British Virgin Islands
The British Virgin Islands simply the Virgin Islands, are a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean, to the east of Puerto Rico. The islands are geographically part of the Virgin Islands archipelago and are located in the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles; the British Virgin Islands consist of the main islands of Tortola, Virgin Gorda and Jost Van Dyke, along with over 50 other smaller islands and cays. About 15 of the islands are inhabited; the capital, Road Town, is on Tortola, the largest island, about 20 km long and 5 km wide. The islands had a population of about 28,000 at the 2010 Census, of whom 23,500 lived on Tortola. For the islands, the latest United Nations estimate is 30,661. British Virgin Islanders are British Overseas Territories citizens and since 2002 are British citizens as well. Although the territory is not part of the European Union and not directly subject to EU law, British Virgin Islanders are deemed to be citizens of the EU by virtue of their British citizenship.
The official name of the territory is still the "Virgin Islands", but the prefix "British" is used. This is believed to distinguish it from the neighbouring American territory which changed its name from the "Danish West Indies" to "Virgin Islands of the United States" in 1917. However, local historians have disputed this, pointing to a variety of publications and public records dating from between 21 February 1857 and 12 September 1919 where the Territory is referred to as the British Virgin Islands. British Virgin Islands government publications continue to begin with the name "The territory of the Virgin Islands", the territory's passports refer to the "Virgin Islands", all laws begin with the words "Virgin Islands". Moreover, the territory's Constitutional Commission has expressed the view that "every effort should be made" to encourage the use of the name "Virgin Islands", but various public and quasi-public bodies continue to use the name "British Virgin Islands" or "BVI", including BVI Finance, BVI Electricity Corporation, BVI Tourist Board, BVI Athletic Association, BVI Bar Association and others.
In 1968 the British Government issued a memorandum requiring that the postage stamps in the territory should say "British Virgin Islands", a practice, still followed today. This was to prevent confusion following on from the adoption of US currency in the Territory in 1959, the references to US currency on the stamps of the Territory; the Virgin Islands were first settled by the Arawak from South America around 100 BC. The Arawaks inhabited the islands until the 15th century when they were displaced by the more aggressive Caribs, a tribe from the Lesser Antilles islands, after whom the Caribbean Sea is named; the first European sighting of the Virgin Islands was by the Spanish expedition of Christopher Columbus in 1493 on his second voyage to the Americas. Columbus gave them the fanciful name Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Vírgenes, shortened to Las Vírgenes, after the legend of Saint Ursula; the Spanish Empire claimed the islands by discovery in the early 16th century, but never settled them, subsequent years saw the English, French and Danish all jostling for control of the region, which became a notorious haunt for pirates.
There is no record of any native Amerindian population in the British Virgin Islands during this period, although most of the native population on nearby Saint Croix was killed or dispersed. The Dutch established a permanent settlement on the island of Tortola by 1648. In 1672, the English captured Tortola from the Dutch, the English annexation of Anegada and Virgin Gorda followed in 1680. Meanwhile, over the period 1672–1733, the Danish gained control of the nearby islands of Saint Thomas, Saint John and Saint Croix; the British islands were considered principally a strategic possession, but were planted when economic conditions were favourable. The British introduced sugar cane, to become the main crop and source of foreign trade, slaves were brought from Africa to work on the sugar cane plantations; the islands prospered economically until the middle of the nineteenth century, when a combination of the abolition of slavery in the territory, a series of disastrous hurricanes, the growth in the sugar beet crop in Europe and the United States reduced sugar cane production and led to a period of economic decline.
In 1917, the United States purchased St. John, St. Thomas, St. Croix from Denmark for US$25 million, renaming them the United States Virgin Islands; the British Virgin Islands were administered variously as part of the British Leeward Islands or with St. Kitts and Nevis, with an administrator representing the British Government on the islands; the islands gained separate colony status in 1960 and became autonomous in 1967. Since the 1960s, the islands have diversified away from their traditionally agriculture-based economy towards tourism and financial services, becoming one of the wealthiest areas in the Caribbean; the British Virgin Islands comprise around 60 tropical Caribbean islands, ranging in size from the largest, being 20 km long and 5 km wide, to tiny uninhabited islets, altogether about 150 square kilometres in extent. They are located in the Virgin Islands archipelago, a few miles east of the US Virgin Islands, about 95 km from the Puerto Rican mainland. About 150 km east south-east lies Anguilla.
