Geneva, New York
Geneva is a city in Ontario and Seneca counties in the U. S. state of New York. It is at the northern end of Seneca Lake; the population was 13,261 at the 2010 census. The city is named after the city and canton of Geneva in Switzerland; the main settlement of the Seneca was spelled Zoneshio by early white settlers, was described as being 2 miles north of Seneca Lake. The city was once part of the Town of Geneva; the city identifies as the "Lake Trout Capital of the World." The area was long occupied by the Seneca tribe, which had established a major village of Kanadaseaga here by 1687. The British helped fortify the village against the French of Canada during the Seven Years' War. During the latter warfare, the punitive Sullivan Expedition of 1779 mounted by rebel forces destroyed many of the dwellings, as well as the winter stores of the people, they abandoned the ruins. Following the war and the forced removal of the Seneca from their native land, European-Americans settled here about 1793, they developed a town encouraged by the Pulteney Association, which owned the land and was selling plots.
At the end of the Revolutionary War, Lt. Col. Seth Reed, who had fought at Bunker Hill, was one of many pioneers who moved from Massachusetts into Ontario County. By trade with the Seneca, he bought a tract of land eighteen miles in extent; this occurred in 1787, while his wife Hannah stayed in Massachusetts with their family. "Seth Read moved, his wife Hannah and their family to Geneva, Ontario County, New York in the winter of 1790". The settlement at Geneva was not yet permanent. In 1795 Read and his family removed to Erie, where they became the earliest European-American settlers; the "Village of Geneva" was incorporated in 1806, 1812, 1871, formally separating it from the surrounding area of Geneva Town. The village became a city. Geneva, founded in 1871, is considered to have been named after the one in New York, rather than directly for the Swiss city; the town is at the two-mile wide northern outlet of Seneca Lake, a lake that spans 34 miles south to Watkins Glen. Geneva is in the largest wine-producing area in New York State.
The Cayuga-Seneca Canal is part of the watershed of Keuka Lake. It flows north through Geneva, connecting to the Erie Canal, completed in 1825, giving access for the region to the Great Lakes and midwestern markets for their produce, as well as to buy natural resource commodities. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 5.8 square miles. 4.3 square miles of it is land and 1.6 square miles of it is water. Geneva is connected via the east-west US 20, concurrent with NY 5. NY 14 is a north-south highway through the city, it is equidistant from Rochester and Syracuse, each being about 45 miles away. Geneva uses a mayor-council form of government; the mayor is elected at large. The council consists of eight members. Six are elected from one of six wards; the other two are elected at large. Ronald L. Alcock is the current Mayor of the City of Geneva, winning the seat after having served as councilor-at-large for a 4-year term preceding the November 2011 citywide election.
The Geneva City School District operates secondary schools. The district has North Street School and West Street School; the district's secondary schools are Geneva High School. Private schools include: Children's Hours School, a private school for toddlers through first grade, its enrollment is about 27 students. The current director is Ms. Mary Bohle. St. Francis-St. Stephen's School, a Roman Catholic elementary school that teaches grades PreK-8 in Geneva; the current principal is Mrs. Mary Mantelli. Rose Academy, a school of Experiential Learning for grades 1-5; the curriculum includes GLOBAL Science, Reading A-Z Program, Touch Point Math, Music, Physical Education. It was founded by Dr. Lorraine Williams. Colleges and universities include: Hobart and William Smith Colleges, the successor institution to Geneva College; the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station of Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Finger Lakes Community College has two campus in Geneva; as of the census of 2000, there were 13,617 people, 5,014 households, 2,933 families residing in the city.
