This photo shows the Florida East Coast Railway Society N-Trak Model of the new Brightline West Palm Beach Maintenance Facility. I photographed this photo during an N-Trak operating session in our conference room at the Miami Airport Embassy Suites Hotel.

 

N-Trak is a model railroad assembled with individual modules to form an operating N Scale Operating Model Railroad that can be quickly assembled for Shows, Displays, Festivals and Conventions. The standard module is two feet wide, and four feet long. See:

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTrak

The new post-war world of town planning here in the UK included the designation and construction of a series of 'new towns', mostly in a ring around London, with the intention of creating towns that conformed to the ideals of the Garden Cities eschewed by Ebenezer Howard and others. The intention was allow for the reconstruction of the crowded slums of London and similar cities at improved densities whilst ensuring that suburban 'sprawl', that had started to enclose London, was stopped. The New Towns were not just dormitory towns but had planned industry and services to help create viable settlements. Needless to say the selection of sites for the New Towns was often complex and contentious and this was the case for the proposed settlement to the north east of London in west Essex. Originally Ongar was seen as a possible site (it still remains a small settlement) but interest soon shifted to the neighbouring villages around Harlow adjacent to the Lee Valley. The town was 'designated' under the 1946 New Towns Act and set up in 1947.

 

This new town was guided from inception and through the first phases of development by the noted architect Sir Frederick Gibbard who, to give him his due, did live here. The town was based on a series of neighbourhoods that were dispersed with sections of retained countryside, as parks, between them and to allow for building in stages. This image of a scale model appears in "Exhibition Design" published in 1950 and edited by the noted designer Misha Black. We're looking almost north here and the main cluster that can be distinguised is the intended Town Centre that was constructed on this site but never completed to Gibbard's original designs. Indeed, and sadly, recent years have seen radical and unfortunate changes to what was built. To the north is the first major industrial area, parallel to the river valley and main line railway to London. This was also the proposed route of the "London - Cambridge Motorway" and the road network does aim at this trajectory - so the MoT eventually built it to the east of the town and Harlow still suffers from this 'decision'. The model basically shows the proposed raod layouts and potential sites for nirghbourhoods - it also shows these as dual carriageway roads and again these were constructed as single carriageways, apparently because Essex County Council as the road agents didn't consider them necessary in the early 1950s at a time when private car ownership was low and not seen as 'essential'. In a dispersed settlement such as Harlow, that made difficult bus operating territory for London Transport who ran the services here, and it is still an issue here. The road in the foreground is what would become Southern Way, with Staple Tye neighbourhood shopping centre's site shown. Abercrombie Way strikes north and meets Third Avenue, the site of Great Parndon sitting to the east. The model, or this view of it, doesn't show what were the first sections of the town to be completed around the original settlement of Harlow such as Latton.

Roman's Saw-scaled Viper, Morocco

 

Report of the trip on www.herpetofocus.fr

 

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This is why I think scale is important. It is to do with a rather shoddy 'bill of goods', a new(-ish) religion even. It involves a taking back of the city, of our shared spaces, and learning to carve messages on our conurbations themselves, our termite hills.

 

Yes, I am writing. I sit with the stuff and grapple with it most days. It’s principally about what I call ‘drivers’, that is, more or less, everything else that isn’t the ‘self’, but including that self. It is primarily about there being no such thing as ‘free will’, nothing that might remotely resemble the idea of ‘choice’, that we are in that state of being constantly ‘driven’, with no real idea of who or what the ‘driver’ is.

 

Hormones were, of course, one of those out-of-control drivers, but so was the cup of coffee we probably both had this morning, as are the drugs, those drivers I am currently ‘enjoying’ that are designed to control the driver that is ‘HIV’ itself. Part of the story includes musings around Joyce and others (Duchamp, Goya, David etcetera), many others even, and how the syphilis spirochete, perhaps, wrote ‘Finnegan’s Wake’ (the blinding genius is in allowing it to do so), getting past that blood/brain barrier, in the same way that Opium wrote De Quincey’s ‘Confessions of an Opium Eater’. Dawkins posited the idea somewhat in ‘The Selfish Gene’, when he wrote about the parasite that infected the fluke, entering its brain and causing it to climb to the highest outward leaf, totally against its nature, to be eaten by a passing bird, thus assuring its own continuance, through laying it eggs in the gut of the bird to be shat out and, thereby, to start all over again. Dawkins also introduced us to the idea of the ‘meme’ in the same volume, how memes infect, even. The idea is that we are in a soup, a 'mere' ingredient, and all ingredients are equal, and we have no idea what we are imbibing from our surrounding, what ‘parasite’ or ‘influencers’ /memes are driving us. Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays knew this well, and developed ‘public relations’ and ‘propaganda’. He was called ‘The Father of Spin’, and we are currently seeing the fruit of his life’s work coming to a perverse type of fulfilment.

 

Bernays knew about ‘drivers’, and how to exploit them.

 

Personally, I would also like to look at ‘shame’ and religion relative to all this. The shame meme was central to my Irish childhood, twinned with the religion meme. This is, and has been for a while, some brouhaha around Mr. Joyce and a theory, currently enjoying some literary attention, that he had syphilis. I am thinking here particularly of three books: 1. ‘Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis’, by Deborah Hayden, 2. ‘James Joyce & the Burden of Disease’, by Kathleen Ferris, and 3. ‘The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses’ by Kevin Birmingham. There is some strong opposition to the idea at the same time, that ‘why besmirch the writer’s reputation with such a scandalous theory?’ school-of-thought, though there seems to be a lot of evidence suggesting this to be true. But I would like to posit another idea, and that is that syphilis, or HIV for that matter, is the same as any other disease or virus, and that the need to attach shame to a virus because it is sexually transmitted is erroneous, and that disease is disease, and sex itself, alone, or with one, or hundreds of partners (dare I say thousands), is not a shameful act. I feel, now at last, enough beyond the control of that ‘driver’ to be able to look at it straight on, unashamedly.

 

Then there is another idea I am working on, which is also a part of that mix, the idea of the universal equality of all matter and anti-matter, everything, and everything else, and the notion of us being to this planet as HIV, or any virus or ‘life-manifestation’, is to the body it inhabits (or infects, as it is called medically). The ideal would be to achieve a stasis, a symbiotic arrangement between the host and the visitor, the body and the virus, the planet and the inhabitant.

 

But life eats, it is what it does, and mostly it eats blindly, indifferent to what it is eating, so the visitor, or that inhabitant, will overcome the body, or planet, eventually. We can devise methods to slow it down, drugs whatever, we can all become vegan, stop breeding, and forgo flying, we can attempt to contain ourselves.

 

I would say that greed is a human foible, but it’s not, it’s a universal driver, acknowledged by Mr. Darwin. Life eats everything, every other manifestation of life, weaker than itself, is probably how I might best describe it. Then there is also that ‘driver’ idea Mr. Dawkins introduced in that book of his in the seventies, that the parasite itself can become the ‘driver’. That life determines ‘choices’ and ‘decisions’, and that this might not include the survival of the host, and invariably doesn’t.

 

The ‘struggle’ would appear to be how to celebrate this, to show this apparent striving in all its glory. There is a lineage, of course, from the Taittiriya Upanishad: “(O wonderful! O wonderful! O wonderful!) I am food, I am food, I am food! I am the eater of food, I am the eater of food, I am the eater of food!” It continues through the writings of Shaw and his ‘Life Force’, through Bertrand Russell, to modern day philosophical musings around ‘Universal Consciousness’, a discussion currently calling itself ‘Panpsychism’. Ideally, I would like to, and do attempt to, approach these ideas godlessly, but in absolute awe.

 

This cannot be done, or at least I cannot do it, scientifically. There can be no ‘Double-Blind’ test, no controller, no statistics to fall back on. I see it as a groping forward in that inspiring, but doomed to failure, blind-leading-the-blind sort of way. It must be a flight of imagination, with no roadmap, and acceptance of, or rather embracing of, failure. The worst that can happen is that you fall flat on your face and die.

 

Ho-hum, as they say, wasn’t that on the cards from the beginning anyway?

 

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

 

Today she is at home in her drawing room, entertaining her old childhood chum Gerald, also a member of the aristocracy whose family, unlike Lettice’s, are in straitened circumstances owing to Gerald’s father, Lord Bruton, refusing to modernise and move with the times. Gerald has gained some independence from his family by designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street. His atelier has received some favourable reviews over the last few years and his couturier is finally starting to turn a profit thanks to an expanding clientele.

 

“Well,” Gerald exclaims as he languidly sinks back into the rounded back of one of Lettice’s white upholstered Art Deco tub armchairs. “Who’d ever have imagined you working for Dolly Hatchett again?”

 

Lettice has recently agreed to redecorate the first floor principle rooms of the newly acquired Queen Anne’s Gate* townhouse of Dolly Hatchett, wife of the Labour MP for Tower Hamlets**, Charles Hatchett. Lettice decorated their Sussex home, ‘The Gables’ in picturesque country style in 1921, much to her parent’s horror, firstly because Mrs. Hatchett was a chorus girl before becoming Charles Hatchett’s wife, and secondly because Mr. Hatchett was aspiring to be a Labor politician at the time.

 

“Whatever do you mean, Gerald darling?” Lettice asks.

 

“I always thought I was going to be the only one out of the two of us courting Mrs. Middling-Mediocre-Middle-Class for business!” Gerald replies with arched eyebrows.

 

“Mrs. Hatchett came to me, thank you Gerald,” Lettice corrects. “Not the other way around. And I see you are still being as much of a snob towards poor Mrs. Hatchett as you were when I first introduced you. You have a great deal to thank Mrs. Hatchett for.”

 

“I’m only teasing, Lettuce Leaf!” Gerald counters with a smirk as he uses Lettice’s hated childhood nickname.

 

“Don’t call me that Gerald! You know how much I hate it! “ scowls Lettice. “We aren’t five anymore.”

 

“I know! You are far too easy to tease, Lettuce Leaf!” Gerald persists, eliciting a shudder from Lettice. “Anyway, I know I owe a great deal of my success to Dolly Hatchett. She may only have been middling middle-class when you introduced us, but her circle of influence now has brought in more than a few high profile and wealthy clients for me to dress.”

 

“Aha!” Lettice crows.

 

“However, what surprises me is that you are taking her on again after all that bloodiness*** with your family, what with Chalie Hatchett being a Labor MP and all that, darling.”

 

“Well, Mater and Pater don’t actually know about it yet.” Lettice admits guiltily, casting her eyes downwards demurely for a moment as her face flushes with embarrassment.

 

“Oh!” Gerald opines, cupping his face in his hands and pulling a dramatic face like Munch’s ‘The Scream’****

 

“But I will!” Lettice hurriedly adds.

 

“I thought you were in the bad books with your parents enough as it is, what with your engagement to scandalously lecherous Sir John Nettleford-Hughes.”

 

For nearly a year Lettice had been patiently awaiting the return of her then beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, after being sent to Durban by his mother, Lady Zinnia in an effort to destroy their relationship which she wanted to end so that she could marry Selwyn off to his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers. Having been made aware by Lady Zinnia in October 1924 that during the course of the year, whilst Lettice had been biding her time, waiting for Selwyn’s eventual return, he had become engaged to the daughter of a Kenyan diamond mine owner whilst in Durban. Fleeing Lady Zinnia’s Park Lane mansion, Lettice paid a call upon Sir John Nettleford-Hughes. Old enough to be her father, wealthy Sir John, according to London society gossip enjoys a string of dalliances with pretty chorus girls of Lettice’s age and younger. As an eligible man in a aftermath of the Great War when such men are a rare commodity, with a vast family estate in Bedfordshire, houses in Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico and Fontengil Park in Wiltshire, quite close to the Glynes estate belonging to her parents, Lettice’s mother, Lady Sadie, invited him as a potential suitor to her 1922 Hunt Ball, which she used as a marriage market for Lettice. Selwyn rescued Lettice from the horror of having to entertain him, and Sir John left the ball early in a disgruntled mood with a much younger partygoer. Lettice reacquainted herself with Sir John at an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party held by Sir John and Lady Gladys Caxton at their Scottish country estate, Gossington. To her surprise, Lettice found Sir John’s company rather enjoyable. She then ran into him again at the Portland Gallery’s 1924 autumn show in Soho, where she found him yet again to be a pleasant and attentive companion for much of the evening. Sir John also made a proposition to her that night: he offered her his hand in marriage should she ever need it. More like a business arrangement than a marriage proposal, Sir John offered Lettice the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of his large fortune, be chatelain of all his estates and continue to have her interior design business, under the conditions that she agree to provide him with an heir, and that he be allowed to discreetly carry on his affairs in spite of their marriage vows. He even suggested that Lettice might be afforded the opportunity to have her own extra marital liaisons if she were discreet about them. Turning up unannounced on his doorstep, she agreed to his proposal after explaining that the understanding between she and Selwyn was concluded. In an effort to be discreet, at Lettice’s insistence, they did not make their engagement public until the New Year. When Sir John and Lettice announced their engagement in the palatial Glynes drawing room before Lettice’s parents, the Viscount and Lady Sadie the Countess, Lettice’s elder brother Leslie and his wife Arabella, and the Viscount’s sister Eglantyne (known by all the Chetwynd children affectionally as Aunt Egg), it was received somewhat awkwardly by the Viscount initially, until Lettice assured him that her choice to marry Sir John has nothing to do with undue influence or mistaken motivations. The rest of the family were equally ambivalent, or even hostilely against the marriage.

 

“Now don’t tell me that you’ve turned against me now too, Gerald darling!” Lettice mewls as she sits forward in her seat. “Oh you can’t! You just can’t! What with Mater and Pater being lukewarm about my engagement at best, Lally being so beastly about the wedding, and Aunt Egg being totally against the idea, I need someone in my corner! Even Margot and Dickie aren’t keen on my marriage to John. Please Gerald!”

 

“Calm yourself Lettuce Leaf!” Gerald replies, sitting forward in his seat, raising his hands in both a defensive and an assuring gesture. “Of course I’m not turning against you! Don’t overreact and jump to conclusions. We have enough drama queens***** at Hattie’s.” He remarks coolly, mentioning the boarding house full of theatrical homosexuals, including his own West End oboist lover Cyril, run by his friend Harriet Milford. “You’re my best friend, and keeper of all my deepest and darkest confidences.” He coughs awkwardly. “Well, most of them anyway. You know I can’t even marry my lover, so how can I possibly stand piously in judgement over your choices?”

 

“You do judge me though, don’t you Gerald.” Lettice counters. “Be honest.”

 

“I can’t say that the path you’ve chosen to take with Sir John is one I’d have intended for you, Lettice darling.” he admits. “I would much rather have seen you happily in a love match and married to Selwyn Spencely, rather than in a marriage of convenience that is more like a business proposal with Sir John. You know I’ve never been keen on Sir John because of his reputation as a philanderer with a string of Gaiety Girls****** in his wake. However, since Selwyn surprised us all by breaking his well fashioned mould of being a decent and respectable chap by deserting you for a diamond mine owner’s daughter, I can hardly blame you for seeking affection elsewhere.” He looks earnestly at his friend across the low black japanned coffee table. “I just want you to be happy, Lettice darling. That’s all. If you say you can be happy with Sir John, then I’ll support you.”

 

“Oh, thank you darling!” Lettice sighs, releasing the pent-up breath she has been unaware of holding on to. “That means the world to me. I will be happy with Sir John.” she assures her friend. “At least he has made sure that I’m going in with my eyes open.”

 

“That’s good.” Gerald opines.

 

“And he has said that he will allow me to break our engagement if I so choose to do.”

 

“That’s even better and very magnanimous of him, although in saying that, it is usually the lady’s prerogative to break her engagement if she so chooses.”

 

“Well, I’m not going to, am I?” Lettice asks rhetorically. “But going to back to my parents and Mrs. Hatchett,” she remarks, carefully steering the conversation back to safer territory. “I don’t think they’ll particularly like it, but since my interior design business has become such a success, I hardly think they can object to her.”

 

“Don’t you believe it, Lettice darling.” Gerald remarks doubtfully. “Sadie will make her opinions clear.”

 

“I’m not so sure she will now.” Lettice counters confidently. “And even if she does, Dolly Hatchett is hardly the awkward, mousy and unsure wife of a banker we met in 1921. I think you’ve done wonders transforming her into the suitable wife successful MP for Towers Hamlets, Charles Hatchett, needs.”

 

“They say that ‘clothes maketh the man’, so why not the woman?” Gerald replies, settling back into his chair. “The power of clothes can be transformative.”

 

“I agree, Gerald darling. She’s so self-assured and self-possessed now. I was really remarkably surprised when we met again! She is transformed.”

 

“Oh she is still little Dolly Hatchett the chorus girl from Chu Chin Chow******* under the layers of crêpe de chiné, satin and velvet, Lettice darling.”

 

Lettice laughs. “She said the very same thing to me when I saw her.”

 

“All the same, transformation or not, I don’t think Sadie will like you taking Dolly Hatchett on as a client again. In Sadie’s eyes she is still, and always will be, a little social climbing parvenu. The fact she is on the wrong side of politics only makes her existence in your life, however transient, all the worse. I think the only sin you could commit that could possibly be worse would be to take on Wanetta Ward the American moving picture actress again.”

 

“Well, luckily for me then, Miss Ward is currently on a break from the Gainsborough Studios******** filming schedule and is in America.”

 

“I thought she was estranged from her parents.”

 

“She hasn’t gone to see her parents. The bright lights of Los Angeles and the American motion picture industry have wooed her. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if one of those new Hollywood moving picture studios doesn’t offer her a contract.”

 

“Big enough to break the one she has with Gainsborough?”

 

“I can imagine it. You’ve seen her, darling. She is a moving picture star, and if Edith is anything to go by, the kinema********* public will follow her, no matter where she goes, and that means they can make more money with her potential.”

 

“Hhhmmm…” Gerald purrs.

 

“What?” Lettice asks.

 

“Maybe I was wrong about you, Lettice darling?”

 

“Me?” Lettice raises a hand to her throat. “How?”

 

“Well, listening to the way you are talking so openly about money, maybe you are better suited to a marriage of convenience and business arrangement with Sir John, rather than a love match with Selwyn. I can’t imagine the despicable Duchess, Lady Zinna, approving of you speaking so candidly about money!”

 

“Oh pooh Lady Zinnia!” Lettice replies defiantly, flapping her hand at Gerald as if trying to sweep the phantom of the Duchess of Walmsford away. “I won’t have her name spoken here!”

 

However, as Lettice settles back in her seat, smiling, there is a sadness in the corners of her painted lips. Selwyn’s rejection of her by breaking her engagement, and the way she was told with glee and unbridled delight by his mother still hurts her deeply, and for all her bravado with her marriage of convenience with Sir John, like Gerald, she too would have preferred a love match with Selwyn Spencely to a business arrangement with Sir John in her heart of hearts. She sniffs and sighs quietly to herself as she ponders the thought of her upcoming marriage. Whilst she and Sir John haven’t set a date yet, the engagement has been announced in The Times and it won’t be too long before they will have to choose a day, or at the very least a month for their wedding. Long engagements are less popular in the class of Sir John and Lettice’s parents than they are in the middle and lower classes where money must be saved and households arranged.

 

“Thinking of Edith,” Gerald interrupts Lettice’s thoughts. “Where has she gotten to? I thought she was supposed to be making us some tea.”

 

Lettice glances up at the brightly painted clock on the mantle and looks at the sunflower yellow face as it reads ten past eleven. “Goodness, I was so lost in our conversation, I’d completely forgotten our elevenses!”

 

“Well, my stomach certainly hasn’t.” Gerald replies, stroking the pale blue pin stripped cream flannel of his double breasted summer suit stretched over his stomach. “I’m hoping Edith has some of her home made sponge cake for us as a treat. I say Lettice darling, do you think she might?”

 

“I couldn’t say.” Lettice remarks, standing up and sauntering over to the servant’s call bell next to the fireplace and depressing it purposefully, eliciting the hollow tinkling of a bell in the service area of the flat.

 

“Let’s hope so, then.” Gerald replies.

 

“I have to say that’s a rather bold pattern you’re wearing, Gerald.” Lettice remarks, returning to her seat and smoothing the peach, red, blue-grey and black floral pattered silk georgette of her skirt fastidiously across her knee.

 

“Why thank you darling!” Sitting up more straightly in his seat, Gerald smooths his own suit proudly. “American.” he admits with a knowing smile. “I acquired it from a contact of mine in the rag trade********** who traverses the Trans-Atlantic*********** and picked it up in New York. It’s rather fetching, isn’t it?”

 

“Very.” Lettice concurs before adding with an air of desperation. “You will still make my wedding frock won’t you, Gerald darling, even if you don’t altogether approve of my marriage to John?”

 

“Well of course I will, Lettice. Business is business.”

 

“Is that all I am Gerald?” Lettice scoffs jokingly.

 

“And you’re my best friend!” Gerald adds with a cheeky grin and a mischievous glint in his eye. “But I’m not the one you should be asking or talking to about this. Sadie will be the one who will organise your trousseau************ for you.”

 

“Yes, John’s sister Clemance asked me if I’ve spoken to Mater about the idea of her taking over the job of helping me organise and shop for my trousseau.”

 

“Which is why I worry that you are already in enough trouble with this marriage of yours, and your wish for your future sister-in-law to help organise it rather than Sadie, without adding me making your wedding frock and Dolly Hatchett to the mix.”

 

“I’m sure Mater won’t mind if Clemance takes on the job of arranging my trousseau.” Lettice replies with a dismissive wave. “You know how much she hates London at the best of times.”

 

“Yes, but she does rather love clothes, Lettice darling, except mine of course. I’m too close to you and therefore by proxy her, for Sadie to countenance me dressing you for your wedding day.”

 

“She didn’t mind you making Bella’s wedding frock.” Lettice quips.

 

“No, Lady Isobel didn’t mind me making Bella’s wedding frock, Lettice.” He gives his friend a knowing look. “You really need to stop dragging your dainty little heels and put your plan into action if you want to have some say over your wedding clothes. You can’t keep procrastinating. You have to talk to Sadie about it, and soon.” He nods sagely.

 

“I know.” Lettice sighs. “I just dread…”

 

However Lettice is cut off mid-sentence by the appearance of her maid, Edith as she staggers through the green baize door leading from the service part of the flat into the dining room. She and Gerald watch, mesmerised, from the comfort of their seats as Edith slowly traverses the dining room and into the adjoining drawing room, carefully carrying not a tea tray as they expected, but a large and heavy looking wooden crate.

 

“Beg pardon, Miss.” Edith says with a groan, placing the box a little unceremoniously upon the black japanned coffee table. “I know I was meant to be serving tea for you and Mr. Bruton, but this package just arrived for you.”

 

“Oh pooh the tea, Edith!” Gerald says excitedly, his hunger momentarily forgotten as he leans forward and inspects the box with great interest.

 

“Who is it from?” Lettice asks, unable to contain her own excitement as she leans forward in her own seat.

 

“I couldn’t say Miss.” Edith replies curtly, giving her mistress a doubtful look. “The deliveryman simply said that I was to give the box to you in person, and to give you this.” She withdraws a pale blue envelope from her morning uniform cotton apron pocket and hands it to Lettice, before withdrawing Lettice’s silver letter opener and handing it to her as well.

 

“I say! How thrilling!” Gerald enthuses. “A present, and a big one! Perhaps from your fiancée, since he is not adverse to giving you rather lovely and expensive gifts?” he adds hopefully as he refers to the rather large Picasso painting of ‘The Lovers’ that Sir John recently gave Lettice as an engagement gift to his bride-to-be.

 

“Well, I hardly think this is a Picasso.” Lettice remarks, nodding in the direction of the crate, as she slips the blade of the letter opener under the lip of the envelope and slides it along the top of the letter deftly, the paper making a sharp tearing sound as she does.

 

“No, but it could be something equally wonderful, like a piece of Eighteenth Century porcelain.” Gerald adds. “Let’s be a little imaginative, Lettice darling!”

 

Lettice withdraws the letter from the sliced open envelope.

 

“Will that be all, Miss?” Edith asks.

 

“Oh yes,” Lettice says distractedly, waving her hand dismissively at Edith as she focuses on the contents of the letter. “Just the tea, if you could manage it, thank you, Edith.”

 

“Yes Miss.” Edith bobs a curtsey and turns to go.

 

“I don’t suppose you happen to have one of your rather delicious and decadent sponge cakes on then offing, do you Edith?” Gerald asks hopefully.

 

“I might, sir.” Edith answers with a wry smile.

 

“Oh hoorah!” Gerald says, clapping his hands with delight. “How ripping!”

 

As Edith retreats to the kitchen through the green baize door, Lettice read the letter.

 

“Who is this intriguing package from, Lettice darling?” Gerald asks. “I’m simply dying to know!”

 

“It’s from my new client.” Lettice replies as she scans the letter’s contents.

 

“Well I must say!” Gerald responds with outrage. “I never get any gifts from Dolly Hatchett for making her frocks!”

 

“No, not Mrs. Hatchett,” Lettice replies, her brow crumpling as she speaks. “Another client I have agreed to take the commission of.”

 

“Another client. Who?”

 

Lettice uses the edge of the letter opener to prise open the lid of the wooden crate. Placing it aside, a froth of white tissue paper suddenly cascades forth freed from the confines of its prison. Lettice’s gaze immediately falls upon the neck of a bottle.

 

“A bottle of good quality German Mozelle!” Gerald exclaims as Lettice withdraws the bottle and a single dainty wine glass from amidst the paper.

 

“How very thoughtful of her.” Lettice muses with a smile as she puts the bottle and glass onto the surface of the coffee table.

 

Gerald delves into the paper which scrunches crisply beneath his touch as he withdraws a rather lovely vase of hand painted blue and white china.

 

“Is this a gift from your Mrs. Clifford of Arkwright Bury?” Gerald asks.

 

“No, this is from Sylvia Fordyce.” Lettice answers.

 

Gerald falls silent for a moment and looks down at the vase in his hands. “Sylvia Fordyce? As in Sylvia Fordyce the concert pianist?”

 

“The very one, Gerald darling.” Lettice replies. “I’ve taken on a commission to paint a feature wall for her.”

 

“Well, you are full of surprises today, Lettice darling!” Gerald says, placing the vase on the table next to the sleek green bottle of Mozelle. “Rather like a magician pulling a rabbit from his hat. How on earth did that come about?”

 

“Well Sylvia is a friend of John’s, well more of Clemance’s than John’s really, but she wanted to meet me, and she asked me to paint a feature wall for her at her country home. She took me there a few weeks ago.”

 

“My goodness!” Gerald repeats. “You are the lucky one, Lettice! She’s famous for being quite a private person.”

 

“I know, darling.” Lettice purrs in reply with a confident smile. “I’m very honoured. She has a lovely house, and she had Syrie Maugham************* decorate it for her, but Sylvia isn’t happy with the amount of white she used in her colour scheme, and she wants me to inject a bit of colour with a hand painted feature wall.”

 

“Well that’s even more of a compliment to you, Lettice darling, if Sylvia Fordyce wants you to undo something Syrie Maugham has done.”

 

“I agree, Gerald darling.” Lettice continues to purr as she withdraws the lid of one of Sylvia’s ginger jars from the mantlepiece of ‘The Nest’s’ drawing room from amidst the froth of white paper. Placing it carefully on the top of the paper she goes on, “I decided to take some inspiration from her blue and white porcelain, and asked if she would lend me a few pieces whilst she was on tour.” She delves back into the box and withdraws the hand painted blue and white coffee pot and milk jug from the set she drank from at ‘The Nest’, its gilded edges gleaming under the light of the chandelier above. “And this is them.”

 

“And the wine?” Gerald queries.

 

“A gift to,” Lettice withdraws the letter again and scans it. “‘Help with my artistic and creative flow’.” she reads aloud.

 

“Well this is a delicious turn of events for you, Lettice darling!” Gerald remarks. “A commission from Sylvia Fordyce! Fancy that!”

 

“Yes, and hopefully this commission, plus the promise of a favouable review in The Lady************** as assured by Sylvia, might soften the blows of me wanting to control the acquisition of my own trousseau.”

 

“And decorating for Dolly Hatchett.” Gerald adds.

 

“Well,” Lettice sighs, sinking back into her seat, swinging the letter about in her hand. “I might wait until after I get back from Paris and the ‘Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes’*************** before I drop that tiny social briquette, Gerald darling.”

