The deepest lake in the world is Baikal in Siberia—the deepest lake in the U.S. is Crater Lake in Oregon. http://www.nps.gov/archive/crla/brochures/deeplakes.htm

In Russia we spell Lake Baikal like “Ozero Baykal”. The word “Baikal” came from Turk language. The word “bai” means “wealthy” and “kul” means “lake”. So “Baikal” originally means “wealthy lake”. The lake is so huge and enormous that locals call it sea. This “sea” is rapidly growing with the average speed of 2 cm (0.8 in) per year. Baikal is considered to be a future ocean; in several million years there will be a new great ocean all over Asia and Baikal is a starting point for this ocean. Baikal was added to the World Heritage list by UNESCO in 1996. http://www.waytorussia.net/Siberia/Baikal/Baikal.html

Crater Lake is located in Southern Oregon on the crest of the Cascade Mountain range, 100 miles (160 km) east of the Pacific Ocean. It lies inside a caldera, or volcanic basin, created when the 12,000 foot (3,660 meter) high Mount Mazama collapsed 7,700 years ago following a large eruption. Generous amounts of winter snow, averaging 533 inches (1,354 cm) per year, supply the lake with water. There are no inlets or outlets to the lake. Crater Lake, at 1,943 feet (592 meters) deep, is the seventh deepest lake in the world and the deepest in the United States. Evaporation and seepage prevent the lake from becoming any deeper. http://www.nps.gov/crla/index.htm

To hem and haw is to take a long time to say something and speak in a way that is not clear, in order to avoid giving an answer. In Britain, it’s usually hum and haw. http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/hum+and+haw

The Stolen Smell, a folktale from Peru
A greedy and miserly baker insists that his neighbor, who can barely afford to buy stale bread but savors the wonderful aromas from the bakery, pay for the "stolen" smells. Although the neighbor is baffled and the townspeople are amused by this demand, the baker takes the matter to court. A clever judge applies the baker's logic to resolving the case and rewards the baker with the sounds of the neighbor's coins clinking together.
http://www.beautyandthebeaststorytellers.com/b-stolen.html

Anglicized Dutch words
Harlem = Haarlem (Dutch city)
Broadway = Brede Weg
Coney Island = Konijnen Eiland [Rabbits Island]
Governor's Island = Gouverneurs Eiland
Staten Island = Staten Eiland
Gravesend = Gravesande (Dutch city)
Hampstead = Heemstede (Dutch city)
Flushing = Vlissingen (Dutch city)
Bowery Street = after the "Bouwerij" [farm] of Peter Stuyvesant
Long Island = Lange Eiland
Stone Street = Steenstraat [The first dirt street in New Amsterdam that got paved; before it was paved with cobblestones it was called Brouwerstraat, whih means Brewer Street]
Marketfield Street = after the Dutch Marckveldt [the marketplace]
Maiden Lane = het Maagdenpaatje (the path the Dutch maids took to go and do the laundry in the open air)
Brooklyn (Breukelen)
Wall Street (De Wallen)
cookie, crooner, dollar, boss, pancakes, Santa Claus
http://www.henryhudson400.com/hh400_dutch_dna_in_nyc.php

The Holland Tunnel is named after Clifford M. Holland, who was the engineer from Somerset, Massachusetts. It was considered at the time to be an engineering wonder of the world and unfortunately, Mr. Holland died before it opened which is why the tunnel is named after him. http://www.henryhudson400.com/hh400_dutch_dna_in_nyc.php
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/wonder/structure/holland.html

Search Wonders of the World Databank at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/wonder/index.html

September 15 is the birthday of writer James Fenimore Cooper, (books by this author) born in Burlington, New Jersey (1789), the 11th of 12 children. A year after his birth, James's father moved the whole family to the wilderness of upstate New York, which was considered the frontier. One day, when he was 30 years old, he was reading aloud to his wife, a book about English social life. The book was written so badly that he threw it down in disgust, and he said, "I believe I could write a better book myself." His wife just laughed at him, because even though he loved to read, he didn't like writing at all—he wasn't even good at writing letters. James Fenimore Cooper was so indignant that his wife had laughed at him that he sat down right away and started to write his first novel, Precaution (1820). He claimed it was written by an English writer, and it failed completely. But Cooper kept writing anyway. He decided that he would do a better job if he wrote about something he knew well, like American life on the frontier. So he wrote The Spy: A Tale of Neutral Ground (1821). It was set in New York, and it was the first historical romance about the Revolutionary War. The Spy was a huge commercial and critical success, and then Cooper wrote The Pioneers (1823), beginning his series of novels about Natty Bumpo, which also includes The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Pathfinder (1840), and The Deerslayer (1841). Until James Fenimore Cooper came along, most Americans only read British novels—just like the one he was reading aloud to his wife. Cooper was the first major American novelist, and Natty Bumpo was the first major hero of American literature.
September 15 is the birthday of children's author and illustrator Robert McCloskey, (books by this author) born in Hamilton, Ohio (1914). He got a job in Boston painting a mural of famous citizens, and while he was outside painting, he noticed ducks crossing the road and holding up traffic. He decided they would be a good subject for a picture book. But he wanted to observe them more closely in order to draw them, so he picked up four ducks and took them home to his studio apartment in Boston. He said, "The ducks had plenty to say—especially in the early morning. I spent the next weeks on my hands and knees, armed with a box of Kleenex and a sketchbook, following the ducks around the studio and observing them in the bathtub." All that observation and drawing became Make Way for Ducklings (1941), which won a Caldecott and became a beloved children's book. The Writer’s Almanac