The North Atlantic Ocean lies to the east of the islands, the Caribbean Sea lies to the
Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua and Barbuda is a country in the West Indies in the Americas, lying between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It consists of two major islands and Barbuda, a number of smaller islands; the permanent population numbers about 81,800 and the capital and largest port and city is St. John's on Antigua. Lying near each other and Barbuda are in the middle of the Leeward Islands, part of the Lesser Antilles at 17°N of the equator; the island of Antigua was explored by Christopher Columbus in 1493 and named for the Church of Santa María La Antigua. Antigua was colonized by Britain in 1632. Antigua and Barbuda joined the West Indies Federation in 1958. With the breakup of the federation, it became one of the West Indies Associated States in 1967. Following by self-governing on its internal affairs, independence was granted from United Kingdom on 1 November 1981. Antigua and Barbuda remains a member of the Commonwealth and Elizabeth II is the country's queen and head of state. Antigua is Spanish for "ancient" and barbuda is Spanish for "bearded".
The island of Antigua was called Wadadli by Arawaks and is locally known by that name today. Christopher Columbus, while sailing by in 1493 may have named it Santa Maria la Antigua, after an icon in the Spanish Seville Cathedral. Antigua was first settled by archaic age hunter-gatherer Amerindians called the Ciboney. Carbon dating has established the earliest settlements started around 3100 BC, they were succeeded by the ceramic age pre-Columbian Arawak-speaking Saladoid people who migrated from the lower Orinoco River. The Arawaks introduced agriculture, among other crops, the famous Antigua black pineapple, sweet potatoes, guava and cotton; the indigenous West Indians made excellent seagoing vessels which they used to sail around on the Atlantic and the Caribbean. As a result and Arawaks were able to colonize much of South America and the Caribbean Islands, their descendants still live there, notably in Brazil and Colombia. Most Arawaks left Antigua around 1100 AD. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Caribs' superior weapons and seafaring prowess allowed them to defeat most of the West Indian Arawak nations, enslaving some and cannibalising others.
The Catholic Encyclopedia makes it clear that the European invaders had difficulty differentiating between the various groups of the native peoples they encountered. As a result, the number and types of ethnic/tribal groups in existence at that time may have been much more varied and numerous than just the two mentioned in this article. European and African diseases and slavery killed most of the Caribbean's native population. Smallpox was the greatest killer; some historians believe that the psychological stress of slavery may have played a part in the massive number of deaths amongst enslaved natives. Others believe the abundant but starchy, low-protein diet may have contributed to their severe malnutrition as they were used to a diet fortified with protein from the sea; the Spaniards did not colonise Antigua. The English settled on Antigua in 1632. Slavery, established to run sugar plantations around 1684, was abolished in 1834; the British ruled from 1632 to 1981, with a brief French interlude in 1666.
The islands became an independent state within the Commonwealth of Nations on 1 November 1981, with Elizabeth II as the first Queen of Antigua and Barbuda. Vere Cornwall Bird Sr became the first Prime Minister. Most of Barbuda was devastated in early September 2017 by Hurricane Irma, which brought winds with speeds reaching 295 km/h; the storm damaged or destroyed 95% of the island's buildings and infrastructure, leaving Barbuda "barely habitable" according to Prime Minister Gaston Browne. Nearly everyone on the island was evacuated to Antigua. Antigua and Barbuda both are low-lying islands whose terrain has been influenced more by limestone formations than volcanic activity; the highest point on Antigua is the remnant of a volcanic crater rising 402 metres. The shorelines of both islands are indented with beaches and natural harbours; the islands are rimmed by shoals. There are few. Both islands lack adequate amounts of fresh groundwater. Rainfall averages 990 mm per year, with the amount varying from season to season.
