Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Thomson, Sir John Arthur, 1861–1933, Scottish naturalist and writer. From 1899 to 1930 he was Regius professor of natural history at the Univ. of Aberdeen. In 1924 he lectured at Union Theological S...

(Encyclopedia) Elsheimer, Adam äˈdäm ĕlsˈhīmər [key], 1578–1610?, German painter. After studying in Frankfurt, Munich, and Venice, he settled in Rome and worked for Pope Paul V. He painted small pictures on...

(Encyclopedia) Gallup, George Horace, 1901–84, American public opinion statistician, originator of the Gallup poll, b. Jefferson, Iowa. After teaching journalism at Drake Univ. (1929–31) and at Northwestern Univ...

(Encyclopedia) Dutch West India Company, trading and colonizing company, chartered by the States-General of the Dutch republic in 1621 and organized in 1623. Through its agency New Netherland was founded. The phenom...

(Encyclopedia) snake worship. The snake has been variously adored as a regenerative power, as a god of evil, as a god of good, as Christ (by the Gnostics), as a phallic deity, as a solar deity, and as a god of death...

(Encyclopedia) style, in literature, the mysterious yet recognizable result of a successful blending of form with content. Generally speaking, all the arts reflect one of two stylistic tendencies: the classical or t...

(Encyclopedia) supply and demand, in classical economics, factors that are said to determine price, by correlating the amount of a given commodity producers hope to sell at a certain price (supply), and the amount o...

(Encyclopedia) value, in economics, worth of a commodity in terms of other commodities, or in terms of money (see price). Value depends on both desirability and scarcity. The marginal theory of value, pioneered in t...

(Encyclopedia) Gospel [M.E.,=good news; evangel from Gr.,= good news], a written account of the life of Jesus. Though the Gospels of the New Testament are all anonymous, since the 2d cent. they have been named Matth...

(Encyclopedia) nutrition, study of the materials that nourish an organism and of the manner in which the separate components are used for maintenance, repair, growth, and reproduction. Nutrition is achieved in vario...