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Lost City Of The Kalahari
The Lost City of the Kalahari is a historical mystery of exploration and archaeology dating to the end of the 19th century. The history reports the existence of a ruined city found in the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa. Origin of the mystery In 1885, the Canadian Guillermo Farini (pseudonym of William Leonard Hunt) was one of the first westerners to cross the unexplored portion of the Kalahari. On his return to Europe, he published a book detailing his experiences which included descriptions of unusual rock formations which he believed to be ruins of hitherto unknown buildings. Farini subsequently presented a paper to the Royal Geographical Society (it was read in his absence ) and photographs taken on the expedition were publicly exhibited, increasing his notoriety and that of his journey. In his book Farini describes the ruins as A half-buried ruin - a huge wreck of stones On a lone and desolate spot; A temple - or a tomb for human bones Left by men to decay and rot. Rud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kalahari Desert
The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, and parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal desert, whose name is of Khoekhoegowab origin and means "vast place". Etymology ''Kalahari'' is derived from the Tswana word ''Kgala'', meaning "the great thirst", or ''Kgalagadi'', meaning "a waterless place"; the Kalahari has vast areas covered by red sand without any permanent surface water. History The Kalahari Desert was not always a dry desert. The fossil flora and fauna from Gcwihaba Cave in Botswana indicates that the region was much wetter and cooler at least from 30 to 11 thousand BP (before present) especially after 17,500 BP. Geography Drainage of the desert is by dry black valleys, seasonally inundated pans and the large salt pans of the Makgadikgadi Pan in Botswana and Etosha Pan in Namibia. The only permanent river, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Leonard Hunt
William Leonard Hunt (June 10, 1838 – January 17, 1929), also known by the stage name The Great Farini, was a well-known nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Canadian funambulist, entertainment promoter and inventor, as well as the first known white man to cross the Kalahari Desert on foot and survive. He also published under the name Guillermo Antonio Farini. Early life Hunt, the second child of Thomas William Hunt and Hannah Soper, was born in Lockport, New York. His parents were strict disciplinarians, but their punishments had little effect on him; as he later recalled, he "took pleasure in disobeying their commands." For example, he loved swimming and had an uncommon ability for it. Of his frequent excursions, many of them would be to go swimming. His mother soon forbade him to and sewed up the collars and sleeves of his clothes so that he could not strip for swimming, but that did not stop him; he would just swim with his clothes on and run in the sun until he was dry ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences, the Society has 16,000 members, with its work reaching the public through publications, research groups and lectures. The Society was founded in 1830 under the name ''Geographical Society of London'' as an institution to promote the 'advancement of geographical science'. It later absorbed the older African Association, which had been founded by Sir Joseph Banks in 1788, as well as the Raleigh Club and the Palestine Association. In 1995 it merged with the Institute of British Geographers, a body for academic geographers, to officially become the Royal Geographical Society ''with IBG''. The society is governed by its Council, which is chaired by the Society's President, according to a set of statutes and standing orders. The members ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Zimbabwe
Great Zimbabwe is a medieval city in the south-eastern hills of Zimbabwe near Lake Mutirikwi and the town of Masvingo. It is thought to have been the capital of a great kingdom during the country's Late Iron Age about which little is known. Construction on the city began in the 9th century and continued until it was abandoned in the 15th century. The edifices are believed to have been erected by the ancestral Shona. The stone city spans an area of and could have housed up to 18,000 people at its peak, giving it a population density of approximately 2,500 per square kilometre. It is recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Great Zimbabwe is believed to have served as a royal palace for the local monarch. As such, it would have been used as the seat of political power. Among the edifice's most prominent features were its walls, some of which are eleven metres high. They were constructed without mortar (dry stone). Eventually, the city was abandoned and fell into ruin. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elon Musk
Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The Boring Company; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; and president of the philanthropic Musk Foundation. With an estimated net worth of around $139 billion as of December 23, 2022, primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX, Musk is the second-wealthiest person in the world according to both the ''Bloomberg Billionaires Index'' and ''Forbes'' real-time billionaires list. Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa and briefly attended at the University of Pretoria before moving to Canada at age 18, acquiring citizenship through his Canadian-born mother. Two years later, he matriculated at Queen's University and transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he received bachelor's degrees in economics and physics. He moved ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drakensberg Mountains
