Tall standing cup, the cover of which characteristically bears an obelisk finial (sometimes surmounted by a figure) that rises on scrolled brackets from the cover. With an egg-shaped or globular bowl and cover, a short baluster stem, and a tall, trumpet-shaped foot, these cups seem to have emerged only in England and for a short period between about 1590 and the 1630s. They were usually
Minerals of this groups are 1:1 layer silicates. Their basic unit of structure consists of tetrahedral and octahedral sheets in which the anions at the exposed surface of the octahedral sheet are hydroxyls (see Figure 4). The general structural formula may be expressed by Y2 - 3Z2O5(OH)4, where Y are cations in the octahedral sheet such as Al3+ and Fe3+ for dioctahedral species and Mg2+,
Dyer-bennet, Richard
Though born in England, Dyer-Bennet grew up in Canada and California and attended the University of California at
City, Abitibi-Témiscamingue region, western Quebec province, Canada, on the western shore of Lake Osisko. It is located 315 miles (507 km) northwest of Montreal city. Rouyn and its twin city, Noranda, originated in the 1920s when gold and copper ores were first exploited in the area. Rouyn was named after the sieur de Rouyn, a hero of the Battle of Sainte-Foy (1760), and became the administrative,
Also spelled papilloma virus any of a group of viruses belonging to the family Papillomaviridae that infect birds and mammals, causing warts (papillomas) and other benign tumours in humans. They are small polygonal viruses containing circular double-stranded DNA, and more than 55 distinct types of human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are now known on the basis of analysis of their DNA. Skin warts are of
Azogues
City, south-central Ecuador. It lies in a high Andean valley northeast of Cuenca. Its economy is based on agricultural trade, and grains and fruit are cultivated in the surrounding area. Important local industries include flour milling, Panama hat making, and leather tanning. The city takes its name from the Spanish azogue, meaning “mercury,” which is a local resource.
Genus of marine or freshwater organisms called dinoflagellates. Members of the genus are bilaterally symmetrical with a delicate pellicle (or envelope) and disk-shaped chromatophores, which, when present, contain yellow, brown, green, or blue pigments. The genus is claimed by both botanists and zoologists, for, like all dinoflagellates, it has both plantlike and animal-like
Also spelled Qamishliye, town in northeastern Syria. It lies along the Turkish border. The border divides the Syrian town of Al-Qamishli from the Turkish town of Nusaybin. The town was founded in 1926 as a station on the Taurus railway. Its mixed population increased with influxes of Armenian, Assyrian Christian, and Kurdish refugees from Turkey and Iraq. The town also has Sunnite Muslims, Syriac-speaking
Indo-aryan Languages
Linguists generally assign the Indo-Aryan languages to three major periods: Old, Middle, and New Indo-Aryan. These periods are linguistic, not strictly chronological. Old Indo-Aryan includes different dialects and linguistic states referred
Neighbouring Middle American Indian peoples living in the states of Jalisco and Nayarit in western Mexico. Numbering together about 40,000 in the late 20th century, they inhabit a mountainous region that is cool and dry. The Huichol and Cora languages are about as closely related as Spanish and Italian and are next most closely related to Nahua, the language of the Nahua
Bacteria form mutually beneficial associations (symbiosis) with nematodes. The insect-pathogenic nematodes Steinernema and Heterorhabditis carry different species of Xenorhabdus in their intestines, which their soil-living infective juveniles inject into any insect they can invade. Bacterial toxins kill the insect, and the nematodes then multiply for
Baz, 'abd Al-aziz Ibn Abdallah Ibn
Saudi Muslim cleric who as the grand mufti (from 1993) and traditionalist head of the Council of Senior Islamic Scholars (from the early 1960s) was revered by millions and exerted a powerful influence on the legal system in Saudi Arabia; the blind cleric's religious edicts, or fatwas, included prohibitions on fortune tellers, women driving cars, and the import of short veils that
Town, West Lancashire district, administrative and historic county of Lancashire, England, on the western periphery of the older industrial town of Wigan. During the early 10th century Scandinavians settled in the area, naming it Skjalmar's Dale. In Domesday Book (1086) it was noted as a small agricultural hamlet. Between 1861 and 1881 coal mining began, and the town grew in importance.
