the establishment of a strong civil service system.

 

An advocate of housing reform, Gilder published articles on conditions of the Lower East Side by Jacob Riis and personally exposed the Trinity Church Corporation as the owner of some of the city's worst tenements having become aware of their involvement while serving as chairman of the New York State Tenement House Committee in 1894.

 

The evils of the Jim Crow System were brought out in a series of stories by George Washington Cable, and the horrors of the pogroms were described by Emma Lazarus, who used the Century as a vehicle to propose the creation of a national Jewish state. Thus, in 1890, The Journalist remarked that to the man or woman who moves among cultured people "the reading of the Century has practically become compulsory. Its articles form the subject of conversation, it is a reflex of the literary and social life of the world."

 

Description

 

The Century Building is constructed of red brick with Wyoming bluestone and terra-cotta trim. An L-shaped building it has a frontage of 71 feet 6 inches on 17th Street and 120 feet 7 inches on 18th Street. Although it occupies a midblock site, it is flanked to the west by a two-story building that leaves part of the western wall exposed.

 

The two street fronts have similar composition and share a number of decorative elements, but the Queen Anne style 17th Street elevation which faces out onto Union Square is considerably more ornate than the handsome but austere 18th Street facade.

 

On 17th Street the facade is divided into three bays and is articulated in three horizontal sections: a one-story commercial base, a four-story midsection, and a one and one half-story roof broken by a double tier of dormers. The ground story is faced with stone which has been painted white. The piers are treated as pilasters with high pedestals and impost blocks — the thicker corner piers are rusticated, the narrower inner piers decorated with grotesques.

 

In the westernmost corner of the facade is an arched entrance which leads to the upper stories. This portal is framed by pilasters and surmounted by a richly carved pedimented overdoor. The rest of the ground floor is given over to a plate-glass and cast-iron shopfront which survives intact except for a modern door and transom and metal covers over the grates beneath the show windows in the recessed central entranceway.

 

The shopwindows are supported by iron bars.Beneath these are iron grates which once lit now sealed basement windows. Thin iron colonettes with foliated shafts frame the central entrance and subdivide the eastern bay into three sections. Above the show windows are transoms which originally tilted open. Surmounting the ground floor is a composite entablature which breaks forward over the outer piers.

 

These projecting sections are decorated with swags and are capped by gable-shaped ornaments that provide a terminus for the ground floor cornice.

 

Above the ground floor the facade is faced in red brick with stone and terra-cotta trim (the stone has been painted white). Narrow piers have been introduced to subdivide the bays. These are treated as one-story pilasters with responds attached to the sides of the major supportive piers. These piers are slightly projected and are articulated as superimposed giant pilasters with stone bases and stylized capitals in which terra-cotta panels with floral reliefs are substituted for conventional foliage and volutes.

 

The lower set of pilasters are partially rusticated and have central terra-cotta panels decorated with sunflowers. These may be perceived as interruptions, but not as full breaks in the giant order. The upper pilasters are channeled and have terra-cotta panel capitals which have been painted white.

 

Above the windows the brick wall surfaces are articulated by stone string courses and sills which are underlined by terra-cotta moldings. In general these horizontal accents are contained within the bays; however, the courses continue across the piers above the third and fifth floors reinforcing the double-story articulation established by the giant orders.

 

A lively interplay is created between this double-story composition and the fenestration pattern which sets up a one-two-one story grouping while placing a marked emphasis on the center bay. On the second floor the windows are framed by pilasters with painted stone bases and capitals that support stone lintels with small imposts. In the outer bays the lintel soffits are decorated with an egg and dart moldings.

 

In the center bay the same molding is used to profile blind segmental arches cut into the face of the lintel. The pilaster which bisects the center bay is much wider than in the other bays and is distinguished by a richly carved stone Corinthian capital and by a terra-cotta panel depicting a potted sunflower in an arched surround. This pilaster serves as a base for the facade's most imposing feature, a two-story elliptical stone oriel which occupies the center bay on the third and fourth floors.

 

Richly ornamented with classical motifs, the oriel is divided into three bays by pilaster-faced piers and is crowned by a triangular pediment over the slightly projected center bay. The plate-glass one-over-one sash windows and leaded glass transoms in the narrow end bays curve to follow the line of the oriel.

 

The window treatment in the center bay on the third floor conforms to the pattern used for most windows on the upper stories of this facade: there are a pair of one-over-one sash windows separated with a thin iron mull ion, the iron crossbar supports a transom originally filled with small leaded lights which have since been lost. On the fourth floor, however, there are three windows in the central bay — a wide center window flanked by two narrow lights. These were originally surmounted by a transom with an arched muntin creating a Palladian motif similar to Shaw's Ipswich windows. The transom is now boarded over.

 

In the outer bays both the third and fourth floor windows have segmental-arched enframements decorated with stone keystones and skewbacks. On the fourth floor stone bases are also employed relating the articulation of the minor orders to that of the giant pilasters.

 

On the fifth floor the center bay has three segmental-arched window openings decorated with stone keystones and imposts. Each contains a single one-over-one sash window topped by a small paned leaded-glass transom. In the outer bays there are two flat-arched window openings per bay again decorated with stone keystones and imposts. Here the leaded-glass transoms have survived in all but the westernmost window bay.

 

Terminating this section of the facade is a Doric entablature. This is composed of a stone architrave, brick and terra-cotta frieze and stone and terra-cotta cornice. The entablature projects over the major elements. On the frieze the projecting areas are undecorated while the recessed sections contain molded brick triglyphs and terra-cotta relief panel metopes. In the outer bays these are decorated with sunbursts, in the center bay with wreaths and swags.

 

Crowning the building on 17th Street is a one-and-one- half story attic which reads as a gambrel roof from Union Square. This is lit by a double tier of dormers. The lower dormers are brick with stone and terracotta trim.

 

The center dormer has two equally-spaced openings, the lower wider outer dormers have three openings consisting of a regularly spaced central light and two narrower sidelights. The eastern dormer still retains its original clear leaded glass upper sash. The stained glass window in the western dormer probably dates from 1888 when there was a fire on this floor.

 

Framing the windows are brick pilasters with plain Tuscan stone capitals. These carry a Doric entablature with a stone architrave and cornice and frieze composed of brick triglyphs and terra-cotta metopes. In the outer bays the metopes are articulated with simple recessed panels; in the center bays they are enriched with swags and rosettes.

 

The second tier of terra-cotta-faced dormers dating from 1913 are considerably simpler in design. Divided by piers into a wide central light and narrower sidelights they are articulated with corner pilasters and entablatures.

 

Set between the dormers along the roofline is a brick balustrade with raised terra-cotta panels and a stone coping. This projects over the major supportive piers to form pedestals which carry terra-cotta orbs. Stylized volutes join the balustrade to the center dormer.

 

The roof is also ornamented with a stone coping which runs along the ends of the gambrel and has stone ornaments (skew corbels) which project at the foot of the upper slope. Joining the two pitches is a molded metal frieze which is enriched with an egg and dart molding.

 

At the ridge are terra-cotta coping tiles ornamented with leaves and terra-cotta finials in the form of sunflowers. Molded brick chimney stacks rise from the ridge of gable walls.

 

Aside from the addition of the second set of dormers, the only major alteration to the 17th Street attic was the construction of a sheet-metal-sided elevator shed next to the western gable chimney in 1905. It should be noted that while the upper slope of the gambrel has been covered with asphalt shingles, the lower slope retains its original fish-scale slate shingles.

 

On 18th Street, the facade is divided into five bays, each three windows wide. As on the 17th Street facade, there are three horizontal divisions: a one-story commercial base, a four-story midsection and an attic. Here, however, the attic is only one story high and has a flat roof.

 

On the ground floor the bays are separated by banded brick and stone piers. These have stone bases and stone Tuscan capitals which are enriched by egg and dart echinus moldings. Iron piers divide each bay into three openings. Like the colonnettes on 17th Street these are articulated with superimposed orders, in this case stylized pilasters with capitals in the form of consoles topped by small columns with their own bases and impost blocks. Set between the piers are cast-iron and glass shop fronts with door and window surrounds of wood. Like the storefronts on 17th Street these are divided into an iron base, large plate glass window, and transom. The bases are faced with wrought-iron grilles that conceal large basement windows, the weight of the windows above being carried by iron sills that form the top of the bases.

 

In the eastern corner of the facade there are a pair o£ folding paneled metal doors which are surmounted by a large rectangular wooden window frame (glass presently missing) and by a transom. Since there is a record of an alteration to this entrance facade in 1912, it is difficult to determine whether the doors are original, however it is likely that there was always a door in this location which fronts a stairhall.

 

Two other entrances into the ground floor store are no longer in use. The entrance in the center of bay two (reading east to west) seems to have been closed off for some time since there is a wooden dado which aligns with the bases of adjoining storefronts. In bay three there is a pair of wooden doors, which may be original, with long rectangular lights and raised panel decorations. Both these entrances are surmounted by square windows and transoms.

 

The western section of bay three and bays four and five have undergone considerable alteration. A metal gate extends across the entire width of bay four, and bay five has extensive brick infill and a new metal doorway and freight elevators. Crowning the ground floor is a simple iron entablature with a dentil led cornice.

 

On the upper stories, the composition of the 17th Street facade is also repeated though in a much simplified form. Once again the major piers are articulated by superimposed giant pilasters. Here the lower set of pilasters have stone bases and channeled brick capitals with stone abacus and echinus moldings. On the upper orders the capitals are articulated by a slight projection of the bricks and by stone echinus moldings. On both orders there are central terra-cotta sunflower panels identical to those on the 17th Street facade. Stone sills underlined by molded brick courses and projections in the surface of the brick create a series of horizontal accents on the wall surface above the windows comparable to those on 17th Street. As on the 17th Street facade, the courses are continued onto the piers only when they mark a break between the stories, the division between the third and fourth floors being established by a brick block modillion cornice.

 

The fenestration pattern of the 17th Street facade is also repeated on the 18th Street facade. Three are trabeated windows with stone lintels on the second floor, segmental-arched window openings with keystones on the third and fourth floors, flat-arched windows on the fifth floor. Only the small piers separating the windows on the second floor are distinguished by banding. Capping this section of the building is a brick and stone entablature ornamented with paired stone console brackets above the major supportive piers.

 

On the attic story the major piers are channeled and have stone bases and capitals. The brick piers between the windows have brick and stone capitals. These carry stone linels with small imposts. Crowning the building is a brick frieze and cast-iron cornice ornamented by iron brackets at the corners of the roof.

 

The major alterations to this facade above the ground floor have been the installation of an exterior fire escape over bay four and the construction of a brick elevator housing over the north-west corner of the building.

 

Conclusion

 

The Century Company moved to new quarters on Fourth Avenue in 1914/15 after almost thirty-five years in the Century Building.

 

Soon after. Baker and Taylor, publishers, also left the building. The long term tenants who remained into the 'twenties included Johnson and Faulkner, upholsterers, and Earl and Wilson, shirts and collarmakers, businesses that better accorded with the character of the neighborhood which was becoming increasingly a center for manufacturers and wholesalers. Photographs show that by the later 'thirties the building was being used by such businesses as Ferguson Brothers Manufacturing Company and William Shaland Toys and Novelties. The most recent ground floor tenant was the American Drapery and Carpet Company.

 

Although currently vacant, the Century Building survives as one of the finest commercial buildings in the Queen Anne style in New York. Its handsome details, including its two-story oriel window and its dramatic gambrel roof, make the building one of the most picturesque in the city. As home to the prestigious 19th-century Century Magazine, the Century Building also has a special place in the cultural history of New York.

 

- From the 1986 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Union Square, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States

 

The Century Building is a rare surviving Queen Anne style commercial building in New York City. Designed by William Schickel and built in 1880-81, it has been a major presence in Union Square for over a century.

 

Schickel, a German-born architect who practiced in New York, rose to prominence as a leading late-19th century designer of churches and institutional buildings in the United States. He designed the Century Building as a speculative venture for his major clients, the owners of the Arnold Constable department stores.

 

Schickel designed the Century Building in the Queen Anne style, an English import defined by a picturesque use of 17th- and 18th-century motifs. More usually associated in this country with residential architecture, the Queen Anne was also used in commercial buildings, but few of these survive in New York City.

 

The Century is an unusually handsome example of the Queen Anne, notable particularly for its richly carved stonework, its two-story oriel window, its gairforel roof framed by massive chimney stacks, and its terra-cotta details including sunflowers, the trademark of the style.

 

For over three decades the building housed the Century Publ ishing Company, publishers of the Century and St. Nicholas magazines. The Century was considered by many critics to be one of the finest general periodicals in the world during the last two decades of the 19th century.

 

Today, the Century Building survives as one of the most picturesque structures in New York, and is a physical reminder of one of New York's 19th-century literary giants.

 

The Development of Union Square

 

At the beginning of the 19th century as New York entered a period of expansion that would lead to its emergence as the largest and richest city in the country, it was realized that some means was needed to control growth and clearly establish property boundaries so that titles could be transferred.

 

Accordingly in 1807, the New York State Legislature appointed a commission to survey the city north of present-day Houston Street and to lay out streets, roads, and public squares.

 

Although the new streets were generally planned in a rectangular grid, certain established roads were allowed to retain their traditional orientation. John Randall, Jr., chief surveyor for the Commission, recalled that at the time of the survey, the Bowery met Broadway at 16th Street forming an acute angle "which when further intersected by the streets crossing it left so small an amount of ground for building purposes that the commissioners instructed me to lay out the ground, at the Union of those streets and roads, for a public square, which from that circumstance they named Union Place."

 

Initially Union Place extended from 10th to 17th Streets. However, city officials soon objected to keeping so much potentially valuable real estate undeveloped and untaxed and in 1812 recommended that Union Place be "discountinued."

 

The state legislature did not go so far, but did reduce the size of the area in 1814. Then, as the city expanded northward and land use intensified, the need for open spaces became apparent. In 1831, at the urging of local residents, Union Place was set aside as a public space.

 

A year later, additional land was acquired to regularize the area into a "parallelogram something after the plan of the Rue de la Paix and the Place Vendome." Graded, paved, and fenced, Union Square Park opened to the public in July 1839. Three years later it received its first principal adornment, a fountain supplied by the waters of the newly opened Croton Aqueduct. Within ten years, the square was surrounded by fashionable residences including some of the most splendid mansions in the city.

 

On 17th Street, north of the Square, in the block where the Century Building now stands, were the homes of Henry Parish, Henry Young, Daniel Miller and Dr. William Moffat. All of these were four-story Italianate houses, built between 1847 and 1851 on lots at least 28 feet wide that extended through the block to 18th Street.

