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Thoreau, Henry David

(Encyclopedia)Thoreau, Henry David thôrˈō, thərōˈ [key], 1817–62, American author, naturalist, social activist, and philosopher, b. Concord, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1837. Thoreau is considered one of the most...

Mississippi, river, United States

(Encyclopedia)Mississippi, river, principal river of the United States, c.2,350 mi (3,780 km) long, exceeded in length only by the Missouri, the chief of its numerous tributaries. The combined Missouri-Mississippi ...

Atlantic Ocean

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Atlantic Ocean [Lat.,=of Atlas], second largest ocean (c.31,800,000 sq mi/82,362,000 sq km; c.36,000,000 sq mi/93,240,000 sq km with marginal seas). The North Atlantic Ocean has some of the w...

seaweed

(Encyclopedia)seaweed, name commonly used for the multicellular marine algae. Simpler forms, consisting of one cell (e.g., the diatom) or of a few cells, are not generally called seaweeds; these tiny plants help to...

Massachusetts

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Massachusetts măsəcho͞oˈsĭts [key], most populous of the New England states of the NE United States. It is bordered by New York (W), Vermont and New Hampshire (N), the Atlantic Ocean (E, S...

Peloponnesus

(Encyclopedia)Peloponnesus mōrēˈə [key], peninsula (1991 pop. 1,086,935), c.8,300 sq mi (21,500 sq km), S Greece. It is linked with central Greece by the Isthmus of Corinth, and it is washed by the Aegean Sea o...

exploration

(Encyclopedia)exploration, travel to a part of the earth that is relatively unknown to the traveler's culture, historically often motivated by a desire for colonization, conquest, or trade. See also space explorati...

Pleistocene epoch

(Encyclopedia)Pleistocene epoch plīˈstəsēn [key], 6th epoch of the Cenozoic era of geologic time (see Geologic Timescale, tablegeologic timescale, table). According to a classification that considered its depos...

Plymouth Colony

(Encyclopedia)Plymouth Colony, settlement made by the Pilgrims on the coast of Massachusetts in 1620. After several years the colonists could no longer be restrained from settling on the more productive land to t...

Delaware, state, United States

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Delaware dĕlˈəwâr, –wər [key], one of the Middle Atlantic states of the United States, the country's second smallest state (after Rhode Island). It is bordered by Maryland (W, S), and th...