The population density was 3,199.5 inhabitants per square mile. There were 5,564 housing units at an average density of 1,307.4 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 81.52% White, 10.22% African American, 0.25% Native American, 1.23% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 3.39% from other races, 3.34% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 8.50% of the population. There were 5,014 households out of which 29.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 38.6% were married couples living together, 15.9% had a female householder with no husband present, 41.5% were non-families. 34.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.8% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.35 and the average family size was 3.03. In the city, the population was spread out with 23.2% under the age of 18, 18.9% from 18 to 24, 24.3% from 25 to 44, 18.1% from 45 to
Ithaca, New York
Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York. It is the seat of Tompkins County, as well as the largest community in the Ithaca–Tompkins County metropolitan area; this area contains the municipalities of the Town of Ithaca, the village of Cayuga Heights, other towns and villages in Tompkins County. The city of Ithaca is located on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, in Central New York, about 45 miles south-west-west of Syracuse, it is named for the Greek island of Ithaca. Ithaca is home to Cornell University, an Ivy League school of over 20,000 students, most of whom study at its local campus. In addition, Ithaca College is a private, liberal arts college of over 7,000 students, located just south of the city in the Town of Ithaca, adding to the area's "college town" atmosphere. Nearby is Tompkins Cortland Community College; these three colleges bring tens of thousands of students, who increase Ithaca's seasonal population during the school year. The city's voters are notably more liberal than those in the remainder of Tompkins County or in upstate New York voting for Democratic Party candidates.
As of 2010, the city's population was 30,014. A 2017 census estimate stated the population was 31,006. Namgyal Monastery in Ithaca is the North American seat of the 14th Dalai Lama. Indigenous people occupied this area for thousands of years. At the time of European contact, this area was controlled by the Cayuga Nation, one of the powerful Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois League. Jesuit missionaries from New France are said to have had a mission to the Cayuga as early as 1657. Saponi and Tutelo peoples, Siouan-speaking tribes occupied lands at the south end of Cayuga Lake. Dependent tributaries of the Cayuga, they had been permitted to settle on the tribe's hunting lands at the south end of Cayuga Lake, as well as in Pony Hollow of what is known as present-day Newfield, New York. Remnants of these tribes had been forced from Virginia and North Carolina by tribal conflicts and European colonial encroachment; the Tuscarora people, an Iroquoian-speaking tribe from the Carolinas, migrated after defeat in the Yamasee War.
During the Revolutionary War, four of the six Iroquois nations were allied with the British, although bands made decisions on fighting in a decentralized way. Conflict with the rebel colonists was fierce throughout western New York. In retaliation for conflicts to the east, the 1779 Sullivan Expedition was conducted against the Iroquois peoples in the west of the state, destroying more than 40 villages and stored winter crops, it destroyed the Tutelo village of Coregonal, located near what is now the junction of state routes 13 and 13A just south of the Ithaca city limits. Most Iroquois were forced from the state after the Revolutionary War; the state sold off the former Iroquois lands to stimulate development and settlement by European Americans. Within the current boundaries of the City of Ithaca, Native Americans maintained only a temporary hunting camp at the base of Cascadilla Gorge. In 1788, eleven men from Kingston, New York came to the area with two Delaware people guides, to explore what they considered wilderness.
The following year Jacob Yaple, Isaac Dumond, Peter Hinepaw returned with their families and constructed log cabins. That same year Abraham Bloodgood of Albany obtained a patent from the state for 1,400 acres, which included all of the present downtown west of Tioga Street. In 1790, the federal government and state began an official program to grant land in the area, known as the Central New York Military Tract, as payment for service to the American soldiers of the Revolutionary War, as the government was cash poor. Most local land titles trace back to these Revolutionary war grants; as part of this process, the Central New York Military Tract, which included northern Tompkins County, was surveyed by Simeon De Witt, Bloodgood's son-in-law. De Witt was the nephew of Governor George Clinton; the Commissioners of Lands of New York State met in 1790. The Military Tract township in which proto-Ithaca was located was named the Town of Ulysses. A few years De Witt moved to Ithaca called variously "The Flats," "The City," or "Sodom".
Around 1791 De Witt sold them at modest prices. That same year John Yaple built a grist mill on Cascadilla Creek; the first frame house was erected in 1800 by Abram Markle. In 1804 the village had a postmaster, in 1805 a tavern. Ithaca became a transshipping point for salt from curing beds near Salina, New York to buyers south and east; this prompted construction in 1810 of the Owego Turnpike. When the War of 1812 cut off access to Nova Scotia gypsum, used for fertilizer, Ithaca became the center of trade in Cayuga gypsum; the Cayuga Steamboat Company was organized in 1819 and in 1820 launched the first steamboat on Cayuga Lake, the Enterprise. In 1821, the village was incorporated at the same time the Town of Ithaca was organized and separated from the parent Town of Ulysses. In 1834, the Ithaca and Owego Railroad's first horse-drawn train began service, connecting traffic on the east-west Erie Canal with the Susquehanna River to the south to expand the trade network
New York City
The City of New York called either New York City or New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles, New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural and media capital of the world, exerts a significant impact upon commerce, research, education, tourism, art and sports; the city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.
Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of, a separate county of the State of New York. The five boroughs – Brooklyn, Manhattan, The Bronx, Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898; the city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. New York City is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the United States, the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world. In 2017, the New York metropolitan area produced a gross metropolitan product of US$1.73 trillion. If greater New York City were a sovereign state, it would have the 12th highest GDP in the world. New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world. New York City traces its origins to a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan.
The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, it has been the country's largest city since 1790. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the U. S. by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is an international symbol of the U. S. and its ideals of liberty and peace. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, environmental sustainability, as a symbol of freedom and cultural diversity. Many districts and landmarks in New York City are well known, with the city having three of the world's ten most visited tourist attractions in 2013 and receiving a record 62.8 million tourists in 2017. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world. Times Square, iconic as the world's "heart" and its "Crossroads", is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, a major center of the world's entertainment industry.
The names of many of the city's landmarks and parks are known around the world. Manhattan's real estate market is among the most expensive in the world. New York is home to the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is the largest single-operator rapid transit system worldwide, with 472 rail stations. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, Rockefeller University, which have been ranked among the top universities in the world. Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world, the city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. In 1664, the city was named in honor of the Duke of York.
James's older brother, King Charles II, had appointed the Duke proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland, including the city of New Amsterdam, which England had seized from the Dutch. During the Wisconsinan glaciation, 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth; the erosive forward movement of the ice contributed to the separation of what is now Long Island and Staten Island. That action left bedrock at a shallow depth, providing a solid foundation for most of Manhattan's skyscrapers. In the precolonial era, the area of present-day New York City was inhabited by Algonquian Native Americans, including the Lenape, whose homeland, known as Lenapehoking, included Staten Island; the first documented visit into New York Harbor by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown. He named it Nouvelle Angoulême. A Spanish expedition led by captain Estêvão Gomes, a Portuguese sailing for Emperor Charles V, arrived in New York Harbor in January 1525 and charted the mouth of the Hudson River, which he named Río de San Antonio.
The Padrón Rea
Cayuga Lake
Cayuga Lake is the longest of central New York's glacial Finger Lakes, is the second largest in surface area and second largest in volume. It is just under 40 miles long, its average width is 1.7 miles, it is 3.5 mi wide at its widest point near Aurora. It is 435 ft deep at its deepest point; the city of Ithaca, site of Ithaca College and Cornell University, is located at the southern end of Cayuga Lake. Villages and settlements along the east shore of Cayuga Lake include Myers, King Ferry, Levanna, Union Springs, Cayuga. Settlements along the west shore of the lake include Sheldrake, Poplar Beach, Canoga; the lake has two small islands. One is near Union Springs; this island is not inhabited. The other island, Canoga Island is located near the town of Canoga; this island is inhabited during the summer months. The only other island in any of the Finger Lakes is Squaw Island in Canandaigua Lake. Cayuga Lake is located at 42°41′00″N 76°41′46″W, its depth, steep east and west sides with shallow north and south ends is typical of the Finger Lakes, as they were carved by glaciers during the last ice age.
The water level is regulated by the Mud Lock at the north end of the lake. It is connected to Lake Ontario by the Erie Seneca Lake by the Seneca River; the lake is drawn down as winter approaches, to minimize ice damage and to maximize its capacity to store heavy spring runoff. The north end is dominated by shallow mudflats. An important stopover for migratory birds, the mudflats and marsh are the location of the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge; the southern end is shallow and freezes during the winter. Cayuga Lake is popular among recreational boaters; the Allan H. Treman State Marine Park, a large state marina and boat launch, is located at the southern end of the lake in Ithaca. There are two yacht clubs on the western shore: Ithaca Yacht Club a few miles north of Ithaca, Red Jacket Yacht Club just south of Canoga. There are boat launches scattered along the lake shore. Cayuga Lake is the source of drinking water for several communities, including Lansing near the southern end of the lake along the east side, which draws water through the Bolton Point Municipal Water system.
