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AMC Amitron

The AMC Amitron was an experimental electric subcompact car built in 1967 by American Motors Corporation (AMC) and Gulton Industries. It included many advanced features, including regenerative braking and advanced battery designs, to provide a 150 mile range on a single charge. Development ended because of technology issues and the high cost of batteries.

In 1977, the prototype was updated and renamed Electron to become one of the automaker's "Concept 80" show cars.

American Motors' small concept car was "meant to be a prediction of future subcompact commuter cars." It introduced technologies that included a revolutionary braking system that took 50 years to become common in the automotive industry.

Impetus
Development of the Amitron was prompted by three bills passed by the 89th United States Congress, described collectively as the "Electric Vehicle Development Act of 1966", as well as a fourth bill that amended the Clean Air Act of 1963. The legislation provided funding for electric car research in response to the rapidly decreasing air quality caused by automobile emissions. Development of electric vehicles was undertaken by the domestic big three automobile manufacturers, as well as AMC. Electrically powered cars were also seen as a way for the U.S. to reduce its reliance on "expensive, undependable oil imports."

Powertrain
American Motors entered into a partnership with Gulton Industries of Metuchen, New Jersey (acquired by Mark IV Industries in 1986 ) to develop the battery and power handling electronics for the car. Their entry into the electric car market was significantly more advanced than other developments, including two types of batteries for fast and slow power release and charging, as well as regenerative brakes to help extend range.<

The primary power source consisted of two 75 lb lithium-nickel-fluoride batteries rated at 150 watt-hours per pound, or 331 watt-hours per kilogram, with a total capacity of 22.5 kWh. The designers selected lithium for the Amitron because "it is both highly reactive (easy to oxidize) and has high electromotive potential." The downside to these batteries is that they have relatively low instantaneous power, too little to provide reasonable acceleration, or be able to handle the rapid recharging during regenerative braking. A secondary power source consisting of two 24 lb nickel-cadmium (NiCd, often read ni-cad) batteries was used to handle higher power peaks. These batteries could accelerate the car to 50 mph in 20 seconds. During driving, the lithium batteries recharged the ni-cads, which continued to power the motor.

The regenerative system would automatically switch the drive motors to generators as the car slowed so that the ni-cads could recharge, thus increasing the range of the car. The regenerative braking control was designed "to provide the same brake pedal "feel" as a conventional car. This was the first use of regenerative braking technology in the U.S. automobile industry.

Altogether, the system provided the car with a range of 150 mi when traveling at 50 mph. Its total battery weight of only 200 lb was also light for electric vehicles. The equivalent in lead-acid cells would weigh nearly a ton (907 kg). A solid-state power management system controlled the entire system.

The first road tests of the batteries and powertrain were in 1968 using a converted conventional Rambler American sedan. At the time, AMC's vice president of design, Dick Teague, was working on a car called "the Voltswagon". The supporters of the Amitron were confident and stated that "We don't see a major obstacle in the technology. It's just a matter of time."

Body
The Amitron was designed to minimize power loss by keeping down rolling resistance, wind drag resistance, and vehicle weight. The prototype was a snub-snouted three-passenger urban area vehicle or city car with an overall length of only 85 in. Among its unique design features were passenger seats that had air-filled cushions, rather than conventional polyurethane (foam rubber). The car did not feature conventional bodyside doors, but the canopy of the vehicle was hinged up and backward ("clamshell-type" on rear-mounted pivots ) for entry and egress.

American Motors put more effort into making its prototype electric car more attractive than its competitors. "The modern looking Amitron was one of the most promising electrics developed in the Sixties." During the December 1967 public introduction of the car, Roy D. Chapin Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of AMC, stated that the Amitron "could eliminate many problems that up to this point have made electric-type cars impractical".

Potential market
American Motors' original plans were to offer the Amitron for sale to commuters and urban shoppers in five years. Chapin said AMC had discussed the venture with its bankers and creditors, and "they are about as enthusiastic about it". The Amitron was also well received by the public. The new technology was still in the infant stage and it was not expected to be popular "until the end of the decade." Competitors were also skeptical of AMC's rapid deployment, stating it would take ten years to have a practical battery. Moreover, research programs to develop clean transportation in the U.S. ceased. The Amitron did not go beyond the prototype stage. The expensive batteries forced AMC to halt further experiments with advanced technology electric vehicles for several years.

Legacy
The AMC Pacer was influenced by the Amitron's short, wide dimensions, along with optionally including three front seats. The abruptly terminating rear end of the concept car influenced the AMC Gremlin.

American Motors' battery-powered vehicle development continued under a partnership with Gould (Gould Electronics after selling its battery operations ) that led to the mass production of the Jeep DJ-5E starting in 1974. This rear-wheel-drive mini-delivery van was also known as the Electruck. Regenerative braking was effective at speeds above 22.5 mph and the system included current-limiting to prevent overcharging the lead-acid batteries.

In 1977, AMC introduced their "Concept 80" line of experimental vehicles, which included the AM Van, Grand Touring, Concept I, Concept II, and Jeep II. Along with this lineup, AMC renamed the Amitron to Electron, added side-view mirrors to the windows, and gave it a fresh paint job. The show car was not driveable because it did not have a power train.

The design has been characterized by some observers as "hot, sexy, cute and practical." The exterior's angular design was also ahead of its time because it was not until the 1970s that wedge-shaped bodies were finally adopted for production cars. The Amitron featured a polygonal exterior design that "looks like a miniature Cybertruck" that was unveiled in late 2019 by Tesla, Inc.

The AMC car "laid down principles that looked to represent the future of urban travel, but it was just too advanced for its own good." "The AMC Amitron had almost 50 years ago all that is still considered indispensable for an electric car if it is supposed to succeed: a decent range, low weight, and a jaunty look."

title: AMC Amitron


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Vrbas (river)

The Vrbas (Врбас, ) is a major river with a length of 250 km, in western Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a right tributary of the Sava river. The city of Banja Luka is located on the river banks.

Etymology
The word vrba means 'willow' in Serbo-Croatian, and a number of weeping willow trees adorn the river banks in Banja Luka.

It lent its name to one of the provinces (banovinas) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Vrbas Banovina.

Tributaries
The most important right tributaries are the Desna river, the Ugar, and the Vrbanja, and left: Prusačka river, Semešnica, the Pliva, the Crna Rijeka (Black River), and the Suturlija, which are located in the middle part of the basin.

Geography and sectioning
It is a right tributary of the river Sava. It is one of the largest rivers in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Upper Vrbas
The Vrbas river appears at the southern slope of the Vranica mountain near the town of Gornji Vakuf, at around 1530 m above sea level and it drains central part of the northern slopes of the Dinaric mountain massif. The Upper Vrbas is a section between its source and town of Jajce, encompassing entire valley between Bugojno, Gornji Vakuf-Uskoplje and Donji Vakuf, and gorge between Donji Vakuf and Jajce.

Middle Vrbas
Middle Vrbas mostly comprises a canyon section, with steep slopes and narrow passages, between Jajce and Banja Luka.

Lower Vrbas
The Lower Vrbas is the last section of the river, passing through lowlands of Lijevče Polje, approaching the Sava River. It empties into the Sava river at around 90 m above sea level. Total length of the main watercourse is around 250 km.

Climate
Average annual rainfall is around 800 L/m2 at the mouth of the Vrbas to the Sava river and up to 1500 L/m2 in the southern part of the basin. Characteristic mean flow is around 34.6 L/s/km2. Maximum rainfall occurs in the southern parts of the Vrbas basin in the late autumn and winter months, with minimum quantities in summer, whereas the northern parts of the basin receive the largest quantities of rain during the summer months (June–July), with the maximum in November and December.

Ichthyofauna
The Vrbas basin is known for an abundant ichthyofauna, rich in species, and recreational and fly fishing are very popular on entire cours of the river. Especially important but critically endangered is huchen, variation of hucho species endemic for the river Danube basin (hence known as Danube Salmon or Danube Taimen; Lat. Hucho hucho). Of all the Vrbas tributaries only the river Vrbanja, and possibly Ugar, also retain healthy population of this endemic fish. Vrbas are headwaters are important spawning grounds for both, huchen and its prey, Common nase (Chondrostoma nasus) and Grayling (Thymallus thymallus).

Tourism and recreation
Rafting is very popular on the Vrbas. It is also one of the most popular form of recreation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The main attraction of the area is Vrbas canyon.

In 2005, the European Championships in Rafting were held on the Vrbas and the Tara rivers in Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to the International Rafting Federation, the event was hugely successful. In May 2009 the World Rafting Championships were held again in Bosnia and Herzegovina on the Vrbas and Tara rivers.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Vrbas (river)


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Neretva

The Neretva (Неретва, ), also known as Narenta, is one of the largest rivers of the eastern part of the Adriatic basin. Four hydroelectric power plants with large dams (higher than 15 metres) provide flood protection, electicity and water storage. The Neretva is recognized for its natural environment and diverse landscapes.

Freshwater ecosystems have suffered from an increasing population and the associated development pressures. One of the most valuable natural resources of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia is its freshwater resource, contained by an abundant wellspring and clear rivers. Situated between the major regional rivers (Drina river on the east, Una river on the west and the Sava river) the Neretva basin contains the most significant source of drinking water.

