Nature175

Abandoned Stone house , England

No plants or phytoplankton grow here as the Sun's light cannot pe*****te this far down. The water is freezing cold and this gloomy zone is sparsely inhabited by life. The animals that do live here have evolved to do so in cold and relentless dark. Eyes are useless, and so are fast-twitch muscle fibres, which elsewhere prey might rely upon to escape predators. But down here they consume too much energy to be worth it. The fish that live here look little like the ones that swim near the surface.

The Octagon sprawls a massive 50 acres and is attached to the 20-acre Observatory Circle, a large earthwork circle for gathering and rituals connected to the observation of the night sky.

Late in the afternoon, while passengers were dozing or scanning for moose and caribou, the train began to slow, coming to an abrupt halt by a forest. There was murmuring down the carriage and a few passengers craned their necks to see if there had been a wildlife sighting when the train eased off again. As a flag-stop service, the Skeena had stopped to collect a mushroom picker who wandered out from the trees and flagged down the train.

Tour a sleek Spanish apartment with a striking copper tub https://ed.gr/d612p

16 ways to make your house feel more expensive: https://bit.ly/3tkWiUd

These squat, stone-built dwellings incorporated natural features of the landscape, such as rocks, cliff overhangs and thickets. Boulders, which were strewn over the high mountain slopes, often formed much of the walls and ceiling, while dry-stone walls made up the other walls. Living arrangements were simple – houses had little more than a door and a hearth, as islanders would spend the majority of their time outdoors.

By carrying peat and seaweed on their backs, the small, hardy and docile ponies were once crucial to croft work. Every island family used to have a pony, said Sandra MacInnes, secretary of Comann Each nan Eilean (Eriskay Pony Society). "They wouldn't have survived without the pony. They wouldn't have got peat to keep them warm, they wouldn't have got seaweed to help [fertilise] the crops."