Toppling of a true titan
QUESTION The 12 Apostles, a group of limestone stacks off Australia, are down to eight. What other famous attractions have disappeared?
The earth’s surface is constantly changing due to the forces of volcanism, wind, water, sun and humans that conspire to transform the terrain over millennia — or a matter of minutes.
One famous casualty is The Pioneer Cabin Tree, a giant sequoia in Calaveras Big Trees State Park, California.
The tree, estimated to have been more than 1,000 years old, measured 33ft in diameter. In the 1880s, a tunnel was cut through it at the request of James Sperry, founder of the nearby Murphys hotel, so tourists could pass through it.
The tree toppled over during a storm on January 8, 2017.
In 2005, Tropical Storm Delta, the first cyclone to strike Spain’s Canary Islands in 150 years, toppled el Dedo de Dios (God’s Finger), a needle-like sea stack pointing upwards from a rocky hand.
Kaimu Beach in hawaii was famous for its pitch black sand. In 1990, the beach and the 150 homes of Kalapana village were destroyed by lava. Only a rocky outcrop still exists.
In spring 2017, Slims River in Canada’s Yukon territory vanished in four days. It was the first observed case of river piracy, in which the flow of one watercourse is suddenly diverted into another.
The culprit was the retreat of the massive Kaskawulsh Glacier, whose meltwater diverted from the Slims River to feed the Kaskawulsh River, which runs in a different direction.
Mount everest became a little easier to summit in late May 2017 when a massive boulder 200ft from the top disappeared.
The sheer hillary Step — named in honour of Sir edmund hillary, who called it one of the most challenging features on the mountain — had loosened in a 2015 earthquake.
The 92ft-tall Azure Window, a famous rock arch on the Maltese island of Gozo, collapsed into the sea following heavy storms on March 8, 2017.
The arch had been used as the backdrop for the TV series Game Of Thrones and films, including 1981’s Clash Of The Titans and 2002’s The Count Of Monte Cristo.
Natural phenomena irreparably damaged by humans include the Tenere Tree in the Sahara desert in north-east Niger. It was once the most isolated tree on earth — its closest neighbour was 250 miles away.
The solitary acacia was so well known that it was a meeting point for caravans and was marked on maps. It was knocked down in 1973 by a drunk truck driver.
On March 4, 2017, the captain of the 4,200-tonne cruise ship Caledonian Sky misjudged the tides and crashed into the Kri coral reef in Raja Ampat, damaging 1,600 square metres of coral.
Lucy Dale, Bakewell, Derbys.
QUESTION Could Adolf Hitler speak English? NO, ADOLF hitler did not speak english. Deborah Cavendish, nee Mitford, the dowager Duchess of Devonshire, described meeting hitler in 1937.
Aged 17, she was in Munich visiting her sister Unity — a Nazi sympathiser and close friend of hitler — when the Fuhrer heard of the visit and invited them to join him for tea.
‘I couldn’t speak German, so it was a slow job as Unity had to translate everything that was said,’ she recalled.
‘I remember thinking he was very nice and friendly. Twice he rang the bell for the housekeeper and no one came, which I found amazing for a man of his position.’
Ian Mason, Bristol.
QUESTION Does the place name Dolphinholme have anything to do with dolphins? DOLPhINhOLMe is an attractive village six miles south-east of Lancaster in the Wyre Valley at the edge of the Forest of Bowland. It is divided in two by the River Wyre, which also forms part of the boundary between the districts of Wyre on the eastern bank and Lancaster on the western bank. Until the 1700s, Dolphinholme consisted of a farm, corn mill and Wyreside hall.
The village developed in the late 1700s around a worsted spinning mill and the workers’ and mangers’ homes.
The origin of the suffix ‘holme’ is well established and of Norse origin. In Scandinavia, it is associated with an island. In Britain, it indicates farmland reclaimed from marsh, which is consistent with the geography of the village.
The prefix ‘dolphin’ is not thought to be related to the marine mammal (though there is a dolphin on the Dolphinholme Church of england primary school badge).
It is thought to derive from a personal name. Dolfinus and Dolfyn were known in the 14th century, and Dolfin occurs several times as an Old english name.
Gareth Andrews, Morecambe, Lancs.
QUESTION In the TV series The Last Ship, the captain orders a full stop by reversing the engines. Everyone is thrown forward as though in a car making an emergency stop. Would this happen in real life?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, this could happen with modern warships, which do not use fixed propellers.
They use variable pitch propellers that can go from full ahead to full astern in 20 to 30 seconds.
I have been on board a Type 42 destroyer undergoing sea trials and one of the requirements was a full ahead to full astern test.
This manoeuvre resulted in the flight deck being submerged and the ship stopping from 30 knots full ahead to dead in the water in a little over 900ft, or two ships’ lengths. If you were not ready for it, you could be thrown off your feet.
The latest vessels use electric motors to power propellers slung under the hull that can rotate through 360 degrees.
Full ahead to full astern could be achieved in seconds and if the pods rotated in different directions, no sideways movement of the ship would occur.
Rolf Kitching, Gosport, Hants.
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