Graphite (q.v.), though the term is a misnomer, since graphite does not contain any lead.
Chandler, Norman
Chandler was the son of Harry Chandler, who owned the Los Angeles Times. After attending Stanford University, Norman joined the Times in 1922 as secretary
Feudal county of southwestern France, corresponding approximately to the modern département of Ariège. Between the 11th and the 15th century, the counts of Foix built up a quasi-independent power bounded by Languedoc on the north and on the east, by the territories of the counts of Roussillon and of the kings of Aragon on the south, and by those of the counts of Comminges
Also spelled saddhu and swamy, Sanskrit sadhu and svamin, in India, religious or holy men. Sadhu signifies any religious ascetic or holy man. The class of sadhus includes not only genuine saints of many faiths but also men (and occasionally women) who have left their homes in order to concentrate on physical and spiritual disciplines, as well as hermits, magicians, and fortune-tellers, some of dubious religious intent. Swami
In full Landau In Der Pfalz, city, Rhineland-Palatinate Land (state), southwestern Germany. It is picturesquely situated along the Queich River, at the slope of the Haardt Mountains. The settlement was first mentioned in 1106, and an Augustinian monastery was founded there in 1276. Landau became an imperial free town in 1291. It was occupied by the French (1680–1815) and granted to Bavaria in 1816. The city's Gothic Protestant
Malaparte, Curzio
Malaparte was a volunteer in World War I and then became active in journalism. In 1924 he founded the Roman periodical La Conquista dello stato, and in 1926 he joined Massimo
Dating system that combines the tonalpohualli, a ritual cycle of 260 days, with the solar year of 365 days. Like the Mayan calendar from which it was derived, the Aztec calendar consisted of a ritual cycle that was divided into 13 periods of 20 days each and a civil cycle that was divided into 18 months of 20 days plus an additional 5 days, called nemontemi, considered to be very unlucky. Again
The release of sperm cells and seminal plasma from the male reproductive system. Ejaculation takes place in two phases: in the first, or emission, stage, sperm are moved from the testes and the epididymis (where the sperm are stored) to the beginning of the urethra, a hollow tube running through the penis that transports either sperm or urine; in the second stage, ejaculation
Lear
Legendary British king and central character of William Shakespeare's King Lear. One of the most moving of Shakespeare's tragic figures, Lear grows in self-awareness as he diminishes in authority and loses his illusions. Lear at the outset presents the very picture of foolish egotism and is tricked out of what he has expected to be a carefree retirement by his own
Born into an impoverished samurai, or warrior, family, Arai educated himself under conditions of extreme hardship. He found employment in 1682 under Hotta Masatoshi (1634–84), a top government official. When Hotta died two years later,
John
John took part in the commission that drew up the constitution of 1831 and succeeded to the throne upon the death of his brother, King Frederick Augustus II. He was persuaded by
In Greek mythology, the son of Phoenix or Agenor (king of Phoenicia) and brother of Europa. Europa was carried off by Zeus, king of the gods, and Cadmus was sent out to find her. Unsuccessful, he consulted the Delphic oracle, which ordered him to give up his quest, follow a cow, and build a town on the spot where she lay down. The cow guided him to Boeotia (Cow Land), where he founded
World War Ii, Yalta
Roosevelt's last meeting with Stalin and Churchill took place at Yalta, in the Crimea, Feb. 4–11, 1945. The conference is chiefly remembered for its treatment of the Polish problem: the western Allied leaders, abandoning their support of the Polish government in London, agreed that the Lublin committee—already recognized as the provisional government of Poland by the Soviet
