Utah
Utah is a state in the western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the U. S. on January 4, 1896. Utah is the 13th-largest by area, 31st-most-populous, 10th-least-densely populated of the 50 United States. Utah has a population of more than 3 million according to the Census estimate for July 1, 2016. Urban development is concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which contains 2.5 million people. Utah is bordered by Colorado to the east, Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, Arizona to the south, Nevada to the west, it touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. 62% of Utahns are reported to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, making Utah the only state with a majority population belonging to a single church. This influences Utahn culture and daily life; the LDS Church's world headquarters is located in Salt Lake City. The state is a center of transportation, information technology and research, government services, a major tourist destination for outdoor recreation.
In 2013, the U. S. Census Bureau estimated. St. George was the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah has the 14th highest median average income and the least income inequality of any U. S. state. A 2012 Gallup national survey found Utah overall to be the "best state to live in" based on 13 forward-looking measurements including various economic and health-related outlook metrics. A common folk etymology is that the name "Utah" is derived from the name of the Ute tribe, purported to mean "people of the mountains" in the Ute language. However, the word for people in Ute is'núuchiu' while the word for mountain is'káav', offering no linguistic connection to the words'Ute' or'Utah'. According to other sources "Utah" is derived from the Apache name "yuttahih" which means "One, Higher up" or "Those that are higher up". In the Spanish language it was said as "Yuta", subsequently the English-speaking people adapted the word "Utah". Thousands of years before the arrival of European explorers, the Ancestral Puebloans and the Fremont people lived in what is now known as Utah, some of which spoke languages of the Uto-Aztecan group.
Ancestral Pueblo peoples built their homes through excavations in mountains, the Fremont people built houses of straw before disappearing from the region around the 15th century. Another group of Native Americans, the Navajo, settled in the region around the 18th century. In the mid-18th century, other Uto-Aztecan tribes, including the Goshute, the Paiute, the Shoshone, the Ute people settled in the region; these five groups were present. The southern Utah region was explored by the Spanish in 1540, led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, while looking for the legendary Cíbola. A group led by two Catholic priests—sometimes called the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the coast of California; the expedition encountered the native residents. The Spanish made further explorations in the region, but were not interested in colonizing the area because of its desert nature. In 1821, the year Mexico achieved its independence from Spain, the region became known as part of its territory of Alta California.
European trappers and fur traders explored some areas of Utah in the early 19th century from Canada and the United States. The city of Provo, Utah was named for one, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825; the city of Ogden, Utah was named after Peter Skene Ogden, a Canadian explorer who traded furs in the Weber Valley. In late 1824, Jim Bridger became the first known English-speaking person to sight the Great Salt Lake. Due to the high salinity of its waters, He thought. After the discovery of the lake, hundreds of American and Canadian traders and trappers established trading posts in the region. In the 1830s, thousands of migrants traveling from the Eastern United States to the American West began to make stops in the region of the Great Salt Lake known as Lake Youta. Following the death of Joseph Smith in 1844, Brigham Young, as president of the Quorum of the Twelve, became the effective leader of the LDS Church in Nauvoo, Illinois. To address the growing conflicts between his people and their neighbors, Young agreed with Illinois Governor Thomas Ford in October 1845 that the Mormons would leave by the following year.
Young and the first band of Mormon pioneers reached the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. Over the next 22 years, more than 70,000 pioneers settled in Utah. For the first few years, Brigham Young and the thousands of early settlers of Salt Lake City struggled to survive; the arid desert land was deemed by the Mormons as desirable as a place where they could practice their religion without harassment. The Mormon settlements provided pioneers for other settlements in the West. Salt Lake City became the hub of a "far-flung commonwealth" of Mormon settlements. With new church converts coming from the East and around the world, Church leaders assigned groups of church members as missionaries to establish other settlements throughout the West, they developed irrigation to support large pioneer populations along Utah's Wasatch front. Throughout the remainder of the 19th century, Mormon pioneers established hundreds of other settlements in Utah, Id
Garden of the Gods
Garden of the Gods is a public park located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, US. It was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1971; the area now known as Garden of the Gods was first called Red Rock Corral by the Europeans. In August 1859, two surveyors who helped to set up Colorado City explored the site. One of the surveyors, M. S. Beach, suggested that it would be a "capital place for a beer garden", his companion, the young Rufus Cable, awestruck by the impressive rock formations, exclaimed, "Beer Garden! Why it is a fit place for the Gods to assemble. We will call it the Garden of the Gods."The name "Garden of the Gods" was later given to a section of the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, Calif. filled with large sandstone rock formations, because of the area's resemblance to Colorado's Garden of the Gods. The story goes that back in the early days of Hollywood, a movie producer seeking a rocky filming location made a comment to the effect of, "Who needs to go all the way to Colorado -- we have our own'Garden of the Gods' here!"
