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Ordovician period

(Encyclopedia)Ordovician period ôrdəvĭshˈən [key] [from the Ordovices, ancient tribe of N Wales], second period of the Paleozoic era of geologic time (see Geologic Timescale, tablegeologic timescale, table) fr...

Lindbergh, Charles Augustus, 1902–74, American aviator

(Encyclopedia)Lindbergh, Charles Augustus, 1902–74, American aviator who made the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight, b. Detroit; son of Charles A. Lindbergh (1859–1924). He left the Univ. of Wisconsin (1...

translation

(Encyclopedia)translation [Lat.,=carrying across], the rendering of a text into another language. Applied to literature, the term connotes the art of recomposing a work in another language without losing its origin...

tropics

(Encyclopedia)tropics, also called tropical zone or torrid zone, all the land and water of the earth situated between the Tropic of Cancer at lat. 231⁄2°N and the Tropic of Capricorn at lat. 231⁄2°S. Every po...

Quetzalcoatl

(Encyclopedia)Quetzalcoatl kĕtˌsälkôätˈəl [key] [Nahuatl,=feathered serpent], ancient deity and legendary ruler of the Toltec in Mexico. The name is also that of a Toltec ruler, who is credited with the disc...

sea level

(Encyclopedia)sea level, the level of the sea, which serves as the datum used for measurement of land elevations and ocean depths. Theoretically, one would expect sea level to be a fixed and permanent horizontal su...

sand

(Encyclopedia)sand, rock material occurring in the form of loose, rounded or angular grains, varying in size from .06 mm to 2 mm in diameter, the particles being smaller than those of gravel and larger than those o...

rhyme

(Encyclopedia)rhyme or rime, the most prominent of the literary artifices used in versification. Although it was used in ancient East Asian poetry, rhyme was practically unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Wi...

space probe

(Encyclopedia)space probe, space vehicle carrying sophisticated instrumentation but no crew, designed to explore various aspects of the solar system (see space exploration). Unlike an artificial satellite, which is...

Rocky Mountains

(Encyclopedia)Rocky Mountains, major mountain system of W North America and easternmost belt of the North American cordillera, extending more than 3,000 mi (4,800 km) from central N.Mex. to NW Alaska; Mt. Elbert (1...