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National Estuarine Research Reserve System

(Encyclopedia)National Estuarine Research Reserve System: see under National Marine Sanctuary Program. ...

New York State Canal System

(Encyclopedia)New York State Canal System, waterway system, 524 mi (843 km) long, traversing New York state and connecting the Great Lakes with the Finger Lakes, the Hudson River, and Lake Champlain. The waterway, ...

Sierra Madre, mountain system, Mexico

(Encyclopedia)Sierra Madre dĕl so͝orˈ [key] is a tumbled, broken mass of uptilted mountains that touch the Pacific coast but form into no clearly defined range. It spreads over S Mexico between the volcanic belt...

analytic geometry

(Encyclopedia)analytic geometry, branch of geometry in which points are represented with respect to a coordinate system, such as Cartesian coordinates, and in which the approach to geometric problems is primarily a...

Cameroons, former German colony

(Encyclopedia)Cameroons, Fr. Cameroun, Ger. Kamerun, former German colony, W Africa, on the Gulf of Guinea and extending N to Lake Chad. Germany's penetration of the area began in 1884 and by 1902 its possession wa...

Jipijapa

(Encyclopedia)Jipijapa hēpēhäˈpä [key], city (1990 pop. 32,225), W Ecuador, on the equatorial lowlands. A few miles inland from the Pacific, Jipijapa is famous for the manufacture of high-grade Panama hats, ma...

United Service Organizations

(Encyclopedia)United Service Organizations (USO), organization that supplies social, recreational, welfare, and spiritual facilities to members of the armed services. The USO was organized in 1941, originally to co...

space-time

(Encyclopedia)space-time, central concept in the theory of relativity that replaces the earlier concepts of space and time as separate absolute entities. In relativity one cannot uniquely distinguish space and time...

Neptune, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)Neptune, in astronomy, 8th planet from the sun at a mean distance of about 2.8 billion mi (4.5 billion km) with an orbit lying between those of Uranus and the dwarf planet Pluto; its period of revolut...

Indian Ocean

(Encyclopedia)Indian Ocean, third largest ocean, c.28,350,000 sq mi (73,427,000 sq km), extending from S Asia to Antarctica and from E Africa to SE Australia; it is c.4,000 mi (6,400 km) wide at the equator. It con...