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Golan Heights

(Encyclopedia)Golan Heights, strategic upland region (2003 est. pop. 10,500), c.500 sq mi (1,250 sq km), SW Syria. It borders S Lebanon, NE Israel, and NW Jordan. It takes its name from the ancient city of Golan an...

Morelia

(Encyclopedia)Morelia mōrāˈlyä [key], city (1990 pop. 489,756), capital of Michoacán state, W Mexico. It is the commercial and processing center of an irrigated agricultural and cattle-raising area. Founded as...

brownstone

(Encyclopedia)brownstone, red to brown variety of sandstone. Its unusual color is caused in some instances by the presence of red iron oxide which acts as a cement, binding the sand grains together. Vast thicknesse...

Bonneville, Benjamin Louis Eulalie de

(Encyclopedia)Bonneville, Benjamin Louis Eulalie de bŏnˈvĭl [key], 1796–1878, American army officer and trader who blazed portions of the Oregon Trail, b. France, grad. West Point, 1815. Acquainted with the fu...

zorilla

(Encyclopedia)zorilla, small, carnivorous, nocturnal mammal, Ictonyx striatus, of the weasel family, found in dry regions of Africa. It is also called striped weasel and striped polecat. Although it strongly resemb...

slate

(Encyclopedia)slate, fine-grained rock formed when sedimentary rocks such as shale are metamorphosed by great pressure. Slate splits into perfectly cleaved, broad thin layers; this characteristically regular and pl...

state flowers

(Encyclopedia)state flowers. Each state of the United States has designated, usually by legislative action, one flower as its floral emblem; the rose has been designated by Congress as the national flower of the Un...

tick

(Encyclopedia)tick, small, parasitic arachnid of the order Ixodida, closely related to the mites. Ticks, which are larger than the often microscopic mites, are all parasitic in at least one developmental stage; mos...

Gray, Asa

(Encyclopedia)Gray, Asa, 1810–88, one of America's leading botanists and taxonomists, b. Oneida co., N.Y. As professor of natural history at Harvard from 1842, he was the teacher of many eminent botanists. Throug...

Midwest

(Encyclopedia)Midwest or Middle West, region of the United States centered on the western Great Lakes and the upper-middle Mississippi valley. It is a somewhat imprecise term that has been applied to the northern s...