In general the wettest period is between November. The islands experience low humidity and recurrent droughts. Temperatures average 27 °C, with a range from 23 °C to 29 °C in the winter to from 25 °C to 30 °C in the summer and autumn; the coolest period is between February. Hurricanes strike on an average of once a year, including the powerful Category 5 Hurricane Irma, on 6 September 2017, which damaged 95% of the structures on Barbuda; some 1,800 people were evacuated to Antigua. An estimate published by Time indicated that over $100 million would be required to rebuild homes and infrastructure. Philmore Mullin, Director of Barbuda's National Office of Disaster Services, said that "all critical infrastructure and utilities are non-existent –
Liberia
Liberia the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to its northwest, Guinea to its north, Ivory Coast to its east, the Atlantic Ocean to its south-southwest, it has a population of around 4,700,000 people. English is the official language and over 20 indigenous languages are spoken, representing the numerous ethnic groups who make up more than 95% of the population; the country's capital and largest city is Monrovia. Liberia began as a settlement of the American Colonization Society, who believed black people would face better chances for freedom and prosperity in Africa than in the United States; the country declared its independence on July 26, 1847. The U. S. did not recognize Liberia's independence until February 1862, during the American Civil War. Between January 7, 1822, the American Civil War, more than 15,000 freed and free-born black people who faced legislated limits in the U. S. and 3,198 Afro-Caribbeans, relocated to the settlement.
The black settlers carried their tradition with them to Liberia. The Liberian constitution and flag were modeled after those of the U. S. On January 3, 1848, Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a wealthy, free-born African American from Virginia who settled in Liberia, was elected as Liberia's first president after the people proclaimed independence. Liberia was the first African republic to proclaim its independence, is Africa's first and oldest modern republic. Liberia retained its independence during the Scramble for Africa. During World War II, Liberia supported the United States war efforts against Germany and in turn, the U. S. invested in considerable infrastructure in Liberia to help its war effort, which aided the country in modernizing and improving its major air transportation facilities. In addition, President William Tubman encouraged economic changes. Internationally, Liberia was a founding member of the League of Nations, United Nations, the Organisation of African Unity; the Americo-Liberian settlers did not relate well to the indigenous peoples they encountered those in communities of the more isolated "bush".
The colonial settlements were raided by the Grebo from their inland chiefdoms. Americo-Liberians developed as a small elite that held on to political power, the indigenous tribesmen were excluded from birthright citizenship in their own lands until 1904, in a repetition of the United States' treatment of Native Americans; the Americo-Liberians promoted religious organizations to set up missions and schools to educate the indigenous peoples. Political tensions from the rule of William R. Tolbert resulted in a military coup in 1980 during which Tolbert was killed, marking the beginning of years-long political instability. Five years of military rule by the People's Redemption Council and five years of civilian rule by the National Democratic Party of Liberia were followed by the First and Second Liberian Civil Wars; these resulted in the deaths of 250,000 people, the displacement of many more, shrunk Liberia's economy by 90%. A peace agreement in 2003 led to democratic elections in 2005, in which Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was elected President.
National infrastructure and basic social services have been impacted by previous conflict, with 83% of the population living below the international poverty line. The Pepper Coast known as the Grain Coast, has been inhabited by indigenous peoples of Africa at least as far back as the 12th century. Mende-speaking people expanded westward from the Sudan, forcing many smaller ethnic groups southward toward the Atlantic Ocean; the Dei, Kru and Kissi were some of the earliest documented peoples in the area. This influx of these groups was compounded by the decline of the Western Sudanic Mali Empire in 1375 and the Songhai Empire in 1591; the area now called Liberia was a part of the Kingdom of Koya from 1450 to 1898. As inland regions underwent desertification, inhabitants moved to the wetter coast; these new inhabitants brought skills such as cotton spinning, cloth weaving, iron smelting and sorghum cultivation, social and political institutions from the Mali and Songhai empires. Shortly after the Mane conquered the region, the Vai people of the former Mali Empire immigrated into the Grand Cape Mount County region.
The ethnic Kru opposed the influx of Vai, forming an alliance with the Mane to stop further influx of Vai. People along the coast built canoes and traded with other West Africans from Cap-Vert to the Gold Coast. Arab traders entered the region from the north, a long-established slave trade took captives to north and east Africa. Between 1461 and the late 17th century, Portuguese and British traders had contacts and trading posts in the region; the Portuguese named the area Costa da Pimenta but it came to be known as the Grain Coast, due to the abundance of melegueta pepper grains. European traders would barter goods with local people. In the United States there was a movement to resettle free-born blacks and freed slaves who faced racial discrimination in the form of political disenfranchisement and the denial of civil and social privileges in the United States. Most whites and a small cadre of black nationalists believed that blacks would face better chances for freedom in Africa than in the U.
