Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Cenis, Mont

(Encyclopedia)Cenis, Mont môN sənēˈ [key], Ital. Moncenisio, Alpine pass, 6,831 ft (2,082 m) high, on the French-Italian border. It is one of the great invasion routes in Italian history. Napoleon I built a new...

Boksburg

(Encyclopedia)Boksburg bŏksˈbûrgˌ [key], city, now part of Ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality, Gauteng prov., NE South Africa. It is an important coal-mining center. Some gold mining is still carried on. Manu...

Eliot, George

(Encyclopedia)Eliot, George, pseud. of Mary Ann or Marian Evans, 1819–80, English novelist, b. Arbury, Warwickshire. One of the great English novelists, she was reared in a strict atmosphere of evangelical Protes...

lichen

(Encyclopedia)lichen līˈkən [key], usually slow-growing organism of simple structure, composed of fungi (see Fungi) and photosynthetic green algae or cyanobacteria living together in a symbiotic relationship and...

Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de

(Encyclopedia)Coronado, Francisco Vásquez de fränthēsˈkō väsˈkāth dā kōrōnäˈᵺō [key], c.1510–1554, Spanish explorer. He went to Mexico with Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza and in 1538 was made governor...

cortisone

(Encyclopedia)cortisone kôrˈtĭsōnˌ [key], steroid hormone whose main physiological effect is on carbohydrate metabolism. It is synthesized from cholesterol in the outer layer, or cortex, of the adrenal gland u...

gene therapy

(Encyclopedia)gene therapy, the use of genes and the techniques of genetic engineering in the treatment of a genetic disorder or chronic disease. There are many techniques of gene therapy, all of them still in expe...

quilting

(Encyclopedia)quilting, form of needlework, almost always created by women, most of them anonymous, in which two layers of fabric on either side of an interlining (batting) are sewn together, usually with a pattern...

Silurian period

(Encyclopedia)Silurian period sĭlo͝orˈēən, sī– [key] [from the Silures, ancient tribe of S Wales, where the period was first studied; named by the British geologist R. I. Murchison], third period of the Pal...

Zapotec

(Encyclopedia)Zapotec zäˈpətĕk, säˈ– [key], indigenous people of Mexico, primarily in S Oaxaca and on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Little is known of the origin of the Zapotec. Unlike most native peoples of ...