 

“Very wise!” Gerald replies, tapping his nose knowingly. “I can’t wait to get back to Hattie’s and tell Charles Dunnage your news!”

 

“And why is that, Gerald darling? Why would one of Harriet Milford’s theatrical lodgers possibly be interested in my titbit of news?”

 

“Because, Lettice darling, he is a great fan of Sylvia Fordyce. He’ll be fit to be tied and will burst his corset stays when he hears that I’ve touched items that belong to Sylvia Fordyce.”

 

“Oh Gerald darling!” Lettice titters. “The very idea of Charles Dunnage wearing a corset!”

 

“But he does, Lettice darling! He’s so pompous about being a ‘thespian of the Shakespearean age’ and so vain about his looks that he really does wear one to smother his paunch, as he also has a distinct weak spot for anything sweet from Hattie’s kitchen, as you’ve seen.”

 

Lettice and Gerald both burst out laughing, enjoying the moment of their close friendship where they share anything with one another.

 

*Queen Anne’s Gate is a street in Westminster, London. Many of the buildings are Grade I listed, known for their Queen Anne architecture. Simon Bradley and Nikolaus Pevsner described the Gate’s early Eighteenth Century houses as “the best of their kind in London.” The street’s proximity to the Palace of Westminster made it a popular residential area for politicians.

 

**The London constituency of Tower Hamlets includes such areas and historic towns as (roughly from west to east) Spitalfields, Whitechapel, Bethnal Green, Wapping, Shadwell, Mile End, Stepney, Limehouse, Old Ford, Bow, Bromley, Poplar, and the Isle of Dogs (with Millwall, the West India Docks, and Cubitt Town), making it a majority working class constituency in 1925 when this story is set. Tower Hamlets included some of the worst slums and societal issues of inequality and poverty in England at that time.

 

***The old fashioned British term “looking bloody” was a way of indicating how dour or serious a person or occasion looks.

 

****‘The Scream’ is a composition created by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in 1893. The Norwegian name of the piece is ‘Skrik’ (Scream), and the German title under which it was first exhibited is ‘Der Schrei der Natur‘ (The Scream of Nature). The agonized face in the painting has become one of the most iconic images in art, seen as symbolizing the anxiety of the human condition. Munch's work, including The Scream, had a formative influence on the Expressionist movement.

 

*****You may be surprised to learn that the term “drama queen”, so commonly used today to refer to someone who reacts to situations in an exaggerated or overly emotional way, dates back to 1923 where it was first referenced in the Washington Post.

 

******Gaiety Girls were the chorus girls in Edwardian musical comedies, beginning in the 1890s at the Gaiety Theatre, London, in the shows produced by George Edwardes.

 

*******‘Chu Chin Chow’ is a musical comedy written, produced and directed by Oscar Asche, with music by Frederic Norton, based on the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. It was the most popular show in London’s West End during the Great War. It premiered at His Majesty’s Theatre in London on the 3rd of August 1916 and ran for 2,238 performances, a record number that stood for nearly forty years!

 

********Islington Studios, often known as Gainsborough Studios, were a British film studio located on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in Shoreditch, London which began operation in 1919. By 1920 they had a two stage studio. It is here that Alfred Hitchcock made his entrée into films.

 

*********Kinema is an early spelling of the word cinema, and was commonly used throughout the 1920s and into the early 1930s when it changed to cinema.

 

**********The slang term “rag trade”, referring to the garment, clothing, or fashion industry, first appeared in common usage between 1835 and 1845, but really began in the Eighteenth Century to describe the sale of rags or second-hand clothes.

 

***********A transatlantic cruise involves sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, typically between Europe and North America, offering a unique travel experience with several days at sea to relax and enjoy the ship's amenities. In the 1920s there were many big shipping lines like Britain’s Cunard and the White Star Line, as well as smaller companies such as the French Line, who traversed the Atlantic with luxury ocean liners, appealing to the wealthy and up-and-coming middle-classes for comfortable business and travel options, and to the lower classes who were still immigrating, albeit in much smaller numbers as a result of immigrant caps, from Europe and Britain to America.

 

************A trousseau is a word used to describe the clothes, linen, and other belongings collected by a bride for her marriage. For an upper-class bride, it would refer only to her clothing, including her wedding frock.

 

*************Syrie Maugham was a leading British interior decorator of the 1920s and 1930s and best known for popularizing rooms decorated entirely in shades of white. She was the wife of English playwright and novelist William Somerset Maugham.

 

**************The Lady is one of Britain's longest-running women's magazines. It has been in continuous publication since 1885 and is based in London. It is particularly notable for its classified advertisements for domestic service and child care; it also has extensive listings of holiday properties.

 

***************The International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts was a specialized exhibition held in Paris, from April the 29th (the day after it was inaugurated in a private ceremony by the President of France) to October the 25th, 1925. It was designed by the French government to highlight the new modern style of architecture, interior decoration, furniture, glass, jewelry and other decorative arts in Europe and throughout the world. Many ideas of the international avant-garde in the fields of architecture and applied arts were presented for the first time at the exposition. The event took place between the esplanade of Les Invalides and the entrances of the Grand Palais and Petit Palais, and on both banks of the Seine. There were fifteen thousand exhibitors from twenty different countries, and it was visited by sixteen million people during its seven-month run. The modern style presented at the exposition later became known as “Art Deco”, after the exposition's name.

 

This 1920s upper-class drawing room is different to what you may think at first glance, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The green bottle of Mozelle on the coffee table is an artisan miniature made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire with careful attention paid to the lable, which is a genuine Mozelle wine lable from Germany. The wine glass is spun from real glass too and is also an artisan miniature. It is part of a set of six which I acquired from a high street stockist of dolls and dolls house miniatures when I was a young teenager. The letter opener is made of silver and is an artisan miniature made by the Little Green Workshop who specialise in high-end artisan miniature pieces. The blue and white vase on the coffee table and the blue and white gilt ginger jar in the crate come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom. The tiny blue and white coffee pot and creamer are part of a complete set, all of which are hand painted and come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House shop as well. The crate, which I purchased from an E-Bay seller in the United Kingdom.

 

The letter that you see on Lettice’s coffee table is a 1:12 size miniature made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Famed for his books, Ken Blythe also made other miniature artisan pieces from paper, including this letter, which is contained inside an envelope which even has a postmark. The letter itself, whilst deliberately not in focus in this photo is written in a tiny legible hand! To make a piece as small and authentic as this makes it a true artisan piece. Most of the Ken Blythe books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words of the titles, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s opening books are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

The green glass comport on the coffee table is an artisan miniature made from hand spun glass and acquired from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.

 

The very realistic red rose floral arrangement to the right of the photo has been made by hand by the Doll House Emporium in America who specialise in high end miniatures. The faceted glass vase on the mantlepiece is an artisan miniature made from real glass. It comes from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The tulips in the vase are very realistic looking. Made of polymer clay they are moulded on wires to allow them to be shaped at will and put into individually formed floral arrangements. They are made by a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany.

 

The black Bakelite and silver telephone is a 1:12 miniature from Melody Jane’s Dolls House Suppliers in England. The telephone is a model introduced around 1919. It is two centimetres wide and two centimetres high. The receiver can be removed from the cradle, and the curling chord does stretch out.

 

Lettice’s black leather diary with the silver clasp was also made by the Little Green Workshop in the United Kingdom. The pencils on top of it are 1:12 miniature as well, acquired from Melody Jane Dolls’ House Suppliers, and each is only one millimetre wide and two centimetres long.

 

Lettice’s drawing room is furnished with beautiful J.B.M. miniatures. The Art Deco tub chairs are of black japanned wood and have removable cushions, just like their life sized examples. To the left of the fireplace is a Hepplewhite drop-drawer bureau and chair of black japanned wood which has been hand painted with chinoiserie designs, even down the legs and inside the bureau. The Hepplewhite chair has a rattan seat, which has also been hand woven. To the right of the fireplace is a Chippendale cabinet which has also been decorated with chinoiserie designs. It also features very ornate metalwork hinges and locks.

 

On the top of the Hepplewhite bureau stand three real miniature photos in frames including an Edwardian silver frame, a Victorian brass frame and an Art Deco blue Bakelite and glass frame.

 

On the left hand side of the mantle is an Art Deco metal clock hand painted with wonderful detail by British miniature artisan Victoria Fasken.

 

In the middle of the mantle is a miniature artisan hand painted Art Deco statue on a “marble” plinth. Made by Warwick Miniatures in England, it is a 1:12 copy of the “Theban Dancer” sculpture created by Claire-Jeanne-Roberte Colinet in 1925.

 

The fireplace is a 1:12 miniature resin Art Deco fireplace which is flanked by brass accessories including an ash brush with real bristles.

 

The carpet beneath the furniture is a copy of a popular 1920s style Chinese silk rug, and the geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.

What's in the box?

 

Crazy Old Mary has been waiting on a package, all the way from Ohio, for awhile.

 

She's not too happy with BJ, and couldn't care less about his side trip to the happiest place on earth on the way down, or where he should go to get the best pecans on the way back.

 

A&M Salvage

N. Baynard

 

Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II

Olympus M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 II R

 

For more info about the dioramas, check out the FAQ: 1stPix FAQ

Colette, while serving coffee to Rebecca and Benjamin:

"I really NEED this cup of coffee!"

To which Rebecca replied:

"Colette you know you can't keep up with Muriel!"

Colette:

"I know, I know, every year it's the same story!"

  

***********************************************************************************

  

Colette is a Fashion Editor Silkstone (2001) on an FR Tall Handspeak body, wearing the FR Reigning Grace dress (2015).

 

Rebecca is an A Model Life Silkstone (2003) on a Dynamite Girls body, wearing the Dusk to Dawn Silkstone blouse (2001) the vintage Pak slacks (1962-1963) and a vintage Pak cardigan sweater (1962-1963).

 

Benjamin is a vintage Ken # 750 (1962-1965) wearing a vintage Pak sweater (1962-1963) with the shirt from the Sport Shorts outfit # 783 (1961-1963) and corduroy slacks (1962).

 

Bella is a Matthew Sutton OOAK Silkstone, on an FR Tall Handspeak body, wearing Bellissima Couture on Etsy.

 

Romy is a 50th Anniversary Skipper Repro (2014) wearing the vintage Silk N Fancy # 1902 (1964-1965).

 

In this picture:

Barbie’s New Dream House # 4092 (1964-1966).

*(My Dream House came with the original, illustrated wrapping. Stapled to this wrapping is a receipt from Korvette’s, dated October 10th 1964. It was purchased in Chicago, or in the suburbs of Chicago. The seller was the daughter of the original owner, her mother, and she also played with it as a child. I like that I am the third owner of this house.)

Sindy Range by Marx, Ref. no. 1238 (1978-1979) modified.

Modern Art # 1625 painting (1965).

The chair from miniCHAIR on Etsy.

Vintage Barbie minis.

Re-Ments.

  

Mariana Castillo Deball’s To-day 9th of July 2016 is part of the Monuments from the Future episode. It is a large-scale sculpture: an infinite staircase built for a character who can jump across the same date in different years throughout history. The title coincides with the date on which Liverpool Biennial 2016 opens to the public, but it also references other 9th July events across time. An accompanying newspaper, which can be found across all exhibition sites, contains found news stories from many different 9th of Julys. Castillo Deball began this work in 2005, and it will be completed after 365 editions.

Wide Angle - Front view of Hutchison’s 182.

 

Pictured here at the temporary Belshotmuir depot, whilst the entire diorama undergoes significant investment and infrastructure changes, is the recently completed 1:76 scale model of Y182 BGB - a Volvo Wright Renown delivered new to the Lanarkshire independent bus & coach operator, which would last through ownership by First Glasgow and onwards into preservation. The application of correct Vehicle Registration Mark plates and reapplication of external mirrors signals the completion of this particular model which is celebrated with a photoshoot alongside two other stage carriage buses, both also bearing the standard company “Buggy Bus” signage. These are an Optare Delta which stands in for the Optare Vecta’s & Excels used by the real Hutchison’s, and a Dart SLF standing in to represent the real ALX300 used. To the right of the depot are two coaches representing the other aspects of the companies operations - Private Hire, Tours & Trips and Glasgow Express shuttle services.

Adobe Lr 5 - Close up shot of a Garter snake's scales - 5/2014

It's time to move back to smaller scale... and to supercars. As once I had an obsession with rare cars, I searched again for some rare beauty. And I succeeded. This is Jaguar XJ220. Accordin to wikipedia - only 281 of these where made during 1992 - 97. At the very beginning this beast was made with V12 engine at the rear. But as at the early ninties there were too strick emission regulations, the manufacturers replaced it by V6 and the car become a mid-engined beast. But despite that it still hold a speed record till the McLaren F1 was born. So behold of the British angry beauty - Jaguar XJ220.

New ideas for my custom GI Joe 1/6 scale fantasies! Since Sideshow Collectibles cancelled their GI Joe line in 2015 (thanks a lot crappy Hollywood GI Joe movies!) I occasionally wonder "what if?" So these are ideas with what you could kit bash using current 1/6 stuff.

 

Codename: Scoop

Primary Specialty: Journalist

Secondary Specialty: Microwave Transmission Specialist

 

So it turns out 12 inch action figures aren't all Batmen and Black Widows (thank god!) Take your pick for the Joe's dedicated and fearless "information specialist". I kinda like the outfit on the right but swapped for a female head maybe.

Here we have the first large scale build I've done in 2016. It's actually a project I started in late 2015 and I kinda sorta forgot about it. So without further adieu, I introduce the classic Ford Bronco. I based this truck off of the 1966 Bronco Wagon with a 289 V8. This was when the Bronco was seen as a glorious and classic off road vehicle and not the get away car for an infamous ex football player.

 

LXF Download Link here

The driver of the Model S is making one last stop at the one stop shop, Jacob's Pharmacy. Whether you need a prescription, a birthday card, or some milk, and more, Jacobs's has it all. The driver of the Model S is sitting in his car, waiting for his wife to pick up ALL of those things.

Manufacturer: MegaHouse

Scale: 1/8

Material:PVC

Producer: Mohio

Series: Excellent Model Core

Original:Queens Blade Rebellion

Item Size: 23 x 22 x 15.5 cm

Height: approx 150mm.

Weight : 523g

 

Bright suns, travelers!

 

Ever since building and sharing my miniature diorama of the Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge layout based on the early Imagineering concept art in 2016 (long before the official name had been announced and many referred to the developing expansions at the time as “Star Wars Land,”) I had convinced myself that I was going to build larger, minifigure-scale sections of Batuu once the land was open and the details of Black Spire Outpost could be experienced up close and personal.

 

After pouring through as many reference photos, videos, and concept art as I could get my hands on, I now present a minifg-scale display of the entrance/facade to the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run attraction, home of Ohnaka Transport Solutions.

 

With the iconic Millennium Falcon docked out front of the curved hangar bay, beneath the rocky spires of an alien world, this section of Galaxy’s Edge is perhaps what we all think of when we think of a perfect amalgamation of the visual aesthetics of not only the Galaxy’s Edge experience, but Star Wars in general. I worked diligently to capture all the details I could pack in at this scale, attempting to blend the natural landscape of the Batuu spires with the weathered and lived-in hangar building. Using the 75257 version of the Falcon (with some minor exterior modifications and added greebles), the rest was built up and around to create a bustling corner of Black Spire Outpost for Hondo Ohnaka to conduct his smuggling operations, while avoiding the suspicion of the First Order patrols.

 

Thanks for checking out my design! Good journeys to you all— Til the spire!

 

Woodland Scenic's plaster cloth comes in rolls 8 inches (20 cm) wide. I use ordinary scissors to cut the plaster cloth on my craft cutting board into manageable pieces. In this photo you can see some plaster cloth draped across a mall section of Woodland Scenic's SubTerrain Risers that I use for sub roadbed for my railway track, highways, and city streets.

 

The plaster cloth is briefly dipped in cold water for a few seconds and placed over Risers, Inclines, and various forms I use to create city blocks, hills, fields, creeks, etc. The wet plaster cloth is laid in overlapping strips that dries in a few hours to form a strong, fairly smooth shell that I paint with ordinary interior latex paint in earth colors and add earth or grass ground foam.

The Burj Khalifa is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. With a total height of 829.8 m (2,722 ft, just over half a mile) and a roof height (excluding antenna, but including a 244 m spire[2]) of 828 m (2,717 ft), the Burj Khalifa has been the tallest structure and building in the world. The building was opened in 2010 as part of a new development called Downtown Dubai. It is designed to be the centrepiece of large-scale, mixed-use development. The decision to construct the building is based on the government's decision to diversify from an oil-based economy, and for Dubai to gain international recognition.

When Toy Biz released these in the late 90s we were all in. A throwback to the Mego era with soft goods and hyper articulated bodies. The only thing was those faces. Rather than going with the usual tending-towards-neutral sculpt, a lot of these figures have extremely angry, yelling faces. 😄

 

And then of course, there's the Aunt May. 😱

 

We have most of the line loose and when the series went on clearance we bought a lot of them. I'm not sure why. The fact of them going on clearance was a clear evidence that they were not as popular with the rest of fandom as with us. But nonetheless... 😊

 

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If you like 90's toys, we hope you enjoy these blasts from the past!

 

Part of our garage shelving has held boxes of 90's toys since about that time. We knew they were there and out of the way. CM is reorganizing the garage and he wanted to get these with the rest of the toys in the toy storage room.

 

So it was great fun seeing thee toys again for the first time in a long time. CM was especially happy to see the Exosquad boxes!

 

It all needs to be wiped down but the Lord blessed and they're not in bad shape for sitting in cardboard boxes for over 20 years.

 

We transferred them from the boxes to plastic tubs. Because, collectors.

Finally, Nanjin's TWOK Kirk is here! Fantastic costume, though the fat suit makes the trousers somewhat tight and impede a bit of leg movement... but it can probably be futzed better (these are pictures fairly straight out of the box). He's on a good body too with hands that properly grip his phaser (in photos I forgot to take... d'oh!).

The headsculpt is interesting, for me it's not a perfect likeness straight on, though it's growing on me more and more, but once you start turning it Shatner definitely arrives (despite what my camera might think!). The paint finish on it is fantastic, though its factory quality doesn't quite sit with that of Spock and McCoy which are very nicely painted as well but in a kinda different way... does that make sense?

Anyhow, it's great to have the Admiral here at last and all three TWOK lined up on the shelf. Can't wait for Nanjin's TOS 2.0 line now!

Capitol Reef National Park is an American national park in south-central Utah. The park is approximately 60 miles (97 km) long on its north–south axis and just 6 miles (9.7 km) wide on average. The park was established in 1971 to preserve 241,904 acres (377.98 sq mi; 97,895.08 ha; 978.95 km2) of desert landscape and is open all year, with May through September being the highest visitation months.

 

Partially in Wayne County, Utah, the area was originally named "Wayne Wonderland" in the 1920s by local boosters Ephraim P. Pectol and Joseph S. Hickman. Capitol Reef National Park was designated a national monument on August 2, 1937, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to protect the area's colorful canyons, ridges, buttes, and monoliths; however, it was not until 1950 that the area officially opened to the public. Road access was improved in 1962 with the construction of State Route 24 through the Fremont River Canyon.

 

The majority of the nearly 100 mi (160 km) long up-thrust formation called the Waterpocket Fold—a rocky spine extending from Thousand Lake Mountain to Lake Powell—is preserved within the park. Capitol Reef is an especially rugged and spectacular segment of the Waterpocket Fold by the Fremont River. The park was named for its whitish Navajo Sandstone cliffs with dome formations—similar to the white domes often placed on capitol buildings—that run from the Fremont River to Pleasant Creek on the Waterpocket Fold. Locally, reef refers to any rocky barrier to land travel, just as ocean reefs are barriers to sea travel.

 

Capitol Reef encompasses the Waterpocket Fold, a warp in the earth's crust that is 65 million years old. It is the largest exposed monocline in North America. In this fold, newer and older layers of earth folded over each other in an S-shape. This warp, probably caused by the same colliding continental plates that created the Rocky Mountains, has weathered and eroded over millennia to expose layers of rock and fossils. The park is filled with brilliantly colored sandstone cliffs, gleaming white domes, and contrasting layers of stone and earth.

 

The area was named for a line of white domes and cliffs of Navajo Sandstone, each of which looks somewhat like the United States Capitol building, that run from the Fremont River to Pleasant Creek on the Waterpocket Fold.

 

The fold forms a north-to-south barrier that has barely been breached by roads. Early settlers referred to parallel impassable ridges as "reefs", from which the park gets the second half of its name. The first paved road was constructed through the area in 1962. State Route 24 cuts through the park traveling east and west between Canyonlands National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park, but few other paved roads invade the rugged landscape.

 

The park is filled with canyons, cliffs, towers, domes, and arches. The Fremont River has cut canyons through parts of the Waterpocket Fold, but most of the park is arid desert. A scenic drive shows park visitors some highlights, but it runs only a few miles from the main highway. Hundreds of miles of trails and unpaved roads lead into the equally scenic backcountry.

 

Fremont-culture Native Americans lived near the perennial Fremont River in the northern part of the Capitol Reef Waterpocket Fold around the year 1000. They irrigated crops of maize and squash and stored their grain in stone granaries (in part made from the numerous black basalt boulders that litter the area). In the 13th century, all of the Native American cultures in this area underwent sudden change, likely due to a long drought. The Fremont settlements and fields were abandoned.

 

Many years after the Fremont left, Paiutes moved into the area. These Numic-speaking people named the Fremont granaries moki huts and thought they were the homes of a race of tiny people or moki.

 

In 1872 Almon H. Thompson, a geographer attached to United States Army Major John Wesley Powell's expedition, crossed the Waterpocket Fold while exploring the area. Geologist Clarence Dutton later spent several summers studying the area's geology. None of these expeditions explored the Waterpocket Fold to any great extent.

 

Following the American Civil War, officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City sought to establish missions in the remotest niches of the Intermountain West. In 1866, a quasi-military expedition of Mormons in pursuit of natives penetrated the high valleys to the west. In the 1870s, settlers moved into these valleys, eventually establishing Loa, Fremont, Lyman, Bicknell, and Torrey.

 

Mormons settled the Fremont River valley in the 1880s and established Junction (later renamed Fruita), Caineville, and Aldridge. Fruita prospered, Caineville barely survived, and Aldridge died. In addition to farming, lime was extracted from local limestone, and uranium was extracted early in the 20th century. In 1904 the first claim to a uranium mine in the area was staked. The resulting Oyler Mine in Grand Wash produced uranium ore.

 

By 1920 no more than ten families at one time were sustained by the fertile flood plain of the Fremont River and the land changed ownership over the years. The area remained isolated. The community was later abandoned and later still some buildings were restored by the National Park Service. Kilns once used to produce lime are still in Sulphur Creek and near the campgrounds on Scenic Drive.

 

Local Ephraim Portman Pectol organized a "booster club" in Torrey in 1921. Pectol pressed a promotional campaign, furnishing stories to be sent to periodicals and newspapers. In his efforts, he was increasingly aided by his brother-in-law, Joseph S. Hickman, who was the Wayne County High School principal. In 1924, Hickman extended community involvement in the promotional effort by organizing a Wayne County-wide Wayne Wonderland Club. That same year, Hickman was elected to the Utah State Legislature.

 

In 1933, Pectol was elected to the presidency of the Associated Civics Club of Southern Utah, successor to the Wayne Wonderland Club. The club raised U.S. $150 (equivalent to $3,391 in 2022) to interest a Salt Lake City photographer in taking a series of promotional photographs. For several years, the photographer, J. E. Broaddus, traveled and lectured on "Wayne Wonderland".

 

In 1933, Pectol was elected to the legislature and almost immediately contacted President Franklin D. Roosevelt and asked for the creation of "Wayne Wonderland National Monument" out of the federal lands comprising the bulk of the Capitol Reef area. Federal agencies began a feasibility study and boundary assessment. Meanwhile, Pectol guided the government investigators on numerous trips and escorted an increasing number of visitors. The lectures of Broaddus were having an effect.

 

Roosevelt signed a proclamation creating Capitol Reef National Monument on August 2, 1937. In Proclamation 2246, President Roosevelt set aside 37,711 acres (15,261 ha) of the Capitol Reef area. This comprised an area extending about two miles (3 km) north of present State Route 24 and about 10 mi (16 km) south, just past Capitol Gorge. The Great Depression years were lean ones for the National Park Service (NPS), the new administering agency. Funds for the administration of Capitol Reef were nonexistent; it would be a long time before the first rangers would arrive.

 

Administration of the new monument was placed under the control of Zion National Park. A stone ranger cabin and the Sulphur Creek bridge were built and some road work was performed by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration. Historian and printer Charles Kelly came to know NPS officials at Zion well and volunteered to watchdog the park for the NPS. Kelly was officially appointed custodian-without-pay in 1943. He worked as a volunteer until 1950, when the NPS offered him a civil-service appointment as the first superintendent.

 

During the 1950s Kelly was deeply troubled by NPS management acceding to demands of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission that Capitol Reef National Monument be opened to uranium prospecting. He felt that the decision had been a mistake and destructive of the long-term national interest. It turned out that there was not enough ore in the monument to be worth mining.

 

In 1958 Kelly got additional permanent help in protecting the monument and enforcing regulations; Park Ranger Grant Clark transferred from Zion. The year Clark arrived, fifty-six thousand visitors came to the park, and Charlie Kelly retired for the last time.

 

During the 1960s (under the program name Mission 66), NPS areas nationwide received new facilities to meet the demand of mushrooming park visitation. At Capitol Reef, a 53-site campground at Fruita, staff rental housing, and a new visitor center were built, the latter opening in 1966.

 

Visitation climbed dramatically after the paved, all-weather State Route 24 was built in 1962 through the Fremont River canyon near Fruita. State Route 24 replaced the narrow Capitol Gorge wagon road about 10 mi (16 km) to the south that frequently washed out. The old road has since been open only to foot traffic. In 1967, 146,598 persons visited the park. The staff was also growing.

 

During the 1960s, the NPS purchased private land parcels at Fruita and Pleasant Creek. Almost all private property passed into public ownership on a "willing buyer-willing seller" basis.

 

Preservationists convinced President Lyndon B. Johnson to set aside an enormous area of public lands in 1968, just before he left office. In Presidential Proclamation 3888 an additional 215,056 acres (87,030 ha) were placed under NPS control. By 1970, Capitol Reef National Monument comprised 254,251 acres (102,892 ha) and sprawled southeast from Thousand Lake Mountain almost to the Colorado River. The action was controversial locally, and NPS staffing at the monument was inadequate to properly manage the additional land.

 

The vast enlargement of the monument and diversification of the scenic resources soon raised another issue: whether Capitol Reef should be a national park, rather than a monument. Two bills were introduced into the United States Congress.

 

A House bill (H.R. 17152) introduced by Utah Congressman Laurence J. Burton called for a 180,000-acre (72,800 ha) national park and an adjunct 48,000-acre (19,400 ha) national recreation area where multiple use (including grazing) could continue indefinitely. In the United States Senate, meanwhile, Senate bill S. 531 had already passed on July 1, 1970, and provided for a 230,000-acre (93,100 ha) national park alone. The bill called for a 25-year phase-out of grazing.

 

In September 1970, United States Department of Interior officials told a house subcommittee session that they preferred about 254,000 acres (103,000 ha) be set aside as a national park. They also recommended that the grazing phase-out period be 10 years, rather than 25. They did not favor the adjunct recreation area.

 

It was not until late 1971 that Congressional action was completed. By then, the 92nd United States Congress was in session and S. 531 had languished. A new bill, S. 29, was introduced in the Senate by Senator Frank E. Moss of Utah and was essentially the same as the defunct S. 531 except that it called for an additional 10,834 acres (4,384 ha) of public lands for a Capitol Reef National Park. In the House, Utah Representative K. Gunn McKay (with Representative Lloyd) had introduced H.R. 9053 to replace the dead H.R. 17152. This time, the House bill dropped the concept of an adjunct Capitol Reef National Recreation Area and adopted the Senate concept of a 25-year limit on continued grazing. The Department of Interior was still recommending a national park of 254,368 acres (102,939 ha) and a 10-year limit for grazing phase-out.

