The favourite route of Bill Keogh, a guide with outfitter Big Pine Kayak Adventures ( www.keyskayaktours.com) and author of the Florida Keys Paddling Guide, is a day trip from Seven Mile Bridge in a kayak fitted with a sail.

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These low-intensity fires did little damage to the big Ponderosa pine trees that dominated western forests.

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In 1820, German mathematician Karl Friedrich Gauss proposed cutting an enormous right triangle into the Siberian pine forest, creating a monument to the Pythagorean theorem big enough to see from outer space.

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