What will be the fate of the Titanic and all of her contents? It has been almost 100 years since the most famous sinking in history occured as the Titanic struck an iceberg and went down in the North Atlantic.
Since the Titanic went down in international waters the wreck site and its artifacts have been subject to competing legal claims since an international team led by oceanographer Robert Ballard located the Titanic. The courtroom survivor is RMS Titanic Inc., also known as RMST, which gathered the artifacts during six dives. Courts have declared it salvor-in-possession, meaning it has exclusive rights to salvage the Titanic's artifacts. However, the court has also stated RMST does not own the 5,900 artifacts or the wreck itself.
US District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith, a maritime jurist who considers the wreck an "international treasure," is expected to rule that the salvaged Titanic items must remain together and open to the public. That would ensure the thousands of pieces of china and personal belongings will not end up in a collector's hands or in an auction house.
RMST is seeking limited ownership of the Titanic artifacts as compensation for its salvage efforts. In its court filing for a salvage award, the company put the fair market value of the collection at $110.9 million.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Impressive Video of the Underwater Volcano Eruption near Tonga
Spectacular columns are spewing out of the sea about 6 miles southwest of the main Tongan island of Tongatapu as an undersea volcano has been erupting for days. It is in an area where up to 36 undersea volcanoes are clustered. Here is some wonderful video of the eruption.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Great Lakes sinkholes harbor diverse life
Sinkholes in Lake Huron are being studied for their peculiar geological formations as well as the extreme ecosystem within. Researchers are exploring the extreme conditions for life in a place not known for extremes. In as little as 60 feet of water in Lake Huron peculiar geological formations, sinkholes made by water dissolving parts of an ancient underlying seabed, harbor bizarre ecosystems where the fish typical of the huge freshwater lake are rarely to be seen.
Instead, brilliant purple mats of cyanobacteria, cousins of microbes found at the bottoms of permanently ice-covered lakes in Antarctica, and pallid, floating ponytails of other microbial life thrive in the dense, salty water that's hostile to most familiar, larger forms of life because it lacks oxygen.
Groundwater from beneath Lake Huron is dissolving minerals from the defunct seabed and carrying them into the lake to form these exotic, extreme environments, says Bopaiah Biddanda of Grand Valley State University, one of the leaders of a scientific team studying the sinkhole ecosystems.
Those ecosystems are in a class not only with Antarctic lakes, but also with deep-sea, hydrothermal vents and cold seeps. "You have this pristine fresh water lake that has what amounts to materials from 400 million years ago ... being pushed out into the lake," says team co-leader Steven A. Ruberg of the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The researchers describe this underwater habitat and their ongoing investigations of it in the current issue of Eos, the newspaper of the Earth and Space Sciences, published weekly by the American Geophysical Union. AGU is the world's largest organization of Earth and space scientists.
The scientists report that some deep sinkholes act as catch basins for dead and decaying plant and animal matter and collect a soft black sludge of sediment topped by a bacterial film.
In the oxygen-depleted water, cyanobacteria carry out photosynthesis using sulfur compounds rather than water and give off hydrogen sulfide, the gas associated with rotting eggs. Where the sinkholes are deeper still and light fails, microorganisms use chemical means rather than photosynthesis to metabolize the sulfurous nutrients.
Biddanda, Ruberg, and their team are probing the origins of ancient minerals flowing in from beneath this fresh inland sea, striving to understand how long ago the minerals were deposited that are now entering the lake and how fast the salty brew containing them is arriving.
The scientists also plan to chart transitions from light, oxygen rich, fresh water near the lake's surface to dark, anoxic, salty soup down inside the sinkholes. The sinkhole research may shed light on how similar microbial communities can arise in environments as disparate as Antarctic lakes, deep-sea vents, and freshwater-lake sinkholes, the scientists say.
Biddanda adds, "it might also lead to the discovery of novel organisms and previously unknown biochemical processes, furthering our exploration of life on Earth."
Instead, brilliant purple mats of cyanobacteria, cousins of microbes found at the bottoms of permanently ice-covered lakes in Antarctica, and pallid, floating ponytails of other microbial life thrive in the dense, salty water that's hostile to most familiar, larger forms of life because it lacks oxygen.