There are several lake source cooling systems that are in operation on the lake, whereby cooler water is pumped from the depths of the lake and circulated in a closed system back to the surface. One of these systems, operated by Cornell University and began operation in 2000, was controversial during the planning and building states for potential negative environmental impact. All the environmental impact reports and scientific studies have shown that the Cornell lake source cooling system has not yet had and will not have any measurably significant environmental impact. Furthermore, Cornell's system pumps less warm water back into the lake than others further north which have been operating for decades, including the coal-fired power plant on the eastern shore; the AES Cayuga electrical generating station operates in the Town of Lansing, on the east shore of Cayuga Lake. This coal-fired plant uses Cayuga Lake as a cooling source. In the late 1960s, citizens opposed the construction of an 830-MW nuclear power plant on the shore of Cayuga Lake.
Rod Serling named his production company Cayuga Productions during the years of his TV series, The Twilight Zone. Serling and his family had a summer home at Cayuga Lake; the fish population is managed and substantial sport fishing is practiced, with anglers targeting smelt, lake trout and smallmouth bass. Fish species present in the lake include lake trout, landlocked salmon, brown trout, rainbow trout, smallmouth bass, alewife, atlantic salmon, black crappie, pickerel, largemouth bass, northern pike, pumpkinseed sunfish, rock bass, yellow perch. There are state owned hard surface ramps in Mudlock Canal Park, Long Point State Park, Cayuga Lake State Park, Dean's Cove State Marine Park, Taughannock Falls State Park, Allen H. Treman Marine Park. Demont Creek Canoga Creek Schuyler Creek Red Creek Big Hollow Creek Mack Creek Bloomer Creek Barnum Creek Groves Creek Sheldrake Creek Lively Run Bergen Creek Trumansburg Creek Taughannock Creek Willow Creek Glenwood Creek Indian Creek Williams Brook Cayuga Inlet Fall Creek Gulf Creek Minnegar Brook Salmon Creek Morrow Creek Paines Creek Little Creek Dean Creek Glen Creek Great Gully Brook Yawger Creek The lake is the subject of local folklore.
Cornell's alma mater makes reference to its position "Far Above Cayuga's Waters", while that of Ithaca College references "Cayuga's shore". A tradition at Wells College in Aurora holds that if the lake freezes over, classes are canceled. According to Wells College records, this most happened in 1979 and 2015. However, other sources suggest that the only time the entire lake froze over solid end to end in the 20th century was in 1912. Cayuga Lake, like nearby Seneca Lake, is the site of a phenomenon known as the Guns of the Seneca, mysterious cannon-like booms heard in the surrounding area. Many of these booms may be attributable to bird-scarers, automated cannon-like devices used by farmers to scare birds away from the many vineyards and crops. There is however no proof of this. Cayuga Lake is included in the American Viticultural Area. Established in 1988, the AVA now boasts over a dozen wineries, four distilleries, a cidery, a meadery. Taughannock Falls World Lakes Database entry for Cayuga Lake.
Cayugalake.org Cayuga Lake Defense Fund Montez
Seneca Lake (New York)
Seneca Lake is the largest of the glacial Finger Lakes of the U. S. state of New York, the deepest lake within the state. It is promoted as being the lake trout capital of the world, is host of the National Lake Trout Derby; because of its depth and relative ease of access, the US Navy uses Seneca Lake to perform test and evaluation of equipment ranging from single element transducers to complex sonar arrays and systems. The lake takes its name from the Seneca nation of Native Americans. At the north end of Seneca Lake is the city of Geneva, New York, home of Hobart and William Smith Colleges and the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, a division of Cornell University. At the south end of the lake is the village of Watkins Glen, New York, famed for auto racing and waterfalls. Due to Seneca Lake's unique macroclimate it is home to over 50 wineries, many of them farm wineries and is the location of the Seneca Lake AVA.. At 38 miles long, it is the second longest of the Finger Lakes and has the largest volume, estimated at 3.81 cubic miles half of the water in all the Finger Lakes.
