Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

El Dorado, legendary country of South America

(Encyclopedia)El Dorado ĕlˈdəräˈdō, –rāˈ– [key] [Span.,=the gilded man], legendary country of the Golden Man sought by adventurers in South America. The legend supposedly originated in a custom of the C...

purslane

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Purslane, Portulaca oleraceae purslane, common name for some plants of the Portulaceae, a family of herbs and a few small shrubs, chiefly of the Americas. The portulacas or purslanes (genus Po...

reductions

(Encyclopedia)reductions, Span. reducciones, settlements of indigenous peoples in colonial Latin America, founded (beginning in 1609) to utilize efficiently native labor and to teach the natives the ways of Spanish...

blowgun

(Encyclopedia)blowgun, hollow tube from which a dart or an arrow is blown by a person's breath. The arrow was usually tipped with a poison, such as curare, which would stun or kill the struck prey. Blowguns were wi...

Trent Canal

(Encyclopedia)Trent Canal, waterway system, 240 mi (386 km) long, S Ont., Canada, connecting Lake Ontario, from the Bay of Quinte, with Lake Huron at Georgian Bay; built 1833–48. It utilizes the Trent River to Ri...

Burlin, Natalie Curtis

(Encyclopedia)Burlin, Natalie Curtis bûrˈlĭn, bərlĭnˈ [key], 1875–1921, American writer and musician, b. New York City, studied music in France and Germany. She was one of the leading transcribers of the in...

Carvajal, Francisco de

(Encyclopedia)Carvajal, Francisco de fränthēsˈkō dā kärvähälˈ [key], 1464?–1548, Spanish conquistador. For 40 years he fought in European wars before going to Mexico and subsequently to Peru, where he ai...

horse chestnut

(Encyclopedia)horse chestnut, common name for some members of the Hippocastanaceae, a family of trees and shrubs of the north temperate zones and of South America. The horse chestnut tree, Aesculus hippocastanum, a...

hantavirus

(Encyclopedia)hantavirus, any of a genus (Hantavirus) of single-stranded RNA viruses that are carried by rodents and transmitted to humans when they inhale vapors from contaminated rodent urine, saliva, or feces. T...

Jesuit Relations

(Encyclopedia)Jesuit Relations, annual reports and narratives written by French Jesuit missionaries at their stations in New France (America) between 1632 and 1673. They are invaluable as historical sources for Fre...