Any of 18 species of amphibious carnivorous rodents. They exhibit many adaptations associated with hunting in water for food and burrowing along streams, rivers, and lakes. The eyes are small, the nostrils can be closed to keep water out, and the external portion of the ears is either small and furry or absent. Highly sensitive whiskers are abundant on the fleshy blunt
French Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens (CFTC), French labour-union federation that was founded in 1919 by Roman Catholic workers who opposed both the syndicalist and communist movements of the day. The confederation, based on Catholic social and anti-Marxist principles, rejected the theory of class warfare but occasionally collaborated on strikes with the leftist General Confederation of Labour (Confédération
Harding, John, Baron Harding Of Petherton
After graduating from Ilminster Grammar School (1912), Harding joined the Territorial Army as a part-time reservist. Called to the regular army at the beginning of World War I, he commanded a machine-gun battalion
Also called Yakutia or Yakut-Sakha republic in far northeastern Russia, in northeastern Siberia. The republic occupies the basins of the great rivers flowing to the Arctic Ocean—the Lena, Yana, Indigirka, and Kolyma—and includes the New Siberian Islands between the Laptev and East Siberian seas. Sakha was created an autonomous republic of the Soviet Union in 1922; it is now the second largest republic in
Japanese actor (b. 1916, Tokyo, Japan—d. July 8, 2001, Tokyo), was one of the greatest tachiyaku (male-role) actors in Japan's traditional kabuki theatre. Ichimura was the nephew of Kikugoro Onoe VI, one of the foremost interpreters of kabuki plays. After debuting at the Imperial Theatre in Tokyo at the age of five, Ichimura went on to star in numerous dramas, one of the most memorable of which
Icelandic chieftain, priest, and historian whose Íslendingabók (Libellus Islandorum; The Book of the Icelanders) is the first history of Iceland written in the vernacular. Composed before 1133 and covering the period from the settlement of Iceland up to 1120, it includes information on the founding of the Althing (parliament) and on the settlement of Greenland and
Durham
Town (township), Strafford county, southeastern New Hampshire, U.S., on the Oyster River just southwest of Dover. Settled in 1635, it was known as the parish of Oyster River until it was incorporated in 1732 and named for Durham, England. A series of savage Indian attacks began in 1675; in 1694 the town was burned, and more than 100 residents were killed or captured. During the American
In 1900 logic was poised on the brink of the most active period in its history. The late 19th-century work of Frege, Peano, and Cantor, as well as Peirce's and Schröder's extensions of Boole's insights, had broken new ground, raised considerable interest, established international lines of communication, and formed a new alliance between logic and mathematics. Five projects
Faint comet having the shortest orbital period (about 3.3 years) of any known; it was also only the second comet (after Halley's) to have its period established. The comet was first observed in 1786 by Pierre Méchain. Johann Franz Encke in 1819 calculated that sightings of apparently different comets in 1786, 1795, 1805, and 1818 were in fact appearances of the same comet, whose short orbital period he was
Overviews of China's physical and human geography may be found in Keith Buchanan, The Transformation of the Chinese Earth (1970); Ping-chia Kuo, China, 3rd ed. (1970); T.R. Tregear, China: A Geographical Survey (1980); Albert Kolb, East Asia: China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam: Geography of a Cultural Region (1971, reprinted 1977; originally published in German, 1963); Brian Hook (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China (1982); Robert L. Worden, Andrea Matles Savada, and Ronald E. Dolan (eds.), China, a Country Study, 4th ed. (1988); and Information China, 3 vol. (1989), an encyclopaedic work prepared under the auspices of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and ed. by C.V. James.
