Prairie Warbler on Snowdrop. Georgia. This was one of the 4 target warbler species for a client and his adult son for a two and a half day custom itinerary. We also tabulated 19 warbler species.

This area of the museum includes early "clocking in machines", "computing (weighing) scales" and master clocks from firms which became the foundation companies of IBM - International Time Recorders, Computing Scale Company and The Tabulating Machine Company

See more here...

slx-online.biz/hursley/

during this nail-biting day of vote tabulation and legal threats from Trump, I will keep some transcendent images in my mind that I discover on Flickr and from my own pre-pandemic vacatons. This was near El Bolson in Patagonia.

A lunar phase or Moon phase is the apparent shape of the Moon's directly sunlit portion as viewed from the Earth (because the Moon is tidally locked with the Earth, the same hemisphere is always facing the Earth). In common usage, the four major phases are the new moon, the first quarter, the full moon and the last quarter; the four minor phases are waxing crescent, waxing gibbous, waning gibbous, and waning crescent. A lunar month is the time between successive recurrences of the same phase: due to the eccentricity of the Moon's orbit, this duration is not perfectly constant but averages about 29.5 days.

The appearance of the Moon (its phase) gradually changes over a lunar month as the relative orbital positions of the Moon around Earth, and Earth around the Sun, shift. The visible side of the Moon is sunlit to varying extents, depending on the position of the Moon in its orbit, with the sunlit portion varying from 0% (at new moon) to nearly 100% (at full moon).

There are four principal (primary, or major) lunar phases: the new moon, first quarter, full moon, and last quarter (also known as third or final quarter), when the Moon's ecliptic longitude is at an angle to the Sun (as viewed from the center of the Earth) of 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270° respectively. Each of these phases appears at slightly different times at different locations on Earth, and tabulated times are therefore always geocentric (calculated for the Earth's center).

Between the principal phases are intermediate phases, during which the apparent shape of the illuminated Moon is either crescent or gibbous. On average, the intermediate phases last one-quarter of a synodic month, or 7.38 days.

The term waxing is used for an intermediate phase when the Moon's apparent shape is thickening, from new to a full moon; and waning when the shape is thinning. The duration from full moon to new moon (or new moon to full moon) varies from approximately 13 days 22+1⁄2 hours to about 15 days 14+1⁄2 hours.

07.30am and the sun is hot. So only a short walk for Max as the heat and humity increases. A day of tabulating results for my Phd and we will see what tommorow is like.....

A tabulate Coral, Syringopora sp, found in the upper layers of the Madison Limestone in the "Fossil Wall" at Barrys Landing in the Bighorn Canyon National Receation Area, MT. This type of coral, sometimes called “Organ Pipe Coral”, is commonly found in the Madison Limestone. This specimen is about 343 million years old.

Excerpt from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eganville,_Ontario:

Eganville is also known as the Ordovician Fossil Capital of Canada. There are many fossils to be found in this area from approximately 500 million years ago (in a time before dinosaurs) including coral, crinoids, trilobites, cephalopods, gastropods, pelecypods, stromatolites, and brachiopods.

Chand Baori is a stepwell situated in the village of Abhaneri in the Indian state of Rajasthan. It extends approximately 30 m (100 ft) into the ground, making it one of the deepest and largest stepwells in India. It is named after a local ruler of Nikumbh dynasty called Raja Chanda and its construction is dated to the 8th-9th century. It has 3500 steps cascading 13 stories deep into a massive tank at the bottom and has been constructed in an upside-down pyramid style.

Chand Baori is said to be named after a local ruler of Nikumbh Rajput dynasty called Raja Chanda. However, no epigraphic evidence has been found regarding the construction of the Chand Baori or the adjoining Harshat Mata Temple. Based on similarities in style and carvings with the terraced temples of Paranagar and Mandore, the Baori can be dated to the 8th-9th century. It was likely constructed before the temple. According to Morna Livingston in Steps to Water: The Ancient Stepwells of India, Chand Baori is one of the few stepwells that has "two classical periods of water building in a single setting".

The oldest parts of the step-well date from the 8th century onwards. An upper palace building was added to the site, which can be seen from the tabulated arches used by the Chauhan rulers. Adjoining the baori is the architecturally splendid and sculpturally beautiful Harshat Mata Temple, which was built between the 7th-8th century, but was destroyed and damaged by Mahmud Ghazni. Many of its pillars, columns, and statues now lie scattered. The Mughals also destroyed the Baori interior sculptures. Today, there are remains of old sculptures and carvings, which were suggested to be in the temple or in the various rooms. The nearby temple of Harshat Mata, goddess of joy, was a pilgrimage site and formed a complex together alongside the well.

Many of these stepwells, including Chand Baori, served multiple purposes alongside drawing water and playing a significant role in religious or ceremonial activities. Pilgrims are said to have found comfort in quenching their thirst and finding a resting spot at the steps of Chand Baori after their long travels.[6] This unique form of underground well-architecture remains constant from the 7th century in the existing monument. Excavated stones of the temple are now kept by the Archaeological Survey of India in the arcades of the well. Chand Baori is a significant architectural site in western India.

The main reason I haven't retired from my job after 40 years is because I get to help with wonderful conservation projects like this one at Casey Springs. Winneshiek County Conservation, where I work, acquired this section of Casey Springs several years ago. Now Winneshiek County Conservation is partnering with the Iowa DNR and Trout Unlimited to improve the trout habitat in this cold-water stream. As a background, Casey Springs is one of a handful of streams in Iowa that support a population of Iowa native-strain brook trout. Brook trout were common in northeastern Iowa before the pioneers arrived back in the mid-1800s but quickly vanished as plowing the ground for farming soon clogged the streams with silt after rain storms and the trout couldn't handle that continuous silt load. Eventually, Iowa's native brook trout were confined to one stream located here in Winneshiek County. Their progeny were stocked here in Casey Springs several years ago as an insurance policy to protect those rare genetics and also to try and reestablish native brook trout to more Iowa streams. Right now, Casey Springs has some steep ten-foot high banks of legacy silt that have been deposited in the floodplain by 150 years of soil erosion in the watershed. The Casey Springs stream enhancement project will grade those steep banks back to gentle slopes and replant them with prairie grasses to prevent erosion and keep dirt from washing back into the water. Some fish weirs will also be built in the stream to focus the water flow and help scour out the stream bottom and keep sediment from smothering the natural rock substrate. In this photo, fisheries biologists are shocking the stream to sample the brook trout population and gather baseline data. Population surveys will continue annually for at least five years after the project is completed to see how successful it is at boosting the brook trout population in Casey Springs. By the way, after this photo was taken I was back in the bucket brigade where we took the trout netted by the lead crew and carried them along for a short while before we would stop to tabulate what we caught.

The oldest parts of the step-well date from the 8th century onwards. An upper palace building was added to the site, which is viewed from the tabulated arches used by the Chauhan rulers.

Santa Cruz, Aruba -- More than 70 athletes from six nations took part in the 2010 “Best of the Best Maltin Polar Taekwondo Cup” held on the weekend in the Betico Croes Sport Center here. The visiting female and male athletes competed against their Aruban rivals in the event organized by the Brazil Taekwondo Foundation. High-tech devices were worn by the competitors around their upper bodies during the fights to electronically register kicks to the area of the torso and tabulate the points on a large monitor in the arena.

Jupiter Island is a town located on the barrier island also called Jupiter Island, in Martin County, Florida, United States; the town is part of Florida's Treasure Coast. It is part of the Port St. Lucie metropolitan area. The Town of Jupiter Island is located next to the unincorporated community of Hobe Sound. The population of Jupiter Island was 804 at the 2020 census.

Some of the wealthiest people in the United States live in Jupiter Island; the June 1999, issue of Worth magazine ranked it #1 in the country for having the highest median home sale, and it has the highest per capita income by ZIP Code Tabulation Area of any place in the US.

The approximate coordinates for the Town of Jupiter Island is located at 27°3′26″N 80°6′49″W (27.057287, –80.113616).[7]

It occupies the barrier island of the same name from the Palm Beach County line in the south to the Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge boundary in the north. It is bordered to the west by Hobe Sound and South Jupiter Narrows, and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 3.6 square miles (9.3 km2), of which 2.7 square miles (7.0 km2) are land and 0.9 square miles (2.3 km2), or 24.30%, are water.

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

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Island,_Florida

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

"You have to be an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of hot poison in your loins and a super-voluptuous flame aglow in your subtle spine (oh, how you have to cringe and hide!), in order to discern at once, by ineffable signs—the slightly feline outline of a cheekbone, the slenderness of a downy limb, and other indices which despair and shame and tears of tenderness forbid me to tabulate—the deadly little demon among the wholesome children; she stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power." -Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita.

...the slightly feline outline of a cheekbone, the slenderness of a downy limb, and other indices which despair and shame and tears of tenderness forbid me to tabulate—the deadly little demon among the wholesome children; she stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power.

Pictured here at the NECPWA Vintage vehicle rally, at the Woodhorn Colliery Museum, Woodhorn, Ashingon, Northumberland.

Built in December 1950, Registered in 1951 as MUR910, & supplied to the British Tabulating Machine Co. Not much is known of the subsequent history, until 2002, when it was purchased by the Bradworthy Transport Museum, Devon where it remained until 2010. It then moved on to yet another museum, this time the Moretonhampstead Motor museum, again in Devon. Here it remained in storage until purchase in 2017 by Moody's Haulage, whose livery it now carries. Restored over a 3 month period, by Heathline Commercials, a sister company of Moody's, and named after the Chairman's mother 'Peggy.'

Powered by a 3519cc Petrol engine, "Peggy; has a full-crash 4 speed gearbox. The original registration number is unavailable at this time.

A beautifully done restoration by any standards.

Sherlock and his difference engine - Wiberg's Automatic Tabulating Steam Operated Network.

The Monte Sirai site, inhabited since the Neolithic and the Nuraghic period, become, around 750 BC the site of a Phoenician settlement probably founded by the inhabitants of the nearby town of sulci (current S.Antioco).

The choice of location is probably due to its exceptional location: from the top of the volcanic tabulated, about 190 m., You can control both the sea, with the surrounding islands, the plains up to the mountains.

The top of the mountain housed the living quarters and public buildings of which the most important was certainly the temple of Astarte, which in the beginning was built around a pre-existing nuraghe that was the innermost part of the temple, the Holy of Holies.

The population reoccupy the site is relatively low, as evidenced by the 13 chamber tombs in the necropolis, which almost certainly correspond each to a family. During the Hellenistic period, Monte Sirai knows a new stage of development: in the fourth century, the citadel is provided with a wall with a thickness of 4 m, and grows in size and importance; the acropolis measuring 60x300 m. and he had a single access corridor.

With the Roman conquest, the city did not suffer any destruction, while all the fortifications that surrounded the acropolis were destroyed, and life went on quietly until a sudden drop, which occurred in 110 BC approximately, for still unclear reasons.

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

Il sito di Monte Sirai, frequentato fin dal neolitico e in epoca nuragica, diventa, attorno al 750 a.C. sede di un insediamento fenicio, probabilmente fondato dagli abitanti della vicina città di Sulci (attuale S.Antioco).

La scelta del luogo si deve probabilmente alla sua eccezionale posizione: dalla cima del tabulato vulcanico, alto circa 190 m., si può controllare sia il mare, con le isole circostanti, che la pianura sino ai monti.

La sommità del monte ospitava i quartieri d'abitazione e gli edifici pubblici dei quali il più importante era certamente il tempio di Astarte, che in principio fu costruito attorno ad un nuraghe preesistente che costituiva la parte più interna del tempio, il Sancta Sanctorum.

La popolazione che rioccupa il sito è di modesta entità, come testimoniato dalle 13 tombe a camera della necropoli, che quasi certamente corrispondevano ciascuna ad una famiglia. In epoca ellenistica, Monte Sirai conosce una nuova fase di sviluppo: nel IV secolo, la cittadella viene munita di una cinta muraria con uno spessore massimo di 4 m, e aumenta di dimensioni e di importanza; l'acropoli misurava 60x300 m. e, aveva un unico accesso a corridoio.

Con la conquista romana, la città non subì alcuna distruzione, mentre tutte le fortificazioni che circondavano l'acropoli furono rase al suolo, quindi la vita continuò tranquillamente sino all'improvviso abbandono, avvenuto nel 110 a.C. circa, per cause ancora oscure.

On the south side of Zion National Park is the town of Colorado City. We decided to stop just before the sunset and we were pleased with our view. Colorado City is a town in Mohave County, Arizona, United States, and is located in a region known as the Arizona Strip. The population was 2,478 at the 2020 census.[4] At least three Mormon fundamentalist sects are said to have been based there.[7] A majority of residents and many local officials belong to the most prominent of these sects, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, whose corporation also owned much of the land within and around the town until state intervention in the 2000s.

History

Colorado City, formerly known as "Short Creek" (or the Short Creek Community), was founded in 1913[8] by members of the Council of Friends, a breakaway group from the Salt Lake City–based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The Council of Friends membership desired a remote location where they could practice plural marriage, which had been publicly abandoned by the LDS Church in 1890. On July 26, 1953, Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle sent troops into the settlement to stop polygamy in what became known as the Short Creek raid.[9] The two-year legal battle that followed became a public relations disaster that damaged Pyle's political career and set a hands-off tone toward the town in Arizona for the next 50 years.[10]

After the death of Joseph W. Musser, the community split into two groups: the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints stayed in Short Creek, while the Apostolic United Brethren relocated to Bluffdale, Utah. The FLDS changed the name of the community to Colorado City (on the Arizona side of the border) and Hildale (on the Utah side) to eliminate any ties to the Short Creek raids.[8]

In January 2004, local FLDS fundamentalist leader Warren Jeffs expelled a group of 20 men, including the mayor, and gave their wives and children to other men.[11] Jeffs, now a convicted sexual predator, stated he was acting on the orders of God, while the men expelled claimed they were penalized for disagreeing with Jeffs. Observers stated[by whom?] that this was the most severe split to date within the community other than the split between Colorado City and Centennial Park. According to the Utah attorney general's office, this was not the first time Jeffs was accused of expelling men from the community; as many as 400 young men are estimated to have been expelled by Jeffs from 2001 to 2006. Most were removed for failing to follow Jeffs' rules, or for dating women without his permission. Many of these expelled men and boys were very naïve and sheltered and often wound up homeless in nearby towns such as Hurricane and St. George, Utah. Jeffs was placed on the FBI Ten Most Wanted list and eventually arrested on August 28, 2006.[12]

Most of the property in the town was owned by the United Effort Plan, a real estate trust of the FLDS.[13] In 2007, the state authorities began dismantling church ownership of Colorado City lands.[14] The FLDS church retaliated and indoctrinated their followers against the state, believing they were being targeted because of their beliefs. The FLDS followers became further secluded as a result. Remaining FLDS members refuse to believe the charges against Jeffs.[15]

On April 6, 2010, law enforcement officials in Mohave County, Arizona, and Washington County, Utah, served five search warrants seeking records from town officers. The warrants were served on government officials and departments, including the Town Manager, David Darger, as well as Colorado City's fire chief Jacob Barlow. As a result of the initial warrants, the Hildale Department of Public Safety was shut down, and emergency responders were prohibited from responding to calls without the approval of county officials. Firefighter Glen Jeffs indicated that the warrants referenced "misuse of funds".[16][17]

In response to a civil rights lawsuit by the United States Justice Department alleging that the Colorado City government, including law enforcement, was taking orders from the FLDS Church, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne announced in July 2012 that he was allocating funding to allow the Mohave County Sheriff's Department to provide daily patrols in the town.[18]

On March 20, 2014, a jury hearing the case of Cooke et al v. Colorado City, Town of et al[19] ruled that the towns of Colorado City and Hildale had discriminated against Ronald and Jinjer Cooke because they were not members of the FLDS Church.[20] The Cookes were awarded $5.2 million for "religious discrimination".[20] The Cooke family had moved to the Short Creek area in 2008 but were refused access to utilities by the towns of Colorado City and Hildale.[21] As a result of the ruling, Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne issued a press release stating that he "wants to eradicate discrimination in two polygamous towns" and believes that the court ruling will give him the tools to do it.[22]

Geography and climate

The landscape surrounding Colorado City in 2014

Colorado City is located in northeastern Mohave County at 36°59′25″N 112°58′33″W (36.99026, −112.97577) Its northern border is the Arizona–Utah state line, with the town of Hildale, Utah, to the north. Arizona State Route 389 passes through the center of town, leading east 31 miles (50 km) to Fredonia. To the north, Route 389 becomes Utah State Route 59, which leads northwest 22 miles (35 km) to Hurricane.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 8.924 square miles (23.11 km2), of which 0.008 square miles (0.02 km2), or 0.07%, are water.[2]

Colorado City has the typical cool semi-arid climate (Köppen BSk) of the interior Mountain West, with very warm to hot summers and cool to cold winters, typified by very large diurnal temperature ranges throughout most of the year. The hottest day on record was July 15, 2005, with 110 °F (43 °C). Rainfall is lowest from April to June, but is never particularly high on average, though during strong extratropical low pressure systems, as much as 5 inches (130 mm) may occasionally fall during a month.[23] The wettest year has been 1998 with 27.48 inches (698.0 mm), whilst the driest year has been 1956 with 4.76 inches (120.9 mm).[24] Snowfall is relatively light; the most in a month was in January 1982 with 29.0 inches (74 cm) and that winter had the most for a year with 46.5 inches (118 cm). The highest daily snow depth was however on February 2, 1979, with 13 inches (33 cm).

