Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Yaoundé

(Encyclopedia)Yaoundé yäo͞ondāˈ [key], city (1990 est. pop. 750,000), capital of Cameroon. It is the country's administrative, financial, and communications center. Manufactures include cigarettes, dairy produ...

Agassiz, Louis

(Encyclopedia)Agassiz, Louis (Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz) ăgˈəsē [key], 1807–73, Swiss-American zoologist and geologist, b. Môtiers-en-Vuly, Switzerland. He studied at the universities of Zürich, Erlangen ...

Plücker, Julius

(Encyclopedia)Plücker, Julius yo͞oˈlyo͝os plüˈkər [key], 1801–68, German mathematician and physicist. He became professor of mathematics (1836) and of physics (1847) at the Univ. of Bonn. He is known for h...

species

(Encyclopedia)species, in biology, a category of classification, the original and still the basic unit in the demarcation of plant and animal types. The species marks the boundary between populations of organisms r...

geometry

(Encyclopedia)geometry [Gr.,=earth measuring], branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of and relationships between points, lines, planes, and figures and with generalizations of these concepts. Eucli...

Barlach, Ernst

(Encyclopedia)Barlach, Ernst ĕrnst bärˈläkh [key], 1870–1938, German expressionist sculptor, graphic artist, and writer. After studying at the Dresden Art Academy he lived in Paris (1895–96) and in Berlin, ...

Ijebu-Ode

(Encyclopedia)Ijebu-Ode ējābo͞oˈ-ōdāˈ [key], town (1991 est. pop. 138,000), SW Nigeria. It is a commercial town and a collection point for cacao, kola nuts, and palm products. Manufactures include textiles, ...

sod house

(Encyclopedia)sod house, house with walls made of strips of sod laid horizontally in courses like bricks. Sod houses were common in the frontier days on the western plains of the United States, where wood and stone...

Winthrop, Robert Charles

(Encyclopedia)Winthrop, Robert Charles, 1809–94, American statesman, b. Boston. He studied law under Daniel Webster, was admitted (1831) to the bar, and was (1835–41) a Whig member of the Massachusetts legislat...

Saint Austell

(Encyclopedia)Saint Austell sŭnt ôˈstəl; [key], town (1991 pop. 36,639), Cornwall, SW England, at the mouth of the Fowey River on St. Austell Bay. China clay (discovered there c.1755) is produced and exported, ...

Browse by Subject