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garnet

(Encyclopedia)garnet, name applied to a group of isomorphic minerals crystallizing in the cubic system. They are used chiefly as gems and as abrasives (as in garnet paper). The garnets are double silicates; one of ...

Garnet, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Garnet, Henry: see Garnett, Henry. ...

Garnet, Henry Highland

(Encyclopedia)Garnet, Henry Highland gärˈnĭt [key], 1815–82, American abolitionist clergyman, b. Kent co., Md. Born a slave, he escaped in 1824 and was educated at the Oneida Institute, Whitesboro, N.Y. He was...

Garnett, Henry

(Encyclopedia)Garnett or Garnet, Henry gärˈnət [key], 1555?–1606, English Jesuit. He was converted to Roman Catholicism and in 1575 became a Jesuit. After some years on the Continent he returned as a missionar...

Wolseley, Garnet Joseph Wolseley, 1st Viscount

(Encyclopedia)Wolseley, Garnet Joseph Wolseley, 1st Viscount wo͝olzˈlē [key], 1833–1913, British field marshal. He fought in Burma (present-day Myanmar; 1852–53), the Crimea (1854–56), India (1857–58), a...

Swakopmund

(Encyclopedia)Swakopmund sfäˈkôpmənt [key], municipality (1991 pop. 17,681), W Namibia, on the Atlantic at mouth of Swakop River. A rail terminus and seaside resort surrounded by the Namib desert, the town was ...

dragon's blood

(Encyclopedia)dragon's blood, name for a red resin obtained from a number of different plants. It was held by early Greeks, Romans, and Arabs to have medicinal properties; Dioscorides and other early writers descri...

gneiss

(Encyclopedia)gneiss nīs [key], coarse-grained, imperfectly foliated, or layered, metamorphic rock. Gneiss is characterized by alternating light and dark bands differing in mineral composition and having coarser g...

month

(Encyclopedia)month, in chronology, the conventional period of a lunation, i.e., passage of the moon through all its phases. It is usually computed at approximately 29 or 30 days. For the computation of the month a...

pitta

(Encyclopedia)pitta pĭtˈə [key], name used to refer to a genus (Pitta) of small, plump, brightly colored birds. The genus, including some twenty-three species, constitutes the whole of the family Pittidae. Known...

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