In 1864 they started building the Asylum to hold the prisoners who had become insane. During the 1860s and 1870s the prisoners left at the prison were either too old, too sick, or insane to keep working. The prison closed in 1877.
For many years, researchers could not work out whether or not the fossils discovered at Port Arthur were remnants of the dinosaur era.
Port Arthur has the best example of a "Separate Prison" system. This system was started at Pentonville prison in London. The Separate Prison (sometimes called the Model Prison) was started in 1848, finished in 1853 and made bigger in 1855. It has 80 prison cells built in the shape of a cross. In the centre is a hall and a chapel. There are exercise yards built between the arms of the cross. The Separate system was a change in the way that prisoners were treated. Instead of physical punishment the system used psychological (mind) punishment. It was thought that physical punishment, such as whippings, only made prisoners worse. It did not turn bad people into good people. In the Separate prison they used the "Silent System". Prisoners wore a hood over their heads. They were not allowed to talk or make any noise. The guards wore special shoes and walked on mats so they wouldn't make any noise. Even in the chapel, each prisoner was kept in a separate wooden box where they could only see the altar. The prisoners were supposed to use the quiet time to think about the bad things they had done. Port Arthur was seen as the best prison in Australia.
Port Arthur was a natural prison. It is on the Tasman Peninsula which is almost completely surrounded by the sea. It is joined to the rest of Tasmania by a small narrow piece of land about 30 metres wide. This is called Eaglehawk Neck. The Neck had a fence, prison guards, and savage dogs to stop prisoners from leaving. There was no contact between visiting seamen and prisoners. Ships had to give the guards their sails and oars when they arrived to stop people leaving without permission. A semaphore message system was also set up between Port Arthur and Hobart. Messages could be sent in just 15 minutes.
Escape from Port Arthur was said to be impossible, like Alcatraz Island in the United States. Some prisoners did try to escape. One prisoner, George "Billy" Hunt, covered himself with a kangaroo skin and tried to get across the Neck. The hungry guards on duty tried to shoot him to make an extra meal. When he saw them pointing their guns, Hunt gave himself up. He was whipped 150 times. Bushranger Martin Cash successfully escaped along with two others.
The British Empire's first boys' prison was built on Point Puer, 3 kms across Opossum Bay from Port Arthur. Puer is the Latin word for boy. It was for young boys, some as young as 9, like James Lynch, arrested for stealing toys. The boys were kept away from the main convict area. About 3,500 boys were sent to Point Puer. Like the adults, the boys were given hard work such as stone cutting and building. There was also a school run by 2 ex-convicts. One prisoner was James Gavagan. When he was 11 he stole some umbrellas. He was sent to Tasmania for 7 years. He arrived at Point Puer in 1835. When he turned 17, he was sent to the main prison at Port Arthur. He was released in March 1842. There is only a few stones left to mark the site of the boys' prison. Point Puer Excavation
The convicts built one of Australia's first non-denominational churches, built in a gothic style. All prisoners had to go to the church every Sunday. People who did not like the new prison system said that this did not seem to make the prisoners into good people.
Port Arthur was seen as a much better prison, and would make the convicts better people. But life at Port Arthur was just as hard and brutal as other penal colonies. Some critics might even say that its use of psychological punishment, together with no hope of escape, made it one of the worst. Some stories say that prisoners would murder others to escape the prison. Murder would be punished by death. Isle of the Dead is a small island in the bay near Port Arthur. Everyone who died at the penal colony was buried on the island. There are 1646 graves on the island, but only 180, mainly those of prison staff, have a headstone.
The first railway in Australia was a human powered railway at Port Arthur. The railway was built in 1836. The line ran from the beach at Taranna, Tasmania for 7 kms to Port Arthur. It carried both people and supplies. It meant that ships from Hobart could unload in the calm water and not have to travel right around Cape Raoul to Port Arthur through rough seas. The carriage was pushed along the tracks by 4 convicts. Very little sign of the railway has survived. The State Library of Victoria has a drawing of the convict railway.
When the penal colony closed in 1877 the area was renamed "Carnavon". During the 1880s the was sold and a small town was started. Many buildings were pulled down and the bricks sent to make new buildings in Hobart. Fires burned the area in 1895 and 1897 and ruined many of the old prison buildings. Some buildings were changed for the new town to make a post office and town hall.
Tourism started as soon as the prison closed. This brought money into the new town. Some of the old convicts gave guided tours of the prison. In 1927 tourism had grown so much the area's name was changed back to Port Arthur. 1916 saw the start of the Scenery Preservation Board (SPB) which looked after the Port Arthur site. By the 1970s the National Parks and Wildlife Service took over the site.
In 1979 the government gave money to protect the site as a tourist area, because of its historical importance. The post office and town hall of Port Arthur were moved to nearby Nubeena. Several grand sandstone buildings, built by convicts were cleaned up. These buildings include the Separate Prison, the Round Tower, the church, and the remains of the main prison building. The buildings are surrounded by green grass.
The mass graves on The Island of the Dead also attract visitors. The air about the small bush-covered island is described as being sad and peaceful by visitors.
Tourists can either walk around the area themselves, or go on a guided tours. There are also late night ""ghost tours"". There is a museum, with written records, tools, clothing and other interesting things from convict times.
Since 1987 the site has been managed by the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority, paid for by the Tasmanian Government.
On 28 April 1996, Martin Bryant killed 35 people and hurt 37 others at Port Arthur. He was captured by the police. This is now called the Port Arthur massacre. This led to a national ban on semi-automatic shotguns and rifles. It also made a link between the Port Arthur and Dunblane, a Scottish town which also had a shooting that year.
Odysseus
In Greek mythology, Odysseus was the great grandson of the Greek god Hermes. He was the king of the island Ithaca. He was married to Penelope. Odysseus and Penelope had a son called Telemachos. Odysseus is a major character in Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey".
Odysseus fought in the Trojan War. He invented the Trojan Horse, which helped the Greeks win the war. After the war, his adventurous journey home took 10 years. The story of that journey is told in the "Odyssey". Odysseus angered Poseidon, the god of seas, when he half blinded his cyclops son Polyphemos. In anger, Poseidon stopped him from leaving the island. The Latin name for Odysseus is "Ulysses".
There have been many movies about Odysseus, because of his heroic and intelligent battle strategies.
Cast iron
Cast iron is an alloy of iron. The term is usually used for grey cast iron. There are two main types of cast iron: "grey cast iron" and "white cast iron". The differences between the two are mainly based on the amount of silicon in the alloy. All cast iron has about 95% iron in it. Grey cast iron has 3% silicon and 2% carbon. White cast iron has less silicon.