Columbia Encyclopedia

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cowbird

(Encyclopedia)cowbird, New World bird of the blackbird and oriole (hangnest) family. The male eastern, or common, cowbird is glossy black, about 8 in. (20 cm) long, with a brown head and breast; the female is gray....

Cascade Range

(Encyclopedia)Cascade Range, mountain chain, c.700 mi (1,130 km) long, extending S from British Columbia to N Calif., where it becomes the Sierra Nevada; it parallels the Coast Ranges, 100–150 mi (161–241 km) i...

Pliocene epoch

(Encyclopedia)Pliocene epoch plīˈəsēn [key], fifth epoch of the Cenozoic era of geologic time (see Geologic Timescale, tablegeologic timescale, table), from 5.1 to 2 million years ago. By the beginning of the P...

Fossett, Steve

(Encyclopedia)Fossett, Steve (James Stephen Fossett), 1944–2007, American investment banker and adventurer, b. California. After becoming a multimillionaire as a stockbroker and investment consultant, he began a ...

bighorn, in zoology

(Encyclopedia)bighorn or Rocky Mountain sheep, wild sheep, Ovis canadensis, of W North America, formerly plentiful in mountains from SW Canada to N Mexico. Indiscriminate hunting, disease, and scarcity of food enor...

graphite

(Encyclopedia)graphite grăfˈīt [key], an allotropic form of carbon, known also as plumbago and black lead. It is dark gray or black, crystalline (often in the form of slippery scales), greasy, and soft, with a m...

Huntington, Collis Potter

(Encyclopedia)Huntington, Collis Potter, 1821–1900, American railroad builder, b. near Torrington, Conn. A storekeeper of Oneonta, N.Y., before he went West in the gold rush of 1849, he became a storekeeper in Ca...

The Dalles

(Encyclopedia)The Dalles dălz [key], city (1990 pop. 11,060), seat of Wasco co., N Oreg., on the Columbia River; inc. 1857. It is a busy inland port; ships passing through the locks at Bonneville Dam (c.50 mi/80 k...

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...

state flowers

(Encyclopedia)state flowers. Each state of the United States has designated, usually by legislative action, one flower as its floral emblem; the rose has been designated by Congress as the national flower of the Un...