 

In 1853, the Everett House, an elegant hotel catering to a first-class clientele, was constructed on the northwest corner of 17th Street and Fourth Avenue (now Park Avenue South). Soon a number of hotels followed and these in turn brought shops and theaters. By the end of the Civil War, many of the mansions on the Square had been converted to first-class boarding houses or stores.

 

It was during this transitional period, in spring 1867, that Aaron Arnold, founder of the Arnold Constable Department Store, acquired the two properties west of the Everett House which were to become the site of the Century Building.

 

Arnold Constable & Company and Real Estate Development

 

When Aaron Arnold (1794-1876) purchased the Union Square properties in 1867, his company was one of the oldest and most prestigious drygoods firms in the city. ^ Born on the Isle of Wight in 1794, Arnold came to this country in 1823, landing in Philadelphia. After investigating the merits of several cities, he decided that New York, with its Atlantic port and access to the West via the soon to be completed Erie Canal, offered the best opportunity for success in the retail trade. In 1825 he opened a drygoods store at 91 Pine Street.

 

His business was a success from the start and the next year he moved to larger quarters at 156 Front Street. At this time commercial pressure was beginning to transform areas of lower Manhattan which had traditionally been residential neighborhoods or prime shopping areas into wholesale and warehouse districts. Many first-class shops were moving northward into residential areas and in 1827 when Arnold again felt the need to expand his operations he decided to move his store to 58 Canal Street on the edge of the Eighth Ward, then the fastest growing and most populous district in the City.

 

He was to remain in the same area for over forty years, establishing his firm on Howard Street near Mercer. During that period he formed a number of partnerships. His wife's cousins James and George Hearn joined the firm in 1828, remaining until 1842 when they formed their own extremely successful drygoods business.

 

After the Hearns' departure James Constable, Arnold's best salesman, bought an interest in the firm. Constable subsequently married Arnold's daughter, Henrietta, and became a full partner. Then in 1853 the firm was expanded once again to admit Arnold's son Richard. In 1856-57, Arnold Constable & Company, as the firm was now called, built an impressive new store at 305 Canal Street with entrances on Mercer and Howard Streets.

 

Known as the "Marble House" this Italianate palazzo was fitted up in the most elegant style with niceties such as horsehair-covered seats at all the counters. Offering lace parasol covers for $500 and imported lace at $1,000 a yard, the store attracted an elite clientele that included several Presidential wives and members of the Rhinelander, Van Rensselaer, de Peyster, Prince and Kips families.

 

After the war, Arnold recognized that fashionable New York was once again on the march uptown. Believing that it was best to be near his customers and that the retail trade would soon follow, he began looking for a suitable "uptown" site.

 

According to Moses King, the Union Square houses were purchased with this end in view. That Arnold intended to build on the site is confirmed by an agreement made in 1867 with the owners of the Everett House that ensured the preservation of a light court at the rear of the hotel and granted Arnold the right to have shutters from any building he might erect project over the court-

 

He soon seems to have changed his mind, however, for the Union Square houses remained standing and an alternative site at 19th Street and Broadway was purchased for the store in April 1868.

 

Having decided on this property Arnold took immediate steps to build. Within two months Griffith Thomas, a prominent designer of hotels and commercial buildings, filed plans for a cast-iron palazzo that was to be even grander and more ostentatious than the Canal Street store.

 

As soon as the foundations for the new building were laid, Aaron Arnold retired, leaving his business in the hands of his son-in-law James Constable and his son Richard.

 

Constable turned out to have a flair for merchandising and gradually assumed control of the store which continued to flourish.19 Richard Arnold, on the other hand, "was an expert in real estate." Using the store's considerable profits, he knew when and where to invest, and during the panicky years succeeding 1873 purchased a vast amount of Fifth Avenue property in the Eighties where he later erected a block of houses. Lots in the rear of Broadway and all along Nineteenth Street were purchased and an extension added for the use of the wholesale department....the entire establishment now filling the entire block from Broadway to Fifth Avenue.

 

These purchases together with others Richard made throughout the city and the property Aaron Arnold had amassed prior to his death in 1877 were held in common by Henrietta Constable and Richard Arnold. Following their deaths (in 1884 and 1886 respectively), later generations of Arnolds and Constables continued the families' real estate activities.

 

In 1897, the Arnold-Constable estate was ranked fifth in a list of New York City land owners compiled by the New York Herald.

 

It was the policy of the family to hold property for long periods of time, improving the lots with buildings that would provide rental income. For many years Griffith Thomas acted as the Arnold-Constable family designer, planning not only the additions to their department store, but also their private homes at 83rd and Fifth and 84th and Madison and speculative brownstones on 81st Street near Fifth (these last are located within the Metropolitan Museum Historic District.)

 

When Thomas became ill in 1878, the family transferred its business to a young architect, William Schickel, who had offices in the same building as Thomas at 346 Broadway. In 1879, the Constables turned their attention to the Union Square site which they had not used for the store, and retained Schickel to design a speculative commercial building.

 

William Schickel

 

During the last quarter of the 19th century, William Schickel (1850-1907) was one of the most successful architects practicing in New York. Born and educated in Germany he came to this country at the age of 20 in the summer of 1870. On the day after his arrival in New York, he was hired by Richard Morris Hunt, one of this country's most eminent and influential architects in the second half of the 19th century. Schickel worked for Hunt for about six months.

 

Schickel then went to work for Henry Fernbach, a German-born architect who practiced in New York between 1855 and 1883.

 

Schickel worked for Fernbach for about two and a half years, eventually becoming his foreman and establishing a close friendship which lasted until Fernbach's death in 1883. In January 1873, Schickel set up his own practice in the New York Life Insurance Company Building at 346 Broadway where Fernbach and Griffith Thomas also had offices.

 

His first commissions were from fellow Germans for tenement houses on the Lower East Side. Despite a decline in the building trades following the financial panic of 1873, his practice expanded rapidly. Throughout the 1870s he designed a number of tenements and private houses. In addition he worked extensively for Catholic institutions in New York, Brooklyn, and New Jersey, planning such buildings as Our Lady of Sorrows School, Pitt and Stanton Streets (1874); St. Benedict's Church, Fulton Street, Brooklyn (1874); and St. Catherine's Hospital, Bushwick Avenue, Brooklyn (1874-75). By 1875, he was well enough known as an ecclesiastical designer to secure a commission for a major church in Boston, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, which was illustrated in the American Architect and Building News in July 1877.

 

Aside from religious institutions, Schickel's most important client during this period was undoubtedly Oswald Ottendorfer, publisher of the German language paper, the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung. Presumably the two had met in 1871-72 when Schickel as Fernbach's foreman would have been involved in his employer's project for the Staats-Zeitung's new office building at Chatham Street and Tryon Row.

 

In the seventies, Schickel designed several buildings for Ottendorfer and his wife Anna including stables, a greenhouse, and a pavilion at their suburban retreat on 136th Street, west of Broadway (1878-79), and the Bella Apartment House at Fourth Avenue and 26th Street (1877), the latter project based in large part on Richard Morris Hunt's Stuyvesant Apartments.

 

In the 'eighties Schickel served as architect for three institutions that were founded by Ottendorfer and his wife Anna: the German Dispensary (now Stuyvesant Polyclinic), the Freie Bibliothek und Lesehalle (now the Ottendorfer Branch of the New York Public Library, 1883-84) and the Isabella Heimath at Tenth Avenue and 190th Street (1887-89).

 

The clinic and library constructed together on lower Second Avenue are today designated New York City Landmarks.

 

Schickel's first commission from the Arnold-Constable families came on November of 1878 and was for two brownstones on the west side of Madison Avenue near 83rd Street. The following year he received another commission for seven houses on 72nd Street west of Park Avenue. He may also have begun planning the Century Building late in that year since the tax records of 1879 indicate that the houses on the site had recently been torn down.

 

Plans for the Century Building were filed at the beginning of February 1880. This was Schickel's first commercial building and appears to be his only extant commercial work in the Queen Anne style.

 

Interestingly, the Century Building has a secondary facade an 18th Street where Queen Anne elements are combined with neo-Grec motifs. In Schickel's second commercial project, for a pair of store and loft buildings at 27-33 West 23rd Street, also built for the Arnold-Constable family in 1880-81, he created an entirely neo-Grec design.

 

He then began working with a mixture of historic styles, producing designs that became increasingly simpler and more articulative of structure. These culminated in the giant arched warehouse at 93-99 Prince Street of 1887-88, where the building's internal structure is expressed on the facade by piers of varying width — widest at the corners where there are bearing walls, narrower at the center where there is a party wall, and narrowest in the intermediate bays where the piers align with rows of cast-iron columns.

 

Then in 1889 and 1892 Schickel designed two richly ornamented cast-iron front department stores, Ehrich Brothers, at 363-371 Sixth Avenue, and Stern Brothers, at 32-46 West 23rd Street, the latter a massive addition to and reworking of Fernbach's 1878 design. Later Schickel commercial buildings tend to be less exuberant, but within the classicizing tradition of the period.

 

Notable examples include the powerful Lexington Cable Company Building of 1894-96 and the handsome neo-Renaissance Constable Building of 1894-95 at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 18th Street adjoining the Arnold Constable Department Store.

 

Here, Schickel moved his offices in 1895, symbolizing his close ties with the Arnold-Constable families for whom he would continue to act as architect until 1904, designing stores, office buildings, stables, summer homes and even Frederick A. Constable's vault at Wood lawn Cemetery.

 

Although Schickel made significant contributions to the field of commercial architecture, it is for his religious and institutional buildings that he is best known. In the 'eighties and 'nineties his firm was responsible for such major projects as the Convent of Sacred Heart in Manhattanville and St. Joseph's Seminary for the Archdiocese of New York in Yonkers, both done in severe Romanesque Style.

 

Also dating from this period are a nurtber of impressive churches, including several in Brooklyn and the neo-Renaissance style St. Ignatius Loyola, (1895-1900) on Park Avenue, a designated New York City Landmark.

 

Schickel seems also to have been a recognized authority in the field of hospital design. He was responsible for many of the buildings at the German Hospital (now Lenox Hill) and at St. Vincent's Hospital. In addition he did considerable work at Bellevue; St. Francis Hospital; St. Joseph's Hospital; the New York Foundling Hospital; Seton Hospital; St. John's Hospital, Long Island City; St. Elizabeth's Hospital, Dayton, Ohio; and East End Hospital, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

 

According to Schickel's son Norbert, he also acted as consulting architect to Mount Sinai Hospital at Fifth Avenue and 100th Street.

 

The Century Building and the Queen Anne Style

 

In 1879 when Richard Arnold and Henrietta Constable decided to improve the property they had inherited on Union Square, there was every reason for optimism.

 

The period of stagnation following the Panic of 1873 had ended and according to A History of Real Estate Building and Architecture in New York City, "Prices were still low and money cheap and abundant, population had greatly increased and was pressing somewhat upon the domiciliary and mercantile accommodations of the city."

 

The Real Estate Record and Guide reported that in response to these favorable conditions, "Fourteenth Street, Union Square and Twenty-third Street are being crowded by the retail establishment of heavy firms and everywhere firms like Arnold Constable & Co., A. T. Stewart & Co., McCreery and the like, continue to build more Dalatial warehouses either for their accommodation or for investment."

 

Apparently the Arnold Constable Union Square building, constructed between April 1880 and March 1881 at a cost of almost $300,000, was a purely speculative investment made without a prime tenant in view.

 

As it turned out, the owners were able to lease the building on a floor-by-floor basis to a remarkably stable and in some cases prestigious group of tenants. One of the first tenants, the Century Company, publishers of the Century and St. Nicholas magazines, who moved to the building's fifth floor in September 1881, were attracted by "the advantages of a central location...united with the verdure and sunshine of a beautiful park," by the spaciousness of the offices which on one floor offered "an area...equal to an eight-story building covering an ordinary city lot," and by the excellence of the building's design which they considered "architecturally speaking...the finest on Union Squre."

 

Other tenants included Johnson & Faulkner, upholsterers, who moved to the building's ground floor in 1883 and were to remain for over forty-five years, and the noted architect

 

George Browne Post, who was a tenant from 1890 to 1905/06, during which time he designed the Manufacturers and Liberal Arts Building at the Chicago Exposition (1893), the Saint Paul Building (1897-99), the College of the City of New York (1897-1908) and the New York Stock Exchange (1904-07).

 

By November 1882, the Century Company's sign was prominently located just below the attic, a factor which probably led to the building's becoming popularly known as the Century Building.

 

Undoubtedly a significant factor in the success of this business building was William Schickel's Queen Anne design. Popular in this country in the late 1870s and early 1880s, the Queen Anne style came to the United States from England where it had begun to develop in the early 1850s.

 

In its first stages Queen Anne can be seen both as a rejection of the "massiveness" and "muscularity" of High Victorian Gothic and as an outgrowth of that style. Instead of employing Gothic details Queen Anne architects used elements derived mainly from seventeenth-and-eighteenth century domestic architecture in a way that showed their Gothic Revival training.

 

They abandoned symmetry whenever it was convenient to do so, and concentrated on features in which, as Morris later put it, 'some of the Gothic feeling was left'.

 

Their buildings were generally brick with stone trim and had high-pitched roofs often broken by such picturesque features as shaped-gables, dormers, or ribbed chimney stacks. The windows were frequently composed of small panes either leaded or held in place by wooden glazing muntins.

 

Favorite decorative motifs included ribbed and gauged brickwork, keystones, swags, grotesques, rondels, classical moldings, and inset frieze panels inspired by 17th-century pargetting. Sunflowers, adopted from Pre-Raphaelite painting, became an emblem of the style.

 

Initally, Queen Anne was used exclusively for domestic architecture, primarily country and suburban houses. In 1871, however, Norman Shaw's design for the New Zealand Chambers Building in London demonstrated that the style could be applied with equal success for a business building. The four-story New Zealand Chambers had a three-bay wide brick facade distinguished by a pedimented doorway, small-paned shopfronts, two-story oriels set between massive piers, and a pitched roof broken by gabled dormers. Two aspects of this facade are especially worthy of note — the pedimented oriel incorporating a Palladian motif (a device apparently borrowed from the 17th-century Sparrowe's House, Ipswich) and the interjection of an irregular element, the off-center entrance, into an otherwise symmetrical design.

 

Both motifs were to become hallmarks of urban Queen Anne, made famous in large part by the New Zealand Chambers, perhaps the most prestigious and widely published of all Queen Anne buildings.

 

Shaw's designs began being published in this country in several periodicals, notably The American Architect and Building News which made something of a specialty of the style.

 

Through its pages one can trace the dissemination of the style, first, as in England, in country and suburban house design, then starting about 1879 in urban design as well. However, even when Queen Anne was at the height of its popularity, it was used chiefly for domestic architecture. In New York, moreover, many of the most prominent commercial buildings in the style such as George Harney's office building at 14-18 Wall Street (1879) and Edward Kendall's Washington Building at Broadway and Battery Place (1882) have since been replaced by larger buildings.

