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Bainbridge, Beryl

(Encyclopedia)Bainbridge, Beryl (Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge), 1933–2010, English author, b. Liverpool. Bainbridge is mainly known for her tightly plotted, rueful, and darkly comic fiction in which dull and si...

bald cypress

(Encyclopedia)bald cypress, common name for members of the Taxodiaceae, a small family of deciduous or evergreen conifers with needlelike or scalelike leaves and woody cones. Most species of the family are trees of...

aye-aye

(Encyclopedia)aye-aye īˈīˈ [key], name for an aberrant primate, Daubentonia madagascariensis, related to the lemurs but distinguished by its specialized teeth and fingers. A large nocturnal and arboreal primate...

Leonard, Elmore

(Encyclopedia)Leonard, Elmore (John Elmore Leonard), 1925–2013, American novelist, b. New Orleans, grad. Univ. of Detroit (1950). “Dutch” Leonard began publishing Western tales in the early 1950s, the best kn...

Lansing, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Lansing, Robert, 1864–1928, U.S. Secretary of State (1915–20), b. Watertown, N.Y. An authority in the field of international law, he founded the American Journal of International Law in 1907 and r...

Jeffers, Robinson

(Encyclopedia)Jeffers, Robinson, 1887–1962, American poet and dramatist, b. Pittsburgh, grad. Occidental College, 1905. From 1914 until his death Jeffers lived on the Big Sur section of the rocky California coast...

Close, Glenn

(Encyclopedia)Close, Glenn, 1947–, American actress, b. Greenwich, Conn. She began her career in the theater, debuting on Broadway in Love for Love (1974), winning an Obie for the off-Broadway The Singular Life o...

sagebrush

(Encyclopedia)sagebrush, name for several species of Artemisia, deciduous shrubs of the family Asteraceae (aster family), particularly abundant in arid regions of W North America. The common sagebrush (A. tridentat...

Reclamation, United States Bureau of

(Encyclopedia)Reclamation, United States Bureau of, agency set up in the Dept. of the Interior under the Reclamation Act of 1902. It is charged with promoting regional economies by developing water and related land...