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Balkan Peninsula

(Encyclopedia)Balkan Peninsula, southeasternmost peninsula of Europe, c.200,000 sq mi (518,000 sq km), bounded by the Black Sea, Sea of Marmara, Aegean Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Ionian Sea, and Adriatic Sea. Although...

Manych

(Encyclopedia)Manych mäˈnĭch [key], two rivers, SE European Russia. The Western Manych, c.200 mi (320 km) long, rises near Stavropol in the N Caucasus and flows NW through Lake Manych-Gudilo into the lower Don R...

Thomson, Sir Charles Wyville

(Encyclopedia)Thomson, Sir Charles Wyville, 1830–82, Scottish naturalist, noted as a marine biologist and deep-sea explorer. He participated in three deep-sea dredging expeditions (1868–70) and obtained evidenc...

Cunningham, Allan

(Encyclopedia)Cunningham, Allan, 1784–1842, Scottish author. His collection of The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern (4 vol., 1825) included his own “A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea,” one of the best-known ...

Dunwich

(Encyclopedia)Dunwich dŭnˈĭch [key], village, Suffolk, SE England, on the North Sea, known as “Britain...

coffin

(Encyclopedia)coffin, closed receptacle for a corpse. Its purpose is usually to protect and to aid preservation of the body, although in the past some have believed that it may confine the spirit of the deceased. B...

Gothic language

(Encyclopedia)Gothic language, dead language belonging to the now extinct East Germanic group of the Germanic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Germanic languages). Gothic has special value fo...

Lucian

(Encyclopedia)Lucian lo͞oˈshən [key], b. c.120, d. after 180, Greek writer, also called Lucianus, b. Samosata, Syria. In late life he held a government position in Egypt. Lucian wrote an easy, masterly Attic pro...

Asclepius

(Encyclopedia)Asclepius ĕsˌkəlāˈpēəs [key], legendary Greek physician; son of Apollo and Coronis. His first teacher was the wise centaur Chiron. When he became so skillful in healing that he could revive the...

Silva, José Asunción

(Encyclopedia)Silva, José Asunción hōsāˈ äso͞onsyōnˈ sĭlˈvä [key], 1865–96, Colombian poet, one of the precursors of modernismo. Silva's life was shadowed by the loss of a crucial manuscript, family d...