 

Among the few important examples left in New York are William Schickel's Century 3uilding; N. G. Starkweather's Potter Building, 38 Park Row (1883); Edward Kendall's Gorham Building, 889-891 Broadway (1883-84); Henry Hardenbergh's Western Union Building, 186 Fifth Avenue (1884); and Sillijnan and Farnsworth's Temple Court Building, 125 Nassau Street (1889-90).

 

Of these, Schickel's Century Building stands out as a particularly distinguished design and as a rare example of the three-bay store and office building type that Norman Shaw had introduced in his New Zealand Chambers Building.

 

Specific features of the Century that relate to Shaw's design include the two-story oriel window, the asymmetrically placed entranceway, and the giant brick pilasters with floriated relief panel capitals. Other notable features of the facade include the richly carved stonework, featuring 17th-and 18th-century motifs including garlands, shells, grotesques, and an overdoor panel depicting feeding birds set amid tendril forms; the delicate ironwork cast by J. B. Cornell and Sons, and the handsome relief panels and moldings in terra cotta, a material that had only just come into use for large-scale commercial and public buildings.

 

Equally impressive is the fishscale-shingled gambrel roof framed by massive chimney stacks and punctuated by dormers, a brick and terra-cotta balustrade, and a cresting of terra-cotta sunflowers. Initially the dormers were crowned by pedimented tablets, a favorite Queen Anne motif; however, in 1913 S. Edison Gage added a second tier of dormers repeating the basic articulation of the original dormers, but substituting terra cotta for brick.

 

Aside from this change, the Union Square facade has remained largely intact and is something of a rarity in that it has retained its original cast-iron and plate-glass storefront. Unfortunately, many of the building's small-paned leaded-glass windows, so characteristic of the Queen Anne style, have been lost in recent years.

 

However, there are still leaded-glass transoms in the side bays of the oriel and in all but the westernmost window bay on the fifth floor and leaded-glass upper sashes in the eastern and western sixth floor dormers.

 

For the secondary facade on 18th Street, which also served as an entrance to the ground floor store, Schickel designed a simpler, more utilitarian version of his 17th Street facade incorporating some Queen Anne motifs, notable the terra-cotta sunflower panels, taken directly from the 17th Street front, into a neo-Grec design. Specific features of his design which may be considered neo-Grec include the treatment of the ground floor iron pilasters with their stylized cabled flutings and capitals in the form of consoles and the incised decorations on both the capitals of the lower set of giant pilasters and the attic piers.

 

In addition, the overall flatness of the facade and the gridlike treatment of the piers and the lintels are characteristic of the style. This concern with expressing the underlying structure was to become increasingly important for Schickel.

 

The Century Magaz ine and Richard Watson Gilder

 

The Century was considered by many critics to be "the best general periodical in the world" during the last two decades of the 19th century.^® First published as the Century in 1881, the magazine was in fact a continuation of Scribner's Illustrated Monthly, a general interest magazine founded in 1868 by a book publisher Charles Scribner, author/editor Josiah Holland, and businessman Roswell Smith.

 

During the late 1870s, the Scribner Company, a separate entity from Scribner Books, experienced tremendous growth due to the success of both Scribner's Magaz ine and its juvenile counterpart, Saint Nicholas Magazine, which had been established in 1873.

 

Seeking to take advantage of the company's reputation in religious and juvenile literature, Holland and Smith planned to introduce a line of books. This brought them into conflict with Charles Scribner II, who had inherited control of his father's forty percent interest in the Scribner (Magazine) Company as well as the presidency of the Scribner Book Company.

 

By no means enamored with the prospect of competing with himself, Scribner attempted to block the book-publishing venture. Failing to do so, he agreed to sell the family interest in the magazine company with the proviso that the Scribner name cease to be used for the company and its publications. It was assistant editor Richard Watson Gilder who proposed that the magazine take the name of the Century Club, then the foremost club in the city for artists and men-of-letters.

 

As the magazine's office had been located on the third floor of the Scribner Bookstore Building at 743 Broadway, new headquarters were also necessary, hence the move to Arnold Constable's new building on Union Square. Just as the first issue was off the press, editor Holland died, and Gilder, who had been gradually assuming greater control of the magazine took over as editor of the new Century.

 

Thus, in many ways, the magazine entered a new era with its move to Union Square.

 

Under Gilder's leadership, the Century "reached a pinnacle of prestige and influence unprecedented in American magazine history". A talented poet himself, Gilder was considered one of the most perceptive literary editors of his age. It is indicative of his standing in the literary community that three of the most prominent American writers of the 19th century — Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, and Henry James — contributed major works to the Century. In fact, one memorable issue in February 1885 carried sections of Howell's The Rise of Silas Lapham, Twain's Huckleberry Finn, and James' The Bostonians, making it, in the words of literary historian Herbert Smith "probably the greatest twenty-five cents worth of original American literature in the history of American periodicals.

 

In poetry, the Century featured the works of Walt Whitman, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Herman Melville. It was largely due to Gilder that Scribner's became the first important American magazine to publish a serious appraisal of Whitman's work. Later, the Century was to carry Whitman's recollections of his years as a volunteer nurse for the Union Army and a number of poems.

 

While the Century is today best known for its contribution to American literature, the magazine was also an important forum for disseminating new idea on the arts, public affairs, history, and society. Undoubtedly the most prestigious of its achievements was the monumental "War Series".

 

This unbiased and thorough account of the Civil War, told through the recollections of former participants, was perhaps the most widely-read magazine series in America during the 19th century. Other notable series included "Abraham Lincoln: A History" by his former secretaries John Hay and John G. Nicolay, and John Kennan's "Siberia and the Exile System", an expose of tsarist prison administration.

 

Most articles were profusely illustrated with engravings by such artists as Joseph Pennell, Frederick Remington, Howard Pyle, and Charles Dana Gibson.

 

In addition, the Century published regular features on the arts by the foremost critics of the day including William Coffin on John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer, Charles De Kay on Alfred Pinkham Ryder, and Royal Cortissoz on the muralists John La Farge and Edwin Austin Abbey. Coffin also wrote appreciations of the sculptors Daniel Chester French and Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Architecture was the province of Marianna Van Rensselaer, who wrote a monthly column for over two decades acquainting the Century's readers with "Recent Architecture in America" and the "Cathedral Churches of England and France."

 

For all its emphasis on the arts, the Century was also deeply committed to social and political reform. A vocal critic of corruption in government, Gilder used the editorial pages of the magazine to press continually for the establishment of a strong civil service system.

 

An advocate of housing reform, Gilder published articles on conditions of the Lower East Side by Jacob Riis and personally exposed the Trinity Church Corporation as the owner of some of the city's worst tenements having become aware of their involvement while serving as chairman of the New York State Tenement House Committee in 1894.

 

The evils of the Jim Crow System were brought out in a series of stories by George Washington Cable, and the horrors of the pogroms were described by Emma Lazarus, who used the Century as a vehicle to propose the creation of a national Jewish state. Thus, in 1890, The Journalist remarked that to the man or woman who moves among cultured people "the reading of the Century has practically become compulsory. Its articles form the subject of conversation, it is a reflex of the literary and social life of the world."

 

Description

 

The Century Building is constructed of red brick with Wyoming bluestone and terra-cotta trim. An L-shaped building it has a frontage of 71 feet 6 inches on 17th Street and 120 feet 7 inches on 18th Street. Although it occupies a midblock site, it is flanked to the west by a two-story building that leaves part of the western wall exposed.

 

The two street fronts have similar composition and share a number of decorative elements, but the Queen Anne style 17th Street elevation which faces out onto Union Square is considerably more ornate than the handsome but austere 18th Street facade.

 

On 17th Street the facade is divided into three bays and is articulated in three horizontal sections: a one-story commercial base, a four-story midsection, and a one and one half-story roof broken by a double tier of dormers. The ground story is faced with stone which has been painted white. The piers are treated as pilasters with high pedestals and impost blocks — the thicker corner piers are rusticated, the narrower inner piers decorated with grotesques.

 

In the westernmost corner of the facade is an arched entrance which leads to the upper stories. This portal is framed by pilasters and surmounted by a richly carved pedimented overdoor. The rest of the ground floor is given over to a plate-glass and cast-iron shopfront which survives intact except for a modern door and transom and metal covers over the grates beneath the show windows in the recessed central entranceway.

 

The shopwindows are supported by iron bars.Beneath these are iron grates which once lit now sealed basement windows. Thin iron colonettes with foliated shafts frame the central entrance and subdivide the eastern bay into three sections. Above the show windows are transoms which originally tilted open. Surmounting the ground floor is a composite entablature which breaks forward over the outer piers.

 

These projecting sections are decorated with swags and are capped by gable-shaped ornaments that provide a terminus for the ground floor cornice.

 

Above the ground floor the facade is faced in red brick with stone and terra-cotta trim (the stone has been painted white). Narrow piers have been introduced to subdivide the bays. These are treated as one-story pilasters with responds attached to the sides of the major supportive piers. These piers are slightly projected and are articulated as superimposed giant pilasters with stone bases and stylized capitals in which terra-cotta panels with floral reliefs are substituted for conventional foliage and volutes.

 

The lower set of pilasters are partially rusticated and have central terra-cotta panels decorated with sunflowers. These may be perceived as interruptions, but not as full breaks in the giant order. The upper pilasters are channeled and have terra-cotta panel capitals which have been painted white.

 

Above the windows the brick wall surfaces are articulated by stone string courses and sills which are underlined by terra-cotta moldings. In general these horizontal accents are contained within the bays; however, the courses continue across the piers above the third and fifth floors reinforcing the double-story articulation established by the giant orders.

 

A lively interplay is created between this double-story composition and the fenestration pattern which sets up a one-two-one story grouping while placing a marked emphasis on the center bay. On the second floor the windows are framed by pilasters with painted stone bases and capitals that support stone lintels with small imposts. In the outer bays the lintel soffits are decorated with an egg and dart moldings.

 

In the center bay the same molding is used to profile blind segmental arches cut into the face of the lintel. The pilaster which bisects the center bay is much wider than in the other bays and is distinguished by a richly carved stone Corinthian capital and by a terra-cotta panel depicting a potted sunflower in an arched surround. This pilaster serves as a base for the facade's most imposing feature, a two-story elliptical stone oriel which occupies the center bay on the third and fourth floors.

 

Richly ornamented with classical motifs, the oriel is divided into three bays by pilaster-faced piers and is crowned by a triangular pediment over the slightly projected center bay. The plate-glass one-over-one sash windows and leaded glass transoms in the narrow end bays curve to follow the line of the oriel.

 

The window treatment in the center bay on the third floor conforms to the pattern used for most windows on the upper stories of this facade: there are a pair of one-over-one sash windows separated with a thin iron mull ion, the iron crossbar supports a transom originally filled with small leaded lights which have since been lost. On the fourth floor, however, there are three windows in the central bay — a wide center window flanked by two narrow lights. These were originally surmounted by a transom with an arched muntin creating a Palladian motif similar to Shaw's Ipswich windows. The transom is now boarded over.

 

In the outer bays both the third and fourth floor windows have segmental-arched enframements decorated with stone keystones and skewbacks. On the fourth floor stone bases are also employed relating the articulation of the minor orders to that of the giant pilasters.

 

On the fifth floor the center bay has three segmental-arched window openings decorated with stone keystones and imposts. Each contains a single one-over-one sash window topped by a small paned leaded-glass transom. In the outer bays there are two flat-arched window openings per bay again decorated with stone keystones and imposts. Here the leaded-glass transoms have survived in all but the westernmost window bay.

 

Terminating this section of the facade is a Doric entablature. This is composed of a stone architrave, brick and terra-cotta frieze and stone and terra-cotta cornice. The entablature projects over the major elements. On the frieze the projecting areas are undecorated while the recessed sections contain molded brick triglyphs and terra-cotta relief panel metopes. In the outer bays these are decorated with sunbursts, in the center bay with wreaths and swags.

 

Crowning the building on 17th Street is a one-and-one- half story attic which reads as a gambrel roof from Union Square. This is lit by a double tier of dormers. The lower dormers are brick with stone and terracotta trim.

 

The center dormer has two equally-spaced openings, the lower wider outer dormers have three openings consisting of a regularly spaced central light and two narrower sidelights. The eastern dormer still retains its original clear leaded glass upper sash. The stained glass window in the western dormer probably dates from 1888 when there was a fire on this floor.

 

Framing the windows are brick pilasters with plain Tuscan stone capitals. These carry a Doric entablature with a stone architrave and cornice and frieze composed of brick triglyphs and terra-cotta metopes. In the outer bays the metopes are articulated with simple recessed panels; in the center bays they are enriched with swags and rosettes.

 

The second tier of terra-cotta-faced dormers dating from 1913 are considerably simpler in design. Divided by piers into a wide central light and narrower sidelights they are articulated with corner pilasters and entablatures.

 

Set between the dormers along the roofline is a brick balustrade with raised terra-cotta panels and a stone coping. This projects over the major supportive piers to form pedestals which carry terra-cotta orbs. Stylized volutes join the balustrade to the center dormer.

 

The roof is also ornamented with a stone coping which runs along the ends of the gambrel and has stone ornaments (skew corbels) which project at the foot of the upper slope. Joining the two pitches is a molded metal frieze which is enriched with an egg and dart molding.

 

At the ridge are terra-cotta coping tiles ornamented with leaves and terra-cotta finials in the form of sunflowers. Molded brick chimney stacks rise from the ridge of gable walls.

 

Aside from the addition of the second set of dormers, the only major alteration to the 17th Street attic was the construction of a sheet-metal-sided elevator shed next to the western gable chimney in 1905. It should be noted that while the upper slope of the gambrel has been covered with asphalt shingles, the lower slope retains its original fish-scale slate shingles.

 

On 18th Street, the facade is divided into five bays, each three windows wide. As on the 17th Street facade, there are three horizontal divisions: a one-story commercial base, a four-story midsection and an attic. Here, however, the attic is only one story high and has a flat roof.

 

On the ground floor the bays are separated by banded brick and stone piers. These have stone bases and stone Tuscan capitals which are enriched by egg and dart echinus moldings. Iron piers divide each bay into three openings. Like the colonnettes on 17th Street these are articulated with superimposed orders, in this case stylized pilasters with capitals in the form of consoles topped by small columns with their own bases and impost blocks. Set between the piers are cast-iron and glass shop fronts with door and window surrounds of wood. Like the storefronts on 17th Street these are divided into an iron base, large plate glass window, and transom. The bases are faced with wrought-iron grilles that conceal large basement windows, the weight of the windows above being carried by iron sills that form the top of the bases.