The Neretva is notable among rivers of the Dinaric Alps region, especially regarding its diverse ecosystems and habitats, flora and fauna, cultural and historic heritage.

Its name has been suggested to come from the Indo-European root *ner, meaning "to dive". The same root is seen in the Serbo-Croatian root "roniti".

Geography and hydrology
The Neretva flows through Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia before reaching the Adriatic Sea. It is the largest karst river in the Dinaric Alps in the eastern part of the Adriatic basin/watershed. Its total length is 225 km, of which 208 km are in Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the final 22 km are in the Dubrovnik-Neretva County of Croatia.

The Neretva watershed is 11798 km2 in total; in Bosnia and Herzegovina 11368 km2 with the addition of the Trebišnjica river watershed and in Croatia, 430 km2. The average discharge at profile Žitomislići in Bosnia and Herzegovina is 233 m3/s and at the mouth in Croatia is 341 m3/s in addition to the Trebišnjica River's 402 m3/s. The Trebišnjica River basin is included in the Neretva watershed due to a physical link of the two basins by the porous karst terrain.

The hydrological parameters of Neretva are regularly monitored in Croatia at Metković.

Sections

Geographically and hydrologically the Neretva is divided into three sections.

Its source and headwaters gorge are situated deep in the Dinaric Alps at the base of the Zelengora and Lebršnik mountains, specifically under the Gredelj saddle. The river source is at 1,227 meters above sea level and consists of five small and distinct wellsprings. On its 90 kilometers course through the first section the Neretva cuts two distinct deep and narrow canyons and two distinct wide and fertile valleys, around Ulog and then Župa Komska, wider area around Glavatičevo, before it reaches town of Konjic. This section is also better known as the Upper Neretva (Gornja Neretva), and here river flows generally from east-southeast to north-northwest as do most Bosnia and Herzegovina rivers belonging to the Danube watershed, and covers some 1390 km2 with an average elevation of 1.2%. Right below Konjic, the Neretva again expands into a third and largest valley which provided fertile agricultural land before it was flooded by large artificial reservoir, Jablaničko Lake, formed after construction of a Jablanica Dam near town of Jablanica.

The second section begins from the confluence of the Neretva and the Rama between Konjic and Jablanica where the Neretva suddenly takes almost 180° degrees turn toward east-southeast and flows the short leg before reaches town of Jablanica, from which point turns again toward south. From Jablanica, the Neretva enters third and the largest canyon on its course, running through the steep slopes mountains of Prenj, Čvrsnica and Čabulja reaching 800 – in depth. Three hydroelectric dams operate between Jablanica and Mostar.

When the Neretva expands for the second and final time, it reaches its third section. This area is often colloquially called the "Bosnian and Herzegovinian California". The last 30 km of its course forms wide alluvial delta, before the river empties into the Adriatic Sea.

Tributaries
Rivers of the Tatinac (also known as the Jezernica), the Gornji Krupac and Donji Krupac, the Ljuta (also known as the Dindolka), the Jesenica, the Bjelimićka Rijeka, the Slatinica, the Račica, the Rakitnica, the Ljuta (Konjička), the Trešanica, the Neretvica, the Rama, Doljanka, the Drežanka, the Grabovica, the Radobolja, and the Trebižat flow into the Neretva from the right, while the Jezernica, the Živanjski Potok (also known as the Živašnica), the Lađanica, the Krupac, the Bukovica, the Šištica with its Šištica Waterfall, the Bijela, the Idbar, the Glogošnica, the Mostarska Bijela, the Buna, the Bregava, and the Krupa flow into it from the left.

Towns and villages
Towns and villages on the Neretva include Ulog, Glavatičevo, Konjic, Čelebići, Ostrožac, Jablanica, Grabovica, Drežnica, Bijelo polje, Vrapčići, Mostar, Buna village, the historical town of Blagaj, Žitomislići, the historical village of Počitelj, Tasovčići, Čapljina, and Gabela in Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Metković, Opuzen, Komin, Rogotin, and Ploče in Croatia. The biggest town on the Neretva River is Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Upper Neretva
The upper course of the Neretva river is simply called the Upper Neretva  (Gornja Neretva). It includes numerous streams and well-springs, three major glacial lakes near the river and more lakes scattered across the mountains of Treskavica and Zelengora in the wider area, mountains, peaks and forests, flora and fauna of the area. The Upper Neretva has water of Class I purity and is almost certainly the coldest river water in the world, often as low as 7–8 degrees Celsius in the summer months. Rising from the base of the Zelengora and Lebršnik Mountain, Neretva headwaters run in undisturbed rapids and waterfalls, carving steep gorges reaching 600 – in depth.

Rakitnica River
The Rakitnica is the main tributary of the first section (Gornja Neretva). The Rakitnica River forms a 26 km long canyon, out of its 32 km length, that stretches between Bjelašnica and Visočica to the southeast from Sarajevo. From the canyon, a hiking trail along the ridge of the Rakitnica canyon drops 800 m below, to the famous village of Lukomir. The village is the only remaining traditional semi-nomadic Bosniak mountain village in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At almost 1,500 m, Lukomir features stone homes with cherry-wood roof tiles. It is the country's highest and most isolated mountain village. The village is inaccessible from the first snows in December until late April and sometimes even later, except by skis or on foot.

Middle Neretva
Hydrographically the Middle Neretva section begins from the town of Konjic, but after the construction of Jablanica Hydroelectric Power Station and flooding of the large fertile valley between Konjic and Jablanica, known simply as "Neretva" since Middle Ages. The new point for hydrographical division became the dam of the Jablanica HPP where there also is a place of confluence of the rivers Neretva and Rama. Here the Neretva river suddenly takes an almost 180° turn towards the east-southeast and flows for a short leg before it reaches the town of Jablanica. From this point it turns again toward the south and enters the third and largest canyon on its course, running through the steep slopes of the mountains of Prenj, Čvrsnica, and Čabulja, reaching between 800 – in depth. This section is characterized by a steep and relatively narrow canyon, and rugged karstic geology and hydrology.

Four enormous vale-size rifts appear in the mountainsides forming canyon walls, two from each side of the river, intersecting with the main canyon almost perpendicularly. The Neretva receives only four small streams in this section, all running through these side vales, which are relatively short. Going downstream from Jablanica, the first two from each side are the Glogošnica stream, its eponymous canyon and small village on the left, and the Grabovica stream with its eponymous canyon and historical village, from the right side. Further downstream two much larger vales appear again on each side, first on the right the stream of Drežanka and its large and steep valley, with two eponymous villages, Donja (Lower) and Gornja (Upper) Drežnica, and than Mostarska Bijela, as one of the most pristine vales in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with its eponymous uniquely characteristic subterranean stream, embedded deep into the Prenj mountain, on the left.

Although these streams are of low outflow, there are also numerous wellsprings rising on both sides of the canyon at the river banks, with high-capacity discharge. Three large hydroelectric power stations operate in this section of the Neretva, between Jablanica and Mostar, namely Grabovica HPP, Salakovac HPP and Mostar HPP.

Lakes
Jablanica lake is a large artificial lake on the Neretva river, right below Konjic where the Neretva expands into a wide valley. The river provided fertile, agricultural land before the lake flooded most of it. The lake was created in 1953 after construction of a large gravitational hydroelectric dam near Jablanica in central Bosnia and Herzegovina. The lake has an irregular, elongated shape, and its width varies along its length. The lake is a popular vacation destination.

Lower Neretva
Downstream from the confluence of its tributaries, the Trebižat and Bregava Rivers, the valley spreads into an alluvial fan covering 20000 ha. The upper valley, the 7,411 hectares in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is called Hutovo Blato.

Hutovo Blato wetlands
The Neretva Delta has been recognised as a Ramsar site since 1992, and Hutovo Blato since 2001. Both areas form one integrated Ramsar site that is a natural entity divided by the state border. The Important Bird Areas programme, conducted by Birdlife International, covers protected areas in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Since 1995, Hutovo Blato has been protected as Hutovo Blato Nature Park and managed by a public authority. The whole zone is protected from human impact and provides habitat for many plants and animals. The historical site Old Fortress Hutovo Blato is in the Nature Park.

Gornje Blato-Deransko Lake is supplied by the karstic water sources of the Trebišnjica River, emerging from bordering hills. It is hydro-geologically connected to the Neretva River through its effluent, the Krupa River, formed out of five lakes (Škrka, Deranja, Jelim, Orah, Drijen). Large portions are permanently flooded and isolated by wide groves of reedbebds and trees. It represents a more interesting preserved area.

Krupa River
The Krupa River is a Neretva left tributary and the main water current of Hutovo Blato, which carries the waters from Gornje Blato and Svitavsko Lake into the Neretva River. The length of Krupa is 9 km with an average depth of 5 m. The Krupa does not have a specific source, but is an arm of Deransko Lake. Also, the Krupa is a unique river in Europe, because it flows both ways. It flows both towards and back from its mouth. This happens when a high water level causes Neretva to push Krupa in the opposite direction.