S. The American Colonization Society was founded in 1816 in Washington, DC for this purpose by a group of prominent politicians and slaveholders, but its membership grew to include people who supported the abolition of slavery. Slaveholders wanted to get free people of color out of the South, where they were thought to threaten the stability of the slave societie
Ole Rømer
Ole Christensen Rømer was a Danish astronomer who, in 1676, made the first quantitative measurements of the speed of light. Rømer invented the modern thermometer showing the temperature between two fixed points, namely the points at which water boils and freezes. In scientific literature, alternative spellings such as "Roemer", "Römer", or "Romer" are common. Rømer was born on 25 September 1644 in Århus to merchant and skipper Christen Pedersen, Anna Olufsdatter Storm, daughter of a well-to-do alderman. Since 1642, Christen Pedersen had taken to using the name Rømer, which means that he was from the Danish island of Rømø, to distinguish himself from a couple of other people named Christen Pedersen. There are few records of Ole Rømer before 1662, when he graduated from the old Aarhus Katedralskole, moved to Copenhagen and matriculated at the University of Copenhagen, his mentor at the University was Rasmus Bartholin, who published his discovery of the double refraction of a light ray by Iceland spar in 1668, while Rømer was living in his home.
Rømer was given every opportunity to learn mathematics and astronomy using Tycho Brahe's astronomical observations, as Bartholin had been given the task of preparing them for publication. Rømer was employed by the French government: Louis XIV made him tutor for the Dauphin, he took part in the construction of the magnificent fountains at Versailles. In 1681, Rømer returned to Denmark and was appointed professor of astronomy at the University of Copenhagen, the same year he married Anne Marie Bartholin, the daughter of Rasmus Bartholin, he was active as an observer, both at the University Observatory at Rundetårn and in his home, using improved instruments of his own construction. His observations have not survived: they were lost in the great Copenhagen Fire of 1728. However, a former assistant, Peder Horrebow, loyally wrote about Rømer's observations. In Rømer's position as royal mathematician, he introduced the first national system for weights and measures in Denmark on 1 May 1683. Based on the Rhine foot, a more accurate national standard was adopted in 1698.
Measurements of the standards fabricated for length and volume show an excellent degree of accuracy. His goal was to achieve a definition based on astronomical constants; this would happen after practicalities making it too inaccurate at the time. Notable is his definition of the new Danish mile of 24,000 Danish feet. In 1700, Rømer persuaded the king to introduce the Gregorian calendar in Denmark-Norway – something Tycho Brahe had argued for in vain a hundred years earlier. Rømer developed one of the first temperature scales while convalescing from a broken leg. Fahrenheit visited him in 1708 and improved on the Rømer scale, the result being the familiar Fahrenheit temperature scale still in use today in a few countries. Rømer established navigation schools in several Danish cities. In 1705, Rømer was made the second Chief of the Copenhagen Police, a position he kept until his death in 1710; as one of his first acts, he fired the entire force, being convinced that the morale was alarmingly low.
He was the inventor of the first street lights in Copenhagen, worked hard to try to control the beggars, poor people and prostitutes of Copenhagen. In Copenhagen, Rømer made rules for building new houses, got the city's water supply and sewers back in order, ensured that the city's fire department got new and better equipment, was the moving force behind the planning and making of new pavement in the streets and on the city squares. Rømer died at the age of 65 in 1710, he was buried in Copenhagen Cathedral, which has since been rebuilt following its destruction in the Battle of Copenhagen. There is a modern memorial; the determination of longitude is a significant practical problem in navigation. Philip III of Spain offered a prize for a method to determine the longitude of a ship out of sight of land, Galileo proposed a method of establishing the time of day, thus longitude, based on the times of the eclipses of the moons of Jupiter, in essence using the Jovian system as a cosmic clock. Galileo proposed this method to the Spanish crown but it proved to be impractical, because of the inaccuracies of Galileo's timetables and the difficulty of observing the eclipses on a ship.
However, with refinements, the method could be made to work on land. After studies in Copenhagen, Rømer joined Jean Picard in 1671 to observe about 140 eclipses of Jupiter's moon Io on the island of Hven at the former location of Tycho Brahe’s observatory of Uraniborg, near Copenhagen, over a period of several months, while in Paris Giovanni Domenico Cassini observed the same eclipses. By comparing the times of the eclipses, the difference in longitude of Paris to Uranienborg was calculated. Cassini had observed the moons of Jupiter between 1666 and 1668, discovered discrepancies in his measurements that, at first, he attributed to light having a finite speed. In 1672 Rømer went to Paris and continued observing the satellites of Jupiter as Cassini's assistant. Rømer added his own observations to Cassini's and observed that times between eclipses got shorter as Earth approached Jupiter, longer as Earth moved farther away. Cassini made an announcement to the Academy of Sciences on 22 August 1676: This second inequality appears to be due to light taking some time to reach us from the satellite.