Groundwater from beneath Lake Huron is dissolving minerals from the defunct seabed and carrying them into the lake to form these exotic, extreme environments, says Bopaiah Biddanda of Grand Valley State University, one of the leaders of a scientific team studying the sinkhole ecosystems.
Those ecosystems are in a class not only with Antarctic lakes, but also with deep-sea, hydrothermal vents and cold seeps. "You have this pristine fresh water lake that has what amounts to materials from 400 million years ago ... being pushed out into the lake," says team co-leader Steven A. Ruberg of the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The researchers describe this underwater habitat and their ongoing investigations of it in the current issue of Eos, the newspaper of the Earth and Space Sciences, published weekly by the American Geophysical Union. AGU is the world's largest organization of Earth and space scientists.
The scientists report that some deep sinkholes act as catch basins for dead and decaying plant and animal matter and collect a soft black sludge of sediment topped by a bacterial film.
In the oxygen-depleted water, cyanobacteria carry out photosynthesis using sulfur compounds rather than water and give off hydrogen sulfide, the gas associated with rotting eggs. Where the sinkholes are deeper still and light fails, microorganisms use chemical means rather than photosynthesis to metabolize the sulfurous nutrients.
Biddanda, Ruberg, and their team are probing the origins of ancient minerals flowing in from beneath this fresh inland sea, striving to understand how long ago the minerals were deposited that are now entering the lake and how fast the salty brew containing them is arriving.
The scientists also plan to chart transitions from light, oxygen rich, fresh water near the lake's surface to dark, anoxic, salty soup down inside the sinkholes. The sinkhole research may shed light on how similar microbial communities can arise in environments as disparate as Antarctic lakes, deep-sea vents, and freshwater-lake sinkholes, the scientists say.
Biddanda adds, "it might also lead to the discovery of novel organisms and previously unknown biochemical processes, furthering our exploration of life on Earth."
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Five Amazing Discoveries from 2008
Ever thought of doing some treasure hunting or rockhounding? If you haven't then these stories might change your mind. Being a big rockhound myself I can say over the last few years I have collected gold and rhodochrosite in Colorado, fish fossils in Wyoming as well as opal and agate. Here are 5 great finds from around the world in 2008.
1. You probably saw this one on the news or in your papers. The Israel Antiquities Authority reported the discovery of 264 ancient gold coins in Jerusalem National Park. The coins were minted during the early 7th century.
“This is one of the largest and most impressive coin hoards ever discovered in Jerusalem, certainly the largest and most important of its period,” said Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets, who are directing the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Nadine Ross, a British archaeological volunteer, happened onto the coins during the dig just below the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The 1,400 year old coins were found in the Giv’ati car park in the City of David in the walls around Jerusalem National Park, a site that has yielded other finds, including a gold earring with pearls and precious stones.
2. Nearly 6,000 copper alloy coins were found buried in two pots in a field at Sully, Vale of Glamorgan by a local metal detector enthusiast in April. It is one of the largest coin discoveries ever made in Wales. It is hoped the coins will be donated to National Museum Wales, which has called the find “exceptional”.
The 1,700 year old coins dated from the reigns of numerous emperors, notably Constantine I, during whose time Christianity was first recognised as a state religion. Two separate hoards were found by the metal detectorist on successive days, one involving 2,366 coins and the other 3,547 coins. The stashes were only 10 yards apart.
3. John Stevens, 42, couldn’t believe his eyes when he rubbed off the soil and saw lettering indicating the ring was from the early medieval period, possibly the 11th century. He had found a beautiful gold ring with a rare black diamond set inside it in a muddy field. It is believed the ring would have belonged to a wealthy person either from the Church, or possibly even royalty.
Black diamonds are rare today and would have been even rarer nearly 1,000 years ago, having come from Africa. The ring has not yet been valued but is thought it could be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
4. Hundreds of ancient coins unearthed close to Sweden’s international airport suggests the Vikings were bringing home foreign currency earlier than previously thought, archaeologists say. Buried almost 1,200 years ago, the treasure is made up mainly of Arabic coins and represents the largest early Viking hoard ever discovered in Sweden.