Neretva Delta wetlands
Passing towns and villages in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Neretva spills out into the Adriatic Sea, building a wetland delta that is listed under the Ramsar Convention as internationally important. In this lower alluvial valley in Croatia, the Neretva River splinters into multiple courses, creating a delta covering approximately 12,000 hectares. The delta in Croatia has been reduced by extensive land reclamation projects, reducing the river flows to just three branches from the original twelve. The marshes, lagoons and lakes that once dotted this plain have disappeared and only fragments of the old Mediterranean wetlands survive. Wetlands, marshes and lagoons, lakes, beaches, rivers, hummocks (limestone hills) and mountains compose the delta, with five protected areas with a total area of 1,620 ha. These are ornithological, ichthyologic and landscape reserves.

Endemic and endangered species
Dinaric karst water systems support 25% of the total of 546 fish species in Europe, many endemic. The Neretva River, together with four other areas in the Mediterranean, has the largest number of threatened freshwater fish species. The degree of endemism in the karst ecoregion is greater than 10%. Multiple fish species have small habitats and are vulnerable, so they are included on the Red List of endangered fish. The Adriatic basin has 88 species of fish, of which 44 are Mediterranean endemic species, and 41 are Adriatic endemic species. More than half of the Adriatic river basin species of fish inhabit the Neretva, the Ombla, the Trebišnjica, the Morača Rivers and their tributaries, and more than 30 are endemic.

Invasive species
A pike perch (Sander lucioperca Linnaeus 1758) (also see Sander (genus)) population in the Neretva River watershed was observed in 1990 for the first time. The Rama River, a right tributary of the Neretva, and its Rama Lake received an unknown quantity of this allochthonous species. Population estimates have increased in the Neretva accumulation lakes. This fact confirms previous scientific assumptions of Škrijelj (1991, 1995), who predicted the possibility of pike perch displacement (migration) from Ramsko Lake to the Rama River and then further downstream to the river and its lakes. In 1990 the perch population made up 1.95% of the fish population in Rama Lake. Within a decade this rose to 25.42% in the nearby Jablaničko Lake.

The fast pace of pike perch population growth and displacements is expected to match the environmental conditions from the mid-ecological valence of this fish. In this sense, it is the established continuous and accelerated growth of the population dynamics of pike perch in Jablaničko Lake, a relatively good representation in Salakovačko Lake and the beginning of growth of population in Grabovičko Lake. Parallel with the increase in pike perch is a decrease in endemic indigenous species like European chub also white chub (Squalius cephalus), and the disappearance of rare and endemic species like Adriatic Dace also Balkan dace (Squalius svallize also Leuciscus svallize Heckel & Kner 1858), Neretvan softmouth trout (Salmothymus obtusirostris oxyrhinchus Steind.) and marble trout (Salmo marmoratus Cuv.).

Pike perch causes clearly visible, negative effects on the autochthonous species in Jablaničko Lake. In Salakovačko Lake these effects are in progress, although less visible, while in Grabovičko Lake it is not yet clearly visible.

Salmonids

Salmonid fish from the Neretva basin show considerable variation in morphology, ecology and behaviour.

Among most endangered are three endemic species of trout: Neretvan softmouth trout (Salmothymus obtusirostris oxyrhinchus Steind.), Toothtrout (Salmo dentex) and marble trout (Salmo marmoratus Cuv.).

All three endemic trout species of the Neretva are endangered, mostly due to the habitat destruction or construction of large/major dams ("large" is higher than 15–20 m; "major" is over 150–250 m). Other problems include hybridization or genetic pollution with introduced, non-native trouts, illegal fishing and poor water and fisheries management.

Cyprinids
The most endangered cyprinids (family Cyprinidae) are endemic.

Especially interesting are five Phoxinellus (sub)species that inhabit isolated karstic plains (fields) of eastern as well as western Herzegovina in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which eventually reach the Neretva watershed and/or coastal drainages of south-eastern Dalmatia.

 * Karst minnow (Phoxinellus metohiensis) is considered Vulnerable (VU).
 * South Dalmatian minnow (Phoxinellus pstrossii) is threatened, but was marked Data Deficient (DD) and was not designated on IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Version 2009.1.
 * Dalmatian minnow (Phoxinellus ghetaldii) is considered vulnerable.
 * Adriatic minnow (Phoxinellus alepidotus) is endemic to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia and occurs in lowland water bodies with little current. It is threatened due to pollution and habitat destruction. It is considered endangered.
 * Spotted minnow (Phoxinellus adspersus), is endemic in the Tihaljina River, which is fed by underground waters from Imotsko field and is connected to the Trebižat river via the Mlada River. It also occurs in Mostarsko Blato wetlands. Fish were found in the source of the Norin River, a right-hand tributary of the lower Neretva at Metković, in Croatia, at Kuti Lake, a left-hand tributary of the lower Neretva, at Imotsko field in Red Lake (Croatia) and the Vrljika river drainage and near Vrgorac in the Matica River system. It is considered vulnerable.
 * Minnow nase (Chondrostoma phoxinus) is considered Critically Endangered (CR)
 * Neretvan nase (also Dalmatian nase and Dalmatian soiffe) (Chondrostoma knerii) is endemic to the Neretva. Neretvan nase is mainly distributed in the lower parts and delta, the Krupa River, Nature Park Hutovo Blato wetlands and Neretva Delta wetlands. It occurs in water bodies with little current. It is threatened by habitat destruction and pollution. It is considered Vulnerable (VU).
 * Adriatic dace also Balkan dace (Squalius svallize also Leuciscus svallize Heckel & Kner 1858) is a vulnerable endemic, although also found in Montenegro and Albania. Adults inhabit water bodies on the low plains, with little current and in lakes. They feed on invertebrates. It is threatened due to pollution, habitat destruction and due to introduction of other species.
 * Illyrian dace (Squalius illyricus also Leuciscus illyricus Heckel & Kner 1858) inhabits karstic waters of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Albania. It occurs in water courses on low plains, with little current. It feeds on invertebrates. It is stressed by habitat destruction, pollution and introduced species. It is considered Near Threatened (NT).
 * Turskyi dace (Leuciscus turskyi also Squalius turskyi turskyi and Telestes turskyi) inhabits karstic waters, lake Buško Blato and the Krka and Čikola rivers. It occurs on the low plains, with little current and in lakes. It feeds on invertebrates. Threats include water abstraction and pollution. It is considered Critically Endangered (CR).
 * Dalmatian barbelgudgeon (Aulopyge hugeli) inhabits karstic streams of Glamocko field, Livanjsko field and Duvanjsko field, lakes Buško Blato, Blidinje and Cetina, Krka and Zrmanja river drainages. It occurs in lentic waters and feeds on plants. The fish is threatened by water pollution and habitat destruction and is considered endangered. It is migratory in Livanjsko field.

Cobitidae
The Neretvan spined loach (Cobitis narentana Karaman, 1928) is an Adriatic watershed endemic that inhabits a narrow area of the Neretva watershed in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Bosnia and Herzegovina it inhabits only the lower Neretva and its smaller tributaries like the Matica River. In Croatia it is a strictly protected species and inhabits only the Neretva delta and its smaller tributaries, the (Norin) and lake systems of the Neretva delta (Baćina lakes, Kuti, Desne, Modro oko). It is considered Vulnerable (VU).

Neretva delta endemics
The Neretva delta hosts more than 20 endemic species, of which 18 are endemic to the Adriatic watershed, along with three endemic species in Croatia. Nearly half (45%) of the total number of species that inhabit this area are included in one of the categories of threat and are mainly endemic.

Hydroelectric controversy
The benefits brought by hydroelectric dams have come at an environmental and social cost. The waters of the Neretva river with its two main tributaries, the Rama and the Trebišnjica, are already harnessed by nine Hydroelectric power plants with large dams, four on the Neretva's main stream, one with a major dam on the Rama tributary, and another four on the Trebišnjica River (one of these being in Croatia).

These facilities are as follows:
 * on the Neretva: Jablanica Hydroelectric Power Station, Grabovica Hydroelectric Power Station, Salakovac Hydroelectric Power Station, Mostar Hydroelectric Power Station;
 * on the Rama: Rama Hydroelectric Power Station;
 * on the Trebišnjica: Trebinje-1 Hydroelectric Power Station, Trebinje-2 Hydroelectric Power Station, Čapljina Hydroelectric Power Station, Dubrovnik Hydroelectric Power Station (in Croatia).

There are additionally a number of hydroelectric power station of various capacities on smaller tributaries, such as Mostarsko Blato Hydroelectric Power Station on the Lištica (downstream from HPP named Jasenica), Peć Mlini Hydroelectric Power Station on the Trebižat, and numerous small hydro projects on the small river tributaries like Tatinac, Trešanica, Neretvica and Duščica, with a proposed small hydro on the rivers Doljanka, Glogošnica, and one abandoned on the Idbar.

Projects in Upper Neretva
The government of the Bosnia and Herzegovina has unveiled plans to build three more hydroelectric power plants with dams over 150.5 metres in height upstream from the existing plants, beginning with Glavaticevo Hydro Power Plant in the village of Glavatičevo, then going upstream to Bjelimići Hydro Power Plant and Ljubuča Hydro Power Plant located near the eponymous villages; and another, by the Republic of Srpska, at the Neretva headwaters gorge, near the source of the river. It is similarly opposed by environmental organizations and NGO's, such as Zeleni-Neretva Konjic and the World Wildlife Fund.