The Drakensberg (Afrikaans: Drakensberge, Zulu: uKhahlambha, Sotho: Maluti) is the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment, which encloses the central Southern African plateau. The Great Escarpment reaches its greatest elevation – within the border region of South Africa and Lesotho. The Drakensberg escarpment stretches for more than from the Eastern Cape Province in the South, then successively forms, in order from south to north, the border between Lesotho and the Eastern Cape and the border between Lesotho and KwaZulu-Natal Province. Thereafter it forms the border between KwaZulu-Natal and the Free State, and next as the border between KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga Province. The escarpment winds north from there, through Mpumalanga, where it includes features such as the Blyde River Canyon, Three Rondavels, and God's Window. It then extends farther north to Hoedspruit in southeastern Limpopo where it is known as 'Klein Drakensberg' by the Afrikaner. From Hoedspruit it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dolerite
Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grained to aphanitic chilled margins which may contain tachylite (dark mafic glass). ''Diabase'' is the preferred name in North America, while ''dolerite'' is the preferred name in the rest of the English-speaking world, where sometimes the name ''diabase'' refers to altered dolerites and basalts. Some geologists prefer to avoid confusion by using the name ''microgabbro''. The name ''diabase'' comes from the French ', and ultimately from the Greek - meaning "act of crossing over, transition". Petrography Diabase normally has a fine but visible texture of euhedral lath-shaped plagioclase crystals (62%) set in a finer matrix of clinopyroxene, typically augite (20–29%), with minor olivine (3% up to 12% in olivine diabase), magnetite (2%), and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Igneous Rock
Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ''ignis'' meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main The three types of rocks, rock types, the others being Sedimentary rock, sedimentary and metamorphic rock, metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava. The magma can be derived from Partial melting, partial melts of existing rocks in either a Terrestrial planet, planet's mantle (geology), mantle or crust (geology), crust. Typically, the melting is caused by one or more of three processes: an increase in temperature, a decrease in pressure, or a change in composition. Solidification into rock occurs either below the surface as intrusive rocks or on the surface as extrusive (geology), extrusive rocks. Igneous rock may form with crystallization to form granular, crystalline rocks, or without crystallization to form Volcanic glass, natural glasses. Igneous rocks occur in a wide range of geological settings: shields, platforms ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaal River
The Vaal River ( ; Khoemana: ) is the largest tributary of the Orange River in South Africa. The river has its source near Breyten in Mpumalanga province, east of Johannesburg and about north of Ermelo and only about from the Indian Ocean. It then flows westwards to its conjunction with the Orange River southwest of Kimberley in the Northern Cape. It is long, and forms the border between Mpumalanga, Gauteng and North West Province on its north bank, and the Free State on its south. It is the third largest river in South Africa after the Orange River (2200 km long) and the Limpopo River (1750 km long) and was established as the main source of water for the great Witswatersrand area after the gold rush during the 19th century. The Vaal Dam lies on the Vaal River in Deneysville just south of the border between Gauteng and the Free State. It is also important to note that the Vaal River is the longest river wholly within the borders of South Africa. ''Vaal'' is a D ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orange River
The Orange River (from Afrikaans/Dutch: ''Oranjerivier'') is a river in Southern Africa. It is the longest river in South Africa. With a total length of , the Orange River Basin extends from Lesotho into South Africa and Namibia to the north. It rises in the Drakensberg mountains in Lesotho, flowing westwards through South Africa to the Atlantic Ocean. The river forms part of the international borders between South Africa and Lesotho and between South Africa and Namibia, as well as several provincial borders within South Africa. Except for Upington, it does not pass through any major cities. The Orange River plays an important role in the South African economy by providing water for irrigation and hydroelectric power. The river was named the Orange River in honour of the Dutch ruling family, the House of Orange, by the Dutch explorer Robert Jacob Gordon. Other names include simply the word for river, in Khoekhoegowab orthography written as !Garib, which is rendered in Afrikaan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lost Cities And Towns
Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography *Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland *Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have been created but has not survived to the present day Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Lost'' (1950 film), a Mexican film directed by Fernando A. Rivero * ''Lost'' (1956 film), a British thriller starring David Farrar * ''Lost'' (1983 film), an American film directed by Al Adamson * ''Lost!'' (film), a 1986 Canadian film directed by Peter Rowe * ''Lost'' (2004 film), an American thriller starring Dean Cain * ''The Lost'' (2006 film), an American psychological horror starring Marc Senter Games *'' Lost: Via Domus'', a 2008 video game by Ubisoft based on the ''Lost'' TV series * ''The Lost'' (video game), a 2002 vaporware game by Irrational Games Literature * ''Lost'' (Maguire novel), a 2001 horror/mystery novel by Gregory Maguire * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
