For the waterfall in Maine, see Angel Falls (Maine).

Coordinates: 5°58′03″N 62°32′08″W

Angel Falls
Salto Ángel Kerepakupai Vená
Angel Falls, Bolívar State, Venezuela
Location	Auyantepui, Canaima National Park, Venezuela
Type	Plunge
Total height	979 m (3,212 ft)
Number of drops	47
Longest drop	807 m (2,648 ft)
World height ranking	1

Angel Falls (Spanish: Salto Ángel; Pemon language: Kerepakupai Vená, meaning "waterfall of the deepest place", or Parakupá Vená, meaning "the fall from the highest point") is a waterfall in Venezuela.
It is the world's highest waterfall, with a height of 979 m (3,212 ft) and a plunge of 807 m (2,648 ft). The waterfall drops over the edge of the Auyantepui mountain in the san antonio Park (Spanish: Parque Nacional Canaima), a UNESCO World Heritage site in the Gran Sabana region of Bolívar State.
The base of the falls feeds into the Kerep River (alternatively known as the Río Gauya), which flows into the Churun River, a tributary of the Carrao River.
Before reaching the ground, much of the water is dissipated as mist
The height figure 979 m (3,212 ft) mostly consists of the main plunge but also includes about 400 m (0.25 mi) of sloped cascades and rapids below the drop and a 30 m (98 ft) high plunge downstream of the talus rapids. While the main plunge is undoubtedly the highest single drop in the world, some feel that including the lower cascades stretches the criteria ^.for the measurement of waterfalls somewhat, although there are no universally recognized standards of the subject.

Exploration

Angel's plane

Sir Walter Raleigh described what was possibly a tepuy (table top mountain), and he is sometimes said to have been the first European to view the Angel Falls, but these claims are considered far-fetched. Some historians state that the first European to visit the waterfall was Fernando de Berrío, a Spanish explorer and governor from the 16th and 17th centuries. Later on, they were indeed spotted in 1912 by the Venezuelan explorer Ernesto Sánchez La Cruz, but he did not publicize his discovery. They were not known to the outside world until American aviator Jimmie Angel flew over them on 16 November 1933 on a flight while he was searching for a valuable ore bed.
Returning on 9 October 1937, Angel tried to land his Metal Aircraft Corporation Flamingo monoplane El Río Caroní; atop Auyan-tepui, but the plane was damaged when the wheels sank into the marshy ground, and he and his three companions, including his wife Marie, were forced to descend the tepui on foot. It took them 11 days to make their way back to civilization, but news of their adventure spread, and the waterfall was named Angel Falls in his honor.
Angel's plane remained on top of the tepuy for 33 years before being lifted out by helicopter. It was restored at the Aviation Museum in Maracay and now sits outdoors on the front of the airport at Ciudad Bolívar.
The first recorded Westerner to reach the river that feeds the falls was Latvian explorer Aleksandrs Laime, also known as Alejandro Laime to the native Pemon tribe. He made the ascent of Auyan-tepui in 1955. He also reached Angel's plane on the same trip, 18 years after the crash landing. He gave the river feeding the falls the name Gauja after a river in Latvia, but the Pemon-given name of the river, Kerep, is still widely used.

Angel Falls during the wet season

Laime also was the first to clear a trail that leads from the Churun River to the base of the falls. On the way, there is a viewpoint commonly used to capture the falls in photographs. It is named Mirador Laime ("Laime's Viewpoint" in Spanish) in his honor. This trail is used now mostly for tourists, to lead them from the Isla Ratón camp to the small clearing.
The official height of the falls was determined by a National Geographic Society survey carried out by American journalist Ruth Robertson in 1949.
A book by David Nott, Angels Four, chronicles the first successful climb up the face of Auyantepui to the top of the falls.

Tourism

Angel Falls is one of Venezuela's top tourist attractions, though a trip to the falls is a complicated affair. The falls are located in an isolated jungle, and a flight from Puerto Ordaz or Ciudad Bolívar is required to reach Canaima camp, the starting point for river trips to the base of the falls. River trips generally take place from June to December, when the rivers are deep enough for the wooden curiaras used by the Pemon guides. During the dry season (December to March) there is less water seen than in the other months (this can be clearly seen in the photos of the falls above).
In 2009 was nominated to compete in the New 7 Wonders of Nature, reaching third place of the 77 most voted wonders in the world. Angel Falls entered the final group of the 28 most popular and now is among the first in the ranking. 

Mausoleum of Halicarnassus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scale model of the Mausoleum at Miniatürk, 

The Masonic House of the Temple of the Scottish Rite, Washington, DC, John Russell Pope, architect, 1911-15, another scholarly version.

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus or Tomb of Mausolus^[1] (in Greek, Μαυσωλεῖον τῆς Ἁλικαρνασσοῦ) was a tomb built between 353 and 350 BC at Halicarnassus (present Bodrum, Turkey) for Mausolus, a satrap in the Persian Empire, and Artemisia II of Caria, his wife and sister. The structure was designed by the Greek architects Satyros and Pythis.^[2][3] It stood approximately 45 m (148 ft) in height, and each of the four sides was adorned with sculptural reliefs created by each one of four Greek sculptors — Leochares, Bryaxis, Scopas of Paros and Timotheus.^[4] The finished structure was considered to be such an aesthetic triumph that Antipater of Sidon identified it as one of his Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The word mausoleum has now come to be used generically for any grand tomb.
                                                                                   

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