 

S. 29 passed the Senate in June and was sent to the House, which dropped its own bill and passed the Senate version with an amendment. Because the Senate was not in agreement with the House amendment, differences were worked out in Conference Committee. The Conference Committee issued its report on November 30, 1971, and the bill passed both houses of Congress. The legislation—'An Act to Establish The Capitol Reef National Park in the State of Utah'—became Public Law 92-207 when it was signed by President Richard Nixon on December 18, 1971.

 

The area including the park was once the edge of a shallow sea that invaded the land in the Permian, creating the Cutler Formation. Only the sandstone of the youngest member of the Cutler Formation, the White Rim, is exposed in the park. The deepening sea left carbonate deposits, forming the limestone of the Kaibab Limestone, the same formation that rims the Grand Canyon to the southwest.

 

During the Triassic, streams deposited reddish-brown silt that later became the siltstone of the Moenkopi Formation. Uplift and erosion followed. Conglomerate, followed by logs, sand, mud, and wind-transported volcanic ash, then formed the uranium-containing Chinle Formation.

 

The members of the Glen Canyon Group were all laid down in the middle- to late-Triassic during a time of increasing aridity. They include:

 

Wingate Sandstone: sand dunes on the shore of an ancient sea

Kayenta Formation: thin-bedded layers of sand deposited by slow-moving streams in channels and across low plains

Navajo Sandstone: huge fossilized sand dunes from a massive Sahara-like desert.

 

The Golden Throne. Though Capitol Reef is famous for white domes of Navajo Sandstone, this dome's color is a result of a lingering section of yellow Carmel Formation carbonate, which has stained the underlying rock.

The San Rafael Group consists of four Jurassic-period formations, from oldest to youngest:

 

Carmel Formation: gypsum, sand, and limey silt laid down in what may have been a graben that was periodically flooded by sea water

Entrada Sandstone: sandstone from barrier islands/sand bars in a near-shore environment

Curtis Formation: made from conglomerate, sandstone, and shale

Summerville Formation: reddish-brown mud and white sand deposited in tidal flats.

Streams once again laid down mud and sand in their channels, on lakebeds, and in swampy plains, creating the Morrison Formation. Early in the Cretaceous, similar nonmarine sediments were laid down and became the Dakota Sandstone. Eventually, the Cretaceous Seaway covered the Dakota, depositing the Mancos Shale.

 

Only small remnants of the Mesaverde Group are found, capping a few mesas in the park's eastern section.

 

Near the end of the Cretaceous period, a mountain-building event called the Laramide orogeny started to compact and uplift the region, forming the Rocky Mountains and creating monoclines such as the Waterpocket Fold in the park. Ten to fifteen million years ago, the entire region was uplifted much further by the creation of the Colorado Plateau. This uplift was very even. Igneous activity in the form of volcanism and dike and sill intrusion also occurred during this time.

 

The drainage system in the area was rearranged and steepened, causing streams to downcut faster and sometimes change course. Wetter times during the ice ages of the Pleistocene increased the rate of erosion.

 

There are more than 840 species of plants that are found in the park and over 40 of those species are classified as rare and endemic.

 

The closest town to Capitol Reef is Torrey, about 11 mi (18 km) west of the visitor center on Highway 24, slightly west of its intersection with Highway 12. Its 2020 population is less than 300. Torrey has a few motels and restaurants and functions as a gateway town to Capitol Reef National Park. Highway 12, as well as a partially unpaved scenic backway named the Burr Trail, provide access from the west through the Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument and the town of Boulder.

 

A variety of activities are available to tourists, both ranger-led and self-guided, including auto touring, hiking, backpacking, camping, bicycling (on paved and unpaved roads only; no trails), horseback riding, canyoneering, and rock climbing. The orchards planted by Mormon pioneers are maintained by the National Park Service. From early March to mid-October, various fruit—cherries, apricots, peaches, pears, or apples—can be harvested by visitors for a fee.

 

A hiking trail guide is available at the visitor center for both day hikes and backcountry hiking. Backcountry access requires a free permit.

 

Numerous trails are available for hiking and backpacking in the park, with fifteen in the Fruita District alone. The following trails are some of the most popular in the park:

 

Cassidy Arch Trail: a very steep, strenuous 3.5 mi (5.6 km) round trip that leads into the Grand Wash to an overlook of the Cassidy Arch.

Hickman Bridge Trail: a 2 mi (3.2 km) round trip leading to the natural bridge.

Frying Pan Trail: an 8.8 mi (14.2 km) round trip that passes the Cassidy Arch, Grand Wash, and Cohab Canyon.

Brimhall Natural Bridge: a popular, though strenuous, 4.5 mi (7.2 km) round trip with views of Brimhall Canyon, the Waterpocket Fold, and Brimhall Natural Bridge.

Halls Creek Narrows: 22 mi (35 km) long and considered strenuous, with many side canyons and creeks; typically hiked as a 2-3 day camping trip.

 

Visitors may explore several of the main areas of the park by private vehicle:

 

Scenic Drive: winds through the middle of the park, passing the major points of interest; the road is accessible from the visitor center to approximately 2 mi (3.2 km) into the Capitol Gorge.

Notom-Bullfrog Road: traverses the eastern side of the Waterpocket Fold, along 10 mi (16 km) of paved road, with the remainder unpaved.

Cathedral Road: an unpaved road through the northern areas of the park, that traverses Cathedral Valley, passing the Temples of the Sun and Moon.

 

The primary camping location is the Fruita campground, with 71 campsites (no water, electrical, or sewer hookups), and restrooms without bathing facilities. The campground also has group sites with picnic areas and restrooms. Two primitive free camping areas are also available.

 

Canyoneering is growing in popularity in the park. It is a recreational sport that takes one through slot canyons. It involves rappelling and may require swimming and other technical rope work. Day-pass permits are required for canyoneering in the park, and can be obtained for free from the visitor's center or through email. It's key to know that each route requires its own permit. If one is planning on canyoneering for multiple days, passes are required for each day. Overnight camping as part of the canyoneering trip is permitted, but one must request a free backcountry pass from the visitor center.

 

It is imperative to plan canyoneering trips around the weather. The Colorado Plateau is susceptible to flash flooding during prime rainy months. Because canyoneering takes place through slot canyons, getting caught in a flash flood could be lethal. Take care to consult reliable weather sources. The Weather Atlas shows charts with the monthly average rainfall in inches.

 

Another risk to be aware of during the summer months is extreme heat. Visitors can find weather warnings on the National Weather Service website. The heat levels are detailed by a color and numerical scale (0-4).

 

One of the most popular canyoneering routes in Capitol Reef National Park is Cassidy Arch Canyon. A paper by George Huddart, details the park's commitment to working with citizens to maintain the route as well as the vegetation and rocks. The canyon route is approximately 2.3 miles long (0.4 miles of technical work), consisting of 8 different rappels, and takes between 2.5 and 4.5 hours to complete. The first rappel is 140 ft and descends below the famous Cassidy Arch.

 

Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Colorado to its east, Wyoming to its northeast, Idaho to its north, Arizona to its south, and Nevada to its west. Utah also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area; with a population over three million, it is the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population and includes the capital city, Salt Lake City; and Washington County in the southwest, with more than 180,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.

 

Utah has been inhabited for thousands of years by various indigenous groups such as the ancient Puebloans, Navajo, and Ute. The Spanish were the first Europeans to arrive in the mid-16th century, though the region's difficult geography and harsh climate made it a peripheral part of New Spain and later Mexico. Even while it was Mexican territory, many of Utah's earliest settlers were American, particularly Mormons fleeing marginalization and persecution from the United States via the Mormon Trail. Following the Mexican–American War in 1848, the region was annexed by the U.S., becoming part of the Utah Territory, which included what is now Colorado and Nevada. Disputes between the dominant Mormon community and the federal government delayed Utah's admission as a state; only after the outlawing of polygamy was it admitted in 1896 as the 45th.

 

People from Utah are known as Utahns. Slightly over half of all Utahns are Mormons, the vast majority of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which has its world headquarters in Salt Lake City; Utah is the only state where a majority of the population belongs to a single church. A 2023 paper challenged this perception (claiming only 42% of Utahns are Mormons) however most statistics still show a majority of Utah residents belong to the LDS church; estimates from the LDS church suggests 60.68% of Utah's population belongs to the church whilst some sources put the number as high as 68%. The paper replied that membership count done by the LDS Church is too high for several reasons. The LDS Church greatly influences Utahn culture, politics, and daily life, though since the 1990s the state has become more religiously diverse as well as secular.

 

Utah has a highly diversified economy, with major sectors including transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, multi-level marketing, and tourism. Utah has been one of the fastest growing states since 2000, with the 2020 U.S. census confirming the fastest population growth in the nation since 2010. St. George was the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah ranks among the overall best states in metrics such as healthcare, governance, education, and infrastructure. It has the 12th-highest median average income and the least income inequality of any U.S. state. Over time and influenced by climate change, droughts in Utah have been increasing in frequency and severity, putting a further strain on Utah's water security and impacting the state's economy.

 

The History of Utah is an examination of the human history and social activity within the state of Utah located in the western United States.

 

Archaeological evidence dates the earliest habitation of humans in Utah to about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. Paleolithic people lived near the Great Basin's swamps and marshes, which had an abundance of fish, birds, and small game animals. Big game, including bison, mammoths and ground sloths, also were attracted to these water sources. Over the centuries, the mega-fauna died, this population was replaced by the Desert Archaic people, who sheltered in caves near the Great Salt Lake. Relying more on gathering than the previous Utah residents, their diet was mainly composed of cattails and other salt tolerant plants such as pickleweed, burro weed and sedge. Red meat appears to have been more of a luxury, although these people used nets and the atlatl to hunt water fowl, ducks, small animals and antelope. Artifacts include nets woven with plant fibers and rabbit skin, woven sandals, gaming sticks, and animal figures made from split-twigs. About 3,500 years ago, lake levels rose and the population of Desert Archaic people appears to have dramatically decreased. The Great Basin may have been almost unoccupied for 1,000 years.

 

The Fremont culture, named from sites near the Fremont River in Utah, lived in what is now north and western Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Colorado from approximately 600 to 1300 AD. These people lived in areas close to water sources that had been previously occupied by the Desert Archaic people, and may have had some relationship with them. However, their use of new technologies define them as a distinct people. Fremont technologies include:

 

use of the bow and arrow while hunting,

building pithouse shelters,

growing maize and probably beans and squash,

building above ground granaries of adobe or stone,

creating and decorating low-fired pottery ware,

producing art, including jewelry and rock art such as petroglyphs and pictographs.

 

The ancient Puebloan culture, also known as the Anasazi, occupied territory adjacent to the Fremont. The ancestral Puebloan culture centered on the present-day Four Corners area of the Southwest United States, including the San Juan River region of Utah. Archaeologists debate when this distinct culture emerged, but cultural development seems to date from about the common era, about 500 years before the Fremont appeared. It is generally accepted that the cultural peak of these people was around the 1200 CE. Ancient Puebloan culture is known for well constructed pithouses and more elaborate adobe and masonry dwellings. They were excellent craftsmen, producing turquoise jewelry and fine pottery. The Puebloan culture was based on agriculture, and the people created and cultivated fields of maize, beans, and squash and domesticated turkeys. They designed and produced elaborate field terracing and irrigation systems. They also built structures, some known as kivas, apparently designed solely for cultural and religious rituals.

 

These two later cultures were roughly contemporaneous, and appear to have established trading relationships. They also shared enough cultural traits that archaeologists believe the cultures may have common roots in the early American Southwest. However, each remained culturally distinct throughout most of their existence. These two well established cultures appear to have been severely impacted by climatic change and perhaps by the incursion of new people in about 1200 CE. Over the next two centuries, the Fremont and ancient Pueblo people may have moved into the American southwest, finding new homes and farmlands in the river drainages of Arizona, New Mexico and northern Mexico.

 

In about 1200, Shoshonean speaking peoples entered Utah territory from the west. They may have originated in southern California and moved into the desert environment due to population pressure along the coast. They were an upland people with a hunting and gathering lifestyle utilizing roots and seeds, including the pinyon nut. They were also skillful fishermen, created pottery and raised some crops. When they first arrived in Utah, they lived as small family groups with little tribal organization. Four main Shoshonean peoples inhabited Utah country. The Shoshone in the north and northeast, the Gosiutes in the northwest, the Utes in the central and eastern parts of the region and the Southern Paiutes in the southwest. Initially, there seems to have been very little conflict between these groups.

 

In the early 16th century, the San Juan River basin in Utah's southeast also saw a new people, the Díne or Navajo, part of a greater group of plains Athabaskan speakers moved into the Southwest from the Great Plains. In addition to the Navajo, this language group contained people that were later known as Apaches, including the Lipan, Jicarilla, and Mescalero Apaches.

 

Athabaskans were a hunting people who initially followed the bison, and were identified in 16th-century Spanish accounts as "dog nomads". The Athabaskans expanded their range throughout the 17th century, occupying areas the Pueblo peoples had abandoned during prior centuries. The Spanish first specifically mention the "Apachu de Nabajo" (Navaho) in the 1620s, referring to the people in the Chama valley region east of the San Juan River, and north west of Santa Fe. By the 1640s, the term Navaho was applied to these same people. Although the Navajo newcomers established a generally peaceful trading and cultural exchange with the some modern Pueblo peoples to the south, they experienced intermittent warfare with the Shoshonean peoples, particularly the Utes in eastern Utah and western Colorado.

 

At the time of European expansion, beginning with Spanish explorers traveling from Mexico, five distinct native peoples occupied territory within the Utah area: the Northern Shoshone, the Goshute, the Ute, the Paiute and the Navajo.

 

The Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado may have crossed into what is now southern Utah in 1540, when he was seeking the legendary Cíbola.

 

A group led by two Spanish Catholic priests—sometimes called the Domínguez–Escalante expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the California coast. The expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. All of what is now Utah was claimed by the Spanish Empire from the 1500s to 1821 as part of New Spain (later as the province Alta California); and subsequently claimed by Mexico from 1821 to 1848. However, Spain and Mexico had little permanent presence in, or control of, the region.

 

Fur trappers (also known as mountain men) including Jim Bridger, explored some regions of Utah in the early 19th century. The city of Provo was named for one such man, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah is named for a brigade leader of the Hudson's Bay Company, Peter Skene Ogden who trapped in the Weber Valley. In 1846, a year before the arrival of members from the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints, the ill-fated Donner Party crossed through the Salt Lake valley late in the season, deciding not to stay the winter there but to continue forward to California, and beyond.

 

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as Mormon pioneers, first came to the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. At the time, the U.S. had already captured the Mexican territories of Alta California and New Mexico in the Mexican–American War and planned to keep them, but those territories, including the future state of Utah, officially became United States territory upon the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, February 2, 1848. The treaty was ratified by the United States Senate on March 10, 1848.

 

Upon arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormon pioneers found no permanent settlement of Indians. Other areas along the Wasatch Range were occupied at the time of settlement by the Northwestern Shoshone and adjacent areas by other bands of Shoshone such as the Gosiute. The Northwestern Shoshone lived in the valleys on the eastern shore of Great Salt Lake and in adjacent mountain valleys. Some years after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley Mormons, who went on to colonize many other areas of what is now Utah, were petitioned by Indians for recompense for land taken. The response of Heber C. Kimball, first counselor to Brigham Young, was that the land belonged to "our Father in Heaven and we expect to plow and plant it." A 1945 Supreme Court decision found that the land had been treated by the United States as public domain; no aboriginal title by the Northwestern Shoshone had been recognized by the United States or extinguished by treaty with the United States.

 

Upon arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, the Mormons had to make a place to live. They created irrigation systems, laid out farms, built houses, churches, and schools. Access to water was crucially important. Almost immediately, Brigham Young set out to identify and claim additional community sites. While it was difficult to find large areas in the Great Basin where water sources were dependable and growing seasons long enough to raise vitally important subsistence crops, satellite communities began to be formed.

 

Shortly after the first company arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, the community of Bountiful was settled to the north. In 1848, settlers moved into lands purchased from trapper Miles Goodyear in present-day Ogden. In 1849, Tooele and Provo were founded. Also that year, at the invitation of Ute chief Wakara, settlers moved into the Sanpete Valley in central Utah to establish the community of Manti. Fillmore, Utah, intended to be the capital of the new territory, was established in 1851. In 1855, missionary efforts aimed at western native cultures led to outposts in Fort Lemhi, Idaho, Las Vegas, Nevada and Elk Mountain in east-central Utah.

 

The experiences of returning members of the Mormon Battalion were also important in establishing new communities. On their journey west, the Mormon soldiers had identified dependable rivers and fertile river valleys in Colorado, Arizona and southern California. In addition, as the men traveled to rejoin their families in the Salt Lake Valley, they moved through southern Nevada and the eastern segments of southern Utah. Jefferson Hunt, a senior Mormon officer of the Battalion, actively searched for settlement sites, minerals, and other resources. His report encouraged 1851 settlement efforts in Iron County, near present-day Cedar City. These southern explorations eventually led to Mormon settlements in St. George, Utah, Las Vegas and San Bernardino, California, as well as communities in southern Arizona.

 

Prior to establishment of the Oregon and California trails and Mormon settlement, Indians native to the Salt Lake Valley and adjacent areas lived by hunting buffalo and other game, but also gathered grass seed from the bountiful grass of the area as well as roots such as those of the Indian Camas. By the time of settlement, indeed before 1840, the buffalo were gone from the valley, but hunting by settlers and grazing of cattle severely impacted the Indians in the area, and as settlement expanded into nearby river valleys and oases, indigenous tribes experienced increasing difficulty in gathering sufficient food. Brigham Young's counsel was to feed the hungry tribes, and that was done, but it was often not enough. These tensions formed the background to the Bear River massacre committed by California Militia stationed in Salt Lake City during the Civil War. The site of the massacre is just inside Preston, Idaho, but was generally thought to be within Utah at the time.

 

Statehood was petitioned for in 1849-50 using the name Deseret. The proposed State of Deseret would have been quite large, encompassing all of what is now Utah, and portions of Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona, Oregon, New Mexico and California. The name of Deseret was favored by the LDS leader Brigham Young as a symbol of industry and was derived from a reference in the Book of Mormon. The petition was rejected by Congress and Utah did not become a state until 1896, following the Utah Constitutional Convention of 1895.

 

In 1850, the Utah Territory was created with the Compromise of 1850, and Fillmore (named after President Fillmore) was designated the capital. In 1856, Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the territorial capital.

 

The first group of pioneers brought African slaves with them, making Utah the only place in the western United States to have African slavery. Three slaves, Green Flake, Hark Lay, and Oscar Crosby, came west with this first group in 1847. The settlers also began to purchase Indian slaves in the well-established Indian slave trade, as well as enslaving Indian prisoners of war. In 1850, 26 slaves were counted in Salt Lake County. Slavery didn't become officially recognized until 1852, when the Act in Relation to Service and the Act for the relief of Indian Slaves and Prisoners were passed. Slavery was repealed on June 19, 1862, when Congress prohibited slavery in all US territories.

 

Disputes between the Mormon inhabitants and the federal government intensified after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' practice of polygamy became known. The polygamous practices of the Mormons, which were made public in 1854, would be one of the major reasons Utah was denied statehood until almost 50 years after the Mormons had entered the area.

 

After news of their polygamous practices spread, the members of the LDS Church were quickly viewed by some as un-American and rebellious. In 1857, after news of a possible rebellion spread, President James Buchanan sent troops on the Utah expedition to quell the growing unrest and to replace Brigham Young as territorial governor with Alfred Cumming. The expedition was also known as the Utah War.

 

As fear of invasion grew, Mormon settlers had convinced some Paiute Indians to aid in a Mormon-led attack on 120 immigrants from Arkansas under the guise of Indian aggression. The murder of these settlers became known as the Mountain Meadows massacre. The Mormon leadership had adopted a defensive posture that led to a ban on the selling of grain to outsiders in preparation for an impending war. This chafed pioneers traveling through the region, who were unable to purchase badly needed supplies. A disagreement between some of the Arkansas pioneers and the Mormons in Cedar City led to the secret planning of the massacre by a few Mormon leaders in the area. Some scholars debate the involvement of Brigham Young. Only one man, John D. Lee, was ever convicted of the murders, and he was executed at the massacre site.

 

Express riders had brought the news 1,000 miles from the Missouri River settlements to Salt Lake City within about two weeks of the army's beginning to march west. Fearing the worst as 2,500 troops (roughly 1/3rd of the army then) led by General Albert Sidney Johnston started west, Brigham Young ordered all residents of Salt Lake City and neighboring communities to prepare their homes for burning and evacuate southward to Utah Valley and southern Utah. Young also sent out a few units of the Nauvoo Legion (numbering roughly 8,000–10,000), to delay the army's advance. The majority he sent into the mountains to prepare defenses or south to prepare for a scorched earth retreat. Although some army wagon supply trains were captured and burned and herds of army horses and cattle run off no serious fighting occurred. Starting late and short on supplies, the United States Army camped during the bitter winter of 1857–58 near a burned out Fort Bridger in Wyoming. Through the negotiations between emissary Thomas L. Kane, Young, Cumming and Johnston, control of Utah territory was peacefully transferred to Cumming, who entered an eerily vacant Salt Lake City in the spring of 1858. By agreement with Young, Johnston established the army at Fort Floyd 40 miles away from Salt Lake City, to the southwest.

 

Salt Lake City was the last link of the First Transcontinental Telegraph, between Carson City, Nevada and Omaha, Nebraska completed in October 1861. Brigham Young, who had helped expedite construction, was among the first to send a message, along with Abraham Lincoln and other officials. Soon after the telegraph line was completed, the Deseret Telegraph Company built the Deseret line connecting the settlements in the territory with Salt Lake City and, by extension, the rest of the United States.

 

Because of the American Civil War, federal troops were pulled out of Utah Territory (and their fort auctioned off), leaving the territorial government in federal hands without army backing until General Patrick E. Connor arrived with the 3rd Regiment of California Volunteers in 1862. While in Utah, Connor and his troops soon became discontent with this assignment wanting to head to Virginia where the "real" fighting and glory was occurring. Connor established Fort Douglas just three miles (5 km) east of Salt Lake City and encouraged his bored and often idle soldiers to go out and explore for mineral deposits to bring more non-Mormons into the state. Minerals were discovered in Tooele County, and some miners began to come to the territory. Conner also solved the Shoshone Indian problem in Cache Valley Utah by luring the Shoshone into a midwinter confrontation on January 29, 1863. The armed conflict quickly turned into a rout, discipline among the soldiers broke down, and the Battle of Bear River is today usually referred to by historians as the Bear River Massacre. Between 200 and 400 Shoshone men, women and children were killed, as were 27 soldiers, with over 50 more soldiers wounded or suffering from frostbite.

 

Beginning in 1865, Utah's Black Hawk War developed into the deadliest conflict in the territory's history. Chief Antonga Black Hawk died in 1870, but fights continued to break out until additional federal troops were sent in to suppress the Ghost Dance of 1872. The war is unique among Indian Wars because it was a three-way conflict, with mounted Timpanogos Utes led by Antonga Black Hawk fighting federal and Utah local militia.

 

On May 10, 1869, the First transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory Summit, north of the Great Salt Lake. The railroad brought increasing numbers of people into the state, and several influential businessmen made fortunes in the territory.

 

Main article: Latter Day Saint polygamy in the late-19th century

During the 1870s and 1880s, federal laws were passed and federal marshals assigned to enforce the laws against polygamy. In the 1890 Manifesto, the LDS Church leadership dropped its approval of polygamy citing divine revelation. When Utah applied for statehood again in 1895, it was accepted. Statehood was officially granted on January 4, 1896.

 

The Mormon issue made the situation for women the topic of nationwide controversy. In 1870 the Utah Territory, controlled by Mormons, gave women the right to vote. However, in 1887, Congress disenfranchised Utah women with the Edmunds–Tucker Act. In 1867–96, eastern activists promoted women's suffrage in Utah as an experiment, and as a way to eliminate polygamy. They were Presbyterians and other Protestants convinced that Mormonism was a non-Christian cult that grossly mistreated women. The Mormons promoted woman suffrage to counter the negative image of downtrodden Mormon women. With the 1890 Manifesto clearing the way for statehood, in 1895 Utah adopted a constitution restoring the right of women's suffrage. Congress admitted Utah as a state with that constitution in 1896.

 

Though less numerous than other intermountain states at the time, several lynching murders for alleged misdeeds occurred in Utah territory at the hand of vigilantes. Those documented include the following, with their ethnicity or national origin noted in parentheses if it was provided in the source:

 

William Torrington in Carson City (then a part of Utah territory), 1859

Thomas Coleman (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1866

3 unidentified men at Wahsatch, winter of 1868

A Black man in Uintah, 1869

Charles A. Benson in Logan, 1873

Ah Sing (Chinese man) in Corinne, 1874

Thomas Forrest in St. George, 1880

William Harvey (Black man) in Salt Lake City, 1883

John Murphy in Park City, 1883

George Segal (Japanese man) in Ogden, 1884

Joseph Fisher in Eureka, 1886

Robert Marshall (Black man) in Castle Gate, 1925

Other lynchings in Utah territory include multiple instances of mass murder of Native American children, women, and men by White settlers including the Battle Creek massacre (1849), Provo River Massacre (1850), Nephi massacre (1853), and Circleville Massacre (1866).

 

Beginning in the early 20th century, with the establishment of such national parks as Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park, Utah began to become known for its natural beauty. Southern Utah became a popular filming spot for arid, rugged scenes, and such natural landmarks as Delicate Arch and "the Mittens" of Monument Valley are instantly recognizable to most national residents. During the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, with the construction of the Interstate highway system, accessibility to the southern scenic areas was made easier.

 

Beginning in 1939, with the establishment of Alta Ski Area, Utah has become world-renowned for its skiing. The dry, powdery snow of the Wasatch Range is considered some of the best skiing in the world. Salt Lake City won the bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics in 1995, and this has served as a great boost to the economy. The ski resorts have increased in popularity, and many of the Olympic venues scattered across the Wasatch Front continue to be used for sporting events. This also spurred the development of the light-rail system in the Salt Lake Valley, known as TRAX, and the re-construction of the freeway system around the city.

 

During the late 20th century, the state grew quickly. In the 1970s, growth was phenomenal in the suburbs. Sandy was one of the fastest-growing cities in the country at that time, and West Valley City is the state's 2nd most populous city. Today, many areas of Utah are seeing phenomenal growth. Northern Davis, southern and western Salt Lake, Summit, eastern Tooele, Utah, Wasatch, and Washington counties are all growing very quickly. Transportation and urbanization are major issues in politics as development consumes agricultural land and wilderness areas.

 

In 2012, the State of Utah passed the Utah Transfer of Public Lands Act in an attempt to gain control over a substantial portion of federal land in the state from the federal government, based on language in the Utah Enabling Act of 1894. The State does not intend to use force or assert control by limiting access in an attempt to control the disputed lands, but does intend to use a multi-step process of education, negotiation, legislation, and if necessary, litigation as part of its multi-year effort to gain state or private control over the lands after 2014.

 

Utah families, like most Americans everywhere, did their utmost to assist in the war effort. Tires, meat, butter, sugar, fats, oils, coffee, shoes, boots, gasoline, canned fruits, vegetables, and soups were rationed on a national basis. The school day was shortened and bus routes were reduced to limit the number of resources used stateside and increase what could be sent to soldiers.

 

Geneva Steel was built to increase the steel production for America during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had proposed opening a steel mill in Utah in 1936, but the idea was shelved after a couple of months. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States entered the war and the steel plant was put into progress. In April 1944, Geneva shipped its first order, which consisted of over 600 tons of steel plate. Geneva Steel also brought thousands of job opportunities to Utah. The positions were hard to fill as many of Utah's men were overseas fighting. Women began working, filling 25 percent of the jobs.

 

As a result of Utah's and Geneva Steels contribution during the war, several Liberty Ships were named in honor of Utah including the USS Joseph Smith, USS Brigham Young, USS Provo, and the USS Peter Skene Ogden.

 

One of the sectors of the beachhead of Normandy Landings was codenamed Utah Beach, and the amphibious landings at the beach were undertaken by United States Army troops.

 

It is estimated that 1,450 soldiers from Utah were killed in the war.

Nikon D7100 with AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR

 

Bugatti Chiron Black/Blue

Bugatti EB16.4 Veyron Blue

Bugatti EB16.4 Veyron Dark Blue/Blue

Bugatti EB18.3 Chiron Concept Blue

Bugatti EB110 GT Blue

Bugatti Type 41 Royale Coupe Napoleon Black/Blue

Bugatti Type 57 SC Atlantic R.B. Pope Blue

 

Can’t wait for Starship 🚀 Flight 7... details below.