Meanwhile, Bosnia and Herzegovina entity, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was preparing a parallel plan to form a large, protected area as a national park which would include the entire region of Gornja Neretva (Upper Neretva), and have within the park the three hydroelectric plants. The latest idea is that the park should be divided in two, where the Neretva should be excluded from both and would become the boundary between parks. Those who oppose the plan wish to have the area turned into the National Park of Upper Neretva and would leave the park without substantial development.

Projects in Ulog
Since the 2000's, the other entity of Bosnia, Republica Srpska, has developed plans to construct up to eight Hydroelectric power plants, seven small hydroelectric power plants, and one large, namely HE Ulog, on the stretch of the Neretva with high ecological value, which lies within the entity's administrative lines. This stretch consists of around 40 kilometers of the course of the Neretva between its source and the entity boundary at Ljusići village. Opposition to these plans, and ongoing construction of HE Ulog in particular, attracted both domestic and international experts, activists and public, who voiced their opposition with scientific arguments, even taking the issue to European Council. Irregularities in planning and design, the flawed environmental impact study and the complete absence of research work on the ground related to the geological instability of the terrain, as well as irregularities in the implementation of tenders and the issuance of environmental and construction permits, are particularly noteworthy. In the environmental impact study, the only significant impact, one that should be reflected on the downstream part of the Neretva watercourse, is completely ignored. Such drastic disregard in planning and designing, considering that the facilities of HE Ulog are located on the very line of demarcation of two ethnically based entities, which makes the downstream of the river located entirely in another administrative entity, where all the ecological consequences resulting from the use of Neretva water and the production of electricity will be felt exclusively, introduces, besides environmental, also an ethnic and political dimension to the issue.

The Upper Horizons - Trebišnjica
In recent times the Republic of Srpska government finished the project named The Upper Horizons (Gornji horizonti), a large hydroelectric project that diverted underground waters in the Neretva watershed to the Trebišnjica plant and others in the Trebišnjica basin. This project was opposed by NGO's in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. They argued that the project would increase salinity levels of every surface and underground water on the right bank of the Neretva, damage internationally recognized Ramsar sites, a protected Nature Park Hutovo Blato in Bosnia and Herzegovina, protected Neretva Delta in Croatia, and important reservoirs of freshwater, plus agricultural lands in the lower Neretva valley.

Early history
During antiquity, the Neretva was known as Narenta, Narona and Naro(n),  and was the inland home to the ancient Illyrian tribe of Ardiaei. They became ship builders, seafarers and fishermen. Archaeological discoveries of Illyrian culture dealt both with daily and religious life such as the discovery of ancient Illyrian shipwrecks found in Hutovo Blato, in the vicinity of the Neretva River. After intense excavations in the area of Hutovo Blato in the autumn of 2008, archaeologists from Bosnia and Herzegovina University of Mostar and Sweden University of Lund found traces of an Illyrian trading post that was more than two thousand years old. The find is unique in a European perspective and archaeologists have concluded that Desilo, as the location is called, was an important trading post of great significance for contact between the Illyrians and the Romans. Archaeological finds include the ruins of a settlement, the remains of a harbour that probably functioned as a trading post, as well as many sunken boats, fully laden with wine pitchers – so-called amphorae – from the 1st century BC. Archaeologist Adam Lindhagen claimed that it was the most important Illyrian ruin.

Roman period
One of the most significant monuments of Roman times in Bosnia and Herzegovina is Mogorjelo. Located 1 kilometer south of the town of Čapljina, Mogorjelo remnants of the old Roman suburban Villa Rustica from the 4th century represents ancient Roman agricultural production and estate, mills, bakeries, olive oil refinery and forges. The Villa was destroyed in the middle of the 4th century, during the invasion of western Goths. Surviving residents did not restore it to its original splendor. The name of Mogorjelo is thought to be derived either from the Slavic word for "burn" (Slavic – goriti) or that at the end of the 5th century the church was built on the ruins of the Villa, and was dedicated to St. Hermagor – Mogoru.

Middle Ages
In the Early Middle Ages, the South Slavic Narentines held the region. They were known for piracy and resisted Christianization until they were defeated by the Venetians, and then the Byzantines, at the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries.

Gabela is a rich archaeological site on the Neretva bank, situated 5 km south of Čapljina. Along with notable medieval buildings, remains of Old City walls, and a sculpture of a stone lion – a symbol of Venetian culture survived.

Ottoman period
The Old Bridge was commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1557 to replace an older wooden suspension bridge. Construction began in 1557 and took nine years: according to the inscription the bridge was completed in 974 AH, corresponding to the period between 19 July 1566 and 7 July 1567. Memories and legends and the name of the builder, Mimar Hayruddin (student of the Old/Great Sinan (Mimar Sinan / Koca Sinan), the Ottoman architect) were preserved in writing. Charged under pain of death to construct a bridge of such unprecedented dimensions, the architect reportedly prepared for his own funeral on the day the scaffolding was finally removed from the completed structure. Upon its completion it was the widest man-made arch in the world. Associated technical issues remain obscure: how the scaffolding was erected, how the stone was transported from one bank to the other, and how the scaffolding was maintained during construction. On 9 November 1993, during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina it was destroyed by sustained artillery shelling. After the war, immediate plans were raised to reconstruct the bridge as a symbol of peace and ethnic harmony, literally bridging the two sides of the conflict. They attempted to reuse as much original material as possible. Salvage operations, funded by the international community, raised the stones and the remains of the bridge from the river bed. Missing elements or parts that were not usable were cut from the original quarry. Now listed as a World Heritage Site, the bridge was rebuilt under the aegis of UNESCO. Its 1,088 stones were shaped according to the original techniques, at a cost of about €12 million. The grand opening was held on 23 July 2004.

It is traditional for the town's young men to leap from the 24 m bridge into the Neretva. The practice dates back to 1566, the time the bridge was built, and an event was held every summer in front of the populace. The first recorded instance of someone diving off the bridge is from 1664. In 1968 a formal diving competition was inaugurated and held every summer.

Počitelj is situated on a hill near Mostar and is easily accessible by bus. As with many other Bosnian sites, this town is Ottoman in design. It is a historic fortified town with a hostel (caravanserai) and a hamam beneath. A traditional mosque is there. During the Bosnian War Počitelj was badly damaged and most of its residents fled and never returned

World War II: Battle of the Neretva
The famous Battle of Neretva is a 1969 Oscar-nominated motion picture depicting events from the Second World War and the actual Battle of the Neretva. Codenamed Fall Weiß, the operation was a German plan for a combined attack launched in early 1943 against Yugoslav Partisans throughout occupied Yugoslavia. The offensive took place between January and April 1943. The operation used to be known, in socialist Yugoslav times, as the Fourth Enemy Offensive, or as the Battle for the Wounded.

At one point during the battle, the Partisans were caught in a pocket with their back to the Neretva River. Near Jablanica, 20,000 Partisans under command of Marshal Josip Broz Tito struggled to save some 4500 wounded comrades and typhus patients together with the Supreme Headquarters and Main Hospital, against some 150,000 Axis combatants.

In popular culture
Celebrated Bosnian and Herzegovinian poet, Mak Dizdar often used the river Neretva as motif in his poetry, alongside other historical, cultural and natural feature of his native Herzegovina. The famous Battle of Neretva is a 1969 Oscar-nominated motion picture depicting events from the World War II and the actual Battle of the Neretva. Many folk songs are written or performed with the Neretva as main theme.

title: Neretva


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William M. Meredith

William Morris Meredith (June 8, 1799 – August 17, 1873) was an American lawyer and politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He served as the United States Secretary of the Treasury, during President Zachary Taylor's Administration.

Early and family life
Born on June 8, 1799, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, William Morris Meredith was the eldest son of William Tuckey Meredith (died 1844), a successful attorney and after 1814 president of Schuylkill Bank, who narrowly lost to Nicholas Biddle the presidency of the Bank of the United States. During the year he was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar, 1795, William Tuckey Meredith married the writer and poet Gertrude Gouverneur Meredith (née Ogden) (died 1828). Gertrude was the niece of Lewis Morris, as well as of Gouverneur Morris, and highly educated and respected in her own right, as well as published in Dennie's Port Folio. The couple ultimately had eleven children. William Tuckey Meredith served on the Philadelphia Common and Select Councils, and on the Vestry of Christ Episcopal Church, among other leadership positions in the city. His brother Jonathan Meredith (d. 1872) was a leader of the Bar in Baltimore, Maryland. Another brother was the Civil War colonel Sullivan A. Meredith.

William M. Meredith graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1812 (graduation at age 13 not being unusual at the time). After assisting his father in the family's saddlery business, he read law, and was himself admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar.

After his mother's death in 1828, William Morris Meredith helped raise his younger siblings. On June 17, 1834, at the age of 35 and after a ten-year engagement, Meredith married the former Catherine Keppele (d. 1854). They had one son (William, b. 1838, later a published essayist and poet) and four daughters: Gertrude Gouverneur Meredith, Euphemia Ogden Meredith, Elizabeth Caldwell Meredith, Catherine Keppele Meredith. Catherine Meredith also helped care for her husband's siblings, and his father when he was disabled by a stroke in 1839.