Climate data for Colorado City, Arizona (1991–2020 normals, extremes 1950–2012)

MonthJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDecYear

Record high °F (°C)70

(21)78

(26)88

(31)90

(32)98

(37)105

(41)110

(43)105

(41)99

(37)94

(34)83

(28)70

(21)110

(43)

Mean maximum °F (°C)62.0

(16.7)66.2

(19.0)74.0

(23.3)82.2

(27.9)90.7

(32.6)98.6

(37.0)102.5

(39.2)99.0

(37.2)94.3

(34.6)85.1

(29.5)72.2

(22.3)62.0

(16.7)103.0

(39.4)

Mean daily maximum °F (°C)48.9

(9.4)53.3

(11.8)60.6

(15.9)67.6

(19.8)77.7

(25.4)89.4

(31.9)94.6

(34.8)91.9

(33.3)84.5

(29.2)72.4

(22.4)58.8

(14.9)48.4

(9.1)70.7

(21.5)

Daily mean °F (°C)36.7

(2.6)40.5

(4.7)46.7

(8.2)52.7

(11.5)61.8

(16.6)71.9

(22.2)78.2

(25.7)76.7

(24.8)69.3

(20.7)57.4

(14.1)44.9

(7.2)36.1

(2.3)56.1

(13.4)

Mean daily minimum °F (°C)24.5

(−4.2)27.6

(−2.4)32.9

(0.5)37.8

(3.2)46.0

(7.8)54.3

(12.4)61.7

(16.5)61.6

(16.4)54.2

(12.3)42.4

(5.8)31.0

(−0.6)23.8

(−4.6)41.5

(5.3)

Mean minimum °F (°C)9.7

(−12.4)13.6

(−10.2)20.0

(−6.7)25.9

(−3.4)33.1

(0.6)41.2

(5.1)52.5

(11.4)52.5

(11.4)41.3

(5.2)28.4

(−2.0)15.8

(−9.0)8.2

(−13.2)5.0

(−15.0)

Record low °F (°C)−11

(−24)−4

(−20)6

(−14)13

(−11)22

(−6)28

(−2)40

(4)40

(4)29

(−2)6

(−14)1

(−17)−9

(−23)−11

(−24)

Average precipitation inches (mm)1.33

(34)1.81

(46)1.67

(42)1.12

(28)0.56

(14)0.31

(7.9)1.22

(31)1.43

(36)1.48

(38)1.16

(29)1.10

(28)1.13

(29)14.32

(362.9)

Average snowfall inches (cm)2.9

(7.4)3.6

(9.1)1.1

(2.8)0.6

(1.5)0.0

(0.0)0.0

(0.0)0.0

(0.0)0.0

(0.0)0.0

(0.0)0.4

(1.0)0.7

(1.8)3.1

(7.9)12.4

(31.5)

Average precipitation days (≥ 0.01 inch)5.67.56.34.73.22.64.86.54.14.84.05.159.2

Average snowy days (≥ 0.1 inch)1.31.30.70.40.00.00.00.00.00.10.31.15.2

Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (mean maxima/minima 1981–2010)[24][25]

Demographics

Historical population

CensusPop.Note%±

19801,439—

19902,42668.6%

20003,33437.4%

20104,82144.6%

20202,478−48.6%

2022 (est.)2,550[5]2.9%

U.S. Decennial Census[26]

2020 Census[4]

2000 census

As of the 2000 census, there were 3,334 people, 444 households, and 417 families residing in the town. The population density was 317.3 inhabitants per square mile (122.5/km2). There were 457 housing units at an average density of 43.5 per square mile (16.8/km2). The racial makeup of the town was 96.9% white, 0.2% black or African American, 0.1% Asian, 0.2% Pacific Islander, 1.8% from other races, and 0.9% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.9% of the population.

Of the 444 households, 83.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 85.8% were married couples living together, 3.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 5.9% were non-families. 4.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 1.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 7.51 and the average family size was 7.58. Colorado City had the fourth-highest household size in the nation, based on the 2012 5-Year American Community Survey count of an average household size of 8.04 people by zip code tabulation area.[27]

In the town, the population was spread out, with 60.4% under the age of 18, 11.4% from 18 to 24, 20.2% from 25 to 44, 6.3% from 45 to 64, and 1.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 14 years. For every 100 females, there were 102.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 91.3 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $32,826, and the median income for a family was $32,344. Males had a median income of $24,429 versus $22,969 for females. The per capita income for the town was $5,293. About 29.0% of families and 31.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 34.5% of those under age 18 and 6.3% of those age 65 or over.

The Colorado City/Hildale, Utah area has the world's highest incidence of fumarase deficiency, an extremely rare genetic condition which causes severe intellectual disability. Geneticists attribute this to the prevalence of cousin marriage between descendants of two of the town's founders, Joseph Smith Jessop and John Y. Barlow; at least half the area's roughly 8,000 inhabitants are descended from one or both.[28]

Wikipedia

Print derived from tabulation, cranston.

--

Cyanotype of the common sort, an astringing veal, sodium bicarbonate, drinking tea. Synthetic vellum. Like standing made of light, legs astride a confident gruel.

Turing designed the British Bombe in 1939. Compared to the Polish Bomba, it used a completely different approach. It was based on the assumption that a known (or guessed) plaintext, a so-called crib, is present at a certain position in the message. The Bombes were built by the British Tabulating Company (BTM, later ICL) at Letchworth (UK) under the supervision of Harold 'Doc' Keen . The first machine, called 'Victory', was delivered at Bletchley Park on 18 March 1940.

The Bombe was further enhanced with the so-called diagonal board, an invention of fellow codebreaker Gordon Welchman, that greatly reduced the number of steps needed for the codebreaking effort. A second Bombe, with Welchman's diagonal board present, was installed on 8 August 1940. It was named 'Agnus Dei', later shortened to 'Agnes' or 'Aggie'. The first machine (Victory) was later modified with a diagonal board as well.

During the course of the war, over 200 Turing-Welchmand Bombes were built. To avoid the risk of losing them in case of a bomb attack, they were spread between Bletchley Park and its so-called Outstations in Wavendon, Adstock, Gayhurst, Eastcote and Stanmore, where they were operated by WRNS, RAF-technicians and civillian personnel.

collage on tabulation book page / 5.5x9.5in / 2010

#1: As of 11/9/22, of my 3300+ pics, this is listed as #1 in most # of views.

*** Somehow, this otherwise seemingly-ordinary pic of mine has had its # of views just grow tremendously and very surprisingly. It reached 85,000 views and #1 in just 36 days, a much higher view rate than any of my other pics have seen. *** DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW OR WHERE THIS PIC IS GARNERING SO MANY VIEWS? *** Because its view #s are rather anomalous, I actually suspect there is some algorithm peculiarity in how flickr is calculating view #s for this and some other pics. But I'll go with what they've tabulated and just accept this as my new #1 in views... :-)

#434: As of 11/26/22, of my 3300+ pics, this is listed as #434 in most # of comments.

#624: As of 10/26/22, of my 3300+ pics, this is listed as #624 in most # of faves.

#967: As of 10/13/22, under Flickr's popularity rankings of my 3300+ pics, this is listed as #967 in "interestingness."

As described in my April 29, 2020 Update on my flickr profile page, I'm running a retrospective series here of 2013-14 pics of mine en femme. There are various reasons described there for rolling out this series, and know that this is not just a re-posting of old pics. This is a new more-authentic look at some classic pics of mine.

This pic was taken on November 7, 2014 at work (!), in our small office building after everyone else had gone home for the day. I wanted to try out some new clothes, heels, and accessories, and it felt daring and exciting dressing up and walking around there en femme. I don't have the full details available anymore for my outfit this 2014 day, but it did include this:

* Bucco Capensis leopard-print suede ultra-high-heel lace-up ankle booties, from Burlington;

* a matching leopard-print/black handbag;

* ladies black skinny jeans;

* an animal-print knit top;

* a black braided-leather waist belt;

* a black neck scarf;

* pink press-on nails;

* gold necklaces, rings, and bracelets; and

* extra-large gold hoop earrings.

Let me know your thoughts... :-)

The Monte Sirai site, inhabited since the Neolithic and the Nuraghic period, become, around 750 BC the site of a Phoenician settlement probably founded by the inhabitants of the nearby town of sulci (current S.Antioco).

The choice of location is probably due to its exceptional location: from the top of the volcanic tabulated, about 190 m., You can control both the sea, with the surrounding islands, the plains up to the mountains.

The top of the mountain housed the living quarters and public buildings of which the most important was certainly the temple of Astarte, which in the beginning was built around a pre-existing nuraghe that was the innermost part of the temple, the Holy of Holies.

The population reoccupy the site is relatively low, as evidenced by the 13 chamber tombs in the necropolis, which almost certainly correspond each to a family. During the Hellenistic period, Monte Sirai knows a new stage of development: in the fourth century, the citadel is provided with a wall with a thickness of 4 m, and grows in size and importance; the acropolis measuring 60x300 m. and he had a single access corridor.

With the Roman conquest, the city did not suffer any destruction, while all the fortifications that surrounded the acropolis were destroyed, and life went on quietly until a sudden drop, which occurred in 110 BC approximately, for still unclear reasons.

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

Il sito di Monte Sirai, frequentato fin dal neolitico e in epoca nuragica, diventa, attorno al 750 a.C. sede di un insediamento fenicio, probabilmente fondato dagli abitanti della vicina città di Sulci (attuale S.Antioco).

La scelta del luogo si deve probabilmente alla sua eccezionale posizione: dalla cima del tabulato vulcanico, alto circa 190 m., si può controllare sia il mare, con le isole circostanti, che la pianura sino ai monti.

La sommità del monte ospitava i quartieri d'abitazione e gli edifici pubblici dei quali il più importante era certamente il tempio di Astarte, che in principio fu costruito attorno ad un nuraghe preesistente che costituiva la parte più interna del tempio, il Sancta Sanctorum.

La popolazione che rioccupa il sito è di modesta entità, come testimoniato dalle 13 tombe a camera della necropoli, che quasi certamente corrispondevano ciascuna ad una famiglia. In epoca ellenistica, Monte Sirai conosce una nuova fase di sviluppo: nel IV secolo, la cittadella viene munita di una cinta muraria con uno spessore massimo di 4 m, e aumenta di dimensioni e di importanza; l'acropoli misurava 60x300 m. e, aveva un unico accesso a corridoio.

Con la conquista romana, la città non subì alcuna distruzione, mentre tutte le fortificazioni che circondavano l'acropoli furono rase al suolo, quindi la vita continuò tranquillamente sino all'improvviso abbandono, avvenuto nel 110 a.C. circa, per cause ancora oscure.

Coalition armies rely on hundreds of thousands of vehicles, each fulfilling a specialized role on and off the battlefield. Tank hunting korps employ long range beam weaponry, while assault vehicles annihilate buildings and fortifications with devastating explosives. The sheer number of vehicles in service among the various armed bodies of the Coalition would take a lifetime to tabulate.

However the bulk of Tarsin armoured might lies with tough infantry tanks. Vehicles capable of engaging enemy armour, assaulting emplacements and providing valuable fire support to the infantry of the Coalition and remaining effective for as long as possible.

There are a number of designs that have come and fallen in and out of favour with the Coalition arms elite. However the most prominent has beenThe ÛâR - 40, which sees service in warzones across the Coalition.

Chand Baori is said to be named after a local ruler called Raja Chanda.[4] However, no epigraphic evidence has been found regarding the construction of the Chand Baori or the adjoining Harshat Mata Temple. Based on similarities in style and carvings with the terraced temples of Paranagar and Mandore, the Baodi can be dated to 8th-9th century.[5] It was likely constructed before the temple.[6] The Chand Baori is one of the few stepwells that has "two classical periods of water building in a single setting". according to Morna Livingston in Steps to Water: The Ancient Stepwells of India[1]

The oldest parts of the step-well date from the 8th century onwards, An upper palace building was added to the site, which is viewed from the tabulated arches used by the Chauhan rulers and the cusped arches used by the Mughals. Access to these rooms is now blocked for tourists.[1]The upper stories with the columned arcade around it were built around the 18th century during the Mughal era.[7] The Mughals also added art galleries and a retaining wall around the well. Today,there are remains of old sculptures and carvings, which were suggested to be in the temple or in the various rooms.[1] The nearby Harshat Mata Temple was a pilgrimage site and formed a complex together with the well. Many of these stepwells, including Chand Baori, served multiple purposes including drawing water and religious or ceremonies activities.[3] This unique form of underground well-architecture remains constant from the 7th century in the existing monument.[3]Excavated stones of the temple are now kept by the Archaeological Survey of India in the arcades of the well. Chand Baori plays an important part of the main current of architectural activity in western India.

Light Walker GP-2 “HELLFIRE”

Built by Jeff Churill “AKA Cooper Works”

Prepared under the direction of

The chief of ordinance

(With the cooperation of the Cooper Works Company Detroit, MI)

Description

The light GP-2 “Ground Powder” is an armored walker vehicle, designed for bunker busting and light support. It’s powered by twin 163hp Jeep 4 cylinder supercharged engines, liquid cooled, straight head side valve type engines. The engines are located in two separate nacelles below the main chase, which power two separate LHS (Leg Hydraulic System), one for each leg. The pilot operates the vehicle with two levers, much like a typical tank would operate. The main chase has 2.5 inch front and 1.0 inch side armor. Its mission is to penetrate and destroy fortified bunkers by using its 20mm cannon at long range to soften the bunker. Then move in and use its flame thrower to penetrate and eliminate the threat. However its main weapon is intimidation, to take the will to fight out of the enemy.

Crew

One crew member is position high atop the main chase.

Armament

The main chases primary weapon is a 200 gallon Flame Thrower, with a range of 100 yards. Secondary weapon is a 20mm Cannon. Backup weapons are four .30 cal machine Guns.

Tabulated Data

General

Weight……………………………………31,250

Width……………………………………..12-ft

Length……………………………….…..15-ft

Height…………………………….……..24-ft

Engines¬

2 Jeep 2.2L Engines (Supercharged)

Rated horsepower………………….163 hp at 2800 rpm

Number of cylinders……………….. 4 cyl, side valves

Weight of engine…………………….510 lb (1020 lb total)

Armament

1 flame thrower (pivot mount), 200 gallon napalm tank

1 cannon, machine, 20mm, M1919A4 (pivot mount)

4 gun, machine, cal. .30, M1919A4 ( chase hard mount) Brickarms

Armor

2.5 inch front, 1.0 inch side armor on the main chase.

Napalm Tank equipped with self sealing rubber blather and filled with nitrogen to reduce the risk of fire if hit.

Cockpit is also filled with nitrogen during combat to reduce the risk of fire if hit.

Cockpit ballet proof windows are 2 inches thick.

Performance

Maximum sustained speed on hard road…..…….40 mph

Cross-country speeds for various terrains…..…..5 to 40 mph

Maximum leap over ditch…………………….………..…15-ft

Maximum step over vertical objects…….………….10-ft

Maximum grade……………………………………………….25-deg

Maximum water depth…………………………………….15-ft

[A. G. 062.11 (5-14-51)

BY ORDER OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR:

G. C. MARSHALL

Chief of Staff.

Official:

J.A. Ulio,

Major General,

The Adjutant General.

GP1 BLACKJACK in sit mod.