It has an average depth of 291 feet, a maximum depth of 618 feet, a surface area of 66.9 square miles. For comparison, Scotland's famous Loch Ness is 22.5 miles long, 1.7 miles wide, has a surface area of 21.8 square miles, an average depth of 433 feet, a maximum depth of 744.6 feet, total volume of 1.8 cubic miles of water. Seneca's two main inlets are Catharine Creek at the Keuka Lake Outlet. Seneca Lake lets out into the Seneca River/ Cayuga-Seneca Canal, which joins Seneca and Cayuga Lakes at their northern ends, it is replenished at a rate of 328,000 gallons per minute. These springs keep the water moving in a circular motion; because of Seneca Lake's great depth its temperature remains a near-constant 39 °F. In summer the top 10 to 15 feet warms to 70–80 °F. Seneca lake has a typical aquatic population for large deep lakes in the northeast, with coldwater fish such as lake trout and Atlantic salmon inhabiting the deeper waters, warmwater fish such as smallmouth bass and yellow perch inhabiting the shallower areas.
The lake is home to a robust population of "sawbellies," the local term for alewife shad. Seneca Lake was formed at least two million years ago by glacial carving of valleys, it was a part of a series of rivers that flowed northward. Around this time many continental glaciers moved into the area and started the Pleistocene glaciation known as the Ice Age, it is presumed that the Finger Lakes were created by many advances and retreats of massive glaciers that were up to 2 miles wide. Over 200 years ago, there were Iroquois villages on Seneca Lake's surrounding hillsides. During the American Revolutionary War, their villages, including Kanadaseaga, were wiped out during the 1779 Sullivan Expedition by Continental troops under order by General George Washington to invade their homeland, destroy their dwellings and crops, end their threat to the patriots, they destroyed nearly 50 Cayuga villages. Today roadside signs trace Sullivan's route along the east side of Seneca Lake where the burning of villages and crops occurred.
After the war, the Iroquois were forced to cede their land. Their millions of acres were sold and some lands in this area were granted to veterans of the army in payment for their military service. A slow stream of European-American settlers began to arrive circa 1790; the settlers were without a market nearby or a way to get their crops to market. The settlers' isolation ended in 1825 with the opening of the Erie Canal; the canal linked the Finger Lakes Region to the outside world. Steamships and ferries became Seneca Lake's ambassadors of commerce and trade; the former, short Crooked Lake Canal linked Seneca Lake to Keuka Lake. Numerous canal barges sank during operations and rest on the bottom of the lake. A collection of barges at the southwest end of the lake, near the village of Watkins Glen, is being preserved and made accessible for scuba diving by the Finger Lakes Underwater Preserve Association; the lake is a popular fishing destination from all around. Fish species present in the lake include lake trout, rainbow trout, brown trout, landlocked salmon, largemouth bass, smallmouth bass, northern pike and yellow perch.
The painted rocks located at the southern end of the lake on the eastern cliff face depict an American flag, Tee-pee, several Native Americans. The older paintings, located on the bottom of the cliff, were said to have been drawn in 1779 after the Senecas escaped men from John Sullivan's campaign. However, this account is questioned by historian Barbara Bell, arguing that it is unlikely that the Senecas would have returned to paint the paintings having just escaped from Sullivan's men, she suggests instead that these paintings may have been made much for tourists on Seneca Lake boat tours. It is known that the more visible and prominent paintings of the Native Americans, American flag, Tee-pee were added in 1929 during the Sullivan Sesquicentennial. There are two mistakes in these 1929 additions: firstly the Native Americans in the Seneca Region used longhouses and not Tee-pees, secondly the flag is displayed pointing to the left, never to be done on a horizontal surface. Seneca Lake is the site of strange and unexplained cannon-like booms and shakes that are heard and felt in the surrounding area.