Lesser Slave Lake
Lake in central Alberta, Canada, 130 miles (209 km) northwest of Edmonton and 400 miles (640 km) south of Great Slave Lake (in the Northwest Territories). It is 60 miles (97 km) long by 12 miles (19 km) wide and has an area of 451 square miles (1,168 square km). Fed by many small streams, it drains eastward into the Athabasca River via the Lesser Slave River. The name, first used by the Cree Indians, refers to the Slave (Dogrib)
Ussuriysk
Also spelled Ussurijsk city, Primorsky kray (region), far eastern Russia. It lies about 50 miles (80 km) north of Vladivostok along the Trans-Siberian Railroad at the junction with a line to Harbin in Heilungkiang province, China. Founded as the village of Nikolskoye in 1866, it became a city in 1897 and was renamed Nikolsk-Ussuriysk in 1926, Voroshilov in 1935, and Ussuriysk in 1957. It has food-processing, footwear, clothing,
The fossil record in China promises fundamental contributions to the understanding of human origins. There is considerable evidence of Homo erectus by the time of the Lower Paleolithic (the Paleolithic Period began c. 2,500,000 years ago and ended 10,000 years ago) at sites such as Lan-t'ien, Shensi; Ho-hsien, Anhwei; Yüan-mou, Yunnan; and, the most famous, that of so-called Peking man at Chou-k'ou-tien
Region, western North America, possessing two unifying geologic and geographic properties—the Pacific Ocean, which constitutes a natural western border, and the coastal mountain ranges that form the eastern border of the region. The most commonly accepted definition of the Pacific Coast is largely a political one: it defines the region as comprising the U.S. states
(Latin), German Johann Hewel , or Johann Howelcke , Polish Jan Heweliusz astronomer who compiled an atlas of the Moon (Selenographia, published 1647) containing one of the earliest detailed maps of its surface as well as names for many of its features. A few of his names for lunar mountains (e.g., the Alps) are still in use, and a lunar crater is named for him. Hevelius also made a catalog of 1,564 stars, the most comprehensive of its time,
Redgrave, Vanessa
Called “the greatest actress of our time” by the playwright Tennessee Williams, Vanessa Redgrave came from a legendary theatrical family. Her father, Sir Michael Redgrave, was one of Britain's most popular and respected actors, and her mother, Rachel Kempson, was a noted stage
A detailed review of Pacific Ocean minerals, including those contained in seawater and those on or beneath the ocean floor, is offered in G.P. Glasby, “Marine Minerals in the Pacific,” Oceanography and Marine Biology 24:1–64 (1986). Information on economic and other resources of the ocean areas is also found in such works as Asia & Oceania, vol. 4 of the Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations, 7th ed., 5 vol. (1988); Fillmore C.F. Earney, Marine Mineral Resources (1990); and FAO Yearbook: Fishery Statistics. John P. Craven, The Management of Pacific Marine Resources (1982), offers well-written, scholarly coverage of resources and their management, or in some cases mismanagement; details on fisheries, shipping, scientific research, and maritime law are given in Edward Miles et al., The Management of Marine Regions: The North Pacific (1982); and Peter N. Nemetz (ed.), The Pacific Rim (1987), studies commerce, economic conditions, foreign investments, and resources in the Pacific Rim countries. Another valuable overview of economic conditions, international business enterprises, marine resources, and regionalism is Endel-Jacob Kolde, The Pacific Quest: The Concept and Scope of an Oceanic Community (1976); and Henry S. Albinski et al., The South Pacific (1989), studies the “New Pacific” and the economic, political, and social problems of island nations that have achieved independence since World War II.
Alvarado went to Santo Domingo in 1510 and in 1518 commanded one of Juan de Grijalva's ships sent from Cuba to explore the Yucatán Peninsula. In February 1519 he accompanied the army, led from Cuba by Hernán Cortés, that was to conquer Mexico. Alvarado was placed
The general average clause in ocean marine insurance obligates the insurers of various interests to share the cost of losses incurred voluntarily to save the voyage from complete destruction. Such sacrifices must be made voluntarily, must be necessary, and must be successful. For example, if a shipper's cargo is voluntarily jettisoned in a storm in order to save
Chess
Garry Kasparov of Russia, the undefeated former world champion under the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE), the world ruling body, proved that he was by far the strongest player in the world with three excellent tournament victories in the first half of 1999, but he refused to take part in the official knockout title contest arranged by FIDE in the U.S. in the summer.