TECHNICAL DATA WAR DEPARTMENT

No. 9-775 Washington, May 15, 1942

Light Walker GP-1 “BLACKJACK”

Built by Jeff Churill “AKA Cooper Works”

Prepared under the direction of

The chief of ordinance

(With the cooperation of the Cooper Works Company Detroit, MI)

Description

The light GP-1 “Ground Powder” is an armored walker vehicle, designed for scouting and light support. It’s powered by twin 163hp Jeep 4 cylinder supercharged engines, liquid cooled, straight head side valve type engines. The engines are located in two separate nacelles below the main chase, which power two separate LHS (Leg Hydraulic System), one for each leg. The pilot operates the vehicle with two levers, much like a typical tank would operate. The walker is equipment with radio/ interphone, and equipped with a 10-ft periscope. The main chase has 0.5 inch front and side armor.

Crew

A crew of two is position in the main chase, the driver in the forward lower chase, and the commander-spotter - gunner in the upper chase.

Armament

The main chase has 4 side nacelles housing eight .30 caliber machine guns, with 1000 rounds for each gun. Additionally with one pivot mount .30 caliber machine gun for the commander position.

Tabulated Data

General

Weight……………………………………29,950

Width……………………………………..12-ft

Length……………………………….…..18-ft

Height…………………………….……..20-ft

Engines¬

2 Jeep 2.2L Engines (Supercharged)

Rated horsepower………………….163 hp at 2800 rpm

Number of cylinders……………….. 4 cyl, side valves

Weight of engine…………………….510 lb (1020 lb total)

Armament

8 gun, machine, cal. .30, M1919A4 ( chase hard mount)

1 gun, machine, cal. .30, M1919A4 ( upper chase pivot mount)

Armor

0.3 inch front and side armor on the main chase.

Performance

Maximum sustained speed on hard road…..…….40 mph

Cross-country speeds for various terrains…..…..5 to 40 mph

Maximum leap over ditch…………………….………..…15-ft

Maximum step over vertical objects…….………….10-ft

Maximum grade……………………………………………….25-deg

Maximum water depth…………………………………….15-ft

[A. G. 062.11 (5-14-42)

BY ORDER OF THE SECRETARY OF WAR:

G. C. MARSHALL

Chief of Staff.

Official:

J.A. Ulio,

Major General,

The Adjutant General.

The bombe was an electromechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II. The US Navy and US Army later produced machines to the same functional specification, but engineered differently.

The initial design of the bombe was produced in 1939 at the UK Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park by Alan Turing, with an important refinement devised in 1940 by Gordon Welchman. The engineering design and construction was the work of Harold Keen of the British Tabulating Machine Company. It was a substantial development from a device that had been designed in 1938 by Polish Cipher Bureau cryptologist Marian Rejewski, and known as the "cryptologic bomb" (Polish: "bomba kryptologiczna").

The bombe was designed to discover some of the daily settings of the Enigma machines on the various German military networks: specifically, the set of rotors in use and their positions in the machine; the rotor core start positions for the message—the message key—and one of the wirings of the plugboard.

Circa 1941 - Hut 11A at Bletchley Park - Bletchley, Buckinghamshire on 13 September 2021.

Grade II listed.

The following is from the Historic England website.

Name: Hut 11A at Bletchley Park

Designation Type: Listing

Grade: II

List UID: 1391798

HISTORY: in 1939 Bletchley Park became a dispersal home to the Foreign Office's Government Code and Cipher School. It became the focal point of inter-service intelligence activities, the place where German codes (notably those encrypted using the Enigma machine) were deciphered, the significance of decrypts assessed, and intelligence passed to appropriate ministries and commands. Bletchley Park has become celebrated for its contribution to the Allied victory, as well as for its contribution to the development of information technology. As the organisation enlarged new buildings had to be provided, firstly wooden huts and, from 1942, more permanent brick blocks.

The Hut 11 complex, comprising Huts 11, 11A, and 11B (demolished after the war), housed the Bombe Section, superseding Hut 1 which was timber framed and cramped.. Bombes were electro-magnetic devices, developed from an original idea conceived by the Poles (who called their machine `Bomba' (probably because it had weights which dropped - like bombs - when correct wheel settings were identified) in the late 1930s and developed into a more sophisticated form in 1939 by Gordon Welchman, Alan Turing, and Harold Keen. Bombes were an automated means of testing hypotheses (called menus) for the daily setting of an Enigma machine by working through the 150 million million settings its rotors, rings, and plugsettings were capable of. By November 1939 the first bombe machine had been ordered from the British Tabulating Machine Co. of Letchworth, and this was delivered to Hut 1 in March 1940.

The first of the three huts, 11, was planned in late 1940 and completed in March 1941. Hut 11A was begun in mid 1941 and its fitting out completed (including air conditioning to combat the heat generated by the bombes) in February 1942. Hut 11A was intended to replace, not augment Hut 11, and when the former was complete all the bombe machines were moved into it. Later in 1942, as outstations (built in the grounds of local country houses) took on the role of housing the vastly increased number of bombe machines needed for decryption, Hut 11A developed into the control and communications centre linking those outstations with Huts 6 and 8. Some bombes, however, remained in 11A either as training aids or specialist or experimental machines, for instance `Funf' which was employed to solve the reverse Enigma used by the Abwehr (the German Secret Service).

In 1945 the Hut 11 complex was handed over to MOW direct labour organisation which used it as carpenters workshops and stores. When the Bletchley Park Trust was formed in 1992 Hut 11A became the club room of the Milton Keynes Model Railway Club.

BUILDING: wooden hut, standing c.120m north of the Mansion.

DATE: October 1941-February 1942.

ARCHITECT: Ministry of Works for Government Code and Cipher School.

MATERIALS: brick structure, with a gabled roof carried on lightweight steel trusses covered with corrugated sheeting.

PLAN: rectangular.

EXTERIOR: single-storey building, west of and aligned with Hut 11 and hard against the south side of Hut 10. It has a wide east entrance with a pair of doors, probably to facilitate the bulky bombe machines which it housed to be brought in and out. Steel-framed windows in all four walls are small and high set, probably to keep wall space unencumbered and perhaps furthermore to give protection from blast.

INTERIORS: concrete floor. The current arrangement of rooms is very similar to that during the war, with small rooms (wartime offices and lavatories) at the east end and an open space (now partly subdivided) at the west. The latter was where the Hut's bombe machines stood. Seven of these are marked on a plan drawn by one of the Wrens who operated them, each bombe identified by name (`Agnes', `Chaos', `Dumbo' etc.). Several trunked vents leading into the roof space presumably relate to the building's wartime air conditioning.

The building is in good condition externally. Internally it is also well preserved with only some superficial deterioration such as buckled plaster ceilings.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: a lean-to engine room was added in June 1942. The Milton Keynes Model Railway Club has added a small lean-to against the south wall to accommodate part of a model railway track.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: Hut 11A's importance is principally historical. Bletchley Park is renowned for its part in this breaking of the German Enigma code, and in contributing to the Allied victory (especially in the Battle of the Atlantic). The Bombe Section in the Hut 11 complex was an essential component of the code breaking network, human and mechnical. The bombes were moved to the purpose-built Hut 11 from the vulnerable wooden Hut 1 in March 1941, Hut 11 being the first wartime brick building at Bletchley Park. Hut 11A, which largely superseded it, stands alongside. During 1942 virtually all Bletchley Park's bombe machines were housed in it, and its scale in comparison to Hut 11 shows the rapid increase in the number of bombe machines being manufactured at this time which in turns marks Bletchley Park's development into a global SIGINT (Signals Intelligence) hub capable of processing increasingly vast amounts of data. It survives little changed externally, while internally its layout is only slightly altered.

The Town House Inn in Oneonta is not that brick building. The brick building is the Fairchild Mansion, built by George Winthrop Fairchild in 1867 and modernized a couple of times afterward. Fairchild was the chairman of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, which changed its name to International Business Machines (IBM) in 1924. The mansion was purchased by the Masonic Lodge in 1929.

Part of the Town House Inn can be seen in the background. It should be noted that the Town House may not be the best place to stay in Oneonta.

Gear: Canon 5D Mark II | Canon 17-40 L

Settings: ISO 320 | f9 | 1/100 | 17mm

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Autumn trees of NSW and some amazing afternoon light.

They say good things come in threes. I'm still waiting for my run of 3 :)

Election Day! Busy times for Australia, who will win Labor or Liberal?

Tools

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Australian Federal Election 2010

Circa 1941 - Hut 11 at Bletchley Park - Bletchley, Buckinghamshire on 13 September 2021.

Grade II listed.

The following is from the Historic England website.

Name: Hut 11 at Bletchley Park

Designation Type: Listing

Grade: II

List UID: 1391797

HISTORY: In 1939 Bletchley Park became a dispersal home to the Foreign Office's Government Code and Cipher School. It became the focal point of inter-service intelligence activities, the place where German codes (notably those encrypted using the Enigma machine) were deciphered, the significance of decrypts assessed, and intelligence passed to appropriate ministries and commands. Bletchley Park has become celebrated for its contribution to the Allied victory, as well as for its contribution to the development of information technology. As the organisation enlarged new buildings had to be provided, firstly wooden huts and, from 1942, more permanent brick blocks.

The Hut 11 complex, comprising Huts 11, 11A, and 11B (demolished after the war), housed the Bombe Section, superseding Hut 1 which was timber-framed and cramped. Bombes were electro-magnetic devices, developed from an original idea conceived by the Poles (who called their machine `Bomba', probably because it had weights which dropped - like bombs - when correct wheel settings were identified) in the late 1930s and developed into a more sophisticated form in 1939 by Gordon Welchman, Alan Turing, and Harold Keen. Bombes were an automated means of testing hypotheses (called menus) for the daily setting of an Enigma machine by working through the 150 million million settings its rotors, rings, and plugsettings were capable of. By November 1939 the first bombe machine had been ordered from the British Tabulating Machine Co. of Letchworth, and this was delivered to Hut 1 in March 1940.

The first of the three huts, 11, was planned in late 1940 and completed in March 1941. Designed to protect the bombe machines - of which there were apparently nine when first fitted out - from blast, it was the first brick-built structure on site. It superseded Hut 1, the original home of the Bombe Section, which was timber-framed and crowded. After Hut 11A was constructed in February 1942 the bombe machines were moved out and thereafter Hut 11 was mainly used for training bombe operators. Later in the war, when the much larger number of bombe machines was housed on outstations elsewhere, Hut 11 served as a store for the WRNS.

In 1945 the Hut 11 complex was handed over to MOW direct labour organisation which used it as carpenters' workshops and stores. When the Bletchley Park Trust was formed in 1992 Hut 11 was refurbished to house a display about the history of the bombe.

BUILDING: brick hut standing north of the Mansion.

DATE: planned late 1940, completed March 1941.

ARCHITECT: Ministry of Works for Government Code and Cipher School.

MATERIALS: brick building with a slightly cambered concrete slab roof. It may have been constructed to be blast proof, as its walls are at least 500mm thick and its roof 480mm, the latter being supported on an axial steel beam.

PLAN: rectangular.

EXTERIOR: squat, single-storey building, close to and south of the east end of Hut 10. There are doors in both east and west gables, although the latter may not be of wartime date. The east doorway is wide - possibly to allow the bulky bombe machines which it housed to be brought in and out - and has a porch (probably added in 1943). Small rectangular vents high in the walls perhaps relate to fans installed inside Hut 11 in December 1941 to counteract the considerable heat generated by the electro-magnetic bombes. Metal-framed three-light windows.

INTERIORS: internally the hut is divided into three rooms by plasterboard and stud partitions which post-date 1943. Before this, when it was used by the Bombe Section, the hut was probably a single open space, although a supervisor's room may have been partitioned off.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: adjacent to the east door is a lean-to bicycle shelter, probably of 1943, with brick side walls and an asbestos roof.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: Hut 11's importance is principally historical. Bletchley Park is renowned for its part in this breaking of the German Enigma code, and in contributing to the Allied victory (especially in the Battle of the Atlantic). The Bombe Section in the Hut 11 complex was an essential component of the code-breaking network, human and mechnical. The bombes were moved to the purpose-built Hut 11 from the vulnerable wooden Hut 1 in March 1941, Hut 11 being the first wartime brick building at Bletchley Park. Hut 11A, which largely superseded it, stands alongside. Hut 11 is a relatively small, and certainly undistinguished building architecturally, but is externally much as when built while internally it retains the open space provided for the installation of the bombe machines. This recommendation is informed by considerable English Heritage research, cited below.

Observe, record, tabulate, communicate. Use your five senses. Learn to see, learn to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell, and know that by practice alone you can become expert.

~William Osler

An Important Piece of History - Bombe Machine - used decipher German Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II - located at Bletchley Park, England.

The bombe was an electromechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II. The US Navy and US Army later produced machines to the same functional specification, but engineered differently.

The initial design of the bombe was produced in 1939 at the UK Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park by Alan Turing, with an important refinement devised in 1940 by Gordon Welchman. The engineering design and construction was the work of Harold Keen of the British Tabulating Machine Company. It was a substantial development from a device that had been designed in 1938 by Polish Cipher Bureau cryptologist Marian Rejewski, and known as the "cryptologic bomb" (Polish: "bomba kryptologiczna").

The bombe was designed to discover some of the daily settings of the Enigma machines on the various German military networks: specifically, the set of rotors in use and their positions in the machine; the rotor core start positions for the message—the message key—and one of the wirings of the plugboard.

Artist’s Palette

Death Valley National Park is an American national park that straddles the California-Nevada border, east of the Sierra Nevada. The park occupies an interface zone between the arid Great Basin and Mojave deserts, protecting the northwest corner of the Mojave Desert and its diverse environment of salt-flats, sand dunes, badlands, valleys, canyons, and mountains. Death Valley is the largest national park in the lower 48 states, and the hottest, driest and lowest of all the national parks in the United States. The second-lowest point in the Western Hemisphere is in Badwater Basin, which is 282 feet (86 m) below sea level. Approximately 91% of the park is a designated wilderness area. The park is home to many species of plants and animals that have adapted to this harsh desert environment. Some examples include creosote bush, bighorn sheep, coyote, and the Death Valley pupfish, a survivor from much wetter times. UNESCO included Death Valley as the principal feature of its Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve in 1984.

A series of Native American groups inhabited the area from as early as 7000 BC, most recently the Timbisha around 1000 AD who migrated between winter camps in the valleys and summer grounds in the mountains. A group of European-Americans, trapped in the valley in 1849 while looking for a shortcut to the gold fields of California, gave the valley its name, even though only one of their group died there. Several short-lived boom towns sprang up during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to mine gold and silver. The only long-term profitable ore to be mined was borax, which was transported out of the valley with twenty-mule teams. The valley later became the subject of books, radio programs, television series, and movies. Tourism expanded in the 1920s when resorts were built around Stovepipe Wells and Furnace Creek. Death Valley National Monument was declared in 1933 and the park was substantially expanded and became a national park in 1994.

The natural environment of the area has been shaped largely by its geology. The valley is actually a graben with the oldest rocks being extensively metamorphosed and at least 1.7 billion years old. Ancient, warm, shallow seas deposited marine sediments until rifting opened the Pacific Ocean. Additional sedimentation occurred until a subduction zone formed off the coast. The subduction uplifted the region out of the sea and created a line of volcanoes. Later the crust started to pull apart, creating the current Basin and Range landform. Valleys filled with sediment and, during the wet times of glacial periods, with lakes, such as Lake Manly.

In 2013, Death Valley National Park was designated as a dark sky park by the International Dark-Sky Association.

There are two major valleys in the park, Death Valley and Panamint Valley. Both of these valleys were formed within the last few million years and both are bounded by north–south-trending mountain ranges. These and adjacent valleys follow the general trend of Basin and Range topography with one modification: there are parallel strike-slip faults that perpendicularly bound the central extent of Death Valley. The result of this shearing action is additional extension in the central part of Death Valley which causes a slight widening and more subsidence there.

Uplift of surrounding mountain ranges and subsidence of the valley floor are both occurring. The uplift on the Black Mountains is so fast that the alluvial fans (fan-shaped deposits at the mouth of canyons) there are small and steep compared to the huge alluvial fans coming off the Panamint Range. Fast uplift of a mountain range in an arid environment often does not allow its canyons enough time to cut a classic V-shape all the way down to the stream bed. Instead, a V-shape ends at a slot canyon halfway down, forming a 'wine glass canyon.' Sediment is deposited on a small and steep alluvial fan.

At 282 feet (86 m) below sea level at its lowest point, Badwater Basin on Death Valley's floor is the second-lowest depression in the Western Hemisphere (behind Laguna del Carbón in Argentina), while Mount Whitney, only 85 miles (137 km) to the west, rises to 14,505 feet (4,421 m). This topographic relief is the greatest elevation gradient in the contiguous United States and is the terminus point of the Great Basin's southwestern drainage. Although the extreme lack of water in the Great Basin makes this distinction of little current practical use, it does mean that in wetter times the lake that once filled Death Valley (Lake Manly) was the last stop for water flowing in the region, meaning the water there was saturated in dissolved materials. Thus the salt pans in Death Valley are among the largest in the world and are rich in minerals, such as borax and various salts and hydrates. The largest salt pan in the park extends 40 miles (64 km) from the Ashford Mill Site to the Salt Creek Hills, covering some 200 square miles (520 km2) of the valley floor. The best known playa in the park is the Racetrack, known for its moving rocks.

