Somerset Island

Somerset Island may refer to:

Somerset Island (Nunavut)

In the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Somerset Island is a large, uninhabited island separated by the 2 km wide Bellot Strait from the Boothia Peninsula in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada, lying between Peel Sound (across which lies Prince of Wales Island) and Prince Regent Inlet (across which lies Baffin Island). It has an area of 9,570 square miles (24,800 km²), making it the 46th largest island in the world and Canada's twelfth largest island.

History

Around 1000 AD, the north coast of Somerset Island was inhabited by the Thule people, as evidenced by whale bones, tunnels and stone ruins.

William Edward Parry was the first European to sight the island in 1819. In late 1848, James Clark Ross, commanding two ships, landed at Port Leopold on the northeast coast to winter. In April the following year, he launched an exploration of the island by sledge.

Roald Amundsen transited the passage between the Island and the Prince of Wales Island in the Gjøa in the first successful traverse of the Northwest Passage in 1904. Henry Larsen transited the passage, in the St Roch in the second successful transit in 1943. But he found this route was dangerously icebound, and also too shallow for commercial travel.

Somerset

Somerset (ⁱ/ˈsʌmərsɛt/ or /ˈsʌmərsᵻt/) is a county in South West England which borders Gloucestershire and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east and Devon to the south-west. It is bounded to the north and west by the Severn Estuary and the Bristol Channel, its coastline facing southeastern Wales. Its traditional border with Gloucestershire is the River Avon. Somerset's county town is Taunton.

Somerset is a rural county of rolling hills such as the Blackdown Hills, Mendip Hills, Quantock Hills and Exmoor National Park, and large flat expanses of land including the Somerset Levels. There is evidence of human occupation from Paleolithic times, and of subsequent settlement in the Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods. The county played a significant part in the consolidation of power and rise of King Alfred the Great, and later in the English Civil War and the Monmouth Rebellion. The city of Bath is famous for its substantial Georgian architecture and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Somerset (UK Parliament constituency)

Somerset was a parliamentary constituency in Somerset, which returned two Members of Parliament (MPs), known traditionally as knights of the shire, to the House of Commons of England until 1707, the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832.

Elections were held by the bloc vote system.

Members of Parliament

MPs 1290–1629

MPs 1640–1832

References

Sources

Somerset (SEPTA station)

Somerset Station is an elevated stop on the Market-Frankford Line, above the intersection of Kensington Avenue and Somerset Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the Kensington neighborhood. During peak hours, the station is served by "B" trains only.

Like the nearby Huntingdon Station, Somerset is located over a five-way intersection, which is northeast of a high truss bridge over a Conrail freight line. Access to the station from street-level can be found at the southwest and southeast corners of Kensington Avenue and Somerset Street. Unlike Huntingdon, no access is available from D Street.

The station is adjacent to the corner of Kensington and Somerset, named by Philadelphia Weekly in 2007 as the number one drug corner in the city. The corner itself is dominated by sales of hypodermic needles and the methadone-like detox medication Suboxone, with referrals readily available to one of the many heroin dealers on nearby blocks.

Station layout

SEPTA City Bus Connections