Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Taiyuan

(Encyclopedia)Taiyuan tī-yüän [key], city (1994 est. pop. 1,642,300), capital of Shanxi prov., N China, on the Fen River, in one of the world's richest coal and iron areas. It is a mining and smelting center wit...

Silver Springs

(Encyclopedia)Silver Springs, mineral spring, N central Fla., source of the Silver River. The limestone spring, one of the world's largest and most famous, has a basin 80 ft (24 m) deep and 300 ft (91 m) wide. The ...

Serengeti National Park

(Encyclopedia)Serengeti National Park, c.5,700 sq mi (14,800 sq km), NE Tanzania, est. 1941. The internationally famous park attracts large numbers of tourists to see the world's largest concentrations of wildebees...

Primrose, William

(Encyclopedia)Primrose, William, 1904–82, Scottish-American violist. After studying in London, and with Eugène Ysaÿe, he played with the London String Quartet (1930–35) and the NBC Symphony Orchestra (1937–...

Pacaya

(Encyclopedia)Pacaya, volcanic massif, 8,373 ft (2,552 m) high, S central Guatemala, 19 mi (30 km) S of Guatemala City, on the southern edge of the ancient caldera that contains Lake Amatitlán. One of the world's ...

Glen Canyon Dam

(Encyclopedia)Glen Canyon Dam, 710 ft (216 m) high, 1,560 ft (475 m) long, NE Ariz., on the Colorado River. The key unit of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's Colorado River storage project, it is one of the world's ...

emanation, in philosophy

(Encyclopedia)emanation ĕmənāˈshən [key] [Lat.,=flowing from], cosmological concept that explains the creation of the world by a series of radiations, or emanations, originating in the godhead. It is character...

Weizmann, Chaim

(Encyclopedia)Weizmann, Chaim khīmˈ vītsˈmän [key], 1874–1952, scientist and Zionist leader, first president (1948–52) of Israel, b. Russia, grad. Univ. of Freiburg, 1899. He lectured in chemistry at the U...

Stevens, Wallace

(Encyclopedia)Stevens, Wallace, 1879–1955, American poet, b. Reading, Pa., educated at Harvard and New York Law School, admitted to the bar 1904. While in New York, he mingled in literary circles and published hi...

aircraft carrier

(Encyclopedia)aircraft carrier, ship designed to carry aircraft and to permit takeoff and landing of planes. The carrier's distinctive features are a upper deck (flight deck) that is flat and sometimes sloped to fu...