 

In the eastern corner of the facade there are a pair o£ folding paneled metal doors which are surmounted by a large rectangular wooden window frame (glass presently missing) and by a transom. Since there is a record of an alteration to this entrance facade in 1912, it is difficult to determine whether the doors are original, however it is likely that there was always a door in this location which fronts a stairhall.

 

Two other entrances into the ground floor store are no longer in use. The entrance in the center of bay two (reading east to west) seems to have been closed off for some time since there is a wooden dado which aligns with the bases of adjoining storefronts. In bay three there is a pair of wooden doors, which may be original, with long rectangular lights and raised panel decorations. Both these entrances are surmounted by square windows and transoms.

 

The western section of bay three and bays four and five have undergone considerable alteration. A metal gate extends across the entire width of bay four, and bay five has extensive brick infill and a new metal doorway and freight elevators. Crowning the ground floor is a simple iron entablature with a dentil led cornice.

 

On the upper stories, the composition of the 17th Street facade is also repeated though in a much simplified form. Once again the major piers are articulated by superimposed giant pilasters. Here the lower set of pilasters have stone bases and channeled brick capitals with stone abacus and echinus moldings. On the upper orders the capitals are articulated by a slight projection of the bricks and by stone echinus moldings. On both orders there are central terra-cotta sunflower panels identical to those on the 17th Street facade. Stone sills underlined by molded brick courses and projections in the surface of the brick create a series of horizontal accents on the wall surface above the windows comparable to those on 17th Street. As on the 17th Street facade, the courses are continued onto the piers only when they mark a break between the stories, the division between the third and fourth floors being established by a brick block modillion cornice.

 

The fenestration pattern of the 17th Street facade is also repeated on the 18th Street facade. Three are trabeated windows with stone lintels on the second floor, segmental-arched window openings with keystones on the third and fourth floors, flat-arched windows on the fifth floor. Only the small piers separating the windows on the second floor are distinguished by banding. Capping this section of the building is a brick and stone entablature ornamented with paired stone console brackets above the major supportive piers.

 

On the attic story the major piers are channeled and have stone bases and capitals. The brick piers between the windows have brick and stone capitals. These carry stone linels with small imposts. Crowning the building is a brick frieze and cast-iron cornice ornamented by iron brackets at the corners of the roof.

 

The major alterations to this facade above the ground floor have been the installation of an exterior fire escape over bay four and the construction of a brick elevator housing over the north-west corner of the building.

 

Conclusion

 

The Century Company moved to new quarters on Fourth Avenue in 1914/15 after almost thirty-five years in the Century Building.

 

Soon after. Baker and Taylor, publishers, also left the building. The long term tenants who remained into the 'twenties included Johnson and Faulkner, upholsterers, and Earl and Wilson, shirts and collarmakers, businesses that better accorded with the character of the neighborhood which was becoming increasingly a center for manufacturers and wholesalers. Photographs show that by the later 'thirties the building was being used by such businesses as Ferguson Brothers Manufacturing Company and William Shaland Toys and Novelties. The most recent ground floor tenant was the American Drapery and Carpet Company.

 

Although currently vacant, the Century Building survives as one of the finest commercial buildings in the Queen Anne style in New York. Its handsome details, including its two-story oriel window and its dramatic gambrel roof, make the building one of the most picturesque in the city. As home to the prestigious 19th-century Century Magazine, the Century Building also has a special place in the cultural history of New York.

 

- From the 1986 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes (/ˈsɛlɪbiːz, sɪˈliːbiːz/), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Within Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger populations.

 

The landmass of Sulawesi includes four peninsulas: the northern Minahasa Peninsula; the East Peninsula; the South Peninsula; and the Southeast Peninsula. Three gulfs separate these peninsulas: the Gulf of Tomini between the northern Minahasa and East peninsulas; the Tolo Gulf between the East and Southeast peninsulas; and the Bone Gulf between the South and Southeast peninsulas. The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island and separates the island from Borneo.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The name Sulawesi possibly comes from the words sula ("island") and besi ("iron") and may refer to the historical export of iron from the rich Lake Matano iron deposits. The name came into common use in English following Indonesian independence.

 

The name Celebes was originally given to the island by Portuguese explorers. While its direct translation is unclear, it may be considered a Portuguese rendering of the native name "Sulawesi".

 

GEOGRAPHY

Sulawesi is the world's eleventh-largest island, covering an area of 174,600 km2. The central part of the island is ruggedly mountainous, such that the island's peninsulas have traditionally been remote from each other, with better connections by sea than by road. The three bays that divide Sulawesi's peninsulas are, from north to south, the Tomini, the Tolo and the Boni. These separate the Minahassa or Northern Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the Southeast Peninsula and the South Peninsula.

 

The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island. The island is surrounded by Borneo to the west, by the Philippines to the north, by Maluku to the east, and by Flores and Timor to the south.

 

MINOR ISLANDS

The Selayar Islands make up a peninsula stretching southwards from Southwest Sulawesi into the Flores Sea are administratively part of Sulawesi. The Sangihe Islands and Talaud Islands stretch northward from the northeastern tip of Sulawesi, while Buton Island and its neighbours lie off its southeast peninsula, the Togian Islands are in the Gulf of Tomini, and Peleng Island and Banggai Islands form a cluster between Sulawesi and Maluku. All the above-mentioned islands, and many smaller ones are administratively part of Sulawesi's six provinces.

 

GEOLOGY

The island slopes up from the shores of the deep seas surrounding the island to a high, mostly non-volcanic, mountainous interior. Active volcanoes are found in the northern Minahassa Peninsula, stretching north to the Sangihe Islands. The northern peninsula contains several active volcanoes such as Mount Lokon, Mount Awu, Soputan and Karangetang.

 

According to plate reconstructions, the island is believed to have been formed by the collision of terranes from the Asian Plate (forming the west and southwest) and from the Australian Plate (forming the southeast and Banggai), with island arcs previously in the Pacific (forming the north and east peninsulas).[8] Because of its several tectonic origins, various faults scar the land and as a result the island is prone to earthquakes.

 

Sulawesi, in contrast to most of the other islands in the biogeographical region of Wallacea, is not truly oceanic, but a composite island at the centre of the Asia-Australia collision zone. Parts of the island were formerly attached to either the Asian or Australian continental margin and became separated from these areas by vicariant processes. In the west, the opening of the Makassar Strait separated West Sulawesi from Sundaland in the Eocene c. 45 Mya. In the east, the traditional view of collisions of multiple micro-continental fragments sliced from New Guinea with an active volcanic margin in West Sulawesi at different times since the Early Miocene c. 20 Mya has recently been replaced by the hypothesis that extensional fragmentation has followed a single Miocene collision of West Sulawesi with the Sula Spur, the western end of an ancient folded belt of Variscan origin in the Late Paleozoic.

 

PREHISTORY

Before October 2014, the settlement of South Sulawesi by modern humans had been dated to c. 30,000 BC on the basis of radiocarbon dates obtained from rock shelters in Maros. No earlier evidence of human occupation had at that point been found, but the island almost certainly formed part of the land bridge used for the settlement of Australia and New Guinea by at least 40,000 BCE. There is no evidence of Homo erectus having reached Sulawesi; crude stone tools first discovered in 1947 on the right bank of the Walennae River at Berru, Indonesia, which were thought to date to the Pleistocene on the basis of their association with vertebrate fossils, are now thought to date to perhaps 50,000 BC.

 

Following Peter Bellwood's model of a southward migration of Austronesian-speaking farmers (AN), radiocarbon dates from caves in Maros suggest a date in the mid-second millennium BC for the arrival of a group from east Borneo speaking a Proto-South Sulawesi language (PSS). Initial settlement was probably around the mouth of the Sa'dan river, on the northwest coast of the peninsula, although the south coast has also been suggested.

 

Subsequent migrations across the mountainous landscape resulted in the geographical isolation of PSS speakers and the evolution of their languages into the eight families of the South Sulawesi language group. If each group can be said to have a homeland, that of the Bugis – today the most numerous group – was around lakes Témpé and Sidénréng in the Walennaé depression. Here for some 2,000 years lived the linguistic group that would become the modern Bugis; the archaic name of this group (which is preserved in other local languages) was Ugiq. Despite the fact that today they are closely linked with the Makasar, the closest linguistic neighbours of the Bugis are the Toraja.

 

Pre-1200 Bugis society was most likely organised into chiefdoms. Some anthropologists have speculated these chiefdoms would have warred and, in times of peace, exchanged women with each other. Further, they have speculated that personal security would have been negligible and head-hunting an established cultural practice. The political economy would have been a mixture of hunting and gathering and swidden or shifting agriculture. Speculative planting of wet rice may have taken place along the margins of the lakes and rivers. In Central Sulawesi, there are over 400 granite megaliths, which various archaeological studies have dated to be from 3000 BC to AD 1300. They vary in size from a few centimetres to around 4.5 metres. The original purpose of the megaliths is unknown. About 30 of the megaliths represent human forms. Other megaliths are in form of large pots (Kalamba) and stone plates (Tutu'na).In October 2014 it was announced that cave paintings in Maros had been dated as being about 40,000 years old. Dr Maxime Aubert, of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said that the minimum age for the outline of a hand was 39,900 years old, which made it "the oldest hand stencil in the world" and added, "Next to it is a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one."

 

HISTORY

Starting in the 13th century, access to prestige trade goods and to sources of iron started to alter long-standing cultural patterns and to permit ambitious individuals to build larger political units. It is not known why these two ingredients appeared together; one was perhaps the product of the other.

 

In 1367, several identified polities, located on the island, were mentioned in the Javanese manuscript Nagarakretagama dated from the Majapahit period. Canto 14 mentioned polities including Gowa, Makassar, Luwu and Banggai. It seems that by the 14th century, polities in the island were connected in an archipelagic maritime trading network, centered in the Majapahit port in East Java. By 1400, a number of nascent agricultural principalities had arisen in the western Cenrana valley, as well as on the south coast and on the west coast near modern Parepare.

 

The first Europeans to visit the island (which they believed to be an archipelago due to its contorted shape) were the Portuguese sailors Simão de Abreu, in 1523, and Gomes de Sequeira (among others) in 1525, sent from the Moluccas in search of gold, which the islands had the reputation of producing. A Portuguese base was installed in Makassar in the first decades of the 16th century, lasting until 1665, when it was taken by the Dutch. The Dutch had arrived in Sulawesi in 1605 and were quickly followed by the English, who established a factory in Makassar. From 1660, the Dutch were at war with Gowa, the major Makassar west coast power. In 1669, Admiral Speelman forced the ruler, Sultan Hasanuddin, to sign the Treaty of Bongaya, which handed control of trade to the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch were aided in their conquest by the Bugis warlord Arung Palakka, ruler of the Bugis kingdom of Bone. The Dutch built a fort at Ujung Pandang, while Arung Palakka became the regional overlord and Bone the dominant kingdom. Political and cultural development seems to have slowed as a result of the status quo. In 1905 the entire island became part of the Dutch state colony of the Netherlands East Indies until Japanese occupation in the Second World War. During the Indonesian National Revolution, the Dutch Captain 'Turk' Westerling led campaigns in which hundreds, maybe thousands died during the South Sulawesi Campaign. Following the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949, Sulawesi became part of the federal United States of Indonesia, which in 1950 became absorbed into the unitary Republic of Indonesia.

 

CENTRAL SULAWESI

The Portuguese were rumoured to have a fort in Parigi in 1555. The Kaili were an important group based in the Palu valley and related to the Toraja. Scholars relate that their control swayed under Ternate and Makassar, but this might have been a decision by the Dutch to give their vassals a chance to govern a difficult group. Padbruge commented that in the 1700s Kaili numbers were significant and a highly militant society. In the 1850s a war erupted between the Kaili groups, including the Banawa, in which the Dutch decided to intervene. A complex conflict also involving the Sulu Island pirates and probably Wyndham (a British merchant who commented on being involved in arms dealing to the area in this period and causing a row).

 

In the late 19th century the Sarasins journeyed through the Palu valley as part of a major initiative to bring the Kaili under Dutch rule. Some very surprising and interesting photographs were taken of shamans called Tadulako. Further Christian religious missions entered the area to make one of the most detailed ethnographic studies in the early 20th century. A Swede by the name of Walter Kaudern later studied much of the literature and produced a synthesis. Erskine Downs in the 1950s produced a summary of Kruyts and Andrianis work: "The religion of the Bare'e-Speaking Toradja of Central Celebes," which is invaluable for English-speaking researchers. One of the most recent publications is "When the bones are left," a study of the material culture of central Sulawesi, offering extensive analysis. Also worthy of study are the brilliant works of Monnig Atkinson on the Wana shamans who live in the Mori area.

 

POPULATION

The 2000 census population of the provinces of Sulawesi was 14,946,488, about 7.25% of Indonesia's total population. By the 2010 Census the total had reached 17,371,782, and the latest official estimate (for January 2014) is 18,455,058. The largest city is Makassar.

 

RELIGION

Islam is the majority religion in Sulawesi. The conversion of the lowlands of the south western peninsula (South Sulawesi) to Islam occurred in the early 17th century. The kingdom of Luwu in the Gulf of Bone was the first to accept Islam in February 1605; the Makassar kingdom of Goa-Talloq, centred on the modern-day city of Makassar, followed suit in September. However, the Gorontalo and the Mongondow peoples of the northern peninsula largely converted to Islam only in the 19th century. Most Muslims are Sunnis.

  

POPULATION OF SULAWESI BY PROVINCE (2010)

South Sulawesi (46.4%)

Central Sulawesi (15%)

Southeast Sulawesi (13%)

North Sulawesi (13.0%)

West Sulawesi (6.6%)

Gorontalo (6%)

 

Christians form a substantial minority on the island. According to the demographer Toby Alice Volkman, 17% of Sulawesi's population is Protestant and less than 2% is Roman Catholic. Christians are concentrated on the tip of the northern peninsula around the city of Manado, which is inhabited by the Minahasa, a predominantly Protestant people, and the northernmost Sangir and Talaud Islands. The Toraja people of Tana Toraja in Central Sulawesi have largely converted to Christianity since Indonesia's independence. There are also substantial numbers of Christians around Lake Poso in Central Sulawesi, among the Pamona speaking peoples of Central Sulawesi, and near Mamasa.

 

Though most people identify themselves as Muslims or Christians, they often subscribe to local beliefs and deities as well. It is not uncommon for both groups to make offerings to local gods, goddesses, and spirits.

 

Smaller communities of Buddhists and Hindus are also found on Sulawesi, usually among the Chinese, Balinese and Indian communities.