Gallium
Gallium is a chemical element with symbol Ga and atomic number 31. It is in group 13 of the periodic table, thus has similarities to the other metals of the group, aluminium and thallium. Gallium does not occur as a free element in nature, but as gallium compounds in trace amounts in zinc ores and in bauxite. Elemental gallium is a soft, silvery blue metal at standard temperature and pressure, a brittle solid at low temperatures, a liquid at temperatures greater than 29.76 °C. The melting point of gallium is used as a temperature reference point. Gallium alloys are used in thermometers as a non-toxic and environmentally friendly alternative to mercury, can withstand higher temperatures than mercury; the alloy galinstan has an lower melting point of −19 °C, well below the freezing point of water. Since its discovery in 1875, gallium has been used to make alloys with low melting points, it is used in semiconductors as a dopant in semiconductor substrates. Gallium is predominantly used in electronics.
Gallium arsenide, the primary chemical compound of gallium in electronics, is used in microwave circuits, high-speed switching circuits, infrared circuits. Semiconducting gallium nitride and indium gallium nitride produce blue and violet light-emitting diodes and diode lasers. Gallium is used in the production of artificial gadolinium gallium garnet for jewelry. Gallium is considered a technology-critical element. Gallium has no known natural role in biology. Gallium behaves in a similar manner to ferric salts in biological systems and has been used in some medical applications, including pharmaceuticals and radiopharmaceuticals. Elemental gallium is not found in nature, but it is obtained by smelting. Pure gallium metal has a silvery color and its solid metal fractures conchoidally like glass. Gallium liquid expands by 3.10 %. Gallium shares the higher-density liquid state with a short list of other materials that includes water, germanium, antimony and plutonium. Gallium attacks most other metals by diffusing into the metal lattice.
For example, it diffuses into the grain boundaries of aluminium-zinc alloys and steel, making them brittle. Gallium alloys with many metals, is used in small quantities in the plutonium-gallium alloy in the plutonium cores of nuclear bombs to stabilize the plutonium crystal structure; the melting point of gallium, at 302.9146 K, is just above room temperature, is the same as the average summer daytime temperatures in Earth's mid-latitudes. This melting point is one of the formal temperature reference points in the International Temperature Scale of 1990 established by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures; the triple point of gallium, 302.9166 K, is used by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology in preference to the melting point. The melting point of gallium allows it to melt in the human hand, refreeze if removed; the liquid metal has a strong tendency to supercool below its melting point/freezing point: Ga nanoparticles can be kept in the liquid state below 90 K. Seeding with a crystal helps to initiate freezing.
Gallium is one of the four non-radioactive metals that are known to be liquid at, or near, normal room temperature. Of the four, gallium is the only one, neither reactive nor toxic and can therefore be used in metal-in-glass high-temperature thermometers, it is notable for having one of the largest liquid ranges for a metal, for having a low vapor pressure at high temperatures. Gallium's boiling point, 2673 K, is more than eight times higher than its melting point on the absolute scale, the greatest ratio between melting point and boiling point of any element. Unlike mercury, liquid gallium metal wets glass and skin, along with most other materials, making it mechanically more difficult to handle though it is less toxic and requires far fewer precautions. Gallium painted onto glass is a brilliant mirror. For this reason as well as the metal contamination and freezing-expansion problems, samples of gallium metal are supplied in polyethylene packets within other containers. Gallium does not crystallize in any of the simple crystal structures.
