Columbia Encyclopedia

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cement

(Encyclopedia)cement, binding material used in construction and engineering, often called hydraulic cement, typically made by heating a mixture of limestone and clay until it almost fuses and then grinding it to a ...

ceramics

(Encyclopedia)ceramics sərămˈĭks [key], materials made of nonmetallic minerals that have been permanently hardened by firing at a high temperature, or objects made of such materials. Most ceramics resist heat a...

bibliography

(Encyclopedia)bibliography. The listing of books is of ancient origin. Lists of clay tablets have been found at Nineveh and elsewhere; the library at Alexandria had subject lists of its books. Modern bibliography b...

Staffordshire

(Encyclopedia)Staffordshire stăfˈərdshĭr [key], county (1991 pop. 1,020,300), 1,157 sq mi (2,997 sq km), W central England. The county seat is Stafford. Administratively, Staffordshire is divided into the distr...

Devon

(Encyclopedia)Devon dĕvˈən [key], county, 2,591 sq mi (6,711 sq km), SW England. The county town is ...

James, Jesse

(Encyclopedia)James, Jesse (Woodson), 1847–82, American outlaw, b. Clay co., Mo. At the age of 15 he joined the Confederate guerrilla band led by William Quantrill and participated in the brutal and bloody civil ...

landslide

(Encyclopedia)landslide, rapid slipping of a mass of earth or rock from a higher elevation to a lower level under the influence of gravity and water lubrication. More specifically, rockslides are the rapid downhill...

typography

(Encyclopedia)typography tīpŏgˈrəfē [key], the art of printing from movable type. The term typographer is today virtually synonymous with a master printer skilled in the techniques of type and paper stock sele...

solid

(Encyclopedia)solid, one of the three commonly recognized states in which matter occurs, i.e., that state, as distinguished from liquid and gas, in which a substance has both a definite shape and a definite volume....

Red River, rivers, United States and Canada

(Encyclopedia)Red River. 1 River, 1,222 mi (1,967 km) long, southernmost of the large tributaries of the Mississippi River. It rises in two branches in the Texas Panhandle and flows SE between Texas and Oklahoma an...