Career
Meredith was admitted to the bar in 1817, and began practicing law. He drew considerable public attention, as did his slightly senior colleague James C. Biddle (later his brother-in-law), by questioning the conduct of Judge Frank Hallowell in Commonwealth v. Cook, a murder case in which three black men were charged with killing a boy. During the jury's deliberation, the American Daily Advertiser published an article which defense counsel thought highly biased. The judge allowed counsel to question jurors as to whether they read the article, and when the judge refused to dismiss a juror who said he was offended by Meredith's questioning, complained such that the judge held both lawyers in contempt of court and ordered them jailed for 30 days, despite considerable public sympathy. Upon their release, they secured release of two of the prisoners in an appeal on double jeopardy grounds. This gained Meredith a reputation for fearlessness and inflexible honesty, and he was elected President of the Philadelphia Bar Association the following year.

A Federalist, Meredith was then elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly, where he served in the minority for five years, from 1824 to 1828, the year of his mother's death (during which his father was grief-stricken and never fully recovered). One of his accomplishments was establishment of a House of Refuge for juvenile offenders, and he served as that institution's manager, and also on the board of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, in which capacity he continued to serve for many years until his death.

Meredith was president of the Philadelphia City Council from 1834 until 1849, and was a delegate to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention in 1837. That same year, he was elected as a member to the American Philosophical Society. Meredith also served as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania from 1841 to 1845. During that time, he prosecuted Alexander Holmes for manslaughter in the William Brown case.

A successful attorney, particularly after he secured termination of the German Lutheran Church's interment rights in Franklin Square in Commonwealth v. Allmyer, Meredith owned the Wheatland Estate in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, from May 1845 until December 1848 before selling it to future president James Buchanan. President Zachary Taylor, wanting a Pennsylvania Whig for his cabinet, appointed William M. Meredith to be the 19th Secretary of the Treasury. He began his term in office on March 8, 1849.

Meredith strongly opposed the free trade legislation passed the year before under his predecessor Robert J. Walker. He felt that there was a need to protect the American workman, who was subject to competition from poorly paid European labor. Meredith's principal contribution in office was his Annual Report of 1849 in which he set forth an elaborate argument for a protective tariff.

The increase in the public debt due to the Mexican–American War and the acquisition of California gave Meredith additional argument for raising revenue through higher import duties, but no action was taken on the tariff during Meredith's term. He also recommended a revision of the Coast Survey Code, which had not been changed since its implementation in 1806. The Coast Survey had seen great expansion and improvement with the introduction of steam powered ships and was in need of revision. Meredith resigned from his office as Secretary of the Treasury, upon President Taylor's death in 1850.

Civil War and later legal career
Meredith was elected Pennsylvania's attorney general in the 1860 election, and served for two terms (from 1861 until 1867). In 1861, as a delegate to a Peace Conference, he worked unsuccessfully to prevent the southern states from seceding from the Union. His brother Sullivan Amory Meredith had served in the Mexican War, and became a Brigadier General of Union Volunteers, commissioned in 1862, and the brothers helped assure Pennsylvania met its quota of troops. His son William served for a brief period as secretary to Major General George A. McCall, but his stutter and problems with cataracts caused him to resign that position.

William Meredith later served as a member of a commission working out the settlement of the Alabama claims, in 1870. The following year, President Ulysses Grant asked Meredith to travel to Geneva as senior counsel for the United States in an international arbitration proceeding, but he declined the position due to ill health. His last political post was as President of the 1872 Republican National Convention.

Death and legacy
Meredith died in Philadelphia in August 1873, at the age of 74. His wife, Catherine had died in 1854. Both are interred at the Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia.

The Historical Society of Pennsylvania holds the Meredith family papers. A Philadelphia school was named in his honor in 1931, and remains active today.

Meredith received one of only two 1849 Double Eagles while serving as Treasury Secretary. That 1849 Double Eagle is a pattern coin. The other coin is on display at the Smithsonian Institution. The coin was auctioned as part of his estate but its subsequent whereabouts are unknown.

title: William M. Meredith


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Amor (automobile)

The Amor was a small German automobile built in limited numbers in Cologne (Prussia) from 1924 to 1925; the car had a 16 hp four-cylinder proprietary engine. Its name means "love" in Latin, Spanish and Portuguese.

title: Amor (automobile)


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American Type Founders

American Type Founders (ATF) Co. was a business trust created in 1892 by the merger of 23 type foundries, representing about 85 percent of all type manufactured in the United States at the time. The new company, consisting of a consolidation of firms from throughout the United States, was incorporated in New Jersey.

The American Type Founders Co. should not be confused with the American Type Founders' Association, also called the Type Founders' Association of the United States. Both institutions are identified by the same acronym, ATF. The ATF Association was formed in 1864 and was responsible for establishing the American point system in 1886 based on 83 picas exactly equal to 35 cm. The ATF Co. was not formed until 1892. All but six of the 23 foundries in the company were members of the ATF Association.

The American Type Founders Co. was the dominant American manufacturer of metal type from its creation in 1892 until at least the 1940s; it continued to be influential into the 1960s. Many fonts developed by the ATF Co. in its period of dominance, including News Gothic, Century Schoolbook, Franklin Gothic, Hobo and Bank Gothic, remain in everyday use.

Type founding before the ATF Co.
By the beginning of the final decade of the nineteenth century, type founding was in a state of crisis. With the introduction of the Linotype, which could cast whole lines of body type in house, demand for hand-set type was in decline. Throughout the late 1880s, prices had been maintained by an informal cartel of foundries, but as the number of foundries increased, prices dropped dramatically, a trend accelerated by the invention of hot metal typesetting. Additionally, type at this time was not standardized, either to body size or to base line, and printers resented the incompatibility of types from different foundries. Leaders in the industry, notably Joseph W. Phinney of the Dickinson Type Foundry in Boston, set up a committee to address these problems, eventually recommending consolidation.

Consolidation and early years
By the late 1880s, there were some 34 foundries in the United States. In 1892, 23 foundries were brought together to form the American Type Founders Company. The Chicago Tribune (February 12, 1892) listed the 23 foundries as: Other foundries joined later. The key to the success of this merger was the inclusion of MacKellar, Smiths, & Jordan Co. of Philadelphia, with assets of over $6 million, the Cincinnati Type Foundry of Henry Barth, which brought with it the patents to his Barth Typecaster, and Benton, Waldo Foundry of Milwaukee, which included Linn Boyd Benton and his all-important Benton Pantograph which engraved type matrices directly instead of using punches and allowed the optical scaling of type. With the inclusion of the Barth Caster and the Benton Pantograph, ATF immediately became the largest and the most technologically advanced foundry in the world.
 * MacKellar, Smiths, & Jordan, Co. (Philadelphia),
 * Collins & M’Leester (Philadelphia),
 * Pelouse & Co. (Philadelphia),
 * James Conner's Sons (New York City),
 * P. A. Heinrich (New York City),
 * A. W. Lindsay (New York City),
 * Charles J. Carey & Co. (Baltimore),
 * John Ryan Co. (Baltimore),
 * J. G. Mengel & Co. (Baltimore),
 * Hooper, Wilson & Co. (Baltimore),
 * Boston Type Foundry (Boston),
 * Phelps, Dalton & Co. (Boston),
 * Lyman & Son (Buffalo),
 * Allison & Smith (Cincinnati),
 * Cincinnati Type Foundry (Cincinnati),
 * Cleveland Type Foundry (Cleveland),
 * Marder, Luse, & Co. (Chicago),
 * Union Type Foundry (Chicago),
 * Benton, Waldo & Co. (Milwaukee),
 * Central Type Foundry (St. Louis),
 * St. Louis Type Foundry (St. Louis),
 * Kansas City Type Foundry (Kansas City), and
 * Palmer & Rey (San Francisco).

Conditions for the first few years were chaotic: while 12 foundries ceased separate operations immediately member foundries continued to operate as if they were independent firms. Real consolidation did not begin until 1894, when Robert Wickham Nelson, principal owner of the Throne Typesetting Machine Company and a new stockholder in ATF, became general manager. He immediately began to liquidate unprofitable ventures, eliminate duplications, and force the various branches to do business under the ATF name instead of retaining their former ones. Linn Boyd Benton's son, Morris Fuller Benton, was given the job of purging obsolete and duplicated type faces from the catalogs, and standardizing the point size and baseline of the types made. Nelson, realizing that display and advertising type (rather than the body type that was set so efficiently by the new line-casters) would be the mainstay of the foundry type business, immediately began an extensive advertising campaign and commissioned the production of new type designs. Joseph W. Phinney was put in charge of the design department and he supervised the introduction of Cushing, Howland, Bradley, and the William Morris-inspired Satanick and Jenson Oldstyle, the last of these being hugely successful. Young Benton was then commissioned to finish Lewis Buddy's Elbert Hubbard-inspired Roycroft, another successful introduction.

While Phinney often used freelance designers, like Will Bradley, T.M. Cleland, Walter Dorwin Teague, Frederic Goudy, and Oz Cooper, the bulk of ATF's catalog through the 1930s was developed in-house, under the direction of Morris Fuller Benton. Under Benton's direction, the company embarked on a program of developing historical revivals, including ATF's versions of Bodoni and Garamond, as well as the development of new typefaces such as Century and (most successfully) Cheltenham, which for the first time were organized systematically into "type families" with a schedule of styles such as weight or width.

