1.
Rocker box
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A rocker box is a gold mining implement for separating alluvial placer gold from sand and gravel which was used in placer mining in the 19th century. It consists of a box, which is open on one end and on top. The inside bottom of the box is lined with riffles and usually a carpet similar to a sluice, on top of the box is a classifier sieve which screens-out larger pieces of rock and other material, allowing only finer sand and gravel through. It sits at an angle and points towards the back of the box. Later rockers dispensed with the apron and used a pair of solid wood or metal baffle boards. These are sometimes covered with carpet to trap fine gold, the entire device sits on rockers at a slight gradient, which allows it to be rocked side to side. Today, the box is not used as extensively as the sluice. Like a sluice box, the box has riffles and a carpet in it to trap the gold. It was designed to be used in areas with water than a sluice box. The mineral processing involves pouring water out of a cup and then rocking the small sluice box like a cradle. Rocker boxes must be manipulated carefully, to prevent losing the gold, although big, and difficult to move, the rocker can pick up twice the amount of the gravel, and therefore more gold in one day than an ordinary gold mining pan. The rocker, like the pan, is used extensively in small-scale placer work, in sampling, rockers are usually homemade and display a variety of designs. A favorite design consists essentially of a combination washing box and screen, a canvas or carpet apron under the screen, the bottom of the washing box consists of sheet metal with holes about 1/2 inch in diameter punched in it, or a l/2-inch-mesh screen can be used. Dimensions shown are satisfactory but variations are possible, the bottom of the rocker should be made of a single wide, smooth board, which will greatly facilitate cleanups. The materials for building a rocker cost only a few dollars, depending mainly on the source of lumber
2.
Alluvium
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Alluvium is loose, unconsolidated soil or sediments, which has been eroded, reshaped by water in some form, and redeposited in a non-marine setting. Alluvium is typically made up of a variety of materials, including fine particles of silt and clay and larger particles of sand, when this loose alluvial material is deposited or cemented into a lithological unit, or lithified, it is called an alluvial deposit. The term alluvium is not typically used in situations where the formation of the sediment can clearly be attributed to another process that is well described. This includes, lake sediments, river sediments, or glacially-derived sediments, sediments that are formed or deposited in a perennial stream or river are typically not referred to as alluvial. Most alluvium is very young, and is often referred to as cover because these sediments obscure the underlying bedrock. Most sedimentary material that fills a basin that is not lithified is typically lumped together as alluvial, alluvium of Pliocene age occurs, for example, in parts of Idaho. Alluvium of late Miocene age occurs, for example, in the valley of the San Joaquin River, alluvium can contain valuable ores such as gold and platinum and a wide variety of gemstones. Such a concentration of ores is termed a placer deposit
3.
Mineral
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A mineral is a naturally occurring chemical compound, usually of crystalline form and abiogenic in origin. A mineral has one specific chemical composition, whereas a rock can be an aggregate of different minerals or mineraloids, the study of minerals is called mineralogy. There are over 5,300 known mineral species, over 5,070 of these have been approved by the International Mineralogical Association, the silicate minerals compose over 90% of the Earths crust. The diversity and abundance of species is controlled by the Earths chemistry. Silicon and oxygen constitute approximately 75% of the Earths crust, which translates directly into the predominance of silicate minerals, minerals are distinguished by various chemical and physical properties. Differences in chemical composition and crystal structure distinguish the various species, changes in the temperature, pressure, or bulk composition of a rock mass cause changes in its minerals. Minerals can be described by their various properties, which are related to their chemical structure. Common distinguishing characteristics include crystal structure and habit, hardness, lustre, diaphaneity, colour, streak, tenacity, cleavage, fracture, parting, more specific tests for describing minerals include magnetism, taste or smell, radioactivity and reaction to acid. Minerals are classified by key chemical constituents, the two dominant systems are the Dana classification and the Strunz classification, the silicate class of minerals is subdivided into six subclasses by the degree of polymerization in the chemical structure. All silicate minerals have a unit of a 4− silica tetrahedron—that is, a silicon cation coordinated by four oxygen anions. These tetrahedra can be polymerized to give the subclasses, orthosilicates, disilicates, cyclosilicates, inosilicates, phyllosilicates, other important mineral groups include the native elements, sulfides, oxides, halides, carbonates, sulfates, and phosphates. The first criterion means that a mineral has to form by a natural process, stability at room temperature, in the simplest sense, is synonymous to the mineral being solid. More specifically, a compound has to be stable or metastable at 25 °C, modern advances have included extensive study of liquid crystals, which also extensively involve mineralogy. Minerals are chemical compounds, and as such they can be described by fixed or a variable formula, many mineral groups and species are composed of a solid solution, pure substances are not usually found because of contamination or chemical substitution. Finally, the requirement of an ordered atomic arrangement is usually synonymous with crystallinity, however, crystals are also periodic, an ordered atomic arrangement gives rise to a variety of macroscopic physical properties, such as crystal form, hardness, and cleavage. There have been recent proposals to amend the definition to consider biogenic or amorphous substances as minerals. The formal definition of an approved by the IMA in 1995, A mineral is an element or chemical compound that is normally crystalline. However, if geological processes were involved in the genesis of the compound, Mineral classification schemes and their definitions are evolving to match recent advances in mineral science
4.
Open-pit mining
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Open-pit, open-cast or open cut mining is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit or borrow. This form of mining differs from extractive methods that require tunneling into the earth, for minerals that occur deep below the surface—where the overburden is thick or the mineral occurs as veins in hard rock—underground mining methods are used to extract the valued material. Open-pit mines that produce building materials and dimension stone are commonly referred to as quarries, open-pit mines are typically enlarged until either the mineral resource is exhausted, or an increasing ratio of overburden to ore makes further mining uneconomic. When this occurs, the mines are sometimes converted to landfills for disposal of solid wastes. Open-cast mines are dug on benches, which describe vertical levels of the hole and these benches are usually on four to sixty meter intervals, depending on the size of the machinery that is being used. Many quarries do not use benches, as they are usually shallow, most walls of the pit are generally blast mined on an angle less than vertical, to prevent and minimize damage and danger from rock falls. This depends on how weathered the rocks are, and the type of rock, the inclined section of the wall is known as the batter, and the flat part of the step is known as the bench or berm. The steps in the walls help prevent rock falls continuing down the face of the wall. In some instances additional ground support is required and rock bolts, cable bolts, de-watering bores may be used to relieve water pressure by drilling horizontally into the wall, which is often enough to cause failures in the wall by itself. A haul road is situated at the side of the pit, forming a ramp up which trucks can drive, carrying ore. Waste rock is piled up at the surface, near the edge of the open pit and this is known as the waste dump. The waste dump is also tiered and stepped, to minimize degradation, ore which has been processed is known as tailings, and is generally a slurry. This is pumped to a dam or settling pond, where the water evaporates. This toxicity can harm the surrounding environment, after mining finishes, the mine area may undergo land rehabilitation. Waste dumps are contoured to flatten out, to further stabilise them. This is then covered with soil, and vegetation is planted to help consolidate the material. There are no long term studies on the success of these due to the relatively short time in which large scale open pit mining has existed. It may take hundreds to thousands of years for some waste dumps to become acid neutral, the dumps are usually fenced off to prevent livestock denuding them of vegetation
5.
Mining
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Mining is extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth usually from an orebody, lode, vein, seam, reef or placer deposits. These deposits form a mineralized package that is of economic interest to the miner, ores recovered by mining include metals, coal, oil shale, gemstones, limestone, chalk, dimension stone, rock salt, potash, gravel, and clay. Mining is required to obtain any material that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, Mining in a wider sense includes extraction of any non-renewable resource such as petroleum, natural gas, or even water. Mining of stones and metal has been a human activity since pre-historic times, Mining operations usually create a negative environmental impact, both during the mining activity and after the mine has closed. Hence, most of the nations have passed regulations to decrease the impact. Work safety has long been a concern as well, and modern practices have significantly improved safety in mines, levels of metals recycling are generally low. Unless future end-of-life recycling rates are stepped up, some rare metals may become unavailable for use in a variety of consumer products, due to the low recycling rates, some landfills now contain higher concentrations of metal than mines themselves. Since the beginning of civilization, people have used stone, ceramics and, later and these were used to make early tools and weapons, for example, high quality flint found in northern France, southern England and Poland was used to create flint tools. Flint mines have been found in areas where seams of the stone were followed underground by shafts. The mines at Grimes Graves and Krzemionki are especially famous, other hard rocks mined or collected for axes included the greenstone of the Langdale axe industry based in the English Lake District. The oldest-known mine on archaeological record is the Lion Cave in Swaziland, at this site Paleolithic humans mined hematite to make the red pigment ochre. Mines of an age in Hungary are believed to be sites where Neanderthals may have mined flint for weapons. Ancient Egyptians mined malachite at Maadi, at first, Egyptians used the bright green malachite stones for ornamentations and pottery. Later, between 2613 and 2494 BC, large building projects required expeditions abroad to the area of Wadi Maghareh in order to secure minerals and other resources not available in Egypt itself. Quarries for turquoise and copper were found at Wadi Hammamat, Tura, Aswan and various other Nubian sites on the Sinai Peninsula. Mining in Egypt occurred in the earliest dynasties, the gold mines of Nubia were among the largest and most extensive of any in Ancient Egypt. These mines are described by the Greek author Diodorus Siculus, who mentions fire-setting as one used to break down the hard rock holding the gold. One of the complexes is shown in one of the earliest known maps, the miners crushed the ore and ground it to a fine powder before washing the powder for the gold dust
6.
Precious metal
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A precious metal is a rare, naturally occurring metallic chemical element of high economic value. Chemically, the precious metals tend to be less reactive than most elements and they are usually ductile and have a high lustre. Historically, precious metals were important as currency but are now regarded mainly as investment, Gold, silver, platinum, and palladium each have an ISO4217 currency code. The best known precious metals are the metals, gold. Although both have industrial uses, they are known for their uses in art, jewelry, fine jewelry. Other precious metals include the platinum metals, ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium. The demand for metals is driven not only by their practical use but also by their role as investments. Historically, precious metals have commanded much higher prices than common industrial metals, a metal is deemed to be precious if it is rare. The discovery of new sources of ore or improvements in mining or refining processes may cause the value of a metal to diminish. The status of a metal can also be determined by high demand or market value. Precious metals in bulk form are known as bullion and are traded on commodity markets, bullion metals may be cast into ingots or minted into coins. The defining attribute of bullion is that it is valued by its mass, the level of purity varies from issue to issue. The purest mass-produced bullion coins are in the Canadian Gold Maple Leaf series, a 100% pure bullion is nearly impossible, as the percentage of impurities diminishes, it becomes progressively more difficult to purify the metal further. Historically, coins had an amount of weight of alloy. The Krugerrand is the first modern example of measuring in pure gold, other bullion coins show neither the purity nor the fine-gold weight on the coin but are recognized and consistent in their composition. Many coins historically showed a denomination in currency, although nominally issued as legal tender, these coins face value as currency is far below that of their value as bullion. For instance, Canada mints a gold coin at a face value of $50 containing one troy ounce of gold—as of May 2011. Bullion coins minting by national governments gives them some numismatic value in addition to their bullion value, one of the largest bullion coins in the world was the 10, 000-dollar Australian Gold Nugget coin minted in Australia which consists of a full kilogram of 99. 9% pure gold
7.