Archaeologists from the Swedish National Heritage Board unexpectedly found the stash of 472 silver coins while excavating a Bronze Age tomb near Stockholm’s Arlanda airport.
5. A hobbyist with a metal detector struck both gold and silver when he uncovered a cache of 109 ancient Celtic coins in a cornfield in southernern Holland. Experts say the 39 gold and 70 silver coins were minted in the middle of the first century BC as Julius Caesar led a campaign against Celtic tribes in the area. Curfs said he was walking with his detector this spring and was about to go home when he suddenly got a strong signal on his earphones and uncovered the first coin.
“It was golden and had a little horse on it — I had no idea what I had found,” he said.
1. You probably saw this one on the news or in your papers. The Israel Antiquities Authority reported the discovery of 264 ancient gold coins in Jerusalem National Park. The coins were minted during the early 7th century.
“This is one of the largest and most impressive coin hoards ever discovered in Jerusalem, certainly the largest and most important of its period,” said Doron Ben-Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets, who are directing the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Nadine Ross, a British archaeological volunteer, happened onto the coins during the dig just below the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. The 1,400 year old coins were found in the Giv’ati car park in the City of David in the walls around Jerusalem National Park, a site that has yielded other finds, including a gold earring with pearls and precious stones.
2. Nearly 6,000 copper alloy coins were found buried in two pots in a field at Sully, Vale of Glamorgan by a local metal detector enthusiast in April. It is one of the largest coin discoveries ever made in Wales. It is hoped the coins will be donated to National Museum Wales, which has called the find “exceptional”.
The 1,700 year old coins dated from the reigns of numerous emperors, notably Constantine I, during whose time Christianity was first recognised as a state religion. Two separate hoards were found by the metal detectorist on successive days, one involving 2,366 coins and the other 3,547 coins. The stashes were only 10 yards apart.
3. John Stevens, 42, couldn’t believe his eyes when he rubbed off the soil and saw lettering indicating the ring was from the early medieval period, possibly the 11th century. He had found a beautiful gold ring with a rare black diamond set inside it in a muddy field. It is believed the ring would have belonged to a wealthy person either from the Church, or possibly even royalty.
Black diamonds are rare today and would have been even rarer nearly 1,000 years ago, having come from Africa. The ring has not yet been valued but is thought it could be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
4. Hundreds of ancient coins unearthed close to Sweden’s international airport suggests the Vikings were bringing home foreign currency earlier than previously thought, archaeologists say. Buried almost 1,200 years ago, the treasure is made up mainly of Arabic coins and represents the largest early Viking hoard ever discovered in Sweden.
Archaeologists from the Swedish National Heritage Board unexpectedly found the stash of 472 silver coins while excavating a Bronze Age tomb near Stockholm’s Arlanda airport.
5. A hobbyist with a metal detector struck both gold and silver when he uncovered a cache of 109 ancient Celtic coins in a cornfield in southernern Holland. Experts say the 39 gold and 70 silver coins were minted in the middle of the first century BC as Julius Caesar led a campaign against Celtic tribes in the area. Curfs said he was walking with his detector this spring and was about to go home when he suddenly got a strong signal on his earphones and uncovered the first coin.
“It was golden and had a little horse on it — I had no idea what I had found,” he said.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
The Mars Rovers Still Going After 5 Years
It has been five years after the NASA rover Spirit landed on Mars and the robotic geologist and its twin Opportunity are still on the job. Expectations were far lower when Spirit made a bouncing landing in a cocoon of air bags on January 3, 2004. The Opportunity followed 3 weeks later. The goal was to try to operate each solar-powered rover for at least three months.
"That's an extraordinary return of investment in these challenging budgetary times," Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in a December statement.
Combined, the rovers have made more than 13 miles of tracks on Mars and sent 700,000 images back to Earth. Their instruments have uncovered evidence that Mars was once a far wetter and warmer place than the frigid, dusty world it is now.
An accumulation of dust on the rovers' electricity-generating solar panels was expected to be one of the most likely causes of their eventual deaths, but wind has occasionally cleaned the panels. Spirit, however, has an 18-month buildup of dust and its panels were barely able to provide sufficient power during Mars' just ended southern hemisphere winter. At one point it failed to receive commands, and its status fell to "serious but stable" condition.