 

AGMINISTRATION

The island is subdivided into six provinces: Gorontalo, West Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and North Sulawesi. West Sulawesi is a new province, created in 2004 from part of South Sulawesi. The largest cities on the island are Makassar, Manado, Palu, Kendari, Bitung, Gorontalo, Palopo and Baubau.

 

FLORA AND FAUNA

Sulawesi is part of Wallacea, meaning that it has a mix of both Indomalayan and Australasian species that reached the island by crossing deep-water oceanic barriers. The flora includes one native eucalypt, E. deglupta. There are 8 national parks on the island, of which 4 are mostly marine. The parks with the largest terrestrial area are Bogani Nani Wartabone with 2,871 km2 and Lore Lindu National Park with 2,290 km2. Bunaken National Park which protects a rich coral ecosystem has been proposed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

MAMMALS

Early in the Pleistocene, Sulawesi had a dwarf elephant and a dwarf form of Stegodon, (an elephant relative, S. sompoensis); later both were replaced by larger forms. A giant suid, Celebochoerus, was also formerly present. It is thought that many of the migrants to Sulawesi arrived via the Philippines, while Sulawesi in turn served as a way station for migrants to Flores. A Pleistocene faunal turnover is recognised, with the competitive displacement of several indigenous tarsiers by more recently arriving ones and by Celebochoerus by other medium-sized herbivores like the babirusa, anoa and Celebes warty pig.

 

There are 127 known extant native mammalian species in Sulawesi. A large percentage, 62% (79 species) are endemic, meaning that they are found nowhere else in the world. The largest of these are the two species of anoa or dwarf buffalo. Other artiodactyl species inhabiting Sulawesi are the warty pig and the babirusas, which are aberrant pigs. The only native carnivoran is the Sulawesi palm civet (Asian palm and Malayan civets have been introduced). Primates present include a number of tarsiers (T. fuscus, Dian's, Gursky's, Jatna's, Wallace's, the Lariang and pygmy tarsiers) as well as macaques (Heck's, the booted, crested black, Gorontalo, moor, and Tonkean macaques). While most of Sulawesi's mammals are placental and have Asian relatives, several species of cuscus, arboreal marsupials of Australasian origin, are also present (Ailurops ursinus and Strigocuscus celebensis).

 

Sulawesi is home to a large number of endemic rodent genera. Murid rodent genera endemic to Sulawesi and immediately adjacent islands (such as the Togian Islands, Buton Island, and Muna Island) are Bunomys, Echiothrix, Margaretamys, Taeromys and Tateomys as well as the single-species genera Eropeplus, Hyorhinomys, Melasmothrix, Paucidentomys, Paruromys and Sommeromys. Endemic sciurid genera are Hyosciurus, Prosciurillus, Rubrisciurus and Waiomys.

 

While over 20 bat species are present on Sulawesi, only a portion of these are endemic: Rhinolophus tatar, Scotophilus celebensis and the megabats Acerodon celebensis, Boneia bidens, Dobsonia exoleta, Harpyionycteris celebensis, Neopteryx frosti, Rousettus celebensis and Styloctenium wallacei.

 

Several endemic shrews, the Sulawesi shrew, Sulawesi tiny shrew and the Sulawesi white-handed shrew, are found on the island.

 

BIRDS

By contrast, Sulawesian bird species tend to be found on other nearby islands as well, such as Borneo; 31% of Sulawesi's birds are found nowhere else. One true endemic is the fiery-browed starling. Another endemic bird (also found on small neighboring islands) is the largely ground-dwelling, chicken-sized maleo, a megapode which uses hot sand close to the island's volcanic vents to incubate its eggs. Others include the flightless snoring rail, the Sulawesi masked owl, the Sulawesi myna and the grosbeak starling. There are around 350 known bird species in Sulawesi. An international partnership of conservationists, donors, and local people have formed the Alliance for Tompotika Conservation, in an effort to raise awareness and protect the nesting grounds of these birds on the central-eastern arm of the island.

 

REPTILES

The larger reptiles of Sulawesi are not endemic and include reticulated and Burmese pythons, king cobras, water monitors, sailfin lizards, saltwater crocodiles and green sea turtles. An extinct giant tortoise, Megalochelys atlas, was formerly present, but disappeared by 840,000 years ago, possibly because of the arrival of humans. Similarly, komodo dragons or similar lizards appear to have inhabited the island, being among its apex predators. The smaller snakes of Sulawesi include endemic forms such as Calamaria boesemani, Calamaria muelleri, Calamaria nuchalis, Cyclotyphlops, Enhydris matannensis, Ptyas dipsas, Rabdion grovesi, Tropidolaemus laticinctus and Typhlops conradi. Similarly, the smaller lizards of Sulawesi include nonendemic species such as Bronchocela jubata, Dibamus novaeguineae and Gekko smithii, as well as endemic species such as Lipinia infralineolata and Luperosaurus iskandari.

 

AMPHIBIANS

The amphibians of Sulawesi include the endemic frogs Hylarana celebensis, H. macrops, H. mocquardi, Ingerophrynus celebensis, Limnonectes arathooni, L. larvaepartus, L. microtympanum, Occidozyga celebensis, O. semipalmata and O. tompotika as well as the endemic "flying frogs" Rhacophorus edentulus and R. georgii.

 

FRESHWATER FISH

Sulawesi is home to more than 70 freshwater fish species, including more than 55 endemics. Among these are the genus Nomorhamphus, a species flock of viviparous halfbeaks containing 12 species that only are found on Sulawesi (others are from the Philippines). In addition to Nomorhamphus, the majority of Sulawesi's freshwater fish species are ricefishes, gobies (Glossogobius and Mugilogobius) and Telmatherinid sail-fin silversides. The last family is almost entirely restricted to Sulawesi, especially the Malili Lake system, consisting of Matano and Towuti, and the small Lontoa (Wawantoa), Mahalona and Masapi. Another unusual endemic is Lagusia micracanthus from rivers in South Sulawesi, which is the sole member of its genus and among the smallest grunters. The gudgeon Bostrychus microphthalmus from the Maros Karst is the only described species of cave-adapted fish from Sulawesi, but an apparently undescribed species from the same region and genus also exists.

 

FRESHWATER CRUSTACEANS AND SNAILS

Many species of Caridina freshwater shrimp and parathelphusid freshwater crabs (Migmathelphusa, Nautilothelphusa, Parathelphusa, Sundathelphusa and Syntripsa) are endemic to Sulawesi. Several of these species have become very popular in the aquarium hobby, and since most are restricted to a single lake system, they are potentially vulnerable to habitat loss and overexploitation. There are also several endemic cave-adapted shrimp and crabs, especially in the Maros Karst. This includes Cancrocaeca xenomorpha, which has been called the "most highly cave-adapted species of crab known in the world".

 

The genus Tylomelania of freshwater snails is also endemic to Sulawesi, with the majority of the species restricted to Lake Poso and the Malili Lake system.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

The mimic octopus is also present in the waters of Sulawesi's coast.

 

CONSERVATION

Sulawesi island was recently the subject of an Ecoregional Conservation Assessment, coordinated by The Nature Conservancy. Detailed reports about the vegetation of the island are available. The assessment produced a detailed and annotated list of 'conservation portfolio' sites. This information was widely distributed to local government agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Detailed conservation priorities have also been outlined in a recent publication.

 

The lowland forests on the island have mostly been removed. Because of the relative geological youth of the island and its dramatic and sharp topography, the lowland areas are naturally limited in their extent. The past decade has seen dramatic conversion of this rare and endangered habitat. The island also possesses one of the largest outcrops of serpentine soil in the world, which support an unusual and large community of specialized plant species. Overall, the flora and fauna of this unique center of global biodiversity is very poorly documented and understood and remains critically threatened.

 

The islands of Pepaya, Mas and Raja islands, located in Sumalata Village - North Gorontalo Regency (about 30 km from Saronde Island), have been named a nature reserve since the Dutch colonial time in 1936. Four of the only seven species of turtles can be found in the islands, the world's best turtle habitat. They include Penyu Hijau (Chelonia midas), Penyu Sisik (Eretmochelys imbricata), Penyu Tempayan (Caretta caretta) and Penyu Belimbing (Dermochelys coriacea). In 2011, the habitat was threatened by human activities such as illegal poaching and fish bombing activities; furthermore, a lot of coral reefs, which represent a source of food for turtles, have been damaged.

 

ENVIRONMENT

The largest environmental issue in Sulawesi is deforestation. In 2007, scientists found that 80 percent of Sulawesi's forest had been lost or degraded, especially centered in the lowlands and the mangroves. Forests have been felled for logging and large agricultural projects. Loss of forest has resulted in many of Sulawesi's endemic species becoming endangered. In addition, 99 percent of Sulawesi's wetlands have been lost or damaged.

 

Other environmental threats included bushmeat hunting and mining.

 

PARKS

The island of Sulawesi has six national parks and nineteen nature reserves. In addition, Sulawesi has three marine protected areas. Many of Sulawesi's parks are threatened by logging, mining, and deforestation for agriculture.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes (/ˈsɛlɪbiːz, sɪˈliːbiːz/), is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the world's eleventh-largest island, it is situated east of Borneo, west of the Maluku Islands, and south of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. Within Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger populations.

 

The landmass of Sulawesi includes four peninsulas: the northern Minahasa Peninsula; the East Peninsula; the South Peninsula; and the Southeast Peninsula. Three gulfs separate these peninsulas: the Gulf of Tomini between the northern Minahasa and East peninsulas; the Tolo Gulf between the East and Southeast peninsulas; and the Bone Gulf between the South and Southeast peninsulas. The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island and separates the island from Borneo.

 

ETYMOLOGY

The name Sulawesi possibly comes from the words sula ("island") and besi ("iron") and may refer to the historical export of iron from the rich Lake Matano iron deposits. The name came into common use in English following Indonesian independence.

 

The name Celebes was originally given to the island by Portuguese explorers. While its direct translation is unclear, it may be considered a Portuguese rendering of the native name "Sulawesi".

 

GEOGRAPHY

Sulawesi is the world's eleventh-largest island, covering an area of 174,600 km2. The central part of the island is ruggedly mountainous, such that the island's peninsulas have traditionally been remote from each other, with better connections by sea than by road. The three bays that divide Sulawesi's peninsulas are, from north to south, the Tomini, the Tolo and the Boni. These separate the Minahassa or Northern Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the Southeast Peninsula and the South Peninsula.

 

The Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island. The island is surrounded by Borneo to the west, by the Philippines to the north, by Maluku to the east, and by Flores and Timor to the south.

 

MINOR ISLANDS

The Selayar Islands make up a peninsula stretching southwards from Southwest Sulawesi into the Flores Sea are administratively part of Sulawesi. The Sangihe Islands and Talaud Islands stretch northward from the northeastern tip of Sulawesi, while Buton Island and its neighbours lie off its southeast peninsula, the Togian Islands are in the Gulf of Tomini, and Peleng Island and Banggai Islands form a cluster between Sulawesi and Maluku. All the above-mentioned islands, and many smaller ones are administratively part of Sulawesi's six provinces.

 

GEOLOGY

The island slopes up from the shores of the deep seas surrounding the island to a high, mostly non-volcanic, mountainous interior. Active volcanoes are found in the northern Minahassa Peninsula, stretching north to the Sangihe Islands. The northern peninsula contains several active volcanoes such as Mount Lokon, Mount Awu, Soputan and Karangetang.

 

According to plate reconstructions, the island is believed to have been formed by the collision of terranes from the Asian Plate (forming the west and southwest) and from the Australian Plate (forming the southeast and Banggai), with island arcs previously in the Pacific (forming the north and east peninsulas).[8] Because of its several tectonic origins, various faults scar the land and as a result the island is prone to earthquakes.

 

Sulawesi, in contrast to most of the other islands in the biogeographical region of Wallacea, is not truly oceanic, but a composite island at the centre of the Asia-Australia collision zone. Parts of the island were formerly attached to either the Asian or Australian continental margin and became separated from these areas by vicariant processes. In the west, the opening of the Makassar Strait separated West Sulawesi from Sundaland in the Eocene c. 45 Mya. In the east, the traditional view of collisions of multiple micro-continental fragments sliced from New Guinea with an active volcanic margin in West Sulawesi at different times since the Early Miocene c. 20 Mya has recently been replaced by the hypothesis that extensional fragmentation has followed a single Miocene collision of West Sulawesi with the Sula Spur, the western end of an ancient folded belt of Variscan origin in the Late Paleozoic.

 

PREHISTORY

Before October 2014, the settlement of South Sulawesi by modern humans had been dated to c. 30,000 BC on the basis of radiocarbon dates obtained from rock shelters in Maros. No earlier evidence of human occupation had at that point been found, but the island almost certainly formed part of the land bridge used for the settlement of Australia and New Guinea by at least 40,000 BCE. There is no evidence of Homo erectus having reached Sulawesi; crude stone tools first discovered in 1947 on the right bank of the Walennae River at Berru, Indonesia, which were thought to date to the Pleistocene on the basis of their association with vertebrate fossils, are now thought to date to perhaps 50,000 BC.

 

Following Peter Bellwood's model of a southward migration of Austronesian-speaking farmers (AN), radiocarbon dates from caves in Maros suggest a date in the mid-second millennium BC for the arrival of a group from east Borneo speaking a Proto-South Sulawesi language (PSS). Initial settlement was probably around the mouth of the Sa'dan river, on the northwest coast of the peninsula, although the south coast has also been suggested.

 

Subsequent migrations across the mountainous landscape resulted in the geographical isolation of PSS speakers and the evolution of their languages into the eight families of the South Sulawesi language group. If each group can be said to have a homeland, that of the Bugis – today the most numerous group – was around lakes Témpé and Sidénréng in the Walennaé depression. Here for some 2,000 years lived the linguistic group that would become the modern Bugis; the archaic name of this group (which is preserved in other local languages) was Ugiq. Despite the fact that today they are closely linked with the Makasar, the closest linguistic neighbours of the Bugis are the Toraja.

 

Pre-1200 Bugis society was most likely organised into chiefdoms. Some anthropologists have speculated these chiefdoms would have warred and, in times of peace, exchanged women with each other. Further, they have speculated that personal security would have been negligible and head-hunting an established cultural practice. The political economy would have been a mixture of hunting and gathering and swidden or shifting agriculture. Speculative planting of wet rice may have taken place along the margins of the lakes and rivers. In Central Sulawesi, there are over 400 granite megaliths, which various archaeological studies have dated to be from 3000 BC to AD 1300. They vary in size from a few centimetres to around 4.5 metres. The original purpose of the megaliths is unknown. About 30 of the megaliths represent human forms. Other megaliths are in form of large pots (Kalamba) and stone plates (Tutu'na).In October 2014 it was announced that cave paintings in Maros had been dated as being about 40,000 years old. Dr Maxime Aubert, of Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, said that the minimum age for the outline of a hand was 39,900 years old, which made it "the oldest hand stencil in the world" and added, "Next to it is a pig that has a minimum age of 35,400 years old, and this is one of the oldest figurative depictions in the world, if not the oldest one."

