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Niagara, river, United States and Canada

(Encyclopedia)Niagara nīăgˈrə [key], river, 34 mi (55 km) long, issuing from Lake Erie between Buffalo, N.Y., and Fort Erie, Ont., Canada. It flows north around Grand Island and over Niagara Falls to Lake Ontar...

Ammann, Othmar Hermann

(Encyclopedia)Ammann, Othmar Hermann ôtˈmär, ŏˈmŏn [key], 1879–1965, American civil engineer, b. Switzerland, grad. Federal Polytechnic Institute, Zürich, 1902. He came to the United States in 1904 and was...

Maillart, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Maillart, Robert mīyärˈ [key], 1872–1940, Swiss engineer, renowned for his inventive and beautiful reinforced-concrete bridges. Maillart's basic structural principles—integration of the support...

Palk Strait

(Encyclopedia)Palk Strait pôk, pôlk [key], 40 to 85 mi (64–137 km) wide, between India and Sri Lanka. At its southern end, it is studded with shoal reefs, forming Adam's Bridge (or Rama's Bridge), and by small ...

folk dance

(Encyclopedia)folk dance, primitive, tribal, or ethnic form of the dance, sometimes the survival of some ancient ceremony or festival. The term is used also to include characteristic national dances, country dances...

Koolhaas, Rem

(Encyclopedia)Koolhaas, Rem (Remmet Lucas Koolhaas), 1944–, Dutch architect, b. Rotterdam. He began his career as a journalist and screenwriter, moving to London in the late 1960s to study architecture. Koolhaas ...

Wallace, Sir William

(Encyclopedia)Wallace, Sir William, 1272?–1305, Scottish soldier and national hero. The first historical record of Wallace's activities concerns the burning of Lanark by Wallace and 30 men in May, 1297, and the s...

Zhuhai

(Encyclopedia)Zhuhai jo͞o-hī [key], city (1994 est. pop. 308,600), S Guangdong prov., on the Pearl River, N of Macau. Designated a special economic zone in 1979, the city has benefited greatly from its proximity ...

cantilever

(Encyclopedia)cantilever kănˈtəlēvər [key], beam supported rigidly at one end to carry a load along the free arm or at the free end. A slanting beam fixed at the base is often used to support the free end, as ...

Queens

(Encyclopedia)Queens, borough of New York City (1990 pop. 1,951,598), land area c.109 sq mi (293 sq km), on the western portion of Long Island, SE N.Y., coextensive with Queens co.; settled by the Dutch 1635, estab...