Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Purbeck, Isle of

(Encyclopedia)Purbeck, Isle of, peninsula, c.12 mi (20 km) long and c.8 mi (13 km) wide, Dorset, S England, between Poole Harbour and the English Channel. St. Albans Head is the most southerly point of the rocky sh...

Huntingdon, Henry Hastings, 3d earl of

(Encyclopedia)Huntingdon, Henry Hastings, 3d earl of, 1535–95, English nobleman. Through his mother, Catherine Pole, a great-granddaughter of the duke of Clarence (brother of Edward IV and Richard III), Hastings ...

Itasca, Lake

(Encyclopedia)Itasca, Lake ītăsˈkə [key], shallow lake, 2 sq mi (5.2 sq km), in a pine-wooded swampy region, NW Minn. Henry R. Schoolcraft identified the lake (1832) as the source of the Mississippi; stepping s...

Dufour, Guillaume Henri

(Encyclopedia)Dufour, Guillaume Henri gēyōmˈ äNrēˈ düfo͞orˈ [key], 1787–1875, Swiss general. He served in the French army under Napoleon I, and in 1847 he led the Swiss federal forces to victory against ...

Dunedin, city, New Zealand

(Encyclopedia)Dunedin dənēˈdĭn [key], city, SE South Island, New Zealand, at the head of Otago Harbor. ...

bungalow

(Encyclopedia)bungalow [Indian bangla,=house], dwelling built in a style developed from that of a form of rural house in India. The original bungalow typically has one story, few rooms, and a maximum of cross draft...

Wellesley College

(Encyclopedia)Wellesley College, at Wellesley, Mass.; for women; chartered 1870, opened 1875. Long a leader in women's education, it was the first woman's college to have scientific laboratories. With Lake Waban an...

Nestor, Russian chronicler

(Encyclopedia)Nestor nĕsˈtər [key], d. 1115?, Russian chronicler. A monk in a Kiev monastery, he wrote a life of saints Boris and Gleb and of the prior of his monastery St. Feodosi. Until recently the authorship...

sapwood

(Encyclopedia)sapwood, relatively thin, youngest, outer part of the woody stem of a tree, the part that conducts water and dissolved materials. In the cross section of a tree, the sapwood is recognizable by its tex...

Red Rock chicken

(Encyclopedia)Red Rock chicken, the only chicken still popular to any large extent in the United States today for both meat and eggs. It resulted from a cross between a Rhode Island Red male and a Plymouth Rock fem...