Death Valley is the hottest and driest place in North America due to its lack of surface water and low relief. It is so frequently the hottest spot in the United States that many tabulations of the highest daily temperatures in the country omit Death Valley as a matter of course.

On the afternoon of July 10, 1913, the United States Weather Bureau recorded a high temperature of 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek) in Death Valley. This temperature stands as the highest ambient air temperature ever recorded at the surface of the Earth. (A report of a temperature of 58 °C (136.4 °F) recorded in Libya in 1922 was later determined to be inaccurate.) Daily summer temperatures of 120 °F (49 °C) or greater are common, as well as below freezing nightly temperatures in the winter. July is the hottest month, with an average high of 115 °F (46 °C) and an average low of 88 °F (31 °C). December is the coldest month, with an average high of 65 °F (18 °C) and an average low of 39 °F (4 °C). The record low is 15 °F (−9.4 °C).

(Wikipedia)

Take your vehicle through Artists Drive and enjoy a scenic view like no other! This nine mile drive will wind you through a patchwork of multicolored, eroded hills. This drive through a geologic rainbow will bring you to Artists Palette viewpoint, where a view from your car, or a short walk, will provide you with views of one of the most photogenic sections. Artists Drive is beautiful anytime of day, but visitors find the colors to be the most dramatic during the afternoon light. This drive is one-way and only open to vehicles less than 25 feet in total length.

Star Wars Fans? Check out the area around Artists Palette parking area for some familiar views! Parts of Star Wars, A New Hope, were filmed in this area.

(nps.gov)

Der Death-Valley-Nationalpark (Tal des Todes) liegt in der Mojave-Wüste und ist der trockenste Nationalpark in den USA. Er liegt südöstlich der Sierra Nevada, zum größten Teil auf dem Gebiet Kaliforniens und zu einem kleineren Teil in Nevada. Die Region ist ein Hitzepol.

Der tiefste Punkt des Tales liegt 85,95 Meter unter dem Meeresspiegel. Es gibt zwei Haupttäler innerhalb des Parks, das Death Valley und das Panamint Valley. Beide Täler sind wenige Millionen Jahre alt. Das Death Valley ist von mehreren Gebirgen umschlossen, die höchste Gebirgskette bildet die Panamint Range mit dem 3366 m hohen Telescope Peak. 1933 wurde das Death Valley zum National Monument ernannt. 1994 wurde es, stark erweitert, zum Nationalpark aufgewertet. Eine kleine Enklave, Devils Hole weiter östlich in Nevada in der Nähe des Ash Meadows National Wildlife Preserve gelegen, gehört ebenfalls zum Park.

Am 20. Februar 2011 wurde der Nationalpark als Lichtschutzgebiet von der International Dark Sky Association auch als International Dark Sky Park (IDSP, in Gold) anerkannt, und nennt sich seither auch Death Valley International Dark Sky Park. Es ist das weitaus größte solche Schutzgebiet der USA und das zweitgrößte weltweit (nach dem IDSR Wood Buffalo in Kanada).

Das Tal erhielt seinen Namen, nachdem 1849 zwei Gruppen von Reisenden mit insgesamt etwa 100 Wagen eine Abkürzung des Old Spanish Trail suchten und dabei in das Tal gerieten. Nachdem sie wochenlang keinen Ausweg aus dem Tal gefunden hatten und bereits gezwungen waren, mehrere ihrer Ochsen zu verspeisen (wobei sie das Holz ihrer Wagen als Brennholz verwendeten), ließen sie ihre restlichen Wagen zurück und verließen das Tal über den Wingate Pass. Dabei drehte sich eine der Frauen aus der Gruppe um und rief dem Tal ein „Goodbye, Death Valley“ hinterher.

Trotz einer weitverbreiteten Legende soll niemand aus der Gruppe bei der Taldurchquerung umgekommen sein, bis auf einen Greis namens Culverwell, der schon beim Betreten des Tales sterbensmatt gewesen war. Als Teilnehmer der Reisegruppe beschrieb William Lewis Manly in seinem autobiographischen Werk Death Valley in ’49 die Begebenheiten.

Obwohl das Tal des Todes nur wenige hundert Kilometer vom Pazifischen Ozean entfernt liegt, ist es eine der trockensten Gegenden der Erde. Dies liegt daran, dass sich die feuchten Winde auf ihrem Weg vom Pazifik an fünf Bergrücken abregnen, bevor sie über das Gebiet des Parks ziehen können. Das Death Valley ist außerdem eine der heißesten Gegenden Amerikas. Am 10. Juli 1913 wurde bei Greenland Ranch (heute bekannt als Furnace Creek Ranch) vom National Weather Service eine Temperatur von 56,7 °C (134 °F) gemessen. Am 12. Juli 2012 wurde im Death Valley mit 41,7 °C (107 °F) die wärmste nächtliche Tiefsttemperatur gemessen; der gleiche Wert wurde vorher nur einmal erreicht, nämlich am 27. Juni 2012 am Khasab-Flughafen in Oman.

Artist’s Palette liegt an den Hängen der Black Mountains, die parallel zur Gebirgskette Panamint Range verlaufen und einen Grabenbruch einschließen, und ist berühmt für seine vielfarbigen Gesteinsformationen. Der Farbenreichtum wird durch Oxidation verschiedener Metalle verursacht, die in den Felsen vorkommen, zum Beispiel Eisen (rot bis dunkelrot) oder Kupfer (türkis bis grün).

(Wikipedia)

The Tarot cards which are issued with the small edition of the present work, that is to say, with the Key to the Tarot, have been drawn and coloured by Miss Pamela Colman Smith, and will, I think, be regarded as very striking and beautiful, in their design alike and execution. They are reproduced in the present enlarged edition of the Key as a means of reference to the text.

Tarot, which is available separately, in the form of coloured cards, the designs of which are added to the present text in black and white. They have been prepared under my supervision-in respect of the attributions and meanings-by a lady who has high claims as an artist. Regarding the divinatory part, by which my thesis is terminated, I consider it personally as a fact in the history of the Tarot - as such, I have drawn, from all published sources, a harmony of the meanings which have been attached to the various cards, and I have given prominence to one method of working that has not been published previously; having the merit of simplicity, while it is also of universal application, it may be held to replace the cumbrous and involved systems

Arthur Edward Waite

In 1909, occult scholar Arthur Edward Waite paid Colman Smith a flat fee to illustrate the seventy-eight cards of the tarot. An occult scholar, Waite had already published numerous books before embarking on a tarot project, volumes on alchemy and black magic as well as explorations of the work of famous mystics. The two knew each other from the Golden Dawn, a western mysticism order they both belonged to. The 15th century Sola Busca tarot—the only tarot to use pictorial images and not repetitive numbers—was used as a guide; the collaborators viewed the Italian deck when the Sola family gave a set of photographs of it to the British Museum in 1907. Some images, like the iconic, piercing Three of Swords, are clearly lifted from the older deck, while others are less obviously derivative. The style, however, is a huge departure: simpler, modern, less muscular, more romantic. Colman Smith finished the deck, a total of eighty cards, in just six months. In a letter to Stieglitz, she wrote, “I’ve just finished a big job for very little cash!”

enchantedlivingmagazine.com/divine-mystery-pamela-colman-...

Originally published in 1910 Preface

IT seems rather of necessity than predilection in the sense of apologia that I should put on record in the first place a plain statement of my personal position, as one who for many years of literary life has been, subject to his spiritual and other limitations, an exponent of the higher mystic schools. It will be thought that I am acting strangely in concerning myself at this day with what appears at first sight and simply a well-known method of fortune-telling. Now, the opinions of Mr. Smith, even in the literary reviews, are of no importance unless they happen to agree with our own, but in order to sanctify this doctrine we must take care that our opinions, and the subjects out of which they arise, are concerned only with the highest. Yet it is just this which may seem doubtful, in the present instance, not only to Mr. Smith, whom I respect within the proper measures of detachment, but to some of more real consequence, seeing that their dedications are mine. To these and to any I would say that after the most illuminated Frater Christian Rosy Cross had beheld the Chemical Marriage in the Secret Palace of Transmutation, his story breaks off abruptly, with an intimation that he expected next morning to be door-keeper. After the same manner, it happens more often than might seem likely that those who have seen the King of Heaven through the most clearest veils of the sacraments are those who assume thereafter the humblest offices of all about the House of God. By such simple devices also are the Adepts and Great Masters in the secret orders distinguished from the cohort of Neophytes as servi servorum mysterii. So also, or in a way which is not entirely unlike, we meet with the Tarot cards at the outermost gates--amidst the fritterings and débris of the so-called occult arts, about which no one in their senses has suffered the smallest deception; and yet these cards belong in themselves to another region, for they contain a very high symbolism, which is interpreted according to the Laws of Grace rather than by the pretexts and intuitions of that which passes for divination. The fact that the wisdom of God is foolishness with men does not create a presumption that the foolishness of this world makes in any sense for Divine Wisdom; so neither the scholars in the ordinary classes nor the pedagogues in the seats of the mighty will be quick to perceive the likelihood or even the possibility of this proposition. The subject has been in the hands of cartomancists as part of the stock-in-trade of their industry; I do not seek to persuade any one outside my own circles that this is of much or of no consequence; but on the historical and interpretative sides it has not fared better; it has been there in the hands of exponents who have brought it into utter contempt for those people who possess philosophical insight or faculties for the appreciation of evidence. It is time that it should be rescued, and this I propose to undertake once and for all, that I may have done with the side issues which distract from the term. As poetry is the most beautiful expression of the things that are of all most beautiful, so is symbolism the most catholic expression in concealment of things that are most profound in the Sanctuary and that have not been declared outside it with the same fulness by means of the spoken word. The justification of the rule of silence is no part of my present concern, but I have put on record elsewhere, and quite recently, what it is possible to say on this subject. Introduction

The little treatise which follows is divided into three parts, in the first of which I have dealt with the antiquities of the subject and a few things that arise from and connect therewith. It should be understood that it is not put forward as a contribution to the history of playing cards, about which I know and care nothing; it is a consideration dedicated and addressed to a certain school of occultism, more especially in France, as to the source and centre of all the phantasmagoria which has entered into expression during the last fifty years under the pretence of considering Tarot cards historically. In the second part, I have dealt with the symbolism according to some of its higher aspects, and this also serves to introduce the complete and rectified Tarot, which is available separately, in the form of coloured cards, the designs of which are added to the present text in black and white. They have been prepared under my supervision-in respect of the attributions and meanings-by a lady who has high claims as an artist. Regarding the divinatory part, by which my thesis is terminated, I consider it personally as a fact in the history of the Tarot - as such, I have drawn, from all published sources, a harmony of the meanings which have been attached to the various cards, and I have given prominence to one method of working that has not been published previously; having the merit of simplicity, while it is also of universal application, it may be held to replace the cumbrous and involved systems of the larger hand-books.

PART I

The Veil and its Symbols

$1

INTRODUCTORY AND GENERAL

THE pathology of the poet says that "the undevout astronomer is mad"; the pathology of the very plain man says that genius is mad; and between these extremes, which stand for ten thousand analogous excesses, the sovereign reason takes the part of a moderator and does what it can. I do not think that there is a pathology of the occult dedications, but about their extravagances no one can question, and it is not less difficult than thankless to act as a moderator regarding them. Moreover, the pathology, if it existed, would probably be an empiricism rather than a diagnosis, and would offer no criterion. Now, occultism is not like mystic faculty, and it very seldom works in harmony either with business aptitude in the things of ordinary life or with a knowledge of the canons of evidence in its own sphere. I know that for the high art of ribaldry there are few things more dull than the criticism which maintains that a thesis is untrue, and cannot understand that it is decorative. I know also that after long dealing with doubtful doctrine or with difficult research it is always refreshing, in the domain of this art, to meet with what is obviously of fraud or at least of complete unreason. But the aspects of history, as seen through the lens of occultism, are not as a rule decorative, and have few gifts of refreshment to heal the lacerations which they inflict on the logical understanding. It almost requires a Frater Sapiens dominabitur astris in the Fellowship of the Rosy Cross to have the patience which is not lost amidst clouds of folly when the consideration of the Tarot is undertaken in accordance with the higher law of symbolism. The true Tarot is symbolism; it speaks no other language and offers no other signs. Given the inward meaning of its emblems, they do become a kind of alphabet which is capable of indefinite combinations and makes true sense in all. On the highest plane it offers a key to the Mysteries, in a manner which is not arbitrary and has not been read in, But the wrong symbolical stories have been told concerning it, and the wrong history has been given in every published work which so far has dealt with the subject. It has been intimated by two or three writers that, at least in respect of the meanings, this is unavoidably the case, because few are acquainted with them, while these few hold by transmission under pledges and cannot betray their trust. The suggestion is fantastic on the surface for there seems a certain anti-climax in the proposition that a particular interpretation of fortune- telling--l'art de tirer les cartes--can be reserved for Sons of the Doctrine. The fact remains, notwithstanding, that a Secret Tradition exists regarding the Tarot, and as there is always the possibility that some minor arcana of the Mysteries may be made public with a flourish of trumpets, it will be as well to go before the event and to warn those who are curious in such matters that any revelation will contain only a third part of the earth and sea and a third part of the stars of heaven in respect of the symbolism. This is for the simple reason that neither in root- matter nor in development has more been put into writing, so that much will remain to be said after any pretended unveiling. The guardians of certain temples of initiation who keep watch over mysteries of this order have therefore no cause for alarm. In my preface to The Tarot of the Bohemians, which, rather by an accident of things, has recently come to be re-issued after a long period, I have said what was then possible or seemed most necessary. The present work is designed more especially--as I have intimated--to introduce a rectified set of the cards themselves and to tell the unadorned truth concerning them, so far as this is possible in the outer circles. As regards the sequence of greater symbols, their ultimate and highest meaning lies deeper than the common language of picture or hieroglyph. This will be understood by those who have received some part of the Secret Tradition. As regards the verbal meanings allocated here to the more important Trump Cards, they are designed to set aside the follies and impostures of past attributions, to put those who have the gift of insight on the right track, and to take care, within the limits of my possibilities, that they are the truth so far as they go.

It is regrettable in several respects that I must confess to certain reservations, but there is a question of honour at issue. Furthermore, between the follies on the one side of those who know nothing of the tradition, yet are in their own opinion the exponents of something called occult science and philosophy, and on the other side between the make-believe of a few writers who have received part of the tradition and think that it constitutes a legal title to scatter dust in the eyes of the world without, I feel that the time has come to say what it is possible to say, so that the effect of current charlatanism and unintelligence may be reduced to a minimum. labirintoermetico.com

We shall see in due course that the history of Tarot cards is largely of a negative kind, and that, when the issues are cleared by the dissipation of reveries and gratuitous speculations expressed in the terms of certitude, there is in fact no history prior to the fourteenth century. The deception and self-deception regarding their origin in Egypt, India or China put a lying spirit into the mouths of the first expositors, and the later occult writers have done little more than reproduce the first false testimony in the good faith of an intelligence unawakened to the issues of research. As it so happens, all expositions have worked within a very narrow range, and owe, comparatively speaking, little to the inventive faculty. One brilliant opportunity has at least been missed, for it has not so far occurred to any one that the Tarot might perhaps have done duty and even originated as a secret symbolical language of the Albigensian sects. I commend this suggestion to the lineal descendants in the spirit of Gabriele Rossetti and Eugène Aroux, to Mr. Harold Bayley as another New Light on the Renaissance, and as a taper at least in the darkness which, with great respect, might be serviceable to the zealous and all-searching mind of Mrs. Cooper-Oakley. Think only what the supposed testimony of watermarks on paper might gain from the Tarot card of the Pope or Hierophant, in connexion with the notion of a secret Albigensian patriarch, of which Mr. Bayley has found in these same watermarks so much material to his purpose. Think only for a moment about the card of the High Priestess as representing the Albigensian church itself; and think of the Tower struck by Lightning as typifying the desired destruction of Papal Rome, the city on the seven hills, with the pontiff and his temporal power cast down from the spiritual edifice when it is riven by the wrath of God. The possibilities are so numerous and persuasive that they almost deceive in their expression one of the elect who has invented them. But there is more even than this, though I scarcely dare to cite it. When the time came for the Tarot cards to be the subject of their first formal explanation, the archaeologist Court de Gebelin reproduced some of their most important emblems, and--if I may so term it--the codex which he used has served--by means of his engraved plates-as a basis of reference for many sets that have been issued subsequently. The figures are very primitive and differ as such from the cards of Etteilla, the Marseilles Tarot, and others still current in France. I am not a good judge in such matters, but the fact that every one of the Trumps Major might have answered for watermark purposes is shewn by the cases which I have quoted and by one most remarkable example of the Ace of Cups.

