European climate response to tropical volcanic eruptions over the last half millennium

We analyse the winter and summer climatic signal following 15 major tropical volcanic eruptions over the last half millennium based on multi-proxy reconstructions for Europe. During the first and second post-eruption years we find significant continental scale summer cooling and somewhat drier conditions over Central Europe. In the Northern Hemispheric winter the volcanic forcing induces an atmospheric circulation response that significantly follows a positive NAO state connected with a significant overall warm anomaly and wetter conditions over Northern Europe. Our findings compare well with GCM studies as well as observational studies, which mainly cover the substantially shorter instrumental period and thus include a limited set of major eruptions

Lamarck, Darwin e o conceito de espécie

No início do século XIX, quando Jean Pierre Antaine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck (1744- 1829) apresentou suas idéías sobre evoluçao organica, a maioria dos naturalistas acreditava que as espécies eram fixas. Assim, de um modo geral, aceitava-se a concepçao aristotélica de que as espécies apresentavam uma forma potencial que nao pode ser modificada e que passava de pais para filhos. Georges Lépold Chrétien Frédéric Dagobert, Baron de Cuvier (1769-1832), coetaneo de Lamarck, admitía que as espécies eram fixas e estavam sujeitas a extinçao, seudo entiío produzidas novas espécies. Nesses casos, as espécies já surgiam adaptadas ao meio ambiente

Building a Battle Site: Roads to and through Gettysburg

On the morning of 1 July 1863, lead elements of Confederate General Robert E. Lee\u27s Army of Northern Virginia advanced on the town of Gettysburg situated in the lush farm lands of south-central Pennsylvania just eight miles east of the South Mountain in Adams county. The Southern reconnaissance in force made early that summer morning was destined not only to change the history of the struggling Confederacy, but also to set the infant United States republic, indeed the world, on courses towards more democratic forms of government. Although many historians have dwelled on those three fateful days in 1863, few emphasize the role the major roads played in the drama that unfolded at Gettysburg. However, events that transpired over a 116- year period prior to the great battle actually created the highway system that was to draw the opposing forces to town-a hub of ten major roads. This essay will briefly explore the development of state- and county ordained roads to and through the site of Gettysburg from 1747 until the year of the battle. After a brief history of the colonial development in the greater Adams county area, emphasis will be placed on the evolution of the ten major roads that join at Gettysburg and how the development of the town affected their positioning and that of some ancillary roads within the borough limits. [excerpt

The Recovery of the First History of Alta California: Antonio María Osio’s La historia de Alta California

The transformation of Alta California was as sudden as it was unexpected. From a population of less than 15,000 gente de razón [literally, people with the capacity to reason, meaning people born into Christianity; that is, any non-Indian people] in the mid-1840s, it contained over 100,000 inhabitants in 1850 and almost a quarter of a million two years later. Swarming over the landscape, hostile to the system of land ownership and use that had developed over the previous half century, the newcomers, imbued with their longstanding belief in Anglo-Saxon superiority, went where they willed and took what they wanted. The Californios [any Mexican raised, or later, born and raised in California] adopted various strategies to meet this invasion. Some participated in the institutions set up by the conquerors, sitting in the 1849 Constitutional Convention and in the early state legislatures. Others prepared to defend themselves through North American courts and land commissions. Others withdrew from public life and public view, in the hope that they would be left alone. Others left and returned to Mexico. This paper tells the story of another strategy, one man\u27s attempt to preserve a world through the creation of history and autobiography. On April 4, 1851, in the city of Santa Clara, Antonio María Osio, who had been a bureaucratic functionary and officeholder in Mexican California for two decades, presented Father José María Suárez del Real with a densely written one hundred and ten page manuscript. In a cover letter, Osio told Suarez del Real that what the priest had asked him to do, write the history of California, was beyond his ability. But he had decided, Osio said, to write a letter, a relación of events since 1815 and especially of what I have known and seen since 1825

Von Kempelen et al. : remarks on the history of articulatory-acoustic modelling

The contribution of von Kempelen’s “Mechanism of Speech” to the ‘phonetic sciences‘ will be analyzed with respect to his theoretical reasoning on speech and speech production on the one hand and on the other in connection with his practical insights during his struggle in constructing a speaking machine. Whereas in his theoretical considerations von Kempelen’s view is focussed on the natural functioning of the speech organs – cf. his membraneous glottis model – in constructing his speaking machine he clearly orientates himself towards the auditory result – cf. the bag pipe model for the sound generator used for the speaking machine instead. Concerning vowel production his theoretical description remains questionable, but his practical insight that vowels and speech sounds in general are only perceived correctly in connection with their surrounding sounds – i.e. the discovery of coarticulation – is clearly a milestone in the development of the phonetic sciences: He therefore dispenses with the Kratzenstein tubes, although they might have been based on more thorough acoustic modelling. Finally, von Kempelen’s model of speech production will be discussed in relation to the discussion of the acoustic nature of vowels afterwards [Willis and Wheatstone as well as von Helmholtz and Hermann in the 19th century and Stumpf, Chiba & Kajiyama as well as Fant and Ungeheuer in the 20th century]