The Iverson family took the comment to heart and began calling their own collection of rock formations the "Garden of the Gods," and the name stuck. Today the main section of Chatsworth's Garden of the Gods has been preserved as a park; the Garden of the Gods' red rock formations were created during a geological upheaval along a natural fault line millions of years ago. Archaeological evidence shows that prehistoric people visited Garden of the Gods about 1330 BC. At about 250 BC, Native American people camped in the park. Many native peoples have reported a connection to Garden of the Gods, including Apache, Comanche, Lakota, Pawnee and Ute people. Multiple American Indian Nations traveled through Garden of the Gods; the Utes' oral traditions tell of their creation at the Garden of the Gods, petroglyphs have been found in the park that are typical of early Utes. The Utes found red rocks to have a spiritual connection and camped near Manitou Springs and the creek near Rock Ledge Ranch bordering Garden of the Gods.
The Old Ute Trail went past Garden of the Gods to Ute Pass and led explorers through Manitou Springs. Starting in the 16th century, Spanish explorers and European American explorers and trappers traveled through the area, including Lt. John C. Frémont and Lt. George Frederick Ruxton, who recorded their visits in their journals. In 1879 Charles Elliott Perkins, a friend of William Jackson Palmer, purchased 480 acres of land that included a portion of the present Garden of the Gods. Upon Perkins' death, his family gave the land to the City of Colorado Springs in 1909, with the provision that it would be a free public park. Palmer upon his death it was donated to the city. Helen Hunt Jackson wrote of the park, "You wind among rocks of every conceivable and inconceivable shape and size... all bright red, all motionless and silent, with a strange look of having been just stopped and held back in the climax of some supernatural catastrophe."Having purchased additional surrounding land, the City of Colorado Springs' park grew to 1,364 acres.
In 1995 the Garden of the Gods Visitor and Nature Center was opened just outside the park. The outstanding geologic features of the park are the ancient sedimentary beds of deep-red and white sandstones and limestone that were deposited horizontally, but have now been tilted vertically and faulted into "fins" by the immense mountain building forces caused by the uplift of the Rocky Mountains and the Pikes Peak massif; the following Pleistocene Ice Age resulted in erosion and glaciation of the rock, creating the present rock formations. Evidence of past ages can be read in the rocks: ancient seas, eroded remains of ancestral mountain ranges, alluvial fans, sandy beaches and great sand dune fields; the resulting rocks had different shapes: toppled, stood-up, pushed around and slanted. Balanced Rock, a fountain formation, is a combination of coarse sand, gravel and hematite, it is hematite. Balanced Rock was formed as erosive processes removed softer layers near its base leaving the precarious-looking formation seen today.
The Gateway Rocks Three Graces, other outcroppings are sedimentary layers, pushed up vertically. The largest outcroppings in the park, "North Gateway", "South Gateway", "Gray Rock", "Sleeping Giant" are composed of Lyons Formation, a stone made of fine sand from ancient sand dunes; the Garden of the Gods Park is a rich ecological resource. Retired biology professor Richard Beidleman notes that the park is "the most striking contrast between plains and mountains in North America" with respect to biology, geology and scenery; the skull of a dinosaur was found in the park in 1878, was identified as a unique species, Theiophytalia kerri in 2006. A subspecies of honey ant not recorded was discovered in 1879 and named after the park. Mule deer, bighorn sheep and fox are common; the park is home to more than 130 species of birds including white-throated swifts and canyon wrens. The Garden of the Gods Park is popular for hiking, technical rock climbing and mountain biking and horseback riding, it attracts more than two million visitors a year.