Gold
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Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au and atomic number 79. In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly yellow, dense, soft, malleable. Chemically, gold is a metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions, Gold often occurs in free elemental form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins, and in alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the element silver and also naturally alloyed with copper. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium, golds atomic number of 79 makes it one of the higher numbered, naturally occurring elements. It is thought to have produced in supernova nucleosynthesis, from the collision of neutron stars. Because the Earth was molten when it was formed, almost all of the present in the early Earth probably sank into the planetary core. Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia, a mixture of acid and hydrochloric acid. Gold also dissolves in solutions of cyanide, which are used in mining and electroplating. Gold dissolves in mercury, forming amalgam alloys, but this is not a chemical reaction, as a precious metal, gold has been used for coinage, jewelry, and other arts throughout recorded history. A total of 186,700 tonnes of gold is in existence above ground, the world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. Gold is also used in infrared shielding, colored-glass production, gold leafing, certain gold salts are still used as anti-inflammatories in medicine. As of 2014, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 450 tonnes, Gold is cognate with similar words in many Germanic languages, deriving via Proto-Germanic *gulþą from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃-. The symbol Au is from the Latin, aurum, the Latin word for gold, the Proto-Indo-European ancestor of aurum was *h₂é-h₂us-o-, meaning glow. This word is derived from the root as *h₂éu̯sōs, the ancestor of the Latin word Aurora. This etymological relationship is presumably behind the frequent claim in scientific publications that aurum meant shining dawn, Gold is the most malleable of all metals, a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square meter, and an avoirdupois ounce into 300 square feet. Gold leaf can be thin enough to become semi-transparent
8.
Gemstone
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A gemstone is a piece of mineral crystal which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments. However, certain rocks or organic materials that are not minerals are used for jewelry and are therefore often considered to be gemstones as well. Most gemstones are hard, but some soft minerals are used in jewelry because of their luster or other properties that have aesthetic value. Rarity is another characteristic that lends value to a gemstone, apart from jewelry, from earliest antiquity engraved gems and hardstone carvings, such as cups, were major luxury art forms. A gem maker is called a lapidary or gemcutter, a worker is a diamantaire. The carvings of Carl Fabergé are significant works in this tradition, the traditional classification in the West, which goes back to the ancient Greeks, begins with a distinction between precious and semi-precious, similar distinctions are made in other cultures. In modern usage the precious stones are diamond, ruby, sapphire, other stones are classified by their color, translucency and hardness. Another unscientific term for semi-precious gemstones used in art history and archaeology is hardstone, in modern times gemstones are identified by gemologists, who describe gems and their characteristics using technical terminology specific to the field of gemology. The first characteristic a gemologist uses to identify a gemstone is its chemical composition, for example, diamonds are made of carbon and rubies of aluminium oxide. Next, many gems are crystals which are classified by their crystal system such as cubic or trigonal or monoclinic, another term used is habit, the form the gem is usually found in. For example, diamonds, which have a crystal system, are often found as octahedrons. Gemstones are classified into different groups, species, and varieties, for example, ruby is the red variety of the species corundum, while any other color of corundum is considered sapphire. Other examples are the Emerald, aquamarine, red beryl, goshenite, heliodor, and morganite, gems are characterized in terms of refractive index, dispersion, specific gravity, hardness, cleavage, fracture, and luster. They may exhibit pleochroism or double refraction and they may have luminescence and a distinctive absorption spectrum. Material or flaws within a stone may be present as inclusions, gemstones may also be classified in terms of their water. This is a grading of the gems luster, transparency. Very transparent gems are considered first water, while second or third water gems are those of a lesser transparency, there is no universally accepted grading system for gemstones. Diamonds are graded using a system developed by the Gemological Institute of America in the early 1950s, historically, all gemstones were graded using the naked eye
9.
Stream bed
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A stream bed is the channel bottom of a stream, river or creek, the physical confine of the normal water flow. The lateral confines or channel margins are known as the banks or river banks, during all. Under certain conditions a river can branch from one bed to multiple stream beds. A flood occurs when a stream overflows its banks and flows onto its flood plain, as a general rule, the bed is the part of the channel up to the normal water line, and the banks are that part above the normal water line. However, because water flow varies, this differentiation is subject to local interpretation, the nature of any stream bed is always a function of the flow dynamics and the local geologic materials, influenced by that flow. With small streams in mesophytic regions, the nature of the bed is strongly responsive to conditions of precipitation runoff. Where natural conditions of either grassland or forest ameliorate peak flows, stream beds are stable, possibly rich, with organic matter and these streams support a rich biota. Where conditions produce unnatural levels of runoff, such as occurs below roads and this process greatly increases watershed erosion and results in thinner soils, upslope from the stream bed, as the channel adjusts to the increase in flow. The stream bed is very complex in terms of erosion, sediment is transported, eroded and deposited on the stream bed. With global warming there is a fear that the size and shape of riverbeds will change due to increased flood magnitude and this shows that the stream bed is left mostly unchanged in size and shape. Dry stream beds are also subject to becoming underground water pockets and flooding by heavy rains and water rising from the ground and may sometimes be part of the rejuvenation of the stream
10.
Sand
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Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles. It is defined by size, being finer than gravel and coarser than silt, Sand can also refer to a textural class of soil or soil type, i. e. a soil containing more than 85% sand-sized particles by mass. The second most common type of sand is calcium carbonate, for example aragonite, for example, it is the primary form of sand apparent in areas where reefs have dominated the ecosystem for millions of years like the Caribbean. Sand is a non renewable resource over human timescales, and sand suitable for making concrete is in high demand, in terms of particle size as used by geologists, sand particles range in diameter from 0.0625 mm to 2 mm. An individual particle in this size is termed a sand grain. Sand grains are between gravel and silt, a 1953 engineering standard published by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials set the minimum sand size at 0.074 mm. A1938 specification of the United States Department of Agriculture was 0.05 mm. Sand feels gritty when rubbed between the fingers. ISO14688 grades sands as fine, medium and coarse with ranges 0.063 mm to 0.2 mm to 0.63 mm to 2.0 mm. In the United States, sand is commonly divided into five sub-categories based on size, very fine sand, fine sand, medium sand, coarse sand, and very coarse sand. These sizes are based on the Krumbein phi scale, where size in Φ = -log2D, on this scale, for sand the value of Φ varies from −1 to +4, with the divisions between sub-categories at whole numbers. The composition of sand is highly variable, depending on the local rock sources. The gypsum sand dunes of the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico are famous for their bright, arkose is a sand or sandstone with considerable feldspar content, derived from weathering and erosion of a granitic rock outcrop. Some sands contain magnetite, chlorite, glauconite or gypsum, Sands rich in magnetite are dark to black in color, as are sands derived from volcanic basalts and obsidian. Chlorite-glauconite bearing sands are typically green in color, as are sands derived from basaltic with a high olivine content, many sands, especially those found extensively in Southern Europe, have iron impurities within the quartz crystals of the sand, giving a deep yellow color. Sand deposits in some areas contain garnets and other resistant minerals, the study of individual grains can reveal much historical information as to the origin and kind of transport of the grain. Quartz sand that is weathered from granite or gneiss quartz crystals will be angular. It is called grus in geology or sharp sand in the trade where it is preferred for concrete. Sand that is transported long distances by water or wind will be rounded, people who collect sand as a hobby are known as arenophiles
11.
Permafrost
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In geology, permafrost is ground, including rock or soil, at or below the freezing point of water 0 °C for two or more years. Most permafrost is located in high latitudes, but alpine permafrost may exist at altitudes in much lower latitudes. Ground ice is not always present, as may be in the case of nonporous bedrock, Permafrost accounts for 0. 022% of total water on earth and exists in 24% of exposed land in the Northern Hemisphere. It also occurs subsea on the shelves of the continents surrounding the Arctic Ocean, portions of which were exposed during the last glacial period. A global temperature rise of 1.5 °C above current levels would be enough to start the thawing of permafrost in Siberia, Permafrost is soil, rock or sediment that is frozen for more than two consecutive years. In areas not overlain by ice, it exists beneath a layer of soil, rock or sediment, in practice, this means that permafrost occurs at an average air temperature of -2 °C or colder. Active layer thickness varies with the season, but is 0.3 to 4 meters thick, in the Northern Hemisphere, 24% of the ice-free land area, equivalent to 19 million square kilometers, is more or less influenced by permafrost. Most of this area is found in Siberia, northern Canada, Alaska, beneath the active layer annual temperature swings of permafrost become smaller with depth. The deepest depth of permafrost occurs where geothermal heat maintains a temperature above freezing, above that bottom limit there may be permafrost, whose temperature doesnt change annually—isothermal permafrost. The extent of permafrost varies with the climate, today, a considerable area of the Arctic is covered by permafrost. Overlying permafrost is an active layer that seasonally thaws during the summer. Plant life can be supported only within the active layer since growth can occur only in soil that is fully thawed for some part of the year, thickness of the active layer varies by year and location, but is typically 0. 6–4 m thick. In areas of continuous permafrost and harsh winters, the depth of the permafrost can exceed 1,400 m, Permafrost can also store carbon, both as peat and as methane. Work investigating the permafrost carbon pool size estimates that 1400–1700 Gt of carbon is stored in the northern circumpolar permafrost region, while a recent study that includes stores of the Tibetan Plateau, estimates total carbon pools in the permafrost of the Northern Hemisphere to be 1832 Gt. This large carbon pool represents more carbon than currently exists in all living things, Permafrost typically forms in any climate where the mean annual air temperature is less than the freezing point of water. Exceptions are found in moist-wintered forest climates, such as in Northern Scandinavia and the North-Eastern part of European Russia west of the Urals, fossil cold anomalies in the Geothermal gradient in areas where deep permafrost developed during the Pleistocene persist down to several hundred metres. This is evident from temperature measurements in boreholes in North America, typically, the below-ground temperature varies less from season to season than the air temperature, with mean annual temperatures tending to increase with depth. Thus, if the annual air temperature is only slightly below 0 °C
12.
Hydraulic mining
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Hydraulic mining, or hydraulicking, is a form of mining that uses high-pressure jets of water to dislodge rock material or move sediment. In the placer mining of gold or tin, the resulting water-sediment slurry is directed through sluice boxes to remove the gold and it is also used in mining kaolin and coal. Hydraulic mining originated out of ancient Roman techniques that used water to excavate soft underground deposits and its modern form, using pressurized water jets produced by a nozzle called a monitor, came about in the 1850s during the California Gold Rush in the United States. These problems led to its legal regulation, Hydraulic mining has since been used in various forms around the world. The method was used in Elizabethan England & Wales for developing lead, tin. Water was used on a large scale by Roman engineers in the first centuries BC, using a process later known as hushing, the Romans stored a large volume of water in a reservoir immediately above the area to be mined, the water was then quickly released. The resulting wave of water removed overburden and exposed bedrock, Gold veins in the bedrock were then worked using a number of techniques, and water power was used again to remove debris. The remains at Las Medulas and in surrounding areas show badland scenery on a gigantic scale owing to hydraulicking of the alluvial gold deposits. Las Medulas is now a UNESCO World Heritage site, the site shows the remains of at least seven large aqueducts of up to 30 miles in length feeding large supplies of water into the site. The gold-mining operations were described in vivid terms by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia published in the first century AD, Pliny was a procurator in Hispania Terraconensis in the 70s and must have witnessed for himself the operations. The use of hushing has been confirmed by field survey and archaeology at Dolaucothi in South Wales, matteson used canvas hose which was later replaced with crinoline hose by the 1860s. In California, hydraulic mining often brought water from higher locations for long distances to holding several hundred feet above the area to be mined. California hydraulic mining exploited gravel deposits, making it a form of placer mining, early placer miners in California discovered that the more gravel they could process, the more gold they were likely to find. Instead of working with pans, sluice boxes, long toms, Hydraulic mining became the largest-scale, and most devastating, form of placer mining. Water was redirected into a channel, through a large canvas hose. The extremely high pressure stream was used to wash entire hillsides through enormous sluices, by the mid-1880s, it is estimated that 11 million ounces of gold had been recovered by hydraulic mining in the California Gold Rush. Millions of tons of earth and water were delivered to mountain streams that fed rivers flowing into the Sacramento Valley, cities and towns in the Sacramento Valley experienced an increasing number of devastating floods, while the rising riverbeds made navigation on the rivers increasingly difficult. Perhaps no other city experienced the boon and the bane of gold mining as much as Marysville, situated at the confluence of the Yuba and Feather rivers, Marysville was the final jumping off point for miners heading to the northern foothills to seek their fortune
13.
