What is language? It is a system of arbitrary symbols and grammatical signals
which meaning is attributed and used for the expression or communication of
thoughts and feelings. Language has certain things in common. They are
sound-pattern, words and grammatical structure. A sound-pattern is a group of sounds that the
human can utter.
Words are sounds or sound-patterns that have a meaning. Words may stand
for objects, actions, or ideas. According to this definition, there is no
resemblance between words and objects which they describe. Grammatical structure
is the manner in which words are combined to form larger, meaningful units such as
sentences.
Undoubtedly, spoken language such as German, Spanish and English are
examples of language because they are used for communication in
society and they have grammatical rules for speaking and writing. Algebra and
mathematical functions are also type of language since they have rules for expression of
mathematical meaning. For example, ‘4/5′ have a meaning, but ‘4/0′ are not mentioned
for mathematical meaning. Furthermore, the order of symbols in algebra has
an effect to the meaning. For instance, ‘x
5x - 2′ compares with ‘x
2 - 5x’.
It has different meaning and rule for solving the problem. This definition also
includes computer language which is a special set of symbols, letters, numerals and
rules, used for the transmission of information in computer. Computer language has rules
for operating and programming. When you use the computer, you should follow the
rules in order to operate the computer properly.

According to the definition, body language is not a language because
body language has no grammatical rules for expression of meaning. Moreover,
each body movement can show only one or two words. We cannot use body language
for the whole sentence. For example, thumb up signals very good job but you
cannot use it to express what the whole sentence you would like to say.

Animal language is not included in the definition of language because
animal language has no exactly meaning, grammatical rule and combined
sentence. It’s just an animal noise. People translate the noise by guessing or using their
own opinions.

Chimpanzees’ calls are good example for discussing about this subject.
“Chimpanzees communicate with a rich repertoire of calls, probably around 50
different, distinct calls, each of which means something different to the individual hearing
it.” For example, “A loud long, drawn-out wailing wraaaa call is made when
a chimpanzee comes across something unusual or dangerous. This alarm call is a very
savage sound.”

However, Chimpanzees use different alarm to signal different types of danger. When chimpanzees find a new source of food, they still use alarm call to tell the members of group. Chimpanzees’ calls have no exactly meaning.

People just observe their behaviors and guess the meaning of those calls. So animal
noise is not counted as the term of language.

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The mining of metal in America started long before the advent of the gold rush era or before the first explorers came to claim and settle this new frontier. It was not until the advent of carbon dating that anyone realized how long mining had been going on in America. The path of the discovery of ancient copper mining in America goes all the way back to the early explorers.

When Columbus came to the new world he reported back to his homeland that the natives had possession of impressive copper weapons. Other early explorers in America and also made notes of copper in the possession of the island and mainland natives. In 1536 Jacques Cartier was given nuggets of pure copper by Indians in the St. Lawrence river area. The list of explorers noting copper amongst the native people goes on. Because the native Indians held copper as sacred, it took some time for explorers to uncover where it was that the copper came from.

By 1800 there had been enough evidence for mass quantities of a very pure grade of copper in Keweenaw Peninsula (which is the Upper Peninsula of Michigan) that Congress passed a resolution to study the copper. By 1820 it was confirmed that the Keweenaw Peninsula held worthy amounts of a very pure copper. Had the area not still been in possession of the Indians, the first metal rush in America would have been copper. The Gold Rush of Georgia in the late 1820’s preceded the copper rush for that fact alone. By 1843, the peninsula became part of the American territories and the copper rush was on.

In 1848, Samuel O. Knapp, an Agent for a company which would eventually become the Minnesota Mining Company, was out looking over a snow covered hillside and noticed a line of indentations in the snow. He followed these for a ways until he came to a cave like opening. Exploring inside, he found that the “cave” was actually a man made hole, and that there were remnants of tools inside. After explorations were made of other pits, it was discovered that there were masses and veins of copper within the pits. It was not long before it became the mode to mine these pits whenever found. Many tools were discovered. Much archaeological information was destroyed.

