Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

laurel, in botany

(Encyclopedia) CE5 Sassafras, Sassafras albidum, a member of the laurel family laurel, common name for the Lauraceae, a family of forest trees and shrubs found mainly in tropical SE Asia but also abundant in tro...

gasoline

(Encyclopedia)gasoline or petrol, light, volatile mixture of hydrocarbons for use in the internal-combustion engine and as an organic solvent, obtained primarily by fractional distillation and “cracking” of pet...

Ritter, Tex

(Encyclopedia)Ritter, Tex (Woodward Maurice Ritter), 1905–74, American country singer, b. Murvaul, Tex. He moved (1930) to New York, where he performed in musicals and on the radio. Settling (1936) in California,...

Strong, William Duncan

(Encyclopedia)Strong, William Duncan, 1899–1962, American anthropologist, b. Portland, Oreg., grad. Univ. of California (B.A., 1923; Ph.D., 1926). He served as curator at the Chicago Field Museum (1926–29) and ...

Stern, Otto

(Encyclopedia)Stern, Otto stûrn, Ger. ôˈtō shtĕrn [key], 1888–1969, American physicist, b. Germany, Ph.D. Univ. of Breslau, 1912. After resigning from his post at the Univ. of Hamburg in 1933, he became prof...

Revillagigedo Islands

(Encyclopedia)Revillagigedo Islands or Revillagigedo Archipelago rāvēˈyähēhāˈᵺō [key], volcanic island group in the Pacific Ocean, c.450 mi (720 km) W of Colima state and S of Baja California, Mexico. The...

San Juan del Sur

(Encyclopedia)San Juan del Sur dĕl so͞or [key], town, SW Nicaragua, on the Pacific Ocean. It was the Pacific terminus of the transit route across the isthmus during the California gold rush and is today connected...

Taylor, Bayard

(Encyclopedia)Taylor, Bayard, 1825–78, American journalist and author, b. Kennett Square, Pa. His romantic verse in Ximena … and Other Poems (1844) secured him a long-standing assignment as correspondent fo...

Keeling, Charles David

(Encyclopedia)Keeling, Charles David, 1928–2005, U.S. geochemist, b. Scranton, Pa., Ph.D. Northwestern Univ., 1954. As a postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology (1953–56), he developed a s...

Lewis, Gilbert Newton

(Encyclopedia)Lewis, Gilbert Newton, 1875–1946, American chemist, b. Weymouth, Mass., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1896; Ph.D., 1899). He taught at Harvard and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1907–12) and...
 

Browse by Subject