The last one was bananas!

A compact, fully automatic projected energy PDW. Model shown outfitted with red dot reflex sight, collapsible stock and tactical display with interface for milspec handhelds. Accepts Class "E" STANAG microcells which provide for approximately 800 bursts, or 40 seconds of sustained full auto fire.

 

Shown here with tactical display unfolded.

Margot Robbie's outfit in 1/6 scale

A few years ago, I got to see a 1:1500 scale model of London at the Building Centre there. It is a large scale model of the heart of the city in three dimensions, with representations of most buildings, landmarks, parks, the Thames, and the (at the time yet to be built) Olympic Park.

 

It's extremely impressive.

 

And it is as nothing compared to The Panorama at the Queens Museum of Art.

 

Here's two panorama photos to give a sense of the scale:

 

• view from the “west”

• view from the ”south”

 

⁂

 

Quoting from the Museum’s page on the The Panorama of the City of New York:

 

The Panorama is the jewel in the crown of the collection of the Queens Museum of Art. Built by Robert Moses for the 1964 World’s Fair, in part as a celebration of the City’s municipal infrastructure, this 9,335 square foot architectural model includes every single building constructed before 1992 in all five boroughs; that is a total of 895,000 individual structures.

 

The Panorama was built by a team of 100 people working for the great architectural model makers Raymond Lester Associates in the three years before the opening of the 1964 World’s Fair. In planning the model, Lester Associates referred to aerial photographs, insurance maps, and a range of other City material; the Panorama had to be accurate, indeed the initial contract demanded less than one percent margin of error between reality and the model. The Panorama was one of the most successful attractions at the ‘64 Fair with a daily average of 1,400 people taking advantage of its 9 minute simulated helicopter ride around the City.

 

After the Fair the Panorama remained open to the public, its originally planned use as an urban planning tool seemingly forgotten. Until 1970 all of the changes in the City were accurately recreated in the model by Lester’s team. After 1970 very few changes were made until 1992, when again Lester Associates changed over 60,000 structures to bring it up-to-date.

 

In the Spring of 2009 the Museum launched its Adopt-A-Building program with the installation of the Panorama’s newest addition, Citi Field, to continue for the ongoing care and maintenance of this beloved treasure.

 

The Queens Museum of Art has a program giving you the opportunity to “purchase” NYC real estate on The Panorama of the City of New York for as low as $50. To learn how you can become involved click here.

 

We hope that you will take time to enjoy the Panorama of the City of New York.

 

The Panorama of the City of New York is sponsored by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Assembly members Mike Gianaris, Mark Weprin, Audrey Pheffer, Nettie Mayersohn and Ivan Lafayette, The New York Mets Foundation and the supporters of the Adopt-A-Building Program.

 

View the winning pictures from our Gala 2011 Panorama Picture Contest!

 

View pictures from our Gala 2011 Photo booth, May 12, 2011!

 

View pictures of the Panorama on its Flickr page

 

Add your own pictures to our Panorama Flickr Group!

 

⁂

 

Quoting now from The Panorama section in Wikipedia’s Queens Museum of Art article:

 

The best known permanent exhibition at the Queens Museum is the Panorama of the City of New York which was commissioned by Robert Moses for the 1964 World’s Fair. A celebration of the City’s municipal infrastructure, this 9,335-square-foot (867.2 m2) architectural model includes every single building constructed before 1992 in all five boroughs; that is a total of 895,000 individual structures. The Panorama was built by a team of 100 people working for the architectural model makers Raymond Lester Associates in the three years before the opening of the 1964 World’s Fair. The Panorama was one of the most successful attractions at the ’64 Fair with a daily average of 1,400 people taking advantage of its 9 minute simulated helicopter ride around the City. After the Fair the Panorama remained open to the public and until 1970 all of the changes in the City were accurately recreated in the model by Lester’s team. After 1970 very few changes were made until 1992, when again Lester Associates was hired to update the model to coincide with the re-opening of the museum. The model makers changed over 60,000 structures to bring it up-to-date.

 

In March 2009 the museum announced the intention to update the panorama on an ongoing basis. To raise funds and draw public attention the museum will allow individuals and developers to have accurate models made of buildings newer than the 1992 update created and added in exchange for a donation. Accurate models of smaller apartment buildings and private homes, now represented by generic models, can also be added. The twin towers of the World Trade Center will be replaced when the new buildings are created, the museum has chosen to allow them to remain until construction is complete rather than representing an empty hole. The first new buildings to be added was the new Citi Field stadium of the New York Mets. The model of the old Shea Stadium will continue to be displayed elsewhere in the museum.

 

⁂

 

Quoting now from the explanatory sign at the exhibit:

 

THE PANORAMA OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK

 

The Panorama of the City of New York, the world's largest scale model of its time, was the creation of Robert Moses and Raymond Lester. Presented in the New York City Pavilion as the city’s premiere exhibit at the 1964/65 New York World’s Fair, it was intended afterwards to serve as an urban planning tool. Visitors experienced the Panorama from a simulated “helicopter” ride that travelled around perimeter or from a glass-enclosed balcony on the second floor, while news commentator Lowell Thomas provided audio commentary on “The City of Opportunity.” One of the “helicopter” cars is now on view in the Museum’s permanent exhibition, A Panoramic View: A History of the New York City Building and Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

 

Constructed at the Lester Associates workshop in Westchester, New York, the Panorama contains 273 separate sections, many of which are four-by-ten-foot rectangular panels. They are composed of Formica flakeboard topped with urethane foam slabs from which the typography was carved. Lester Associates’ staff consulted geological survey maps, aerial photographs, and books of City insurance maps, to accurately render the City’s streets, highways, parks, and buildings. Once the Panorama’s modules were completed at Lester Associates’ workshop, they were assembled on site in the New York City Building. It took more than 100 workers, three years to complete the model.

 

Built on a sale of 1:1,200 (1 inch equals 100 feet), the Panorama occupies 9.335 square feet and accurately replicates New York City including all 320 square miles of its five boroughs and 771 miles of shoreline, as well as the built environment. It includes miniature cars, boats, and an airplane landing and taking off at LaGuardia Airport.

 

The majority of the City’s buildings are presented by standardized model units made from wood and acrylic. Of more than 895,000 individual structures, 25,000 are custom-made to approximate landmarks such as skyscrapers, large factories, colleges, museums, and major churches. The amount of detail possible on most buildings is limited; at a scale of 1 inch to 100 feet, the model of the Empire State Building measures only 15 inches. The most accurate structures on the Panorama are its 35 major bridges, which are finely made of brass and shaped by a chemical milling process.

 

The model is color coded to indicate various types of land use. The dark green areas are parks. Parkways are also edged in dark green. Mint green sections are related to transportation including train and bus terminals. The pink rectangles that dot the City show the locations of recreational areas including playgrounds and tennis and basketball courts. Clusters of red buildings are indicative of publicly subsidized housing.

 

Red, blue, green, yellow, and white colored lights were installed on the surface of the Panorama in 1964 to identify structures housing City agencies relating to protection, education, health, recreation, commerce, welfare, and transportation. Overhead lights have been designed to run in a dawn to dusk cycle, and the nighttime effect is enhanced by ultraviolet paint, illuminated by blacklight.

 

In 1992, the City began a renovation of the Queens Museum of Art and the Panorama. Using their original techniques, Lester Associates updated the Panorama with 60,000 changes. In the current instalation, designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects, visitors follow the course of the original “helicopter” ride on an ascending ramp that enables them to experience the Panorama of the City of New York from Multiple Perspectives.

Item nº 53206.

Citroën 2CV6 "Cuerpo Nacional de Policía" (España).

Escala 1/43.

Mondo S.p.A. (Italia).

Made in China.

Año 2014 (?).

 

Nota:

No me consta que este modelo haya existido en la realidad con los colores del Cuerpo Nacional de Policía (CNP), en España.

 

More info about Mondo Motors 1:43 diecast collections:

www.mondomotors.org/products_category.cfm?id=827

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Citroen 2CV6 (1970 - 1991)

 

(...)

"The roots of the Citroen 2CV6 can be traced right back to 1936 when the first 2CV (Deux Cheveaux) was built in prototype form. Fully 250 such cars were built prior to the 1939 Paris Autosalon but production was halted when Hitler took an acquisitive interest in France.

 

It wasn't until 1948 that the car was finally showed at the Paris Autosalon and full scale production commenced the following year, the cars powered by a 9bhp 375cc engine. This propelled them to a rather glacial top speed of 40mph.

 

The car gradually evolved over the intervening years, and in 1970 the 2CV6 was introduced to the French market, powered by a 602cc engine with 28bhp.

 

This model was subsequently imported to the UK in 1974.

 

In 1979 the entry-level 2CV6 was dubbed the Club and a ritzier Special trim level was introduced with round lights and chrome trim on the doors.

 

Charleston special edition models appeared in 1980 but these proved so popular that Citroen marketed the Charleston as a mainstream range model.

 

In 1981 the James Bond limited edition was launched. With stick-on bullet holes, this car was a replica of the 2CV6 that undertook a thrilling downhill dive in the movie 'For Your Eyes Only'.

 

1982 saw the bright green Bamboo model that some may recall from being blown to smithereens by a Boeing 747 jet engine on Top Gear TV.

 

1983 saw the brief introduction of the blue and white striped Beachcomber edition while in 1985 came the wildly popular 'Dolly' special edition, named after the 2CV6's latterly acquired nickname.

 

On July 27th 1990, the last Citroen 2CV6 rolled off the production lines.

UK sales continued into early 1991.

 

After sales of over 5.11 million, the 2CV line had come to an end. Or so it would seem. Even today there are some specialists such as www.frome2cv.co.uk that will sell you a fully galvanised, rebuilt or restored car.

The 2CV6 just refuses to die."

(...)

 

Source: www.rac.co.uk/buying-a-car/car-reviews/citroen/2cv6/207838

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Breve historia del Citroën 2CV6

 

1970

"Crece la familia 2CV, que se comercializa en dos nuevas versiones:

El 2CV 4 "tipo AZL 4", con 435 c.c., 24 cv DIN a 6750 rpm, 102 Km/h y 5,4 litros a los cien.

El 2CV 6 "tipo AZL 6", con 602 c.c., 28,5 cv DIN a 6750 rpm, 110 Km/h y un consumo de 6,1 litros a los cien.

Estos dos modelos montan de serie cinturones de seguridad."

 

1973

"Todos los 2CV incorporan un nuevo logotipo, y el 2CV 6 un nuevo volante monobrazo."

 

1974

"Los faros rectangulares sustituyen a los faros redondos y se incorpora una nueva calandra de plastico.

Se incorpora una banda de protección de caucho en los paragolpes y una cubierta de plastico en el interior de las puertas.

La situación económica y política de Chile determina el cierre de los talleres de montaje del 2CV en este país."

 

1975

"Aparece el 2CV "Spécial", una versión básica, con la mecanica del 2CV 4, que vuelve a incorporar los faros redondos y suprime la luneta de custodia.

Las bandas de caucho de los paragolpes se sustituyen por bandas adhesivas negras y se introducen amortiguadores delanteros.

La potencia del 2CV 6 se reduce de 28,5 cv a 26 cv a causa de las nuevas normas antipolución."

 

1977

"Los cinturones de seguridad enrollables se comienzan a montar de serie en los 2CV.

En las furgonetas se montan los cinturones de serie, pero no enrollables."

 

1978

"En marzo sale el Acadiane, una nueva furgoneta derivada del Dyane que reemplaza a las furgonetas 2CV. Monta un motor de 602 c.c., 31 cv DIN a 5750 rpm y alcanza los 100 Km/h.

También se deja de fabricar el 2CV 4.

El 2CV 6 es dotado de un nuevo carburador Solex de doble cuerpo, que consigue arrancarle al motor de 602 c.c. 29 cv DIN a 5750 rpm., y el filtro del aire pasa a ser de plástico."

 

1979

"El 2CV 4 "Spécial", con motor de 435 c.c. es reemplazado por un 2CV "Spécial" con el motor de 602 c.c. del 2CV 6.

El 2CV 6 es reemplazado por el 2CV "Confort" (2CV 6 CT)."

 

1980

"En el Salón de París aparece el 2CV "Charleston" de carroceria bicolor y faros redondos, en serie especial limitada a 8000 unidades, basado en el 2CV 6.

Cierra la fábrica de Bruxelles-Forest en Belgica."

 

1981

"El 2CV Charleston se empieza a fabricar en serie solo para Francia."

 

1983

"Sale el una serie limitada de 2000 coches, el 2CV "France 3", basados en el 2CV "Spécial", aunque en Gran Bretaña fue denominado 2CV "Beachcomber", y en el resto de paises 2CV "Olimpique".

 

1984

"Se fabrican otras 2000 unidades del 2CV "Olimpique".

 

1985

"Aparece una nueva serie especial limitada a 3000 unidades, el 2CV "Dolly".

1986

Sale en Francia el 2CV "Cocorico", una patriotica edición limitada a 1000 unidades, que estaba pintado con los colores de la bandera francesa.

En Gran Bretaña sale el 2CV "Bamboo", de color vede, que alcanzó gran popularidad."

 

1987

"El Citroën Mehari deja de ser producido."

 

1988

"La fábrica de Mangualde, en Portugal, acapara ahora la totalidad de la producción de los 2CV.

En Belgica sale a la venta el 2CV "Perrier", edición limitada a 1000 unidades, de color verde y blanco."

 

1990

"El 27 de Julio de 1990 cesa la fabricación del 2CV.

Después de 41 años, 8 meses y 21 dias de fabricación, se han vendido 3.872.583 2CV, hasta el 31 de Mayo de 1991."

 

Fuente: debates.coches.net/showthread.php?76568-La-Historia-Del-C...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Citroën 2CV

 

Manufacturer

Citroën

 

Production

1948–1990

 

Assembly

Forest/Vorst, Belgium

Liège, Belgium

Slough, UK

Jeppener, Argentina (1960–1962),

Buenos Aires, Argentina (1962–1980)

Montevideo, Uruguay (Panel van & pick-up)

Arica, Chile

Mangualde, Portugal

Paris, France

Vigo, Spain

Koper, Slovenia (former Yugoslavia)

 

Designer

André Lefèbvre

Flaminio Bertoni

Walter Becchia

Marcel Chinon

  

Class

Economy car

 

Body style

5-door hatchback

2-door panel van

2-door pick-up

 

Layout

Front engine, front-wheel drive / four-wheel drive

 

Related

Citroën Dyane

Citroën FAF

Citroën Méhari

Citroën Ami

Citroën Bijou

 

Engine

375 cc (23 CID) H2 air-cooled 9 hp.

425 cc H2 air-cooled 12hp.

435 cc H2 air-cooled 18 hp.

602 cc H2 air-cooled 29 hp.

 

Transmission

4-speed manual

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_2CV

 

More info: tractors.wikia.com/wiki/Citro%C3%ABn_2CV

 

Exercise Cobra Warrior After my afternoon visit on Tuesday 14th March, where I just missed photographing the visiting fighters arriving back at base, I made up for it on the following Friday 17th - managing to record the departure home of all six of the Belgian Air Component F-16s, four of the Finnish Air Force F-18s and a pair of the 'exotic' Indian Air Force Mirage 2000s 😎 :)

 

A video still of FA-77 - the second of the four Belgian Air Component F-16s that departed Waddington around 09.30 - arriving at the holding position.

 

Take a close look at FA-77 - I had no idea that the F-16s were fitted with in-flight toilets 😂😀 ;) Apparently, the powerful air intake was able to suck up standing water from the ground!

 

Exercise Cobra Warrior is a biannual exercise run by the Royal Air Force and is designed to exercise participants in high intensity large force tactical training. This year's exercise is taking place from the 6th to the 24th of March, controlled by directing staff at RAF Waddington. More info on Exercise Cobra Warrior here: www.raf.mod.uk/news/articles/international-participants-f...

 

Cobra Warrior Participants

 

Based at Waddington

 

🇧🇪Belgian Air Force (Force Aérienne Belge)🇧🇪

General Dynamics F-16AM Fighting Falcon (Viper) x6

 

FA-77

FA-102

FA-116 (349 sqd special tail)

FA-127

FA-134

FA-136 (display special)

 

🇫🇮 Finnish Air Force (Ilmavoimat) 🇫🇮

McDonnell Douglas F-18C Hornet x6

 

HN-406

HN-411 (small bull on nose)

HN-422

HN-424 (black lynx on nose)

HN-438

HN-448

 

🇮🇳 Indian Air Force 🇮🇳

Dassault Mirage 2000 x5

 

KF112 - 2000I

KF118 - 2000I

KT208 - 2000TI

KT211 - 2000TI

KT213 - 2000TI

 

Based at Coningsby

 

🈂 Royal Saudi Air Force 🈂

EF2000 Eurofighter Typhoon x6

 

1020 - T3

316 - FGR4

8019 - FGR4

1019 - FGR4

1022 - FGR4 (Green Canard)

8018 - FGR4

 

More info here: www.fightercontrol.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=455&t=...

 

Low-res shot taken with an iPhone 6s iPhone photography - apologies for the poor quality of some of these phone photos - sometimes they're nice and sharp - sometimes they're all pixelated and not up to my usual standard. The videos are better :)

 

You can see a random selection of my aviation memories here: www.flickriver.com/photos/heathrowjunkie/random/

THE HAZZARD RANGE HERALD

3:56 PM Friday 04/30/2021

Hazzard Range county Sheriff’s office Deputy Nathan Milton assisted County community health center EMS on 7th street in Sparta

 

Someone has got an important event to get to...

 

I wonder if that Regal will be the star of the show?

 

1:64 Racing Champions Mint:

1986 Buick Regal T-Type

 

PRO Truck Sales & Service

N. Baynard

 

Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II

Olympus M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 II R

 

1stPix Dioramas Facebook

Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.

 

Lettice is nursing a broken heart. Her beau, Selwyn Spencely, son of the Duke of Walmsford, has been sent to Durban for a year by his mother, the Duchess of Walmsford, Lady Zinnia in an effort to destroy their relationship which she wants to end so that she can marry Selwyn off to his cousin, Pamela Fox-Chavers. Lettice returned home to Glynes to lick her wounds, however it only served to make matters worse as she grew even more morose. It was from the most unlikely of candidates, her mother Lady Sadie, with whom Lettice has always had a fraught relationship, that Lettice received the best advice, which was to stop feeling sorry for herself and get on with her life and wait patiently for Selwyn’s eventual return. Since then, Lettice has been trying to follow her mother’s advice and has thrown herself into the merry dance of London’s social round of dinners, dances and balls. However, even she could only keep this up for so long, and on New Year’s Eve, her sister, Lally, suggested that she spend a few extra weeks resting and recuperating with her in Buckinghamshire before returning to London and trying to get on with her life. Lettice happily agreed, however her rest cure ended abruptly with a letter from her Aunt Egg in London, summoned Lettice back to the capital and into society in general. Through her social connections, Aunt Egg has contrived an invitation for Lettice and her married Embassy Club coterie friends Dickie and Margot Channon, to an amusing Friday to Monday long weekend party of Sir John and Lady Caxton, who are very well known amongst the smarter bohemian set of London society for their amusing weekend parties at their Scottish country estate and enjoyable literary evenings in their Belgravia townhouse. Lady Gladys is a successful authoress in her own right and writes under the nom de plume of Madeline St John, so they attract a mixture of witty writers and artists mostly.

 

Now we find ourselves in the cosy and cluttered, old fashioned Art and Crafts decorated drawing room of Gossington, the Scottish Baronial style English Art and Crafts castle near the hamlet of Kershopefoot in Cumberland belonging to Sir John and Lady Gladys, where Lettice, Margot and Dickie have joined their hosts along with a few stragglers who arrived on a later train to Carlisle who were chauffeured to the house from the railway station there.

 

Lady Gladys stands by one of the full length windows looking out at the countryside beyond. Her face crumples up as she stares at the roiling and dark clouds in the sky. She pats her finger waved grey hair anxiously, as though trying to protect it from being spoiled by the rain she perceives is coming, “Looks like the weather is on the turn, John.”

 

“What’s that, Gladys?” her husband pipes up, glancing over the top of his book from his Savonarola chair by the crackling fire.

 

“I said it’s starting to cloud over.” she replies in a slightly louder voice, turning to face him so he can hear her more clearly. “I do hope that it doesn’t rain on Pheobe and the other ramblers.”

 

“I’m sure they can all shelter in a barn somewhere.” he replies. “It will be a new and novel experience for some of them.”

 

Snorts and muffles giggles come from a few of the guests sitting about the room enjoying indoor pursuits.

 

Sir John looks over at the clusters of heads lowered together and chuckles good-naturedly as he remarks, “Don’t get so self-righteous you lot!” He closes his book. “I bet it would be a new and novel experience for most of you too!”

 

Lady Gladys wanders across the room, toying with the long string of pearls about her neck and takes a seat, just as Lettice appears at the door of the drawing room.

 

“Oh, do come in Lettice,” Lady Gladys says warmly from a corner of the Knole sofa* upholstered in William Morris’** ‘Strawberry Thief’ fabric. “Come and sit with me.” She softly pats the cushion next to her, the action emitting a small cloud of dust motes.

 

“Thank you Lady Caxton.” Lettice replies as she walks across the room, squeezing between the clusters of chairs and occasional tables, some occupied by the late arriving guests, including Dickie and Margot, playing a range of parlour games on offer from the Gossington games cupboard.

 

“Ah!” the hostess wags her finger admonishing at Lettice. “I might be older than your mother, my dear, but here, we are egalitarian. We are all on a first name basis. I am Gladys and Sir John is just, John. Hmmm?”

 

“Very well, thank you, Gladys.” Lettice replies awkwardly, a little startled by this revelation, as she sits on the opposite end of the sofa, closest to the fire.

 

“Gladys is an old Fabian*** from before you were born, Lettice.” Sir John adds with a kindly wink from his seat opposite her.

 

“Not so much of the old, thank you John!” Gladys remarks, pretending to be offended. “Remember, I’m younger than you.”

 

“That doesn’t say much when you compare yourself to all these youngsters!” He waves his hand about the room.

 

“That’s why I like young people,” Gladys smiles indulgently at Lettice, directing her comment to her rather than her husband. “They help keep me young with their talk of nightclubs, the latest shows and the like.”

 

“More like it gives you fodder for your next novel, Gladys.” He looks lovingly at his wife, a mischievous glint in his sparkling blue eyes and a cheeky smile playing across his lips. “Writing vicariously through others.”

 

“It pays to keep up to date with the latest trends, John. I don’t want to fall out of fashion.”

 

“I don’t think your novels will ever fall out of fashion, Lady… err, Gladys.” Lettice remarks magnanimously.

 

“You’re a flatterer, that’s for certain!” Lady Gladys chuckles. “You’ll get on. I shall graciously accept your compliment.” Her pale, wrinkled face stills for a moment as a far away look glazes over her eyes. “We none of us think we will fall out of fashion, but we do, in one way or another – especially as we get older. Take this room for example. Decorated in what was once the height of fashion. Would you decorate your home in this way, my dear Lettice?”

 

From her vantage point, Lettice gazes around the room. Looking at the William Morris ‘Strawberry Thief’ pattern on the sofa, woven carpet and the Morris ‘Poppies’ wallpaper, Lettice estimates the room, like most around the grey stone castle, were decorated in the late Nineteenth Century during the heyday of the Arts and Crafts Movement. A hotch-potch of furnishings that jostle comfortably for space suggests a period of prosperity driven acquisition over the ensuing years up until the Great War, yet each piece is of high quality and well made, implying her hosts’ dedication to the arts, as do the ornaments that cover surfaces around the room, all of which are beautiful and handmade. Old paintings of Scottish landscapes remind Lettice of Sir John’s proud heritage, whilst the large number of books tell her of Lady Caxton’s literary pursuits and success.

 

“Oh, I think it’s charming,” Lettice replies. “You obviously have an eye for fine workmanship and artistry.”

 

“But?” Lady Gladys picks up Lettice’s unspoken thought.

 

“But no, I wouldn’t decorate my home like this.”

 

“That’s the correct answer, Lettice.” Lady Gladys replies kindly. “And, if I were your age, I wouldn’t either. It’s fusty and old fashioned.”

 

“It is lovely though, and all my modern ideas would look out of place in a room like this. You need to have older things here, not what is fashionable and up-to-date. It would look out of place.”

 

“Tea, Lettice?” Gladys leans forward towards the low beautifully hand embroidered footstool before her and picks up an empty cup. “Or would you prefer coffee?”

 

“Oh, tea will be fine Lady Cax… err, I mean, Gladys.” She chuckles awkwardly at such familiarity with people she barely knows. “White and one sugar, please.”

 

“Good. I’ve never been one for coffee myself.” Lady Gladys pours tea from the silver pot into the cup over the sugar, and adds a slosh of milk, before she passes it to Lettice to stir. “I do hope you found your room to be satisfactory, Lettice.”

 

“It’s lovely. Thank you. I shall feel like Sleeping Beauty when I retire.”

 

“Hhmmm,” Gladys smiles understandingly. “Yes. I thought you’d like the décor in there.”

 

“The Art Nouveau wallpaper is lovely. It is William Morris, like in here, is it not?”

 

“Yes,” Lady Gladys remarks with a surprised lilt in her voice. “How clever of you to notice. It’s ‘Sweet Briar’, so your reference to Briar Rose is most apt, my dear.”

 

“My Aunt Eglantine has it in her bedroom in Chelsea. She loves William Morris too.”

 

“And you, Lettice? Do you like William Morris?” Lady Gladys asks.

 

“I like a mixture of old and new, Lad… Gladys. I think a well placed antique on a modern table adds elegance, and I think a William Morris cushion,” She pulls the cushion from behind her back and looks at it thoughtfully. “Could look splendid as an accent on a plain coloured settee.”

 

“How is Eglantine?” Sir John asks, changing the subject as he takes a sip of his own cup of tea.

 

“I didn’t know you were acquainted with my Aunt, Sir John, until my aunt told me of my invitation to this weekend.”

 

“Just John, my dear.” he corrects Lettice politely, causing her to blush. “Remember the old Fabian in the room.” He nods at his wife. “And yes, Gladys and I have similar artistic and literary pursuits to her, so we know Eglantyne quite well.”

 

“I have some of her pieces,” Lady Gladys remarks proudly and indicates firstly to two dainty pots of hand painted petunias on the mantlepiece, which are part of Eglantyne’s pre-war work, and then to a pedestal next to a very full bookcase, where one of Lettice’s aunt’s more modern pottery pieces sits. “She is a wonderful ceramicist and artist. She can create such beautiful sinuous lines in pottery. It really is remarkable.”

 

“She doesn’t do that so much now,” Lettice remarks.

 

“That’s a pity.” Lady Gladys replies a little sadly. “It’s a shame to waste such a gift.”

 

“Her arthritis slows her somewhat when it comes to ceramics, and she is seldom happy with the results. She’s following different pursuits these days.”

 

“She paints now, doesn’t she?” Sir Caxton asks.

 

“She does… John. She’s currently painting a piece for the Royal Academy.”

 

“Excellent! We shall look forward to seeing that, shan’t we Gladys?”

 

“Oh indeed, John. And of course, she has her embroidery.” Lady Gladys adds.

 

Lettice laughs softly. “I fear sometimes that if I sit still in her drawing room for long enough, one day she might embroider me.”

 

A thunderclap breaks outside. It’s noise echoes through the atmosphere inside, sending a collective shiver through the guests in the room.

 

“I told you, John. Pheobe and the others are sure to get rained upon now.” She glances around the high wing of the Knole sofa to the window. Looking back at Lettice, she picks up her own teacup and tops it up with tea from the pot before continuing, “Pheobe, our niece and ward, has taken all the other young guests for the weekend on a ramble about the estate to help everyone work up an appetite for dinner. I do hope they will be back soon, especially now that it’s going to pour.”

 

“I bet they all went to the pub in the village for a lark.” Dickie remarks from where he sits. “And they are quite cosy and warm in there. They’ll be back when they are good and ready.”

 

“You may be right, young Dickie!” Sir John chortles.

 

“I’m puzzled,” Lettice says, her face crumpling up in thought. “As to why you asked me here for the weekend.”

 

“Puzzled, my dear?” Lady Gladys asks.