In 1955 studies with carbon dating were begun on tools found in the areas of copper pits and the findings have resulted in much study of the pits and the surrounding land. The pits are dated back approximately 4,000 years at the latest. Because of the purity of the copper and a unique occurrence of silver with the copper, artifacts of this area’s metal can be easily traced throughout North and Central America and neighboring islands. That copper mining had been established as a commerce is clearly seen. What is not known is who these ancient miners may have been.

It is known that the miners came to the area shortly after the recession of the glaciers, at a time that copper could have been picked up from the surface of the ground, the land still barren of forestry making this an easy task. The waterways were also at a higher level facilitating travel. As the copper float became scarce, digging would have been necessitated. It is estimated from the thousands of pits found on Keweenaw peninsula, and hundreds more on Isle Royale that at least 500 million pounds of copper were extracted by these early people.

An endeavor of this size would take many human resources, boats, housing, food provisions, and so on. Temporary camps, if not whole towns, would have been in place. Yet no trace of these people has been found other than the digging tools and one or two personal effects. No evidence of housing, of transport, food gathering or farming. It is thought that because of the region’s harsh winters that the miners came and went seasonally, but from where is unknown. One expert has convincing evidence that these people may have been here as early as 7,000 years ago and had come from Egypt. Other possibilities are that they came from Russia, from the North. Others suggest that they may have been Aztec or another Central American culture. Near St. Louis archaeologists are uncovering the ruins of a fairly advanced civilization from about 6,500 years ago and there is thinking that these may be the lost miners but not much is known about this culture yet.

While the conjecture and debates go on, all experts seem to agree that the miners were not the ancestors of the Native Indians. The Indians had no knowledge or legends of these people and the craftsmanship of the tools found points to a culture far more advanced than the Indian cultures. The only thing that we can know with certainty is that these people were here, they were here in the ages that man first started using copper, and that artifacts made from the copper they mined can be found in the ruins of many ancient cultures.

Perhaps these early miners left no trace other than the tools they left in their mining pits. Perhaps important evidence was destroyed in the early American Copper Rush. With luck, some clues still remain hidden yet to be uncovered by some fortunate archaeologist or treasure hunter. Whatever the answers are to be found, they are sure to be intriguing.

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In this article I will give a brief overview of the top five most costly and devistating hurricanes seen in the US.

1. Hurricane Katrina (LA, MI, AL) 2005 Category 5, Estimated Damage $76,000,000,000

Who would forget the lethal and the most destructive storms in American history occurred during the 2005 hurricane season? This flooded up 80% of the major coastal cities and claimed the lives of 1,604 people making it one of the deadliest in history.. This Category 5 storm hit Louisiana and accounts for most of the damage.

2. (FL, LA) 1992 Category 5, Estimated Damage $45,000,000,000

Another severe was Hurricane Andrew which started off by striking southern Florida and raging through the Miami area Andrew, made path through Florida and then entered the Gulf of Mexico where it fed off of the warmer waters before striking Louisiana with renewed force. After Katrina it is ranked second in terms of the destruction done. Fortunately the death toll was fairly low considering the damage it caused.

3. Hurricane Charley (SW FL) 2004 Category 4, Estimated Damage $15,400,000,000

The third major natural calamity when we talk of hurricanes is Charley which made landfall in Florida on August 13, 2004 just north of Fort Myers with winds of up to 150 mph. Charley was the second tropical storm to hit Florida that day as tropical storm Bonnie hit the northern panhandle near Apalachicola. The storm loosely followed the path of Interstate-4 before leaving land near Daytona Beach. The storm then moved up the east coast of the United States before breaking up. Ten deaths in the United States were attributed to Charley.

4. Hurricane Ivan (AL, NW FL) 2004 Category 3 Estimated Damage $17,700,000,000

Other hurricane which took lives of nearly 92 people and had winds blowing at the rate of 130 miles per hour is Ivan, which made its first landfall near Gulf Shores, Alabama and moved north-east through the southern United States. Ivan then looped around and crossed back through Florida to cross the Gulf of Mexico a second time and moved onto hit Louisiana and Texas. While its trail across Florida the storm caused several large tornadoes with tore several cities apart and caused 14 of the deaths.