There are more than 15 miles of trails with a 1.5-mile trail running through the heart of the park, paved and wheelchair accessible. Annual events including two summer running races, recreational bike rides and Pro Cycling Challenge Prologue take place in this park; the main trail in the park, Perkins Central G
Dolmen
A dolmen or cromlech is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb consisting of two or more vertical megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the early Neolithic and were sometimes covered with earth or smaller stones to form a tumulus. Small pad-stones may be wedged between supporting stones to achieve a level appearance. In many instances, the covering has weathered away, leaving only the stone "skeleton" of the mound intact, it remains unclear. The oldest known are found in Western Europe. Archaeologists still do not know who erected these dolmens, which makes it difficult to know why they did it, they are all regarded as tombs or burial chambers, despite the absence of clear evidence for this. Human remains, sometimes accompanied by artefacts, have been found in or close to the dolmens which could be scientifically dated using radiocarbon dating. However, it has been impossible to prove that these remains date from the time when the stones were set in place.
The word dolmen has an unclear history. The word entered archaeology when Théophile Corret de la Tour d'Auvergne used it to describe megalithic tombs in his Origines gauloises using the spelling dolmin; the Oxford English Dictionary does not mention "dolmin" in English and gives its first citation for "dolmen" from a book on Brittany in 1859, describing the word as "The French term, used by some English authors, for a cromlech...". The name was derived from a Breton language term meaning "stone table" but doubt has been cast on this, the OED describes its origin as "Modern French". A book on Cornish antiquities from 1754 said that the current term in the Cornish language for a cromlech was tolmen and the OED says that "There is reason to think that this was the term inexactly reproduced by Latour d'Auvergne as dolmen, misapplied by him and succeeding French archaeologists to the cromlech". Nonetheless it has now replaced cromlech as the usual English term in archaeology, when the more technical and descriptive alternatives are not used.
Dolmens are known by a variety of names in other languages, including Irish: dolmain and Portuguese: anta, Bulgarian: Долмени Dolmeni, German: Hünengrab/Hünenbett and Dutch: hunebed, Basque: trikuharri, Abkhazian: Adamra, Adyghe Ispun, dysse, dös, Korean: 고인돌 goindol, "dol", "dolmaengi", Hebrew: גַלעֵד. Granja is used in Portugal and Spain; the rarer forms anta and ganda appear. In the Basque Country, they are attributed to a race of giants; the etymology of the German: Hünenbett, Hünengrab and Dutch: hunebed - with Hüne/hune meaning "giant" - all evoke the image of giants buried there. Of other Celtic languages, Welsh: cromlech was borrowed into English and quoit is used in English in Cornwall. Great dolmen Passage grave Polygonal dolmen Rectangular, enlarged or extended dolmen Simple dolmen Holcombe, Charles. A History of East Asia: From the Origins of Civilization to the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-51595-5. Piccolo, Salvatore. Ancient Stones: The Prehistoric Dolmens of Sicily.
Thornham/Norfolk: Brazen Head Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9565106-2-4. Murphy, Cornelius; the Prehistoric Archaeology of the Beara Peninsula, Co. Cork. Department of Archaeology, University College Cork, 1997 Trifonov, V. 2006. Russia's megaliths: unearthing the lost prehistoric tombs of Caucasian warlords in the Zhane valley. St. Petersburg: The Institute for Study of Material Culture History, Russian Academy of Sciences. Available from Kudin, M. 2001. Dolmeni i ritual. Dolmen Path – Russian Megaliths. Available from Knight, Peter. Ancient Stones of Dorset, 1996. World heritage site of dolmen in Korea Piccolo, Salvatore. "Dolmen." Ancient History Encyclopedia. The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map Dolmen Museum in Italian and English Goindol: Dolmen of Korea Research Centre of Dolmens in Northeast Asia Poulnabrone Dolmen in the Burren, County Clare, Ireland "Dolmen sites in Korea". on UNESCO's World Heritage List. Jersey Heritage Trust Dolmen Pictures by Robert Triest
Arches National Park
Arches National Park is a national park in eastern Utah, United States. The park is adjacent to the Colorado River, 4 miles north of Utah. More than 2,000 natural sandstone arches are located in the park, including the well-known Delicate Arch, as well as a variety of unique geological resources and formations; the park contains the highest density of natural arches in the world. The park consists of 76,679 acres of high desert located on the Colorado Plateau; the highest elevation in the park is 5,653 feet at Elephant Butte, the lowest elevation is 4,085 feet at the visitor center. The park receives an average of less than 10 inches of rain annually. Administered by the National Park Service, the area was named a national monument on April 12, 1929, was redesignated as a national park on November 12, 1971; the park received more than 1.6 million visitors in 2018. The national park lies above an underground evaporite layer or salt bed, the main cause of the formation of the arches, balanced rocks, sandstone fins, eroded monoliths in the area.