 

HISTORY

Starting in the 13th century, access to prestige trade goods and to sources of iron started to alter long-standing cultural patterns and to permit ambitious individuals to build larger political units. It is not known why these two ingredients appeared together; one was perhaps the product of the other.

 

In 1367, several identified polities, located on the island, were mentioned in the Javanese manuscript Nagarakretagama dated from the Majapahit period. Canto 14 mentioned polities including Gowa, Makassar, Luwu and Banggai. It seems that by the 14th century, polities in the island were connected in an archipelagic maritime trading network, centered in the Majapahit port in East Java. By 1400, a number of nascent agricultural principalities had arisen in the western Cenrana valley, as well as on the south coast and on the west coast near modern Parepare.

 

The first Europeans to visit the island (which they believed to be an archipelago due to its contorted shape) were the Portuguese sailors Simão de Abreu, in 1523, and Gomes de Sequeira (among others) in 1525, sent from the Moluccas in search of gold, which the islands had the reputation of producing. A Portuguese base was installed in Makassar in the first decades of the 16th century, lasting until 1665, when it was taken by the Dutch. The Dutch had arrived in Sulawesi in 1605 and were quickly followed by the English, who established a factory in Makassar. From 1660, the Dutch were at war with Gowa, the major Makassar west coast power. In 1669, Admiral Speelman forced the ruler, Sultan Hasanuddin, to sign the Treaty of Bongaya, which handed control of trade to the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch were aided in their conquest by the Bugis warlord Arung Palakka, ruler of the Bugis kingdom of Bone. The Dutch built a fort at Ujung Pandang, while Arung Palakka became the regional overlord and Bone the dominant kingdom. Political and cultural development seems to have slowed as a result of the status quo. In 1905 the entire island became part of the Dutch state colony of the Netherlands East Indies until Japanese occupation in the Second World War. During the Indonesian National Revolution, the Dutch Captain 'Turk' Westerling led campaigns in which hundreds, maybe thousands died during the South Sulawesi Campaign. Following the transfer of sovereignty in December 1949, Sulawesi became part of the federal United States of Indonesia, which in 1950 became absorbed into the unitary Republic of Indonesia.

 

CENTRAL SULAWESI

The Portuguese were rumoured to have a fort in Parigi in 1555. The Kaili were an important group based in the Palu valley and related to the Toraja. Scholars relate that their control swayed under Ternate and Makassar, but this might have been a decision by the Dutch to give their vassals a chance to govern a difficult group. Padbruge commented that in the 1700s Kaili numbers were significant and a highly militant society. In the 1850s a war erupted between the Kaili groups, including the Banawa, in which the Dutch decided to intervene. A complex conflict also involving the Sulu Island pirates and probably Wyndham (a British merchant who commented on being involved in arms dealing to the area in this period and causing a row).

 

In the late 19th century the Sarasins journeyed through the Palu valley as part of a major initiative to bring the Kaili under Dutch rule. Some very surprising and interesting photographs were taken of shamans called Tadulako. Further Christian religious missions entered the area to make one of the most detailed ethnographic studies in the early 20th century. A Swede by the name of Walter Kaudern later studied much of the literature and produced a synthesis. Erskine Downs in the 1950s produced a summary of Kruyts and Andrianis work: "The religion of the Bare'e-Speaking Toradja of Central Celebes," which is invaluable for English-speaking researchers. One of the most recent publications is "When the bones are left," a study of the material culture of central Sulawesi, offering extensive analysis. Also worthy of study are the brilliant works of Monnig Atkinson on the Wana shamans who live in the Mori area.

 

POPULATION

The 2000 census population of the provinces of Sulawesi was 14,946,488, about 7.25% of Indonesia's total population. By the 2010 Census the total had reached 17,371,782, and the latest official estimate (for January 2014) is 18,455,058. The largest city is Makassar.

 

RELIGION

Islam is the majority religion in Sulawesi. The conversion of the lowlands of the south western peninsula (South Sulawesi) to Islam occurred in the early 17th century. The kingdom of Luwu in the Gulf of Bone was the first to accept Islam in February 1605; the Makassar kingdom of Goa-Talloq, centred on the modern-day city of Makassar, followed suit in September. However, the Gorontalo and the Mongondow peoples of the northern peninsula largely converted to Islam only in the 19th century. Most Muslims are Sunnis.

  

POPULATION OF SULAWESI BY PROVINCE (2010)

South Sulawesi (46.4%)

Central Sulawesi (15%)

Southeast Sulawesi (13%)

North Sulawesi (13.0%)

West Sulawesi (6.6%)

Gorontalo (6%)

 

Christians form a substantial minority on the island. According to the demographer Toby Alice Volkman, 17% of Sulawesi's population is Protestant and less than 2% is Roman Catholic. Christians are concentrated on the tip of the northern peninsula around the city of Manado, which is inhabited by the Minahasa, a predominantly Protestant people, and the northernmost Sangir and Talaud Islands. The Toraja people of Tana Toraja in Central Sulawesi have largely converted to Christianity since Indonesia's independence. There are also substantial numbers of Christians around Lake Poso in Central Sulawesi, among the Pamona speaking peoples of Central Sulawesi, and near Mamasa.

 

Though most people identify themselves as Muslims or Christians, they often subscribe to local beliefs and deities as well. It is not uncommon for both groups to make offerings to local gods, goddesses, and spirits.

 

Smaller communities of Buddhists and Hindus are also found on Sulawesi, usually among the Chinese, Balinese and Indian communities.

 

AGMINISTRATION

The island is subdivided into six provinces: Gorontalo, West Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi and North Sulawesi. West Sulawesi is a new province, created in 2004 from part of South Sulawesi. The largest cities on the island are Makassar, Manado, Palu, Kendari, Bitung, Gorontalo, Palopo and Baubau.

 

FLORA AND FAUNA

Sulawesi is part of Wallacea, meaning that it has a mix of both Indomalayan and Australasian species that reached the island by crossing deep-water oceanic barriers. The flora includes one native eucalypt, E. deglupta. There are 8 national parks on the island, of which 4 are mostly marine. The parks with the largest terrestrial area are Bogani Nani Wartabone with 2,871 km2 and Lore Lindu National Park with 2,290 km2. Bunaken National Park which protects a rich coral ecosystem has been proposed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

MAMMALS

Early in the Pleistocene, Sulawesi had a dwarf elephant and a dwarf form of Stegodon, (an elephant relative, S. sompoensis); later both were replaced by larger forms. A giant suid, Celebochoerus, was also formerly present. It is thought that many of the migrants to Sulawesi arrived via the Philippines, while Sulawesi in turn served as a way station for migrants to Flores. A Pleistocene faunal turnover is recognised, with the competitive displacement of several indigenous tarsiers by more recently arriving ones and by Celebochoerus by other medium-sized herbivores like the babirusa, anoa and Celebes warty pig.

 

There are 127 known extant native mammalian species in Sulawesi. A large percentage, 62% (79 species) are endemic, meaning that they are found nowhere else in the world. The largest of these are the two species of anoa or dwarf buffalo. Other artiodactyl species inhabiting Sulawesi are the warty pig and the babirusas, which are aberrant pigs. The only native carnivoran is the Sulawesi palm civet (Asian palm and Malayan civets have been introduced). Primates present include a number of tarsiers (T. fuscus, Dian's, Gursky's, Jatna's, Wallace's, the Lariang and pygmy tarsiers) as well as macaques (Heck's, the booted, crested black, Gorontalo, moor, and Tonkean macaques). While most of Sulawesi's mammals are placental and have Asian relatives, several species of cuscus, arboreal marsupials of Australasian origin, are also present (Ailurops ursinus and Strigocuscus celebensis).

 

Sulawesi is home to a large number of endemic rodent genera. Murid rodent genera endemic to Sulawesi and immediately adjacent islands (such as the Togian Islands, Buton Island, and Muna Island) are Bunomys, Echiothrix, Margaretamys, Taeromys and Tateomys as well as the single-species genera Eropeplus, Hyorhinomys, Melasmothrix, Paucidentomys, Paruromys and Sommeromys. Endemic sciurid genera are Hyosciurus, Prosciurillus, Rubrisciurus and Waiomys.

 

While over 20 bat species are present on Sulawesi, only a portion of these are endemic: Rhinolophus tatar, Scotophilus celebensis and the megabats Acerodon celebensis, Boneia bidens, Dobsonia exoleta, Harpyionycteris celebensis, Neopteryx frosti, Rousettus celebensis and Styloctenium wallacei.

 

Several endemic shrews, the Sulawesi shrew, Sulawesi tiny shrew and the Sulawesi white-handed shrew, are found on the island.

 

BIRDS

By contrast, Sulawesian bird species tend to be found on other nearby islands as well, such as Borneo; 31% of Sulawesi's birds are found nowhere else. One true endemic is the fiery-browed starling. Another endemic bird (also found on small neighboring islands) is the largely ground-dwelling, chicken-sized maleo, a megapode which uses hot sand close to the island's volcanic vents to incubate its eggs. Others include the flightless snoring rail, the Sulawesi masked owl, the Sulawesi myna and the grosbeak starling. There are around 350 known bird species in Sulawesi. An international partnership of conservationists, donors, and local people have formed the Alliance for Tompotika Conservation, in an effort to raise awareness and protect the nesting grounds of these birds on the central-eastern arm of the island.

 

REPTILES

The larger reptiles of Sulawesi are not endemic and include reticulated and Burmese pythons, king cobras, water monitors, sailfin lizards, saltwater crocodiles and green sea turtles. An extinct giant tortoise, Megalochelys atlas, was formerly present, but disappeared by 840,000 years ago, possibly because of the arrival of humans. Similarly, komodo dragons or similar lizards appear to have inhabited the island, being among its apex predators. The smaller snakes of Sulawesi include endemic forms such as Calamaria boesemani, Calamaria muelleri, Calamaria nuchalis, Cyclotyphlops, Enhydris matannensis, Ptyas dipsas, Rabdion grovesi, Tropidolaemus laticinctus and Typhlops conradi. Similarly, the smaller lizards of Sulawesi include nonendemic species such as Bronchocela jubata, Dibamus novaeguineae and Gekko smithii, as well as endemic species such as Lipinia infralineolata and Luperosaurus iskandari.

 

AMPHIBIANS

The amphibians of Sulawesi include the endemic frogs Hylarana celebensis, H. macrops, H. mocquardi, Ingerophrynus celebensis, Limnonectes arathooni, L. larvaepartus, L. microtympanum, Occidozyga celebensis, O. semipalmata and O. tompotika as well as the endemic "flying frogs" Rhacophorus edentulus and R. georgii.

 

FRESHWATER FISH

Sulawesi is home to more than 70 freshwater fish species, including more than 55 endemics. Among these are the genus Nomorhamphus, a species flock of viviparous halfbeaks containing 12 species that only are found on Sulawesi (others are from the Philippines). In addition to Nomorhamphus, the majority of Sulawesi's freshwater fish species are ricefishes, gobies (Glossogobius and Mugilogobius) and Telmatherinid sail-fin silversides. The last family is almost entirely restricted to Sulawesi, especially the Malili Lake system, consisting of Matano and Towuti, and the small Lontoa (Wawantoa), Mahalona and Masapi. Another unusual endemic is Lagusia micracanthus from rivers in South Sulawesi, which is the sole member of its genus and among the smallest grunters. The gudgeon Bostrychus microphthalmus from the Maros Karst is the only described species of cave-adapted fish from Sulawesi, but an apparently undescribed species from the same region and genus also exists.

 

FRESHWATER CRUSTACEANS AND SNAILS

Many species of Caridina freshwater shrimp and parathelphusid freshwater crabs (Migmathelphusa, Nautilothelphusa, Parathelphusa, Sundathelphusa and Syntripsa) are endemic to Sulawesi. Several of these species have become very popular in the aquarium hobby, and since most are restricted to a single lake system, they are potentially vulnerable to habitat loss and overexploitation. There are also several endemic cave-adapted shrimp and crabs, especially in the Maros Karst. This includes Cancrocaeca xenomorpha, which has been called the "most highly cave-adapted species of crab known in the world".

 

The genus Tylomelania of freshwater snails is also endemic to Sulawesi, with the majority of the species restricted to Lake Poso and the Malili Lake system.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

The mimic octopus is also present in the waters of Sulawesi's coast.

 

CONSERVATION

Sulawesi island was recently the subject of an Ecoregional Conservation Assessment, coordinated by The Nature Conservancy. Detailed reports about the vegetation of the island are available. The assessment produced a detailed and annotated list of 'conservation portfolio' sites. This information was widely distributed to local government agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Detailed conservation priorities have also been outlined in a recent publication.

 

The lowland forests on the island have mostly been removed. Because of the relative geological youth of the island and its dramatic and sharp topography, the lowland areas are naturally limited in their extent. The past decade has seen dramatic conversion of this rare and endangered habitat. The island also possesses one of the largest outcrops of serpentine soil in the world, which support an unusual and large community of specialized plant species. Overall, the flora and fauna of this unique center of global biodiversity is very poorly documented and understood and remains critically threatened.

 

The islands of Pepaya, Mas and Raja islands, located in Sumalata Village - North Gorontalo Regency (about 30 km from Saronde Island), have been named a nature reserve since the Dutch colonial time in 1936. Four of the only seven species of turtles can be found in the islands, the world's best turtle habitat. They include Penyu Hijau (Chelonia midas), Penyu Sisik (Eretmochelys imbricata), Penyu Tempayan (Caretta caretta) and Penyu Belimbing (Dermochelys coriacea). In 2011, the habitat was threatened by human activities such as illegal poaching and fish bombing activities; furthermore, a lot of coral reefs, which represent a source of food for turtles, have been damaged.

 

ENVIRONMENT

The largest environmental issue in Sulawesi is deforestation. In 2007, scientists found that 80 percent of Sulawesi's forest had been lost or degraded, especially centered in the lowlands and the mangroves. Forests have been felled for logging and large agricultural projects. Loss of forest has resulted in many of Sulawesi's endemic species becoming endangered. In addition, 99 percent of Sulawesi's wetlands have been lost or damaged.

 

Other environmental threats included bushmeat hunting and mining.

 

PARKS

The island of Sulawesi has six national parks and nineteen nature reserves. In addition, Sulawesi has three marine protected areas. Many of Sulawesi's parks are threatened by logging, mining, and deforestation for agriculture.