Sluice
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A sluice is a water channel controlled at its head by a gate. A mill race, leet, flume, penstock or lade is a sluice channelling water toward a water mill, the terms sluice, sluice gate, knife gate, and slide gate are used interchangeably in the water and wastewater control industry. A sluice gate is traditionally a wood or metal barrier sliding in grooves that are set in the sides of the waterway, Sluice gates commonly control water levels and flow rates in rivers and canals. They are also used in treatment plants and to recover minerals in mining operations. Sluice gate refers to a gate allowing water to flow under it. When a sluice is lowered, water may spill over the top, usually, a mechanism drives the sluice up or down. This may be a simple, hand-operated, chain pulled/lowered, worm drive or rack-and-pinion drive, flap sluice gate A fully automatic type, controlled by the pressure head across it, operation is similar to that of a check valve. It is a gate hinged at the top, when pressure is from one side, the gate is kept closed, a pressure from the other side opens the sluice when a threshold pressure is surpassed. Vertical rising sluice gate A plate sliding in the vertical direction, radial sluice gate A structure, where a small part of a cylindrical surface serves as the gate, supported by radial constructions going through the cylinders radius. On occasion, a counterweight is provided, rising sector sluice gate Also a part of a cylindrical surface, which rests at the bottom of the channel and rises by rotating around its centre. Needle sluice A sluice formed by a number of thin needles held against a solid frame through water pressure as in a needle dam. The gates of a Guillotine lock work in a way similar to a sluice gate, in the mountains of the United States, sluices transported logs from steep hillsides to downslope sawmill ponds or yarding areas. Nineteenth-century logging was traditionally a winter activity for men who spent summers working on farms, where there were freezing nights, water might be applied to logging sluices every night so a fresh coating of slippery ice would reduce friction of logs placed in the sluice the following morning. Sluice boxes are used in the recovery of black sands, gold. They may be small-scale, as used in prospecting, or much larger, as in commercial operations, typical sluices have transverse riffles over a carpet, which trap the heavy minerals, gemstones, and other valuable minerals. Cast Iron Cast iron has been popular when constructing sluice gates for years and this material is great at keeping the strength needed when dealing with powerful water levels. Stainless Steel Stainless steel in most cases is lighter than the older cast iron material, fibre-reinforced plastic Rather recently a new technologies such as fibre-reinforced plastic are being used to build sluices. This modern technology has many of the attributes as the older ways while bringing in new attributes such as corrosion resistance, in the Somerset Levels, sluice gates are known as clyse or clyce
14.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
15.
Catalan language
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Catalan is a Romance language derived from Vulgar Latin and named after the medieval Principality of Catalonia, in northeastern modern Spain and adjoining parts of France. It is the national and only language of Andorra, and a co-official language of the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands. It also has status in the commune of Alghero, situated on the northwestern coast of the island of Sardinia. All these territories are often called Catalan Countries. 4% with Catalan and 47. 5% only Spanish, in order to integrate newcomers, the Generalitat de Catalunya spends part of its annual budget on the promotion of the use of Catalan in Catalonia and in other territories. Catalan evolved from Vulgar Latin in the Middle Ages around the eastern Pyrenees, during the Low Middle Ages it saw a golden age as the literary and dominant language of the Crown of Aragon, and was widely used all over the Mediterranean. The union of Aragon with the territories of Spain in 1479 marked the start of the decline of the language. In 1659 Spain ceded Northern Catalonia to France, and Catalan was banned in both states in the early 18th century, 19th-century Spain saw a Catalan literary revival, which culminated in the 1913 orthographic standardization, and the official status of the language during the Second Spanish Republic. However, the Francoist dictatorship banned the use of Catalan in schools and in the public administration, there is no parallel in Europe for such a large, bilingual, non-state speech community. Catalan dialects are relatively uniform, and are mutually intelligible and they are divided into two blocks, Eastern and Western, differing mostly in pronunciation. The terms Catalan and Valencian are two varieties of the same language, there are two institutions regulating the two standard varieties, the Institute of Catalan Studies in Catalonia and the Valencian Academy of the Language in the Valencian Community. Catalan shares many traits with its neighboring Romance languages, thus, the similarities are naturally most notable with eastern Occitan. Nouns have two genders, and two numbers, pronouns additionally can have a neuter gender, and some are also inflected for case and politeness, and can be combined in very complex ways. Verbs are split in several paradigms and are inflected for person, number, tense, aspect, mood, in terms of pronunciation, Catalan has many words ending in a wide variety of consonants and some consonant clusters, in contrast with many other Romance languages. The word Catalan derives from the territory of Catalonia, itself of disputed etymology, in English, the term referring to a person first appears in the mid 14th century as Catelaner, followed in the 15th century as Catellain. It is attested a language name since at least 1652, Catalan can be pronounced as /ˈkætəlæn/, /kætəˈlæn/ or /ˈkætələn/. The endonym is pronounced /kə. təˈɫa/ in the Eastern Catalan dialects, in the Valencian Community, the term valencià is frequently used instead. The names Catalan and Valencian are two names for the same language, see also status of Valencian below. By the 9th century, Catalan had evolved from Vulgar Latin on both sides of the end of the Pyrenees, as well as the territories of the Roman province of Hispania Tarraconensis to the south
16.
Medieval Latin
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Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors, medieval Latin should not be confused with Ecclesiastical Latin. There is no consensus on the exact boundary where Late Latin ends. Medieval Latin had a vocabulary, which freely borrowed from other sources. Greek provided much of the vocabulary of Christianity. The various Germanic languages spoken by the Germanic tribes, who invaded southern Europe, were major sources of new words. Germanic leaders became the rulers of parts of the Roman Empire that they conquered, other more ordinary words were replaced by coinages from Vulgar Latin or Germanic sources because the classical words had fallen into disuse. Latin was also spread to such as Ireland and Germany. Works written in the lands, where Latin was a language with no relation to the local vernacular, also influenced the vocabulary. English words like abstract, subject, communicate, matter, probable, the high point of the development of medieval Latin as a literary language came with the Carolingian renaissance, a rebirth of learning kindled under the patronage of Charlemagne, king of the Franks. On the other hand, strictly speaking there was no form of medieval Latin. Every Latin author in the period spoke Latin as a second language, with varying degrees of fluency, and syntax, grammar. For instance, rather than following the classical Latin practice of placing the verb at the end. Unlike classical Latin, where esse was the auxiliary verb, medieval Latin writers might use habere as an auxiliary, similar to constructions in Germanic. The accusative and infinitive construction in classical Latin was often replaced by a clause introduced by quod or quia. This is almost identical, for example, to the use of que in similar constructions in French. In every age from the late 8th century onwards, there were learned writers who were familiar enough with classical syntax to be aware that these forms and usages were wrong, however the use of quod to introduce subordinate clauses was especially pervasive and is found at all levels. That resulted in two features of Medieval Latin compared with Classical Latin. First, many attempted to show off their knowledge of Classical Latin by using rare or archaic constructions
17.
De re metallica
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De re metallica is a book cataloguing the state of the art of mining, refining, and smelting metals, published a year posthumously in 1556 due to a delay in preparing woodcuts for the text. The author was Georg Bauer, whose pen name was the Latinized Georgius Agricola, the book remained the authoritative text on mining for 180 years after its publication. It was also an important chemistry text for the period and is significant in the history of chemistry, mining was typically left to professionals, craftsmen and experts who were not eager to share their knowledge. Much experiential knowledge had been accumulated over the course of time and this knowledge was consecutively handed down orally within a small group of technicians and mining overseers. In the Middle Ages these people held the leading role as the master builders of the great cathedrals. It was a small, cosmopolitan elite within which existing knowledge was passed on and further developed, only a few writers from that time wrote anything about mining itself. Partly, that was because this knowledge was very difficult to access, most writers also found it simply not worth the effort to write about it. Only in the Renaissance did this begin to change. With the improved transport and the invention of the printing press knowledge spread much more easily, in 1500, the first printed book dedicated to mining engineering, called the “Nutzlich Bergbuchleyn” by Ulrich Rulein von Calw, was published. The most important works in this genre were, however, the twelve books De Re Metallica by Georgius Agricola, Agricola had spent nine years in the Bohemian town of Joachimsthal, now in the Czech Republic. After Joachimsthal, he spent the rest of his life in Chemnitz, both Joachimsthal and Chemnitz are in the Erzgebirge, or Ore Mountains. The book was influential, and for more than a century after it was published. The German mining technology it portrayed was acknowledged as the most advanced at the time, the book was reprinted in a number of Latin editions, as well as in German and Italian translations. Publication in Latin meant that it could be read by any educated European of the time, the numerous woodcuts and detailed descriptions of machinery made it a practical reference for those wishing to replicate the latest in mining technology. In 1912, the first English translation of De Re Metallica was privately published in London by subscription, the translators were Herbert Hoover, a mining engineer, and his wife, Lou Henry Hoover, a geologist and Latinist. The translation is not only for its clarity of language, but for the extensive footnotes. The most important translation—outside English—was the one published by the Deutsches Museum in Munich The book consists of a preface and twelve chapters, labelled books I to XII and it also has numerous woodcuts that provide annotated diagrams illustrating equipment and processes described in the text. Agricola addresses the book to prominent German aristocrats, the most important of whom were Maurice, Elector of Saxony and his brother Augustus and he then describes the works of ancient and contemporary writers on mining and metallurgy, the chief ancient source being Pliny the Elder
18.
Hushing
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Hushing is an ancient and historic mining method using a flood or torrent of water to reveal mineral veins. The method was applied in ways, both in prospecting for ores, and for their exploitation. Mineral veins are often hidden below soil and sub-soil, which must be stripped away to discover the ore veins, a flood of water is very effective in moving soil as well as working the ore deposits when combined with other methods such as fire-setting. Hushing was used during the formation and expansion of the Roman Empire from the 1st century BC on to the end of the empire and it was also widely used later, and apparently survived until modern times where the cost of explosives was prohibitive. It was widely used in the United States, where it was known as booming, a variant known as hydraulic mining where jets or streams of water are used to break down deposits, especially of alluvial gold and alluvial tin, is commonly used. The method is described by Pliny the Elder in Book XXXIII of his Naturalis Historia from the 1st century AD. He distinguishes the use of the method for prospecting for ore and it was used during the Roman period for hydraulic mining of alluvial gold deposits, and in opencast vein mining, for removal of rock debris, created by mechanical attack and fire-setting. The power behind a large release of water is great, especially if it forms a single water wave. Such a wave could be created by a sluice gate covering one end of the reservoir, the size of the tank controlled the height of the wave and its volume. Hushing was most effective when used on steep ground such as the brow of a hill or mountain, the rate of attack would be controlled by the water supply, and perhaps more difficult the higher the deposit to be cleared. If veins of ore were found using the method, then hushing could also remove the debris created when attacking the veins. Pliny also describes the way hillsides could be undermined, and then collapsed to release the ore-bearing material, the development of the mine at Dolaucothi shows the versatility of the method in finding and then exploiting ore deposits. There are the remains of tanks and reservoirs still to be seen at the site. It was a tank built for prospection on the north side of the isolated opencast north of the main mine. It was presumably built to prospect the ground to one side of the opencast for traces of the gold-bearing veins extending to the north and it failed to find the veins here, so was abandoned. It probably precedes the construction of the 7 mile long aqueduct supplying the main site, the method could be applied to any ore type, and succeeded best in hilly terrain. The Romans were well experienced in building the long aqueducts needed to supply the large volumes of water needed by the method, and construction was probably directed by army engineers. He describes the gold miners had with a local tribe because of the great volumes of water they had taken from the local river, reducing it to a trickle
19.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
20.
