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soybean

(Encyclopedia)soybean, soya bean, or soy pea, leguminous plant (Glycine max, G. soja, or Soja max) of the family Leguminosae (pulse family), native to tropical and warm temperate regions of Asia, where it has been...

Johnston, Alexander Keith

(Encyclopedia)Johnston, Alexander Keith, 1804–71, Scottish cartographer and geographer royal of Scotland. He issued many notable atlases, maps, and gazetteers, including The National Atlas of Historical, Commerci...

gaucho

(Encyclopedia)gaucho gouˈchō [key], cowboy of the Argentine and Uruguayan pampas (grasslands). The typical gaucho, a familiar figure in the 18th and 19th cent., was a daring, skillful horseman and plainsman. As f...

West Siberian Plain

(Encyclopedia)West Siberian Plain, an extensive region of continuous flatland, N Asia, comprising the western third of Siberia, Russia. It is bounded on the east by the Yenisei River, on the north by the Arctic Oce...

Kaieteur Falls

(Encyclopedia)Kaieteur Falls kīəto͝orˈ [key], waterfall, 741 ft (226 m) high, in the Potaro River, W Guyana. It plunges over an escarpment of the Guyana Highlands. One of the most impressive falls in South Amer...

El Niño–Southern Oscillation

(Encyclopedia)El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) ĕl nēnˈyō [key], large-scale climatic fluctuation of the tropical Pacific Ocean and the overlying atmosphere. The El Niño [Span.,=the child] is the South Am...

Eigenmann, Carl H.

(Encyclopedia)Eigenmann, Carl H. īˈgənmən [key], 1863–1927, American ichthyologist, b. Germany, grad. Indiana Univ., 1886. From 1891 he taught at Indiana Univ., founding and directing the biological station a...

coot

(Encyclopedia)coot, common name for a migratory marsh bird related to rails and gallinules and found in North America and Europe. The American coot (Fulica americana), or mud hen, is slate gray with a white bill, b...

pocket mouse

(Encyclopedia)pocket mouse, small jumping rodent of W North America and as far south as N South America. More closely related to the squirrel than the true mouse, the pocket mouse gets its name from the fur-lined c...

Fifty-four forty or fight

(Encyclopedia)Fifty-four forty or fight, in U.S. history, phrase commonly used by extremists in the controversy with Great Britain over the Oregon country. The rights of the United States, they maintained, extended...