They are known locally as the Seneca Guns, La
Lumber
Lumber or timber is a type of wood, processed into beams and planks, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is used for structural purposes but has many other uses as well. There are two main types of lumber, it may be surfaced on one or more of its faces. Besides pulpwood, rough lumber is the raw material for furniture-making and other items requiring additional cutting and shaping, it is available in many species hardwoods. Finished lumber is supplied in standard sizes for the construction industry – softwood, from coniferous species, including pine and spruce, hemlock, but some hardwood, for high-grade flooring, it is more made from softwood than hardwoods, 80% of lumber comes from softwood. In the United States milled boards of wood are referred to as lumber. However, in Britain and other Commonwealth nations, the term timber is instead used to describe sawn wood products, like floor boards. In the United States and Canada timber describes standing or felled trees. In Canada, lumber describes cut and surfaced wood.
In the United Kingdom, the word lumber is used in relation to wood and has several other meanings, including unused or unwanted items. Referring to wood, Timber is universally used instead. Remanufactured lumber is the result of secondary or tertiary processing/cutting of milled lumber, it is lumber cut for industrial or wood-packaging use. Lumber is cut by ripsaw or resaw to create dimensions that are not processed by a primary sawmill. Resawing is the splitting of 1-inch through 12-inch hardwood or softwood lumber into two or more thinner pieces of full-length boards. For example, splitting a ten-foot 2×4 into two ten-foot 1×4s is considered resawing. Structural lumber may be produced from recycled plastic and new plastic stock, its introduction has been opposed by the forestry industry. Blending fiberglass in plastic lumber enhances its strength and fire resistance. Plastic fiberglass structural lumber can have a "class 1 flame spread rating of 25 or less, when tested in accordance with ASTM standard E 84," which means it burns slower than all treated wood lumber.
Logs are converted into timber by being hewn, or split. Sawing with a rip saw is the most common method, because sawing allows logs of lower quality, with irregular grain and large knots, to be used and is more economical. There are various types of sawing: Plain sawn – A log sawn through without adjusting the position of the log and the grain runs across the width of the boards. Quarter sawn and rift sawn – These terms have been confused in history but mean lumber sawn so the annual rings are reasonably perpendicular to the sides of the lumber. Boxed heart – The pith remains within the piece with some allowance for exposure. Heart center – the center core of a log. Free of heart center – A side-cut timber without any pith. Free of knots – No knots are present. Dimensional lumber is lumber, cut to standardized width and depth, specified in inches. Carpenters extensively use dimensional lumber in framing wooden buildings. Common sizes include 2×4, 2×6, 4×4; the length of a board is specified separately from the width and depth.
It is thus possible to find 2×4s that are four and twelve feet in length. In Canada and the United States, the standard lengths of lumber are 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22 and 24 feet. For wall framing, "stud" or "precut" sizes are available, are used. For an eight-, nine-, or ten-foot ceiling height, studs are available in 92 5⁄8 inches, 104 5⁄8 inches, 116 5⁄8 inches; the term "stud" is used inconsistently to specify length. Under the prescription of the Method of Construction issued by the Southern Song government in the early 12th century, timbers were standardized to eight cross-sectional dimensions. Regardless of the actual dimensions of the timber, the ratio between width and height was maintained at 1:1.5. Units are in Song Dynasty inches. Timber smaller than the 8th class were called "unclassed"; the width of a timber is referred to as one "timber", the dimensions of other structural components were quoted in multiples of "timber". The dimensions of timbers in similar application show a gradual diminution from the Sui Dyansty to the modern era.
The length of a unit of dimensional lumber is limited by the height and girth of the tree it is milled from. In general the maximum length is 24 ft. Engineered wood products, manufactured by binding the strands, fibers, or veneers of wood, together with adhesives, to form composite materials, offer more flexibility and greater structural strength than typical wood building materials. Pre-cut studs save a framer much time, because they are pre-cut by the manufacturer for use in 8-, 9-
Susquehanna River
The Susquehanna River is a major river located in the northeastern and mid-Atlantic United States. At 464 miles long, it is the longest river on the East Coast of the United States that drains into the Atlantic Ocean. With its watershed, it is the 16th-largest river in the United States, the longest river in the early 21st-century continental United States without commercial boat traffic; the Susquehanna River forms from two main branches: the "North Branch", which rises in Cooperstown, New York, is regarded by federal mapmakers as the main branch or headwaters, the West Branch, which rises in western Pennsylvania and joins the main branch near Northumberland in central Pennsylvania. The river drains 27,500 square miles, including nearly half of the land area of Pennsylvania; the drainage basin includes portions of the Allegheny Plateau region of the Appalachian Mountains, cutting through a succession of water gaps in a broad zigzag course to flow across the rural heartland of southeastern Pennsylvania and northeastern Maryland in the lateral near-parallel array of mountain ridges.
