Indian reservation

An Indian reservation is a legal designation for an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the US Bureau of Indian Affairs, rather than the state governments of the United States in which they are physically located. Each of the 326Indian reservations in the United States are associated with a particular Nation. Not all of the country's 567recognized tribes have a reservation—some tribes have more than one reservation, some share reservations, while others have none. In addition, because of past land allotments, leading to some sales to non-Native Americans, some reservations are severely fragmented, with each piece of tribal, individual, and privately held land being a separate enclave. This jumble of private and public real estate creates significant administrative, political, and legal difficulties.

The collective geographical area of all reservations is 56,200,000 acres (22,700,000 ha; 87,800 sq mi; 227,000 km²), approximately the size of Idaho. While most reservations are small compared to US states, there are twelve Indian reservations larger than the state of Rhode Island. The largest reservation, the Navajo Nation Reservation, is similar in size to West Virginia. Reservations are unevenly distributed throughout the country; the majority are west of the Mississippi River and occupy lands that were first reserved by treaty or 'granted' from the public domain.

Duck Valley Indian Reservation

The Duck Valley Indian Reservation was established as a homeland for members of both the Western Shoshone and Northern Paiute tribes of Native Americans. Isolated in the high desert of the western United States, it lies directly on the state line between Idaho and Nevada, the 42nd parallel.

The reservation, in the shape of a square, is almost evenly divided in land area between the two states, with the northern 50.2 percent in southern Owyhee County, Idaho and the southern 49.8 percent in northwestern Elko County, Nevada. The total land area is 450.391 square miles (1,166.5 km²) and a resident population of 1,265 persons was reported in the 2000 census, over 80 percent of whom lived on the Nevada side.

Its only significant community is Owyhee, Nevada, at an elevation of 5,400 feet (1,650 m) above sea level. Owyhee is nearly equidistant from its two nearest major cities: 98 miles (158 km) north of Elko, Nevada and 97 miles (156 km) south of Mountain Home, Idaho.

Duck

Duck is the common name for a large number of species in the waterfowl family Anatidae, which also includes swans and geese. The ducks are divided among several subfamilies in the family Anatidae; they do not represent a monophyletic group (the group of all descendants of a single common ancestral species) but a form taxon, since swans and geese are not considered ducks. Ducks are mostly aquatic birds, mostly smaller than the swans and geese, and may be found in both fresh water and sea water.

Ducks are sometimes confused with several types of unrelated water birds with similar forms, such as loons or divers, grebes, gallinules, and coots.

Etymology

The word duck comes from Old English *dūce "diver", a derivative of the verb *dūcan "to duck, bend down low as if to get under something, or dive", because of the way many species in the dabbling duck group feed by upending; compare with Dutch duiken and German tauchen "to dive".

This word replaced Old English ened/ænid "duck", possibly to avoid confusion with other Old English words, like ende "end" with similar forms. Other Germanic languages still have similar words for "duck", for example, Dutch eend "duck" and German Ente "duck". The word ened/ænid was inherited from Proto-Indo-European; compare: Latin anas "duck", Lithuanian ántis "duck", Ancient Greek nēssa/nētta (νῆσσα, νῆττα) "duck", and Sanskrit ātí "water bird", among others.

Valley

A valley is a low area between hills, often with a river running through it.

In geology, a valley or dale is a depression that is longer than it is wide. The terms U-shaped and V-shaped are descriptive terms of geography to characterize the form of valleys. Most valleys belong to one of these two main types or a mixture of them, (at least) with respect to the cross section of the slopes or hillsides.

Valley terminology

A valley in its broadest geographic sense is also known as a dale. A valley through which a river runs may also be referred to as a vale. A small, secluded, and often wooded valley is known as a dell or in Scotland as a glen. A wide, flat valley through which a river runs is known in Scotland as a strath. A mountain cove is a small valley, closed at one or both ends, in the central or southern Appalachian Mountains which sometimes results from the erosion of a geologic window. A small valley surrounded by mountains or ridges is sometimes known as a hollow. A deep, narrow valley is known as a cwm (also spelled combe or coombe). Similar geological structures, such as canyons, ravines, gorges, gullies, and kloofs, are not usually referred to as valleys. See also: "chine". A valley formed by erosion is called an erosional valley; a valley formed by geologic events such as drop faults or the rise of highlands is called a structural valley.