Snow bound

After a discussion yesterday about snow, or the lack thereof in our lives in recent years, we decided today to head up to Mt Barrow.

Launceston claims three mountains for itself (which is much better than the mere one they have down in Hobart, if you don't count Mt Nelson, Mt Direction etc. because they're just big hills & you ignore that the three mountains can't actually be seen from most of the city, and where they are, they're sort of blue blobs on the horizon), being Mt Arthur, Mt Barrow & Ben Lomond. Mt Arthur is up north somewhere, you see it sometimes if you're up that way. Ben Lomond is to the south, it's a long, flat thing with a ski resort & snowfields that are sometimes open in winter. Mt Barrow is out east. The turn-off is just 26 km from the city & it's a good location for biology excursions, for both secondary & uni students, there being alpine fauna, wet sclerophyll & mixed forest. (Dry sclerophyll is your standard eucalypt forest; wet sclerophyll has less eucalypts and more rain forest species.)

So we loaded up the station wagon with three adults, two kids, three dogs and enough coats & scarves that if we got stranded somewhere we could support ourselves indefinitely by opening a coat & scarf shop. And off we went.

( More, with photos )

Going down

So I thought submarines, as practical vessels rather amusing novelties, were a 20th century development.

For the benefit of those who also felt the same, here are some links to early subs.

The American Civil War submarines are interesting because they were put to use. There were a number of them but two of particular interest are the Alligator, a Union submarine launched in 1862, also here; and the Confederate submarine Hunley, and here.

From slightly later, is the British Resurgam, built in 1879. There's a lot of information about the wreck

Prior to that, is Bauer's Brandtaucher from 1850.

Going earlier, they're more curiousities, although Bushnell's Turtle attacked HMS Eagle during the American War of Independence, in 1776; although not successfully. Replica of the Turtle

There's also Fulton's Nautilus from 1801.

Probably the oldest submarine, was built in the early 17th Century by Cornelisu van Drebbels

There were others, and many other web sites, including 400 Years of Subs, Submarine History and plans/diagrams of underwater vessels from very early up to 1994