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Cape Spear (electoral District)
Cape Spear (french: Cap d'Espoir) is a headland located on the Avalon Peninsula of Newfoundland near St. John's in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. At a longitude of 52°37'W, it is the easternmost point in Canada and North America, excluding Greenland. Cape Spear is within the municipal boundaries of the city of St. John's, located about from downtown St. John's. The Portuguese named this location , meaning "cape of hope", which became in French and finally "Cape Spear". Cape Spear is the trailhead/trail end for two components of the East Coast Trail. History The Cape Spear region was originally inhabited by Beothuk peoples.Fife, Wayne; Roseman, Sharon R. "Where North America Ends," The Tourism Imaginary and Pilgrimages to the Edges of the World. ''Tourism and Cultural Change'', vol. 44. Channel View Publications, 2015. Web. p.143-144. Retrieved from Google Books; March 12, 2017. Additionally, Mi'kmaq communities practiced a non-sedentary presenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cape (geography)
In geography, a cape is a headland or a promontory of large size extending into a body of water, usually the sea.Whittow, John (1984). ''Dictionary of Physical Geography''. London: Penguin, 1984, p. 80. . A cape usually represents a marked change in trend of the Coast, coastline, often making them important landmarks in sea navigation. This also makes them prone to natural forms of erosion, mainly tidal actions, which results in them having a relatively short geological lifespan. Capes can be formed by glaciers, volcanoes, and changes in sea level. Erosion plays a large role in each of these methods of formation. List of some well-known capes Gallery File:Cape Cornwall.jpg, Cape Cornwall, England File:Nasa photo cape fear.jpg, Satellite image of Cape Fear, North Carolina File:Cape McLear, Malawi (2499273862).jpg, Cape MacLear, Malawi File:Cape horn.png, Map depicting Cape Horn at the southernmost portion of South America File:Spain.Santander.Cabo.Mayor.jpeg, Photograph o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acetylene
Acetylene (systematic name: ethyne) is the chemical compound with the formula and structure . It is a hydrocarbon and the simplest alkyne. This colorless gas is widely used as a fuel and a chemical building block. It is unstable in its pure form and thus is usually handled as a solution. Pure acetylene is odorless, but commercial grades usually have a marked odor due to impurities such as divinyl sulfide and phosphine.Compressed Gas Association (1995Material Safety and Data Sheet – Acetylene As an alkyne, acetylene is unsaturated because its two carbon atoms are bonded together in a triple bond. The carbon–carbon triple bond places all four atoms in the same straight line, with CCH bond angles of 180°. Discovery Acetylene was discovered in 1836 by Edmund Davy, who identified it as a "new carburet of hydrogen". It was an accidental discovery while attempting to isolate potassium metal. By heating potassium carbonate with carbon at very high temperatures, he produced a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dioptrics
Dioptrics is the branch of optics dealing with refraction, similarly the branch dealing with mirrors is known as catoptrics. Dioptrics is the study of the refraction of light, especially by lenses. Telescopes that create their image with an objective that is a convex lens ( refractors) are said to be "dioptric" telescopes. An early study of dioptrics was conducted by Ptolemy in relationship to the human eye as well as refraction in media such as water. The understanding of the principles of dioptrics was further expanded by Alhazen, considered the father of modern optics. See also * Diopter/ Dioptre (unit of measurement) * Dioptrice (work by Johannes Kepler) * Catoptrics (study of and optical systems utilizing reflection) * Catadioptrics (study of and optical systems utilizing reflection and refraction) * Optical telescope * List of telescope types * Image-forming optical system In optics, an image-forming optical system is a system capable of being used for imaging. The dia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Argand Lamp
The Argand lamp is a type of oil lamp invented in 1780 by Aimé Argand. Its output is 6 to 10 candelas, brighter than that of earlier lamps. Its more complete combustion of the candle wick and oil than in other lamps required much less frequent trimming of the wick. In France, the lamp is called "Quinquet", after Antoine-Arnoult Quinquet, a pharmacist in Paris, who used the idea originated by Argand and popularized it in France. Quinquet sometimes is credited with the addition of the glass chimney to the lamp. Design The Argand lamp had a sleeve-shaped wick mounted so that air can pass both through the center of the wick and also around the outside of the wick before being drawn into a cylindrical chimney which steadies the flame and improves the flow of air. Early models used ground glass which was sometimes tinted around the wick. An Argand lamp used whale oil, seal oil, colza, olive oil or other vegetable oil as fuel which was supplied by a gravity feed from a reservoir mou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Sea to the northeast and east, and the Irish Sea to the south. It also contains more than 790 islands, principally in the archipelagos of the Hebrides and the Northern Isles. Most of the population, including the capital Edinburgh, is concentrated in the Central Belt—the plain between the Scottish Highlands and the Southern Uplands—in the Scottish Lowlands. Scotland is divided into 32 administrative subdivisions or local authorities, known as council areas. Glasgow City is the largest council area in terms of population, with Highland being the largest in terms of area. Limited self-governing power, covering matters such as education, social services and roads and transportation, is devolved from the Scott ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inchkeith
