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catchment area

(Encyclopedia)catchment area or drainage basin, area drained by a stream or other body of water. The limits of a given catchment area are the heights of land—often called drainage divides, or watersheds—separat...

Japan Current

(Encyclopedia)Japan Current or Kuroshio ko͝orōshēˈō [key][Jap.,=black stream], warm ocean current of the Pacific Ocean, off E Asia. A northward flowing branch of the North Equatorial Current, it runs E of Taiw...

Maimon, Salomon

(Encyclopedia)Maimon, Salomon mīˈmôn [key], c.1754–1800, German philosopher, b. Polish Lithuania. He received a Jewish religious education and was influenced by the Talmudic tradition and particularly by Maimo...

Seferis, George

(Encyclopedia)Seferis, George sĕfĕrˈēs [key] (Giorgos Sefiriades), 1900–1971, Greek poet. Educated at the Univ. of Paris, he returned to Greece, where he had a distinguished career as a diplomat, including se...

pier

(Encyclopedia)pier, in engineering, term applied to a mass of reinforced concrete or masonry supporting a large structure, such as a bridge. When piers are built on ground of poor bearing value, it is often necessa...

Damas, Léon

(Encyclopedia)Damas, Léon lāôNˈ dämäˈ [key] (Léon-Gentran Damas), 1912–78, French poet, b. French Guiana. With Léopold Senghor and Aimé Césaire he was one of the first adherents of négritude, a cultur...

Falwell, Jerry Lamon

(Encyclopedia)Falwell, Jerry Lamon fôlˈwĕl, –wəl [key], 1933–2007, American fundamentalist Baptist pastor, b. Lynchburg, Va. A popular preacher and founder of the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Fa...

James, Henry, American novelist and critic

(Encyclopedia)James, Henry, 1843–1916, American novelist and critic, b. New York City. A master of the psychological novel, James was an innovator in technique and one of the most distinctive prose stylists in En...

Johnson, Tom Loftin

(Encyclopedia)Johnson, Tom Loftin, 1854–1911, American municipal reformer, mayor of Cleveland (1901–10), b. Georgetown, Ky. He acquired a substantial fortune from streetcar and steel interests, and, deeply infl...

Brahman

(Encyclopedia)Brahman or Brahmin both: bräˈmən [key]. In the Upanishads, Brahman is the name for the ultimate, unchanging reality, composed of pure being and consciousness. Brahman lies behind the apparent multi...