I started playing a little game over the weekend using a search engine and the exact phrase “The only one in [name of a country].” Much of the time this query resulted in lists of exotic automobiles for some odd reason, or vacation properties with excessive hyperbole. More amusing results floated to the surface every once in a while. I focused primarily on English-speaking countries with lots of Twelve Mile Circle readers. I figured I might as well pander to the loyal audience.
The Only Public Diamond Mine In the United States
Folks can head down to Murfreesboro in southwestern Arkansas (map) when dreaming of riches. Perhaps they’d hit the motherload at Crater of Diamonds State Park. People discovered the first diamonds there about a century ago in the ancient remains of a volcanic vent. Commercial mining failed once geologists determined that only the top layer held enough diamonds to make digging worth their trouble. It was too labor intensive to turn a profit so the site became a privately-owned tourist attraction.
The new operators took a different approach. They charged amateurs a fee to seek their fortunes instead of paying miners to dig on their behalf. The grounds disgorged just enough winnings to keep things interesting. Actually, it acted more like a casino slot machine than a typical mine. Then the state of Arkansas bought the attraction in the 1970’s and converted it into a state park.
Anyone lucky enough to find a diamond on the 37-acre dirt field gets to keep it. Occasionally a visitor will unearth something valuable. Someone found the Strawn-Wagner Diamond in 1990 and it became “the most perfect diamond the American Gem Society (AGS) ever certified in its laboratory”. Someone else found an 8.52 carat white diamond as recently as 2015.
Eureka moments like that were the exception. The vast preponderance of visitors went home with dirty clothes and maybe a small but worthless diamond chip. A day of digging equaled about the same as buying a few lottery tickets at the corner market. In this case at least the treasure hunters got outdoors in the fresh air for a few hours.
The Only Full Set of 12 Change-Ringing Bells In Canada
Canadian fans of change-ringing bells should head towards the Cathedral Church of St. James on Church Street in Toronto (map).
First I need to ponder the definition change-ringing and then I can consider the significance of the number of bells. Fortunately the North American Guild of Change Ringers provided everything I needed to know.
“Change Ringing is a team sport, a highly coordinated musical performance, an antique art, and a demanding exercise that involves a group of people ringing rhythmically a set of tuned bells through a series of changing sequences that are determined by mathematical principles and executed according to learned patterns.”
Change-ringers were the people who rang bells in church towers. Bells sat in the part of the tower called the belfry, for the obvious reason. They hung in rings of 8 (typically) or 12 (more unusually). Only a special structure can handle the weight of 12 bells. They range from 100 to 3,600 pounds (45 to 1,600 kg) each! So the St. James Church included tower walls six feet thick with an additional buttress supporting a concrete beam holding the bell frame. That’s why this was the only location in Canada with 12 bells.
The Only Free Range Reindeer Herd In Britain
Reindeer or caribou inhabited the far northern latitudes of Eurasia and North America natively. However, they haven’t lived in Britain for at least the last several centuries. Their domesticated cousins ranged more broadly though. These include one small herd with a couple of hundred beasts in the Cairngorms region of Scotland. Officials introduced them in the 1950’s as a tourist attraction (map).
Visitors continue to flock to Cairngorms National Park to see the Cairngorm Reindeer Herd. Reindeer remain active throughout the year although most people only care about them at Christmas. That’s when the “adult male reindeer go out and about on tour nationwide.”
The Only Fossil Bed From the Early Part of the Tertiary Period in Australia
The Murgon fossil site in Queensland, Australia (map) filled a vital link in the historical record to the early Paleogene Period, the beginning of the age of mammals only a few million years removed from the extinction of dinosaurs.
“Nestling in the rolling green hills of south-eastern Queensland, under the shadow of the basalt-capped Boat Mountain, is one of the most remarkable fossil deposits in the world. Located near the township of Murgon, this site is the only one in Australia that produces mammal fossils from the early part of the Tertiary Period and is dated at around 54.6 million years old. What makes Murgon so remarkable is the diversity of animals found there that were not expected to be seen in such an old Australian deposit. The world’s oldest song birds are found at Murgon as well as one of the world’s oldest bats, Australonycteris.”
The fossil beds were remarkable enough to become a World Heritage Site.
The Only Snail Farm In Kenya (and All of East Africa)
In Kenya one could visit Rosemary Odinga in Kiserian (map), a suburb of Nairobi, where she established a snail farm in 2008. The Kenya Wildlife Service granted her a license to farm Giant African Land Snails — the only one issued in the nation — a requirement since snails were classified as wild animals. The farm produced about 12,000 snails per year although most locals residents wouldn’t eat them. Instead she marketed them quite successfully as escargots to fine dining establishment and wealthy European expatriates.
I mentioned focusing this article on countries with sizable 12MC audiences. That’s right, Kenya has begun to emerge as one of the more common international points of origin for Twelve Mile Circle readers. Some of them came for the Oxbow Lake discussions although now they seem to have branched out to other topics. Welcome Kenyan readers! It wasn’t too long ago that I bemoaned my lack of African viewers. I’m glad to see that things have started to change.
I had so much fun writing this article that I may have to do a part 2 with more countries. Readers should feel free to search for their own one-of-a-kind superlatives and place them in the comments. They might even become fair game for that future article.
Leave a Reply