The river empties into the northern end of the Chesapeake Bay at Perryville and Havre de Grace, providing half of the Bay's freshwater inflow. The Chesapeake Bay is the ria of the Susquehanna; the Susquehanna River is one of the oldest existing rivers in the world, being dated as 320-340 Mya, older than the mountain ridges through which it flows. These ridges resulted from the Alleghenian orogeny uplift events, when Africa slammed into the Northern part of EurAmerica); the Susquehanna basin reaches its ultimate outflow in the Chesapeake Bay. It was well established in the flat tidelands of eastern North America during the Mesozoic era about 252 to 66 million years ago; this is the same period when the Hudson and Potomac rivers were established. Both branches and the lower Susquehanna were part of important regional transportation corridors; the river was extensively used for muscle-powered ferries and canal boat shipping of bulk goods in the brief decades before the Pennsylvania Canal System was eclipsed by the coming of age of steam-powered railways.
While the railroad industry has been less prevalent since the closures and mergers of the 1950s–1960s, a wide-ranging rail transportation infrastructure still operates along the river's shores. Called the Main Branch Susquehanna, the longer branch of the river rises at the outlet of Otsego Lake in Cooperstown, New York. From there, the north branch of the river runs west-southwest through rural farmland and dairy country, receiving the Unadilla River at Sidney, it dips south into Pennsylvania to turn north at Great Bend hooking back into New York. It receives the Chenango in downtown Binghamton. After meandering westwards, it turns south crossing the line again through the twin-towns of Waverly, NY–Sayre and their large right bank railyard, once holding the largest building in the world. A couple miles south, just across the New York state line, in Athens Township in northern Pennsylvania it receives the Chemung from the northwest, it makes a right-angle curve between Sayre and Towanda to cut through the Endless Mountains in the Allegheny Plateau of Pennsylvania.
It receives the Lackawanna River southwest of Scranton and turns to the southwest, flowing through the former anthracite industrial heartland in the mountain ridges of northeastern Pennsylvania, past Pittston City, Wilkes-Barre, Shickshinny, Berwick and Danville. The origin of the official West Branch is near northern Cambria County, Pennsylvania near the contemporary junction of Mitchel Road and US Route 219, it travels northeasterly through Curwensville and through Clearfield, where it's joined by the Clearfield Creek right bank tributary. The Clearfield Creek tributary rises in a Loretto woodlands source spring outflow running northerly while draining the north-face and eastern slopes of the drainage divide crossing athwart the greater pass — the irregular rolling terrain of the several local gaps of the Allegheny—several of which end in the hilly pass around Gallitzin Borough, Gallitzin Township, Cresson area — all above and within the greater Altoona, Pennsylvania area. Clearfield Creek passes through Cresson Lake and bends to flow northeast or north-northeast, passing through other tarns and receiving tributary waters along its descending meanders.
Outside the pass flats, it is paralleled by PA Route 53, built in the river valley, passing through small towns such as Ashville, Glen Hope and others that developed along its banks. It makes its way north and east to the confluence in Clearfield—this valley is exploited as a railroad corridor from Clearfield, climbing to end in a wye within Cresson in the same broad saddle pass as did the upper works of the Allegheny Portage Railroad; the railroad joins the railroad mainline, climbing a nearby incline through the famous Horseshoe Curve. The West Branch turns to the southeast and passes through Lock Haven and Williamsport before turning south; the West Branch joins the North Branch flowing from the northwest at Northumberland, just above Sunbury. Downstream from the confluence of its branches in Northumberland, the river flows south past Selinsgrove, where it is joined by its Penns Creek tributary, cuts through a water gap at the western end of Mahantongo Mountain, it receives the Juniata River from the northwest at Duncannon passes through it
