Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

seal, in zoology

(Encyclopedia)seal, carnivorous aquatic mammal with front and hind feet modified as flippers, or fin-feet. The name seal is sometimes applied broadly to any of the fin-footed mammals, or pinnipeds, including the wa...

Alpena

(Encyclopedia)Alpena ălpēˈnə [key], city, seat of Alpena co., N Mich., on Thunder Bay, an arm of Lake Huron; inc. 1871. Limestone quarried nearby is used to make cement, Alpena's ch...

Duniway, Abigail Scott

(Encyclopedia)Duniway, Abigail Scott dŭnˈəwāˌ [key], 1834–1915, American editor and advocate of women's rights, b. near Groveland, Ill. She went to Oregon with her family in 1852 and the next year married Be...

Crandell, Prudence

(Encyclopedia)Crandell, Prudence krănˈdəl [key], 1803–89, American educator and abolitionist, b. Hopkinton, R.I. In 1831 she opened a school for girls in Canterbury, Conn. Her decision to admit a black was pro...

Ajaccio

(Encyclopedia)Ajaccio äyätˈchō [key], town, capital of Corse-du-Sud dept., France, on the Isle of Corsica. A year-round tourist attraction, Ajaccio also has manufacturing, fishing, ...

Foster, Hannah Webster

(Encyclopedia)Foster, Hannah Webster, 1759–1840, American novelist, b. Boston. She was one of the earliest American novelists and her epistolary novel, The Coquette (1797), was one of the first of its kind in Ame...

Forbes-Robertson, Sir Johnston

(Encyclopedia)Forbes-Robertson, Sir Johnston, 1853–1937, English actor-manager. He was trained by Samuel Phelps, made his first appearance in 1874, and thereafter performed with the Bancrofts (1878), John Hare, a...

Nepos, Julius

(Encyclopedia)Nepos, Julius, d. 480, Roman emperor of the West (474–80). The military governor of Dalmatia, he was appointed emperor of the West by Leo I, emperor of the East. A year later he was deposed by Orest...

McCoy, Joseph Geating

(Encyclopedia)McCoy, Joseph Geating, 1837–1915, American cattle-trade pioneer, b. Sangamon co., Ill. He selected Abilene, Kans., as the site for a railroad shipping center for the marketing of Western cattle. In ...

Miller, William

(Encyclopedia)Miller, William, 1782–1849, American sectarian leader, b. Pittsfield, Mass. He was the founder of the sect of Second Adventists, sometimes called Millerites. In 1831, convinced from study of the Bib...