Natural Wonders

Over 17 trillion gallons of water flows over Niagara Falls per year. That's 277,500,000,000,000 (277.5 Trillion) 8oz. cups of water. "Niagara, O roar again". (Hey isn't that a palindrome?)

Lake Tahoe, located on the border of California and Nevada, in the Sierra Nevada Mountain range, is the largest Alpine lake in North America. It stretches 22 miles long, 12 miles wide and covers a surface area of 191.6 square miles. It has 72 miles of shoreline. At an elevation of 6,226 feet, it is also the highest Alpine lake of it's size in the United States.

Lake Tahoe reaches a depth of 1,645 feet, and holds 39 trillion gallons of water.

If Lake Tahoe was drained empty, and you wanted to refill it with all the water flowing over Niagara falls, it would take 2 years and 4 months to fill back up.

The Panama Canal, 700 feet wide and 50 feet deep, could be filled with Lake Tahoe's water even if it circled the globe at the equator - and there would still be enough water left to fill a canal of the same size running from San Francisco to New York.

An average of 1,400,000 tons of water evaporates each day from Lake Tahoe. If the water that evaporates from the lake could be recovered, it would supply the daily requirements of a city the size of Los Angeles.

"General Sherman", A Giant Sequoia Redwood Tree living in California's Sequoia National Park, is an estimated 2,300 years old, and is proclaimed to be the "Oldest and largest living thing".

The "General Sherman" Sequoia Redwood has a base diameter of 36.5 feet, and stands over 275 feet tall. Some of it's neighboring trees reach 325 feet in height but with smaller trunk diameters of 30 feet.

The "General Sherman" would require 30 railroad cars to haul away just it's trunk alone.

The "General" has a limb 130 feet above the ground that is nearly 7 feet thick.

The "General's" bark is up to 2 feet thick.

Because of it's amazingly thick bark and highly located limbs, the Sequoia Forest has been able to survive dozens upon dozens of forest fires, both natural and man-made.

Sawed into boards, the "General Sherman" Sequoia would build about forty 5-room houses. 

  Located in California, lives a Bristle cone pine that began growing 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. It is the oldest living thing on earth.

Note: This is not to be confused with the Giant Sequoia, Which is both the largest and oldest living thing.

The 5,000 year old Bristle cone Pine was 3,000 years old when Christ walked the earth, 300 years old when the first pyramid was being built, and was just a seedling when the wheel was being invented by the Sumerians around the year 3,000 B.C.

The Bristle cone Pine is a very slow growing tree. In 100 years it may produce less than 1 inch of growth rings on it's trunk.

At 700 years of age, the Bristle cone Pine's height is only 3 feet tall and has a trunk diameter of 3 inches thick.

At 4,145 miles, the Nile River is the longest in the world.

A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court.

An ounce of gold can be stretched into a wire 50 miles long.

Absolutely pure gold is so soft that it can be molded with the hands.