The winter was a "squeaker" for Spirit, John Callas, the rover project manager at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, said in the NASA statement. "We just made it through."
Mission managers are pressing ahead with plans for more exploration even though NASA says either rover could fail without warning. Spirit has begun stirring after sitting immobile for most of the autumn and winter, JPL spokesman Guy Webster said Saturday. Plans are being made to drive it about 200 yards to a pair of sites that have drawn interest.
Opportunity, which is closer to the equator and has cleaner solar panels, has been driving toward a 14 mile wide crater, stopping on the way to examine interesting rocks.
"That's an extraordinary return of investment in these challenging budgetary times," Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in a December statement.
Combined, the rovers have made more than 13 miles of tracks on Mars and sent 700,000 images back to Earth. Their instruments have uncovered evidence that Mars was once a far wetter and warmer place than the frigid, dusty world it is now.
An accumulation of dust on the rovers' electricity-generating solar panels was expected to be one of the most likely causes of their eventual deaths, but wind has occasionally cleaned the panels. Spirit, however, has an 18-month buildup of dust and its panels were barely able to provide sufficient power during Mars' just ended southern hemisphere winter. At one point it failed to receive commands, and its status fell to "serious but stable" condition.
The winter was a "squeaker" for Spirit, John Callas, the rover project manager at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, said in the NASA statement. "We just made it through."
Mission managers are pressing ahead with plans for more exploration even though NASA says either rover could fail without warning. Spirit has begun stirring after sitting immobile for most of the autumn and winter, JPL spokesman Guy Webster said Saturday. Plans are being made to drive it about 200 yards to a pair of sites that have drawn interest.
Opportunity, which is closer to the equator and has cleaner solar panels, has been driving toward a 14 mile wide crater, stopping on the way to examine interesting rocks.
Friday, November 14, 2008
The Chicken or the Egg? Which Came First?
So the age old question all kids have been asked growing up.....Which came first the chicken or the egg? The answer is slightly complicated but we do know this: That the egg came before the chicken. Not necessarily the chicken egg, but definitely the egg. Interpreted literally, the answer to the riddle is clear. Dinosaurs were forming birdlike nests and laying eggs long before birds (including chickens) ever evolved.
Friday, October 31, 2008
The Great Dallas Flood of 1908
Like Chicago or San Francisco, Dallas was remade by disaster. The Great Flood of May 26, 1908 was the town's largest natural catastrophe. It was not nearly as deadly as San Francisco's earthquake or as destructive as Chicago's fire and is far less known than either, but it had much the same effect on the city's history. The flood served to end arguments that had been stirring for a decade over how to turn a sprawling boomtown into a modern metropolis. The result was the so-called Kessler Plan.
"It was the beginning of when people started looking at the city as a real object rather than a collection of individuals trying to make a living," Dr. Robert Fairbanks, professor of history at the University of Texas at Arlington, said of the Kessler Plan. "For the first time, Dallas became more than about just attracting jobs or attracting industry. People thought about the city as a whole."
The ideas of George Kessler form a major part of Dallas to this day. The Trinity River levee system built decades later opened up sections of the upriver floodplain for commercial use, resulting in the Stemmons Corridor, one of the region's principal economic engines. His proposal for a "great thoroughfare" became what is now Central Expressway, which in turn spurred growth in towns almost as close to the Red River as to the Trinity.
Other ideas, though less sweeping, are part of the city's identity, Union Station, Ferris Plaza, White Rock Lake Park, Turtle Creek Boulevard and, if we all live long enough, the Trinity River Corridor Project. In 1908, however, the flood's most immediate effect was to dampen local celebrations of the first nationwide commemoration of Mother's Day.
That Sunday morning, May 24, dawned rainy. Over the course of the day, 15 inches fell on the city, according to After the Deluge, the Impact of the Trinity River Flood of 1908, by Dallas writer Jackie McElhaney. Such a torrent would have overwhelmed the Trinity's channel in any case, but the downpour came at the worst possible time. For three previous days, counties upriver had sustained cloudbursts, and the watershed around Dallas was still sodden from a major flood a month earlier.