I should call it an eucharistic emblem after the manner of a ciborium, but this does not signify at the moment. The point is that Mr. Harold Bayley gives six analogous devices in his New Light on the Renaissance, being watermarks on paper of the seventeenth century, which he claims to be of Albigensian origin and to represent sacramental and Graal emblems. Had he only heard of the Tarot, had he known that these cards of divination, cards of fortune, cards of all vagrant arts, were perhaps current at the period in the South of France, I think that his enchanting but all too fantastic hypothesis might have dilated still more largely in the atmosphere of his dream. We should no doubt have had a vision of Christian Gnosticism, Manichæanism, and all that he understands by pure primitive Gospel, shining behind the pictures. I do not look through such glasses, and I can only commend the subject to his attention at a later period; it is mentioned here that I may introduce with an unheard-of wonder the marvels of arbitrary speculation as to the history of the cards. With reference to their form and number, it should scarcely be necessary to enumerate them, for they must be almost commonly familiar, but as it is precarious to assume anything, and as there are also other reasons, I will tabulate them briefly as follows:--

THE TAROT IN HISTORY

Our immediate next concern is to speak of the cards in their history, so that the speculations and reveries which have been perpetuated and multiplied in the schools of occult research may be disposed of once and for all, as intimated in the preface hereto.

Let it be understood at the beginning of this point that there are several sets or sequences of ancient cards which are only in part of our concern. The Tarot of the Bohemians, by Papus, which I have recently carried through the press, revising the imperfect rendering, has some useful information in this connexion, and, except for the omission of dates and other evidences of the archaeological sense, it will serve the purpose of the general reader. I do not propose to extend it in the present place in any manner that can be called considerable, but certain additions are desirable and so also is a distinct mode of presentation.

Among ancient cards which are mentioned in connexion with the Tarot, there are firstly those of Baldini, which are the celebrated set attributed by tradition to Andrea Mantegna, though this view is now generally rejected. Their date is supposed to be about 1470, and it is thought that there are not more than four collections extant in Europe. A copy or reproduction referred to 1485 is perhaps equally rare. A complete set contains fifty numbers, divided into five denaries or sequences of ten cards each. There seems to be no record that they were used for the purposes of a game, whether of chance or skill; they could scarcely have lent themselves to divination or any form of fortune- telling; while it would be more than idle to impute a profound symbolical meaning to their obvious emblematic designs. The first denary embodies Conditions of Life, as follows: (i) The Beggar, (2) the Knave, (3) the Artisan, (4) the Merchant, (5) the Noble, (6) the Knight, (7) the Doge, (8) the King, (9) the Emperor, (10) the Pope. The second contains the Muses and their Divine Leader: (11) Calliope, (12) Urania, (13) Terpsichore, (14) Erato, (15) Polyhymnia, (16) Thalia, (17) Melpomene, (18) Euterpe, (19) Clio, (20) Apollo. The third combines part of the Liberal Arts and Sciences with other departments of human learning, as follows: (21) Grammar, (22) Logic, (23) Rhetoric, (24) Geometry, (25) Arithmetic, (26) Music, (27) Poetry, (28) Philosophy, (29) Astrology, (30) Theology. The fourth denary completes the Liberal Arts and enumerates the Virtues: (31) Astronomy, (32) Chronology, (33) Cosmology, (34) Temperance, (35) Prudence, (36) Strength, (37) Justice; (38) Charity, (39) Hope, (40) Faith. The fifth and last denary presents the System of the Heavens (41) Moon, (42) Mercury, (43) Venus, (44) Sun, (45) Mars, (46) Jupiter, (47) Saturn, (48) A Eighth Sphere, (49) Primum Mobile, (50) First Cause. We must set aside the fantastic attempts to extract complete Tarot sequences out of these denaries; we must forbear from saying, for example, that the Conditions of Life correspond to the Trumps Major, the Muses to Pentacles, the Arts and Sciences to Cups, the Virtues, etc., to Sceptres, and the conditions of life to Swords. This kind of thing can be done by a process of mental contortion, but it has no place in reality. At the same time, it is hardly possible that individual cards should not exhibit certain, and even striking, analogies. The Baldini King, Knight and Knave suggest the corresponding court cards of the Minor Arcana. The Emperor, Pope, Temperance, Strength, justice, Moon and Sun are common to the Mantegna and Trumps Major of any Tarot pack. Predisposition has also connected the Beggar and Fool, Venus and the Star, Mars and the Chariot, Saturn and the Hermit, even Jupiter, or alternatively the First Cause, with the Tarot card of the World.[1] But the ⚫ most salient features of the Trumps Major are wanting in the Mantegna set, and I do not believe that the ordered sequence in the latter case gave birth, as it has been suggested, to the others. Romain Merlin maintained this view, and positively assigned the Baldini cards to the end of the fourteenth century.

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L4 The Tarot In History

If it be agreed that, except accidentally and

[1. The beggar is practically naked, and the analogy is constituted by the presence of two dogs, one of which seems to be flying at his legs. The Mars card depicts a sword-bearing warrior in a canopied chariot, to which, however, no horses are attached. Of course, if the Baldini cards belong to the close of the fifteenth century, there is no question at issue, as the Tarot was known in Europe long before that period.]

sporadically, the Baldini emblematic or allegorical pictures have only a shadowy and occasional connexion with Tarot cards, and, whatever their most probable date, that they can have supplied no originating motive, it follows that we are still seeking not only an origin in place and time for the symbols with which we are concerned, but a specific case of their manifestation on the continent of Europe to serve as a point of departure, whether backward or forward. Now it is well known that in the year 1393 the painter Charles Gringonneur--who for no reason that I can trace has been termed an occultist and kabalist by one indifferent English writer--designed and illuminated some kind of cards for the diversion of Charles VI of France when he was in mental ill-health, and the question arises whether anything can be ascertained of their nature. The only available answer is that at Paris, in the Bibliothèque du Roi, there are seventeen cards drawn and illuminated on paper. They are very beautiful, antique and priceless; the figures have a background of gold, and are framed in a silver border; but they are accompanied by no inscription and no number. Il It is certain, however, that they include Tarot Trumps Major, the list of which is as follows: Foo Emperor, Pope, Lovers, Wheel of Fortune, Temperance, Fortitude, justice, Moon, Sun, Chariot, Hermit, Hanged Man, Death, Tower and Last judgment. There are also four Tarot Cards at the Musée Carrer, Venice, and five others elsewhere, making nine in all. They include two pages or Knaves, three Kings and two Queens, thus illustrating the Minor Arcana. These collections have been identified with the set produced by Gringonneur, but the ascription was disputed so far bac as the year 1848, and it is not apparently put forward at the present day, even by those who are anxious to make evident the antiquity of the Tarot. It is held that they are all of Italian and some least certainly of Venetian origin. We have in this manner our requisite point of departure in respect of place at least. It has further been stated with authority that Venetian Tarots are the old and true form, which is the parent of all others; but I infer that complete sets of the Major and Minor Arcana belong to much later periods. The pack is thought to have consisted of seventy-ei cards.

Notwithstanding, however, the preference shewn towards the Venetian Tarot, it is acknowledge that some portions of a Minchiate or Florentine set must be allocated to the period between 1413 and 1418. These were once in the possession of Countess Gonzaga, at Milan. A complete Minchiate pack contained ninety-seven cards, and in spite of these vestiges it is regarded, speak generally, as a later development. There were forty-one Trumps Major, the additional numbers being borrowed or reflected from the Baldini emblematic set. In the court cards of the Minor Arcana, the Knights were monsters of the centaur type, while the Knaves were sometimes warri and sometimes serving-men. Another distinction dwelt upon is the prevalence of Chrstian mediæval ideas and the utter absence of any Oriental suggestion. The question, however, remain whether there are Eastern traces in any Tarot cards.

We come, in fine, to the Bolognese Tarot, sometimes referred to as that of Venice and having th Trumps Major complete, but numbers 20 and 21 are transposed. In the Minor Arcana the 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the small cards are omitted, with the result that there are sixty-two cards in all. The termination of the Trumps Major in the representation of the Last judgment is curious, and a litt arresting as a point of symbolism; but this is all that it seems necessary to remark about the pack Bologna, except that it is said to have been invented--or, as a Tarot, more correctly, modified-- about the beginning of the fifteenth century by an exiled Prince of Pisa resident in the city. The purpose for which they were used is made tolerably evident by the fact that, in 1423, St. Bernard of Sienna preached against playing cards and other forms of gambling. Forty years later the mportation of cards into England was forbidden, the time being that of King Edward IV. This is

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Tarot In History

The first certain record of the subject in our country.

t is difficult to consult perfect examples of the sets enumerated above, but it is not difficult to m with detailed and illustrated descriptions--I should add, provided always that the writer is not an ccultist, for accounts emanating from that source are usually imperfect, vague and preoccupied onsiderations which cloud the critical issues. An instance in point is offered by certain views which have been expressed on the Mantegna codex--if I may continue to dignify card sequences with a title of this kind.

www.labirintoermetico.com/02tarocchi/Waite_Pictorial_Key_...

Rather, Easter Monday... when you tabulate how many Easter Cream Eggs you ate in a 6 hour period.

A Bull Elk in Jasper National Park...

Zabriskie Point

Death Valley National Park is an American national park that straddles the California-Nevada border, east of the Sierra Nevada. The park occupies an interface zone between the arid Great Basin and Mojave deserts, protecting the northwest corner of the Mojave Desert and its diverse environment of salt-flats, sand dunes, badlands, valleys, canyons, and mountains. Death Valley is the largest national park in the lower 48 states, and the hottest, driest and lowest of all the national parks in the United States. The second-lowest point in the Western Hemisphere is in Badwater Basin, which is 282 feet (86 m) below sea level. Approximately 91% of the park is a designated wilderness area. The park is home to many species of plants and animals that have adapted to this harsh desert environment. Some examples include creosote bush, bighorn sheep, coyote, and the Death Valley pupfish, a survivor from much wetter times. UNESCO included Death Valley as the principal feature of its Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve in 1984.

A series of Native American groups inhabited the area from as early as 7000 BC, most recently the Timbisha around 1000 AD who migrated between winter camps in the valleys and summer grounds in the mountains. A group of European-Americans, trapped in the valley in 1849 while looking for a shortcut to the gold fields of California, gave the valley its name, even though only one of their group died there. Several short-lived boom towns sprang up during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to mine gold and silver. The only long-term profitable ore to be mined was borax, which was transported out of the valley with twenty-mule teams. The valley later became the subject of books, radio programs, television series, and movies. Tourism expanded in the 1920s when resorts were built around Stovepipe Wells and Furnace Creek. Death Valley National Monument was declared in 1933 and the park was substantially expanded and became a national park in 1994.

The natural environment of the area has been shaped largely by its geology. The valley is actually a graben with the oldest rocks being extensively metamorphosed and at least 1.7 billion years old. Ancient, warm, shallow seas deposited marine sediments until rifting opened the Pacific Ocean. Additional sedimentation occurred until a subduction zone formed off the coast. The subduction uplifted the region out of the sea and created a line of volcanoes. Later the crust started to pull apart, creating the current Basin and Range landform. Valleys filled with sediment and, during the wet times of glacial periods, with lakes, such as Lake Manly.

In 2013, Death Valley National Park was designated as a dark sky park by the International Dark-Sky Association.

There are two major valleys in the park, Death Valley and Panamint Valley. Both of these valleys were formed within the last few million years and both are bounded by north–south-trending mountain ranges. These and adjacent valleys follow the general trend of Basin and Range topography with one modification: there are parallel strike-slip faults that perpendicularly bound the central extent of Death Valley. The result of this shearing action is additional extension in the central part of Death Valley which causes a slight widening and more subsidence there.

Uplift of surrounding mountain ranges and subsidence of the valley floor are both occurring. The uplift on the Black Mountains is so fast that the alluvial fans (fan-shaped deposits at the mouth of canyons) there are small and steep compared to the huge alluvial fans coming off the Panamint Range. Fast uplift of a mountain range in an arid environment often does not allow its canyons enough time to cut a classic V-shape all the way down to the stream bed. Instead, a V-shape ends at a slot canyon halfway down, forming a 'wine glass canyon.' Sediment is deposited on a small and steep alluvial fan.

At 282 feet (86 m) below sea level at its lowest point, Badwater Basin on Death Valley's floor is the second-lowest depression in the Western Hemisphere (behind Laguna del Carbón in Argentina), while Mount Whitney, only 85 miles (137 km) to the west, rises to 14,505 feet (4,421 m). This topographic relief is the greatest elevation gradient in the contiguous United States and is the terminus point of the Great Basin's southwestern drainage. Although the extreme lack of water in the Great Basin makes this distinction of little current practical use, it does mean that in wetter times the lake that once filled Death Valley (Lake Manly) was the last stop for water flowing in the region, meaning the water there was saturated in dissolved materials. Thus the salt pans in Death Valley are among the largest in the world and are rich in minerals, such as borax and various salts and hydrates. The largest salt pan in the park extends 40 miles (64 km) from the Ashford Mill Site to the Salt Creek Hills, covering some 200 square miles (520 km2) of the valley floor. The best known playa in the park is the Racetrack, known for its moving rocks.

Death Valley is the hottest and driest place in North America due to its lack of surface water and low relief. It is so frequently the hottest spot in the United States that many tabulations of the highest daily temperatures in the country omit Death Valley as a matter of course.

On the afternoon of July 10, 1913, the United States Weather Bureau recorded a high temperature of 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek) in Death Valley. This temperature stands as the highest ambient air temperature ever recorded at the surface of the Earth. (A report of a temperature of 58 °C (136.4 °F) recorded in Libya in 1922 was later determined to be inaccurate.) Daily summer temperatures of 120 °F (49 °C) or greater are common, as well as below freezing nightly temperatures in the winter. July is the hottest month, with an average high of 115 °F (46 °C) and an average low of 88 °F (31 °C). December is the coldest month, with an average high of 65 °F (18 °C) and an average low of 39 °F (4 °C). The record low is 15 °F (−9.4 °C).

(Wikipedia)

Zabriskie Point is a part of the Amargosa Range located east of Death Valley in Death Valley National Park in California, United States, noted for its erosional landscape. It is composed of sediments from Furnace Creek Lake, which dried up 5 million years ago—long before Death Valley came into existence.

Name

The location was named after Christian Brevoort Zabriskie, vice-president and general manager of the Pacific Coast Borax Company in the early 20th century. The company's twenty-mule teams were used to transport borax from its mining operations in Death Valley.

History

Millions of years prior to the actual sinking and widening of Death Valley and the existence of Lake Manly (see Geology of the Death Valley area), another lake covered a large portion of Death Valley including the area around Zabriskie Point. This ancient lake began forming approximately nine million years ago. During several million years of the lake's existence, sediments were collecting at the bottom in the form of saline muds, gravels from nearby mountains, and ashfalls from the then-active Black Mountain volcanic field. These sediments combined to form what we today call the Furnace Creek Formation. The climate along Furnace Creek Lake was dry, but not nearly as dry as in the present. Camels, mastodons, horses, carnivores, and birds left tracks in the lakeshore muds, along with fossilized grass and reeds. Borates, which made up a large portion of Death Valley's historical past were concentrated in the lakebeds from hot spring waters and alteration of rhyolite in the nearby volcanic field. Weathering and alteration by thermal waters are also responsible for the variety of colors represented there.

Regional mountains building to the west influenced the climate to become more and more arid, causing the lake to dry up, and creating a dry lake. Subsequent widening and sinking of Death Valley and the additional uplift of today's Black Mountains tilted the area. This provided the necessary relief to accomplish the erosion that produced the badlands we see today. The dark-colored material capping the badland ridges (to the left in the panoramic photograph) is lava from eruptions that occurred three to five million years ago. This hard lava cap has retarded erosion in many places and possibly explains why Manly Beacon, the high outcrop to the right, is much higher than other portion of the badlands. (Manly Beacon was named in honor of William L. Manly, who along with John Rogers, guided members of the ill-fated party of Forty-niners out of Death Valley during the California Gold Rush of 1849.)