Another key player at the ATF Co. at this time was the advertising manager (and informal company historian) Henry Lewis Bullen, who in 1908 began assembling a library of historical typography and type specimen books for designers to draw upon. This collection was turned over to Columbia University's Rare Book and Manuscript Library in 1936, and acquired by the university in 1941. The books form the core of the book arts collection at Columbia. There is also an archive of ATF materials in Columbia's special collections.

In 1901, Nelson consolidated casting operations in a purpose-built factory in Jersey City and the branches remained only as distribution centers. By the 1920s, ATF had offices in 27 American cities and Vancouver, British Columbia, where it sold not only type, but pressroom supplies and printing presses (their own Kelly line and those of other manufacturers) as well. It printed large specimen books, with many examples of good layout as examples for the advertising market. In 1923, at a cost of $300,000, ATF produced its largest and most superlative type catalog. Sixty thousand of these opulent books, printed extensively in color, were distributed, and to this day they are considered to be masterpieces of the art of letterpress printing. The first paragraph of its preface boasted:

"The printing of 1923 is greatly superior to that of 1900. It has better style, more attractiveness and greater power and dignity...This great improvement has not come to pass without direction. There has been, in fact, very deliberate direction. There has been constant and forward thinking on behalf of the printing industry by the American Type Founders Company, which has a well defined policy with regard to the types it is making and has been making during the last quarter century. In what position, may we ask, would the printing industry be to-day without the great type families, known to fame as Cheltenham, Century [long list follows] and others? Are there anywhere any other type families? Would not your typography be barren in appearance and much less profitable to the advertisers if these great type designs had not been developed? There can be but one answer."

By the time Nelson died in 1926, the ATF Co. seemed to be on the path to permanent profitability.

Nelson's successor as president, Frank Belknap Berry (originally one of the founders of the Cleveland Type Foundry), was unpopular with the board and he was soon replaced by Joseph F. Gillick, whose first move was to shut down ATF's subsidiary Barnhard Brothers & Spindler in Chicago and bring their casting operations to Jersey City. Though the years immediately after Nelson's passing were disappointing, 1929 was the most profitable in ATF history.

Letterpress manufacturing
From 1914 to 1959 ATF manufactured letterpresses. During the 1920s and 1930s they also sold presses made by Chandler & Price, Laureate, and Thomson National Company.

Kelly Presses
When William M. Kelly (1869–1949), an employee in the sales department, proposed a design of automatic cylinder press, Nelson immediately authorized the project. The Kelly Style B Press, a three-roller, two-revolution, flat-bed cylinder press with automatic feeder and jogger was introduced in 1914 to great success. By 1923 more than 2,500 Kelly Presses had been sold and the next year production was shifted from Jersey City to a large new factory in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Several models were developed and, by 1949, more than 11,000 Kelly presses had been sold.

 * Kelly Series B, 17 × 22" press sheet, produced 1914–1937
 * Kelly Model #2, 22 × 34" press sheet, introduced in 1921
 * Kelly Automatic Jobber, 13 × 19.5" press sheet, introduced in 1923
 * Kelly Series A ("Baby Kelly"), 13.5 × 22" press sheet, introduced in 1925
 * Kelly Model #1, 22 × 28" press sheet, introduced in 1929
 * Kelly Series C, 17 × 22" press sheet, produced 1937–1954 (1959 UK)
 * Kelly Clipper ("the Pressman's Press"), 14 × 20" press sheet, produced 1938-1941
 * Kelly Model #3, 25 × 38" press sheet, produced 1949–1954 (1959 UK)

Production of Kelly presses ceased at ATF in 1954, though Vickers continued to produce two models in England until 1959.

Golding Press Division
In 1918 Golding & Company, a type foundry that also manufactured the Pearl line of letterpress, was acquired by ATF. These presses continued to be made and sold by the Golding Press Division of ATF until 1927, when the division was sold off to Thomson National Company.

Klymax Feeder
In addition to selling presses made by Chandler & Price, ATF produced the Klymax Feeder, which turned C&P's hand-fed Gordon jobber press into an automatically fed press. As such presses were ubiquitous, sales of this feeder were robust throughout the 1920s.

Little Giant
In the post-war years, ATF produced the Little Giant Automatic Cylinder Press, a smaller (12" x 18" sheet size), more compact press of much more modern design than the Kelly presses. Production of this press ceased in 1959.

Depression and bankruptcy
Unfortunately for ATF, unlike printing consumables (like paper and ink), which must be purchased anew for each job, type wears slowly and its purchase can be postponed in hard times, while capital investment in new presses simply dries up, and so ATF was especially hard hit by the Depression. Also, the company had been over-extended in the boom years, too much credit had been extended to the trade, inventories were bloated, and the corps of executives (many left over from pre-consolidation days) were older and without vision. With the financial downturn after 1929 ATF began to see serious distress. In 1931 hours were cut at the factories. The following year, sales were down another 25% and salaries were cut. When major accounting errors showed the company to be even less profitable than was thought, Gillick was forced to resign.

Thomas Roy Jones, a businessman with no experience in type founding, replaced Gillick. By 1933 the situation was desperate. Sales of type were less than 30% of 1926 levels while purchases of Kelly presses had plummeted to a mere 6.8% of what they had been. In October 1933 Jones filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy. ATF was placed under the control of its creditors (chiefly consisting of several banks) and drastic measures were taken. Operations were consolidated, the Jersey City plant was closed and the typecasting operations moved to the Kelly plant in Elizabeth. Salesmen were put on a commission basis. Inventories were cut, faces discontinued, and production of several models of Kelly press as well as the Klymax Feeder was shut down. ATF was released from court supervision in 1936, and in 1938 a sales study was made making the following observations: the Kelly press was obsolete, body type was now the exclusive province of line-casters and display type would have to be the mainstay of type production, almost half of what ATF was selling was other manufacturers' products that could easily be made in their own facilities, the acquisition of or merger with another firm in the letterpress industry would be desirable, as offset was a rising technology ATF needed to invest in that business.

Offset presses
In 1938, ATF purchased the Webendorfer-Wills Company and began producing their models of offset press. ATF sold these presses under the Chief name, marketing a Little Chief, Chief, and Big Chief. Large press (as opposed to duplicator) production continued until the late 1970s when the 25" Profiteer was discontinued as the basic Webendorfer design became obsolete. Once again, ATF had made the mistake they had with the Kelly press of complacently taking profits from a successful product, not investing in improvements, and eventually seeing this product become irretrievably overtaken by the competition. Beginning in the 1970s, arrangements to sell large offset presses under the Chief name were made with other manufacturers, first with MAN Roland and then with Solna.

War work and postwar direction
During the Second World War, the ATF plant in Elizabeth was converted almost entirely over to military production. Barth Casters were used to make firing pins and ATF operated two plants in Newark making ordnance.

After the war, ill-conceived efforts were made to diversify. A furniture manufacturer, Dystrom Corporation, was acquired. A competitor, Lanston Monotype, was purchased in 1969, but nothing came of this, the assets being sold off later to M&H Typefounders.

The decline of foundry type in this period might well be illustrated by the size of ATF specimen books. While the magnificent 1923 catalog was typical of its day at 1148 pages, subsequent editions were ever smaller. The 1934 catalog was only 207 pages, while the 1941 catalog was only slightly smaller at 191 pages. By 1956 the "descriptive index of types" was down to only 24 pages, but this recovered a little by 1966's catalog of 30 pages. The last ATF catalog, published in 1976 and distributed right to the end, was down to only 14 pages and, by the 1980s, came with an insert listing the faces that were no longer available.

Some innovations did take place during this period however. The brilliant lettering artist Charles H. Hughes was engaged to produce a new version of the popular Century Type that would reproduce the same in offset and letterpress and the result was the lovely Century Nova (1965). ATF also produced the first optically scanning typeface, OCR-A, in 1969 and this remains the standard on printed bank checks to this day.

Photocomposition
A venture was made into photocomposition with the ATF Typesetter. Introduced in 1958, the first model was the "A". Not many were produced because the character fit left much to be desired. The most common model was the "B". Character fit was improved by expanding the Friden Flexowriter "Justowriter" escape mechanism to seven units. The first seven-unit typeface designed for the ATF Typesetter was a version of Baskerville by Tommy Thompson. The last and most advanced model based on the Friden mechanism was the "B-8", where an 18-increment system, was achieved by means of a series of electro-mechanical relays that could add one or two increments which were one-third of a unit to selected characters, without changing the basic mechanical escape mechanism of the model "B", except that it was scaled back to six units. This achieved an 18-unit system like that of the Monotype, but a single unit was called an "increment", while a group of three units was called a "unit" because those were the units dealt with in the Justowriter mechanism which previous models of the ATF Typesetter used exclusively.

ATF also was the authorized sales agent in the United States and several other countries for another film setting machine, the Hadego, which was a headliner, manufactured in the Netherlands from 1951, under license from its inventor, Hans de Goeij.

