Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Ogata Kenzan ōgäˈtä kĕnˈzän [key] 1663–1743, Japanese potter and painter; younger brother of Ogata Korin. A follower of the Rimpa school, he set up kilns for the production of ceramics in the...

(Encyclopedia) boat-billed heron or boatbill, a tropical New World heron, Chochlearius chochlearius. With shorter legs and a squatter appearance than most herons, this bird is remarkable chiefly for its broad bill, ...

(Encyclopedia) Chesapeake Bay retriever, breed of large sporting dog developed in the United States. It stands about 24 in. (61 cm) high at the shoulder and weighs about 65 lb (29.5 kg). Its thick, short double coat...

(Encyclopedia) chromite krōˈmīt [key], dark brown to black mineral. It is an iron-chromium oxide, FeCr2O4, with traces of magnesium and aluminum. Its crystals are octahedral, but rare; it usually occurs as irregu...

(Encyclopedia) hornbeam or ironwood, name in North America for two groups of trees of the family Betulaceae (birch family), native to the eastern half of the continent. Carpinus caroliniana, also called blue beech a...

(Encyclopedia) Cullen, Countee kounˈtēˈ [key], 1903–46, American poet, b. New York City, grad. New York Univ. 1925, M.A. Harvard, 1926. A major writer of the Harlem Renaissance—a flowering of black artistic a...

(Encyclopedia) Heisman, John William hīsˈmən [key], 1869–1936, American football coach, b. Cleveland. He studied and played football at Brown (1887–89) and the Univ. of Pennsylvania (1890–91). He coached fo...

(Encyclopedia) wireworm, elongate, cylindrical larva of the click beetle. Most wireworms are hard and brown, but members of some species are soft and whitish. Wireworms live in rotten wood or in the ground and feed ...

(Encyclopedia) Wise, Henry Alexander, 1806–76, American political leader and Confederate general in the Civil War, b. Accomac, Va. A lawyer, he was successively a Jackson Democrat, a Whig, and a Tyler Democrat in ...

(Encyclopedia) wallflower, Mediterranean perennial (Cheiranthus cheiri) of the family Cruciferae (or Brassicaceae; mustard family), particularly popular in Europe, where it flourishes on old walls. An old-fashioned ...