This salt bed is thousands of feet thick in places, was deposited in the Paradox Basin of the Colorado Plateau some 300 million years ago when a sea flowed into the region and evaporated. Over millions of years, the salt bed was covered with debris eroded from the Uncompahgre Uplift to the northeast. During the Early Jurassic, desert conditions prevailed in the region and the vast Navajo Sandstone was deposited. An additional sequence of stream-laid and windblown sediments, the Entrada Sandstone, was deposited on top of the Navajo. Over 5,000 feet of younger sediments were deposited and have been eroded away. Remnants of the cover exist in the area including exposures of the Cretaceous Mancos Shale; the arches of the area are developed within the Entrada formation. The weight of this cover caused the salt bed below it to liquefy and thrust up layers of rock into salt domes; the evaporites of the area formed more unusual linear regions of uplift. Faulting occurred and whole sections of rock subsided into the areas between the domes.
In some places, they turned on edge. The result of one such 2,500-foot displacement, the Moab Fault, is seen from the visitor center; as this subsurface movement of salt shaped the landscape, erosion removed the younger rock layers from the surface. Except for isolated remnants, the major formations visible in the park today are the salmon-colored Entrada Sandstone, in which most of the arches form, the buff-colored Navajo Sandstone; these are visible in layer-cake fashion throughout most of the park. Over time, water seeped into the surface cracks and folds of these layers. Ice formed in the fissures and putting pressure on surrounding rock, breaking off bits and pieces. Winds cleaned out the loose particles. A series of free-standing fins remained. Wind and water attacked these fins until, in some, the cementing material gave way and chunks of rock tumbled out. Many damaged fins collapsed. Others, with the right degree of hardness and balance, survived despite their missing sections; these became the famous arches.
Although the park's terrain may appear rugged and durable, it is fragile. More than 1 million visitors each year threaten the fragile high-desert ecosystem; the problem lies within the soil's crust, composed of cyanobacteria, algae and lichens that grow in the dusty parts of the park. Factors that make Arches National Park sensitive to visitor damage include being a semiarid region, the scarce, unpredictable rainfall, lack of deep freezing, lack of plant litter, which results in soils that have both a low resistance to, slow recovery from, compressional forces such as foot traffic. Methods of indicating effects on the soil are cytophobic soil crust index, measuring of water infiltration, t-tests that are used to compare the values from the undisturbed and disturbed areas. Humans have occupied the region since the last ice age 10,000 years ago. Fremont people and Ancient Pueblo People lived in the area until about 700 years ago. Spanish missionaries encountered Ute and Paiute tribes in the area when they first came through in 1775, but the first European-Americans to attempt settlement in the area were the Mormon Elk Mountain Mission in 1855, who soon abandoned the area.
Ranchers and prospectors settled Moab in the neighboring Riverine Valley in the 1880s. Word of the beauty of the surrounding rock formations spread beyond the settlement as a possible tourist destination; the Arches area was first brought to the attention of the National Park Service by Frank A. Wadleigh, passenger traffic manager of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. Wadleigh, accompanied by railroad photographer George L. Beam, visited the area in September 1923 at the invitation of Alexander Ringhoffer, a Hungarian-born prospector living in Salt Valley. Ringhoffer had written to the railroad in an effort to interest them in the tourist potential of a scenic area he had discovered the previous year with his two sons and a son-in-law, which he called the "Devil's Garden". Wadleigh was impressed by what Ringhoffer showed him, suggested to Park Service director Stephen T. Mather that the area be made a national monument; the following year, additional support for the monument idea came from Laurence Gould, a University of Michigan graduate student studying the geology of the nearby La Sal Mountains, shown the scenic area by local physician Dr. J. W. "Doc" Williams.
A succession of government investigators examined the area, in part due to confusion
Grand County, Utah
Grand County is a county on the east central edge of Utah, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 9,225, its county seat and largest city is Moab. Evidence of indigenous occupation up to 10,000BCE has been seen in Grand County; the present city of Moab is the site of pueblo farming communities of the 12th centuries. These groups were vanished when the first European explorers entered the country; the European-based settlement of the area began with arrival of Mormon pioneers in 1847. By 1855 they had sent missionary-settlers into eastern Utah Territory. An Elk Mountain Mission closed after a few months due to Indian raids. For several decades thereafter, the future Moab area was visited only by prospectors. Permanaent settlement began in 1877; these early settlers, coming in from the north, encountered the deep canyon walls of the Grand River and were unable to take wagons over, or around, the steep canyon walls. They dismantled the wagons and lowered them by rope to the river valley.