The primary source of borate minerals gathered from Death Valley's playas is Furnace Creek Formation. The Formation is made up of over 5000 feet (1500 m) of mudstone, siltstone, and conglomerate. The borates were concentrated in these lakebeds from hot spring waters and altered rhyolite from nearby volcanic fields.

In popular culture

Zabriskie Point is also the title of a 1970 movie by Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni; its soundtrack features music by British bands Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones, Americans Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead, among others.

The philosopher Michel Foucault called his 1975 acid trip at Zabriskie Point the greatest experience of his life.

This location is featured prominently on the cover of U2's album The Joshua Tree.

This location was used to represent the surface of Mars in the 1964 film Robinson Crusoe on Mars.

Zabriskie Point is the name of Radio Massacre International's album released in 2000.

Zabriskie Point is a Soviet code for a location on the surface of the Moon in Omon Ra, a dystopian thriller novel by Victor Pelevin.

Zabriskie Point is a significant location in the novels Fall of Night, Dust and Decay, and Fire and Ash by Jonathan Maberry, in each case, as the location of a top secret chemical and biological research station.

Zabriskie Point was used as a film location for the 1960 Universal film Spartacus, showing Gladiator school boss Peter Ustinov on muleback trekking to an Egyptian mine to buy slaves to put in training.

Shots taken from Zabriskie Point of Red Cathedral and Manly Beacon were used as the basis for shots that were then digitally altered to form the planet of Arvala-7 in the first season of The Mandalorian.

(Wikipedia)

Der Death-Valley-Nationalpark (Tal des Todes) liegt in der Mojave-Wüste und ist der trockenste Nationalpark in den USA. Er liegt südöstlich der Sierra Nevada, zum größten Teil auf dem Gebiet Kaliforniens und zu einem kleineren Teil in Nevada. Die Region ist ein Hitzepol.

Der tiefste Punkt des Tales liegt 85,95 Meter unter dem Meeresspiegel. Es gibt zwei Haupttäler innerhalb des Parks, das Death Valley und das Panamint Valley. Beide Täler sind wenige Millionen Jahre alt. Das Death Valley ist von mehreren Gebirgen umschlossen, die höchste Gebirgskette bildet die Panamint Range mit dem 3366 m hohen Telescope Peak. 1933 wurde das Death Valley zum National Monument ernannt. 1994 wurde es, stark erweitert, zum Nationalpark aufgewertet. Eine kleine Enklave, Devils Hole weiter östlich in Nevada in der Nähe des Ash Meadows National Wildlife Preserve gelegen, gehört ebenfalls zum Park.

Am 20. Februar 2011 wurde der Nationalpark als Lichtschutzgebiet von der International Dark Sky Association auch als International Dark Sky Park (IDSP, in Gold) anerkannt, und nennt sich seither auch Death Valley International Dark Sky Park. Es ist das weitaus größte solche Schutzgebiet der USA und das zweitgrößte weltweit (nach dem IDSR Wood Buffalo in Kanada).

Das Tal erhielt seinen Namen, nachdem 1849 zwei Gruppen von Reisenden mit insgesamt etwa 100 Wagen eine Abkürzung des Old Spanish Trail suchten und dabei in das Tal gerieten. Nachdem sie wochenlang keinen Ausweg aus dem Tal gefunden hatten und bereits gezwungen waren, mehrere ihrer Ochsen zu verspeisen (wobei sie das Holz ihrer Wagen als Brennholz verwendeten), ließen sie ihre restlichen Wagen zurück und verließen das Tal über den Wingate Pass. Dabei drehte sich eine der Frauen aus der Gruppe um und rief dem Tal ein „Goodbye, Death Valley“ hinterher.

Trotz einer weitverbreiteten Legende soll niemand aus der Gruppe bei der Taldurchquerung umgekommen sein, bis auf einen Greis namens Culverwell, der schon beim Betreten des Tales sterbensmatt gewesen war. Als Teilnehmer der Reisegruppe beschrieb William Lewis Manly in seinem autobiographischen Werk Death Valley in ’49 die Begebenheiten.

Obwohl das Tal des Todes nur wenige hundert Kilometer vom Pazifischen Ozean entfernt liegt, ist es eine der trockensten Gegenden der Erde. Dies liegt daran, dass sich die feuchten Winde auf ihrem Weg vom Pazifik an fünf Bergrücken abregnen, bevor sie über das Gebiet des Parks ziehen können. Das Death Valley ist außerdem eine der heißesten Gegenden Amerikas. Am 10. Juli 1913 wurde bei Greenland Ranch (heute bekannt als Furnace Creek Ranch) vom National Weather Service eine Temperatur von 56,7 °C (134 °F) gemessen. Am 12. Juli 2012 wurde im Death Valley mit 41,7 °C (107 °F) die wärmste nächtliche Tiefsttemperatur gemessen; der gleiche Wert wurde vorher nur einmal erreicht, nämlich am 27. Juni 2012 am Khasab-Flughafen in Oman.

(Wikipedia)

Der Zabriskie Point ist ein Aussichtspunkt im Gebiet des Gebirgszugs der Amargosa Range im Death-Valley-Nationalpark, der für seine bizarren Erosionslandschaften um den ehemaligen Lake Manly bekannt ist. Er wurde zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts nach Christian Brevoort Zabriskie aus Wyoming benannt, dem Vizepräsidenten und Geschäftsführer der Pacific Coast Borax Company, die mit dem Boraxabbau in dem Gebiet beauftragt war.

Die Gesteinsformationen, auf die man von diesem Punkt sieht, sind die Sedimente des ehemaligen Furnace Creek Lake, der vor fünf Millionen Jahren ausgetrocknet ist.

Trivia

Der Aussichtspunkt und die davor liegende Landschaft wurden durch Michelangelo Antonionis Film Zabriskie Point von 1970 bekannt, der Musik der britischen Band Pink Floyd beinhaltet. Das Foto, das für das Cover des Albums The Joshua Tree der irischen Band U2 verwendet wurde, wurde ebenfalls hier aufgenommen.

(Wikipedia)

“So much for Objective Journalism. Don't bother to look for it here - not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.”

― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72

Mesquite Flat Dunes

Death Valley National Park is an American national park that straddles the California-Nevada border, east of the Sierra Nevada. The park occupies an interface zone between the arid Great Basin and Mojave deserts, protecting the northwest corner of the Mojave Desert and its diverse environment of salt-flats, sand dunes, badlands, valleys, canyons, and mountains. Death Valley is the largest national park in the lower 48 states, and the hottest, driest and lowest of all the national parks in the United States. The second-lowest point in the Western Hemisphere is in Badwater Basin, which is 282 feet (86 m) below sea level. Approximately 91% of the park is a designated wilderness area. The park is home to many species of plants and animals that have adapted to this harsh desert environment. Some examples include creosote bush, bighorn sheep, coyote, and the Death Valley pupfish, a survivor from much wetter times. UNESCO included Death Valley as the principal feature of its Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve in 1984.

A series of Native American groups inhabited the area from as early as 7000 BC, most recently the Timbisha around 1000 AD who migrated between winter camps in the valleys and summer grounds in the mountains. A group of European-Americans, trapped in the valley in 1849 while looking for a shortcut to the gold fields of California, gave the valley its name, even though only one of their group died there. Several short-lived boom towns sprang up during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to mine gold and silver. The only long-term profitable ore to be mined was borax, which was transported out of the valley with twenty-mule teams. The valley later became the subject of books, radio programs, television series, and movies. Tourism expanded in the 1920s when resorts were built around Stovepipe Wells and Furnace Creek. Death Valley National Monument was declared in 1933 and the park was substantially expanded and became a national park in 1994.

The natural environment of the area has been shaped largely by its geology. The valley is actually a graben with the oldest rocks being extensively metamorphosed and at least 1.7 billion years old. Ancient, warm, shallow seas deposited marine sediments until rifting opened the Pacific Ocean. Additional sedimentation occurred until a subduction zone formed off the coast. The subduction uplifted the region out of the sea and created a line of volcanoes. Later the crust started to pull apart, creating the current Basin and Range landform. Valleys filled with sediment and, during the wet times of glacial periods, with lakes, such as Lake Manly.

In 2013, Death Valley National Park was designated as a dark sky park by the International Dark-Sky Association.

There are two major valleys in the park, Death Valley and Panamint Valley. Both of these valleys were formed within the last few million years and both are bounded by north–south-trending mountain ranges. These and adjacent valleys follow the general trend of Basin and Range topography with one modification: there are parallel strike-slip faults that perpendicularly bound the central extent of Death Valley. The result of this shearing action is additional extension in the central part of Death Valley which causes a slight widening and more subsidence there.

Uplift of surrounding mountain ranges and subsidence of the valley floor are both occurring. The uplift on the Black Mountains is so fast that the alluvial fans (fan-shaped deposits at the mouth of canyons) there are small and steep compared to the huge alluvial fans coming off the Panamint Range. Fast uplift of a mountain range in an arid environment often does not allow its canyons enough time to cut a classic V-shape all the way down to the stream bed. Instead, a V-shape ends at a slot canyon halfway down, forming a 'wine glass canyon.' Sediment is deposited on a small and steep alluvial fan.

At 282 feet (86 m) below sea level at its lowest point, Badwater Basin on Death Valley's floor is the second-lowest depression in the Western Hemisphere (behind Laguna del Carbón in Argentina), while Mount Whitney, only 85 miles (137 km) to the west, rises to 14,505 feet (4,421 m). This topographic relief is the greatest elevation gradient in the contiguous United States and is the terminus point of the Great Basin's southwestern drainage. Although the extreme lack of water in the Great Basin makes this distinction of little current practical use, it does mean that in wetter times the lake that once filled Death Valley (Lake Manly) was the last stop for water flowing in the region, meaning the water there was saturated in dissolved materials. Thus the salt pans in Death Valley are among the largest in the world and are rich in minerals, such as borax and various salts and hydrates. The largest salt pan in the park extends 40 miles (64 km) from the Ashford Mill Site to the Salt Creek Hills, covering some 200 square miles (520 km2) of the valley floor. The best known playa in the park is the Racetrack, known for its moving rocks.

Death Valley is the hottest and driest place in North America due to its lack of surface water and low relief. It is so frequently the hottest spot in the United States that many tabulations of the highest daily temperatures in the country omit Death Valley as a matter of course.

On the afternoon of July 10, 1913, the United States Weather Bureau recorded a high temperature of 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek) in Death Valley. This temperature stands as the highest ambient air temperature ever recorded at the surface of the Earth. (A report of a temperature of 58 °C (136.4 °F) recorded in Libya in 1922 was later determined to be inaccurate.) Daily summer temperatures of 120 °F (49 °C) or greater are common, as well as below freezing nightly temperatures in the winter. July is the hottest month, with an average high of 115 °F (46 °C) and an average low of 88 °F (31 °C). December is the coldest month, with an average high of 65 °F (18 °C) and an average low of 39 °F (4 °C). The record low is 15 °F (−9.4 °C).

(Wikipedia)

Many first time visitors to Death Valley are surprised it is not covered with a sea of sand. Less than one percent of the desert is covered with dunes, yet the shadowed ripples and stark, graceful curves define "desert" in our imaginations.

For dunes to exist there must be a source of sand, prevailing winds to move the sand, and a place for the sand to collect. The eroded canyons and washes provide plenty of sand, the wind seems to always blow (especially in the springtime), but there are only a few areas in the park where the sand is "trapped" by geographic features such as mountains.

The sand dunes of Death Valley National Park are excellent places for nature study and recreation. All of the dunes in Death Valley National Park are protected as wilderness, off-road vehicle travel is not permitted anywhere in the park. Sand boarding is only allowed on the Mesquite Flat Dunes and prohibited on all other dune systems in the park to protect sensitive plants and animals.

Mesquite Flat Dunes

These dunes are the best known and easiest to visit in the national park. Located in central Death Valley near Stovepipe Wells, access is from Hwy. 190 or from the unpaved Sand Dunes Road. Although the highest dune rises only about 100 feet, the dunes actually cover a vast area. This dune field includes three types of dunes: crescent, linear, and star shaped. Polygon-cracked clay of an ancient lakebed forms the floor. Mesquite trees have created large hummocks that provide stable habitats for wildlife.

(nps.gov)

Der Death-Valley-Nationalpark (Tal des Todes) liegt in der Mojave-Wüste und ist der trockenste Nationalpark in den USA. Er liegt südöstlich der Sierra Nevada, zum größten Teil auf dem Gebiet Kaliforniens und zu einem kleineren Teil in Nevada. Die Region ist ein Hitzepol.

Der tiefste Punkt des Tales liegt 85,95 Meter unter dem Meeresspiegel. Es gibt zwei Haupttäler innerhalb des Parks, das Death Valley und das Panamint Valley. Beide Täler sind wenige Millionen Jahre alt. Das Death Valley ist von mehreren Gebirgen umschlossen, die höchste Gebirgskette bildet die Panamint Range mit dem 3366 m hohen Telescope Peak. 1933 wurde das Death Valley zum National Monument ernannt. 1994 wurde es, stark erweitert, zum Nationalpark aufgewertet. Eine kleine Enklave, Devils Hole weiter östlich in Nevada in der Nähe des Ash Meadows National Wildlife Preserve gelegen, gehört ebenfalls zum Park.

Am 20. Februar 2011 wurde der Nationalpark als Lichtschutzgebiet von der International Dark Sky Association auch als International Dark Sky Park (IDSP, in Gold) anerkannt, und nennt sich seither auch Death Valley International Dark Sky Park. Es ist das weitaus größte solche Schutzgebiet der USA und das zweitgrößte weltweit (nach dem IDSR Wood Buffalo in Kanada).

Das Tal erhielt seinen Namen, nachdem 1849 zwei Gruppen von Reisenden mit insgesamt etwa 100 Wagen eine Abkürzung des Old Spanish Trail suchten und dabei in das Tal gerieten. Nachdem sie wochenlang keinen Ausweg aus dem Tal gefunden hatten und bereits gezwungen waren, mehrere ihrer Ochsen zu verspeisen (wobei sie das Holz ihrer Wagen als Brennholz verwendeten), ließen sie ihre restlichen Wagen zurück und verließen das Tal über den Wingate Pass. Dabei drehte sich eine der Frauen aus der Gruppe um und rief dem Tal ein „Goodbye, Death Valley“ hinterher.

Trotz einer weitverbreiteten Legende soll niemand aus der Gruppe bei der Taldurchquerung umgekommen sein, bis auf einen Greis namens Culverwell, der schon beim Betreten des Tales sterbensmatt gewesen war. Als Teilnehmer der Reisegruppe beschrieb William Lewis Manly in seinem autobiographischen Werk Death Valley in ’49 die Begebenheiten.

Obwohl das Tal des Todes nur wenige hundert Kilometer vom Pazifischen Ozean entfernt liegt, ist es eine der trockensten Gegenden der Erde. Dies liegt daran, dass sich die feuchten Winde auf ihrem Weg vom Pazifik an fünf Bergrücken abregnen, bevor sie über das Gebiet des Parks ziehen können. Das Death Valley ist außerdem eine der heißesten Gegenden Amerikas. Am 10. Juli 1913 wurde bei Greenland Ranch (heute bekannt als Furnace Creek Ranch) vom National Weather Service eine Temperatur von 56,7 °C (134 °F) gemessen. Am 12. Juli 2012 wurde im Death Valley mit 41,7 °C (107 °F) die wärmste nächtliche Tiefsttemperatur gemessen; der gleiche Wert wurde vorher nur einmal erreicht, nämlich am 27. Juni 2012 am Khasab-Flughafen in Oman.

Die 4 km² großen Mesquite Sand Dunes liegen im nördlichen Teil des Tales und wurden schon oft als Wüstenkulisse in Filmen, unter anderem in Star Wars, verwendet. Die größte Düne ist die Star Dune. Diese ist recht stabil, da der Wind den Sand vorzugsweise an genau dieser Stelle ablagert. Der Sand ist hier rund 50 Meter hoch.

(Wikipedia)

Like its own little space-time. Carbonate specimen is 3 inches or 8 cm across.

A prolific Devonian reef in Haldimand County, Ontario has a variety of excellent corals.

Seen at University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.

While the final results will take days to tabulate, we do know one thing: this is no Biden blowout. In fact, more people voted for Donald Trump in 2020 than voted for him in 2016.

To start out with, we can’t (and shouldn’t) pretend that what Trump has awoken is some sort of aberration. It turns out that this is what this country is. We as a nation aren’t better than this. This is who we are.