Inchkeith (from the gd, Innis Cheith) is an island in the Firth of Forth, Scotland, administratively part of the Fife council area. Inchkeith has had a colourful history as a result of its proximity to Edinburgh and strategic location for use as home for Inchkeith Lighthouse and for military purposes defending the Firth of Forth from attack from shipping, and more recently protecting the upstream Forth Bridge and Rosyth Dockyard. Inchkeith has, by some accounts, been inhabited (intermittently) for almost 1,800 years. Geography, geology and climate The island lies in the midst of the Firth of Forth, midway between Kirkcaldy to the north and Leith to the south. Due to the undulation of the Fife coast it lies substantially closer to Fife rather than Midlothian, the closest settlement being Kinghorn to the north, with Burntisland to the north-west being only slightly more distant. Although most of the island is of volcanic origin, the island's geology is surprisingly varied. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foghorn
A foghorn or fog signal is a device that uses sound to warn vehicles of navigational hazards such as rocky coastlines, or boats of the presence of other vessels, in foggy conditions. The term is most often used in relation to marine transport. When visual navigation aids such as lighthouses are obscured, foghorns provide an audible warning of rock outcrops, shoals, headlands, or other dangers to shipping. Description All foghorns use a vibrating column of air to create an audible tone, but the method of setting up this vibration differs. Some horns, such as the Daboll trumpet, used vibrating plates or metal reeds, a similar principle to a modern electric car horn. Others used air forced through holes in a rotating cylinder or disk, in the same manner as a siren. Semi-automatic operation of foghorns was achieved by using a clockwork mechanism (or "coder") to sequentially open the valves admitting air to the horns; each horn was given its own timing characteristics to help marine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Parker (builder)
William Parker (1800–1854) was a St. John's masonic builder, shipowner and shopkeeper who along with partner Nicholas Croke built the National Historic Cape Spear lighthouse starting in 1834 or 1835. The Cape Spear lighthouse is the oldest surviving lighthouse in Newfoundland and Labrador and the most easterly building in North America. William Parker married Margaret Gleeson on December 1, 1831, in St. John's. He later owned a brig named ''Margaret Parker'' after his wife. Members of the Parker family were prominent businessmen in St. John's, Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ... for nearly two centuries. William's son James Francis Parker founded Parker & Monroe, Ltd. in 1880 which was the largest shoe store on the island for many years. It had sever ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fort Amherst (Newfoundland And Labrador)
Fort Amherst is a neighbourhood in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. It is located at , on the southern side of the Narrows, the entrance to St. John's harbour. Apart from some family dwellings, Fort Amherst consists of a man-made harbour, a lighthouse and the remains of gun emplacements built during World War II to defend against German U-boats. Two QF 4.7-inch B Mark IV* guns remain in place on their mountings. The original fortifications at Fort Amherst, built in the 1770s, are no longer visible. The fortifications were named for William Amherst, who successfully recaptured St. John's from French forces in 1762. The fort operated in conjunction with Fort Waldegrave for much of its history. The site was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1951. The name is shared with Port La-Joye / Fort Amherst in Prince Edward Island and Fort Amherst in England. The first lighthouse in Newfoundland was built at Fort Amherst in 1810. The current lighthouse was bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, rocks, and safe entries to harbors; they also assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and has become uneconomical since the advent of much cheaper, more sophisticated and effective electronic navigational systems. History Ancient lighthouses Before the development of clearly defined ports, mariners were guided by fires built on hilltops. Since elevating the fire would improve the visibility, placing the fire on a platform became a practice that led to the development of the lighthouse. In antiquity, the lighthouse functioned more as an entrance marker to ports than as a warning signal for reefs a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Disappearing Carriage
A disappearing gun, a gun mounted on a ''disappearing carriage'', is an obsolete type of artillery which enabled a gun to hide from direct fire and observation. The overwhelming majority of carriage designs enabled the gun to rotate backwards and down behind a parapet, or into a pit protected by a wall, after it was fired; a small number were simply barbette mounts on a retractable platform. Either way, retraction lowered the gun from view and direct fire by the enemy while it was being reloaded. It also made reloading easier, since it lowered the breech to a level just above the loading platform, and shells could be rolled right up to the open breech for loading and ramming. Other benefits over non-disappearing types were a higher rate of repetitive fire and less fatigue for the gun crew. Some disappearing carriages were complicated mechanisms, protection from aircraft observation and attack was difficult, and almost all restricted the elevation of the gun. With a few ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_Gun_on_Moncrieff_disappearing_mount%2C_at_Scaur_Hill_Fort%2C_Bermuda.jpg "Click for more on -> Disappearing Carriage")