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Billingsgate Island Light
Billingsgate Island Light was located on what is still called Billingsgate Island though it is underwater at high tide, at the entrance to the harbor in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. History The Billingsgate Island Light was a famous historic landmark located on what was once an inhabited island in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. When the island was habitable, the Billingsgate Island light was an important landmark to all fishermen and seamen. The light was constructed in 1822, but its light was not lit until 1858 due to construction. The Billingsgate Island Light stood tall at 41 feet. Since modern building technology was not yet integrated in architecture, the Island light had a base foundation of granite and wall construction made of brick and mortar. Since electric lights were not invented until 1879 by Thomas Edison, the Billingsgate Island light's primary source of power was kerosene fuel. The preferred lens used by the Island light was called a Fresnel lens. At this time in history ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wellfleet, Massachusetts
Wellfleet is a New England town, town in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States, and is located halfway between the "tip" and "elbow" of Cape Cod. The town had a population of 3,566 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, which swells nearly sixfold during the summer. A total of 70% of the town's land area is under protection, and nearly half of it is part of the Cape Cod National Seashore. Wellfleet is famous for its oysters, which are celebrated in the annual October Wellfleet OysterFest. History The area was originally settled by Europeans in the 1650s as Billingsgate (after the famous Billingsgate Fish Market, fish market in East London). In 1717, the pirate Samuel Bellamy, "Black Sam" Bellamy was sailing nearby when his ship, the ''Whydah Gally, Whydah'', sank offshore, together with over of gold and silver and all but two of its 145 men. The wreck was discovered in 1984, the first of only two confirmed pirate shipwrecks ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fresnel Lens
A Fresnel lens ( ; ; or ) is a type of composite compact lens developed by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) for use in lighthouses. It has been called "the invention that saved a million ships." The design allows the construction of lenses of large aperture and short focal length without the mass and volume of material that would be required by a lens of conventional design. A Fresnel lens can be made much thinner than a comparable conventional lens, in some cases taking the form of a flat sheet. The simpler dioptric (purely refractive) form of the lens was first proposed by Count Buffon and independently reinvented by Fresnel. The ''catadioptric'' form of the lens, entirely invented by Fresnel, has outer elements that use total internal reflection as well as refraction; it can capture more oblique light from a light source and add it to the beam of a lighthouse, making the light visible from greater distances. Description The Fresnel lens redu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billingsgate Island
Billingsgate Island, also sometimes known as Bellingsgate Island, was an island off Cape Cod in Massachusetts in the United States. Originally settled as a fishing and whaling community as part of the town of Eastham, Massachusetts, Billingsgate Island was for a long time the site of a lighthouse used as a navigational aid in Cape Cod Bay. Local historians sometimes call it the Atlantis of Cape Cod. The area, which is just south of Great Island at the mouth of Wellfleet Harbor, is now known as Billingsgate Shoal and is visible from mainland Wellfleet at Jeremy Point at low tide. When exposed it is used as a picnic and shellfishing spot; access is by boat. The shoal is frequented by birds, seals, and anglers. History Early European settlers found an abundance of fish in Wellfleet Harbor. They named the area around the harbor Billingsgate after the Billingsgate Fish Market in London. At that time (the 17th century), Billingsgate Island covered an area of . Before that time it wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and early versions of the electric light bulb, have had a widespread impact on the modern industrialized world. He was one of the first inventors to apply the principles of organized science and teamwork to the process of invention, working with many researchers and employees. He established the first industrial research laboratory. Edison was raised in the American Midwest. Early in his career he worked as a telegraph operator, which inspired some of his earliest inventions. In 1876, he established his first laboratory facility in Menlo Park, New Jersey, where many of his early inventions were developed. He later established a botanical laboratory in Fort Myers, Florida, in co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kerosene
Kerosene, paraffin, or lamp oil is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from el, κηρός (''keros'') meaning "wax", and was registered as a trademark by Canadian geologist and inventor Abraham Gesner in 1854 before evolving into a generic trademark. It is sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage. The term kerosene is common in much of Argentina, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, Nigeria, and the United States, while the term paraffin (or a closely related variant) is used in Chile, eastern Africa, South Africa, Norway, and in the United Kingdom. The term lamp oil, or the equivalent in the local languages, is common in the majority of Asia and the Southeastern United States. Liquid paraffin (called mineral oil in the US) is a more viscous and highly refined product which is used as a laxative. Paraffin wax is a waxy solid extracted from pet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coastal Erosion
Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts of storms. The landward retreat of the shoreline can be measured and described over a temporal scale of tides, seasons, and other short-term cyclic processes. Coastal erosion may be caused by hydraulic action, abrasion, impact and corrosion by wind and water, and other forces, natural or unnatural. On non-rocky coasts, coastal erosion results in rock formations in areas where the coastline contains rock layers or fracture zones with varying resistance to erosion. Softer areas become eroded much faster than harder ones, which typically result in landforms such as tunnels, bridges, columns, and pillars. Over time the coast generally evens out. The softer areas fill up with sediment eroded from hard areas, and rock formations are eroded away. Also erosion commonly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sea Bass
Sea bass is a common name for a variety of different species of marine fish. Many fish species of various families have been called sea bass. In Ireland and the United Kingdom, the fish sold and consumed as sea bass is exclusively the European bass, ''Dicentrarchus labrax''. Sometimes referred to as sea bass include the following: Family Serranidae Family Serranidae * Genus ''Paralabrax'' ** Barred sand bass (''Paralabrax nebulifer'') lives mainly off the coast of California. * Genus '' Centropristis'' **Black sea bass (''Centropristis striata'') is found on the East Coast of the United States. * Genus ''Caesioperca'' ** Butterfly perch (''Caesioperca Lepidoptera'') is found in the eastern Indian Ocean and the southwest Pacific Ocean, including southern Australia and New Zealand. * Genus '' Caprodon'' ** Pink maomao (''Caprodon longimanus'') is found in the eastern Indian Ocean and the southern Pacific Ocean, including Australia and New Zealand. * Genus ''Epinephelus'' **Potato c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tuna
A tuna is a saltwater fish that belongs to the tribe Thunnini, a subgrouping of the Scombridae (mackerel) family. The Thunnini comprise 15 species across five genera, the sizes of which vary greatly, ranging from the bullet tuna (max length: , weight: ) up to the Atlantic bluefin tuna (max length: , weight: ), which averages and is believed to live up to 50 years. Tuna, opah and mackerel sharks are the only species of fish that can maintain a body temperature higher than that of the surrounding water. An active and agile predator, the tuna has a sleek, streamlined body, and is among the fastest-swimming pelagic fish – the yellowfin tuna, for example, is capable of speeds of up to . Greatly inflated speeds can be found in early scientific reports and are still widely reported in the popular literature. Found in warm seas, the tuna is commercially fished extensively as a food fish, and is popular as a bluewater game fish. As a result of overfishing, some tuna species, s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Government
The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a federal district (the city of Washington in the District of Columbia, where most of the federal government is based), five major self-governing territories and several island possessions. The federal government, sometimes simply referred to as Washington, is composed of three distinct branches: legislative, executive, and judicial, whose powers are vested by the U.S. Constitution in the Congress, the president and the federal courts, respectively. The powers and duties of these branches are further defined by acts of Congress, including the creation of executive departments and courts inferior to the Supreme Court. Naming The full name of the republic is "United States of America". No other name appears in the Constitution, and this i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erosion
Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distinct from weathering which involves no movement. Removal of rock or soil as clastic sediment is referred to as ''physical'' or ''mechanical'' erosion; this contrasts with ''chemical'' erosion, where soil or rock material is removed from an area by dissolution. Eroded sediment or solutes may be transported just a few millimetres, or for thousands of kilometres. Agents of erosion include rainfall; bedrock wear in rivers; coastal erosion by the sea and waves; glacial plucking, abrasion, and scour; areal flooding; wind abrasion; groundwater processes; and mass movement processes in steep landscapes like landslides and debris flows. The rates at which such processes act control how fast a surface is eroded. Typically, physical erosion procee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lighthouse Keeper
A lighthouse keeper or lightkeeper is a person responsible for tending and caring for a lighthouse, particularly the light and lens in the days when oil lamps and clockwork mechanisms were used. Lighthouse keepers were sometimes referred to as "wickies" because of their job trimming the wicks. Duties and functions Historically, lighthouse keepers were needed to trim the wicks, replenish fuel, wind clockworks and perform maintenance tasks such as cleaning lenses and windows. They were also responsible for the fog signal and the weather station, and played a major role in search and rescue at sea. Because most lighthouses are located in remote, isolated or inaccessible areas on islands and coastlines, it was typical for the work of lighthouse keeper to remain within a family, passing from parents to child, all of whom lived in or near the lighthouse itself. "Stag light" was an unofficial term given to some isolated lighthouses in the United States Lighthouse Service. It meant sta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morse Code
Morse code is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of the inventors of the telegraph. International Morse code encodes the 26 basic Latin letters through , one accented Latin letter (), the Arabic numerals, and a small set of punctuation and procedural signals ( prosigns). There is no distinction between upper and lower case letters. Each Morse code symbol is formed by a sequence of ''dits'' and ''dahs''. The ''dit'' duration is the basic unit of time measurement in Morse code transmission. The duration of a ''dah'' is three times the duration of a ''dit''. Each ''dit'' or ''dah'' within an encoded character is followed by a period of signal absence, called a ''space'', equal to the ''dit'' duration. The letters of a word are separated by a space of duration equal to three ''dits'', ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