The last phototypesetter designed and produced by ATF was the Photocomp 20, so named because of its rated speed of twenty 11-pica newspaper lines per minute. It featured four stepper motors (1) to move the film across, (2) to move the type disk, (3) to advance the film to the next line, and (4) to set the size of one unit of escapement. Type disks contained four fonts, each including 17 pi characters. Its controller was the first ATF controller utilizing integrated circuits in place of relays. Circuitry was based on Motorola DTL integrated circuits. Machine styling of the Photocomp 20 was by Richard Arbib. Only 17 machines were sold: one in Vienna Austria, and the remainder in North America.

ATF produced type disks with all their popular type faces. These disks were concentric rings of fonts on a transparent plastic material in negative form. Usually these disks contained roman, italic and bold versions of the same face. There was even a disk with the only Canadian type design at the time, called "Cartier". The ATF Phototypesetter was sold worldwide—in Canada, Germany, Italy, Denmark, France, Belgium, England, etc. In Denmark, several newspapers were produced on ATF Phototypesetters by a company named "Reprodan". As technology improved, ATF failed to keep pace and eventually the line was discontinued.

Duplicators
In the mid-1950s the small offset (duplicator) market was dominated by Addressograph-Multilith's Multi-1250 almost without competition. A study undertaken by Whitin Machine Works, a manufacturer of textile making machinery looking to expand out of an industry depressed by the introduction of synthetic fabrics, suggested that "quick printing" done with duplicators was a growing market. Whitin thus acquired ATF in 1957, began to manufacture a small (10 x 15" sheet size) duplicator at their Whitinsville, Massachusetts facility, and to market this under the name ATF Chief 15. The basic design was by Louis Mestre, and it incorporated many large press features as he had free use of Webendorfer patents. As it gave large press performance, it was an immediate success with commercial printers (who were disdainful of duplicators), and the Chief line remained the best of the small presses until the introduction of Heidelberg's T-Offset in the late 1980s. A larger Chief 17 was introduced in the 1960s and the 1970s saw "common blanket" two color models of both the 15 and 17. Both Chief models were made and sold in Europe by Gestetner Cyclograph Company, and were also marketed in the United States by the Itek and Ditto corporations.

Though the Chief could produce superlative work, unlike the highly popular A.B. Dick 350, it required a skilled operator. Unfortunately for ATF, the quick printing industry had less use for such quality work and more need of a "fast and dirty" duplicator like the 350 and so its market penetration was limited.

In 1966 White Consolidated Industries acquired the Whitin Machine Works and with it control of ATF.

ATF later purchased the competing Davidson line of duplicators and changed their name to ATF-Davidson. Breaking their pattern of low investment in upgrading technology, ATF actually developed improved models of the Davidson and this line remained competitive right to the end. The Davidson however, was an unusual design (with two, rather than the usual three cylinders) and its popularity remained limited.

Divestiture of the foundry
By the 1980s the foundry in Elizabeth, New Jersey was down to only six employees and duplicator manufacture was the principle business of ATF-Davidson. In 1986 foundry was sold off to Kingsley Machines, a maker of foil-stamping type, and the merged company was renamed Kingsley/ATF. Immediately a bid was made to enter the field of digital typography with a software subsidiary being set up in Tucson. With its enormous library of type, and its patents on the optical scaling of type, a digital library of ATF types seemed to be a good investment. As the original drawings of the faces were mostly lost, these fonts had to be scanned from brass matrices, a daunting prospect. The work was well done, but slow, and only four faces (Wedding Text, Thompson Quill Script, Bernhard Fashion, and T.M. Cleland's border designs) were ever issued before Kingsley/ATF sought bankruptcy protection in 1993. An auction was held on August 23, 1993, and all the assets of the foundry were sold off, most of the priceless matrices going to scrap dealers. ATF designs remain the property of Kingsley Holding Corporation and are now licensed through Adobe and Bitstream. ATF's factory is now an apartment block.

Though ATF is now defunct, some of their original type casting machines and matrix engraving equipment are still in use at The Dale Guild Type Foundry in Howell, New Jersey. This equipment was saved through efforts coordinated by Theo Rehak, the last person trained to run these machines at ATF's Elizabeth, New Jersey facility.

ATF-Davidson and successor corporations
By the early 1980s, the Chief line needed updating and a crash program was undertaken to produce a press that could compete with the A.B.Dick 9800 series. The SuperChief was thus introduced in 1986 with many flaws. Most of these were worked out, and the basic design was re-launched in 1988 as the X-Press line. Unfortunately, this was too late to save the reputation of the Chief line and the company shut down in July 1990. After a period of confusion, Jim Hughes of Printer's Parts Store purchased the assets of the company and operated under the name of ATF-Graphic Products, selling presses that were on hand and supplying spare parts. Wishing to revive the Davidson line of presses, the Chief line was sold off to Jim Wheet who now supplies parts for existing presses under the name ATF Services Inc., while it is unclear if Printer's Parts remains interested in reviving the Davidson line of presses.

Branches after consolidation
From the merger in 1892 until 1903, when all typecasting was centralized in Jersey City, these foundries were consolidated into the following branches and codes: • ATF Foundry A (Code #1) at Boston

• * Dickinson Type Foundry

• ATF Foundry A (Code #2) at Boston

• * Boston Type Foundry

• ATF Foundry B (Code #3) at New York

• * James Conner's Sons

• * Benton, Waldo & Co.

• ATF Foundry C (Code #4) at Philadelphia

• * MacKellar, Smiths, & Jordan Co.'

• ATF Foundry D (Code #11) at Cincinnati

• * Cincinnati Type Foundry

• ATF Foundry E (Code #12) at Chicago

• * Marder, Luse, & Co.

• * Cleveland Type Foundry

• ATF Foundry F (Code #15) at St. Louis

• * Central Type Foundry at St. Louis

• ATF Foundry G (Code #23) at San Francisco

• * Palmer & Rey

• ATF Foundry H (Code #6) at Baltimore

• * The John Ryan Co.

Later mergers and acquisitions

 * Farmer, Little & Co., (1892, New York), (established 1810).
 * Central Type Foundry, (1893, St. Louis), (established 1870).
 * Boston Type Foundry, Boston, a subsidiary of Central of Saint Louis, (established 1817).
 * Bruce Type Foundry, (1901, New York), (established 1813).
 * H. L. Pelouze & Son Type Founders, (1901, Boston)
 * Barnhart Brothers & Spindler, (1911, Chicago), operated as an independent entity until 1929.
 * Western Type Foundry (St. Louis), bought by B.B.&S in 1918.
 * Advance Type Foundry (AKA Wiebking, Hardinge & Company), (Chicago), bought out by Western Type Foundry in 1914.
 * Inland Type Foundry (1912, St. Louis)
 * Golding & Company (1918, Boston), bought by Thomson National Company in 1927
 * Keystone Type Foundry (1919, Philadelphia), (established 1883).
 * H.C. Hansen Type Foundry (1922, Boston), (established 1872).
 * Webendorfer-Wills Company (1938, Mount Vernon, New York), a manufacturer of offset presses and the Little Giant letterpress cylinder press.
 * Dystrom Corporation, a furniture manufacturer
 * Davidson Corporation, a manufacturer of offset presses
 * Lanston Monotype, (1969, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), assets later sold off to M&H Typefounders.
 * Several other firms.

title: American Type Founders


text:
Ampère (car)

The Ampère was a French combustion automobile built at Billancourt from 1906 to 1909. The car featured a 10/16 hp four-cylinder engine driving through an electric clutch; according to the advertising material, this made for "variation of speed by electric transmission, with neither dynamo nor accumulators".

title: Ampère (car)


text:
User:Raph Levien

Raph Levien has many interests, including free software, formal logic, and 2D graphics, but most of his Wikipedia contributions seem to be about typography and font design, for some reason.

title: User:Raph Levien


text: User talk:203.188.255.163

title: User talk:203.188.255.163


text:
Gay Activists Alliance

The Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) was founded in New York City on December 21, 1969, almost six months after the Stonewall riots, by dissident members of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF). In contrast to the Liberation Front, the Activists Alliance solely and specifically served to gay and lesbian rights, declared themself politically neutral and wanted to work within the political system.

History
The group was incorporated by Hal Weiner, Esq., of Coles & Weiner, a two-person firm, after Weiner defended Sylvia Rivera in a criminal court proceeding where she had been arrested in Times Square while obtaining signatures on a petition for the first proposed LGBTQ legislation in the New York City Council, Intro 475, and charged with soliciting for the purpose of sex, rather than exercising a civil right to petition. The corporate certificate was rejected by the New York State Division of Corporations and State Records, on the grounds that the name was not a fit name for a New York corporation because of the connotation in which the word "gay" was being used, and that the corporation was being formed to violate the sodomy laws of New York. It took five years to win the right to incorporate under that name.

The founding members, seven men and one woman, of the Gay Activists Alliance were dissatisfied members of the Gay Liberation Front. Some of the founding members included Fred Orlansky, Arthur Bell, Arthur Evans, Marty Robinson, Tom Doerr, Peter Marleau, Kay Tobin Lahusen, and Fred Cabellero. The group members wanted to form a "single issue, politically neutral [organization], whose goal would be to "secure basic human rights, dignity and freedom for all gay people." The political neutrality and single-themedness stood in contrast to the Gay Liberation Front, which allied itself with the radical Black Panther Party, criticized the Vietnam War and had a hard left-wing, anti-capitalistic stance. GAA was most active from 1970 to 1974.

