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Port Royal Sound

(Encyclopedia)Port Royal Sound, arm of the Atlantic Ocean, between St. Helena and Parris islands to the north and Hilton Head Island to the south, in S S.C.; it receives the Broad River. The sound was named in 1562...

Baker, Sir Samuel White

(Encyclopedia)Baker, Sir Samuel White, 1821–93, English explorer in Africa. He explored the Nile tributaries in Ethiopia in 1861–62. Going up the Nile from Cairo, he reached Gondokoro in 1863. He continued his ...

Caillié, René

(Encyclopedia)Caillié, René rənāˈ kāyāˈ [key], 1799–1838, French explorer in Africa. He was the first European to visit Timbuktu and return. The son of poor French peasants, he was obsessed with the idea ...

Vizcaíno, Sebastián

(Encyclopedia)Vizcaíno, Sebastián sāvästyänˈ vēthkäēˈnō [key], c.1550–c.1628, Spanish explorer and merchant. After an unsuccessful attempt to plant a colony in Lower California (1596), he sailed (1602)...

Billings, Josh

(Encyclopedia)Billings, Josh, pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw, 1818–85, American humorist and lecturer, b. Lanesboro, Mass. After a roving life as farmer, explorer, and coal miner, he settled in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., ...

Bates, Henry Walter

(Encyclopedia)Bates, Henry Walter, 1825–92, English naturalist and explorer. In 1848 he went with A. R. Wallace to Brazil, where he explored the upper Amazon, returning in 1859 with some 8,000 new zoological spec...

Chignecto

(Encyclopedia)Chignecto shĭgnĕkˈtō [key], isthmus connecting N.S., Canada, with the Canadian mainland, between Chignecto Bay and Northumberland Strait. It is c.17 mi (27 km) across at its narrowest point near A...

Muir, Alexander

(Encyclopedia)Muir, Alexander myo͞or [key], 1830–1906, Canadian songwriter, b. Scotland. In 1867 he wrote the words and music for “The Maple Leaf Forever,” which is regarded by many as the national hymn of C...

Westminster Conference

(Encyclopedia)Westminster Conference, 1866–67, held in London to settle the plan for confederation of the Canadian provinces. The resolutions on confederation that had been framed at the Quebec Conference (1864) ...

Cunard, Sir Samuel

(Encyclopedia)Cunard, Sir Samuel kyo͞onärdˈ [key], 1787–1865, Canadian pioneer of regular transatlantic steam navigation, b. Halifax, N.S. The son of a United Empire Loyalist, he became a leading businessman o...