Queen Mary's Peak is the summit of the island of Tristan da Cunha, in the South Atlantic Ocean. It has an elevation of 2,062 metres (6,765 ft) above sea level. It is named after Mary of Teck, the Queen consort of King George V. It is the highest point of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.
The mountain is the peak of the massive shield volcano which forms the island. A 300 m (1,000 ft) wide summit crater caps the peak, and it contains a heart-shaped crater lake. This lake is normally frozen during the winter, and the upper slopes of the volcano are covered in snow.
The only recorded historical eruption occurred in 1961 from a vent on the north shore of the island. The island community had to be evacuated.
Queen Mary's Peak was used by sailors on the route from Europe to the Indian Ocean and beyond as a navigational aid. In the 17th century the East India Company instructed captains to sail via Tristan. In 2004, Ellen MacArthur sighted the Peak on her record-breaking circumnavigation of the world.
Read more about Queen Mary's Peak: Climbing The Peak
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The Queen has lands and gold,
While you are forced to your empty breast
A skeleton Babe to hold”
—Amelia Edwards (1831–1892)
“Miss Mary Emerson is here,—the youngest person in Concord, though about eighty,—and the most apprehensive of a genuine thought; earnest to know of your inner life; most stimulating society; and exceedly witty withal. She says they called her old when she was young, and she has never grown any older. I wish you could see her.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his penthouse lid;
He shall live a man forbid;
Weary sev’n-nights, nine times nine,
Shall he dwindle, peak and pine;
Though his bark cannot be lost,
Yet it shall be tempest-tossed.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)