On May 26, the river crested at 52.6 feet, a record that still stands. Only a handful of people were killed (accounts vary, but historian Darwin Payne, author of Big D, settles on five). Four thousand people were left homeless, and property damage was estimated at $2.5 million, about $55 million today. But its most lasting effect was to demonstrate how poorly the city had been built.
The waterworks and electric plants were in areas that proved to be vulnerable to flooding, leaving the city without basic utilities. Telephone and telegraph lines went down. Rail lines were washed out. Every bridge near downtown was swept away, isolating the business district from the newly annexed neighborhood of Oak Cliff.
"Dallas wasn't prepared because no one in Dallas thought to be prepared," Ms. McElhaney said. "The growth of the city had been very haphazard. It just grew wherever it grew."
One aspect of the flood's timing was fortunate, it occurred during the Progressive Era, when local leaders across the country were rethinking how their cities were governed and structured. A beautification movement was trying to soften the raw industrial look of the 19th century. In Dallas, a group of city leaders led by Dallas Morning News publisher George Bannerman Dealey had four years before hired Mr. Kessler, one of the nation's leading planners, to design Fair Park. In 1910, on the second anniversary of the flood, he was hired again, this time to bring order to the entire city.
The German-born Kessler had lived in Dallas as a boy, but studied landscape design in Europe. In 1904, the same year he designed Fair Park, he was appointed landscape architect for the St. Louis World's Fair, according to Dr. Fairbanks' book For the City as a Whole: Planning, Politics and the Public Interest in Dallas, Texas. City leaders were punching above their weight. Most municipal planning was in much larger metropolitan areas such as New York, Dr. Fairbanks said. Dallas in 1910 had a population of 92,000.
"Dallas desperately wanted to be seen as a progressive city. Planning was very much the in thing of that day, and planning was almost a booster thing," she said. "Dallas got a lot of favorable publicity nationally out of the Kessler Plan."
Published in 1912 and refined over the years, the Kessler Plan called for rechanneling the Trinity a mile from downtown and building a levee system to contain future floods. But it went much further than solving flood problems. It sought to consolidate a rail system that was choking downtown and advocated straightening and standardizing the city's often chaotic streets. The plan also recommended a system of parks, boulevards and playgrounds.
To Mr. Kessler's frustration, much of his plan was incompletely executed or never implemented at all. His plan to turn Dallas into an inland port came to nothing, although it was still actively discussed as late as the 1970s. His vision of a "great thoroughfare" linking what was then known as the Highland Park Addition to the city's southern precincts was only partly realized.
The northern part was built and eventually became Central Expressway. But a land dispute with the railroad companies blocked construction to the south. Decades later, the street that he intended to knit the city together carried commuters ever farther from the city's southern neighborhoods. Not all results were so divisive. Even before floodwaters receded, and independent of the Kessler Plan, business leaders proposed a flood-proof "Great Causeway" linking downtown and Oak Cliff.
The bridge was built in only 17 months, in part because the Great Flood of 1908 preceded a long dry spell. Not a single day of construction was lost because of rain, according to Ms. McElhaney's article in Legacies magazine. At 5,480 feet, what is now known as the Houston Street Viaduct was the longest concrete structure in the world. The bridge guaranteed that flooding would never again disrupt commerce between the two sides of the river. It also had the effect of binding the older neighborhoods of Dallas with the formerly independent city of Oak Cliff, which had been annexed less than five years before the flood.
"It was the beginning of when people started looking at the city as a real object rather than a collection of individuals trying to make a living," Dr. Robert Fairbanks, professor of history at the University of Texas at Arlington, said of the Kessler Plan. "For the first time, Dallas became more than about just attracting jobs or attracting industry. People thought about the city as a whole."
The ideas of George Kessler form a major part of Dallas to this day. The Trinity River levee system built decades later opened up sections of the upriver floodplain for commercial use, resulting in the Stemmons Corridor, one of the region's principal economic engines. His proposal for a "great thoroughfare" became what is now Central Expressway, which in turn spurred growth in towns almost as close to the Red River as to the Trinity.
