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conquistador

(Encyclopedia)conquistador kŏnkwĭsˈtədôr, Span. kōng-kēˌstäᵺôrˈ [key], military leader in the Spanish conquest of the New World in the 16th cent. Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, and Hernán C...

sodium nitrate

(Encyclopedia)sodium nitrate, chemical compound, NaNO3, a colorless, odorless crystalline compound that closely resembles potassium nitrate (saltpeter or niter) in appearance and chemical properties. It is soluble ...

Vaca de Castro, Cristóbal

(Encyclopedia)Vaca de Castro, Cristóbal krēstōˈbäl väˈkä ᵺā käˈstrō [key], fl. 1540–45, Spanish colonial administrator in Peru. A judge of the royal audiencia at Valladolid, he was chosen by Charles...

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...

Garay, Juan de

(Encyclopedia)Garay, Juan de hwän dā gärīˈ [key], c.1528–1583, Spanish conquistador, refounder of Buenos Aires. He went to Peru (1544) in the train of the first viceroy, Blasco Núñez Vela, and was active a...

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...

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...

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...