The stable phase under normal conditions is orthorhombic with 8 atoms in the conventional unit cell. Within a unit cell, each atom has only one nearest neighbor; the remaining six unit cell neighbors are spaced 27, 30 and 39 pm farther away, they are grouped in pairs with the same distance. Many stable and metastable phases are found as function of pressure; the bonding between the two nearest neighbors is covalent. This explains the low melting point relative to the neighbor elements and indium; this structure is strikingly similar to that of iodine and forms because of interactions between the single 4p electrons of gallium atoms, further away from the nucleus than the 4s electrons and the 3d10 core. This phenomenon recurs with mercury with its "pseudo-noble-gas" 4f145d106s2 electron configuration, liquid at room temperature; the 3d10 electrons do not shield the outer electrons well from the nucleus an
Henry Cavendish
Henry Cavendish FRS was an English natural philosopher, an important experimental and theoretical chemist and physicist. He is noted for his discovery of hydrogen, which he termed "inflammable air", he described the density of inflammable air, which formed water on combustion, in a 1766 paper, On Factitious Airs. Antoine Lavoisier reproduced Cavendish's experiment and gave the element its name. A notoriously shy man, Cavendish was nonetheless distinguished for great accuracy and precision in his researches into the composition of atmospheric air, the properties of different gases, the synthesis of water, the law governing electrical attraction and repulsion, a mechanical theory of heat, calculations of the density of the Earth, his experiment to measure the density of the Earth has come to be known as the Cavendish experiment. Henry Cavendish was born on 10 October 1731 in Nice, his mother was Lady Anne de Grey, fourth daughter of Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Kent, his father was Lord Charles Cavendish, the third son of William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire.
The family traced its lineage across eight centuries to Norman times, was connected to many aristocratic families of Great Britain. Henry's mother died in 1733, three months after the birth of her second son and shortly before Henry's second birthday, leaving Lord Charles Cavendish to bring up his two sons. From the age of 11 Henry attended a private school near London. At the age of 18 he entered the University of Cambridge in St Peter's College, now known as Peterhouse, but left three years on 23 February 1751 without taking a degree, he lived with his father in London, where he soon had his own laboratory. Lord Charles Cavendish spent his life firstly in politics and increasingly in science in the Royal Society of London. In 1758, he took Henry to meetings of the Royal Society and to dinners of the Royal Society Club. In 1760, Henry Cavendish was elected to both these groups, he was assiduous in his attendance after that, he took no part in politics, but followed his father into science, through his researches and his participation in scientific organisations.
He was active in the Council of the Royal Society of London. His interest and expertise in the use of scientific instruments led him to head a committee to review the Royal Society's meteorological instruments and to help assess the instruments of the Royal Greenwich Observatory, his first paper, Factitious Airs, appeared in 1766. Other committees on which he served included the committee of papers, which chose the papers for publication in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, the committees for the transit of Venus, for the gravitational attraction of mountains, for the scientific instructions for Constantine Phipps's expedition in search of the North Pole and the Northwest Passage. In 1773, Henry joined his father as an elected trustee of the British Museum, to which he devoted a good deal of time and effort. Soon after the Royal Institution of Great Britain was established, Cavendish became a manager and took an active interest in the laboratory, where he observed and helped in Humphry Davy's chemical experiments.
About the time of his father's death, Cavendish began to work with Charles Blagden, an association that helped Blagden enter into London's scientific society. In return, Blagden helped to keep the world at a distance from Cavendish. Cavendish published no books and few papers. Several areas of research, including mechanics and magnetism, feature extensively in his manuscripts, but they scarcely feature in his published work. Cavendish is considered to be one of the so-called pneumatic chemists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, along with, for example, Joseph Priestley, Joseph Black, Daniel Rutherford. Cavendish found that a definite and inflammable gas, which he referred to as "Inflammable Air", was produced by the action of certain acid on certain metals; this gas was, in fact, which Cavendish guessed was proportioned to two in one water. Although others, such as Robert Boyle, had prepared hydrogen gas earlier, Cavendish is given the credit for recognising its elemental nature. By dissolving alkalis in acids, Cavendish made "fixed air", which he collected, along with other gases, in bottles inverted over water or mercury.
He measured their solubility in water and their specific gravity, noted their combustibility. Cavendish was awarded the Royal Society's Copley Medal for this paper. Gas chemistry was of increasing importance in the latter half of the 18th century, became crucial for Frenchman Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier's reform of chemistry known as the chemical revolution. In 1783, Cavendish published a paper on eudiometry, he described a new eudiometer of his invention, with which he achieved the best results to date, using what in other hands had been the inexact method of measuring gases by weighing them. He next published a paper on the production of water by burning inflammable air in "dephlogisticated air", the latter a constituent of atmospheric air. Cavendish concluded that dephlogisticated air was dephlogisticated water and that hydrogen was either pure phlogiston or phlogisticated water, he reported these findings to Joseph Priestley
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Kitts and Nevis known as the Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis, is an island country in the West Indies. Located in the Leeward Islands chain of the Lesser Antilles, it is the smallest sovereign state in the Western Hemisphere, in both area and population; the country is a Commonwealth realm, with Elizabeth II as head of state. The capital city is Basseterre on the larger island of Saint Kitts; the smaller island of Nevis lies 3 km southeast of Saint Kitts across a shallow channel called "The Narrows". The British dependency of Anguilla was also a part of this union, known collectively as Saint Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla. To the north-northwest lie the islands of Sint Eustatius, Saba, Saint Barthélemy, Saint-Martin/Sint Maarten and Anguilla. To the east and northeast are Antigua and Barbuda, to the southeast is the small uninhabited island of Redonda, the island of Montserrat, which has an active volcano. Saint Kitts and Nevis were among the first islands in the Caribbean to be settled by Europeans.