Augustus
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Augustus was the founder of the Roman Principate and considered the first Roman emperor, controlling the Roman Empire from 27 BC until his death in AD14. He was born Gaius Octavius into an old and wealthy equestrian branch of the plebeian gens Octavia and his maternal great-uncle Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC, and Octavius was named in Caesars will as his adopted son and heir, then known as Octavianus. He, Mark Antony, and Marcus Lepidus formed the Second Triumvirate to defeat the assassins of Caesar, following their victory at the Battle of Philippi, the Triumvirate divided the Roman Republic among themselves and ruled as military dictators. The Triumvate was eventually torn apart by the ambitions of its members. Lepidus was driven into exile and stripped of his position, in reality, however, he retained his autocratic power over the Republic as a military dictator. By law, Augustus held a collection of powers granted to him for life by the Senate, including supreme military command, and it took several years for Augustus to develop the framework within which a formally republican state could be led under his sole rule. He rejected monarchical titles, and instead called himself Princeps Civitatis, the resulting constitutional framework became known as the Principate, the first phase of the Roman Empire. The reign of Augustus initiated an era of peace known as the Pax Romana. Augustus dramatically enlarged the Empire, annexing Egypt, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Noricum, and Raetia, expanding possessions in Africa, expanding into Germania, beyond the frontiers, he secured the Empire with a buffer region of client states and made peace with the Parthian Empire through diplomacy. Augustus died in AD14 at the age of 75 and he probably died from natural causes, although there were unconfirmed rumors that his wife Livia poisoned him. He was succeeded as Emperor by his adopted son Tiberius, Augustus was known by many names throughout his life, At birth, he was named Gaius Octavius after his biological father. Historians typically refer to him simply as Octavius between his birth in 63 until his adoption by Julius Caesar in 44 BC, upon his adoption, he took Caesars name and became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus in accordance with Roman adoption naming standards. He quickly dropped Octavianus from his name, and his contemporaries referred to him as Caesar during this period, historians. In 27 BC, following his defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra and it is the events of 27 BC from which he obtained his traditional name of Augustus, which historians use in reference to him from 27 BC until his death in AD14. While his paternal family was from the town of Velletri, approximately 40 kilometres from Rome and he was born at Ox Head, a small property on the Palatine Hill, very close to the Roman Forum. He was given the name Gaius Octavius Thurinus, his cognomen possibly commemorating his fathers victory at Thurii over a band of slaves. Due to the nature of Rome at the time, Octavius was taken to his fathers home village at Velletri to be raised. Octavius only mentions his fathers equestrian family briefly in his memoirs and his paternal great-grandfather Gaius Octavius was a military tribune in Sicily during the Second Punic War
21.
Aqueduct (water supply)
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An aqueduct is a watercourse constructed to convey water. In modern engineering, the aqueduct is used for any system of pipes, ditches, canals, tunnels. The term aqueduct also often refers specifically to a bridge on an artificial watercourse, the word is derived from the Latin aqua and ducere. Aqueducts were used in ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, and ancient Rome, in modern times, the largest aqueducts of all have been built in the United States to supply the countrys biggest cities. The simplest aqueducts are small ditches cut into the earth, much larger channels may be used in modern aqueducts. Aqueducts sometimes run for some or all of their path through tunnels constructed underground, modern aqueducts may also use pipelines. Historically, agricultural societies have constructed aqueducts to irrigate crops and supply large cities with drinking water, the Indian subcontinent is believed to have some of the earliest aqueducts. Evidence can be found at the sites of present-day Hampi, Karnataka, the massive aqueducts near river Tungabhadra supplying irrigation water were once 15 miles long. The waterways supplied water to royal bath tubs, in Persia from early times a system of underground aqueducts called qanāts were constructed, a series of well-like vertical shafts, connected by gently sloping tunnels. This technique, taps into subterranean water in a manner that water to the surface without need for pumping. The water drains relying on gravity, with the lower than the source. Allows water to be transported long distances in hot dry climates without losing a large proportion of the water to seepage. Throughout Petra, Jordan, the Nabataean engineers took advantage of natural spring. They constructed aqueducts and piping systems that allowed water to flow across mountains, through gorges and into the temples, homes, and gardens of Petras citizens. Walking through the Siq, one can spot the remains of channels that directed water to the city center. On the island of Samos, the Tunnel of Eupalinos was built during the reign of Polycrates and it is considered an underground aqueduct and brought fresh water to Pythagoreion for roughly a thousand years. Roman aqueducts were built in all parts of the Roman Empire, from Germany to Africa, and especially in the city of Rome, where they totaled over 415 kilometres. The aqueducts supplied water to public baths and for drinking water, in large cities across the empire
22.
Platinum
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Platinum is a chemical element with symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious and its name is derived from the Spanish term platina, translated into little silver. Platinum is a member of the group of elements and group 10 of the periodic table of elements. It has six naturally occurring isotopes and it is one of the rarer elements in Earths crust with an average abundance of approximately 5 μg/kg. It occurs in some nickel and copper ores along with some deposits, mostly in South Africa. Because of its scarcity in Earths crust, only a few hundred tonnes are produced annually, Platinum is one of the least reactive metals. It has remarkable resistance to corrosion, even at high temperatures, consequently, platinum is often found chemically uncombined as native platinum. Because it occurs naturally in the sands of various rivers. Platinum is used in catalytic converters, laboratory equipment, electrical contacts and electrodes, platinum resistance thermometers, dentistry equipment, and jewelry. Being a heavy metal, it leads to health issues upon exposure to its salts, compounds containing platinum, such as cisplatin, oxaliplatin and carboplatin, are applied in chemotherapy against certain types of cancer. Pure platinum is a lustrous, ductile, and malleable, silver-white metal, Platinum is more ductile than gold, silver or copper, thus being the most ductile of pure metals, but it is less malleable than gold. The metal has excellent resistance to corrosion, is stable at temperatures and has stable electrical properties. Platinum reacts with oxygen slowly at high temperatures. It reacts vigorously with fluorine at 500 °C to form platinum tetrafluoride and it is also attacked by chlorine, bromine, iodine, and sulfur. Platinum is insoluble in hydrochloric and nitric acid, but dissolves in hot aqua regia to form chloroplatinic acid and its physical characteristics and chemical stability make it useful for industrial applications. Its resistance to wear and tarnish is well suited to use in fine jewelry, the most common oxidation states of platinum are +2 and +4. The +1 and +3 oxidation states are common, and are often stabilized by metal bonding in bimetallic species. As is expected, tetracoordinate platinum compounds tend to adopt 16-electron square planar geometries, Platinum has six naturally occurring isotopes, 190Pt, 192Pt, 194Pt, 195Pt, 196Pt, and 198Pt
23.
Platinum group
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The platinum-group metals are six noble, precious metallic elements clustered together in the periodic table. These elements are all transition metals in the d-block, the six platinum-group metals are ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium, and platinum. They have similar physical and chemical properties, and tend to occur together in the mineral deposits. However they can be subdivided into the iridium-group platinum-group elements. The three elements above the group in the periodic table are all ferromagnetic, these being the only known transition metals with this property. Naturally occurring platinum and platinum-rich alloys were known by pre-Columbian Americans for many years, the Spaniards named the metal platina when they first encountered it in Colombia. They regarded platinum as an impurity in the silver they were mining. The platinum metals have many useful catalytic properties and they are highly resistant to wear and tarnish, making platinum, in particular, well suited for fine jewelry. Other distinctive properties include resistance to attack, excellent high-temperature characteristics. All these properties have been exploited for industrial applications, generally, ultramafic and mafic igneous rocks have relatively high, and granites low, PGE trace content. Geochemically anomalous traces occur predominantly in chromian spinels and sulfides, mafic and ultramafic igneous rocks host practically all primary PGM ore of the world. Mafic layered intrusions, including the Bushveld Complex, outweigh by far all other settings of platinum deposits. Other economically significant PGE deposits include mafic intrusions related to flood basalts, typical ores for PGMs contain ca.10 g PGM/ton ore, thus the identity of the particular mineral is unknown. Sperrylite ore is a source of this metal. A naturally occurring platinum-iridium alloy, platiniridium, is found in the mineral cooperite, platinum is also produced commercially as a by-product of nickel ore processing. The huge quantities of ore processed makes up for the fact that platinum makes up only two parts per million of the ore. South Africa, with vast platinum ore deposits in the Merensky Reef of the Bushveld complex, is the worlds largest producer of platinum, platinum and palladium are also mined commercially from the Stillwater igneous complex in Montana, USA. Leaders of primary production are South Africa and Russia, followed by Canada, Zimbabwe
24.
North America
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North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16. 5% of the land area. North America is the third largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7. 5% of the worlds population, North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago, the Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, the Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a map, in which he placed the word America on the continent of South America. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, for Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespuccis name, but in its feminine form America, following the examples of Europa, Asia and Africa. Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the continent, In 1538. Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty, a minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of Amairick. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language, the term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States, alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands
25.
Gold rush
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A gold rush is a new discovery of gold that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, the wealth that resulted was distributed widely because of reduced migration costs and low barriers to entry. While gold mining itself was unprofitable for most diggers and mine owners, some people made fortunes. The resulting increase in the gold supply stimulated global trade. Historians have written extensively about the migration, trade, colonization, Gold rushes helped spur a huge immigration that often led to permanent settlement of new regions. Activities propelled by gold rushes define significant aspects of the culture of the Australian, at a time when the worlds money supply was based on gold, the newly mined gold provided economic stimulus far beyond the gold fields. Gold rushes extend back as far as gold mining, to the Roman Empire, whose gold mining was described by Diodorus Siculus and Pliny the Elder, within each mining rush there is typically a transition through progressively higher capital expenditures, larger organizations, and more specialized knowledge. They may also progress from high-unit value to lower unit value minerals, a rush typically begins with the discovery of placer gold made by an individual. At first the gold may be washed from the sand and gravel by individual miners with little training, using a pan or similar simple instrument. Winning the gold in this manner requires almost no capital investment, only a pan or equipment that may be built on the spot. The low investment, the value per unit weight of gold. After the sluice-box stage, placer mining may become increasingly large scale, requiring larger organisations, small claims owned and mined by individuals may need to be merged into larger tracts. Difficult-to-reach placer deposits may be mined by tunnels, water may be diverted by dams and canals to placer mine active river beds or to deliver water needed to wash dry placers. The more advanced techniques of ground sluicing, hydraulic mining and dredging may be used, typically the heyday of a placer gold rush would last only a few years. Hard rock mining, like mining, may evolve from low capital investment and simple technology to progressively higher capital. The surface outcrop of a gold-bearing vein may be oxidized, so that the gold occurs as native gold, the first miners may at first build a simple arrastra to crush their ore, later, they may build stamp mills to crush ore more quickly. As the miners dig down, they may find that the part of vein contains gold locked in sulfide or telluride minerals. If the ore is still rich, it may be worth shipping to a distant smelter
26.
