Lancewood
Tough, heavy, elastic, straight-grained wood obtained from several different trees of the custard-apple family (Annonaceae). True lancewood, Oxandra lanceolata, of the West Indies and Guianas, furnishes most of the lancewood of commerce in the form of spars about 13 feet (4 m) in length and 5 inches (13 cm) in diameter at the small end. Lancewood was formerly used by carriage builders
Tsuruya Namboku Iv
Little is known of his early years, but in 1755 he became an apprentice of the dramatist Sakurada Jisuke I. About 1780 he married the daughter of Tsuruya Namboku III, a well-known Kabuki actor of the time.
Pietro Da Cortona,
Pietro studied in Rome from about 1612 under the minor Florentine painters Andrea Commodi and Baccio Ciarpi and was influenced by antique sculpture and the work of Raphael. The most important of his earliest paintings were three frescoes
Integument, Variations among vertebrates
The vertebrates belong to the phylum Chordata and are closely related to a small, fishlike, almost transparent invertebrate called amphioxus. Amphioxus represents chordate integument at its simplest: an epidermis, consisting of one layer of columnar or cuboidal epithelial cells and scattered mucous cells, covered by a thin cuticle, and a thin dermis of soft connective
Black Fly
Also called �buffalo gnat�, or �turkey gnat� any member of the insect family Simuliidae (order Diptera), usually black or dark gray. About 300 species of worldwide distribution are known. The black fly is small and humpbacked, with gauzy wings, stout antennae and legs, and rather short mouthparts adapted for sucking blood. The females bite and are sometimes so abundant that they may kill chickens, birds, and other domestic
Verdure Tapestry
Such famous tapestry factories as Aubusson and
Alaska, The economy
The Alaskan economy is conditioned strongly by the state's frontier stage of development, but its formerly inadequate tax base for state and municipal growth ended with the development of the North Slope oil fields. High costs of labour and transportation and complicated environmental and land-use constraints still tend to discourage outside investment. Nonetheless,
Pacific Ocean, Deep-sea minerals
Metal-bearing deposits on the deep-sea floor, consisting of nodules, crusts, and accumulations of metallic sulfides from deep vents, are of potential economic interest. In the 1970s and '80s it was hoped that mining the nodules - which contain quantities of manganese, iron, copper, nickel, titanium, and cobalt, as well as small traces of other metals - might be a way to contribute
Hull, Cordell
As a young Tennessee attorney, Hull early identified with
Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson
After serving his apprenticeship with a druggist in his native town, Swan became first assistant
Glycogen Storage Disease
In the liver group, type O is set apart as
Nechung Oracle
Oracle-priest of Tibet who, until the conquest of Tibet in 1959 by the People's Republic of China, was consulted on all important occasions. The priest chosen to be the Nechung oracle was the chief medium of Pe-har, a popular folk divinity incorporated into Buddhism, and resided at the Nechung (Gnas-chung-lcog) monastery near Drepung ('Bras-spungs), the centre of the Pe-har cult.
Consonance
As a poetic device, it is often combined with assonance (the repetition of stressed vowel sounds within words
Ju�rez, Benito (pablo)
National hero of Mexico, president of Mexico (1861 - 72), who, for three years (1864 - 67), fought against foreign occupation under the emperor Maximilian and who sought constitutional reforms to create a democratic federal republic.
Aakj�r, Jeppe
Aakj�r grew up in the Jutland farming area and so was well aware of the harsh conditions endured by farm labourers in his country. His early novels deal primarily with this theme. As a young man he went to study in Copenhagen,
Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton
Hooker,
Lamian War
Also called �Greek War (323 - 322 BC)� conflict in which Athenian independence was lost despite efforts by Athens and its Aetolian allies to free themselves from Macedonian domination after the death of Alexander the Great. Athenian democratic leaders, in conjunction with the Aetolian League, fielded an army of 30,000 men in October 323. They seized Thermopylae and kept a Macedonian army under Antipater blockaded
Mold
Also spelled �Mould, � in manufacturing, a cavity or matrix in which a fluid or plastic substance is shaped into a desired finished product. A molten substance, such as metal, or a plastic substance is poured or forced into a mold and allowed to harden. Molds are made of a wide variety of materials, depending on the application; sand is frequently used for metal casting, hardened steel for molds
Compurgation
The essence of the procedure lay in oath making. The party responsible for proving a fact had to produce a number of witnesses (usually 12) who would swear that he was
Cramer's Rule
In which det A is the determinant of the matrix A (in which the elements of each row are the coefficients
Park, Maud Wood
Park attended St. Agnes School in Albany, New York, and after graduating in 1887 she taught school for eight years. She then attended Radcliffe College,
Orange River
The first white man known to cross the river to the north bank was an Afrikaner elephant hunter, Jacobus Coetsee, who forded the Groot River, as it was then called, near the river mouth in 1760. Later expeditions across the river in the 18th century were led by the Afrikaner explorer Hendrik Hop; Robert Jacob Gordon, a Dutch officer; William Paterson, an English traveler; and the
Spiny-finned Fish
The atheriniform (q.v.) is the best known of the spiny-finned group, including flying fishes, guppies, mollies, swordtails, and California grunion. Beryciforms
Spiny-finned Fish
The common name given to about 50 to 60 species of small, stubby, generally short-tailed birds abundant in American tropical forests. Manakins are short-billed birds that range in size from 8.5 to 16 cm (3.5 to 6.5 inches) long and weigh a mere 10 - 40 grams (0.35 - 1.4 ounces). Females and immature males are typically coloured in drab greens and browns, but adult males are often black with
Ambros, August Wilhelm
Ambros studied law, entered the civil service in 1840, and became public prosecutor in Prague in 1850. A keen, well-trained musician and composer of a Czech opera, Bretislaw a Jitka, he also established himself as a brilliant writer on music. His pamphlet �ber
Chachalaca
Any of several small birds of the curassow family. See curassow.
Gaudier-brzeska, Henri
Gaudier-Brzeska initially studied business before taking up sculpture in 1910. His early work was informed
Dorsey, Thomas Andrew
U.S. songwriter, singer, and pianist (b. July 1, 1899, Villa Rica, Ga.--d. Jan. 23, 1993, Chicago, Ill.), as the "father of gospel music," blended elements of soulful blues with the traditional sacred music of his religious upbringing to create a new genre called gospel, which infused an uplifting, foot-stomping sound into black congregations, primarily of Baptist and Holiness churches. Dorsey, the