They drove their oxen over a canyon rim, down deep sand dunes. After the wagons were reassembled and supplies reloaded, they made their way through the deep sand to the river, they found a place to ford the river, below the present bridge in north Moab. They established a ferry at the crossing site, which remained in use until the first bridge was built in 1921. In 1881 the area was known as Grand Valley, Moab was a "wild west" town. A 1991 visitor to Moab said it was known as the toughest town in Utah because the area and surrounding country has many deep canyons, rivers and wilderness areas, becoming a hideout for outlaws; the local economy was based on farming and livestock. Mining came in at the end of the 19th century, the railroad arrived; the first school in the county was started in 1881. Mormon settlers began planting fruit trees by 1879, by 1910 Moab was a significant fruit-production center. Due to the distances involved, the settlers of eastern Emery County found it difficult to conduct county business in that county's seat.
By March 13, 1890 their petitions caused the Utah Territory legislature to designate the eastern portion of the county as a separate entity, to be named Grand County, named for the Grand River. The county boundaries were adjusted in 1892 and in 2003. Exploration for deep petroleum deposits began in the 1920s, this industry has made significant contribution to the economy since that time. Other significant industries include uranium mining, filmmaking. Grand County lies on the east side of Utah, its east border abuts the west border of the state of Colorado. The Green River flows southward through the eastern part of central Utah, its meandering course defines the western border of Grand County; the Colorado River enters the east side of Grand County from Colorado, flowing southwestward toward its confluence with the Green in San Juan County, south of Grand. The Dolores River enters Grand County from Colorado, flowing westward to its confluence with the Colorado River near Dewey. Grand County terrain is arid and spectacularly carved by water and wind erosion, exposing red rock formations that have created a solid tourist industry.
The area is little used for agriculture. The terrain is filled with hills and protuberances, but slopes to the south and to the west, its highest point is Mount Waas in the SE part of the county, at 12,336' ASL. The county has a total area of 3,684 square miles, of which 3,672 square miles is land and 12 square miles is water. Deserts and plateaus make up the scenery, with few settlements apart from the city of Moab, a Colorado River oasis. Arches National Park lies in the southern part of the county, just north of Moab. A northern portion of Canyonlands National Park lies in the southwest corner of the county. Canyonlands Field northwest of Moab United States Interstate I-70 US-191 Utah State Highway UT-128 Utah State Highway UT-313 Pace Lake As of the 2000 United States Census, there were 8,485 people, 3,434 households, 2,170 families in the county; the population density was 2.31/sqmi. There were 4,062 housing units at an average density of 1.11/sqmi. The racial makeup of the county was 92.65% White, 0.25% Black or African American, 3.85% Native American, 0.22% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 1.66% from other races, 1.32% from two or more races.
5.55% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 3,434 households out of which 29.80% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 48.60% were married couples living together, 10.70% had a female householder with no husband present, 36.80% were non-families. 29.50% of all households were made up of individuals and 9.50% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.44 and the average family size was 3.06. The county population contained 26.90% under the age of 18, 8.20% from 18 to 24, 27.90% from 25 to 44, 24.50% from 45 to 64, 12.50% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 37 years. For every 100 females there were 96.30 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 95.10 males. The median income for a household in the county was $32,387, the median income for a family was $39,095. Males had a median income of $31,000 versus $21,769 for females; the per capita income for the county was $17,356. About 10.90% of families and 14.80% of the population were below the poverty line, including 21.20% of those under age 18 and 8.40% of those age 65 or over.
Grand County has
Druid
A druid was a member of the high-ranking professional class in ancient Celtic cultures. Best remembered as religious leaders, they were legal authorities, lorekeepers, medical professionals, political advisors. While the druids are reported to have been literate, they are believed to have been prevented by doctrine from recording their knowledge in written form, thus they left no written accounts of themselves, they are however attested in some detail by their contemporaries from other cultures, such as the Romans and the Greeks. The earliest known references to the druids date to the fourth century BCE and the oldest detailed description comes from Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico, they were described by Greco-Roman writers such as Cicero and Pliny the Elder. Following the Roman invasion of Gaul, the druid orders were suppressed by the Roman government under the 1st century CE emperors Tiberius and Claudius, had disappeared from the written record by the 2nd century. In about 750 CE the word druid appears in a poem by Blathmac, who wrote about Jesus, saying that he was "... better than a prophet, more knowledgeable than every druid, a king, a bishop and a complete sage."