California Gold Rush
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The California Gold Rush began on January 24,1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutters Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought some 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States, the Gold Rush initiated the California Genocide, with 100,000 Native Californians dying between 1848 and 1868. By the time it ended, California had gone from a thinly populated ex-Mexican territory to the state of the first nominee for the Republican Party. The effects of the Gold Rush were substantial, whole indigenous societies were attacked and pushed off their lands by the gold-seekers, called forty-niners. The first to hear confirmed information of the rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands, and Latin America. While most of the newly arrived were Americans, the Gold Rush attracted tens of thousands from Latin America, Europe, Australia, agriculture and ranching expanded throughout the state to meet the needs of the settlers. San Francisco grew from a settlement of about 200 residents in 1846 to a boomtown of about 36,000 by 1852. Roads, churches, schools and other towns were built throughout California, in 1849 a state constitution was written. The new constitution was adopted by vote, and the future states interim first governor. In September,1850, California became a state, at the beginning of the Gold Rush, there was no law regarding property rights in the goldfields and a system of staking claims was developed. Prospectors retrieved the gold from streams and riverbeds using simple techniques, although the mining caused environmental harm, more sophisticated methods of gold recovery were developed and later adopted around the world. New methods of transportation developed as steamships came into regular service, by 1869 railroads were built across the country from California to the eastern United States. At its peak, technological advances reached a point where significant financing was required, Gold worth tens of billions of todays dollars was recovered, which led to great wealth for a few. However, many returned home with more than they had started with. The Mexican–American War ended on February 3,1848, although California was firmly in American hands before that, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo provided for, among other things, the formal transfer of Upper California to the United States. The California Gold Rush began at Sutters Mill, near Coloma, on January 24,1848, James W. Marshall, a foreman working for Sacramento pioneer John Sutter, found shiny metal in the tailrace of a lumber mill Marshall was building for Sutter on the American River. Marshall brought what he found to John Sutter, and the two tested the metal. However, rumors started to spread and were confirmed in March 1848 by San Francisco newspaper publisher
27.
Pike's Peak Gold Rush
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An estimated 100,000 gold seekers took part in one of the greatest gold rushes in North American history. The participants in the rush were known as Fifty-Niners after 1859. But in fact the location of the Pikes Peak Gold Rush was 85 miles north of Pikes Peak and it was only named Pikes Peak Gold Rush because of how well known and important Pikes Peak was. The rush was exemplified by the slogan Pikes Peak or Bust, a reference to the prominent mountain at the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains that guided many early prospectors to the region westward over the Great Plains. The prospectors provided the first major European-American population in the region, the rush created a few mining camps such as Denver City and Boulder City that would develop into cities. Many smaller camps such as Auraria and Saint Charles City were absorbed by larger camps, scores of other mining camps have faded into ghost towns, but quite a few camps such as Central City, Black Hawk, Georgetown, and Idaho Springs survive. For many years people had suspected the mountains had numerous rich gold deposits, in 1835, a French trapper by the name of Eustace Carriere had ended up losing his party and wandered through the mountains for many weeks. During these weeks he found many gold specimens which he took back to New Mexico for examination. Upon examination, they turned out to be pure gold, but when he tried to lead an expedition back to the location of where he found the gold, they came up short because he could not quite remember the location. The Rocky Mountain gold failed to impress or delay men with visions of unlimited wealth in California, as the hysteria of the California Gold Rush faded, many discouraged gold seekers returned home. Rumors of gold in the Rocky Mountains persisted and several small parties explored the region, in the summer of 1857, a party of Spanish-speaking gold seekers from New Mexico worked a placer deposit along the South Platte River about 5 miles above Cherry Creek in what is today Denver. William Greeneberry Green Russell was a Georgian who worked in the California gold fields in the 1850s, Russell was married to a Cherokee woman, and through his connections to the tribe, he heard about an 1849 discovery of gold along the South Platte River. Green Russell organized a party to prospect along the South Platte River and they rendezvoused with Cherokee tribe members along the Arkansas River in present-day Oklahoma and continued westward along the Santa Fe Trail. Others joined the party along the way until their number reached 107, upon reaching Bents Fort, they turned to the northwest, reaching the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte on May 23. The site of their initial explorations is in present-day Confluence Park in Denver and they began prospecting in the river beds, exploring Cherry Creek and nearby Ralston Creek but without success. The site of the discovery is in the present-day Denver suburb of Englewood, just north of the junction of U. S. Highway 285, by 1860, Denver City, Golden City, and Boulder City were substantial towns serving the mines. Rapid population growth led to the creation of the Colorado Territory in 1861, the Pikes Peak Gold Rush sent many into a frenzy, prompting them to pack up their belongings and head to Colorado. They gathered their supplies, wagons, mules, mining equipment, as early as the spring of 1859, people raced to the Pikes Peak country
28.
Fraser Canyon Gold Rush
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The rush overtook the region around the discovery, and was centered on the Fraser Canyon from around Hope and Yale to Pavilion and Fountain, just north of Lillooet. The rush is credited with instigating European-Canadian settlement on the mainland of British Columbia and it was the catalyst for the founding of the Colony of British Columbia, the building of early road infrastructure, and the founding of many towns. People in San Francisco and the California gold fields greeted the news with excitement, within a month 30,000 men had descended upon Victoria. Until that time, the village had had a population of only about 500, all these routes were technically illegal since the Governor required that entry to the colony to be made via Victoria, but thousands came overland anyway. Accurate numbers of miners, especially on the upper Fraser, are difficult to reckon. Many of those first-arrived of European and British origin were Californian by culture, the numbers of Americans associated with the gold rush must be understood to be inherently European-ethnic to start with. Anglo-American Southerners and New Englanders were well represented and this estimate was based on the Yale area and did not include the non-mining hangers-on population. Moody arrived in British Columbia in December 1858, commanding the Royal Engineers, Moody had hoped to begin immediately the foundation of a capital city, but upon his arrival at Fort Langley he learned of an outbreak of violence at the settlement of Hills Bar. This led to an incident popularly known as Ned McGowans War, during the fall of 1858, tensions increased between miners and the Nlakapamux, the First Nations people of the Canyon. This led to the Fraser Canyon War, the governor arrived in Yale to accept the apologies of the Americans who had waged war on the natives. Wanting to make the British military and governmental presence more visible, Douglas appointed justices of the peace, troops to maintain order, however, were still in short supply. Competition and interracial tensions between European Americans and non-white miners erupted on Christmas Eve 1858, with the beating of Isaac Dixon and he was the town barber and in later years was a popular journalist in the Cariboo. Dixon was beaten by two men from Hills Bar, the main town in the southern part of the goldfields. The complicated series of events that ensued is known as McGowans War and they did not need to use force, and were able to resolve the matter peacefully. The team also dealt with the corruption of British appointees in the area and this title was also briefly held by Port Douglas, Yale, and later on by Barkerville. By 1860, however, the gold-bearing sandbars of the Fraser were depleted, many of the miners had either drifted back to the U. S. or dispersed further into the British Columbia wilderness in search of unstaked riches. Many others moved on to a rush in Colorado. Hauka, New Star Books, Vancouver ISBN 1-55420-001-6 British Columbia Chronicle, Gold & Colonists, Helen and G. P. V
29.
Klondike Gold Rush
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The Klondike Gold Rush was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1896 and 1899. Gold was discovered there by miners on August 16,1896 and. Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain and it has been immortalized in photographs, books, films, and artifacts. To reach the fields most took the route through the ports of Dyea. Here, the Klondikers could follow either the Chilkoot or the White Pass trails to the Yukon River, each of them was required to bring a years supply of food by the Canadian authorities in order to prevent starvation. In all, their equipment weighed close to a ton, which for most had to be carried in stages by themselves, together with mountainous terrain and cold climate this meant that those who persisted did not arrive until summer 1898. Once there, they found few opportunities and many left disappointed, mining was challenging as the ore was distributed in an uneven manner and digging was made slow by permafrost. As a result, some chose to buy and sell claims, building up huge investments. To accommodate the prospectors, boom towns sprang up along the routes and at their end Dawson City was founded at the confluence of the Klondike, from a population of 500 in 1896, the town grew to house around 30,000 people by summer 1898. Built of wood, isolated and unsanitary, Dawson suffered from fires, high prices, despite this, the wealthiest prospectors spent extravagantly gambling and drinking in the saloons. The Native Hän people, on the hand, suffered from the rush, being moved into a reserve to make way for the stampeders. From 1898, the newspapers that had encouraged so many to travel to the Klondike lost interest in it. In the summer of 1899, gold was discovered around Nome in west Alaska, the boom towns declined and the population of Dawson City fell. Gold mining activity lasted until 1903 when production peaked after heavier equipment was brought in, since then the Klondike has been mined on and off, and today the legacy draws tourists to the region and contributes to its prosperity. The indigenous peoples in north-west America had traded in copper prior to European expansion. Most of the tribes were aware that gold existed in region, in the second half of the 19th century, American prospectors began to spread into the area. Making deals with the Native Tlingit and Tagish tribes, the early prospectors opened the important routes of Chilkoot and White Pass, here, they encountered the Hän people, semi-nomadic hunters and fishermen who lived along the Yukon and Klondike Rivers. The Hän did not appear to know about the extent of the deposits in the region
30.
Myanmar
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Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and also known as Burma, is a sovereign state in South East Asia bordered by Bangladesh, India, China, Laos and Thailand. About one third of Myanmars total perimeter of 5,876 km, forms an uninterrupted coastline of 1,930 km along the Bay of Bengal, the countrys 2014 census revealed a much lower population than expected, with 51 million people recorded. Myanmar is 676,578 square kilometres in size and its capital city is Naypyidaw and its largest city and former capital city is Yangon. Early civilizations in Myanmar included the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states in Upper Burma, the Pagan Kingdom fell due to the Mongol invasions and several warring states emerged. In the 16th century, reunified by the Taungoo Dynasty, the country was for a period the largest empire in the history of Mainland Southeast Asia. The early 19th century Konbaung Dynasty ruled over an area included modern Myanmar and briefly controlled Manipur. The British invaded Myanmar after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the 19th century and the became a British colony. Myanmar became an independent nation in 1948, initially as a nation and then, following a coup détat in 1962. For most of its independent years, the country has been engrossed in rampant ethnic strife, during this time, the United Nations and several other organisations have reported consistent and systematic human rights violations in the country. In 2011, the junta was officially dissolved following a 2010 general election. While former military leaders still wield enormous power in the country, there is, however, continuing criticism of the governments treatment of the Muslim Rohingya minority and its poor response to the religious clashes. In the landmark 2015 election, Aung San Suu Kyis party won a majority in both houses, Myanmar is a country rich in jade and gems, oil, natural gas and other mineral resources. In 2013, its GDP stood at US$56.7 billion, the income gap in Myanmar is among the widest in the world, as a large proportion of the economy is controlled by supporters of the former military government. As of 2016, according to the Human Development Index, Myanmar had a level of human development. The renaming remains a contested issue, many political and ethnic opposition groups and countries continue to use Burma because they do not recognise the legitimacy of the ruling military government or its authority to rename the country. The countrys official name is the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. Countries that do not officially recognise that name use the long form Union of Burma instead, in English, the country is popularly known as either Burma or Myanmar /ˈmjɑːnˌmɑːr/. Both these names are derived from the name of the majority Burmese Bamar ethnic group, Myanmar is considered to be the literary form of the name of the group, while Burma is derived from Bamar, the colloquial form of the groups name
31.
