1891 MORGAN SILVER DOLLAR VALUE

Infinity Reference 4022i 4-Inch Two-Way Loudspeaker (Silver/Black)

The Infinity Reference 4022i is a 4-inch Two-Way loudspeaker with very advanced features for a speaker in this price range. Our Reference Series represents perhaps the best value of any premium brand in its price range. These speakers will drop in to the factory location of a 4-inch speaker and can be driven by either a factory OEM radio or an aftermarket radio. It utilizes Plus One technology which gives you improved bass response. The Edge-driven textile-dome tweeter provides outstanding high frequencies and excellent reliability. This speaker can be driven with a 2 ohm impedance amplifier which gives you improved low frequency performance and louder sound. They can also be driven by a 4 ohm radio or amplifier. Infinity Systems is a leader in loudspeaker design for both car and home speaker systems and is part of Harman International. These speakers come with a one year parts and labor warranty.

This scene renders a very graphic idea of how things looked on the south flank of Etna during the first week of the large flank eruption of July-August 2001. On 17 July, the volcano had opened on its upper south flank, at the very base of the Southeast Crater (one of Etna's four summit craters), which had been erupting episodically for several weeks, and continued to do so through the four days of intense premonitory seismic activity. Its final paroxysm, with powerful Strombolian explosions and lava fountains, came in the early morning hours of 17 July. A few hours later, new vents opened at its base, and this marked the shift from the six-years-long summit eruptions (the "Millennium Fireworks") to the first flank eruption of Etna since 1993.

The first new vents were at about 2950 m elevation; on the afternoon of 17 July, a second new fissure opened at about 2750 m on the south flank, and lava flowed from both fissures at relatively slow pace. Things got more dramatic early on the next morning: a short fissure ripped open at only 2100 m elevation, uncomfortably close to the tourist facilities around the Rifugio Sapienza and the nearby Etna cable-car. Lava from this fissure initially crept down, at a sluggish pace, the flank toward the promiment Monti Silvestri (craters of the 1892 eruption) and the access road from Zafferana, the Provincial Road 92, where also two restaurants were located. During the day, this lava flow cut the Provincial Road 92, passing extremely close to the two restaurants, and started to descend into the direction of the town of Nicolosi, although it would have to cover a distance of nearly 10 km to reach the first houses of Nicolosi.

Things got still more complicated when, on the afternoon of 19 July - two-and-a-half days after the first fissure opened - a huge new vent blasted open at approximately 2570 m elevation, in an area until then known as "Piano del Lago" (the plain of the lake). This vent produced no lava flow but instead its activity was entirely explosive, caused by interaction of hot magma with groundwater just below the ground surface. A tall column of steam and ash rose from this vent, and all of a sudden Sicily was facing a problem that was to become known worldwide only nine years later, due to the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland: the threat to air traffic caused by volcanic ash clouds. The international airport of Catania was closed, and remained so repeatedly, sometimes for days in a row, over the next few weeks.

Yet another eruptive fissure opened early on 20 July, in a remote location on the upper northeast flank, in the Valle del Leone, and three days later, lava was briefly emitted from a small fissure on the lower southeast side of the Southeast Crater cone, making this the sixth new fissure to open. There was also a seventh vent active, just below the "Levantino" on the north-northeast side of the Southeast Crater cone, where lava had apparently been emitted from the beginning of the flank eruption. So as of 23 July, Etna was erupting from seven different eruptive fissures, most on the south flank but two also on the upper northeastern side. This was indeed one of the most complex eruptions seen at this volcano in historical time.

For the first five days of the eruption, I was blocked in Tuscany, more than 1000 km to the north, due to family problems. I finally managed to get on a train late on 21 July and arrived in Catania on the afternoon of the 22nd, where the sky was darkened by a dense ash cloud rising from the vent at 2570 m elevation, and much of the volcano being shrouded in gas plumes rising from the other vents and the various lava flows issuing from them. The scene was surreal, unlike anything I had seen at Etna in more than a decade, and for many people who had lived their entire lives at the volcano, the feelings must have been the same in those days.

After a brief visit to the Rifugio Sapienza area on the evening of 22 July, with a group of German reporters, I was back on the scene the morning after, and this is how it looked like. All the details in this image are explained by notes attached to it.

Photo looking northeast, taken on the morning of 23 July 2001 with a Canon AE1, and scanned from original Ektachrome color slide; edited with Noiseware to remove dust and scratches

This symmetric building with exposed red brick, tent-like towers, porches and silver roof is the State History Museum. Constructed in 1874 by Vladimir Shervud (1833-1897), the building was designed to evoke the memory of various Russian styles that preceded it. As part of the restoration work, the spires are again topped by gilded double eagles reminiscent of the tsars' times. Supported by private donations when it opened in 1883, the museum contained over 300,000 objects. Today it has over four million items, including the largest collection of artifacts tracing the history of Russia from the Stone Age until today. When the building reopened in 1997 only a few rooms were finished, each representing a different period or region. Renovations, however, continue and more rooms will be on display. In 2001 only 15 of 45 rooms were open to the public and five of those are used for temporary exhibitions. The ticket office is reached by going through the Resurrection Gate, then to the right after the entrance. Further into the building and down the stairs on the left are the coat rooms and bathrooms. While the videos in the lobby are multilingual, the captions for the exhibitions are only in Russian. To reach the main exhibition, take the staircase in the great hall which used to be the ceremonial stairway to Red Square. A family tree of the Russian monarchs dating back to Vladimir and Olga of Kiev decorates the ceiling.

For his Silver Wave debut, Peruvian wind player Tito La Rosa addresses a familiar theme--a future socio-spiritual reunification of the Americas--and musically articulates the vision with an agreeable mix of humility and passion. La Rosa, a descendant of the Quechua Indians of the Andes, enlists the talents of labelmate Mary Youngblood (Native American flute) to intertwine the native musical traditions of two hemispheres, and the result is attractively reverent and reflective, flavored with occasional displays of dignified celebration. Producer Tom Wasinger carefully embellishes La Rosa's organic instrumentation (he even blows a conch shell on the prayerful "The Invocation) with just enough modern-day flourishes (a faint keyboard glow on "All One Nation;" traces of guitar and piano on selected tracks) to make this worthwhile, low-key disc appealing to both contemporary and traditional listeners. Highlights: a pair of softly percussive charmers, "Fire Spirit" and "The Dance of the Puma and the Wolf," and the delicate, respectful duet shared by La Rosa and Youngblood on "El Muney (The Power of Love)." --Terry Wood