Saint Kitts was home to the first British and French colonies in the Caribbean, thus has been titled "The Mother Colony of the West Indies". Saint Kitts was named "Liamuiga", which translates as "fertile land", by the Kalinago who inhabited the island; the name is preserved via Mount Liamuiga. Nevis's pre-Columbian name was "Oualie", meaning "land of beautiful waters". Christopher Columbus upon sighting what is now Nevis in 1493 gave that island the name San Martín; the current name "Nevis" is derived from a Spanish name Nuestra Señora de las Nieves. This Spanish name means Our Lady of the Snows, it is not known who chose this name for the island, but it is a reference to the story of a fourth-century Catholic miracle: a summertime snowfall on the Esquiline Hill in Rome. The white clouds which wreathe the top of Nevis Peak reminded someone of the story of a miraculous snowfall in a hot climate; the island of Nevis upon first British settlement was referred to as "Dulcina", a name meaning "sweet one" in Spanish.
The original Spanish name was restored and used in the shortened form, "Nevis". There is some disagreement over the name. For many years it was thought that he named the island San Cristóbal, after Saint Christopher, his patron saint and the patron hallow of travellers. New studies suggest; the name "San Cristóbal" was given by Columbus to the island now known as Saba, 20 mi northwest. It seems that "San Cristóbal" came to be applied to the island of St. Kitts only as the result of a mapping error. No matter the origin of the name, the island was well documented as "San Cristóbal" by the 17th century; the first English colonists kept the English translation of this name, dubbed it "St. Christopher's Island". In the 17th century, a common nickname for Christopher was Kitt; this is why the island was informally referred to as "Saint Kitt's Island", further shortened to "Saint Kitts". Today the Constitution refers to the state as both "Saint Kitts and Nevis" and "Saint Christopher and Nevis", but the former is the one most used.
The name of the first inhabitants, pre-Arawakan peoples who settled the islands as early as 3000 years ago, is not known. They were followed by the Arawak peoples, or Taíno about 1000 BC. Peak native populations occurred between 500 and 600 AD; the warlike Island Caribs invaded about 800 AD. They had expanded north of St. Kitts by the time of the Spanish conquest. In 1623, the island was settled by the English, soon followed by the French; the Spanish were superior to the Kalinagos in terms of warfare, the French and English were more "economically aggressive and militarily determined" than the Spanish. The French and English, intent on self-enrichment through exploitation of the island's natural resources, understood from the start that their establishment of settlements in St. Kitts would be met with resistance, such resistance was waged by the Kalinago throughout the first three years of the settlements' existence. Throughout the process of establishing settlements on St. Kitts, as elsewhere in the Caribbean, the French and the English, like their predecessors, were intent on enslaving, expelling or exterminating the Kalinagos, since the latter's retention of land threatened the profitability of the European-controlled plantation economy.
To facilitate this objective, an ideological campaign was waged by colonial chroniclers, dating back to the Spanish, as they produced literature which systematically denied Kalinago humanity. In 1626, the Anglo-French settlers joined forces to massacre the Kalinago to pre-empt an imminent plan by the Caribs, conniving with the Kalinagos, to expel or kill. A Spanish expedition sent to enforce Spanish claims destroyed the English and French colonies and deported the settlers back to their respective countries in 1629; as part of the war settlement in 1630, the Spanish permitted the re-establishment of the English and French colonies. As Spanish power went into decline, Saint Kitts became the premier base for English and French expansion into the Caribbean. From St. Kitts, the British settled the islands of Antigua, Montserrat and Tortola, the French settled Martinique, the Guadeloupe archipelago and St. Barts. During the late-seventeenth century, Fra