Sri Lanka
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Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia near south-east India. Sri Lanka has maritime borders with India to the northwest and the Maldives to the southwest, Sri Lankas documented history spans 3,000 years, with evidence of pre-historic human settlements dating back to at least 125,000 years. Its geographic location and deep harbours made it of strategic importance from the time of the ancient Silk Road through to World War II. Sri Lanka was known from the beginning of British colonial rule until 1972 as Ceylon, Sri Lankas recent history has been marred by a thirty-year civil war which decisively ended when the Sri Lankan military defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009. A diverse and multicultural country, Sri Lanka is home to many religions, ethnic groups, in addition to the majority Sinhalese, it is home to large groups of Sri Lankan and Indian Tamils, Moors, Burghers, Malays, Kaffirs and the aboriginal Vedda. Sri Lanka has a rich Buddhist heritage, and the first known Buddhist writings of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka is a republic and a unitary state governed by a semi-presidential system. The legislative capital, Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, is a suburb of the capital and largest city. Along with the Maldives, Sri Lanka is one of the two countries in South Asia that are rated among high human development on the Human Development Index. In antiquity, Sri Lanka was known to travellers by a variety of names, according to the Mahavamsa, the legendary Prince Vijaya named the land Tambapanni, because his followers hands were reddened by the red soil of the area. In Hindu mythology, such as the Mahabharata, the island was referred to as Lankā, in Tamil, the island is referred to as Eelam. Ancient Greek geographers called it Taprobanā or Taprobanē from the word Tambapanni, as a British crown colony, the island was known as Ceylon, it achieved independence as the Dominion of Ceylon in 1948. The country is known in Sinhalese as Śrī Laṃkā and in Tamil as Ilaṅkai, in 1972, its formal name was changed to Free, Sovereign and Independent Republic of Sri Lanka. Later in 1978 it was changed to the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, as the name Ceylon still appears in the names of a number of organisations, the Sri Lankan government announced in 2011 a plan to rename all those over which it has authority. The pre-history of Sri Lanka goes back 125,000 years, the era spans the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and early Iron Ages. Among the Paleolithic human settlements discovered in Sri Lanka, Pahiyangala and it is said that Kubera was overthrown by his demon stepbrother Ravana, the powerful emperor who built a mythical flying machine named Dandu Monara. The modern city of Wariyapola is described as Ravanas airport, early inhabitants of Sri Lanka were probably ancestors of the Vedda people, an indigenous people numbering approximately 2,500 living in modern-day Sri Lanka. According to the Mahāvamsa, a written in Pāḷi, the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka are the Yakshas and Nagas. Ancient cemeteries that were used before 600BC and other signs of advanced civilization has also discovered in Sri Lanka
32.
Yukon
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Yukon is the smallest and westernmost of Canadas three federal territories. The territory has the smallest population of any province or territory in Canada, Whitehorse is the territorial capital and Yukons only city. The territory was split from the Northwest Territories in 1898 and was named the Yukon Territory, though officially bilingual, the Yukon Government also recognizes First Nations languages. At 5,959 m, Yukons Mount Logan, in Kluane National Park and Reserve, is the highest mountain in Canada, most of Yukon has a subarctic climate, characterized by long cold winters and brief warm summers. The Arctic Ocean coast has a tundra climate, notable rivers include the Yukon River, after which the territory was named, as well as the Pelly, Stewart, Peel, White and Tatshenshini rivers. Long before the arrival of Europeans, central and southern Yukon was populated by First Nations people, sites of archeological significance in Yukon hold some of the earliest evidence of the presence of human occupation in North America. The sites safeguard the history of the first people and the earliest First Nations of the Yukon, the volcanic eruption of Mount Churchill in approximately 800 AD in what is now the U. S. Coastal and inland First Nations had extensive trading networks, European incursions into the area only began early in the 19th century with the fur trade, followed by missionaries. By the 1870s and 1880s gold miners began to arrive and this drove a population increase that justified the establishment of a police force, just in time for the start of the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897. The increased population coming with the gold led to the separation of the Yukon district from the Northwest Territories. Its northern coast is on the Beaufort Sea and its ragged eastern boundary mostly follows the divide between the Yukon Basin and the Mackenzie River drainage basin to the east in the Mackenzie mountains. Most of the territory is in the watershed of its namesake, the southern Yukon is dotted with a large number of large, long and narrow glacier-fed alpine lakes, most of which flow into the Yukon River system. The larger lakes include Teslin Lake, Atlin Lake, Tagish Lake, Marsh Lake, Lake Laberge, Kusawa Lake, bennett Lake on the Klondike Gold Rush trail is a lake flowing into Nares Lake, with the greater part of its area within Yukon. Canadas highest point, Mount Logan, is in the territorys southwest, Mount Logan and a large part of the Yukons southwest are in Kluane National Park and Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Other national parks include Ivvavik National Park and Vuntut National Park in the north, other watersheds include the Mackenzie River, the Peel Watershed and the Alsek–Tatshenshini, and a number of rivers flowing directly into the Beaufort Sea. The two main Yukon rivers flowing into the Mackenzie in the Northwest Territories are the Liard River in the southeast, notable widespread tree species within Yukon are the black spruce and white spruce. Many trees are stunted because of the growing season and severe climate. The capital, Whitehorse, is also the largest city, with about three-quarters of the population, the second largest is Dawson City, which was the capital until 1952
33.
Alaska
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Alaska is a U. S. state located in the northwest extremity of North America. To the north are the Chukchi and Beaufort seas–the southern parts of the Arctic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean lies to the south and southwest. Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area, the 3rd least populous, approximately half of Alaskas residents live within the Anchorage metropolitan area. Alaskas economy is dominated by the fishing, natural gas, military bases and tourism are also a significant part of the economy. The United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire on March 30,1867, the area went through several administrative changes before becoming organized as a territory on May 11,1912. It was admitted as the 49th state of the U. S. on January 3,1959, the name Alaska was introduced in the Russian colonial period when it was used to refer to the peninsula. It was derived from an Aleut, or Unangam idiom, which refers to the mainland of Alaska. Literally, it means object to which the action of the sea is directed, Alaska is the northernmost and westernmost state in the United States and has the most easterly longitude in the United States because the Aleutian Islands extend into the Eastern Hemisphere. Alaska is the only non-contiguous U. S. state on continental North America and it is technically part of the continental U. S. but is sometimes not included in colloquial use, Alaska is not part of the contiguous U. S. often called the Lower 48. The capital city, Juneau, is situated on the mainland of the North American continent but is not connected by road to the rest of the North American highway system. Alaskas territorial waters touch Russias territorial waters in the Bering Strait, as the Russian Big Diomede Island, Alaska has a longer coastline than all the other U. S. states combined. Alaska is the largest state in the United States by total area at 663,268 square miles, over twice the size of Texas, Alaska is larger than all but 18 sovereign countries. Counting territorial waters, Alaska is larger than the area of the next three largest states, Texas, California, and Montana. It is also larger than the area of the 22 smallest U. S. states. Also referred to as the Panhandle or Inside Passage, this is the region of Alaska closest to the rest of the United States, as such, this was where most of the initial non-indigenous settlement occurred in the years following the Alaska Purchase. The region is dominated by the Alexander Archipelago as well as the Tongass National Forest and it contains the state capital Juneau, the former capital Sitka, and Ketchikan, at one time Alaskas largest city. The Alaska Marine Highway provides a vital transportation link throughout the area. The Interior is the largest region of Alaska, much of it is uninhabited wilderness, Fairbanks is the only large city in the region
34.
British Columbia
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British Columbia is the westernmost province of Canada, with a population of more than four million people located between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. British Columbia is also a component of the Pacific Northwest and the Cascadia bioregion, along with the U. S. states of Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Alaska. The first British settlement in the area was Fort Victoria, established in 1843, subsequently, on the mainland, the Colony of British Columbia was founded by Richard Clement Moody and the Royal Engineers, Columbia Detachment, in response to the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. Port Moody is named after him, in 1866, Vancouver Island became part of the colony of British Columbia, and Victoria became the united colonys capital. In 1871, British Columbia became the province of Canada. Its Latin motto is Splendor sine occasu, the capital of British Columbia remains Victoria, the fifteenth-largest metropolitan region in Canada, named for the Queen who created the original European colonies. The largest city is Vancouver, the third-largest metropolitan area in Canada, the largest in Western Canada, in October 2013, British Columbia had an estimated population of 4,606,371. British Columbia evolved from British possessions that were established in what is now British Columbia by 1871, First Nations, the original inhabitants of the land, have a history of at least 10,000 years in the area. Today there are few treaties and the question of Aboriginal Title, notably, the Tsilhqotin Nation has established Aboriginal title to a portion of their territory, as a result of the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision. BCs economy is diverse, with service producing industries accounting for the largest portion of the provinces GDP and it is the endpoint of transcontinental railways, and the site of major Pacific ports that enable international trade. Though less than 5% of its vast 944,735 km2 land is arable and its climate encourages outdoor recreation and tourism, though its economic mainstay has long been resource extraction, principally logging, farming, and mining. Vancouver, the provinces largest city and metropolitan area, also serves as the headquarters of many western-based natural resource companies and it also benefits from a strong housing market and a per capita income well above the national average. The Northern Interior region has a climate with very cold winters. The climate of Vancouver is by far the mildest winter climate of the major Canadian cities, the provinces name was chosen by Queen Victoria, when the Colony of British Columbia, i. e. the Mainland, became a British colony in 1858. The current southern border of British Columbia was established by the 1846 Oregon Treaty, British Columbias land area is 944,735 square kilometres. British Columbias rugged coastline stretches for more than 27,000 kilometres and it is the only province in Canada that borders the Pacific Ocean. British Columbias capital is Victoria, located at the tip of Vancouver Island. Only a narrow strip of the Island, from Campbell River to Victoria, is significantly populated, much of the western part of Vancouver Island and the rest of the coast is covered by thick, tall and sometimes impenetrable temperate rainforest
35.
Placer deposit
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In geology, a placer deposit or placer is an accumulation of valuable minerals formed by gravity separation during sedimentary processes. The name is from the Spanish word placer, meaning alluvial sand, Placer mining is an important source of gold, and was the main technique used in the early years of many gold rushes, including the California Gold Rush. Types of placer deposits include alluvium, eluvium, beach placers, Placer materials must be both dense and resistant to weathering processes. To accumulate in placers, mineral particles must be significantly denser than quartz, Placer environments typically contain black sand, a conspicuous shiny black mixture of iron oxides, mostly magnetite with variable amounts of ilmenite and hematite. Valuable mineral components often occurring with black sands are monazite, rutile, zircon, chromite, wolframite, alluvial placers are formed by the deposition of dense particles at a site where water velocity remains below that required to transport them further. To form a deposit, the particles desired must show a marked density contrast with the gangue material. Only if the deposit is winnowed in this way can the minerals be concentrated to economic levels, beach placers are formed in sand and gravel deposited along the edge of large bodies of water. Heavy mineral sands ore deposits Black sand Placer mining Drift mining Sedimentology
36.
Korea
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Korea is a historical state in East Asia, since 1945 divided into two distinct sovereign states, North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by China to the northwest and it is separated from Japan to the east by the Korea Strait and the Sea of Japan. Korea emerged as a political entity after centuries of conflict among the Three Kingdoms of Korea. Later Silla divided into three states during the Later Three Kingdoms period. Goryeo, which had succeeded Goguryeo, defeated the two states and united the Korean Peninsula. Around the same time, Balhae collapsed and its last crown prince fled south to Goryeo, Goryeo, whose name developed into the modern exonym Korea, was a highly cultured state that created the worlds first metal movable type in 1234. However, multiple invasions by the Mongol Yuan Dynasty during the 13th century greatly weakened the nation, following the Yuan Dynastys collapse, severe political strife followed, and Goryeo eventually fell to a coup led by General Yi Seong-gye, who established Joseon in 1388. The first 200 years of Joseon were marked by peace and saw the creation of the Korean alphabet by Sejong the Great in the 14th century. During the later part of the dynasty, however, Koreas isolationist policy earned it the Western nickname of the Hermit Kingdom, by the late 19th century, the country became the object of imperial design by the Empire of Japan. Despite attempts at modernization by the Korean Empire, in 1910 Korea was annexed by Japan and these circumstances soon became the basis for the division of Korea by the two superpowers, exacerbated by their incapability to agree on the terms of Korean independence. To date, both continue to compete with each other as the sole legitimate government of all of Korea. Korea is the spelling of Corea, a name attested in English as early as 1614. It is a derived from Cauli, Marco Polos transcription of the Chinese 高麗. This was the Hanja for the Korean kingdom of Goryeo or Koryŏ, Goryeos name was a continuation of the earlier Goguryeo or Koguryŏ, the northernmost of the Samguk, which was officially known by the shortened form Goryeo after the 5th-century reign of King Jangsu. The original name was a combination of the go with the name of a local Yemaek tribe. The name Korea is now used in English contexts by both North and South Korea. In South Korea, Korea as a whole is referred to as Hanguk, the name references the Samhan—Ma, Jin, and Byeon—who preceded the Three Kingdoms in the southern and central end of the peninsula during the 1st centuries BC and AD. It has been linked with the title khan used by the nomads of Manchuria
37.