We are a nation that votes for incompetent racist demagogues who flaunt their corruption and peddle hate. Full stop. Despite whatever hopes we may have held for a blue wave this year, it is clear now that 2016 was not an isolated moment of madness. The idea that America is an exceptional nation based in freedom and democracy, with institutions and norms that are sound and unchanging, is a mirage.

Over the past few years, I’ve increasingly looked back on the hope and excitement of 2008 with bewilderment. What the hell happened? How did we go from that—to this? Perhaps Barack Obama is a once-in-a generation political talent and/or

John McCain and Mitt Romney didn’t wake the white supremacy dragon. In some sense, Trump has thrown gasoline on a smoldering fire. It’s as though some voters do want what the Democrats are selling—a higher minimum wage, better-paying jobs, worker protections, affordable healthcare—but not when those things come along with rights for Black people, LGBTQ people, and women. And yes, that’s maddening.

It may be several days before we know the results of the presidential election—an election that should not have ever been close.

So where to from here? In the near future, I plan to make a list of things I can do to become more aware of and involved in state and local politics (to the extent that I have the time and energy, of course). I am also going to think of other ways I can work to benefit my community—to learn more about what charities need support, what causes need pushing, etc. Wherever we are, we can be a cause for good—even in the midst of chaos.

None of this makes what happened yesterday okay. Still, for my own sanity, I am increasingly feeling a need to shift my focus away from the national level to focus on the things I can change. Oh—and it’s time to step away from social media. While your milage may vary, for me, social media has begun to feel increasingly unhealthy. It doesn’t help, and it only results in an increase in anxiety. There has to be a better way.

(Excerpted from an opinion blog by Libby Anne of Love, Joy, Feminism)

This expresses pretty well where the Green Valley Boys find ourselves now.

Mesquite Flat Dunes

Death Valley National Park is an American national park that straddles the California-Nevada border, east of the Sierra Nevada. The park occupies an interface zone between the arid Great Basin and Mojave deserts, protecting the northwest corner of the Mojave Desert and its diverse environment of salt-flats, sand dunes, badlands, valleys, canyons, and mountains. Death Valley is the largest national park in the lower 48 states, and the hottest, driest and lowest of all the national parks in the United States. The second-lowest point in the Western Hemisphere is in Badwater Basin, which is 282 feet (86 m) below sea level. Approximately 91% of the park is a designated wilderness area. The park is home to many species of plants and animals that have adapted to this harsh desert environment. Some examples include creosote bush, bighorn sheep, coyote, and the Death Valley pupfish, a survivor from much wetter times. UNESCO included Death Valley as the principal feature of its Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve in 1984.

A series of Native American groups inhabited the area from as early as 7000 BC, most recently the Timbisha around 1000 AD who migrated between winter camps in the valleys and summer grounds in the mountains. A group of European-Americans, trapped in the valley in 1849 while looking for a shortcut to the gold fields of California, gave the valley its name, even though only one of their group died there. Several short-lived boom towns sprang up during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to mine gold and silver. The only long-term profitable ore to be mined was borax, which was transported out of the valley with twenty-mule teams. The valley later became the subject of books, radio programs, television series, and movies. Tourism expanded in the 1920s when resorts were built around Stovepipe Wells and Furnace Creek. Death Valley National Monument was declared in 1933 and the park was substantially expanded and became a national park in 1994.

The natural environment of the area has been shaped largely by its geology. The valley is actually a graben with the oldest rocks being extensively metamorphosed and at least 1.7 billion years old. Ancient, warm, shallow seas deposited marine sediments until rifting opened the Pacific Ocean. Additional sedimentation occurred until a subduction zone formed off the coast. The subduction uplifted the region out of the sea and created a line of volcanoes. Later the crust started to pull apart, creating the current Basin and Range landform. Valleys filled with sediment and, during the wet times of glacial periods, with lakes, such as Lake Manly.

In 2013, Death Valley National Park was designated as a dark sky park by the International Dark-Sky Association.

There are two major valleys in the park, Death Valley and Panamint Valley. Both of these valleys were formed within the last few million years and both are bounded by north–south-trending mountain ranges. These and adjacent valleys follow the general trend of Basin and Range topography with one modification: there are parallel strike-slip faults that perpendicularly bound the central extent of Death Valley. The result of this shearing action is additional extension in the central part of Death Valley which causes a slight widening and more subsidence there.

Uplift of surrounding mountain ranges and subsidence of the valley floor are both occurring. The uplift on the Black Mountains is so fast that the alluvial fans (fan-shaped deposits at the mouth of canyons) there are small and steep compared to the huge alluvial fans coming off the Panamint Range. Fast uplift of a mountain range in an arid environment often does not allow its canyons enough time to cut a classic V-shape all the way down to the stream bed. Instead, a V-shape ends at a slot canyon halfway down, forming a 'wine glass canyon.' Sediment is deposited on a small and steep alluvial fan.

At 282 feet (86 m) below sea level at its lowest point, Badwater Basin on Death Valley's floor is the second-lowest depression in the Western Hemisphere (behind Laguna del Carbón in Argentina), while Mount Whitney, only 85 miles (137 km) to the west, rises to 14,505 feet (4,421 m). This topographic relief is the greatest elevation gradient in the contiguous United States and is the terminus point of the Great Basin's southwestern drainage. Although the extreme lack of water in the Great Basin makes this distinction of little current practical use, it does mean that in wetter times the lake that once filled Death Valley (Lake Manly) was the last stop for water flowing in the region, meaning the water there was saturated in dissolved materials. Thus the salt pans in Death Valley are among the largest in the world and are rich in minerals, such as borax and various salts and hydrates. The largest salt pan in the park extends 40 miles (64 km) from the Ashford Mill Site to the Salt Creek Hills, covering some 200 square miles (520 km2) of the valley floor. The best known playa in the park is the Racetrack, known for its moving rocks.

Death Valley is the hottest and driest place in North America due to its lack of surface water and low relief. It is so frequently the hottest spot in the United States that many tabulations of the highest daily temperatures in the country omit Death Valley as a matter of course.

On the afternoon of July 10, 1913, the United States Weather Bureau recorded a high temperature of 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek) in Death Valley. This temperature stands as the highest ambient air temperature ever recorded at the surface of the Earth. (A report of a temperature of 58 °C (136.4 °F) recorded in Libya in 1922 was later determined to be inaccurate.) Daily summer temperatures of 120 °F (49 °C) or greater are common, as well as below freezing nightly temperatures in the winter. July is the hottest month, with an average high of 115 °F (46 °C) and an average low of 88 °F (31 °C). December is the coldest month, with an average high of 65 °F (18 °C) and an average low of 39 °F (4 °C). The record low is 15 °F (−9.4 °C).

(Wikipedia)

Many first time visitors to Death Valley are surprised it is not covered with a sea of sand. Less than one percent of the desert is covered with dunes, yet the shadowed ripples and stark, graceful curves define "desert" in our imaginations.

For dunes to exist there must be a source of sand, prevailing winds to move the sand, and a place for the sand to collect. The eroded canyons and washes provide plenty of sand, the wind seems to always blow (especially in the springtime), but there are only a few areas in the park where the sand is "trapped" by geographic features such as mountains.

The sand dunes of Death Valley National Park are excellent places for nature study and recreation. All of the dunes in Death Valley National Park are protected as wilderness, off-road vehicle travel is not permitted anywhere in the park. Sand boarding is only allowed on the Mesquite Flat Dunes and prohibited on all other dune systems in the park to protect sensitive plants and animals.

Mesquite Flat Dunes

These dunes are the best known and easiest to visit in the national park. Located in central Death Valley near Stovepipe Wells, access is from Hwy. 190 or from the unpaved Sand Dunes Road. Although the highest dune rises only about 100 feet, the dunes actually cover a vast area. This dune field includes three types of dunes: crescent, linear, and star shaped. Polygon-cracked clay of an ancient lakebed forms the floor. Mesquite trees have created large hummocks that provide stable habitats for wildlife.

(nps.gov)

Der Death-Valley-Nationalpark (Tal des Todes) liegt in der Mojave-Wüste und ist der trockenste Nationalpark in den USA. Er liegt südöstlich der Sierra Nevada, zum größten Teil auf dem Gebiet Kaliforniens und zu einem kleineren Teil in Nevada. Die Region ist ein Hitzepol.

Der tiefste Punkt des Tales liegt 85,95 Meter unter dem Meeresspiegel. Es gibt zwei Haupttäler innerhalb des Parks, das Death Valley und das Panamint Valley. Beide Täler sind wenige Millionen Jahre alt. Das Death Valley ist von mehreren Gebirgen umschlossen, die höchste Gebirgskette bildet die Panamint Range mit dem 3366 m hohen Telescope Peak. 1933 wurde das Death Valley zum National Monument ernannt. 1994 wurde es, stark erweitert, zum Nationalpark aufgewertet. Eine kleine Enklave, Devils Hole weiter östlich in Nevada in der Nähe des Ash Meadows National Wildlife Preserve gelegen, gehört ebenfalls zum Park.

Am 20. Februar 2011 wurde der Nationalpark als Lichtschutzgebiet von der International Dark Sky Association auch als International Dark Sky Park (IDSP, in Gold) anerkannt, und nennt sich seither auch Death Valley International Dark Sky Park. Es ist das weitaus größte solche Schutzgebiet der USA und das zweitgrößte weltweit (nach dem IDSR Wood Buffalo in Kanada).

Das Tal erhielt seinen Namen, nachdem 1849 zwei Gruppen von Reisenden mit insgesamt etwa 100 Wagen eine Abkürzung des Old Spanish Trail suchten und dabei in das Tal gerieten. Nachdem sie wochenlang keinen Ausweg aus dem Tal gefunden hatten und bereits gezwungen waren, mehrere ihrer Ochsen zu verspeisen (wobei sie das Holz ihrer Wagen als Brennholz verwendeten), ließen sie ihre restlichen Wagen zurück und verließen das Tal über den Wingate Pass. Dabei drehte sich eine der Frauen aus der Gruppe um und rief dem Tal ein „Goodbye, Death Valley“ hinterher.

Trotz einer weitverbreiteten Legende soll niemand aus der Gruppe bei der Taldurchquerung umgekommen sein, bis auf einen Greis namens Culverwell, der schon beim Betreten des Tales sterbensmatt gewesen war. Als Teilnehmer der Reisegruppe beschrieb William Lewis Manly in seinem autobiographischen Werk Death Valley in ’49 die Begebenheiten.

Obwohl das Tal des Todes nur wenige hundert Kilometer vom Pazifischen Ozean entfernt liegt, ist es eine der trockensten Gegenden der Erde. Dies liegt daran, dass sich die feuchten Winde auf ihrem Weg vom Pazifik an fünf Bergrücken abregnen, bevor sie über das Gebiet des Parks ziehen können. Das Death Valley ist außerdem eine der heißesten Gegenden Amerikas. Am 10. Juli 1913 wurde bei Greenland Ranch (heute bekannt als Furnace Creek Ranch) vom National Weather Service eine Temperatur von 56,7 °C (134 °F) gemessen. Am 12. Juli 2012 wurde im Death Valley mit 41,7 °C (107 °F) die wärmste nächtliche Tiefsttemperatur gemessen; der gleiche Wert wurde vorher nur einmal erreicht, nämlich am 27. Juni 2012 am Khasab-Flughafen in Oman.

Die 4 km² großen Mesquite Sand Dunes liegen im nördlichen Teil des Tales und wurden schon oft als Wüstenkulisse in Filmen, unter anderem in Star Wars, verwendet. Die größte Düne ist die Star Dune. Diese ist recht stabil, da der Wind den Sand vorzugsweise an genau dieser Stelle ablagert. Der Sand ist hier rund 50 Meter hoch.

(Wikipedia)

Devil's Golf Course

Death Valley National Park is an American national park that straddles the California-Nevada border, east of the Sierra Nevada. The park occupies an interface zone between the arid Great Basin and Mojave deserts, protecting the northwest corner of the Mojave Desert and its diverse environment of salt-flats, sand dunes, badlands, valleys, canyons, and mountains. Death Valley is the largest national park in the lower 48 states, and the hottest, driest and lowest of all the national parks in the United States. The second-lowest point in the Western Hemisphere is in Badwater Basin, which is 282 feet (86 m) below sea level. Approximately 91% of the park is a designated wilderness area. The park is home to many species of plants and animals that have adapted to this harsh desert environment. Some examples include creosote bush, bighorn sheep, coyote, and the Death Valley pupfish, a survivor from much wetter times. UNESCO included Death Valley as the principal feature of its Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve in 1984.

A series of Native American groups inhabited the area from as early as 7000 BC, most recently the Timbisha around 1000 AD who migrated between winter camps in the valleys and summer grounds in the mountains. A group of European-Americans, trapped in the valley in 1849 while looking for a shortcut to the gold fields of California, gave the valley its name, even though only one of their group died there. Several short-lived boom towns sprang up during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to mine gold and silver. The only long-term profitable ore to be mined was borax, which was transported out of the valley with twenty-mule teams. The valley later became the subject of books, radio programs, television series, and movies. Tourism expanded in the 1920s when resorts were built around Stovepipe Wells and Furnace Creek. Death Valley National Monument was declared in 1933 and the park was substantially expanded and became a national park in 1994.

The natural environment of the area has been shaped largely by its geology. The valley is actually a graben with the oldest rocks being extensively metamorphosed and at least 1.7 billion years old. Ancient, warm, shallow seas deposited marine sediments until rifting opened the Pacific Ocean. Additional sedimentation occurred until a subduction zone formed off the coast. The subduction uplifted the region out of the sea and created a line of volcanoes. Later the crust started to pull apart, creating the current Basin and Range landform. Valleys filled with sediment and, during the wet times of glacial periods, with lakes, such as Lake Manly.

In 2013, Death Valley National Park was designated as a dark sky park by the International Dark-Sky Association.

There are two major valleys in the park, Death Valley and Panamint Valley. Both of these valleys were formed within the last few million years and both are bounded by north–south-trending mountain ranges. These and adjacent valleys follow the general trend of Basin and Range topography with one modification: there are parallel strike-slip faults that perpendicularly bound the central extent of Death Valley. The result of this shearing action is additional extension in the central part of Death Valley which causes a slight widening and more subsidence there.

Uplift of surrounding mountain ranges and subsidence of the valley floor are both occurring. The uplift on the Black Mountains is so fast that the alluvial fans (fan-shaped deposits at the mouth of canyons) there are small and steep compared to the huge alluvial fans coming off the Panamint Range. Fast uplift of a mountain range in an arid environment often does not allow its canyons enough time to cut a classic V-shape all the way down to the stream bed. Instead, a V-shape ends at a slot canyon halfway down, forming a 'wine glass canyon.' Sediment is deposited on a small and steep alluvial fan.

At 282 feet (86 m) below sea level at its lowest point, Badwater Basin on Death Valley's floor is the second-lowest depression in the Western Hemisphere (behind Laguna del Carbón in Argentina), while Mount Whitney, only 85 miles (137 km) to the west, rises to 14,505 feet (4,421 m). This topographic relief is the greatest elevation gradient in the contiguous United States and is the terminus point of the Great Basin's southwestern drainage. Although the extreme lack of water in the Great Basin makes this distinction of little current practical use, it does mean that in wetter times the lake that once filled Death Valley (Lake Manly) was the last stop for water flowing in the region, meaning the water there was saturated in dissolved materials. Thus the salt pans in Death Valley are among the largest in the world and are rich in minerals, such as borax and various salts and hydrates. The largest salt pan in the park extends 40 miles (64 km) from the Ashford Mill Site to the Salt Creek Hills, covering some 200 square miles (520 km2) of the valley floor. The best known playa in the park is the Racetrack, known for its moving rocks.

Death Valley is the hottest and driest place in North America due to its lack of surface water and low relief. It is so frequently the hottest spot in the United States that many tabulations of the highest daily temperatures in the country omit Death Valley as a matter of course.

On the afternoon of July 10, 1913, the United States Weather Bureau recorded a high temperature of 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Greenland Ranch (now Furnace Creek) in Death Valley. This temperature stands as the highest ambient air temperature ever recorded at the surface of the Earth. (A report of a temperature of 58 °C (136.4 °F) recorded in Libya in 1922 was later determined to be inaccurate.) Daily summer temperatures of 120 °F (49 °C) or greater are common, as well as below freezing nightly temperatures in the winter. July is the hottest month, with an average high of 115 °F (46 °C) and an average low of 88 °F (31 °C). December is the coldest month, with an average high of 65 °F (18 °C) and an average low of 39 °F (4 °C). The record low is 15 °F (−9.4 °C).