 

“Yes. I must confess I was very surprised to receive your kind invitation – delighted, but surprised. I mean, we’ve never met as far as I’m aware. Is it because of your connection to my aunt?”

 

“Well, that does have a little to do with it, Lettice,” Sir John explains. “You are your aunt’s favourite niece…”

 

“She says that to all of us Si… err, John.”

 

“Well, be that as it may, she has spoken to us about you and your talents over many years, particularly since you have come of age. However, Gladys and I keep our own eye on the artistic scene in London, so your name has been mentioned to us a number of times on different occasions.”

 

“Really?” Lettice asks in astonishment.

 

“Oh yes,” adds Lady Gladys. “Surely you must know that you’re gaining quite a reputation now, for your stylish interior designs.”

 

“Especially after that article in Country Life, showing the work you did for Margot and Dickie,” Sir John nods in the direction of the couple, ensconced together on an Art Nouveau sofa, happily playing cards. “It looked wonderful! So fresh and elegant with all those clean lines that are so fashionable now.”

 

“We did so want to finally meet you, dear Lettice.” Lady Gladys adds.

 

“Well,” Lettice blushes. “I’m very flattered, and honoured to be invited to Gossington. Your weekend parties are famous for being filled with fun and enjoyment.”

 

“Then I hope we shall not disappoint, dear Lettice.” Sir John beams.

 

“I’m sure with the return of the others, you won’t be starved for wit and aristocratic intelligentsia.” Lady Gladys adds. “Your aunt tells us that you can be quite witty yourself, and you obviously have intelligence amongst other attributes.”

 

Lettice notices a look exchanged between her two hosts but can’t read what it means.

 

“Ahem, Lettice,” Sir John clears his throat awkwardly. “I’m afraid that Gladys and I have a confession to make.”

 

“A confession?”

 

“Yes,” Lady Gladys explains. “I’m afraid that we’ve invited you here with an ulterior motive, my dear.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“Not that we aren’t delighted to have you here for your charm, beauty and obvious intelligence.” Sir John assures her with hands raised in defence.

 

“Yes.” Lady Gladys soothes in agreement with her husband. “As I said before, we’ve heard such great things about your interior designs, so you are under no obligation to agree to our request.”

 

Lettice suddenly looks about the room again, her eyes darting anxiously from surface to cluttered surface as she makes a calculated assumption. Her eyes grow wide and her cheeks pale. “You’re your request, La… Gladys?”

 

“Gladys my dear, you’ll scare the poor girl! She’ll think we want her to redecorate this old pile of stones from the cellar to the battlements.”

 

“Oh no!” Lady Gladys assures Lettice. “We don’t want you to redecorate our home! No, I have far too many treasures here to ever think of parting with. Good heavens no!”

 

“Then what?” Lettice asks cautiously.

 

“Well, it’s Pheobe.” Lady Gladys explains. “She’s moving to London. Now that she’s of age, she has decided to pursue a career in garden design, and she’s been accepted to a school in Regent’s Park associated to the Royal Academy, so she’ll be in London more often than she has been.”

 

Lettice looks on, puzzled and unsure as to how she can be of service to her hosts’ ward. “You want me to decorate her rooms in your London townhouse?”

 

“Oh no my dear!” Sir John defends. “Like here, our London house is very much an Arts and Crafts relic.”

 

“No. Pheobe’s father, my youngest brother Reginald, was part of the civil service in India before the war.” Lady Gladys continues. “He and Pheobe’s mother, Marjorie, died of cholera out there.”

 

“Oh, I am sorry.” Lettice says sadly, putting her hand to her chest.

 

“Thank you my dear. My brother bought a pied-à-terre**** in Bloomsbury for when they were in London.”

 

“Gladys actually lived in it when she worked as my secretary before she married me.” Sir John adds.

 

“Yes.” Lady Gladys acknowledges. “Anyway, when Reginald died, he bequeathed his pied-à-terre to his only surviving child, Pheobe. It was to be held in trust for her by us until she came of age. Now she is of age, we’re giving her the flat to live in. It will be more efficient, as when we go to London, we take staff from here, and when we aren’t in London, there is only a caretaker looking after the house. Pheobe can manage the flat without the need for any live-in staff, and she can finally have some independence from us, which I suspect she craves.”

 

“The flat hasn’t been redecorated since Reginal and Marjorie lived there.” Sir John adds.

 

“It’s so old fashioned.” Lady Gladys agrees. “It isn’t good for Pheobe to live in a flat surrounded by the ghosts of parents she hardly even knew. You’ll be sitting next to her at dinner tonight, and dear Nettie, who has some considerable sway with Pheobe. We’ve suggested that Pheobe talk to you herself. We’ll obviously foot any bills if she likes your ideas, which we’re quite sure she will. Will you consider it, my dear Lettice? It would be such a great favour to us, and to Pheobe of course.”

 

“Well, I’ll certainly consider it, Gladys.” Lettice replies.

 

“Splendid! Splendid!” Lady Gladys claps her hands in delight. “I knew you’d be open to the idea!”

 

*The original Knole Settee (also known as the Knole Sofa) is a couch chair that was made in the 17th century, probably around 1640. It is housed at Knole in Kent, a house owned by the Sackville-West family since 1605 but now in the care of the National Trust. It was originally used not as a comfortable sofa but as a formal throne-like seat on which an aristocrat or monarch would have sat to receive visitors. It was wide enough that a monarch and consort could be seated side by side. As of 2021, it is kept at Knole House in a transparent case.

 

**William Morris (24th of March 1834 – 3rd of October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, writer, and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts movement. He was a major contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts and methods of production. His literary contributions helped to establish the modern fantasy genre, while he helped win acceptance of socialism in fin de siècle Great Britain. In 1861, Morris founded the Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. decorative arts firm with Burne-Jones, Rossetti, Webb, and others, which became highly fashionable and much in demand. The firm profoundly influenced interior decoration throughout the Victorian period, with Morris designing tapestries, wallpaper, fabrics, furniture, and stained glass windows. In 1875, he assumed total control of the company, which was renamed Morris & Co.

 

***The Fabian Society is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies, rather than by revolutionary overthrow. The Fabian Society was also historically related to radicalism, a left-wing liberal tradition.

 

****A pied-à-terre is a small flat, house, or room kept for occasional use.

 

This very cluttered and overstuffed room may appear like something out of a historical stately country house, but it is in fact part of my 1:12 miniatures collection and includes items from my childhood, as well as those I have collected as an adult.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The Knole Sofa covered in William Morris’ ‘Strawberry Thief’ pattern comes from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The cushions on it, and on the Savonarola chair opposite also feature the Morris ‘Strawberry Thief’ pattern in 1:12 size, and came from an American seller on E-Bay. The Savonarola chairs are made by high-end miniature furniture manufacturer JBM Miniatures.

 

The large embroidered footstool in front of the fireplace was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq, but what is particularly special about it is that it has been covered in antique English floral micro petite point by V.H. Miniatures in the United Kingdom, which makes this a one-of-a-kind piece. The artisan who made this says that as one of her hobbies, she enjoys visiting old National Trust Houses in the hope of getting some inspiration to help her create new and exciting miniatures. She saw some beautiful petit point chairs a few years ago in one of the big houses in Derbyshire and then found exquisitely detailed petit point that was fine enough for 1:12 scale projects.

 

The small round footstool in front of Sir John’s Savonarola chair has been hand embroidered as well, and was acquired from Kathleen Knight’s Dolls House Shop in the united Kingdom.

 

The silver tea and coffee set on the large embroidered footstool, consisting of milk jug, sugar bowl coffee pot and teapot come from Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The silver tray upon which they stand also comes from Warwick Miniatures. The four dainty floral teacups with gilt edging scattered about the room are part of a larger tea set that I acquired from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.

 

The books on the table to the left of the photograph between the two Savonarola chairs are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. They are novels written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Most of the books I own that he has made may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection, but so little of his real artistry is seen because the books that he specialised in making are usually closed, sitting on shelves or closed on desks and table surfaces. These books are amongst the rarer exceptions that have been designed not to be opened. Nevertheless, the covers are copies of real Victorian bindings. What might amaze you even more is that all Ken Blythe’s books and magazines are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a miniature artisan piece. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago, as well as through his estate via his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

The wonderfully detailed red and white chess set in the foreground of the photograph came from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom. The set came in its own hand crafted compartmented wooden box with a working sliding lid which can be seen just in front of the Pig-a-Back and Ludo game boxes. The chess game is set up correctly with a match in progress. I wonder who will win? The table on which the chess game is being played comes from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom, whilst the two red velvet seated chairs drawn up to it, I acquired from an auction some years ago. The pieces date from the 1970s and are very well made.

 

The box of Ludo and Pig-a-Back are both 1:12 artisan pieces, produced authentically to scale with great attention to detail by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.

 

Sir John and Lady Gladys’ family photos on the mantlepiece are all real photos, produced to high standards in 1:12 size on photographic paper by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The frames are from various suppliers, but all are metal. Only one, the larger square frame at the back, leaning against the tall blue vase on the left-hand side of the mantle is sterling silver. I t was made in Birmingham in 1908 and is hallmarked on the back of the frame. It has a red leather backing.

 

The two small vases of primroses on the mantle are delicate 1:12 artisan porcelain miniature ornaments made and painted by hand by ceramicist Ann Dalton.

 

The two dark blue double handled gilt vases with floral banding at either end of the mantlepiece, I have had since I was a child. I was given them as a birthday gift when I was nine.

 

The two tall blue glazed jugs featuring irises at either end of the fireplace came from Mick and Marie’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom, as did the brown glazed jug on the tall pedestal in the corner of the room next to the bookcase.

 

The grey marble French barrel clock on the mantlepiece is a 1:12 artisan miniature made by Hall’s Miniature Clocks, supplied through Doreen Jeffries Small Wonders Miniatures in England.

 

The Georgian style fireplace with its heavy wooden surround and deep mantle in the background was made by Town Hall Miniatures supplied through Melody Jane’s Dolls’ House Suppliers in the United Kingdom.

 

The glass fronted bookcase is a replica of a bookcase belonging to Abraham Lincoln and is part of the Lincoln Collection, made and distributed in America.

 

Lady Gladys’ book collection inside the glass fronted bookcase are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Ken Blythe was famous in miniature collectors’ circles mostly for the miniature books that he made: all being authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. Each book is a 1:12 replica of a life sized volume with an authentic cover. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make these miniature artisan pieces. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago and through his estate courtesy of the generosity of his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.

 

The paintings hanging on the walls are all 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States. The wallpaper is William Morris’ ‘Poppies’ pattern, featuring stylised Art Nouveau poppies. William Morris papers and fabrics were popular in the late Victorian and early Edwardian period before the Great War.

 

The miniature Arts and Crafts rug on the floor is made by hand by Mackay and Gerrish in Sydney.

Molly: *walks in swinging a grocery bag, zeros in on Charley’s guilty expression, drops the bag, and signs* “What’d you do?”

 

Charley: *signs* “I’m in league with Kumi. She’s managed to corrupt me more in an hour than an entire childhood in the foster care system did.”

 

Molly: *grins impishly, signs* “Ain’t she something? Got great taste in men, too. I’d like to climb her husband like a squirrel…a squirrel hungry for nuts.”

 

Charley: *looks to the ceiling* “Are you there, God? It’s me, Charley. Please erase that horrific mental image from my brain. Thank you.”

 

Kumi: *waves at Molly, points to Charley’s sweater, points at Molly, mimes knitting, and points to herself*

 

Molly: *signs* “What in the hell was that? Tell her I don’t speak mime.”

 

Charley: *signs/says* “Kumi wants to know if you’ll knit her a sweater like mine.”

 

Molly: *hefts her bag onto the counter, signs* “Sure. I should be able to get to it by next spring.”

 

Charley: “She says she can do it by next spring.”

 

Kumi (annoyed): “No way! I want one now. I’ll pay double what Goldilocks did! Triple! Money’s no object.”

 

Molly: *signs while Charley translates aloud* “Sorry. Waiting list. And my other customers’ money spends just as pretty as yours. Guess you’re plumb outta luck, Stretch.“

 

Kumi: “I’ll give you a night with Simon.”

 

Molly: *eyebrows shoot up, signs excitedly while Charley translates* “Welcome to the front of the line. You’ll have your cardigan by Christmas. Tell Simon I like kink.”

 

Kumi: “Doesn’t everybody?”

 

Yuri: *places hands on hips* “Well, this is highly disturbing.”

 

What's the best possible Birthday gift? A Black Label Farrah Fawcett repainted and restyled by Noel Cruz FROM Noel Cruz! See more of Noel's work at ncruz.com. Farrah is wearing a black velvet dress by Elena Peredreeva on line at www.elenpriv.com. On Flickr www.flickr.com/photos/elenpriv/. Hands by Pure Icon Paris www.ebay.com/usr/pure-icon-paris.

 

Farrah is on facebook www.facebook.com/FLFawcett. On Tumblr at; farrahlenifawcett.tumblr.com. Join Farrah on Instagram at www.instagram.com/farrahlfawcett. On pinterest at www.pinterest.com/myfarrah/

 

Photo/Graphic Layout & web sites ncruz.com & myfarrah.com by www.stevemckinnis.com.

Hi everyone!

 

I´m really happy to present you again something! This is a minifig scaled model of a Stadler Kiss 2 train, in the colours of Westbahn. It contains 7216 bricks and it took 14 months to create it. Somewhere I wrote earlier, that if I don´t post, I don´t disappear, just my creations are getting more and more difficult. It takes a long time to figure out every small lines and details, etc. You know, it has to be perfect…

 

It´s the case with my newest creation on the pictures. Maybe some of you have already heard, that I´m currently working in Austria. I started on the workplace in October, 2019. One of the first things which I realized in the new environment was the train of the company Westbahn. (I arrived by train to the city) This is a passenger train company, which offers trains between Vienna and Salzburg. They have a stop in my city as well. The train has a really cool painting. Four colours, which are looking nice near each other and a lot of lines, which mean a really great challenge to build. Of course using stickers was prohibited, as nowadays always.

 

So I started to build the front in LDD in November, just one month later. When it was possible to see, that the model is similar to the real one, I started to buy the pieces to try the concept in real life. Of course it looked bad. But in comparison with my ICE (read the story again here) the process was much better. There was no break in the developing. I was always able to work happily on it and in Mai 2020, during the first Covid-lockdown the front car became almost ready (~2200 parts). After that I just copied the construction for the other end. It was boring and deadly. I´ve already had problems during the first car with special parts in special colours. But the copy-period was the worst. Parallel with it I started to buy pieces of course for the middle section. It was a bit easier, because it doesn´t have diagonal lines. And a few days ago I was ready!

 

Unfortunately Westbahn sold these trains to DB, but one of them stayed. The other trains of Westbahn are similar to this one, but they have small differences at doors and at painting. But I wanted to take the “Big Brother” picture with the correct train. It was very time-consuming to hunt it, so I decided, that I write to the company and ask it, when will be the train at my train station. It´s not the first time, that I´m trying to do similar pictures, and the owner, or the company have never helped. But Westbahn yes! They were very kind and helpful. They sent me, when the train comes. Despite of it I had to visit the train station three times, because I didn´t like first two pictures! So I would like to say a huge thanks to Westbahn here again!

 

Btw the train has motors, so it will hopefully functional in the future! If I get the Sbrick and the cables, I test it and if it will be possible to take it to an exhibition where there is a long train track, I make a video, I promise!

 

Thanks for watching the pictures and reading the story! Hope, you like the train, too! :)

Painted the window frames

a mountain to scale

Latest to join the McKindless fleet is a model bought in from a friend and fellow modeller. The Leyland National was fairly popular with McKindless, being used in both green and cream for local services and the British Airways inspired livery for coaches and Glasgow Shuttle vehicles. It is shown here alongside YIB4528 a Plaxton Premiere also wearing the BA inspired livery. The Glasgow Shuttle itself ran from the operators home area in Newmains to Glasgow’s Buchanan Bus Station via Wishaw, Netherton and Motherwell. Other members of the fleet can be caught in some of the pictures, with a Dart SLF returning for the end of duty being caught in some pictures, meanwhile a Metrobus hides inside the depot building next to Metrorider minibus. All three of these models wear the standard McKindless livery of green and pale yellow/cream, for standard stage-carriage service vehicles. Again, these three models were also bought in to form the fleet while I was starting out with spray paints rather than hand painting. These three were bought from a different friend.

Diego: “Actually, maybe the only time it should make sense is at two in the morning.” *finishes off his toast in one huge bite*

 

Charley: “I heard what you said to him this afternoon, and it’s been hard for me to accept. I know you told me that you had feelings for me, but I didn’t realize how…*voice tapers off*

 

Diego: “Intense they were.”

 

Charley: *picks at the crust on her toast* “I guess I should’ve. You’re an intense guy. But what I don’t understand is how you can love me so much…and hate me, too. And I mean really hate me. Are…are you ever going to forgive me?”

 

Diego: *mood abruptly sours, eyes glitter with suppressed rage, tightly* “I don’t know how, Charley. I don’t know how I’m *voice dips low into a growl* ever supposed to forgive you for that night.”

 

Charley: *looks up to meet Diego’s gaze squarely* “I’m sorry, Diego. I’m so sorry. It never occurred to me that someone would…have to find me afterwards. I wasn’t thinking about anyone or anything but myself and escaping by the only means I thought was left to me.”

 

Diego: *fist clenches* “What if it’d been Molly? Do you know what it’d have done to her? You came onto the scene after she’d finally begun healing from the hell she went through. You don’t know what she was like when I first found her: skin and bones, dead-eyed, dried blood still in her ears from the explosion that blasted out her eardrums. It took years for her to revert back to her annoyingly cheeky self. And you would’ve destroyed it all just because you decided to take the coward’s way out!” *gets up abruptly, chair making an obscenely loud scraping sound, as he turns his back on Charley, and attempts to rein in his temper*

 

Charley: *voice soft, but steady* “And what if Diego found me? A boy who suffered unimaginable brutality from a father who should’ve loved him, and a mother whose weakness let it all happen. Seeing me like that, covered in blood and lifeless, brought it all back for you. The day you came home from school and found your mother dead on the floor by your own father’s hand. You loved her…but you hated her, too, for refusing to leave. For letting him hurt her over and over again. For letting him hurt you.”

 

Diego: *back still turned, scathingly* “If that’s your way of accusing me of having an Oedipus complex, then you can shove it up your ass. What? You took one psychology course in college and that qualifies you to analyze me. I don’t love you because you remind me of my effing mother. I don’t know why I love you. I just do. You’re not the only one who has problems putting their feelings into words.”

 

Charley (dryly): “Yeah, but whereas I just don’t say anything, you say all the wrong things.”

 

Diego: *breathes in deeply and exhales slowly, turns back around, and resumes his seat* “But most of the time you can take it. And the times you can’t, I know you’ll forgive me. There. That’s one of the reasons why I love you right there.”

 

Charley: “Do you think you’ll ever forgive me, or will it always be in the back of your mind, festering?”

 

Diego: “I know you were messed up, Bug. Logically, I get why you did it, but it’s not logic that makes me feel like I’m suffocating every time I think about it. It’s not logic that has me dreaming about it and waking up in a cold sweat. Can I forgive you for cursing me with a memory that haunts me every damn day of my life? That makes me feel helpless like I used to when I was a kid? *shakes head* I don’t know.”

 

Charley: *presses a hand to her chest, face deeply grieved* “Is there anything I can do to make amends? I may not deserve your forgiveness, but I’m asking for it all the same.”

 

Diego: “Promise me that you’ll never try to kill yourself again.”

 

Fashion Credits

***Any doll enhancements (i.e. freckles, piercings, eye color changes, haircuts) were done by me unless otherwise stated.***

 

Charley

Shorts: Mattel – Barbie Playline – Fashion Avenue

Tank: Jakks Pacific – Hannah Montana

Socks: Mattel – Barbie Playline – Generation Girl Barbie

 

Doll is a Morning Dew Giselle transplanted to a Poppy body, re-rooted by the inimitable valmaxi(!!!)

 

Diego

PJ Pants: Kelsie of Mutant Goldfish Designs

Wife-beater: IT – Dynamite Boys – Summer Daze Kyu

 

Doll is a Rock Steady Romain, eyes, brows, facial hair, and shading by me.

 

Leucism is a condition where there is partial loss of pigmentation resulting in white, pale, or patchy coloration of the skin, hair, feathers, scales or cuticle, but not the eyes. Unlike albinism, it is caused by a reduction in multiple types of pigment, not just melanin. (Wikipedia)

 

According to the California Audubon Society, the lack of bright color may make a leucistic bird unattractive to mates and at greater danger of being attacked by predators. Lighter plumage may rob the birds of protective camouflage and make them more vulnerable to predators such as hawks and feral cats. Because plumage colors play an important role in courtship rituals, birds with leucism may be unable to find strong, healthy mates. Melanin is also an important structural component of feathers, and birds with extensive leucism have weaker feathers that will wear out more swiftly, making flight more difficult and eliminating some of the bird’s insulation against harsh weather.

This Baynard Police officer is almost an hour past "No crime time", stuck on a property damage roll-over, but when he sees one of the best local hook drivers show up, he's knows it won't be long now before the scene is all clear.

 

Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II

Olympus M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 II R

 

For more info about the dioramas, check out the FAQ: 1stPix FAQ

international women's day

zondag 7 maart 2010 13.00-17.00 uur

WG terrein

expo,installatie,performances, forumdiscussie, film

info www.puntwg.nl

Turret 7B

Turret 7B (Denton Hall Turret or Denton Turret) is located in West Denton opposite East Denton Hall (also known as Bishops House) on West Road. The turret is up to six courses high and is made from sandstone. It is recessed by 5 feet (1.5 m) into a section of the broad part of Hadrian's Wall that measures 65m long. Turret 7B is 13 feet (4.0 m) wide north to south and 14 feet (4.3 m) east to west with a 3 feet 8 inches (1.12 m) wide entrance in its south side. The wall associated with Turret 7B is the furthest east of the known surviving sections. Small sections of consolidated wall lie between Turret 7B and 7A at 54.98287°N 1.68616°W and 54.98271°N 1.68546°W.

 

The turret was first located in 1928 and excavated by the Office of Works in 1929. The excavation discovered a heap of pottery in the centre of the east wall, which has been suggested as the location of a window. Three different levels of floor were found suggesting three stages of occupation of 122–196, 205–295 and 300–367 AD. The original floor was constructed of clay and contained a hearth and a stone box, with a stone bowl on it, the floor had been partially repaired with flagstones. A spearhead and the binding from a shield were discovered within the repair. A building had been constructed over the turret and 18th-century pottery remains associated with this were also found. Another excavation was carried out in 1936. It has been proposed that Turret 7B was one of the structures garrisoned by soldiers based at the Condercum fort to the east in Benwell.

 

The turret was placed under English Heritage guardianship by 1971. The turret and attached wall are maintained as a single property by English Heritage (known as "Denton Hall Turret"). The organisation operates the property as an open access site with no entrance fees. Turret 7B was the first site on Hadrian's Wall visited in Guy de la Bédoyère's BBC Radio 4 series The Romans in Britain.

 

Location: 54.984139°N 1.691234°W

 

Roman Britain was the territory that became the Roman province of Britannia after the Roman conquest of Britain, consisting of a large part of the island of Great Britain. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410.

 

Julius Caesar invaded Britain in 55 and 54 BC as part of his Gallic Wars. According to Caesar, the Britons had been overrun or culturally assimilated by the Belgae during the British Iron Age and had been aiding Caesar's enemies. The Belgae were the only Celtic tribe to cross the sea into Britain, for to all other Celtic tribes this land was unknown. He received tribute, installed the friendly king Mandubracius over the Trinovantes, and returned to Gaul. Planned invasions under Augustus were called off in 34, 27, and 25 BC. In 40 AD, Caligula assembled 200,000 men at the Channel on the continent, only to have them gather seashells (musculi) according to Suetonius, perhaps as a symbolic gesture to proclaim Caligula's victory over the sea. Three years later, Claudius directed four legions to invade Britain and restore the exiled king Verica over the Atrebates. The Romans defeated the Catuvellauni, and then organized their conquests as the province of Britain. By 47 AD, the Romans held the lands southeast of the Fosse Way. Control over Wales was delayed by reverses and the effects of Boudica's uprising, but the Romans expanded steadily northward.

 

The conquest of Britain continued under command of Gnaeus Julius Agricola (77–84), who expanded the Roman Empire as far as Caledonia. In mid-84 AD, Agricola faced the armies of the Caledonians, led by Calgacus, at the Battle of Mons Graupius. Battle casualties were estimated by Tacitus to be upwards of 10,000 on the Caledonian side and about 360 on the Roman side. The bloodbath at Mons Graupius concluded the forty-year conquest of Britain, a period that possibly saw between 100,000 and 250,000 Britons killed. In the context of pre-industrial warfare and of a total population of Britain of c. 2 million, these are very high figures.

 

Under the 2nd-century emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, two walls were built to defend the Roman province from the Caledonians, whose realms in the Scottish Highlands were never controlled. Around 197 AD, the Severan Reforms divided Britain into two provinces: Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior. During the Diocletian Reforms, at the end of the 3rd century, Britannia was divided into four provinces under the direction of a vicarius, who administered the Diocese of the Britains. A fifth province, Valentia, is attested in the later 4th century. For much of the later period of the Roman occupation, Britannia was subject to barbarian invasions and often came under the control of imperial usurpers and imperial pretenders. The final Roman withdrawal from Britain occurred around 410; the native kingdoms are considered to have formed Sub-Roman Britain after that.

 

Following the conquest of the Britons, a distinctive Romano-British culture emerged as the Romans introduced improved agriculture, urban planning, industrial production, and architecture. The Roman goddess Britannia became the female personification of Britain. After the initial invasions, Roman historians generally only mention Britain in passing. Thus, most present knowledge derives from archaeological investigations and occasional epigraphic evidence lauding the Britannic achievements of an emperor. Roman citizens settled in Britain from many parts of the Empire.

 

History

Britain was known to the Classical world. The Greeks, the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians traded for Cornish tin in the 4th century BC. The Greeks referred to the Cassiterides, or "tin islands", and placed them near the west coast of Europe. The Carthaginian sailor Himilco is said to have visited the island in the 6th or 5th century BC and the Greek explorer Pytheas in the 4th. It was regarded as a place of mystery, with some writers refusing to believe it existed.

 

The first direct Roman contact was when Julius Caesar undertook two expeditions in 55 and 54 BC, as part of his conquest of Gaul, believing the Britons were helping the Gallic resistance. The first expedition was more a reconnaissance than a full invasion and gained a foothold on the coast of Kent but was unable to advance further because of storm damage to the ships and a lack of cavalry. Despite the military failure, it was a political success, with the Roman Senate declaring a 20-day public holiday in Rome to honour the unprecedented achievement of obtaining hostages from Britain and defeating Belgic tribes on returning to the continent.

 

The second invasion involved a substantially larger force and Caesar coerced or invited many of the native Celtic tribes to pay tribute and give hostages in return for peace. A friendly local king, Mandubracius, was installed, and his rival, Cassivellaunus, was brought to terms. Hostages were taken, but historians disagree over whether any tribute was paid after Caesar returned to Gaul.

 

Caesar conquered no territory and left no troops behind, but he established clients and brought Britain into Rome's sphere of influence. Augustus planned invasions in 34, 27 and 25 BC, but circumstances were never favourable, and the relationship between Britain and Rome settled into one of diplomacy and trade. Strabo, writing late in Augustus's reign, claimed that taxes on trade brought in more annual revenue than any conquest could. Archaeology shows that there was an increase in imported luxury goods in southeastern Britain. Strabo also mentions British kings who sent embassies to Augustus, and Augustus's own Res Gestae refers to two British kings he received as refugees. When some of Tiberius's ships were carried to Britain in a storm during his campaigns in Germany in 16 AD, they came back with tales of monsters.

 

Rome appears to have encouraged a balance of power in southern Britain, supporting two powerful kingdoms: the Catuvellauni, ruled by the descendants of Tasciovanus, and the Atrebates, ruled by the descendants of Commius. This policy was followed until 39 or 40 AD, when Caligula received an exiled member of the Catuvellaunian dynasty and planned an invasion of Britain that collapsed in farcical circumstances before it left Gaul. When Claudius successfully invaded in 43 AD, it was in aid of another fugitive British ruler, Verica of the Atrebates.

