Geography and Geology
The Thousand Islands were called “the garden of the great spirit” by their original native inhabitants. There are actually almost two thousand of them (1,864), and more recent visitors have considered them to be among the most beautiful places on earth. This archipelago of tiny islands at the emergence of the St. Lawrence River into Lake Ontario represents the intersection of the Canadian Shield and the Adirondack Mountains. The Canadian Shield is the ancient geological core of the North American continent, extremely ancient igneous rocks from long-gone volcanoes active in the Precambrian period. The Precambrian age began at the probable formation of the earth 4.6 billion years ago, and lasted until the Cambrian period that began about 540 million years ago; creatures with shells were first preserved as fossils in the Cambrian age and were found in Wales, the ancient name for which was “Cambria”.
Month: July 2015
Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum
How the Museum Started
Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum has been an iconic tourist attraction, first in France and then in London, since the end of the 18th century. Now a worldwide chain of 14 museums and growing, the museums are entitled Madame Tussauds without the apostrophe, and are part of Merlin Entertainments, the largest amusement company in the world except for Disney. The first Tussaud wax exhibits opened in Paris in 1795 and moved to London in 1802; in addition to the London museum, the Tussauds group has opened museums in Amsterdam, Bangkok, Berlin, Blackpool, Hollywood, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, New York City, Shanghai, Sydney, Vienna, Washington, D.C., Wuhan, Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing, Prague, Singapore, Orlando, San Francisco. The Tussauds portfolio includes about 50 other attractions, including Legoland, Sea Life Centers, Gardaland in Italy, The Dungeons, The London and Orlando Eye rides and Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, and Chessington World of Adventures in Britain.
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The Grand Canyon
History
The Colorado River has been at work on the Grand Canyon for about 17 million years, and has eroded a chasm 277 miles long, 18 miles wide and more than a mile deep. This part of northern Arizona was settled in about the 13th century BC by the Ancestral Puebloans, a Native American culture referred to by the present-day Navajo people as Anasazi or “Ancient Ones”. Several additional ancient native cultures migrated into the area between about 500 and 1500 AD. Several aboriginal nations were found when Europeans first arrived in the 15th century AD, chiefly the Navajo and also the Hopi, Havasupai, Halupai and Paiute.