Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Smith, William, 1769–1839, English geologist. Through direct observation as a canal-site surveyor, Smith made a systematic study of the geological strata of England and identified the fossils peculi...

(Encyclopedia) Smith, Henry John Stephen, 1826–83, British mathematician. He was a lecturer in mathematics (1850–73) and, from 1860 to 1883, Savilian professor of geometry at Oxford. He is especially noted for h...

(Encyclopedia) Rolfe, John rŏlf [key], 1585–1622, English colonist in Virginia. He reached the colony in May, 1610, and introduced (1612) the regular cultivation of tobacco, which became Virginia's staple. A wido...

(Encyclopedia) Smith, James, 1775–1839: see Smith, Horatio. ...

(Encyclopedia) Saltonstall, Sir Richard sôlˈtənstôl [key], 1586–1658, early English colonist in Massachusetts. Of a prominent Yorkshire family (he was knighted in 1618), Saltonstall became a member and was app...

(Encyclopedia) Smith, Gipsy, 1860–1947, English evangelist, originally named Rodney Smith, b. Wanstead. His father, a Romani (Gypsy), was also an evangelist. When Rodney was still a youth he became a member of Gen...

(Encyclopedia) Surtees, Robert Smith sûrˈtēz [key], 1803–64, English novelist. He created John Jorrocks, the sporting grocer, who appears in Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities (1838), a series of humorous sketches ...

(Encyclopedia) Smith, Sydney, 1771–1845, English clergyman, writer, and wit, ordained in the Church of England in 1794. In 1798 he went as a tutor to Edinburgh, where he studied medicine, occasionally preached, an...

(Encyclopedia) Smith, Stevie (Margaret Florence Smith), 1902–71, English poet and novelist, b. Hull, Yorkshire. At first unnoticed as a poet, she worked in a London publisher's office until 1953. Steadily gaining ...

(Encyclopedia) Smith, Zadie, 1975–, British writer. The biracial daughter of an English father and Jamaican mother, Smith burst on the literary scene in 2000 with her first novel, White Teeth, the award-winning be...