 

WIKIPEDIA

Mott Haven, Bronx, New York City, New York, United States of America

 

Summary

 

Featuring robust brick facades and a high corner clock tower, the former Estey Piano Company Factory is a distinguished monument to an industry that was once one of the Bronx’s most important. Anchoring the northeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard since 1886, when its original portion was completed, the Estey building is the oldest-known former piano factory standing in the Bronx today. It is also one of the earliest large factories remaining in its Mott Haven neighborhood, dating from the period in which the area first experienced intensive industrial development. Today, as in decades past, the building’s signature clock tower and expansive facades—simply but elegantly detailed with terra cotta, patterned brick, and contrasting stone—are visible from the waterfront and nearby Harlem River bridges, making the Estey Factory a true neighborhood landmark.

 

Manufacturing blossomed in the Mott Haven section of the Bronx during the 1880s, when new factories started springing up in the area east of Third Avenue. Many of these produced pianos or their components, and by 1919, the Bronx had more than 60 such factories, making it one of America’s piano-manufacturing centers. One of the city’s first piano factories to be built in the Annexed District or North Side, as the western portions of the Bronx were known between 1874 and 1898, the Estey building was credited with providing “an unusual stimulus” for the movement of other piano makers there. Several of the manufacturers that followed Estey to the Annexed District, and later the Bronx, clustered within a few blocks of its factory, creating an important nucleus for the piano industry.

 

The Estey Piano Company was organized by Jacob Estey and John B. Simpson in 1885. Two decades before, Estey had established an organ works in Brattleboro, Vt. that had grown into one of the country’s largest producers of reed organs, thousands of which found their way into American parlors every year. Like other organ manufacturers in the late nineteenth century, Estey sought to diversify into the booming piano industry, and his partnership with Simpson—a pioneering North Side piano manufacturer—was a means to that end. When Estey Piano opened its factory, it manufactured upright and grand pianos that would become recognized for their “superior construction and workmanship.”

 

The original portion of the Estey Piano Factory was designed by the architectural firm of A.B. Ogden & Son. Many of this building’s features, including its L-shaped plan, flat roof, regular fenestration pattern and bay arrangement, and relatively narrow width to allow for daylight penetration, are characteristic of latenineteenth-century factory buildings. Its mixture of segmental- and round-headed window openings, and the Romanesque machicolations of its clock tower, place the Estey Factory within the tradition of the American round-arched style. Other features, including the factory’s distinctive, red-orange brick, dogtoothed and zigzagging patterned-brick stringcourses, recessed brick panels, terra cotta tiles featuring festoons, lions’ heads, and foliate motifs—and of course, its dramatic, projecting clock tower—speak of a building that sought to announce its presence on the urban landscape, projecting a strong public image for its owner. Indeed, the Estey Piano Company often included an illustration of this factory on its trade cards, which advertised the firm’s products.

 

The original building was extended to the east along Southern Boulevard in 1890, with a harmonious five-story addition designed by John B. Snook & Sons, and to the north, along Lincoln Avenue, with one-story additions in 1895. The Lincoln Avenue additions appear to have been combined and expanded, and then raised to three stories in 1909, and by an additional two stories in 1919; the 1919 addition near the southeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street features broad expanses of industrial sash that were characteristic of the “daylight factories” of the early twentieth century. Known today as the Clock Tower Building, the old Estey Piano Company Factory currently houses artists and their studios. With its historic fabric almost completely intact, the building remains, in the words of the AIA Guide to New York City, “the grande dame of the piano trade: not virgin, but all-together and proud.”

 

The Industrial Development of Mott Haven

 

Well before the 1898 creation of the borough of the Bronx, industrial activity was occurring in the area that is now the Bronx’s southernmost portion. In 1828, Jordan L. Mott, the inventor of a coal-burning iron cooking stove, opened a “modest little factory” on property he had purchased on the Harlem River near the present Third Avenue, in what was then the township of Morrisania. Mott started calling the area Mott Haven and, in 1850, seeking to attract additional industry to the area, he laid out the Mott Haven Canal, an artificial inlet from the Harlem River that would ultimately extend to just south of 144th Street. The canal, however, was slow to attract industrial firms, and by 1879, only a handful of substantial ones existed nearby, including a brass and iron works, a machine shop, and a few lumber and coal yards, all of which were below 138th Street. These were joined by a marble yard, lumber yard, and hotel west of the canal, near the tracks built by the New York & Harlem Railroad to connect Manhattan with what is now the Bronx, in 1841. Despite the presence of the large Harlem River & Port Chester Railroad yard, which stretched from Lincoln Avenue to Brown Place south of 132nd Street, few factories appear to have existed east of Third Avenue at the end of the 1870s.

 

In 1874, the townships of Morrisania, West Farms, and Kingsbridge—the sections of the present Bronx borough located west of the Bronx River—became part of New York City. Officially called the 23rd and 24th Wards, they were generally referred to as the “Annexed District” or “North Side,” but they remained fairly isolated. At that time, few links existed between the southern portion of the District and Manhattan; among those that did was a cast-iron bridge at Third Avenue which, in 1860, had replaced an old wood dam-bridge built in the 1790s at that location.

 

Soon after annexation, however, local residents, property owners, business owners, and booster groups like the North Side Association began agitating for improved infrastructure, including better connections with Manhattan. In the 1880s, new public works started to be built; among them was the Madison Avenue Bridge, completed in 1884, which spanned the Harlem River at 138th Street, about five blocks north of the Mott Iron Works complex. By 1885, additional industrial concerns—including a planing mill, cabinet maker, and nickel works, and factories making carpets and surgical instruments—had sprung up in Mott Haven, near and below 138th Street, and close to Third Avenue. The expanded rail yard below 132nd Street, at that point operated by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, connected directly to new docks at the foot of Willis Avenue. A few factories had sprouted up in the area east of Lincoln Avenue, as the Estey Piano Company Factory, then under construction at the northeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard, shared a block with the expansive works of the New York Lumber and Woodworking Company.

 

The 1886 opening of the Second Avenue Bridge just a few blocks from the Estey Factory provided a Harlem River crossing for the trains of the new Suburban Rapid Transit Company. The Suburban’s line, which would come to be known in the Bronx as the Third Avenue El, was the first to bring rapid transit service to the Annexed District. With its southern terminus on the Manhattan side of the Harlem, where it met Manhattan’s east-side elevated lines, the Suburban stopped at Southern Boulevard, before continuing northward; service on the line was expanded and improved between 1887 and 1902. While the Suburban was under construction, Real Estate Record & Builders’ Guide predicted that it would have an enormous impact on the North Side, calling it, in 1885, “a great thing for the [Annexed District], as well as for New York City. It will furnish cheap homes for a poorer population, as well as choice rural habitations for the well-to-do. We may expect many light manufacturing industries to become naturalized on the other side of the Harlem.” And the line did come to play a crucial role in Mott Haven’s late-nineteenth-century development, spurring rowhouse construction in the late 1880s and 1890s. As new housing sprouted up, so too did industry; an 1894 drawing of the Harlem River east of Third Avenue shows a busy waterfront with docks and factories on both sides of the river, including the Estey Factory, with its distinctive clock tower clearly visible. In 1895, the New York Times noted that “that part of the 23rd Ward along the Harlem River”—that is, the southernmost portion of the Annexed District, including Mott Haven—was “a very busy manufacturing place.”

 

Improved rapid transit connections with Manhattan aided Mott Haven’s residential growth, but the area’s industrial development was spurred by its Harlem River location and the expansion of its freight-rail infrastructure. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the New York, New Haven & Hartford—with a freight depot located one block south of the Estey Factory, at Lincoln Avenue and 132nd Street—connected with dozens of railroads providing service throughout the eastern and midwestern United States, and into Canada. The New York Central system, with extensive yards close by in Melrose, was just as far-reaching. And the southern Bronx retained these transportation advantages into the twentieth century. Writing in 1908 about the proliferation of piano factories, many of which were in the southern Bronx, lifelong piano man William

 

P.H. Bacon pointed to the borough’s “superior transportation and shipping facilities, both by water and land,” as well as “the opportunity of getting land for the erection of commodious factories at reasonable figures.” In experiencing strong manufacturing growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Mott Haven was a microcosm of the Bronx and the city as a whole: by 1920, New York City had 12% of the country’s factory workers, and by 1927, the Bronx had 2,700 plants with more than 100,000 employees.

 

Industrial growth had been rapid in the southern Bronx; Bacon wrote, in 1908, of “the busy hum of commerce where but a few years ago, the lowing of cattle and other sylvan sounds were the only noises heard.” The end of World War II marked the apex of manufacturing in New York, as in 1947, more manufacturing jobs existed in the city than in Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia combined. But industrial activity in the Bronx would soon begin to decline, reflecting city-wide trends. By the 1950s, New York City was rapidly losing industrial jobs, with manufacturers leaving in droves for the suburbs, or departing the region entirely. Between 1969 and 1999, the number of manufacturing jobs in the city fell by twothirds. Contributing to the decline of industry in the southern Bronx was the destruction of manufacturing space with the construction of broad new highways; the building of the earliest portions of the Major Deegan Expressway through Mott Haven between 1935 and 1939, for example, wiped out several industrial buildings on the block immediately to the north of the Estey Factory, including the former factory of the Brambach Piano Company. In 1997, the New York City Department of City Planning, citing an underutilization of industrial space in Mott Haven, rezoned a portion of Bruckner Boulevard including the block containing the former Estey Factory, to allow for residential uses and community facilities. This special mixed-use zoning was expanded to blocks to the east, west, and south in 2005.

 

As Mott Haven becomes increasingly residential, the former Estey Factory is a reminder of the neighborhood’s early years of intensive industrial growth. Today, the Estey building is one of the oldest large factories standing in Mott Haven, and in the entire area of the southern Bronx below 149th Street.

 

The Estey Piano Company and Its Factory

 

The Estey Piano Company had its roots in the firm of Manner & Company, which manufactured pianos on the Bowery between 1866 and 1869. Manner called his piano the “Arion,” and in 1870, his firm’s name changed to the Arion Piano-Forte Company. In 1872, the company’s factory moved to 149th Street, in what is now the Bronx. John Boulton Simpson, who had been Arion’s secretary since 1871, took control of the company in 1875; in that year, the company apparently moved to a new factory on St. Ann’s Avenue and boasted that “Six years ago, there were none of our pianos in existence; to-day, there are over 7,500 in use.” In the following year, the firm’s name changed to Simpson & Company, although it also continued to be known by the Arion name. By the end of the 1870s, Simpson’s factory—stretching from Brook to St. Ann’s Avenues on the north side of 149th Street—was probably the largest piano factory in the Annexed District, but in 1880, it was sold to another piano maker, the William E. Wheelock Company.

 

While Simpson apparently continued to make “high grade pianos” following the Wheelock sale, the location of his factory in the early 1880s is unclear. Between 1881 and 1885, Simpson & Company continued to maintain a space, likely a showroom, at 5 East 14th Street—where it had been since 1876—but the company was also listed at 127 East 129th and 232 East 40th Streets, neither of which appears to have been the location of a substantial factory. These addresses do, however, link Simpson in the early 1880s with the respected tuner Stephen Brambach, who would play a crucial role in developing Estey’s first pianos; Brambach was located next door to Simpson between 1881 and 1883, and in the same building in 1884.

 

In 1885, the Estey Organ Company of Brattleboro, Vt. was hitting its peak. By the end of the 1880s, the firm, which had been founded in 1866 by Jacob Estey, would be the world’s largest producer of reed organs. Thousands of these instruments found their way into American parlors every year; they were also being distributed, by 1890, to Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America, and to major European cities. Despite the company’s success—it was described, in 1886, as doing “an immense business, amounting to over one million dollars annually”—and its rapid growth—production rose by a factor of seven between 1865 and 1886—the organ business was in decline. The piano business, however, was booming; and, likely noticing the 1882 entry of the renowned organ maker Mason & Hamlin into piano manufacturing, Estey and the company’s other principals, including Levi K. Fuller and Jacob’s son Julius, decided to take the same path.

 

Estey became a piano manufacturer by forming a partnership with Simpson, who was named president of the new Estey Piano Company; the Simpson piano was essentially re-branded as the new Estey model. Simpson, of course, had been a pioneer in Bronx piano manufacturing, and this may have played a role in Estey’s decision to build its plant on the North Side. A.B. Ogden & Son was hired to design the factory, but Simpson may have had some influence over its appearance and form, as he had dabbled in architecture, altering his home on West 129th Street in 1882 to give it a “picturesque exoticism.” Work began on the “large factory with modern appliances,” as it would later be described, in August of 1885; it was completed, at a cost of approximately $40,000, in February of 1886. While the factory was under construction, Estey Piano decided to construct three more buildings that would extend its complex by an additional 80 feet along Southern Boulevard. These brick structures, designed by Ogden’s firm and completed at the same time as the main factory, were a one-story extension, a one-story shed, and a two-story stable.

 

Estey Piano prospered in its early years, as “Estey grand and upright pianos soon became a dominant factor in the piano trade,” according to Alfred Dolge, who added that they often “carried off highest awards for superior construction and workmanship.” In 1887, the trade publication Musical Courier wrote that the Estey Piano Factory was “one of the most complete in the country”; two years later, it called the firm’s upright “a most beautiful specimen of piano manufacturing,” of which Estey would “find no difficulty in disposing … in the best musical circles in the land.” While trade journals’ opinions should be considered with caution, those of the respected piano tuner and regulator Daniel Spillane may be more reliable. Five years after the Estey Factory opened, Spillane called its piano “a very excellent instrument,” adding that “much of the technical and musical merit of these pianos is due to the competency and skill of [Stephen] Brambach, who is a gentleman of fine musical and mechanical sensibilities [and] … one of the best tuners in New York.” Although Brambach had apparently started his own piano company in 1885, he remained involved with Estey in 1890, originating “all new ideas in the mechanics and acoustics of the Estey piano.” Brambach’s brother Carl, “one of the most expert and artistic tuners and toners in the country,” was also employed by Estey Piano, according to Spillane.