The Devil's Golf Course is a large salt pan on the floor of Death Valley. It was named after a line in the 1934 National Park Service guide book to Death Valley National Monument, which stated that "Only the devil could play golf" on its surface, due to a rough texture from the large halite salt crystal formations.

Lake Manly once covered the valley to a depth of 30 feet (9.1 m). The salt in the Devil's Golf Course consists of the minerals that were dissolved in the lake's water and left behind in the Badwater Basin when the lake evaporated. With an elevation several feet above the valley floor at Badwater, the Devil's Golf Course remains dry, allowing weathering processes to sculpt the salt there into complicated formations.

Through exploratory holes drilled by the Pacific Coast Borax Company, prior to Death Valley becoming a national monument in 1934, it was discovered that the salt and gravel beds of the Devil's Golf Course extend to a depth of more than 1,000 feet (300 m). Later studies suggest that in places the depth ranges up to 9,000 feet (2,700 m).

Devil's Golf Course can be reached from Badwater Road via a 1.3-mile (2.1 km) gravel drive, closed in wet weather. It should not be confused with an actual golf course in Furnace Creek, also in Death Valley.

(Wikipedia)

Der Death-Valley-Nationalpark (Tal des Todes) liegt in der Mojave-Wüste und ist der trockenste Nationalpark in den USA. Er liegt südöstlich der Sierra Nevada, zum größten Teil auf dem Gebiet Kaliforniens und zu einem kleineren Teil in Nevada. Die Region ist ein Hitzepol.

Der tiefste Punkt des Tales liegt 85,95 Meter unter dem Meeresspiegel. Es gibt zwei Haupttäler innerhalb des Parks, das Death Valley und das Panamint Valley. Beide Täler sind wenige Millionen Jahre alt. Das Death Valley ist von mehreren Gebirgen umschlossen, die höchste Gebirgskette bildet die Panamint Range mit dem 3366 m hohen Telescope Peak. 1933 wurde das Death Valley zum National Monument ernannt. 1994 wurde es, stark erweitert, zum Nationalpark aufgewertet. Eine kleine Enklave, Devils Hole weiter östlich in Nevada in der Nähe des Ash Meadows National Wildlife Preserve gelegen, gehört ebenfalls zum Park.

Am 20. Februar 2011 wurde der Nationalpark als Lichtschutzgebiet von der International Dark Sky Association auch als International Dark Sky Park (IDSP, in Gold) anerkannt, und nennt sich seither auch Death Valley International Dark Sky Park. Es ist das weitaus größte solche Schutzgebiet der USA und das zweitgrößte weltweit (nach dem IDSR Wood Buffalo in Kanada).

Das Tal erhielt seinen Namen, nachdem 1849 zwei Gruppen von Reisenden mit insgesamt etwa 100 Wagen eine Abkürzung des Old Spanish Trail suchten und dabei in das Tal gerieten. Nachdem sie wochenlang keinen Ausweg aus dem Tal gefunden hatten und bereits gezwungen waren, mehrere ihrer Ochsen zu verspeisen (wobei sie das Holz ihrer Wagen als Brennholz verwendeten), ließen sie ihre restlichen Wagen zurück und verließen das Tal über den Wingate Pass. Dabei drehte sich eine der Frauen aus der Gruppe um und rief dem Tal ein „Goodbye, Death Valley“ hinterher.

Trotz einer weitverbreiteten Legende soll niemand aus der Gruppe bei der Taldurchquerung umgekommen sein, bis auf einen Greis namens Culverwell, der schon beim Betreten des Tales sterbensmatt gewesen war. Als Teilnehmer der Reisegruppe beschrieb William Lewis Manly in seinem autobiographischen Werk Death Valley in ’49 die Begebenheiten.

Obwohl das Tal des Todes nur wenige hundert Kilometer vom Pazifischen Ozean entfernt liegt, ist es eine der trockensten Gegenden der Erde. Dies liegt daran, dass sich die feuchten Winde auf ihrem Weg vom Pazifik an fünf Bergrücken abregnen, bevor sie über das Gebiet des Parks ziehen können. Das Death Valley ist außerdem eine der heißesten Gegenden Amerikas. Am 10. Juli 1913 wurde bei Greenland Ranch (heute bekannt als Furnace Creek Ranch) vom National Weather Service eine Temperatur von 56,7 °C (134 °F) gemessen. Am 12. Juli 2012 wurde im Death Valley mit 41,7 °C (107 °F) die wärmste nächtliche Tiefsttemperatur gemessen; der gleiche Wert wurde vorher nur einmal erreicht, nämlich am 27. Juni 2012 am Khasab-Flughafen in Oman.

Devil's Golf Course

Diese zerklüfteten und spitzen Salzstrukturen haben frühe Besucher auf den Gedanken gebracht, dieser unwirtliche Platz müsse der Golfplatz des Teufels gewesen sein.

(Wikipedia)

Circa 1942 - Block C at Bletchley Park in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire on 13 September 2021.

Grade II listed.

The following is from the Historic England website.

Name: Block C, Bletchley Park

Designation Type: Listing

Grade: II

List UID: 1404656

Summary

Block C, Bletchley Park. Spider block designed in 1941 to house Bletchley Park's Hollerith Section and operational from November 1942. GCHQ training school from 1946-1987.

Reasons for Designation

Block C at Bletchley Park is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Historic interest (code-breaking): a building that housed the Hollerith section (Bletchley’s punch card intelligence index, machinery and staff) which was key to the success of Bletchley Park’s Second World War code-breaking work, specifically recording decryption information for the German Enigma code; * Historic interest (the Information Age): a building highly significant in the development and use of machinery for mass data processing, where not only was the Hollerith system employed on a hitherto unprecedented scale but the machines and systems were secretly and constantly improved and adapted; * Form and fabric: a purpose-built and designed utilitarian structure which was hardened and soundproofed in order to protect the highly important machinery and data inside. It is one of the largest purpose-built buildings for tabulating machines in the world. Later alterations for a post-war GCHQ training school, while of lesser interest, are part of the story of the continuing intelligence use of the site at the end of the war; * Group value: with other contemporary buildings on site which collectively express the scale of the intelligence operation at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, some of which are designated.

History

Bletchley Park is a site of international historic significance for signals intelligence (Signit): a Second World War code-breaking hub and a highly significant site in the development of high-speed and mass data processing. The site retains a large number of historic buildings, many of which are listed, which collectively express the rapid technological developments on site through their fabric. Bletchley Park’s story, its historic fabric and significance has been written about in numerous publications including Winterbotham’s 1974 book The Ultra Secret, one of the first to reveal the significance of the wartime work here, and more recently English Heritage’s research report (2004). Therefore only a summary history will be provided here. Needless to say that Bletchley Park was a hugely significant Second World War intelligence ‘factory’ with nearly 9,000 people employed here by 1945 and it was here that the German Enigma code was famously broken.

In 1937 part of the Bletchley Park estate, centred on the Grade II Victorian mansion house, was bought by the Government to house combined intelligence services previously accommodated in London. This included members of the Secret Intelligence Service (the SIS, also known as MI6) as well as Foreign Office staff from the Government Code and Cipher School (GC&CS, renamed post-war as Government Communications Headquarters or GCHQ). Initially operating from the mansion, additional accommodation was soon needed and a series of temporary wooden huts had been erected and fitted out by the summer of 1939.

Rapid expansion of the Bletchley Park complex led to plans being drawn up from mid 1941 onwards for a series of additional purpose-built and permanent blocks. While based on Ministry of Works temporary office block designs, each individual building was designed for its specific purpose in conjunction with the Bletchley staff. The first of these, Block A (Grade II) was operational in August 1942. Block C was planned in 1941 and was first occupied in November 1942. It was designed to accommodate the Hollerith Section, led by Freddie Freeburn of the British Tabulating Machine Company Ltd., previously housed in Hut 7 (demolished post-war). As the Hollerith machines were very noisy and operated day and night both Hut 7 and its successor, Block C, were located away from other accommodation on the eastern edge of the Bletchley Park site.

Herman Hollerith (1860-1929) was an American inventor who gave his name to his system of recording information on punched cards which was initially used to analyse US census data in 1890. His system allowed the analysis of vast amounts of data by machine therefore considerably speeding up a statistical process previously carried out by hand. In 1896 he founded the Tabulating Machine Company (which would become part of IBM in the 1920s). The Hollerith system was essentially an early form of computer processing.

Block C was purpose-designed and built to house the Hollerith machines and staff at Bletchley Park, providing an essential and central service supporting the whole of the GC&CS: the Hollerith system managed Bletchley’s punch card intelligence index and was therefore key to the success of its code-breaking work, specifically recording Enigma decryption information. The Enigma code machine enabled codes to be changed every 24 hours simply by resetting the wheels in the machine. The challenge for the staff of Bletchley Park was to break the code before the wheels were re-set. Using the Hollerith machines to analyse the decryption information (whereby the punch cards based on the coded messages would either block or allow electrical currents to pass through them) enabled the operators to limit the number of possible Enigma wheel-settings and therefore the number of solutions to each days’ Enigma code. In addition, the Hollerith section used its machinery to advise on Allied ciphers.

The Hollerith machines were also adapted on site. This was a critical part of the way that the research here was instantly applied and is a unique feature of Bletchley Park. Block C was therefore built to a particular specification. The scale of the building is an expression of the mass decryption attack that the machines enabled. The building also had to be sound-proofed, given the noise of the machines, provide accommodation for a number of different types of machines while also allowing enough daylight into the building for the operators and data analysts. The significance of the data and the machinery to Bletchley Park and to the war effort was such that the roof was also hardened in case of aerial attack. Some alterations, such as the addition of ventilators for the machinery, were made in 1943.

After the war Bletchley Park became a training facility used by the General Post Office, the Control Commission (responsible for monitoring post-war Germany) and was the home of an Emergency Teacher Training college (for fast-track training of teachers.) Block C became GCHQ’s training school and was altered accordingly with partition walls erected in the previously open-plan spurs to provide lecture and demonstration rooms, a cinema and projector room as well as student accommodation. GCHQ finally left the building in 1987 and it has been redundant since that time.

In 1992 the proposed demolition of some of the Second World War buildings prompted the establishment of the Bletchley Park Trust. The site now (2012) opens to the public as a museum and visitor attraction although not all buildings are accessible (and Block C is not at present).

Details

Block C is located on the eastern edge of the Bletchley Park complex, immediately adjacent to, and north of, the new main gate onto the site. It is a spider block and is single storey with the exception of a roof-top water tank room in the south-east corner. The building is steel framed and encased in buff English bond brickwork. The roof is a reinforced concrete slab, slightly cambered and covered in asphalt. A group of glazed roof lanterns in the centre of the building are additions of the immediate post-war GCHQ occupation. The building is currently mothballed and most windows are therefore boarded up externally although their scale and sloping red tiled cills remain visible externally. However, internal inspection confirms that in the main the windows are large, rectangular, multi-paned steel-framed casements, with internal sloping white-tiled cills. Rainwater goods are plain and unobtrusive. To the east are two covered bicycle shelters. These are lean-to structures with roofs supported on square-section concrete pillars and housing concrete bicycle racks.

The main entrance is off-centre in the south elevation and is approached by shallow concrete steps with simple metal hand rails. Solid wooden double-doors are inset into a metal-framed and glazed bay with yellow-tile detailing. Originally there were only four doorways, the main south entrance, pedestrian doors to Spur 2 (the administration spur) and the Spur 9 machine bay with a loading bay into Spur 5. Further pedestrian doors have been added and date to the immediate post-war period for example providing access to the ends of the other southern six spurs. There is also a further large entrance with double doors off-centre in the north elevation. Here the flanking panels have been infilled in Stretcher bond and there is also a rain canopy supported on brick piers.

In plan the building is arranged around a central north-south corridor off which are three pairs of west-east spurs in the south and centre of the building and an additional ‘E’-shaped arrangement of spurs with the arms running north-south at the north end of the building.

The main south entrance leads into a lobby with a further pair of double-doors opening into a large central ‘room’. This is the only surviving area of the largely open-plan form of the wartime block, although it has been altered by the addition of roof lanterns and a suspended ceiling. The roof of the interior is supported throughout on steel piers against the external walls and brick piers in the centre of the building, the latter have chamfered corners and are painted white (those in the main common room are now encased in wooden cladding and others have been incorporated into later partition walls). The concrete beam roof construction can be seen where suspended ceilings have not been added (such as in Spur 2). Original internal walls are Stretcher bond using plain flettons, also painted white. Most of the trusses are of steel construction although of differing forms. Internal wooden doors are either of solid form or have glazed lights, all with simple architraves, some with their original Bakelite handles. Post-war additions, where rooms have been created for student accommodation, have borrow-lights above onto the spur corridors. There are also some Bakelite switches and early cable trunking in parts. Cast iron radiators are found in many of the rooms and, as they appear on wartime photographs, are primary.

Off the central ‘room’ are six spurs. Spur 1, in the south-east corner, was the kitchen and sanitary spur, Spur 2 in the south-west corner was the administration spur. These spurs were originally subdivided to provide offices, kitchen and ablutions. Spur 2 is perhaps the most original in form of all of the spurs although some modifications were made when converted to GCHQ training accommodation in the 1940s. Spur 1 has additional reinforced concrete trusses supporting the roof level water tower. The post-war conversion of the toilets to bath and shower rooms here has altered the original arrangements. Spurs 3 (to the east) and 4 (to the west) were originally open-plan housing the card store for completed jobs, and the punch room and verifier bay respectively. They have also been subdivided for training accommodation although the original piers remain visible. Spur 5 (to the centre east) was partially open-plan in its original form and housed the new card store and a loading bay at its east end. Spur 6 was closed off from the central bay at its east end as it housed the engineering and maintenance facilities as well as two offices for senior engineers. These spurs have also been subdivided in the post-war period although again the original piers and limited number of original subdivisions of 1942 remain visible. The original spine corridor in the centre of the building, also Spurs 7, 8 and 9 in the north of the building (which were the main machine operation areas) have also been subdivided although again the original piers are visible. The roof of the northern spurs has failed in part allowing water to get into the building such that the suspended ceiling was collapsing at the time of designation

The results have been tabulated and the fans have spoken...your run away favorite Phoenix Customs Minifigure for 2014 was....Arachnid Hero!

Thank you to all of you who voted and sent in such nice comments the last two weeks, I'm glad you've enjoyed our customs this year!

Here's the results from the online voting:

1st Place - Arachnid Hero (52% of 1st Place votes, 23% - 2nd Place votes)

2nd Place - American Super Soldier (17% - 1st Place votes, 56% - 2nd Place Votes)

3rd Place - Kinetic Man (21% - 1st Place votes, 43% - 3rd Place votes)

4th Place - Pirate Assassin (5% - 1st Place votes, 21% - 3rd Place votes)

5th Place - Red Bird (5% - 1st Place votes, 43% - 4th Place votes)

93/100 insects; 8/10 beetles

Flickr Lounge: animals alive

Usually one is supposed to avoid having the subject right in the center, but in this instance, "straight down the middle" seems the right pose.

I got photos of more than sixty insects the second day of July, and I decided to see how many species I could get in the first few days. Eventually I decided to make it the first ten days. Usually insect season doesn't really hit its peak until the second half of July, but this year July 2 and July 8 both brought dozens of species, and the whole ten-day period brought several interesting species (like this one) and several I'd never seen before, hadn't seen in years, or hadn't managed to photograph well. I haven't tabulated the totals yet, but I think I managed more than 200 species (and of course I did have several more that refused to stay still long enough for me to get any sort of shot).

For many years the Metropolitan District Railway (better known as the "District Railway"), formed to operate the southern sections of the "Inner Circle" railway in London in 1864 in connection with the Metropolitan Railway, 'sponsored' a railway map of London. This, that unsurprisingly gave some prominence to their services and rather less so to its competitors, ran to several editions and in various forms. The most common 'cased' versions are similar to this, the 6th edition, that is undated but that was published in c1908. This was after the takeover of the the company by American interests, its merger into the new Underground Electric Railways Group, and electrification. I suspect that the dowdy covers of the map, itself published by the London concern of Simpson, Low, Marston & Co Ltd., would have started to raise eyebrows back at the railway's head office by this date as publicity was a hot topic under the UERL and its publicity officer, Frank Pick.

The inner cover gives a tabulated description of the various District and associated railway's "lines' and although many of these services are still recognisable on today's maps of London railways others, both stations and services, have vanished or changed as the network has evolved. One interesting inscription on this cover is that of "F H Stingemore". Many of you will 'recognise' the name as he was for many years the 'designer' of the London tube map prior to the introduction of the Beck map after 1933. An LT employee he also drew maps for other other company publications and cartoons for staff magazines!