And every mountain and islands were moved out of their places … And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
—Rev. 6:14; 16:20
3717 Two Major Mountain Chains
Physical geographers recognize two major mountain chains above sea level. One is the great north-south backbone of America—the Rockies and the Andes. The other is the broken ridge running west-east from Spain to China—including the Pyrenees, Alps, Carpathians and the Himalayan-Karakorum range.
3718 Mount Everest
The highest mountain in the world is, of course, the 5½-mile peak named Mount Everest. It was named after Sir George Everest formerly Surveyor-General of India in the 19th century.
Everest is an eastern Himalayan peak first discovered to be the world’s highest by the Survey Department of India. In 1860, its height was computed to be 29,002 feet. The Chinese, however, in 1973 announced a height of 29,032 feet for the peak.
The mountain was finally conquered in the morning of May 29, 1953, after a total loss of 11 lives from various preceding expeditions since 1921.
3719 Most Volcanoes
Indonesia has the greatest concentration of volcanoes of any country on earth. Of its 167 volcanoes, 77 have erupted in recorded history.
The total number of active volcanoes in the world is 455. An estimated 88 additional volcanoes are below the sea.
3720 Unusual Sunsets
People in many parts of the world in 1975 were reporting some unusually colorful sunsets. Scientists suggested that the brilliant display of red, orange, and yellow in the evening skies was caused by two new layers of dust at altitudes of 10 and 12½ miles.
They believed that the extra particles came from an erupting volcano in Guatemala. When the sun is low on the horizon, its rays pass through this polluted atmosphere which in turn breaks the light into different colors. The result of this phenomenon was the spectacular display observers saw in the western skies.
—M. R. De Haan II
3721 Music From Cave
Fingal’s Cave on Staffa Island, one of the Hebrides off Scotland, is believed to be the only cavern in the world in which one may hear musical sounds. It was this “music,” produced by the wind playing around the prism-shaped pillars, that inspired Mendelssohn to write his famous overture Fingal’s Cave.
—Selected
3722 To The Mountaintop
Skiers have devised many ingenious ways of getting to the top of the mountains, but honors probably go to the Park City Resorts, Treasure Mountains, Utah. There skiers ride subway cars three miles through an old silver-mine tunnel, transfer to an elevator and shoot 1800 feet up a mine shaft to the slope.
—National Geographic News Bulletin
3723 Mountain Climbing
One by one the mightiest mountain peaks were scaled: Trisul (23,364 feet) in 1907; Jongsong (24,344 feet) in 1930; Kamet (25,447 feet) in 1931. By World War II, three expeditions had reached 28,000 feet on Mount Everest. But only in 1953 did the 29,028-foot Everest fall to the New Zealander Hillary & Sherpa Norkay. Because of postwar mountaineering developments, 15 of the world’s 17 highests peaks were conquered between 1950 and 1960.
3724 Youngest Child Climbs Africa’s Highest Mountain
In August 1973, eight-year-old Samantha White of Steilacoon, Washington, climbed to the top of 19,340-foot Mount Kilimanjaro. She is believed to be the youngest person ever to conquer Africa’s highest mountain. Her father, United States airman, dropped out at 18,640 feet with altitude sickness.
3725 Two Men Shopping For Whole Town Shopping
The town of Albinen, Switzerland, is situated so high on a mountaintop that few of its inhabitants ever came down. Because it is such a risky undertaking, only two or three strong men go on weekly shopping trips down the mountain for all the town! The only way one can leave and return is by a ladder which is built against the almost perpendicular side of the mountain that is over 50 stories in height.
3726 Most “Way-Out” Hospital
In a thousand-year-old salt mine 640 feet below the surface of the ground, the Poles run what may be one of the most “way-out” hospitals in the world—a sanitarium for respiratory ailments. Some years ago a doctor hit upon the theory that a 99.9 percent salt-particle intensity in the air and a favourable concentration of carbon dioxide in the ancient mine seemed to have a therapeutic effect on people afflicted with bronchial asthma, other serious allergies of the respiratory tract, and even certain skin allergies.
—Prairie Overcomer
3727 Hot Volcano In Frozen Iceland
A party of Danes, headed by the secretary of the Danish Royal Geographical Society, went exploring in the glacial wilderness of the northern extremity of Iceland. A series of tremendous blizzards swept that glacial wild. Nothing was heard from the party. A rescue expedition was sent out.
Did they find the hapless adventurers frozen to death, victims of the ice? Not at all. The lost explorers were as warm as toast snuggling in the hot crater of a live volcano. The crater was erupting steam to a height of three hundred and fifty feet—a giant stove up there in the frigid Artic. The missing scientists were warming their hands over its fires.
—Selected
See also: Islands.