Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Dunstable dŭnˈstəbəl [key], town, Central Bedfordshire, SE England. Located at the meeting ...

(Encyclopedia) Bradford, city and metropolitan borough, N central England, on a small tributary of the Aire River. It is a center of the worsted industry, which dates ...

(Encyclopedia) breakwater, offshore structure to protect a harbor from wave energy or deflect currents. When it also serves as a pier, it is called a quay; when covered by a roadway it is called a mole. In the Unite...

(Encyclopedia) intaglio ĭntălˈyō, –tälˈ– [key], design cut into stone or other material or etched or engraved in a metal plate, producing a concave, instead of a convex, effect. It is the reverse of a reli...

(Encyclopedia) Fort Niagara, post on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, at the mouth of the Niagara River, NW N.Y. It was strategically located on the water route to the fur lands. French explorer Robert LaSalle er...

(Encyclopedia) Franconia Mountains frăngkōˈnēə [key], range in the White Mts., N N.H., rising to 5,249 ft (1,600 m) at Mt. Lafayette; part of White Mts. National Forest. Franconia Notch, a scenic, narrow pass (...

(Encyclopedia) Kyffhäuser kĭfˈhoizər [key], forested mountain, c.1,550 ft (470 m), Saxony-Anhalt, central Germany. It is crowned by the two ruined castles of Rothenburg (7th cent.) and Kyffhausen (12th cent.) an...

(Encyclopedia) sod house, house with walls made of strips of sod laid horizontally in courses like bricks. Sod houses were common in the frontier days on the western plains of the United States, where wood and stone...

(Encyclopedia) Solovetski or Solovetsky Islands sələvyĕtˈskē [key], archipelago, c.150 sq mi (390 sq km), N European Russia, in the White Sea at the entrance of Onega Bay. A monastery, built in the first half o...

(Encyclopedia) acta ăkˈtə [key], official texts of ancient Rome, written or carved on stone or metal. Usually acta were texts made public, although publication was sometimes restricted. Acta were first posted or ...