 

Business was good, and only four years after the Estey Piano Factory opened, it underwent a huge expansion. In May of 1890, work began on a 100-foot-long east addition that would result in the demolition of the extension, shed, and stable on Southern Boulevard, and create the unified five-story, 200-foot-long Bruckner Boulevard façade that remains essentially unchanged today. The architect of this addition, which was completed in October of 1890 at a cost of about $23,000, was John B. Snook & Sons. This firm, then one of New York’s most prolific, traced its origins to the arrival of John B. Snook (1815-1901) in the United States, from England, in 1835. By 1842, Snook was working with Joseph Trench, and the two helped introduce the Anglo-Italianate style to New York with buildings such as the A.T. Stewart Store at 280 Broadway (1845-46, a Designated New York City Landmark). One of Snook’s best-known works was the first Grand Central Terminal (1869-71, demolished); in 1887, he took his three sons, James Henry (1847-1917), Samuel Booth (18571915), and Thomas Edward, and a son-in-law, John W. Boyleston, into his office, and changed his firm’s name to John B. Snook & Sons. Although Snook had designed a diverse array of buildings—including residential and commercial structures for some of New York’s most prominent families—his firm designed several manufacturing lofts in the 1880s and 1890s that would have made it an appropriate choice for the Estey addition. These industrial buildings, now located in the SoHo-Cast Iron Historic District—including 8 Greene Street (1883-84), 12 Wooster Street (1883-84), 127 Spring Street/87-89 Greene Street (1886-87), 391-393 West Broadway/77-81 Wooster Street (1889), 151 Spring Street (1889-90) and 361 Canal Street (1891-92)—were utilitarian brick buildings; but like the Estey Factory, they were also designed with an eye toward detail, featuring patterned and textured brickwork, and contrasting stone trim that enliven their facades.

 

The Estey Factory continued to grow in the 1890s. In 1895, the company extended the building 50 feet along Lincoln Avenue with a one-story, 69-foot-deep brick addition that apparently provided a fireproof home for its woodworking department; at the same time, Estey constructed a new, one-story brick lumber room running for an additional 38 feet along Lincoln, where it met a small, one-story brick building then existing at the southeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and 134th Street. Both the extension and the new building—which appear to remain today as the base of the five-story portion of the factory north of the original building—were designed by Hewlett S. Baker of 492 East 138th Street. Little is known about Baker; he was described as “a property owner in the South Bronx” in a 1910 New York Times article, and as “a contractor and builder in the Bronx” in a 1912 article about his death. By 1900, the one-story buildings near the corner of Lincoln and 134th appear to have been extended to the east.

 

The portion of the factory north of the original building remained at one story until 1909, when Simpson and architect S. Gifford Slocum raised it to three stories. Slocum, an architect of some note, is remembered primarily for his large residences for wealthy clients, including several fine Queen Anne-style residences built in the Saratoga Springs area in the 1880s. Born in Jefferson County, N.Y., Slocum studied architecture at Cornell University from 1873 to 1875, and by 1885, he had offices in Saratoga and Glens Falls, N.Y. In 1888, Slocum moved to Philadelphia while retaining his Saratoga office; between 1890 and 1909, he practiced architecture in New York City. Simpson hired Slocum to design an alteration to his residence at 117 East 83rd Street, in 1900. Slocum’s two-story addition to the Estey Piano Factory was described as being of “similar construction to the present building” in its Buildings Department application, and it demonstrates continuity with the floor below and with the original building in its segmental-arch-headed window openings, and in its similar decorative details, including pilasters, stone sills supported by corbelled brick courses, and patterned-brick stringcourses. A drawing of the factory following the completion of Slocum’s addition appeared in a 1917 Estey Piano Company advertisement.

 

Over the previous years, the Estey Piano Company had undergone several changes, weathering the deaths—in 1890, 1896, and 1902, respectively—of Jacob Estey, Levi K. Fuller, and Julius Estey. The firm’s “warerooms” or showrooms, which had been at 5 East 14th Street since the time of the company’s founding, were at 97 Fifth Avenue by 1900 and 7 West 29th Street by 1909. They would move again—in 1912 to the since-demolished “Estey Building” at 23 West 42nd Street—and by 1916 to 12 West 45th Street. By 1912, Estey pianos were being sold at Loeser’s department store in Brooklyn; in its advertising, the company took advantage of its historical association with the Estey Organ Company, stating that “the world-renowned Estey Pianos … are just as reliable as the Estey Organs made famous by the same firm in the days of our parents.” On at least one occasion, the Estey Piano Factory witnessed strife between its employees and management, as in 1912, workers struck Estey and other Bronx piano manufacturers that would not recognize the piano makers’ union and refused to close their shop floors to non-union employees.

 

In 1917, John B. Simpson’s leadership of the Estey Piano Company came to an end, when George B. Gittins, the former president of piano manufacturer Kohler & Campbell, purchased a controlling interest in the firm. Gittins, an industry prodigy who was only 37 at the time he took Estey Piano’s helm, appears to have begun revamping the company’s product line almost immediately; an “at-the-factory” clearance sale held in November of 1917 was prompted by the company’s intention “to concentrate on the large-scale production of a few standard models.” Two years later, Gittins purchased M. Welte & Sons, Inc., which was originally the American arm of a German company that had invented the reproducing piano, a technologically advanced kind of player piano using special rolls that were able to express, to some extent, the subtleties of the renowned pianists who had “recorded” them. Following the 1907 introduction of Welte’s “Mignon” reproducing piano in the United States, dozens of the world’s most famous pianists made recordings for Welte, allowing Americans to experience, for the first time, something close to having Paderewski, Saint-Saens, and other virtuosi play for them in their homes.

 

Soon after acquiring Welte, Gittins started shutting down the firm’s Poughkeepsie, N.Y. plant—which had produced rolls, reproducing pianos with and without keyboards, Welte “Philharmonic” reproducing organs, orchestrions, and other products—and expanding the Estey Factory building and its complex. In 1919, architect George F. Hogue of 41 Union Square in Manhattan was hired to add two stories to the northern, three-story portion of the factory, and to add an elevator shaft. This alteration, which cost about $25,000, featured broad expanses of industrial sash typical of the “daylight” factories that were then being constructed around the country. By 1921, Gittins had also constructed a two-story building (not part of this Designation) facing Southern Boulevard and adjoining Snook’s 1890 addition, as well as a four-story factory for Welte (not part of this Designation) that remains today at 27 Bruckner Boulevard. In 1922, the Estey-Welte Corporation was created, which served as an umbrella organization for several Gittins holdings, including the Estey Piano Company and the Welte-Mignon Corporation. Estey, at that time, was manufacturing a variety of pianos, including an 88-note player piano, and manual and reproducing uprights and grands; the new four-story factory on Southern Boulevard made Welte-Mignon pianos and grands, actions for reproducing instruments, and Welte Philharmonic organs.

 

In 1925, perhaps sensing the end of the glory days for the piano and player piano, Gittins decided to diversify into the manufacture of pipe organs for churches, concert halls, theaters, and large residences. In the following year, Estey-Welte appeared to be perfectly healthy, but by January of 1927, a crash in its stock price brought the over-extended company to its knees. Estey-Welte was in serious trouble, and by summer of that year, it was reorganized as the Welte Company. Gittins was soon gone; by 1928 his old firm was reorganized again, as the Welte-Mignon Corp. This latest incarnation of the firm fell into receivership in 1929, when its chief assets were split up and its factory emptied; one investor, Donald F. Tripp, bought some of the organ business, and the Estey Piano Company was sold to the Settergren Piano Company of Bluffton, Ind. Tripp’s firm was bankrupt within two years; in 1935, Settergren was renamed the Estey Piano Company.

 

The Estey Piano name continued on for decades. Estey spinets were being advertised in Chicago in 1948, and the firm’s pianos appeared in Macy’s advertisements in the early-to-mid 1960s. The Estey Piano Company was still operating in 1972, when it received a loan from the Commerce Department to assist it in starting production of a plastic piano. At that time, Estey was described as having “an office in Union, N.J., and an old plant in Bluffton, Ind.”

 

After the old Estey Piano Company Factory was vacated in 1929, it passed through the hands of a number of different owners, and was occupied by many different industrial tenants. A sheet-metal works leased space there in 1932, and its occupants in 1937 included the Whitman Supply Company and Unique Balance Company. By 1939, the factory had been acquired by the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank. In February of 1940, Emigrant sold the five-story Estey Factory building and the adjacent two-story building constructed by Gittins to the S.H. Pomeroy Company, a manufacturer of window sashes that had been located on the same block as Estey Piano since 1923 or before. One month later, however, the owner of the building was the 120 Lincoln Avenue Realty Corporation, which was leasing space to Alta Furniture Factories. Until at least 1945, 120 Lincoln Avenue Realty remained the owner of the building; in 1969, it was occupied by the Ranger Plastics Corporation, and in 1973, it was home to a draperies manufacturer. At the end of the 1970s, the old Estey Piano Company Factory housed a maker of textile products and its outlet store, along with manufacturers of wire and “novelty” products. In 1995, when the building was mostly vacant, it was purchased by Truro College, which planned to convert it into student dormitories or a home for a liberal arts and sciences program. Those plans fell through, however, and the college sold the former Estey Factory, now known as the Clock Tower Building, to Carnegie Management, which remodeled its interior to accommodate live-in artists’ studios. It retains this use today.

 

Description

 

The Estey Piano Company Factory is an L-shaped, five-story building with a projecting clock tower at its southwest corner. Spanning the east side of Lincoln Avenue between Bruckner Boulevard and East 134th Street, the building has three primary street facades, all of which feature face brick laid in common bond: a 200-foot-long Bruckner Boulevard façade, a 200-foot-long Lincoln Avenue façade, and a façade on 134th Street that is approximately 69 feet in length and attached to an elevator shaft.

 

The original factory building, which was constructed in 1885-86, extended for 100 feet along Lincoln Avenue and for 100 feet along Southern (now Bruckner) Boulevard. Comprising the westernmost 15 upper-story bays on the south façade and the southernmost 15 upper-story bays on the west façade of the existing building, including the clock tower, this original portion of the Estey Piano Factory was extended by 100 feet to the east along Bruckner Boulevard with the construction of a five-story addition in 1890. (The construction of the 1890 addition resulted in the demolition of three buildings of one and two stories that were completed at the same time as the original factory, and which had a combined street frontage of 80 feet.) Before the construction of the 1890 addition, the five-story portion of the south façade terminated, at its east, with a two-bay projection featuring round-headed windows, all set within a corbelled recess, at the first through fifth floors. This projection—which was identical to the two-bay projection that originally terminated the Lincoln Avenue façade, and remains virtually unchanged today—extended above the adjacent portion of the façade, and, like the clock tower, outward from the façade plane. With the completion of John B. Snook & Sons’ 1890 addition, the two-bay projection on the south façade was doubled in width—the two new bays matching the original two—and its parapet was raised to match, in height, the parapet above the then-new, three-bay projection at the eastern end of the extended façade. Both the raised and new parapets featured, just below their pressed-metal cornices, recessed square panels arranged in a row. Also at that time, the four-bay projection became the central feature of a broad, essentially symmetrical Southern Boulevard façade, with the new three-bay projection at the eastern end of the façade balancing the three-bay, projecting clock tower at the building’s corner.

  

- From the 2006 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report

Djupalonssandur is a beautiful pebbled beach, with a series of rocks of mysterious form emerging from the ocean.

 

It is one of the few areas that lead down to the sea along this coast with its high dramatic cliffs. Watch out for the famous ghosts roaming the place!

 

The rests of a shipwreck can be seen on the beach. On the beach there are also big stones which people tried to lift and test their strength in the days of the fishing stations: Fully Strong 154 kg, Half-Strong 100 kg, Weakling 54 kg and Bungler 23 kg. Weakling marked the frontier of wimphood, any man who couldn't lift it was deemed unsuitable for a life as a fisherman. (west.is)

 

The Snæfellsnes Peninsula is a region in western Iceland known for its dramatic landscapes. At its western tip, Snæfellsjökull National Park is dominated by Snæfellsjökull Volcano, which is topped by a glacier. Nearby, a trail leads through lava fields to black-pebble beach

 

Canon EOS R7 - Canon RF 35mm F1.8 MACRO IS STM

One of the many carvings adorning the wall arcading in the north aisle.

 

There is a danger of running out of superlatives when trying to describe Beverley Minster. It is not only the second finest non-cathedral church in the country but is architecturally a far finer building than most of our cathedrals themselves! It will come as a surprise to many visitors to find this grand edifice simply functions today as a parish church and has never been more than collegiate, a status it lost at the Reformaton. What had added to its mystique and wealth was its status as a place of pilgrimage housing the tomb of St John of Beverley, which drew visitors and revenue until the Reformation brought an end to such fortunes and the shrine was destroyed (though the saint's bones were later rediscovered and reinterred in the nave). That this great church itself survived this period almost intact is little short of a miracle in itself.

 

There has been a church here since the 8th century but little remains of the earlier buildings aside from the Saxon chair near the altar and the Norman font in the nave. The present Minster's construction spans the entirety of the development of Gothic architecture but forms a surprisingly harmonious whole nevertheless, starting with Early English in the 13h century choir and transepts (both pairs) with their lancet windows in a building phase that stopped at the first bays of the nave. Construction was then continued with the nave in the 14th century but only the traceried windows betray the emergent Decorated style, the design otherwise closely followed the work of the previous century which gives the Minster's interior such a pleasingly unified appearance (the only discernable break in construction within can be seen where the black purbeck-marble ceased to be used for certain elements beyond the eastern bay of the nave). Finally the building was completed more or less by 1420 with the soaring west front with its dramatic twin-towers in Perpendicular style (the east window must have been enlarged at this point too to match the new work at the west end).

 

The fabric happily survived the Reformation intact aside from the octagonal chapter-house formerly adjoining the north choir aisle which was dismantled to raise money by the sale of its materials while the church's fate was in the balance (a similar fate was contemplated for the rest of the church by its new owners until the town bought it for retention as a parish church for £100). The great swathes of medieval glass alas were mostly lost, though seemingly as much to neglect and storm-damage in the following century than the usual iconoclasm. All that survived of the Minster's original glazing was collected to form the patchwork display now filling the great east window, a colourful kaleidoscope of fragments of figures and scenes. Of the other furnishings the choir stalls are the major ensemble and some of the finest medieval canopied stalls extant with a full set of charming misericords (though most of these alas are not normally on show).

 

There are suprisingly few monuments of note for such an enormous cathedral-like church, but the one major exception makes up for this, the delightful canopied Percy tomb erected in 1340 to the north of the high altar. The tomb itself is surprisingly plain without any likeness remaining of the deceased, but the richly carved Decorated canopy above is alive with gorgeous detail and figurative embellishments. There are further carvings to enjoy adorning the arcading that runs around the outer perimeter of the interior, especially the north nave aisle which has the most rewarding carved figures of musicians, monsters and people suffering various ailments, many were largely restored in the 19th century but still preserve the medieval spirit of irreverent fun.

 

To summarise Beverley Minster would be difficult other than simply adding that if one enjoys marvelling at Gothic architecture at its best then it really shouldn't be missed and one should prioritise it over the majority of our cathedrals. It is a real gem and a delight to behold, and is happily normally open and welcoming to visitors (who must all be astonished to find this magnificent edifice is no more than a simple parish church in status!). I thoroughly enjoyed this, my second visit here (despite the best efforts of the poor weather!).

beverleyminster.org.uk/visit-us-2/a-brief-history/