The druids also appear in some of the medieval tales from Christianized Ireland like the "Táin Bó Cúailnge", where they are portrayed as sorcerers who opposed the coming of Christianity. In the wake of the Celtic revival during the 18th and 19th centuries and neopagan groups were founded based on ideas about the ancient druids, a movement known as Neo-Druidism. Many popular notions about druids, based on misconceptions of 18th century scholars, have been superseded by more recent study; the modern English word druid derives from the Latin druidēs, considered by ancient Roman writers to come from the native Celtic Gaulish word for these figures. Other Roman texts employ the form druidae, while the same term was used by Greek ethnographers as δρυΐδης. Although no extant Romano-Celtic inscription is known to contain the form, the word is cognate with the insular Celtic words, Old Irish druí ‘druid, sorcerer’, Old Cornish druw, Middle Welsh dryw ‘seer. Based on all available forms, the hypothetical proto-Celtic word may be reconstructed as *dru-wid-s meaning "oak-knower".
The two elements go back to the Proto-Indo-European roots *deru- and *weid- "to see". The sense of "oak-knower" or "oak-seer" is supported by Pliny the Elder, who in his Natural History considered the word to contain the Greek noun drýs, "oak-tree" and the Greek suffix -idēs. Both Old Irish druí and Middle Welsh dryw could refer to the wren connected with an association of that bird with augury in Irish and Welsh tradition. Sources by ancient and medieval writers provide an idea of the religious duties and social roles involved in being a druid; the Greco-Roman and the vernacular Irish sources agree that the druids played an important part in pagan Celtic society. In his description, Julius Caesar claimed that they were one of the two most important social groups in the region and were responsible for organizing worship and sacrifices and judicial procedure in Gaulish and Irish societies, he claimed that they were exempt from military service and from the payment of taxes, had the power to excommunicate people from religious festivals, making them social outcasts.
Two other classical writers, Diodorus Siculus and Strabo wrote about the role of druids in Gallic society, claiming that the druids were held in such respect that if they intervened between two armies they could stop the battle. Pomponius Mela is the first author who says that the druids' instruction was secret and took place in caves and forests. Druidic lore consisted of a large number of verses learned by heart, Caesar remarked that it could take up to twenty years to complete the course of study. What was taught to druid novices anywhere is conjecture: of the druids' oral literature, not one certifiably ancient verse is known to have survived in translation. All instruction was communicated orally, but for ordinary purposes, Caesar reports, the Gauls had a written language in which they used Greek characters. In this he draws on earlier writers. Greek and Roman writers made reference to the druids as practitioners of human sacrifice. According to Caesar, those, found guilty of theft or other criminal offences were considered preferable for use as sacrificial victims, but when criminals were in short supply, innocents would be acceptable.
A form of sacrifice recorded by Caesar was the burning alive of victims in a large wooden effigy, now known as a wicker man. A differing account came from the 10th-century Commenta Bernensia, which claimed that sacrifices to the deities Teutates and Taranis were by drowning and burning, respectively. Diodorus Siculus asserts that a sacrifice acceptable to the Celtic gods had to be attended by a druid, for they were the intermediaries between the people and the divinities, he remarked upon the importance of prophets in druidic ritual: "These men predict the future by observing the flight and calls of birds and by the sacrifice of holy animals: all orders of society are in their power... and in important matters they prepare a human victim, plunging a dagger into his chest.
Balancing rock
A balancing rock called balanced rock or precarious boulder, is a occurring geological formation featuring a large rock or boulder, sometimes of substantial size, resting on other rocks, bedrock, or on glacial till. Some formations known by this name only appear to be balancing, but are in fact connected to a base rock by a pedestal or stem. No single scientific definition of the term exists, it has been applied to a variety of rock features that fall into one of four general categories: A glacial erratic is a boulder, transported and deposited by glaciers or ice rafts to a resting place on soil, on bedrock, or on other boulders, it has a different lithology from the other rocks around it. Not all glacial erractics are balancing rocks; some balancing erractics have come to be known as rocking stones known as logan rocks, logan stones, or logans, because they are so finely balanced that the application of just a small force may cause them to rock or sway. A good example of a rocking stone is the Logan Rock in Cornwall, United Kingdom.