In one action in March 1970, the GAA organized protests against the police raid on the Snake Pit bar in Greenwich Village and the injuries suffered by Diego Viñales in the resulting chaos. These protests helped spark interest in the upcoming Christopher Street Liberation Day events already planned for 28 June. This event, scheduled to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall riots was the first Pride march celebration in the United States.

They published the Gay Activist newspaper until 1980. GAA first met at the Church of the Holy Apostles (9th Ave. & 28th St.) Their next New York City headquarters, the Firehouse at 99 Wooster Street in Soho, was occupied in May 1971 and burned down by arsonists on October 15, 1974. "By 1980 GAA had begun to sound like the Gay Liberation Front in 1969. After Activists met to officially disband the Alliance a year later..."

GAA members performed zaps (first conceived by Marty Robinson), raucous public demonstrations designed to embarrass a public figure or celebrity while calling the attention of both gays and straights to issues of LGBT rights. Some of their more visible actions included protests against an anti-gay episode on the popular TV series Marcus Welby, M.D., many zaps of Mayor John Lindsay at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and later at Radio City Music Hall, a zap against Governor Nelson Rockefeller (the "Rockefeller 5"), a zap at the Marriage License Bureau demanding marriage rights for gays, a zap against Fidelifacts, which provided anti-gay information to employers, a zap at the NYC Taxi Commission (which required gay cab drivers to get an OK from a psychiatrist before being employed), and a zap at the New York Daily News, which printed a scurrilous editorial attacking "queers, lezzies, pansies, call them what you will." Four were arrested. Although, GAA was nominally non-violent, zaps could sometimes involve physical altercations and vandalism. GAA co-founder Morty Manford got into scuffles with security and administration during his successful effort to found the student club Gay People at Columbia University in 1971, as well as at a famous protest against homophobia at the elite Inner Circle event in 1972. GAA was associated with a series of combative zaps against homophobic politicians and anti-gay activists in the summer of 1977. Although Time magazine derided them as "Gay goons", the actions succeeded in keeping the conservative backlash of the late-1970s out of New York state.

The GAA Firehouse on Wooster Street also served as a community center and had extremely popular dances that helped fund the organization. The stairwell was decorated with a photomontage agitprop mural created by the British artist Mario Dubsky (1939–85) and the American painter John Button (1929–82) both of whom were early victims of AIDS. The Mural was destroyed in the fire that destroyed the centre in 1974. The symbol of the Gay Activists Alliance was the lower case Greek letter lambda (λ).

Gay Activist Alliance Committees
The Gay Activist Alliance formed multiple sub-committees that allowed the organization to intensely focus on multiple gay and lesbians issue at one time. The committees were named after the issue they were devoted to. The following list of several different sub-committees illustrate the wide-ranging topics the subcommittees covered: Political projects, police power, municipal fair employment law, fair tax, municipal government committee, state government, legal committee, news, leaflets and graphics, fundraising, social affairs, orientations, speakers bureau and agitprop committee.

Firehouse Committee
This committee was dedicated to the upkeep of the Firehouse, which became its headquarters in 1971. The Firehouse Committee was in charge of organizing its iconic dances that aided in, "fostering Gay solidarity and understanding through social contact among all members of good will in the gay community." On the LGBTQ&A podcast, Charles Silverstein said, "It was paid for through our Saturday night dances where people paid us $2.00 to come to the dance, and all the soda or beer that you want for the night. Through that they paid the rent. It's not like there was a lot of fancy furniture in there...I mean, the furniture were the rejects from the street." Silverstein says GAA meetings drew 200-300 people and the dances drew "easily 1,000."

Lesbian Liberation Committee
While the majority demographic of the Gay Activist Alliance were men, this sub-committee was important because it was devoted to planning events in order, "to support a sense of community among all lesbians."

Municipal Fair Employment Law
This sub-committee was dedicated to outlawing homosexual job discrimination in both the public and private sector. The purpose of this committee was, "to recommend strategy to GAA for demonstrations and lobbying in order to effect passage in the City Council."

Police Power
Similar to the Municipal Fair Employment Law sub-committee, this sub-committee recommended strategies to the rest of the GAA for resisting oppression and discrimination against the gays and lesbian committee.

Political Projects
This committee oversaw all other political sub-committees in the GAA, because this sub-committee's purpose was to recommend the formation of new sub-committees, and also changes in mandates to pre-existing political sub-committees.

Social Affairs
This sub-committee was in charge of organizing and hosting various social events in order to unite the gay and lesbian community. More importantly, it helped raise money for the GAA from admission fees to the social events.

Youth Information Service
This sub-committee is just one example of the Gay Activist Alliance's commitment to gay and lesbian youth. The Youth Information Service was dedicated to offering representative of the GAA to speak, "on the topic of Gay Liberation for youthful or youth-orientated groups or organizations especially including high schools and colleges."

Archival resources

 * Gay Activists Alliance Records, 1970–1983 (11 linear feet) are housed at New York Public Library Manuscripts and Archives Division.
 * Archives relating to the Gay Activists Alliance from The New York Public Library's Archives and Manuscripts section.

title: Gay Activists Alliance


text:
John Godfrey

John Ferguson Godfrey (December 19, 1942 – December 18, 2023) was a Canadian educator, journalist and politician who served as a member of Parliament from 1993 to 2008.

Background
Godfrey was born in Toronto, Ontario on December 19, 1942. His father, Senator John Morrow Godfrey (June 28, 1912 – March 8, 2001), was a Canadian pilot, lawyer and politician. John Godfrey graduated from Upper Canada College in 1960. In 1961, he attended the Neuchâtel Junior College in Neuchâtel, Switzerland.

In 1965, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Trinity College, University of Toronto and in 1967, he received a Master of Philosophy from Balliol College, Oxford and Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) from St Antony's College, Oxford in 1975. He worked as an economist, historian and journalist. In the mid-1970s Godfrey was a history professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He served as president of the University of King's College from 1977 to 1987, and founded the university's prestigious Bachelor of Journalism program. From 1987 to 1991 he was editor of the Financial Post.

Godfrey died at his home in Toronto on December 18, 2023, one day before his 81st birthday.

Politics
Godfrey was elected to the House of Commons of Canada as the Liberal member of Parliament for the Toronto area riding of Don Valley West in the 1993 election, and was re-elected in each subsequent vote until his retirement from federal politics in 2008.

During the 1995 Quebec referendum, Godfrey had an acquaintance perform a psychiatric evaluation of separatist leader Lucien Bouchard.

In 1996, he and fellow Liberal MP Peter Milliken introduced the Godfrey–Milliken Bill a parody of the American Helms–Burton Act. The gesture received extensive media coverage including in the United States, where Godfrey was featured on the CBS program 60 Minutes. From 1996 to 2004, Godfrey served as a parliamentary secretary under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.

Minister of State for Infrastructure and Communities
In 2003, Paul Martin succeeded Chrétien as Liberal leader and prime minister. Following the subsequent 2004 election, Godfrey, among other key Martin allies, was appointed to the Cabinet in the role of Minister of State for Infrastructure and Communities. In this role, he was primarily responsible for overseeing the "New Deal for Cities", Federation of Canadian Municipalities relationship, and other initiatives in Canadian federal-municipal relations. This role was considered a keystone of Martin's industrial strategy.

Liberal leadership
On February 3, 2006, CBC Newsworld's Don Newman announced on air that Godfrey was planning a run for the Liberal Party leadership. Godfrey declared his candidacy on Goldhawk Live on March 19, shortly after the rules and convention date were set. Media reaction was positive, but competed with coverage of Ashley MacIsaac, who declared his intention to run to the Halifax Daily News the next day.

In the early stages of the campaign he was recurrently cited as exemplar of intellectualism in the race, being one of three former university professors in the running. Name-recognition remained a challenge, but Godfrey received plaudits in the Canadian blogosphere for his performance in the first all-candidates meeting at the Liberal Party of Alberta convention on April 8.

On April 12, 2006, Godfrey announced his withdrawal from the race, due to concerns about his health. On October 20, 2006, Godfrey announced his support for Bob Rae for the federal Liberal leadership. He made the announcement at the National Press Club, on the occasion of a speech by Rae on the environment.

Leaving politics
Godfrey announced in November 2007 his intention to resign his parliamentary seat on July 1, 2008 and would leave earlier if an election were called before that date. He later delayed his resignation date until August 1. The Conservative Party alleged that the Liberals chose to delay the by-election for financial reasons though Godfrey's office stated that the delay was due to a private members bill Godfrey had worked on not being given Royal Assent until June 26.

On June 17, in a point of order following Question Period, Godfrey gave his resignation speech to the House of Commons.

Headmaster of the Toronto French School
John Godfrey left politics to become Headmaster of the Toronto French School, an independent school in the Lawrence Park area with two campuses in Toronto. He held the position from 2008 until resigning in June 2014.

The Government of Ontario appointed John Godfrey Special Advisor for Climate Change and Chair of the Government's Climate Action Group in March 2015, positions he held until June 2018.

title: John Godfrey