 

Roman invasion

The invasion force in 43 AD was led by Aulus Plautius,[26] but it is unclear how many legions were sent. The Legio II Augusta, commanded by future emperor Vespasian, was the only one directly attested to have taken part. The Legio IX Hispana, the XIV Gemina (later styled Martia Victrix) and the XX (later styled Valeria Victrix) are known to have served during the Boudican Revolt of 60/61, and were probably there since the initial invasion. This is not certain because the Roman army was flexible, with units being moved around whenever necessary. The IX Hispana may have been permanently stationed, with records showing it at Eboracum (York) in 71 and on a building inscription there dated 108, before being destroyed in the east of the Empire, possibly during the Bar Kokhba revolt.

 

The invasion was delayed by a troop mutiny until an imperial freedman persuaded them to overcome their fear of crossing the Ocean and campaigning beyond the limits of the known world. They sailed in three divisions, and probably landed at Richborough in Kent; at least part of the force may have landed near Fishbourne, West Sussex.

 

The Catuvellauni and their allies were defeated in two battles: the first, assuming a Richborough landing, on the river Medway, the second on the river Thames. One of their leaders, Togodumnus, was killed, but his brother Caratacus survived to continue resistance elsewhere. Plautius halted at the Thames and sent for Claudius, who arrived with reinforcements, including artillery and elephants, for the final march to the Catuvellaunian capital, Camulodunum (Colchester). Vespasian subdued the southwest, Cogidubnus was set up as a friendly king of several territories, and treaties were made with tribes outside direct Roman control.

 

Establishment of Roman rule

After capturing the south of the island, the Romans turned their attention to what is now Wales. The Silures, Ordovices and Deceangli remained implacably opposed to the invaders and for the first few decades were the focus of Roman military attention, despite occasional minor revolts among Roman allies like the Brigantes and the Iceni. The Silures were led by Caratacus, and he carried out an effective guerrilla campaign against Governor Publius Ostorius Scapula. Finally, in 51, Ostorius lured Caratacus into a set-piece battle and defeated him. The British leader sought refuge among the Brigantes, but their queen, Cartimandua, proved her loyalty by surrendering him to the Romans. He was brought as a captive to Rome, where a dignified speech he made during Claudius's triumph persuaded the emperor to spare his life. The Silures were still not pacified, and Cartimandua's ex-husband Venutius replaced Caratacus as the most prominent leader of British resistance.

 

On Nero's accession, Roman Britain extended as far north as Lindum. Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, the conqueror of Mauretania (modern day Algeria and Morocco), then became governor of Britain, and in 60 and 61 he moved against Mona (Anglesey) to settle accounts with Druidism once and for all. Paulinus led his army across the Menai Strait and massacred the Druids and burnt their sacred groves.

 

While Paulinus was campaigning in Mona, the southeast of Britain rose in revolt under the leadership of Boudica. She was the widow of the recently deceased king of the Iceni, Prasutagus. The Roman historian Tacitus reports that Prasutagus had left a will leaving half his kingdom to Nero in the hope that the remainder would be left untouched. He was wrong. When his will was enforced, Rome[clarification needed] responded by violently seizing the tribe's lands in full. Boudica protested. In consequence, Rome[clarification needed] punished her and her daughters by flogging and rape. In response, the Iceni, joined by the Trinovantes, destroyed the Roman colony at Camulodunum (Colchester) and routed the part of the IXth Legion that was sent to relieve it. Paulinus rode to London (then called Londinium), the rebels' next target, but concluded it could not be defended. Abandoned, it was destroyed, as was Verulamium (St. Albans). Between seventy and eighty thousand people are said to have been killed in the three cities. But Paulinus regrouped with two of the three legions still available to him, chose a battlefield, and, despite being outnumbered by more than twenty to one, defeated the rebels in the Battle of Watling Street. Boudica died not long afterwards, by self-administered poison or by illness. During this time, the Emperor Nero considered withdrawing Roman forces from Britain altogether.

 

There was further turmoil in 69, the "Year of the Four Emperors". As civil war raged in Rome, weak governors were unable to control the legions in Britain, and Venutius of the Brigantes seized his chance. The Romans had previously defended Cartimandua against him, but this time were unable to do so. Cartimandua was evacuated, and Venutius was left in control of the north of the country. After Vespasian secured the empire, his first two appointments as governor, Quintus Petillius Cerialis and Sextus Julius Frontinus, took on the task of subduing the Brigantes and Silures respectively.[38] Frontinus extended Roman rule to all of South Wales, and initiated exploitation of the mineral resources, such as the gold mines at Dolaucothi.

 

In the following years, the Romans conquered more of the island, increasing the size of Roman Britain. Governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola, father-in-law to the historian Tacitus, conquered the Ordovices in 78. With the XX Valeria Victrix legion, Agricola defeated the Caledonians in 84 at the Battle of Mons Graupius, in north-east Scotland. This was the high-water mark of Roman territory in Britain: shortly after his victory, Agricola was recalled from Britain back to Rome, and the Romans initially retired to a more defensible line along the Forth–Clyde isthmus, freeing soldiers badly needed along other frontiers.

 

For much of the history of Roman Britain, a large number of soldiers were garrisoned on the island. This required that the emperor station a trusted senior man as governor of the province. As a result, many future emperors served as governors or legates in this province, including Vespasian, Pertinax, and Gordian I.

 

Roman military organisation in the north

In 84 AD

In 84 AD

 

In 155 AD

In 155 AD

 

Hadrian's Wall, and Antonine Wall

There is no historical source describing the decades that followed Agricola's recall. Even the name of his replacement is unknown. Archaeology has shown that some Roman forts south of the Forth–Clyde isthmus were rebuilt and enlarged; others appear to have been abandoned. By 87 the frontier had been consolidated on the Stanegate. Roman coins and pottery have been found circulating at native settlement sites in the Scottish Lowlands in the years before 100, indicating growing Romanisation. Some of the most important sources for this era are the writing tablets from the fort at Vindolanda in Northumberland, mostly dating to 90–110. These tablets provide evidence for the operation of a Roman fort at the edge of the Roman Empire, where officers' wives maintained polite society while merchants, hauliers and military personnel kept the fort operational and supplied.

 

Around 105 there appears to have been a serious setback at the hands of the tribes of the Picts: several Roman forts were destroyed by fire, with human remains and damaged armour at Trimontium (at modern Newstead, in SE Scotland) indicating hostilities at least at that site.[citation needed] There is also circumstantial evidence that auxiliary reinforcements were sent from Germany, and an unnamed British war of the period is mentioned on the gravestone of a tribune of Cyrene. Trajan's Dacian Wars may have led to troop reductions in the area or even total withdrawal followed by slighting of the forts by the Picts rather than an unrecorded military defeat. The Romans were also in the habit of destroying their own forts during an orderly withdrawal, in order to deny resources to an enemy. In either case, the frontier probably moved south to the line of the Stanegate at the Solway–Tyne isthmus around this time.

 

A new crisis occurred at the beginning of Hadrian's reign): a rising in the north which was suppressed by Quintus Pompeius Falco. When Hadrian reached Britannia on his famous tour of the Roman provinces around 120, he directed an extensive defensive wall, known to posterity as Hadrian's Wall, to be built close to the line of the Stanegate frontier. Hadrian appointed Aulus Platorius Nepos as governor to undertake this work who brought the Legio VI Victrix legion with him from Germania Inferior. This replaced the famous Legio IX Hispana, whose disappearance has been much discussed. Archaeology indicates considerable political instability in Scotland during the first half of the 2nd century, and the shifting frontier at this time should be seen in this context.

 

In the reign of Antoninus Pius (138–161) the Hadrianic border was briefly extended north to the Forth–Clyde isthmus, where the Antonine Wall was built around 142 following the military reoccupation of the Scottish lowlands by a new governor, Quintus Lollius Urbicus.

 

The first Antonine occupation of Scotland ended as a result of a further crisis in 155–157, when the Brigantes revolted. With limited options to despatch reinforcements, the Romans moved their troops south, and this rising was suppressed by Governor Gnaeus Julius Verus. Within a year the Antonine Wall was recaptured, but by 163 or 164 it was abandoned. The second occupation was probably connected with Antoninus's undertakings to protect the Votadini or his pride in enlarging the empire, since the retreat to the Hadrianic frontier occurred not long after his death when a more objective strategic assessment of the benefits of the Antonine Wall could be made. The Romans did not entirely withdraw from Scotland at this time: the large fort at Newstead was maintained along with seven smaller outposts until at least 180.

 

During the twenty-year period following the reversion of the frontier to Hadrian's Wall in 163/4, Rome was concerned with continental issues, primarily problems in the Danubian provinces. Increasing numbers of hoards of buried coins in Britain at this time indicate that peace was not entirely achieved. Sufficient Roman silver has been found in Scotland to suggest more than ordinary trade, and it is likely that the Romans were reinforcing treaty agreements by paying tribute to their implacable enemies, the Picts.

 

In 175, a large force of Sarmatian cavalry, consisting of 5,500 men, arrived in Britannia, probably to reinforce troops fighting unrecorded uprisings. In 180, Hadrian's Wall was breached by the Picts and the commanding officer or governor was killed there in what Cassius Dio described as the most serious war of the reign of Commodus. Ulpius Marcellus was sent as replacement governor and by 184 he had won a new peace, only to be faced with a mutiny from his own troops. Unhappy with Marcellus's strictness, they tried to elect a legate named Priscus as usurper governor; he refused, but Marcellus was lucky to leave the province alive. The Roman army in Britannia continued its insubordination: they sent a delegation of 1,500 to Rome to demand the execution of Tigidius Perennis, a Praetorian prefect who they felt had earlier wronged them by posting lowly equites to legate ranks in Britannia. Commodus met the party outside Rome and agreed to have Perennis killed, but this only made them feel more secure in their mutiny.

 

The future emperor Pertinax (lived 126–193) was sent to Britannia to quell the mutiny and was initially successful in regaining control, but a riot broke out among the troops. Pertinax was attacked and left for dead, and asked to be recalled to Rome, where he briefly succeeded Commodus as emperor in 192.

 

3rd century

The death of Commodus put into motion a series of events which eventually led to civil war. Following the short reign of Pertinax, several rivals for the emperorship emerged, including Septimius Severus and Clodius Albinus. The latter was the new governor of Britannia, and had seemingly won the natives over after their earlier rebellions; he also controlled three legions, making him a potentially significant claimant. His sometime rival Severus promised him the title of Caesar in return for Albinus's support against Pescennius Niger in the east. Once Niger was neutralised, Severus turned on his ally in Britannia; it is likely that Albinus saw he would be the next target and was already preparing for war.

 

Albinus crossed to Gaul in 195, where the provinces were also sympathetic to him, and set up at Lugdunum. Severus arrived in February 196, and the ensuing battle was decisive. Albinus came close to victory, but Severus's reinforcements won the day, and the British governor committed suicide. Severus soon purged Albinus's sympathisers and perhaps confiscated large tracts of land in Britain as punishment. Albinus had demonstrated the major problem posed by Roman Britain. In order to maintain security, the province required the presence of three legions, but command of these forces provided an ideal power base for ambitious rivals. Deploying those legions elsewhere would strip the island of its garrison, leaving the province defenceless against uprisings by the native Celtic tribes and against invasion by the Picts and Scots.

 

The traditional view is that northern Britain descended into anarchy during Albinus's absence. Cassius Dio records that the new Governor, Virius Lupus, was obliged to buy peace from a fractious northern tribe known as the Maeatae. The succession of militarily distinguished governors who were subsequently appointed suggests that enemies of Rome were posing a difficult challenge, and Lucius Alfenus Senecio's report to Rome in 207 describes barbarians "rebelling, over-running the land, taking loot and creating destruction". In order to rebel, of course, one must be a subject – the Maeatae clearly did not consider themselves such. Senecio requested either reinforcements or an Imperial expedition, and Severus chose the latter, despite being 62 years old. Archaeological evidence shows that Senecio had been rebuilding the defences of Hadrian's Wall and the forts beyond it, and Severus's arrival in Britain prompted the enemy tribes to sue for peace immediately. The emperor had not come all that way to leave without a victory, and it is likely that he wished to provide his teenage sons Caracalla and Geta with first-hand experience of controlling a hostile barbarian land.

 

Northern campaigns, 208–211

An invasion of Caledonia led by Severus and probably numbering around 20,000 troops moved north in 208 or 209, crossing the Wall and passing through eastern Scotland on a route similar to that used by Agricola. Harried by punishing guerrilla raids by the northern tribes and slowed by an unforgiving terrain, Severus was unable to meet the Caledonians on a battlefield. The emperor's forces pushed north as far as the River Tay, but little appears to have been achieved by the invasion, as peace treaties were signed with the Caledonians. By 210 Severus had returned to York, and the frontier had once again become Hadrian's Wall. He assumed the title Britannicus but the title meant little with regard to the unconquered north, which clearly remained outside the authority of the Empire. Almost immediately, another northern tribe, the Maeatae, went to war. Caracalla left with a punitive expedition, but by the following year his ailing father had died and he and his brother left the province to press their claim to the throne.

 

As one of his last acts, Severus tried to solve the problem of powerful and rebellious governors in Britain by dividing the province into Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior. This kept the potential for rebellion in check for almost a century. Historical sources provide little information on the following decades, a period known as the Long Peace. Even so, the number of buried hoards found from this period rises, suggesting continuing unrest. A string of forts were built along the coast of southern Britain to control piracy; and over the following hundred years they increased in number, becoming the Saxon Shore Forts.

 

During the middle of the 3rd century, the Roman Empire was convulsed by barbarian invasions, rebellions and new imperial pretenders. Britannia apparently avoided these troubles, but increasing inflation had its economic effect. In 259 a so-called Gallic Empire was established when Postumus rebelled against Gallienus. Britannia was part of this until 274 when Aurelian reunited the empire.

 

Around the year 280, a half-British officer named Bonosus was in command of the Roman's Rhenish fleet when the Germans managed to burn it at anchor. To avoid punishment, he proclaimed himself emperor at Colonia Agrippina (Cologne) but was crushed by Marcus Aurelius Probus. Soon afterwards, an unnamed governor of one of the British provinces also attempted an uprising. Probus put it down by sending irregular troops of Vandals and Burgundians across the Channel.

 

The Carausian Revolt led to a short-lived Britannic Empire from 286 to 296. Carausius was a Menapian naval commander of the Britannic fleet; he revolted upon learning of a death sentence ordered by the emperor Maximian on charges of having abetted Frankish and Saxon pirates and having embezzled recovered treasure. He consolidated control over all the provinces of Britain and some of northern Gaul while Maximian dealt with other uprisings. An invasion in 288 failed to unseat him and an uneasy peace ensued, with Carausius issuing coins and inviting official recognition. In 293, the junior emperor Constantius Chlorus launched a second offensive, besieging the rebel port of Gesoriacum (Boulogne-sur-Mer) by land and sea. After it fell, Constantius attacked Carausius's other Gallic holdings and Frankish allies and Carausius was usurped by his treasurer, Allectus. Julius Asclepiodotus landed an invasion fleet near Southampton and defeated Allectus in a land battle.

 

Diocletian's reforms

As part of Diocletian's reforms, the provinces of Roman Britain were organized as a diocese governed by a vicarius under a praetorian prefect who, from 318 to 331, was Junius Bassus who was based at Augusta Treverorum (Trier).

 

The vicarius was based at Londinium as the principal city of the diocese. Londinium and Eboracum continued as provincial capitals and the territory was divided up into smaller provinces for administrative efficiency.

 

Civilian and military authority of a province was no longer exercised by one official and the governor was stripped of military command which was handed over to the Dux Britanniarum by 314. The governor of a province assumed more financial duties (the procurators of the Treasury ministry were slowly phased out in the first three decades of the 4th century). The Dux was commander of the troops of the Northern Region, primarily along Hadrian's Wall and his responsibilities included protection of the frontier. He had significant autonomy due in part to the distance from his superiors.

 

The tasks of the vicarius were to control and coordinate the activities of governors; monitor but not interfere with the daily functioning of the Treasury and Crown Estates, which had their own administrative infrastructure; and act as the regional quartermaster-general of the armed forces. In short, as the sole civilian official with superior authority, he had general oversight of the administration, as well as direct control, while not absolute, over governors who were part of the prefecture; the other two fiscal departments were not.

 

The early-4th-century Verona List, the late-4th-century work of Sextus Rufus, and the early-5th-century List of Offices and work of Polemius Silvius all list four provinces by some variation of the names Britannia I, Britannia II, Maxima Caesariensis, and Flavia Caesariensis; all of these seem to have initially been directed by a governor (praeses) of equestrian rank. The 5th-century sources list a fifth province named Valentia and give its governor and Maxima's a consular rank. Ammianus mentions Valentia as well, describing its creation by Count Theodosius in 369 after the quelling of the Great Conspiracy. Ammianus considered it a re-creation of a formerly lost province, leading some to think there had been an earlier fifth province under another name (may be the enigmatic "Vespasiana"), and leading others to place Valentia beyond Hadrian's Wall, in the territory abandoned south of the Antonine Wall.

 

Reconstructions of the provinces and provincial capitals during this period partially rely on ecclesiastical records. On the assumption that the early bishoprics mimicked the imperial hierarchy, scholars use the list of bishops for the 314 Council of Arles. The list is patently corrupt: the British delegation is given as including a Bishop "Eborius" of Eboracum and two bishops "from Londinium" (one de civitate Londinensi and the other de civitate colonia Londinensium). The error is variously emended: Bishop Ussher proposed Colonia, Selden Col. or Colon. Camalodun., and Spelman Colonia Cameloduni (all various names of Colchester); Gale and Bingham offered colonia Lindi and Henry Colonia Lindum (both Lincoln); and Bishop Stillingfleet and Francis Thackeray read it as a scribal error of Civ. Col. Londin. for an original Civ. Col. Leg. II (Caerleon). On the basis of the Verona List, the priest and deacon who accompanied the bishops in some manuscripts are ascribed to the fourth province.

 

In the 12th century, Gerald of Wales described the supposedly metropolitan sees of the early British church established by the legendary SS Fagan and "Duvian". He placed Britannia Prima in Wales and western England with its capital at "Urbs Legionum" (Caerleon); Britannia Secunda in Kent and southern England with its capital at "Dorobernia" (Canterbury); Flavia in Mercia and central England with its capital at "Lundonia" (London); "Maximia" in northern England with its capital at Eboracum (York); and Valentia in "Albania which is now Scotland" with its capital at St Andrews. Modern scholars generally dispute the last: some place Valentia at or beyond Hadrian's Wall but St Andrews is beyond even the Antonine Wall and Gerald seems to have simply been supporting the antiquity of its church for political reasons.

 

A common modern reconstruction places the consular province of Maxima at Londinium, on the basis of its status as the seat of the diocesan vicarius; places Prima in the west according to Gerald's traditional account but moves its capital to Corinium of the Dobunni (Cirencester) on the basis of an artifact recovered there referring to Lucius Septimius, a provincial rector; places Flavia north of Maxima, with its capital placed at Lindum Colonia (Lincoln) to match one emendation of the bishops list from Arles;[d] and places Secunda in the north with its capital at Eboracum (York). Valentia is placed variously in northern Wales around Deva (Chester); beside Hadrian's Wall around Luguvalium (Carlisle); and between the walls along Dere Street.

 

4th century

Emperor Constantius returned to Britain in 306, despite his poor health, with an army aiming to invade northern Britain, the provincial defences having been rebuilt in the preceding years. Little is known of his campaigns with scant archaeological evidence, but fragmentary historical sources suggest he reached the far north of Britain and won a major battle in early summer before returning south. His son Constantine (later Constantine the Great) spent a year in northern Britain at his father's side, campaigning against the Picts beyond Hadrian's Wall in the summer and autumn. Constantius died in York in July 306 with his son at his side. Constantine then successfully used Britain as the starting point of his march to the imperial throne, unlike the earlier usurper, Albinus.

 

In the middle of the century, the province was loyal for a few years to the usurper Magnentius, who succeeded Constans following the latter's death. After the defeat and death of Magnentius in the Battle of Mons Seleucus in 353, Constantius II dispatched his chief imperial notary Paulus Catena to Britain to hunt down Magnentius's supporters. The investigation deteriorated into a witch-hunt, which forced the vicarius Flavius Martinus to intervene. When Paulus retaliated by accusing Martinus of treason, the vicarius attacked Paulus with a sword, with the aim of assassinating him, but in the end he committed suicide.

 

As the 4th century progressed, there were increasing attacks from the Saxons in the east and the Scoti (Irish) in the west. A series of forts had been built, starting around 280, to defend the coasts, but these preparations were not enough when, in 367, a general assault of Saxons, Picts, Scoti and Attacotti, combined with apparent dissension in the garrison on Hadrian's Wall, left Roman Britain prostrate. The invaders overwhelmed the entire western and northern regions of Britannia and the cities were sacked. This crisis, sometimes called the Barbarian Conspiracy or the Great Conspiracy, was settled by Count Theodosius from 368 with a string of military and civil reforms. Theodosius crossed from Bononia (Boulogne-sur-Mer) and marched on Londinium where he began to deal with the invaders and made his base.[ An amnesty was promised to deserters which enabled Theodosius to regarrison abandoned forts. By the end of the year Hadrian's Wall was retaken and order returned. Considerable reorganization was undertaken in Britain, including the creation of a new province named Valentia, probably to better address the state of the far north. A new Dux Britanniarum was appointed, Dulcitius, with Civilis to head a new civilian administration.

 

Another imperial usurper, Magnus Maximus, raised the standard of revolt at Segontium (Caernarfon) in north Wales in 383, and crossed the English Channel. Maximus held much of the western empire, and fought a successful campaign against the Picts and Scots around 384. His continental exploits required troops from Britain, and it appears that forts at Chester and elsewhere were abandoned in this period, triggering raids and settlement in north Wales by the Irish. His rule was ended in 388, but not all the British troops may have returned: the Empire's military resources were stretched to the limit along the Rhine and Danube. Around 396 there were more barbarian incursions into Britain. Stilicho led a punitive expedition. It seems peace was restored by 399, and it is likely that no further garrisoning was ordered; by 401 more troops were withdrawn, to assist in the war against Alaric I.

 

End of Roman rule

The traditional view of historians, informed by the work of Michael Rostovtzeff, was of a widespread economic decline at the beginning of the 5th century. Consistent archaeological evidence has told another story, and the accepted view is undergoing re-evaluation. Some features are agreed: more opulent but fewer urban houses, an end to new public building and some abandonment of existing ones, with the exception of defensive structures, and the widespread formation of "dark earth" deposits indicating increased horticulture within urban precincts. Turning over the basilica at Silchester to industrial uses in the late 3rd century, doubtless officially condoned, marks an early stage in the de-urbanisation of Roman Britain.

 

The abandonment of some sites is now believed to be later than had been thought. Many buildings changed use but were not destroyed. There was a growing number of barbarian attacks, but these targeted vulnerable rural settlements rather than towns. Some villas such as Chedworth, Great Casterton in Rutland and Hucclecote in Gloucestershire had new mosaic floors laid around this time, suggesting that economic problems may have been limited and patchy. Many suffered some decay before being abandoned in the 5th century; the story of Saint Patrick indicates that villas were still occupied until at least 430. Exceptionally, new buildings were still going up in this period in Verulamium and Cirencester. Some urban centres, for example Canterbury, Cirencester, Wroxeter, Winchester and Gloucester, remained active during the 5th and 6th centuries, surrounded by large farming estates.

 

Urban life had generally grown less intense by the fourth quarter of the 4th century, and coins minted between 378 and 388 are very rare, indicating a likely combination of economic decline, diminishing numbers of troops, problems with the payment of soldiers and officials or with unstable conditions during the usurpation of Magnus Maximus 383–87. Coinage circulation increased during the 390s, but never attained the levels of earlier decades. Copper coins are very rare after 402, though minted silver and gold coins from hoards indicate they were still present in the province even if they were not being spent. By 407 there were very few new Roman coins going into circulation, and by 430 it is likely that coinage as a medium of exchange had been abandoned. Mass-produced wheel thrown pottery ended at approximately the same time; the rich continued to use metal and glass vessels, while the poor made do with humble "grey ware" or resorted to leather or wooden containers.

 

Sub-Roman Britain

Towards the end of the 4th century Roman rule in Britain came under increasing pressure from barbarian attacks. Apparently, there were not enough troops to mount an effective defence. After elevating two disappointing usurpers, the army chose a soldier, Constantine III, to become emperor in 407. He crossed to Gaul but was defeated by Honorius; it is unclear how many troops remained or ever returned, or whether a commander-in-chief in Britain was ever reappointed. A Saxon incursion in 408 was apparently repelled by the Britons, and in 409 Zosimus records that the natives expelled the Roman civilian administration. Zosimus may be referring to the Bacaudic rebellion of the Breton inhabitants of Armorica since he describes how, in the aftermath of the revolt, all of Armorica and the rest of Gaul followed the example of the Brettaniai. A letter from Emperor Honorius in 410 has traditionally been seen as rejecting a British appeal for help, but it may have been addressed to Bruttium or Bologna. With the imperial layers of the military and civil government gone, administration and justice fell to municipal authorities, and local warlords gradually emerged all over Britain, still utilizing Romano-British ideals and conventions. Historian Stuart Laycock has investigated this process and emphasised elements of continuity from the British tribes in the pre-Roman and Roman periods, through to the native post-Roman kingdoms.

 

In British tradition, pagan Saxons were invited by Vortigern to assist in fighting the Picts, Scoti, and Déisi. (Germanic migration into Roman Britannia may have begun much earlier. There is recorded evidence, for example, of Germanic auxiliaries supporting the legions in Britain in the 1st and 2nd centuries.) The new arrivals rebelled, plunging the country into a series of wars that eventually led to the Saxon occupation of Lowland Britain by 600. Around this time, many Britons fled to Brittany (hence its name), Galicia and probably Ireland. A significant date in sub-Roman Britain is the Groans of the Britons, an unanswered appeal to Aetius, leading general of the western Empire, for assistance against Saxon invasion in 446. Another is the Battle of Deorham in 577, after which the significant cities of Bath, Cirencester and Gloucester fell and the Saxons reached the western sea.

 

Historians generally reject the historicity of King Arthur, who is supposed to have resisted the Anglo-Saxon conquest according to later medieval legends.

 

Trade

During the Roman period Britain's continental trade was principally directed across the Southern North Sea and Eastern Channel, focusing on the narrow Strait of Dover, with more limited links via the Atlantic seaways. The most important British ports were London and Richborough, whilst the continental ports most heavily engaged in trade with Britain were Boulogne and the sites of Domburg and Colijnsplaat at the mouth of the river Scheldt. During the Late Roman period it is likely that the shore forts played some role in continental trade alongside their defensive functions.

 

Exports to Britain included: coin; pottery, particularly red-gloss terra sigillata (samian ware) from southern, central and eastern Gaul, as well as various other wares from Gaul and the Rhine provinces; olive oil from southern Spain in amphorae; wine from Gaul in amphorae and barrels; salted fish products from the western Mediterranean and Brittany in barrels and amphorae; preserved olives from southern Spain in amphorae; lava quern-stones from Mayen on the middle Rhine; glass; and some agricultural products. Britain's exports are harder to detect archaeologically, but will have included metals, such as silver and gold and some lead, iron and copper. Other exports probably included agricultural products, oysters and salt, whilst large quantities of coin would have been re-exported back to the continent as well.

 

These products moved as a result of private trade and also through payments and contracts established by the Roman state to support its military forces and officials on the island, as well as through state taxation and extraction of resources. Up until the mid-3rd century, the Roman state's payments appear to have been unbalanced, with far more products sent to Britain, to support its large military force (which had reached c. 53,000 by the mid-2nd century), than were extracted from the island.

 

It has been argued that Roman Britain's continental trade peaked in the late 1st century AD and thereafter declined as a result of an increasing reliance on local products by the population of Britain, caused by economic development on the island and by the Roman state's desire to save money by shifting away from expensive long-distance imports. Evidence has been outlined that suggests that the principal decline in Roman Britain's continental trade may have occurred in the late 2nd century AD, from c. 165 AD onwards. This has been linked to the economic impact of contemporary Empire-wide crises: the Antonine Plague and the Marcomannic Wars.