Gold panning
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Gold panning, or simply panning, is a form of placer mining and traditional mining that extracts gold from a placer deposit using a pan. The process is one of the simplest ways to extract gold, and is popular with geology enthusiasts especially because of its cheap cost and the relatively simple and easy process. The first recorded instances of mining are from ancient Rome. Gold panning is a simple process, once a suitable placer deposit is located, some alluvial deposit are scooped into a pan, where it is then gently agitated in water and the gold sinks to the bottom of the pan. These dense materials usually consist primarily of a black, magnetite sand with stones or metal dust that may be found in the deposit that is used for source material. Pans remain in use in places there is limited capital or infrastructure. In many situations, gold panning usually turns up only minor gold dust that is collected as a souvenir in small clear tubes by hobbyists. Nuggets and considerable amounts of dust are found, but panning mining is not generally lucrative. Panning for gold can be used to locate the parent gold veins which are the source of most placer deposits, some are intended for use with mercury, include screens, sharp corners for breaking ice, are non-round, or are even designed for use with or without water. Edward Otho Cresap Ord, II, a former Army officer and co-owner of several mines, pans are measured by their diameter in inches or centimeters. Common sizes of gold pans today range between 10–17 inches, with 14 inches being the most used size, the sides are generally angled between 30° to 45°. Pans are manufactured in metal and high-impact plastic. Russia iron or heavy gauge steel pans are traditional, steel pans are heavier and stronger than plastic pans. Some are made of alloys for structural stability. Plastic gold pans resist rust, acid and corrosion, and most are designed with moulded riffles along one side of the pan, the batea is a particular variant of gold pan. Traditionally made of a piece of wood, it may also be made of metal. Bateas are used in areas where there is water available for use than with traditional gold pans, such as Mexico and South America. Bateas are larger than other gold pans, being closer to half a meter in diameter, the yuri-ita, Japanese for rocking plate is a traditional wooden gold pan used in Japan
38.
Water
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Water is a transparent and nearly colorless chemical substance that is the main constituent of Earths streams, lakes, and oceans, and the fluids of most living organisms. Its chemical formula is H2O, meaning that its molecule contains one oxygen, Water strictly refers to the liquid state of that substance, that prevails at standard ambient temperature and pressure, but it often refers also to its solid state or its gaseous state. It also occurs in nature as snow, glaciers, ice packs and icebergs, clouds, fog, dew, aquifers, Water covers 71% of the Earths surface. It is vital for all forms of life. Only 2. 5% of this water is freshwater, and 98. 8% of that water is in ice and groundwater. Less than 0. 3% of all freshwater is in rivers, lakes, and the atmosphere, a greater quantity of water is found in the earths interior. Water on Earth moves continually through the cycle of evaporation and transpiration, condensation, precipitation. Evaporation and transpiration contribute to the precipitation over land, large amounts of water are also chemically combined or adsorbed in hydrated minerals. Safe drinking water is essential to humans and other even though it provides no calories or organic nutrients. There is a correlation between access to safe water and gross domestic product per capita. However, some observers have estimated that by 2025 more than half of the population will be facing water-based vulnerability. A report, issued in November 2009, suggests that by 2030, in developing regions of the world. Water plays an important role in the world economy, approximately 70% of the freshwater used by humans goes to agriculture. Fishing in salt and fresh water bodies is a source of food for many parts of the world. Much of long-distance trade of commodities and manufactured products is transported by boats through seas, rivers, lakes, large quantities of water, ice, and steam are used for cooling and heating, in industry and homes. Water is an excellent solvent for a variety of chemical substances, as such it is widely used in industrial processes. Water is also central to many sports and other forms of entertainment, such as swimming, pleasure boating, boat racing, surfing, sport fishing, Water is a liquid at the temperatures and pressures that are most adequate for life. Specifically, at atmospheric pressure of 1 bar, water is a liquid between the temperatures of 273.15 K and 373.15 K
39.
Density
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The density, or more precisely, the volumetric mass density, of a substance is its mass per unit volume. The symbol most often used for density is ρ, although the Latin letter D can also be used. Mathematically, density is defined as mass divided by volume, ρ = m V, where ρ is the density, m is the mass, and V is the volume. In some cases, density is defined as its weight per unit volume. For a pure substance the density has the numerical value as its mass concentration. Different materials usually have different densities, and density may be relevant to buoyancy, purity, osmium and iridium are the densest known elements at standard conditions for temperature and pressure but certain chemical compounds may be denser. Thus a relative density less than one means that the floats in water. The density of a material varies with temperature and pressure and this variation is typically small for solids and liquids but much greater for gases. Increasing the pressure on an object decreases the volume of the object, increasing the temperature of a substance decreases its density by increasing its volume. In most materials, heating the bottom of a results in convection of the heat from the bottom to the top. This causes it to rise relative to more dense unheated material, the reciprocal of the density of a substance is occasionally called its specific volume, a term sometimes used in thermodynamics. Density is a property in that increasing the amount of a substance does not increase its density. Archimedes knew that the irregularly shaped wreath could be crushed into a cube whose volume could be calculated easily and compared with the mass, upon this discovery, he leapt from his bath and ran naked through the streets shouting, Eureka. As a result, the term eureka entered common parlance and is used today to indicate a moment of enlightenment, the story first appeared in written form in Vitruvius books of architecture, two centuries after it supposedly took place. Some scholars have doubted the accuracy of this tale, saying among other things that the method would have required precise measurements that would have been difficult to make at the time, from the equation for density, mass density has units of mass divided by volume. As there are units of mass and volume covering many different magnitudes there are a large number of units for mass density in use. The SI unit of kilogram per metre and the cgs unit of gram per cubic centimetre are probably the most commonly used units for density.1,000 kg/m3 equals 1 g/cm3. In industry, other larger or smaller units of mass and or volume are often more practical, see below for a list of some of the most common units of density
40.
Gangue
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In mining, gangue is the commercially worthless material that surrounds, or is closely mixed with, a wanted mineral in an ore deposit. It is thus distinct from overburden, which is the rock or materials overlying an ore or mineral body that are displaced during mining without being processed. The separation of mineral from gangue is known as mineral processing, mineral dressing and it is a necessary and often significant, aspect of mining. It can be a process, depending on the nature of the minerals involved. The ease with which the ore can be separated also plays an important part, minerals that were once thought of as gangue, and were dumped, may later find a commercial use. When this happens the old dumps are often reworked to extract the wanted mineral, for example, in copper mines in the 19th century the mineral arsenopyrite was dumped until arsenic became popular as an insecticide later in the century. In the 21st century, the use of gangue has been considered from a point of view. For example, in 2002, about 130 million tons of gangue were produced per year from mining in China. This, mixed with the 60 million tons of coal mud also produced, could be used for generation. The estimated cost of projects would be up to 4 billion yuan. Froth flotation Magnetic separation Vanning Extractive Metallurgy Mineral processing An Elementary Outline Of Mechanical Processes, by G. W. Danforth
41.
Riffle
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A riffle is a shallow landform in a flowing channel, and it has specific topographic, sedimentary, and hydraulic indicators. The waters surface over a riffle at low flow also has a steeper slope than that over other in-channel landforms. Channel sections with a water surface slope of roughly 0.1 to 0. 5% exhibit riffles, though they can occur in steeper or gentler sloping channels with coarser or finer bed materials. Except in the period after a flood, the sediment on the riverbed in a riffle is usually much coarser than on that in any other in-channel landform. Terrestrial valleys normally consist of channels- geometric depressions in the valley carved by flowing water- and overbank regions that include floodplains. Some channels have shapes and sizes that hardly change along the river, however, many channels exhibit readily apparent changes in width, bed elevation, and slope. In these cases, scientists realized that the riverbed often tends to rise and that led scientists to map the bed elevation down the deepest path in a channel, called the thalweg, to obtian a longitudinal profile. Then, the linear slope of the river is computed and removed to leave just the rise. According to the method, riffles are all the locations along the channel whose residual elevation is greater than zero. Because of the prevalence of this method for identifying and mapping riffles, riffles are often thought of as part of a paired sequence, however, modern topographic maps of rivers with meter-scale resolution reveal that rivers exhibit a diversity of in-channel landforms. The physics mechanism that explains why this happens is called flow convergence routing and this mechanism may be used in river engineering to design self-sustainable riffles, given a suitable sediment supply and flow regime. When an in-channel landform is shallow and narrow, instead of shallow and wide, riffles are biologically very important, because many aquatic species rely on them in one way or another. Many benthic macroinvertebrates are present in riffles, so fish often locate just downstream of a riffle to wait for small creatures to drift down to them. That draws fisherman to these fish feeding stations as well. In the fishkeeping world, a tank is one specializing in aquatic life that originates in places with powerful currents like riffles. These are usually emulated with very powerful pumps, the term is also applied to strips of wood, metal or plastic laid across the washing tables during gravity separation of gold in alluvial or placer mining
42.
Shovel
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A shovel is a tool for digging, lifting, and moving bulk materials, such as soil, coal, gravel, snow, sand, or ore. Most shovels are hand tools consisting of a blade fixed to a medium-length handle. Shovel blades are made of sheet steel or hard plastics and are very strong. Shovel handles are made of wood or glass-reinforced plastic. Hand shovel blades made of sheet steel usually have a seam or hem at the back to make a socket for the handle. This fold also commonly provides extra rigidity to the blade, the handles are usually riveted in place. A T-piece is commonly fitted to the end of the handle to aid grip and control where the shovel is designed for moving soil and these designs can all be easily mass-produced. The term shovel also applies to larger excavating machines called power shovels, which serve the same purpose—digging, lifting, modern power shovels descend from steam shovels. Loaders and excavators perform similar work, etically speaking, but are not classified as shovels emically, hand shovels have been adapted for many different tasks and environments. They can be optimized for a task or designed as cross-over or compromise multitaskers. In neolithic times and earlier a large animals scapula was used as a crude shovel or spade. It is via this connection between shoulder blades and digging blades that the words spatula and spade both have etymologic connection with scapulas, manual shoveling was the chief means of excavation in construction until mechanization via steam shovels and later hydraulic equipment gradually replaced most manual shoveling. The same is true of the history of mining and quarrying. Railroad cars and cargo holds containing ore, coal, gravel, sand and these industries did not always rely exclusively on such work, but such work was a ubiquitous part of them. Until the 1950s, manual shoveling employed large numbers of workers, thus the cost of labor, even when each individual worker was poorly paid, was a tremendous expense of operations. Productivity of the business was tied mostly to labor productivity and it still often is even today, but in the past it was even more so. In industrial and commercial materials handling, hand shoveling was later replaced not only with loaders, Taylor, with his focus on time and motion study, took an interest in differentiating the many motions of manual labor to a far greater degree than others tended to. Taylor realized that failing to analyze shoveling practice represented an opportunity to discover or synthesize best practices for shoveling
43.
