Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Boise project, in the Boise, Payette, and Snake river valleys, SW Idaho and E Oregon; developed in 1905 by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for irrigation, hydroelectricity, flood control, and recreatio...

(Encyclopedia) Floyd, John Buchanan, 1807–63, U.S. Secretary of War (1857–60) and Confederate general, b. Smithfield, Va. After failing as a lawyer and cotton planter in Arkansas, he returned to Virginia and pra...

(Encyclopedia) Blackheath, common, 267 acres (108 hectares) in Lewisham and Greenwich boroughs, London, England. It was the gathering place of highwaymen and of several martial groups, including the followers of Wat...

(Encyclopedia) euchre yo͞oˈkər [key], card game, played usually by four persons (two sets of partners). The game originated among the Amish and was a popular card game in America in the late 19th cent. The pack h...

(Encyclopedia) Stout, Rex, 1886–1975, American writer, b. Noblesville, Ind. He served in the navy and worked in New York City as founder and director of the Vanguard Press. His best-known works are nearly 70 myste...

(Encyclopedia) écarté āˌkärtāˈ [key], card game similar to euchre, played by two persons. The pack has 32 cards, seven through ace in each suit; the king is the highest card, and the ace ranks below the jack ...

(Encyclopedia) Macarthur, Mary Reid, 1880–1921, British labor organizer, b. Glasgow, Scotland. Working in her father's draper's shop, she became prominent in the shop assistants' union. As the representative of th...

(Encyclopedia) mechanism, philosophical theory about the nature of organic systems, holding that organisms are machines in the sense that they are material systems. Mechanism seeks to explain biological processes, i...

(Encyclopedia) Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), a Colonial patriotic society in the United States, open to women having one or more ancestors who aided the cause of the Revolution. The society was organiz...

(Encyclopedia) Smart, Christopher, 1722–71, English poet. A graduate of Cambridge, he lived in London writing poems, editing a humorous magazine, and producing plays. His one great poem, Song to David (1763), an i...