Other ideas, though less sweeping, are part of the city's identity, Union Station, Ferris Plaza, White Rock Lake Park, Turtle Creek Boulevard and, if we all live long enough, the Trinity River Corridor Project. In 1908, however, the flood's most immediate effect was to dampen local celebrations of the first nationwide commemoration of Mother's Day.
That Sunday morning, May 24, dawned rainy. Over the course of the day, 15 inches fell on the city, according to After the Deluge, the Impact of the Trinity River Flood of 1908, by Dallas writer Jackie McElhaney. Such a torrent would have overwhelmed the Trinity's channel in any case, but the downpour came at the worst possible time. For three previous days, counties upriver had sustained cloudbursts, and the watershed around Dallas was still sodden from a major flood a month earlier.
On May 26, the river crested at 52.6 feet, a record that still stands. Only a handful of people were killed (accounts vary, but historian Darwin Payne, author of Big D, settles on five). Four thousand people were left homeless, and property damage was estimated at $2.5 million, about $55 million today. But its most lasting effect was to demonstrate how poorly the city had been built.
The waterworks and electric plants were in areas that proved to be vulnerable to flooding, leaving the city without basic utilities. Telephone and telegraph lines went down. Rail lines were washed out. Every bridge near downtown was swept away, isolating the business district from the newly annexed neighborhood of Oak Cliff.
"Dallas wasn't prepared because no one in Dallas thought to be prepared," Ms. McElhaney said. "The growth of the city had been very haphazard. It just grew wherever it grew."
One aspect of the flood's timing was fortunate, it occurred during the Progressive Era, when local leaders across the country were rethinking how their cities were governed and structured. A beautification movement was trying to soften the raw industrial look of the 19th century. In Dallas, a group of city leaders led by Dallas Morning News publisher George Bannerman Dealey had four years before hired Mr. Kessler, one of the nation's leading planners, to design Fair Park. In 1910, on the second anniversary of the flood, he was hired again, this time to bring order to the entire city.
The German-born Kessler had lived in Dallas as a boy, but studied landscape design in Europe. In 1904, the same year he designed Fair Park, he was appointed landscape architect for the St. Louis World's Fair, according to Dr. Fairbanks' book For the City as a Whole: Planning, Politics and the Public Interest in Dallas, Texas. City leaders were punching above their weight. Most municipal planning was in much larger metropolitan areas such as New York, Dr. Fairbanks said. Dallas in 1910 had a population of 92,000.
"Dallas desperately wanted to be seen as a progressive city. Planning was very much the in thing of that day, and planning was almost a booster thing," she said. "Dallas got a lot of favorable publicity nationally out of the Kessler Plan."
Published in 1912 and refined over the years, the Kessler Plan called for rechanneling the Trinity a mile from downtown and building a levee system to contain future floods. But it went much further than solving flood problems. It sought to consolidate a rail system that was choking downtown and advocated straightening and standardizing the city's often chaotic streets. The plan also recommended a system of parks, boulevards and playgrounds.
To Mr. Kessler's frustration, much of his plan was incompletely executed or never implemented at all. His plan to turn Dallas into an inland port came to nothing, although it was still actively discussed as late as the 1970s. His vision of a "great thoroughfare" linking what was then known as the Highland Park Addition to the city's southern precincts was only partly realized.
The northern part was built and eventually became Central Expressway. But a land dispute with the railroad companies blocked construction to the south. Decades later, the street that he intended to knit the city together carried commuters ever farther from the city's southern neighborhoods. Not all results were so divisive. Even before floodwaters receded, and independent of the Kessler Plan, business leaders proposed a flood-proof "Great Causeway" linking downtown and Oak Cliff.
The bridge was built in only 17 months, in part because the Great Flood of 1908 preceded a long dry spell. Not a single day of construction was lost because of rain, according to Ms. McElhaney's article in Legacies magazine. At 5,480 feet, what is now known as the Houston Street Viaduct was the longest concrete structure in the world. The bridge guaranteed that flooding would never again disrupt commerce between the two sides of the river. It also had the effect of binding the older neighborhoods of Dallas with the formerly independent city of Oak Cliff, which had been annexed less than five years before the flood.
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