 

From the mid-3rd century onwards, Britain no longer received such a wide range and extensive quantity of foreign imports as it did during the earlier part of the Roman period; vast quantities of coin from continental mints reached the island, whilst there is historical evidence for the export of large amounts of British grain to the continent during the mid-4th century. During the latter part of the Roman period British agricultural products, paid for by both the Roman state and by private consumers, clearly played an important role in supporting the military garrisons and urban centres of the northwestern continental Empire. This came about as a result of the rapid decline in the size of the British garrison from the mid-3rd century onwards (thus freeing up more goods for export), and because of 'Germanic' incursions across the Rhine, which appear to have reduced rural settlement and agricultural output in northern Gaul.

 

Economy

Mineral extraction sites such as the Dolaucothi gold mine were probably first worked by the Roman army from c. 75, and at some later stage passed to civilian operators. The mine developed as a series of opencast workings, mainly by the use of hydraulic mining methods. They are described by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History in great detail. Essentially, water supplied by aqueducts was used to prospect for ore veins by stripping away soil to reveal the bedrock. If veins were present, they were attacked using fire-setting and the ore removed for comminution. The dust was washed in a small stream of water and the heavy gold dust and gold nuggets collected in riffles. The diagram at right shows how Dolaucothi developed from c. 75 through to the 1st century. When opencast work was no longer feasible, tunnels were driven to follow the veins. The evidence from the site shows advanced technology probably under the control of army engineers.

 

The Wealden ironworking zone, the lead and silver mines of the Mendip Hills and the tin mines of Cornwall seem to have been private enterprises leased from the government for a fee. Mining had long been practised in Britain (see Grimes Graves), but the Romans introduced new technical knowledge and large-scale industrial production to revolutionise the industry. It included hydraulic mining to prospect for ore by removing overburden as well as work alluvial deposits. The water needed for such large-scale operations was supplied by one or more aqueducts, those surviving at Dolaucothi being especially impressive. Many prospecting areas were in dangerous, upland country, and, although mineral exploitation was presumably one of the main reasons for the Roman invasion, it had to wait until these areas were subdued.

 

By the 3rd and 4th centuries, small towns could often be found near villas. In these towns, villa owners and small-scale farmers could obtain specialist tools. Lowland Britain in the 4th century was agriculturally prosperous enough to export grain to the continent. This prosperity lay behind the blossoming of villa building and decoration that occurred between AD 300 and 350.

 

Britain's cities also consumed Roman-style pottery and other goods, and were centres through which goods could be distributed elsewhere. At Wroxeter in Shropshire, stock smashed into a gutter during a 2nd-century fire reveals that Gaulish samian ware was being sold alongside mixing bowls from the Mancetter-Hartshill industry of the West Midlands. Roman designs were most popular, but rural craftsmen still produced items derived from the Iron Age La Tène artistic traditions. Britain was home to much gold, which attracted Roman invaders. By the 3rd century, Britain's economy was diverse and well established, with commerce extending into the non-Romanised north.

 

Government

Further information: Governors of Roman Britain, Roman client kingdoms in Britain, and Roman auxiliaries in Britain

Under the Roman Empire, administration of peaceful provinces was ultimately the remit of the Senate, but those, like Britain, that required permanent garrisons, were placed under the Emperor's control. In practice imperial provinces were run by resident governors who were members of the Senate and had held the consulship. These men were carefully selected, often having strong records of military success and administrative ability. In Britain, a governor's role was primarily military, but numerous other tasks were also his responsibility, such as maintaining diplomatic relations with local client kings, building roads, ensuring the public courier system functioned, supervising the civitates and acting as a judge in important legal cases. When not campaigning, he would travel the province hearing complaints and recruiting new troops.

 

To assist him in legal matters he had an adviser, the legatus juridicus, and those in Britain appear to have been distinguished lawyers perhaps because of the challenge of incorporating tribes into the imperial system and devising a workable method of taxing them. Financial administration was dealt with by a procurator with junior posts for each tax-raising power. Each legion in Britain had a commander who answered to the governor and, in time of war, probably directly ruled troublesome districts. Each of these commands carried a tour of duty of two to three years in different provinces. Below these posts was a network of administrative managers covering intelligence gathering, sending reports to Rome, organising military supplies and dealing with prisoners. A staff of seconded soldiers provided clerical services.

 

Colchester was probably the earliest capital of Roman Britain, but it was soon eclipsed by London with its strong mercantile connections. The different forms of municipal organisation in Britannia were known as civitas (which were subdivided, amongst other forms, into colonies such as York, Colchester, Gloucester and Lincoln and municipalities such as Verulamium), and were each governed by a senate of local landowners, whether Brythonic or Roman, who elected magistrates concerning judicial and civic affairs. The various civitates sent representatives to a yearly provincial council in order to profess loyalty to the Roman state, to send direct petitions to the Emperor in times of extraordinary need, and to worship the imperial cult.

 

Demographics

Roman Britain had an estimated population between 2.8 million and 3 million people at the end of the second century. At the end of the fourth century, it had an estimated population of 3.6 million people, of whom 125,000 consisted of the Roman army and their families and dependents.[80] The urban population of Roman Britain was about 240,000 people at the end of the fourth century. The capital city of Londinium is estimated to have had a population of about 60,000 people. Londinium was an ethnically diverse city with inhabitants from the Roman Empire, including natives of Britannia, continental Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. There was also cultural diversity in other Roman-British towns, which were sustained by considerable migration, from Britannia and other Roman territories, including continental Europe, Roman Syria, the Eastern Mediterranean and North Africa. In a study conducted in 2012, around 45 percent of sites investigated dating from the Roman period had at least one individual of North African origin.

 

Town and country

During their occupation of Britain the Romans founded a number of important settlements, many of which survive. The towns suffered attrition in the later 4th century, when public building ceased and some were abandoned to private uses. Place names survived the deurbanised Sub-Roman and early Anglo-Saxon periods, and historiography has been at pains to signal the expected survivals, but archaeology shows that a bare handful of Roman towns were continuously occupied. According to S.T. Loseby, the very idea of a town as a centre of power and administration was reintroduced to England by the Roman Christianising mission to Canterbury, and its urban revival was delayed to the 10th century.

 

Roman towns can be broadly grouped in two categories. Civitates, "public towns" were formally laid out on a grid plan, and their role in imperial administration occasioned the construction of public buildings. The much more numerous category of vici, "small towns" grew on informal plans, often round a camp or at a ford or crossroads; some were not small, others were scarcely urban, some not even defended by a wall, the characteristic feature of a place of any importance.

 

Cities and towns which have Roman origins, or were extensively developed by them are listed with their Latin names in brackets; civitates are marked C

 

Alcester (Alauna)

Alchester

Aldborough, North Yorkshire (Isurium Brigantum) C

Bath (Aquae Sulis) C

Brough (Petuaria) C

Buxton (Aquae Arnemetiae)

Caerleon (Isca Augusta) C

Caernarfon (Segontium) C

Caerwent (Venta Silurum) C

Caister-on-Sea C

Canterbury (Durovernum Cantiacorum) C

Carlisle (Luguvalium) C

Carmarthen (Moridunum) C

Chelmsford (Caesaromagus)

Chester (Deva Victrix) C

Chester-le-Street (Concangis)

Chichester (Noviomagus Reginorum) C

Cirencester (Corinium) C

Colchester (Camulodunum) C

Corbridge (Coria) C

Dorchester (Durnovaria) C

Dover (Portus Dubris)

Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum) C

Gloucester (Glevum) C

Great Chesterford (the name of this vicus is unknown)

Ilchester (Lindinis) C

Leicester (Ratae Corieltauvorum) C

Lincoln (Lindum Colonia) C

London (Londinium) C

Manchester (Mamucium) C

Newcastle upon Tyne (Pons Aelius)

Northwich (Condate)

St Albans (Verulamium) C

Silchester (Calleva Atrebatum) C

Towcester (Lactodurum)

Whitchurch (Mediolanum) C

Winchester (Venta Belgarum) C

Wroxeter (Viroconium Cornoviorum) C

York (Eboracum) C

 

Religion

The druids, the Celtic priestly caste who were believed to originate in Britain, were outlawed by Claudius, and in 61 they vainly defended their sacred groves from destruction by the Romans on the island of Mona (Anglesey). Under Roman rule the Britons continued to worship native Celtic deities, such as Ancasta, but often conflated with their Roman equivalents, like Mars Rigonemetos at Nettleham.

 

The degree to which earlier native beliefs survived is difficult to gauge precisely. Certain European ritual traits such as the significance of the number 3, the importance of the head and of water sources such as springs remain in the archaeological record, but the differences in the votive offerings made at the baths at Bath, Somerset, before and after the Roman conquest suggest that continuity was only partial. Worship of the Roman emperor is widely recorded, especially at military sites. The founding of a Roman temple to Claudius at Camulodunum was one of the impositions that led to the revolt of Boudica. By the 3rd century, Pagans Hill Roman Temple in Somerset was able to exist peaceably and it did so into the 5th century.

 

Pagan religious practices were supported by priests, represented in Britain by votive deposits of priestly regalia such as chain crowns from West Stow and Willingham Fen.

 

Eastern cults such as Mithraism also grew in popularity towards the end of the occupation. The London Mithraeum is one example of the popularity of mystery religions among the soldiery. Temples to Mithras also exist in military contexts at Vindobala on Hadrian's Wall (the Rudchester Mithraeum) and at Segontium in Roman Wales (the Caernarfon Mithraeum).

 

Christianity

It is not clear when or how Christianity came to Britain. A 2nd-century "word square" has been discovered in Mamucium, the Roman settlement of Manchester. It consists of an anagram of PATER NOSTER carved on a piece of amphora. There has been discussion by academics whether the "word square" is a Christian artefact, but if it is, it is one of the earliest examples of early Christianity in Britain. The earliest confirmed written evidence for Christianity in Britain is a statement by Tertullian, c. 200 AD, in which he described "all the limits of the Spains, and the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons, inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ". Archaeological evidence for Christian communities begins to appear in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Small timber churches are suggested at Lincoln and Silchester and baptismal fonts have been found at Icklingham and the Saxon Shore Fort at Richborough. The Icklingham font is made of lead, and visible in the British Museum. A Roman Christian graveyard exists at the same site in Icklingham. A possible Roman 4th-century church and associated burial ground was also discovered at Butt Road on the south-west outskirts of Colchester during the construction of the new police station there, overlying an earlier pagan cemetery. The Water Newton Treasure is a hoard of Christian silver church plate from the early 4th century and the Roman villas at Lullingstone and Hinton St Mary contained Christian wall paintings and mosaics respectively. A large 4th-century cemetery at Poundbury with its east–west oriented burials and lack of grave goods has been interpreted as an early Christian burial ground, although such burial rites were also becoming increasingly common in pagan contexts during the period.

 

The Church in Britain seems to have developed the customary diocesan system, as evidenced from the records of the Council of Arles in Gaul in 314: represented at the council were bishops from thirty-five sees from Europe and North Africa, including three bishops from Britain, Eborius of York, Restitutus of London, and Adelphius, possibly a bishop of Lincoln. No other early sees are documented, and the material remains of early church structures are far to seek. The existence of a church in the forum courtyard of Lincoln and the martyrium of Saint Alban on the outskirts of Roman Verulamium are exceptional. Alban, the first British Christian martyr and by far the most prominent, is believed to have died in the early 4th century (some date him in the middle 3rd century), followed by Saints Julius and Aaron of Isca Augusta. Christianity was legalised in the Roman Empire by Constantine I in 313. Theodosius I made Christianity the state religion of the empire in 391, and by the 5th century it was well established. One belief labelled a heresy by the church authorities — Pelagianism — was originated by a British monk teaching in Rome: Pelagius lived c. 354 to c. 420/440.

 

A letter found on a lead tablet in Bath, Somerset, datable to c. 363, had been widely publicised as documentary evidence regarding the state of Christianity in Britain during Roman times. According to its first translator, it was written in Wroxeter by a Christian man called Vinisius to a Christian woman called Nigra, and was claimed as the first epigraphic record of Christianity in Britain. This translation of the letter was apparently based on grave paleographical errors, and the text has nothing to do with Christianity, and in fact relates to pagan rituals.

 

Environmental changes

The Romans introduced a number of species to Britain, including possibly the now-rare Roman nettle (Urtica pilulifera), said to have been used by soldiers to warm their arms and legs, and the edible snail Helix pomatia. There is also some evidence they may have introduced rabbits, but of the smaller southern mediterranean type. The European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) prevalent in modern Britain is assumed to have been introduced from the continent after the Norman invasion of 1066. Box (Buxus sempervirens) is rarely recorded before the Roman period, but becomes a common find in towns and villas

 

Legacy

During their occupation of Britain the Romans built an extensive network of roads which continued to be used in later centuries and many are still followed today. The Romans also built water supply, sanitation and wastewater systems. Many of Britain's major cities, such as London (Londinium), Manchester (Mamucium) and York (Eboracum), were founded by the Romans, but the original Roman settlements were abandoned not long after the Romans left.

 

Unlike many other areas of the Western Roman Empire, the current majority language is not a Romance language, or a language descended from the pre-Roman inhabitants. The British language at the time of the invasion was Common Brittonic, and remained so after the Romans withdrew. It later split into regional languages, notably Cumbric, Cornish, Breton and Welsh. Examination of these languages suggests some 800 Latin words were incorporated into Common Brittonic (see Brittonic languages). The current majority language, English, is based on the languages of the Germanic tribes who migrated to the island from continental Europe

 

Newcastle upon Tyne, or simply Newcastle is a cathedral city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is located on the River Tyne's northern bank, opposite Gateshead to the south. It is the most populous settlement in the Tyneside conurbation and North East England.

 

Newcastle developed around a Roman settlement called Pons Aelius, the settlement became known as Monkchester before taking on the name of a castle built in 1080 by William the Conqueror's eldest son, Robert Curthose. It was one of the world's largest ship building and repair centres during the industrial revolution. Newcastle was part of the county of Northumberland until 1400, when it separated and formed a county of itself. In 1974, Newcastle became part of Tyne and Wear. Since 2018, the city council has been part of the North of Tyne Combined Authority.

 

The history of Newcastle upon Tyne dates back almost 2,000 years, during which it has been controlled by the Romans, the Angles and the Norsemen amongst others. Newcastle upon Tyne was originally known by its Roman name Pons Aelius. The name "Newcastle" has been used since the Norman conquest of England. Due to its prime location on the River Tyne, the town developed greatly during the Middle Ages and it was to play a major role in the Industrial Revolution, being granted city status in 1882. Today, the city is a major retail, commercial and cultural centre.

 

Roman settlement

The history of Newcastle dates from AD 122, when the Romans built the first bridge to cross the River Tyne at that point. The bridge was called Pons Aelius or 'Bridge of Aelius', Aelius being the family name of Roman Emperor Hadrian, who was responsible for the Roman wall built across northern England along the Tyne–Solway gap. Hadrian's Wall ran through present-day Newcastle, with stretches of wall and turrets visible along the West Road, and at a temple in Benwell. Traces of a milecastle were found on Westgate Road, midway between Clayton Street and Grainger Street, and it is likely that the course of the wall corresponded to present-day Westgate Road. The course of the wall can be traced eastwards to the Segedunum Roman fort at Wallsend, with the fort of Arbeia down-river at the mouth of the Tyne, on the south bank in what is now South Shields. The Tyne was then a wider, shallower river at this point and it is thought that the bridge was probably about 700 feet (210 m) long, made of wood and supported on stone piers. It is probable that it was sited near the current Swing Bridge, due to the fact that Roman artefacts were found there during the building of the latter bridge. Hadrian himself probably visited the site in 122. A shrine was set up on the completed bridge in 123 by the 6th Legion, with two altars to Neptune and Oceanus respectively. The two altars were subsequently found in the river and are on display in the Great North Museum in Newcastle.

 

The Romans built a stone-walled fort in 150 to protect the river crossing which was at the foot of the Tyne Gorge, and this took the name of the bridge so that the whole settlement was known as Pons Aelius. The fort was situated on a rocky outcrop overlooking the new bridge, on the site of the present Castle Keep. Pons Aelius is last mentioned in 400, in a Roman document listing all of the Roman military outposts. It is likely that nestling in the shadow of the fort would have been a small vicus, or village. Unfortunately, no buildings have been detected; only a few pieces of flagging. It is clear that there was a Roman cemetery near Clavering Place, behind the Central station, as a number of Roman coffins and sarcophagi have been unearthed there.

 

Despite the presence of the bridge, the settlement of Pons Aelius was not particularly important among the northern Roman settlements. The most important stations were those on the highway of Dere Street running from Eboracum (York) through Corstopitum (Corbridge) and to the lands north of the Wall. Corstopitum, being a major arsenal and supply centre, was much larger and more populous than Pons Aelius.

 

Anglo-Saxon development

The Angles arrived in the North-East of England in about 500 and may have landed on the Tyne. There is no evidence of an Anglo-Saxon settlement on or near the site of Pons Aelius during the Anglo-Saxon age. The bridge probably survived and there may well have been a small village at the northern end, but no evidence survives. At that time the region was dominated by two kingdoms, Bernicia, north of the Tees and ruled from Bamburgh, and Deira, south of the Tees and ruled from York. Bernicia and Deira combined to form the kingdom of Northanhymbra (Northumbria) early in the 7th century. There were three local kings who held the title of Bretwalda – 'Lord of Britain', Edwin of Deira (627–632), Oswald of Bernicia (633–641) and Oswy of Northumbria (641–658). The 7th century became known as the 'Golden Age of Northumbria', when the area was a beacon of culture and learning in Europe. The greatness of this period was based on its generally Christian culture and resulted in the Lindisfarne Gospels amongst other treasures. The Tyne valley was dotted with monasteries, with those at Monkwearmouth, Hexham and Jarrow being the most famous. Bede, who was based at Jarrow, wrote of a royal estate, known as Ad Murum, 'at the Wall', 12 miles (19 km) from the sea. It is thought that this estate may have been in what is now Newcastle. At some unknown time, the site of Newcastle came to be known as Monkchester. The reason for this title is unknown, as we are unaware of any specific monasteries at the site, and Bede made no reference to it. In 875 Halfdan Ragnarsson, the Danish Viking conqueror of York, led

While snoozing by the fire is great, there is nothing finer than a cat nap on Bella’s lap!

  

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Bella is a Matthew Sutton OOAK Silkstone, wearing a vintage Pak Barbie gathered skirt (1962-1963) with a Dusk to Dawn Silkstone top (2001) and a vintage Pak Barbie cardigan sweater (1962-1963).

 

Pisha is a Yujin Japanese cats # 2.

