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Bent, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Bent, Charles, 1799–1847, American frontiersman, b. St. Louis. He entered the fur trade of the Missouri River and became one of the mountain men. His interests turned to the Southwest, and he led ex...

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...

Gregg, Josiah

(Encyclopedia)Gregg, Josiah, 1806–50, American trader and historian of the Santa Fe Trail, b. Overton co., Tenn. He moved with his family to Illinois (1809) and then to Missouri (1812). He gained wide knowledge f...

German shorthaired pointer

(Encyclopedia)German shorthaired pointer, breed of large sporting dog developed in Germany in the mid-19th cent. It stands about 23 in. (58 cm) high at the shoulder and weighs about 60 lb (27 kg). Its dense coat of...

Wilkens, Lenny

(Encyclopedia)Wilkens, Lenny (Leonard Randolph Wilkens), 1937–, American basketball player and coach, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. After playing at Providence College, he joined the St. Louis Hawks of the National Basketbal...

Zane, Ebenezer

(Encyclopedia)Zane, Ebenezer, 1747–1811, American pioneer and land speculator, b. near what is now Moorefield, W.Va. (then Virginia). With his brothers Silas and Jonathan, he went west in 1769 and established the...

slug

(Encyclopedia)slug, name for a terrestrial gastropod mollusk in which the characteristic molluscan shell is reduced to a thin plate embedded in the tissues. Like the terrestrial snails of the same order, slugs have...

Pike, Albert

(Encyclopedia)Pike, Albert, 1809–91, American lawyer, Confederate general in the Civil War, b. Boston. He settled (1832) in Arkansas, where he became a newspaper editor and a lawyer. He was a captain in the Mexic...

fall line

(Encyclopedia)fall line, boundary between an upland region and a coastal plain across which rivers from the upland region drop to the plain as falls or rapids. A fall line is formed in an area where the rivers have...

fold

(Encyclopedia)fold, in geology, bent or deformed arrangement of stratified rocks. These rocks may be of sedimentary or volcanic origin. Although stratified rocks are normally deposited on the earth's surface in hor...