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Portland vase

(Encyclopedia)Portland vase, a Roman glass vase, known also as the Barberini vase. It is an unusually fine work of the late Augustan era (early 1st cent. b.c.). About 10 in. (25 cm) high and 22 in. (56 cm) in circu...

Pribilof Islands

(Encyclopedia)Pribilof Islands prĭbˈĭlŏfˌ [key], group of four volcanic islands, off SW Alaska in the Bering Sea, c.230 mi (370 km) N of the Aleutian Islands; explored and named in 1786 by Gerasim Pribilof, a ...

sailfish

(Encyclopedia)sailfish, common name for a marine game and food fish, genus Istiophorus, belonging to the family Istiophoridae and related to the marlin. It is named for its high, wide dorsal fin (or “sail”), co...

Tworkov, Jack

(Encyclopedia)Tworkov, Jack, 1900–82, American painter, b. Bela, Russia (now Biała, Poland). His family immigrated to the United States in 1913 and settled in New York. He studied at Columbia (B.A., 1923) and la...

Oliver, Mary

(Encyclopedia)Oliver, Mary, 1935–2019, American poet, b. Cleveland, Ohio, studied Ohio State Univ., Vassar. She published her first collection of poems, No Voyage and Other Poems, in 1963. She was a keen observer...

opal

(Encyclopedia)opal ōˈpəl [key], a mineral consisting of poorly crystalline to amorphous silica, SiO2·nH2O; the water content is quite variable but usually ranges from 3% to 10%. Common opal is usually colorless...

Aiken, Conrad

(Encyclopedia)Aiken, Conrad āˈkĭn [key], 1889–1973, American author, b. Savannah, Ga., grad. Harvard, 1912. Aiken is best known for his poetry, which often is preoccupied with the sound and structure of music;...

slate

(Encyclopedia)slate, fine-grained rock formed when sedimentary rocks such as shale are metamorphosed by great pressure. Slate splits into perfectly cleaved, broad thin layers; this characteristically regular and pl...

tall tale

(Encyclopedia)tall tale, extravagantly and humorously exaggerated story of the backwoods exploits of an American frontiersman. Originating in the 1820s, the genre remained popular well into the 20th cent. One of th...

Taussig, Helen Brooke

(Encyclopedia)Taussig, Helen Brooke, 1898–1986, American physician, b. Cambridge, Mass., M.D. Johns Hopkins Univ., 1927. She spent her entire career at Johns Hopkins, where she founded the field of pediatric card...