5. Hurricane Hugo (SC, NC) 1989 Category 2, Estimated Damage $15,600,000,000

September 21, 1989, was another unfortunate day in the history of hurricanes which started off by making landfall in South Carolina on and moving in a northern direction to rage through North Carolina, Hugo was one of the most destructive on record. Approximately 70-100 people had lost their lives to the storm and the actual number cannot be determined since there were several mass graves dug on St. Croix and accurate records were not kept. Most heavily hit were the coastal areas of South Carolina.

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Wolves love each other’s company; they are social animals, which live in packs or family groups. Each pack has the parent wolves, their pups, which were born within a year or the previous year and ccasionally, a wolf family will let a stray wolf join their pack. The leader of the pack makes this decision, which is one of the parents. The parents of the pack are called the alpha pair and if one dies, the other wolf will find another mate that’s not from its pack. A normal pack does not contain many wolves, on average there are seven wolves in a group. Sometimes packs are larger, a bigger group contains 20 or more wolves because one female may have 2 to 3 litters of pups.

Normally, male adult wolves weigh 85 - 115 pounds but they can weigh up to 145 pounds. Females however are 5 to 10 pounds lighter, rarely weighing over100 pounds; all wolves become adult size in about a year.

Wolves like to hunt big animals; they are carnivores and when they hunt in the north, caribou are their prey. In the southeast wolves hunt the Sitka black-tail deer and throughout the states they hunt moose. One wolf cannot bring down a large animal; the entire pack helps by working together. Large animals are not the only source of food for wolves; they supplement their diet with voles, lemmings, ground squirrels, snowshoe hares and other small mammals. They also eat carrion and whenever they are near a source of water, they will catch salmon. Food gives wolves energy; they need at least seven pounds of meat a day to stay strong.

When wolves are not hunting, they defend their territory from other wolves, which may try to take their home. The area which contains prey or food supplies changes, which means a pack will not stay within a territory for a long time. Many deer roam on the islands in Southeast Alaska, however a wolf’s territory is smaller there, but in Interior and Arctic Alaska, the quantity of prey is lower but the area has larger wolf territories. Wolves are not lazy, they can travel 20 miles in a day and sometimes even farther. Wolves may search and travel hundreds of mile from their home to find new territory to own.

February and March are the normal months that wolves breed; in April or May, wolves have an average of five pups. At 22 months, a wolf can start breeding; its pups are born in a den, which is dug in soil that is drained. Some wolves have their pups in a tree and will take them to the den later. Parent wolves focus all their activities on their pups when they are young; the adult wolves always travel to find food and then carry what they find back to the den. During the midsummer, pups are weaned, then, when winter arrives, parents lead their pups away from the den.

Alaskan wolves are excellent hunters, live in packs and raise their families in groups.

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Just as there are typical readers there are typical dyslexic readers. What most dyslexics do is to visualize each word individually and hope they fit together some how.

They create mental pictures of all the words they do know. It is like building a puzzle for them. Unfortunately there are many written words that are abstract concepts and there is no simple visual picture for. These words, such as ‘the’ and ‘and’, stop the flow of reading for dyslexic readers. By abstract I mean that they aren’t action words or for real visual objects. Dyslexics have never ’seen’ them before.

Dyslexics can struggle through a number of abstract terms before they get overwhelmed. The mental pictures they are collecting as they go along fit into the puzzle with reasonable accuracy until too many abstract terms wear them out and they start showing symptoms.

There are different typical dyslexic coping mechanisms that will display as dyslexic symptoms. Symptoms include skipping abstract words or changing words to a similar but wrong word. The mental pictures do not fit together to form the puzzle which the reading was meant to say.

So, what is the solution? It is simple, though not necessarily easy. You need to create pictures for the abstract words. This can be done by a few routes, depending on your philosophy towards dyslexia. I have found the most effective way is to use clay and build a physical representation which can become the mental picture whenever that word is encountered.

Most readers don’t know what these abstract words mean, but it doesn’t create a problem for them. Dyslexics read every word. Remember that. The typical dyslexic cannot ’skip over’ or ignore any of the words of a written passage.

But there is a solution. As I said, use a simple dictionary and define the missing word and find a way to build a visual picture of it. This picture can then be transferred into the mind of the dyslexic and the barrier of that word will go away.

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