Drywasher
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A drywasher is a common desert mining tool for gold mining. A drywasher is like a highbanker, since it uses a motor and a form of sluice and it drywasher operates by the use of air. The lighter material that is not blown away will slowly flow down the sluice, drywasher - A mechanical apparatus used for separating free particles of placer gold from dry sediments. Dry placers represent a portion of all alluvial gold deposits around the globe. Extreme aridity in southern regions of the planet causes a slower rate of erosion on placer deposits than if rainfall were plentiful. This absence of water correlates to the low moisture content of alluvial sediments. A drywasher works on the principle of gravity separation, the process of excavating dry, compacted sediments will often loosen or unconsolidate them. Then, as long as the material is dry, these gravels can be processed with a drywasher in a relatively efficient manner. A drywasher was also known, at one time, as a Mexican air jig, to use a drywasher, first, one must determine if the raw material is dry enough to be efficiently processed. Once the machine is set up and stabilized, using a shovel, sediments classified by the grizzly, drop into another part of the apparatus known as the hopper. Once the machine is activated, the finer, gold-bearing material travels down an inclined, vibrating chute and this process varies slightly from machine to machine. Heavier minerals, principally gold and fine-grained black sands, are separated from the paydirt, panning, or some other final separation process, comes afterwards. The first machines were, in all likelihood, operated manually, a simple one can be constructed using a wooden framework, a hopper, a recovery tray, bellows, lever, and cord. Before the advent of modern metal screening material, sorting of gravels into smaller particles might have been done by hand. On Dec 111877, a miner, William Gibson Guthrie wrote from Prescott, Arizona Territory. This dates the invention of dry wash mining to 1877 or just before, the relevant extract from his letter reads, “Well, I am going down into Southern Arizona to. A new process called dry washing, I have great hopes of this speculation, that is if we can get ground that will pay, which I think we can. It is no use explaining the machine or how much can be made per day – that depends on the ground we get and it will cost 600 or 700 dollars between us
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Yentna-Cache Creek mining district
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Gold was discovered in the Yentna Cache-Creek Mining District in the US state of Alaska of the upper Susitna Valley in 1898, soon followed by claim staking. Placer mining was reported in the Cache Creek drainage of the Dutch Hills by 1906, quaternary glaciofluvial deposits, alluvial deposits, and Cenozoic conglomeratic white quartz-breccia units have been mined in the Dutch Hills. About 200,000 ounces of gold has been produced from placer deposits. By 1927, a road from Talkeetna was constructed into the mining area, the mining camp of Petersville, Alaska served as the area Post Office for several years in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Two areas have set aside for recreational gold mining, the North and South units of the Petersville State Recreation Mining Areas. Many smaller one-man and family placer mining operations continue today, in addition to placer gold mining, the district has had some mining of tungsten from scheelite deposits, and small-scale lode mining for gold. The district is known due to the influence of artist Sydney Laurence. A steam-powered dragline was used to mine the deposits of Peters Creek. The tailings of that operation can be today, and the area is part of the Petersville State Recreation Mining Area. A cluster of deposits is in the part of the Yentna district. The productive deposits here have been placer gold deposits with byproduct platinum, assays exceeding 1 ounce of gold per ton have been obtained from three of these areas, and selected quartz-arsenopyrite vein material from one prospect assayed about 200 ounces of gold per ton. A bucketline dredge was constructed in Cache Creek in the 1920s, later, a hydroelectric plant was used to run the dredge. The dredge mined the entire valley of Cache Creek as far as the mouth of Nugget Creek, hydraulic mining was also widely used before 1942, and many ditches can be found all over the Dutch Hills today. About 115,000 ounces of gold was reported to have been produced from Cache Creek. An active placer mine operated in 1998-1999, the first reported mining in what was to become The Blue Ribbon Mine took place in 1906. Except for some stretches when no mining took place, some gold has probably been recovered every year since, the total amount recovered is unknown, but at least 20,000 ounces have been reported recovered, mostly by small-scale hand or mechanized methods. The placer mine continues operating today, and the company is actively exploring lode deposits
45.
Trommel screen
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A trommel screen, also known as a rotary screen, is a mechanical screening machine used to separate materials, mainly in the mineral and solid-waste processing industries. It consists of a cylindrical drum that is normally elevated at an angle at the feed end. Trommel screens can be used in a variety of such as classification of solid waste. Trommels come in designs such as concentric screens, series or parallel arrangement. Some of the governing equations for a trommel screen include the screening rate, screening efficiency. These equations could be applied in the calculation done in initial phases of a design process. However, design is based on heuristics. Therefore, design rules are used in place of the governing equations in the design of a trommel screen. Depending on desired application of screen, a balance has to be made between the screening efficiency and production rate. Trommel screens are used by the waste industry in the screening process to classify sizes of solid waste. Besides that, it can also be used to improve the recovery of fuel-derived solid waste and this is done by removing inorganic materials such as moisture and ash from the air-classified light fraction segregated from shredded solid waste, thereby increasing the quality of the product fuel. In addition, trommel screens are used for the treatment of wastewater, for this particular application, solids from the entering flow will settle onto the screen mesh and the drum will rotate once the liquid reaches a certain level. The clean area of the screen is submerged into the liquid while the trapped solids fall onto a conveyor which will be processed before removal. Trommel screens are used for the grading of raw materials to recover valuable minerals. The screen will segregate minuscule materials which are not in the range of size to be used in the crushing stage. It also helps to get rid of dust particles which will impair the performance of the subsequent machineries in the downstream processes. Other applications of trommel screens can be seen in the process of composts as an enhancement technique. It selects composts of variable size fractions to get rid of contaminants and incomplete composted residues, besides this, the food industries use trommel screens to sort dry food of different sizes and shapes
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Gold dredge
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A gold dredge is a placer mining machine that extracts gold from sand, gravel, and dirt using water and mechanical methods. The original gold dredges were large, multi-story machines built in the first half of the 1900s, small suction machines are currently marketed as gold dredges to individuals seeking gold, just offshore from the beach of Nome, Alaska, for instance. A large gold dredge uses a method to excavate material using steel buckets on a circular. The material is then sorted/sifted using water, the cylinder has many holes in it to allow undersized material to fall into a sluice box. The material that is washed or sorted away is called tailings, the rocks deposited behind the dredge are called tailing piles. The holes in the screen were intended to screen out rocks, the basic concept of retrieving gold via placer mining has not changed since antiquity. The concept is that the gold in sand or soil will settle to the bottom because gold is heavy/dense, the original methods to perform placer mining involved gold panning, sluice boxes, and rockers. Each method involves washing sand, gravel and dirt in water, gold then settles to the bottom of the pan, or into the bottom of the riffles of the sluice box. The gold dredge is the concept but on a much larger scale. Gold dredges are an important tool of gold miners around the world. They allow profitable mining at relatively low operational costs, even though the concept is simple in principle, dredges can be engineered in different ways allowing to catch different sizes of gold specimen. Hence the efficiency of gold dredges differs greatly depending on its specifications, by the mid to late 1850s the easily accessible placer gold in California was gone, but much gold remained. The challenge of retrieving the gold took a professional mining approach to make it pay, giant machines, massive floating dredges scooped up millions of tons of river gravels, as steam and electrical power became available in the early 1900s. Gold dredges were used in New Zealand from the 1860s, in Otago rivers like the Clutha River and the Molyneaux River, in the late 1990s and through today, dredging has returned as a popular form of gold mining. Today dredges are versatile and popular consisting of both floating surface dredges that use a vacuum to suck gravel from the bottom and submersible dredges, large dredges are still operating in several countries of South America, Asia and Africa. In 2015, gold miner Tony Beets reconstructed a 70-year-old dredge, as of 2016, this is the only operating large dredge in the Klondike. However, he is working on fixing up a second dredge 33% larger than the first one. Environmental impact studies show no clear positive benefits from suction dredging, small scale suction dredging in rivers and streams remains a controversial land management topic and the subject of much political turmoil
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Folsom, California
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Folsom is a city in Sacramento County, California, United States. Folsom is most commonly known for its infamous Folsom Prison, the population was 72,203 at the 2010 census. Folsom is part of the Sacramento−Arden-Arcade−Roseville Metropolitan Statistical Area, though few amassed a great deal of wealth, the city prospered due to Joseph Folsoms lobbying to get a railway to connect the town with Sacramento. Joseph died in 1855, and Granite City was later renamed to Folsom in his honor, the railway was abandoned in the 1980s but opened up as the terminus of the Gold Line of Sacramento Regional Transit Districts light rail service in 2005. A few former gold-rush era towns are located within city limits of Folsom, including Prairie City, Salmon Falls, Folsom hosted a significant Chinese American community when it was first incorporated, but arsonists burned Folsoms Chinatown in March 1886, driving Chinese Americans out of town. The establishment of Folsom Prison came in 1880, when the Livermore family made an agreement with the state to land for the prison in exchange for prison labor. They planned to build a dam from the American River for a sawmill. At the time it was opened, it had the longest overhead run of electricity in the country, Folsom Dam was built in 1956, providing much-needed flood control and water rights for the Sacramento Valley. The creation of this dam also created one of the most popular lakes in Northern California, the dam is located on the southwest corner of the lake. The lake is an estimated 4.8 miles from Granite Bay to the most southern point of Folsom Lake, Folsom is home to Folsom Lake College, Folsom Dam, Folsom Lake, Folsom High School, Vista del Lago High School and a historic district. Folsom is also home to the largest private employer in the Sacramento area, Folsom is located in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Folsoms climate is characterized by long, hot, dry summers and cool, the 2010 United States Census reported that Folsom had a population of 72,203. The population density was 2,971.2 people per square mile. The racial makeup of Folsom was 53,627 White,4,140 African American,427 Native American,9,000 Asian,173 Pacific Islander,1,818 from other races, hispanic or Latino of any race were 8,064 persons. The Census reported that 65,243 people lived in households,188 lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, there were 1,150 unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 137 same-sex married couples or partnerships. 5,788 households were made up of individuals and 1,930 had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 2.61. There were 17,600 families, the family size was 3.13. The median age was 37.6 years, for every 100 females there were 114.1 males
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Ancient Rome
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In its many centuries of existence, the Roman state evolved from a monarchy to a classical republic and then to an increasingly autocratic empire. Through conquest and assimilation, it came to dominate the Mediterranean region and then Western Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa and it is often grouped into classical antiquity together with ancient Greece, and their similar cultures and societies are known as the Greco-Roman world. Ancient Roman civilisation has contributed to modern government, law, politics, engineering, art, literature, architecture, technology, warfare, religion, language and society. Rome professionalised and expanded its military and created a system of government called res publica, the inspiration for modern republics such as the United States and France. By the end of the Republic, Rome had conquered the lands around the Mediterranean and beyond, its domain extended from the Atlantic to Arabia, the Roman Empire emerged with the end of the Republic and the dictatorship of Augustus Caesar. 721 years of Roman-Persian Wars started in 92 BC with their first war against Parthia and it would become the longest conflict in human history, and have major lasting effects and consequences for both empires. Under Trajan, the Empire reached its territorial peak, Republican mores and traditions started to decline during the imperial period, with civil wars becoming a prelude common to the rise of a new emperor. Splinter states, such as the Palmyrene Empire, would divide the Empire during the crisis of the 3rd century. Plagued by internal instability and attacked by various migrating peoples, the part of the empire broke up into independent kingdoms in the 5th century. This splintering is a landmark historians use to divide the ancient period of history from the pre-medieval Dark Ages of Europe. King Numitor was deposed from his throne by his brother, Amulius, while Numitors daughter, Rhea Silvia, because Rhea Silvia was raped and impregnated by Mars, the Roman god of war, the twins were considered half-divine. The new king, Amulius, feared Romulus and Remus would take back the throne, a she-wolf saved and raised them, and when they were old enough, they returned the throne of Alba Longa to Numitor. Romulus became the source of the citys name, in order to attract people to the city, Rome became a sanctuary for the indigent, exiled, and unwanted. This caused a problem for Rome, which had a large workforce but was bereft of women, Romulus traveled to the neighboring towns and tribes and attempted to secure marriage rights, but as Rome was so full of undesirables they all refused. Legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins, after a long time in rough seas, they landed at the banks of the Tiber River. Not long after they landed, the men wanted to take to the sea again, one woman, named Roma, suggested that the women burn the ships out at sea to prevent them from leaving. At first, the men were angry with Roma, but they realized that they were in the ideal place to settle. They named the settlement after the woman who torched their ships, the Roman poet Virgil recounted this legend in his classical epic poem the Aeneid