CLAY COUNTY TIMES

Clay County Sheriff's Office( CCSO ) Undersheriff Neal Red stands next to sheriff;s office to campaign. Red told the Times that Sheriff's office has team up for NMDOT ENDWI Campaign and so many of sheriff's vehicle will have plates like this.He went on this is not new ,but it new for CCSO .

~~~~~SIDE NOTE ~~~~~~~~~

CCSO Undersheriff Neal Red was appoint back as undersheriff when Clay county Interim sheriff Susan Grass was sworn in early this year . He was Undersheriff from 2012 to 2014 . see Story 8 for more on that

Fish, any of approximately 34,000 species of vertebrate animals (phylum Chordata) found in the fresh and salt waters of the world. Living species range from the primitive jawless lampreys and hagfishes through the cartilaginous sharks, skates, and rays to the abundant and diverse bony fishes. Most fish species are cold-blooded; however, one species, the opah (Lampris guttatus), is warm-blooded.

 

The term fish is applied to a variety of vertebrates of several evolutionary lines. It describes a life-form rather than a taxonomic group. As members of the phylum Chordata, fish share certain features with other vertebrates. These features are gill slits at some point in the life cycle, a notochord, or skeletal supporting rod, a dorsal hollow nerve cord, and a tail. Living fishes represent some five classes, which are as distinct from one another as are the four classes of familiar air-breathing animals—amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. For example, the jawless fishes (Agnatha) have gills in pouches and lack limb girdles. Extant agnathans are the lampreys and the hagfishes. As the name implies, the skeletons of fishes of the class Chondrichthyes (from chondr, “cartilage,” and ichthyes, “fish”) are made entirely of cartilage. Modern fish of this class lack a swim bladder, and their scales and teeth are made up of the same placoid material. Sharks, skates, and rays are examples of cartilaginous fishes. The bony fishes are by far the largest class. Examples range from the tiny seahorse to the 450-kg (1,000-pound) blue marlin, from the flattened soles and flounders to the boxy puffers and ocean sunfishes. Unlike the scales of the cartilaginous fishes, those of bony fishes, when present, grow throughout life and are made up of thin overlapping plates of bone. Bony fishes also have an operculum that covers the gill slits.

 

The study of fishes, the science of ichthyology, is of broad importance. Fishes are of interest to humans for many reasons, the most important being their relationship with and dependence on the environment. A more obvious reason for interest in fishes is their role as a moderate but important part of the world’s food supply. This resource, once thought unlimited, is now realized to be finite and in delicate balance with the biological, chemical, and physical factors of the aquatic environment. Overfishing, pollution, and alteration of the environment are the chief enemies of proper fisheries management, both in fresh waters and in the ocean. (For a detailed discussion of the technology and economics of fisheries, see commercial fishing.) Another practical reason for studying fishes is their use in disease control. As predators on mosquito larvae, they help curb malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.

 

Fishes are valuable laboratory animals in many aspects of medical and biological research. For example, the readiness of many fishes to acclimate to captivity has allowed biologists to study behaviour, physiology, and even ecology under relatively natural conditions. Fishes have been especially important in the study of animal behaviour, where research on fishes has provided a broad base for the understanding of the more flexible behaviour of the higher vertebrates. The zebra fish is used as a model in studies of gene expression.

 

There are aesthetic and recreational reasons for an interest in fishes. Millions of people keep live fishes in home aquariums for the simple pleasure of observing the beauty and behaviour of animals otherwise unfamiliar to them. Aquarium fishes provide a personal challenge to many aquarists, allowing them to test their ability to keep a small section of the natural environment in their homes. Sportfishing is another way of enjoying the natural environment, also indulged in by millions of people every year. Interest in aquarium fishes and sportfishing supports multimillion-dollar industries throughout the world.

 

Fishes have been in existence for more than 450 million years, during which time they have evolved repeatedly to fit into almost every conceivable type of aquatic habitat. In a sense, land vertebrates are simply highly modified fishes: when fishes colonized the land habitat, they became tetrapod (four-legged) land vertebrates. The popular conception of a fish as a slippery, streamlined aquatic animal that possesses fins and breathes by gills applies to many fishes, but far more fishes deviate from that conception than conform to it. For example, the body is elongate in many forms and greatly shortened in others; the body is flattened in some (principally in bottom-dwelling fishes) and laterally compressed in many others; the fins may be elaborately extended, forming intricate shapes, or they may be reduced or even lost; and the positions of the mouth, eyes, nostrils, and gill openings vary widely. Air breathers have appeared in several evolutionary lines.

 

Many fishes are cryptically coloured and shaped, closely matching their respective environments; others are among the most brilliantly coloured of all organisms, with a wide range of hues, often of striking intensity, on a single individual. The brilliance of pigments may be enhanced by the surface structure of the fish, so that it almost seems to glow. A number of unrelated fishes have actual light-producing organs. Many fishes are able to alter their coloration—some for the purpose of camouflage, others for the enhancement of behavioral signals.

 

Fishes range in adult length from less than 10 mm (0.4 inch) to more than 20 metres (60 feet) and in weight from about 1.5 grams (less than 0.06 ounce) to many thousands of kilograms. Some live in shallow thermal springs at temperatures slightly above 42 °C (100 °F), others in cold Arctic seas a few degrees below 0 °C (32 °F) or in cold deep waters more than 4,000 metres (13,100 feet) beneath the ocean surface. The structural and, especially, the physiological adaptations for life at such extremes are relatively poorly known and provide the scientifically curious with great incentive for study.

 

Almost all natural bodies of water bear fish life, the exceptions being very hot thermal ponds and extremely salt-alkaline lakes, such as the Dead Sea in Asia and the Great Salt Lake in North America. The present distribution of fishes is a result of the geological history and development of Earth as well as the ability of fishes to undergo evolutionary change and to adapt to the available habitats. Fishes may be seen to be distributed according to habitat and according to geographical area. Major habitat differences are marine and freshwater. For the most part, the fishes in a marine habitat differ from those in a freshwater habitat, even in adjacent areas, but some, such as the salmon, migrate from one to the other. The freshwater habitats may be seen to be of many kinds. Fishes found in mountain torrents, Arctic lakes, tropical lakes, temperate streams, and tropical rivers will all differ from each other, both in obvious gross structure and in physiological attributes. Even in closely adjacent habitats where, for example, a tropical mountain torrent enters a lowland stream, the fish fauna will differ. The marine habitats can be divided into deep ocean floors (benthic), mid-water oceanic (bathypelagic), surface oceanic (pelagic), rocky coast, sandy coast, muddy shores, bays, estuaries, and others. Also, for example, rocky coastal shores in tropical and temperate regions will have different fish faunas, even when such habitats occur along the same coastline.

 

Although much is known about the present geographical distribution of fishes, far less is known about how that distribution came about. Many parts of the fish fauna of the fresh waters of North America and Eurasia are related and undoubtedly have a common origin. The faunas of Africa and South America are related, extremely old, and probably an expression of the drifting apart of the two continents. The fauna of southern Asia is related to that of Central Asia, and some of it appears to have entered Africa. The extremely large shore-fish faunas of the Indian and tropical Pacific oceans comprise a related complex, but the tropical shore fauna of the Atlantic, although containing Indo-Pacific components, is relatively limited and probably younger. The Arctic and Antarctic marine faunas are quite different from each other. The shore fauna of the North Pacific is quite distinct, and that of the North Atlantic more limited and probably younger. Pelagic oceanic fishes, especially those in deep waters, are similar the world over, showing little geographical isolation in terms of family groups. The deep oceanic habitat is very much the same throughout the world, but species differences do exist, showing geographical areas determined by oceanic currents and water masses.

 

All aspects of the life of a fish are closely correlated with adaptation to the total environment, physical, chemical, and biological. In studies, all the interdependent aspects of fish, such as behaviour, locomotion, reproduction, and physical and physiological characteristics, must be taken into account.

 

Correlated with their adaptation to an extremely wide variety of habitats is the extremely wide variety of life cycles that fishes display. The great majority hatch from relatively small eggs a few days to several weeks or more after the eggs are scattered in the water. Newly hatched young are still partially undeveloped and are called larvae until body structures such as fins, skeleton, and some organs are fully formed. Larval life is often very short, usually less than a few weeks, but it can be very long, some lampreys continuing as larvae for at least five years. Young and larval fishes, before reaching sexual maturity, must grow considerably, and their small size and other factors often dictate that they live in a habitat different than that of the adults. For example, most tropical marine shore fishes have pelagic larvae. Larval food also is different, and larval fishes often live in shallow waters, where they may be less exposed to predators.

 

After a fish reaches adult size, the length of its life is subject to many factors, such as innate rates of aging, predation pressure, and the nature of the local climate. The longevity of a species in the protected environment of an aquarium may have nothing to do with how long members of that species live in the wild. Many small fishes live only one to three years at the most. In some species, however, individuals may live as long as 10 or 20 or even 100 years.

 

Fish behaviour is a complicated and varied subject. As in almost all animals with a central nervous system, the nature of a response of an individual fish to stimuli from its environment depends upon the inherited characteristics of its nervous system, on what it has learned from past experience, and on the nature of the stimuli. Compared with the variety of human responses, however, that of a fish is stereotyped, not subject to much modification by “thought” or learning, and investigators must guard against anthropomorphic interpretations of fish behaviour.

 

Fishes perceive the world around them by the usual senses of sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste and by special lateral line water-current detectors. In the few fishes that generate electric fields, a process that might best be called electrolocation aids in perception. One or another of these senses often is emphasized at the expense of others, depending upon the fish’s other adaptations. In fishes with large eyes, the sense of smell may be reduced; others, with small eyes, hunt and feed primarily by smell (such as some eels).

 

Specialized behaviour is primarily concerned with the three most important activities in the fish’s life: feeding, reproduction, and escape from enemies. Schooling behaviour of sardines on the high seas, for instance, is largely a protective device to avoid enemies, but it is also associated with and modified by their breeding and feeding requirements. Predatory fishes are often solitary, lying in wait to dart suddenly after their prey, a kind of locomotion impossible for beaked parrot fishes, which feed on coral, swimming in small groups from one coral head to the next. In addition, some predatory fishes that inhabit pelagic environments, such as tunas, often school.

 

Sleep in fishes, all of which lack true eyelids, consists of a seemingly listless state in which the fish maintains its balance but moves slowly. If attacked or disturbed, most can dart away. A few kinds of fishes lie on the bottom to sleep. Most catfishes, some loaches, and some eels and electric fishes are strictly nocturnal, being active and hunting for food during the night and retiring during the day to holes, thick vegetation, or other protective parts of the environment.

 

Communication between members of a species or between members of two or more species often is extremely important, especially in breeding behaviour (see below Reproduction). The mode of communication may be visual, as between the small so-called cleaner fish and a large fish of a very different species. The larger fish often allows the cleaner to enter its mouth to remove gill parasites. The cleaner is recognized by its distinctive colour and actions and therefore is not eaten, even if the larger fish is normally a predator. Communication is often chemical, signals being sent by specific chemicals called pheromones.

 

Many fishes have a streamlined body and swim freely in open water. Fish locomotion is closely correlated with habitat and ecological niche (the general position of the animal to its environment).

 

Many fishes in both marine and fresh waters swim at the surface and have mouths adapted to feed best (and sometimes only) at the surface. Often such fishes are long and slender, able to dart at surface insects or at other surface fishes and in turn to dart away from predators; needlefishes, halfbeaks, and topminnows (such as killifish and mosquito fish) are good examples. Oceanic flying fishes escape their predators by gathering speed above the water surface, with the lower lobe of the tail providing thrust in the water. They then glide hundreds of yards on enlarged, winglike pectoral and pelvic fins. South American freshwater flying fishes escape their enemies by jumping and propelling their strongly keeled bodies out of the water.

 

So-called mid-water swimmers, the most common type of fish, are of many kinds and live in many habitats. The powerful fusiform tunas and the trouts, for example, are adapted for strong, fast swimming, the tunas to capture prey speedily in the open ocean and the trouts to cope with the swift currents of streams and rivers. The trout body form is well adapted to many habitats. Fishes that live in relatively quiet waters such as bays or lake shores or slow rivers usually are not strong, fast swimmers but are capable of short, quick bursts of speed to escape a predator. Many of these fishes have their sides flattened, examples being the sunfish and the freshwater angelfish of aquarists. Fish associated with the bottom or substrate usually are slow swimmers. Open-water plankton-feeding fishes almost always remain fusiform and are capable of rapid, strong movement (for example, sardines and herrings of the open ocean and also many small minnows of streams and lakes).

 

Bottom-living fishes are of many kinds and have undergone many types of modification of their body shape and swimming habits. Rays, which evolved from strong-swimming mid-water sharks, usually stay close to the bottom and move by undulating their large pectoral fins. Flounders live in a similar habitat and move over the bottom by undulating the entire body. Many bottom fishes dart from place to place, resting on the bottom between movements, a motion common in gobies. One goby relative, the mudskipper, has taken to living at the edge of pools along the shore of muddy mangrove swamps. It escapes its enemies by flipping rapidly over the mud, out of the water. Some catfishes, synbranchid eels, the so-called climbing perch, and a few other fishes venture out over damp ground to find more promising waters than those that they left. They move by wriggling their bodies, sometimes using strong pectoral fins; most have accessory air-breathing organs. Many bottom-dwelling fishes live in mud holes or rocky crevices. Marine eels and gobies commonly are found in such habitats and for the most part venture far beyond their cavelike homes. Some bottom dwellers, such as the clingfishes (Gobiesocidae), have developed powerful adhesive disks that enable them to remain in place on the substrate in areas such as rocky coasts, where the action of the waves is great.

 

The methods of reproduction in fishes are varied, but most fishes lay a large number of small eggs, fertilized and scattered outside of the body. The eggs of pelagic fishes usually remain suspended in the open water. Many shore and freshwater fishes lay eggs on the bottom or among plants. Some have adhesive eggs. The mortality of the young and especially of the eggs is very high, and often only a few individuals grow to maturity out of hundreds, thousands, and in some cases millions of eggs laid.

 

Males produce sperm, usually as a milky white substance called milt, in two (sometimes one) testes within the body cavity. In bony fishes a sperm duct leads from each testis to a urogenital opening behind the vent or anus. In sharks and rays and in cyclostomes the duct leads to a cloaca. Sometimes the pelvic fins are modified to help transmit the milt to the eggs at the female’s vent or on the substrate where the female has placed them. Sometimes accessory organs are used to fertilize females internally—for example, the claspers of many sharks and rays.

 

In the females the eggs are formed in two ovaries (sometimes only one) and pass through the ovaries to the urogenital opening and to the outside. In some fishes the eggs are fertilized internally but are shed before development takes place. Members of about a dozen families each of bony fishes (teleosts) and sharks bear live young. Many skates and rays also bear live young. In some bony fishes the eggs simply develop within the female, the young emerging when the eggs hatch (ovoviviparous). Others develop within the ovary and are nourished by ovarian tissues after hatching (viviparous). There are also other methods utilized by fishes to nourish young within the female. In all live-bearers the young are born at a relatively large size and are few in number. In one family of primarily marine fishes, the surfperches from the Pacific coast of North America, Japan, and Korea, the males of at least one species are born sexually mature, although they are not fully grown.

 

Some fishes are hermaphroditic—an individual producing both sperm and eggs, usually at different stages of its life. Self-fertilization, however, is probably rare.

 

Successful reproduction and, in many cases, defense of the eggs and the young are assured by rather stereotypical but often elaborate courtship and parental behaviour, either by the male or the female or both. Some fishes prepare nests by hollowing out depressions in the sand bottom (cichlids, for example), build nests with plant materials and sticky threads excreted by the kidneys (sticklebacks), or blow a cluster of mucus-covered bubbles at the water surface (gouramis). The eggs are laid in these structures. Some varieties of cichlids and catfishes incubate eggs in their mouths.

 

Some fishes, such as salmon, undergo long migrations from the ocean and up large rivers to spawn in the gravel beds where they themselves hatched (anadromous fishes). Some, such as the freshwater eels (family Anguillidae), live and grow to maturity in fresh water and migrate to the sea to spawn (catadromous fishes). Other fishes undertake shorter migrations from lakes into streams, within the ocean, or enter spawning habitats that they do not ordinarily occupy in other ways.

 

The basic structure and function of the fish body are similar to those of all other vertebrates. The usual four types of tissues are present: surface or epithelial, connective (bone, cartilage, and fibrous tissues, as well as their derivative, blood), nerve, and muscle tissues. In addition, the fish’s organs and organ systems parallel those of other vertebrates.

 

The typical fish body is streamlined and spindle-shaped, with an anterior head, a gill apparatus, and a heart, the latter lying in the midline just below the gill chamber. The body cavity, containing the vital organs, is situated behind the head in the lower anterior part of the body. The anus usually marks the posterior termination of the body cavity and most often occurs just in front of the base of the anal fin. The spinal cord and vertebral column continue from the posterior part of the head to the base of the tail fin, passing dorsal to the body cavity and through the caudal (tail) region behind the body cavity. Most of the body is of muscular tissue, a high proportion of which is necessitated by swimming. In the course of evolution this basic body plan has been modified repeatedly into the many varieties of fish shapes that exist today.

 

The skeleton forms an integral part of the fish’s locomotion system, as well as serving to protect vital parts. The internal skeleton consists of the skull bones (except for the roofing bones of the head, which are really part of the external skeleton), the vertebral column, and the fin supports (fin rays). The fin supports are derived from the external skeleton but will be treated here because of their close functional relationship to the internal skeleton. The internal skeleton of cyclostomes, sharks, and rays is of cartilage; that of many fossil groups and some primitive living fishes is mostly of cartilage but may include some bone. In place of the vertebral column, the earliest vertebrates had a fully developed notochord, a flexible stiff rod of viscous cells surrounded by a strong fibrous sheath. During the evolution of modern fishes the rod was replaced in part by cartilage and then by ossified cartilage. Sharks and rays retain a cartilaginous vertebral column; bony fishes have spool-shaped vertebrae that in the more primitive living forms only partially replace the notochord. The skull, including the gill arches and jaws of bony fishes, is fully, or at least partially, ossified. That of sharks and rays remains cartilaginous, at times partially replaced by calcium deposits but never by true bone.

 

The supportive elements of the fins (basal or radial bones or both) have changed greatly during fish evolution. Some of these changes are described in the section below (Evolution and paleontology). Most fishes possess a single dorsal fin on the midline of the back. Many have two and a few have three dorsal fins. The other fins are the single tail and anal fins and paired pelvic and pectoral fins. A small fin, the adipose fin, with hairlike fin rays, occurs in many of the relatively primitive teleosts (such as trout) on the back near the base of the caudal fin.

 

The skin of a fish must serve many functions. It aids in maintaining the osmotic balance, provides physical protection for the body, is the site of coloration, contains sensory receptors, and, in some fishes, functions in respiration. Mucous glands, which aid in maintaining the water balance and offer protection from bacteria, are extremely numerous in fish skin, especially in cyclostomes and teleosts. Since mucous glands are present in the modern lampreys, it is reasonable to assume that they were present in primitive fishes, such as the ancient Silurian and Devonian agnathans. Protection from abrasion and predation is another function of the fish skin, and dermal (skin) bone arose early in fish evolution in response to this need. It is thought that bone first evolved in skin and only later invaded the cartilaginous areas of the fish’s body, to provide additional support and protection. There is some argument as to which came first, cartilage or bone, and fossil evidence does not settle the question. In any event, dermal bone has played an important part in fish evolution and has different characteristics in different groups of fishes. Several groups are characterized at least in part by the kind of bony scales they possess.

 

Scales have played an important part in the evolution of fishes. Primitive fishes usually had thick bony plates or thick scales in several layers of bone, enamel, and related substances. Modern teleost fishes have scales of bone, which, while still protective, allow much more freedom of motion in the body. A few modern teleosts (some catfishes, sticklebacks, and others) have secondarily acquired bony plates in the skin. Modern and early sharks possessed placoid scales, a relatively primitive type of scale with a toothlike structure, consisting of an outside layer of enamel-like substance (vitrodentine), an inner layer of dentine, and a pulp cavity containing nerves and blood vessels. Primitive bony fishes had thick scales of either the ganoid or the cosmoid type. Cosmoid scales have a hard, enamel-like outer layer, an inner layer of cosmine (a form of dentine), and then a layer of vascular bone (isopedine). In ganoid scales the hard outer layer is different chemically and is called ganoin. Under this is a cosminelike layer and then a vascular bony layer. The thin, translucent bony scales of modern fishes, called cycloid and ctenoid (the latter distinguished by serrations at the edges), lack enameloid and dentine layers.

 

Skin has several other functions in fishes. It is well supplied with nerve endings and presumably receives tactile, thermal, and pain stimuli. Skin is also well supplied with blood vessels. Some fishes breathe in part through the skin, by the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide between the surrounding water and numerous small blood vessels near the skin surface.

 

Skin serves as protection through the control of coloration. Fishes exhibit an almost limitless range of colours. The colours often blend closely with the surroundings, effectively hiding the animal. Many fishes use bright colours for territorial advertisement or as recognition marks for other members of their own species, or sometimes for members of other species. Many fishes can change their colour to a greater or lesser degree, by movement of pigment within the pigment cells (chromatophores). Black pigment cells (melanophores), of almost universal occurrence in fishes, are often juxtaposed with other pigment cells. When placed beneath iridocytes or leucophores (bearing the silvery or white pigment guanine), melanophores produce structural colours of blue and green. These colours are often extremely intense, because they are formed by refraction of light through the needlelike crystals of guanine. The blue and green refracted colours are often relatively pure, lacking the red and yellow rays, which have been absorbed by the black pigment (melanin) of the melanophores. Yellow, orange, and red colours are produced by erythrophores, cells containing the appropriate carotenoid pigments. Other colours are produced by combinations of melanophores, erythrophores, and iridocytes.

 

The major portion of the body of most fishes consists of muscles. Most of the mass is trunk musculature, the fin muscles usually being relatively small. The caudal fin is usually the most powerful fin, being moved by the trunk musculature. The body musculature is usually arranged in rows of chevron-shaped segments on each side. Contractions of these segments, each attached to adjacent vertebrae and vertebral processes, bends the body on the vertebral joint, producing successive undulations of the body, passing from the head to the tail, and producing driving strokes of the tail. It is the latter that provides the strong forward movement for most fishes.

 

The digestive system, in a functional sense, starts at the mouth, with the teeth used to capture prey or collect plant foods. Mouth shape and tooth structure vary greatly in fishes, depending on the kind of food normally eaten. Most fishes are predacious, feeding on small invertebrates or other fishes and have simple conical teeth on the jaws, on at least some of the bones of the roof of the mouth, and on special gill arch structures just in front of the esophagus. The latter are throat teeth. Most predacious fishes swallow their prey whole, and the teeth are used for grasping and holding prey, for orienting prey to be swallowed (head first) and for working the prey toward the esophagus. There are a variety of tooth types in fishes. Some fishes, such as sharks and piranhas, have cutting teeth for biting chunks out of their victims. A shark’s tooth, although superficially like that of a piranha, appears in many respects to be a modified scale, while that of the piranha is like that of other bony fishes, consisting of dentine and enamel. Parrot fishes have beaklike mouths with short incisor-like teeth for breaking off coral and have heavy pavementlike throat teeth for crushing the coral. Some catfishes have small brushlike teeth, arranged in rows on the jaws, for scraping plant and animal growth from rocks. Many fishes (such as the Cyprinidae or minnows) have no jaw teeth at all but have very strong throat teeth.

 

Some fishes gather planktonic food by straining it from their gill cavities with numerous elongate stiff rods (gill rakers) anchored by one end to the gill bars. The food collected on these rods is passed to the throat, where it is swallowed. Most fishes have only short gill rakers that help keep food particles from escaping out the mouth cavity into the gill chamber.

 

Once reaching the throat, food enters a short, often greatly distensible esophagus, a simple tube with a muscular wall leading into a stomach. The stomach varies greatly in fishes, depending upon the diet. In most predacious fishes it is a simple straight or curved tube or pouch with a muscular wall and a glandular lining. Food is largely digested there and leaves the stomach in liquid form.

 

Between the stomach and the intestine, ducts enter the digestive tube from the liver and pancreas. The liver is a large, clearly defined organ. The pancreas may be embedded in it, diffused through it, or broken into small parts spread along some of the intestine. The junction between the stomach and the intestine is marked by a muscular valve. Pyloric ceca (blind sacs) occur in some fishes at this junction and have a digestive or absorptive function or both.

 

The intestine itself is quite variable in length, depending upon the fish’s diet. It is short in predacious forms, sometimes no longer than the body cavity, but long in herbivorous forms, being coiled and several times longer than the entire length of the fish in some species of South American catfishes. The intestine is primarily an organ for absorbing nutrients into the bloodstream. The larger its internal surface, the greater its absorptive efficiency, and a spiral valve is one method of increasing its absorption surface.

 

Sharks, rays, chimaeras, lungfishes, surviving chondrosteans, holosteans, and even a few of the more primitive teleosts have a spiral valve or at least traces of it in the intestine. Most modern teleosts have increased the area of the intestinal walls by having numerous folds and villi (fingerlike projections) somewhat like those in humans. Undigested substances are passed to the exterior through the anus in most teleost fishes. In lungfishes, sharks, and rays, it is first passed through the cloaca, a common cavity receiving the intestinal opening and the ducts from the urogenital system.

 

Oxygen and carbon dioxide dissolve in water, and most fishes exchange dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide in water by means of the gills. The gills lie behind and to the side of the mouth cavity and consist of fleshy filaments supported by the gill arches and filled with blood vessels, which give gills a bright red colour. Water taken in continuously through the mouth passes backward between the gill bars and over the gill filaments, where the exchange of gases takes place. The gills are protected by a gill cover in teleosts and many other fishes but by flaps of skin in sharks, rays, and some of the older fossil fish groups. The blood capillaries in the gill filaments are close to the gill surface to take up oxygen from the water and to give up excess carbon dioxide to the water.

 

Most modern fishes have a hydrostatic (ballast) organ, called the swim bladder, that lies in the body cavity just below the kidney and above the stomach and intestine. It originated as a diverticulum of the digestive canal. In advanced teleosts, especially the acanthopterygians, the bladder has lost its connection with the digestive tract, a condition called physoclistic. The connection has been retained (physostomous) by many relatively primitive teleosts. In several unrelated lines of fishes, the bladder has become specialized as a lung or, at least, as a highly vascularized accessory breathing organ. Some fishes with such accessory organs are obligate air breathers and will drown if denied access to the surface, even in well-oxygenated water. Fishes with a hydrostatic form of swim bladder can control their depth by regulating the amount of gas in the bladder. The gas, mostly oxygen, is secreted into the bladder by special glands, rendering the fish more buoyant; the gas is absorbed into the bloodstream by another special organ, reducing the overall buoyancy and allowing the fish to sink. Some deep-sea fishes may have oils, rather than gas, in the bladder. Other deep-sea and some bottom-living forms have much-reduced swim bladders or have lost the organ entirely.

 

The swim bladder of fishes follows the same developmental pattern as the lungs of land vertebrates. There is no doubt that the two structures have the same historical origin in primitive fishes. More or less intermediate forms still survive among the more primitive types of fishes, such as the lungfishes Lepidosiren and Protopterus.

 

The circulatory, or blood vascular, system consists of the heart, the arteries, the capillaries, and the veins. It is in the capillaries that the interchange of oxygen, carbon dioxide, nutrients, and other substances such as hormones and waste products takes place. The capillaries lead to the veins, which return the venous blood with its waste products to the heart, kidneys, and gills. There are two kinds of capillary beds: those in the gills and those in the rest of the body. The heart, a folded continuous muscular tube with three or four saclike enlargements, undergoes rhythmic contractions and receives venous blood in a sinus venosus. It passes the blood to an auricle and then into a thick muscular pump, the ventricle. From the ventricle the blood goes to a bulbous structure at the base of a ventral aorta just below the gills. The blood passes to the afferent (receiving) arteries of the gill arches and then to the gill capillaries. There waste gases are given off to the environment, and oxygen is absorbed. The oxygenated blood enters efferent (exuant) arteries of the gill arches and then flows into the dorsal aorta. From there blood is distributed to the tissues and organs of the body. One-way valves prevent backflow. The circulation of fishes thus differs from that of the reptiles, birds, and mammals in that oxygenated blood is not returned to the heart prior to distribution to the other parts of the body.

 

The primary excretory organ in fishes, as in other vertebrates, is the kidney. In fishes some excretion also takes place in the digestive tract, skin, and especially the gills (where ammonia is given off). Compared with land vertebrates, fishes have a special problem in maintaining their internal environment at a constant concentration of water and dissolved substances, such as salts. Proper balance of the internal environment (homeostasis) of a fish is in a great part maintained by the excretory system, especially the kidney.

 

The kidney, gills, and skin play an important role in maintaining a fish’s internal environment and checking the effects of osmosis. Marine fishes live in an environment in which the water around them has a greater concentration of salts than they can have inside their body and still maintain life. Freshwater fishes, on the other hand, live in water with a much lower concentration of salts than they require inside their bodies. Osmosis tends to promote the loss of water from the body of a marine fish and absorption of water by that of a freshwater fish. Mucus in the skin tends to slow the process but is not a sufficient barrier to prevent the movement of fluids through the permeable skin. When solutions on two sides of a permeable membrane have different concentrations of dissolved substances, water will pass through the membrane into the more concentrated solution, while the dissolved chemicals move into the area of lower concentration (diffusion).

 

The kidney of freshwater fishes is often larger in relation to body weight than that of marine fishes. In both groups the kidney excretes wastes from the body, but the kidney of freshwater fishes also excretes large amounts of water, counteracting the water absorbed through the skin. Freshwater fishes tend to lose salt to the environment and must replace it. They get some salt from their food, but the gills and skin inside the mouth actively absorb salt from water passed through the mouth. This absorption is performed by special cells capable of moving salts against the diffusion gradient. Freshwater fishes drink very little water and take in little water with their food.

 

Marine fishes must conserve water, and therefore their kidneys excrete little water. To maintain their water balance, marine fishes drink large quantities of seawater, retaining most of the water and excreting the salt. Most nitrogenous waste in marine fishes appears to be secreted by the gills as ammonia. Marine fishes can excrete salt by clusters of special cells (chloride cells) in the gills.

 

There are several teleosts—for example, the salmon—that travel between fresh water and seawater and must adjust to the reversal of osmotic gradients. They adjust their physiological processes by spending time (often surprisingly little time) in the intermediate brackish environment.

 

Marine hagfishes, sharks, and rays have osmotic concentrations in their blood about equal to that of seawater and so do not have to drink water nor perform much physiological work to maintain their osmotic balance. In sharks and rays the osmotic concentration is kept high by retention of urea in the blood. Freshwater sharks have a lowered concentration of urea in the blood.

 

Endocrine glands secrete their products into the bloodstream and body tissues and, along with the central nervous system, control and regulate many kinds of body functions. Cyclostomes have a well-developed endocrine system, and presumably it was well developed in the early Agnatha, ancestral to modern fishes. Although the endocrine system in fishes is similar to that of higher vertebrates, there are numerous differences in detail. The pituitary, the thyroid, the suprarenals, the adrenals, the pancreatic islets, the sex glands (ovaries and testes), the inner wall of the intestine, and the bodies of the ultimobranchial gland make up the endocrine system in fishes. There are some others whose function is not well understood. These organs regulate sexual activity and reproduction, growth, osmotic pressure, general metabolic activities such as the storage of fat and the utilization of foodstuffs, blood pressure, and certain aspects of skin colour. Many of these activities are also controlled in part by the central nervous system, which works with the endocrine system in maintaining the life of a fish. Some parts of the endocrine system are developmentally, and undoubtedly evolutionarily, derived from the nervous system.

 

As in all vertebrates, the nervous system of fishes is the primary mechanism coordinating body activities, as well as integrating these activities in the appropriate manner with stimuli from the environment. The central nervous system, consisting of the brain and spinal cord, is the primary integrating mechanism. The peripheral nervous system, consisting of nerves that connect the brain and spinal cord to various body organs, carries sensory information from special receptor organs such as the eyes, internal ears, nares (sense of smell), taste glands, and others to the integrating centres of the brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system also carries information via different nerve cells from the integrating centres of the brain and spinal cord. This coded information is carried to the various organs and body systems, such as the skeletal muscular system, for appropriate action in response to the original external or internal stimulus. Another branch of the nervous system, the autonomic nervous system, helps to coordinate the activities of many glands and organs and is itself closely connected to the integrating centres of the brain.

 

The brain of the fish is divided into several anatomical and functional parts, all closely interconnected but each serving as the primary centre of integrating particular kinds of responses and activities. Several of these centres or parts are primarily associated with one type of sensory perception, such as sight, hearing, or smell (olfaction).

 

The sense of smell is important in almost all fishes. Certain eels with tiny eyes depend mostly on smell for location of food. The olfactory, or nasal, organ of fishes is located on the dorsal surface of the snout. The lining of the nasal organ has special sensory cells that perceive chemicals dissolved in the water, such as substances from food material, and send sensory information to the brain by way of the first cranial nerve. Odour also serves as an alarm system. Many fishes, especially various species of freshwater minnows, react with alarm to a chemical released from the skin of an injured member of their own species.

 

Many fishes have a well-developed sense of taste, and tiny pitlike taste buds or organs are located not only within their mouth cavities but also over their heads and parts of their body. Catfishes, which often have poor vision, have barbels (“whiskers”) that serve as supplementary taste organs, those around the mouth being actively used to search out food on the bottom. Some species of naturally blind cave fishes are especially well supplied with taste buds, which often cover most of their body surface.

 

Sight is extremely important in most fishes. The eye of a fish is basically like that of all other vertebrates, but the eyes of fishes are extremely varied in structure and adaptation. In general, fishes living in dark and dim water habitats have large eyes, unless they have specialized in some compensatory way so that another sense (such as smell) is dominant, in which case the eyes will often be reduced. Fishes living in brightly lighted shallow waters often will have relatively small but efficient eyes. Cyclostomes have somewhat less elaborate eyes than other fishes, with skin stretched over the eyeball perhaps making their vision somewhat less effective. Most fishes have a spherical lens and accommodate their vision to far or near subjects by moving the lens within the eyeball. A few sharks accommodate by changing the shape of the lens, as in land vertebrates. Those fishes that are heavily dependent upon the eyes have especially strong muscles for accommodation. Most fishes see well, despite the restrictions imposed by frequent turbidity of the water and by light refraction.

 

Fossil evidence suggests that colour vision evolved in fishes more than 300 million years ago, but not all living fishes have retained this ability. Experimental evidence indicates that many shallow-water fishes, if not all, have colour vision and see some colours especially well, but some bottom-dwelling shore fishes live in areas where the water is sufficiently deep to filter out most if not all colours, and these fishes apparently never see colours. When tested in shallow water, they apparently are unable to respond to colour differences.

 

Sound perception and balance are intimately associated senses in a fish. The organs of hearing are entirely internal, located within the skull, on each side of the brain and somewhat behind the eyes. Sound waves, especially those of low frequencies, travel readily through water and impinge directly upon the bones and fluids of the head and body, to be transmitted to the hearing organs. Fishes readily respond to sound; for example, a trout conditioned to escape by the approach of fishermen will take flight upon perceiving footsteps on a stream bank even if it cannot see a fisherman. Compared with humans, however, the range of sound frequencies heard by fishes is greatly restricted. Many fishes communicate with each other by producing sounds in their swim bladders, in their throats by rasping their teeth, and in other ways.

 

A fish or other vertebrate seldom has to rely on a single type of sensory information to determine the nature of the environment around it. A catfish uses taste and touch when examining a food object with its oral barbels. Like most other animals, fishes have many touch receptors over their body surface. Pain and temperature receptors also are present in fishes and presumably produce the same kind of information to a fish as to humans. Fishes react in a negative fashion to stimuli that would be painful to human beings, suggesting that they feel a sensation of pain.

 

An important sensory system in fishes that is absent in other vertebrates (except some amphibians) is the lateral line system. This consists of a series of heavily innervated small canals located in the skin and bone around the eyes, along the lower jaw, over the head, and down the mid-side of the body, where it is associated with the scales. Intermittently along these canals are located tiny sensory organs (pit organs) that apparently detect changes in pressure. The system allows a fish to sense changes in water currents and pressure, thereby helping the fish to orient itself to the various changes that occur in the physical environment.

  

A tiny couple sits on my daughter's heart amulet.

 

Photo submitted to the Flickr group Macro Mondays for the "Heart's Desire" theme.

 

Part of the Little Dudes series, documenting the little dudes who live in my home.

 

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Purchase this image and learn more about it at the source.

 

Source: photos.jdhancock.com/photo/2010-02-15-001819-hearts-desir...

James Cospito's (Flickr) Moleskine sketches, seen at the Brooklyn Art Project HQ (Flickr Group) during the Dumbo Art Festival 2009.

 

See also James Cospito talks about his NYC Subway series (Flickr HD video)

  

13th annual D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival® (Sept 25 to Sept 27, 2009)

www.dumboartfestival.org/press_release.html

 

The three-day multi-site neighborhood-wide event is a one-of-a-kind art happening: where serendipity meets the haphazard and where the unpredictable, spontaneous and downright weird thrive. The now teenage D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival® presents touchable, accessible, and interactive art, on a scale that makes it the nation's largest urban forum for experimental art.

 

Art Under the Bridge is an opportunity for young artists to use any medium imaginable to create temporary projects on-the-spot everywhere and anywhere, completely transforming the Dumbo section of Brooklyn, New York, into a vibrant platform for self-expression. In addition to the 80+ projects throughout the historical post-industrial waterfront span, visitors can tour local artists' studios or check out the indoor video_dumbo, a non-stop program of cutting-edge video art from New York City and around the world.

 

The Dumbo Arts Center (DAC) has been the exclusive producer of the D.U.M.B.O Art Under the Bridge Festival® since 1997. DAC is a big impact, small non-profit, that in addition to its year-round gallery exhibitions, is committed to preserving Dumbo as a site in New York City where emerging visual artists can experiment in the public domain, while having unprecedented freedom and access to normally off-limit locations.

 

www.dumboartscenter.org

www.dumboartfestival.org

www.video_dumbo.org

  

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