A perched block known as a perched boulder or perched rock, is a large, detached rock fragment that most was transported and deposited by a glacier to a resting place on glacial till on the side of a hill or slope. Some perched blocks were not produced by glacial action, but were the aftermath of a rock fall, landslide, or avalanche. An erosional remnant is a persisting rock formation that remains after extensive wind, and/or chemical erosion. To the untrained eye, it may appear to be visually like a glacial erratic, but instead of being transported and deposited, it was carved from the local bedrock. Many good examples of erosional remnants are seen in Karlu Karlu/Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve in the Northern Territory of Australia. A pedestal rock known as a rock pedestal or mushroom rock, is not a true balancing rock, but is a single continuous rock form with a small base leading up to a much larger crown; some of these formations are called balancing rocks because of their appearance.
The undercut base was attributed for many years to simple wind abrasion, but is now believed to result from a combination of wind and enhanced chemical weathering at the base where moisture would be retained longest. Some pedestal rocks sitting on taller spire formations are known as hoodoos. Zimbabwe The Balancing Rocks are a geological formation found in the township of Epworth, southeast of Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, it is a formation of rocks balanced without other supports. The Mother and Child balancing rocks are a well-known feature in Matobo National Park. India Krishna's butterball is a famous balancing rock located in India. A balancing rock is located near Madan Mahal fort in Jabalpur city of Madhya Pradesh. A balancing rock, popularly known as Mama Bhagne hills situated in Dubrajpur in the state of West Bengal. Australia Karlu Karlu / Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve is a vast field of erosional remnants. Myanmar The boulder, which gleams golden and popularly known as the Golden Rock on which the small Kyaiktiyo Pagoda has been built, is about 25 ft in height and has a circumference of 50 ft.
The boulder sits on a natural rock platform that appears to have been formed to act as the base to build the pagoda. EnglandThe Brimham Rocks are a group of outstanding pedestal rock formations in North Yorkshire. FinlandKummakivi is a balancing rock located at 61° 29' 36.4596" N, 28° 25' 45.5016" E in Ruokolahti and is protected. PolandChybotek – granite balancing rock in Giant Mountains Chybotek – granite balancing rock in Jizera Mountains. Galicia Pedra de abalar – granite balancing rock in Muxía Canada Nova ScotiaA tall basalt stack appears to balance precariously above the water near Digby, Nova Scotia. British ColumbiaLocated near Bear Beach on the Juan De Fuca Trail, this solid rock is perched upon eroded sandstone. United States Arizona Several pedestal rocks are found within the boundaries of the Chiricahua National Monument, two are accessible in Marble Canyon, between Navajo Bridge and Lee's Ferry. CaliforniaA large balancing rock may be seen at D. L. Bliss State Park on the west shore of Lake Tahoe.
ColoradoA huge sandstone boulder hangs precariously near the roadway in Garden of the Gods park near Colorado Springs. MaineA glacial erratic rests on the edge of a precipice on a mountain in Acadia National Park. MassachusettsIn Balance Rock Park, in Pittsfield State Forest, a field of massive boulders left on a hillside by receding glaciers is crowned by Balance Rock, a tremendous rock balancing unbelievably upon a smaller rock protruding from the ground. New MexicoSeveral sites around the state, including the Bisti Badlands, Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, the Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness, Chaco Canyon National Park, Red Rock State Park, in private and BLM public lands throughout New Mexico. North CarolinaThe Devil's Head is a large boulder perched on the ledge of a cliff in the Chimney Rock State Park, North Carolina. Texas Balanced Rock is a large boulder suspended between two pedestals in the Grapevine Hills of Big Bend National Park. UtahOne of the most visited formations in the United States is the Balanced Rock in Arches National Park.
WashingtonA large glacial erratic is at the south end of Omak Lake in Okanogan County, known as the Omak Rock. WisconsinLocated in Devil's Lake State Park. A big rock near the top of a trail with the same name with a view on the lake. Waymarking: Nature's Balanced Rocks
Media related to Balanced Rock (Arches National Park) at Wikimedia Commons
