Wednesday, February 27, 2013

3 Turtle Mounds

"Turtle Mound at New Smyrna, containing interesting Indian relics."

"Florida: Empire of the Sun" Published in 1930 by the Florida State Hotel Commission, Tallahassee, Florida. Library of Roy Winkelman.

http://fcit.usf.edu/florida/photos/cities/smyr/smyr1/smyr104.htm

Turtle Mound

Located in the Canaveral National Seashore.

Turtle Mound is the highest shell midden in the nation. This two-acre site contains over 35,000 cubic yards of oyster shell, extends more than six hundred feet along the Indian River shoreline, and stands about fifty feet tall. (In prehistoric times, it was at least seventy-five feet high.)

http://volusiahistory.com/turtle.htm

http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/turtlemound.html

There's more than one Turtle Mound - this one's Legendary:

http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMCA4_Legendary_Turtle_Mound

You can even make your own:

http://patriciajohanson.com/timeline/turtle_mound.html

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Lithia Springs Ga

The smiling Turtle effigy is carved from solid blue quartz laden granite rock. This smiling giant has guarded over Lithia Springs for untold thousands of years. If you look close you will see that the Smiling Turtle is anthropomorphic... meaning it is a turtle with human features.

The turtle is the ancient symbol of long life and health.

Photo taken Oct 2010 with D90 nikon and a Af Micro Nikkor 60 mm lens

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lithiasprings/5794796821/in/photostream

Frog Rock has been a tourist attraction for Douglas County since the first settlers came in the 1840's. Frog Rock was almost destroyed by the Dept of Roads, but fortunately Gleda James (pictured below) fought hard to protect it from damage. Today when visit Lithia Springs you may see it in all of its glory.

This photo was taken in 1994 with a 35 mm camera

Fire Bird Effigy: Here I am proud of our discovery of a carved granite Fire Bird Effigy. The nose looks like an arrow head. The large eye is carved and in high relief. This ancient wonder more than 5,000 years old. This ancient place is perhaps one of the oldest stone temples in America. There are many discoveries that await us as we continue our archeological excavations.

Photo taken in summer of 2010 with a Nikon D7000 and a Af-S Nikkor 18-135 mm lens

Lithia Water Temple holds great mysteries and perhaps one of the greatest mysteries is the Rock Art or Petroglphs found on the its stone temple walls.

Petroglyphs (rock carvings From petro, meaning rock and glyph, meaning symbol) a form of rock art that consist of designs carved into the surface of natural rock. Forms include lines, dots, numbers, geometric shapes, human, animal, supernatural beings or astronomical images.

Amazing, fantastic, unbelievable are just some of the adjectives that describe the archaeological discoveries at Lithia Springs.

Pictured above is a kneeling laughing man who has a serpent coming from its head. If you look closely you see many humanoid figures that convey concepts.

We are keeping most of the Lithia Springs mysteries a secret until summer 2012 when we open to the public the ancient Lithia Water Temple.

Photo taken Oct 2009 with Nikon D90 and a AF Micro Nikkor 60 mm lens

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lithiasprings/

Monday, February 18, 2013

Translating Scientific Papers.

Research Definitions* (or "How to critique an article.")

The following phrases, frequently found in technical writings, are defined below for your enlightenment.

PHRASE: "it has long been known..."
DEFINITION: I haven't bothered to look up the original reference.

PHRASE: "Of great theoretical and practical importance..."
DEFINITION: Interesting to me.

PHRASE: "While it has not been possible to provide definite answers to these questions..."
DEFINITION: The experiment didn't work out, but I wanted to publish anyway.

PHRASE: "Extremely high purity"
DEFINITION: Composition unknown except for the exaggerated claims of the supplier.

PHRASE: "Three of the samples were chosen for detailed study."
DEFINITION: The results on the others didn't make sense and were ignored.

PHRASE: "Accidentally stained during mounting"
DEFINITION: Accidentally dropped on the floor.

PHRASE: "Handled with extreme care during the experiments"
DEFINITION: Not dropped on the floor.

PHRASE: "A fiducial reference line on the specimen"
DEFINITION: A scratch.

PHRASE: "Although some detail have been lost in reproduction, it is clear from the original micrograph that..."
DEFINITION: It is impossible to tell from the original micrograph.

PHRASE: "Typical results are shown"
DEFINITION: The best results are shown.

PHRASE: "The most reliable data are those Jones..."
DEFINITION: Jones was a student of mine.

PHRASE: "Agreement with the predicted curve is excellent."
DEFINITION: Fair.

PHRASE: "...good."
DEFINITION: Poor.

PHRASE: "...satisfactory."
DEFINITION: Doubtful.

PHRASE: "...fair."
DEFINITION: Imaginary.

PHRASE: "Correct within an order of magnitude DEFINITION: Wrong.

PHRASE: "It is believed that..."
DEFINITION: I think...

PHRASE: "It is generally believed that...
DEFINITION: A couple of other guys think so too.

PHRASE: "It might be argued that..."
DEFINITION: I have such a good answer for this objection that I shall now raise it.

PHRASE: "It is clear that much additional work will be required for a complete understanding of..."
DEFINITION: I didn't understand it.

PHRASE: "Thanks to Joe Glotz for assistance with the experiment, and to John Doe for valuable discussions."
DEFINITION: Glotz did the work, and Doe explained what it meant to me.

* Adapted from 'A glossary for research reports, by C. D. Graham, Jr., Metal Progress, Vol. 71, No. 5, May. 1957.

From: Graham, CD. 1957. A glossary for research reports. Metal Progress 71: 75

http://www.d.umn.edu/~rdavis/courses/che3791/Research%20Definitions.htm