Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Ullswater, lake, 71⁄2 mi (12.1 km) long, Cumbria, NW England; second largest in the country. It is divided into three reaches. The waterfall of Aira Force (65 ft/20 m high) and Helvellyn Mt. are nea...

(Encyclopedia) Tarawera Mountain täˌräwârˈə [key], volcanic peak, 3,646 ft (1,111 m) high, on the North Island, New Zealand, in Rotorua. Its eruption in 1886 destroyed villages and the unique silica Pink and W...

(Encyclopedia) Dead Sea, salt lake, c.390 sq mi (1,010 sq km), extending c.45 mi (70 km) in the Jordan trough of the Great Rift Valley between the Ghor on the north and Wadi Arabah on the south, on the border betwee...

(Encyclopedia) Macdonough, Thomas məkdŏnˈə [key], 1783–1825, American naval officer, b. New Castle co., Del. In the Tripolitan War he took part in the burning of the captured Philadelphia and the attack on the...

(Encyclopedia) Hinckley, Gordon Bitner, 1910–2008, leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons; see Latter-day Saints, Church of Jesus Christ of), b. Salt Lake City, grad. Univ. of Utah. He ...

(Encyclopedia) Ottawa, river, c.700 mi (1,130 km) long, largest tributary of the St. Lawrence River, Canada. It rises in the Laurentian Highlands, SW Que., and flows generally W through La Vérendrye Provincial Park...

(Encyclopedia) Kariba Dam kärēˈbä [key], hydroelectric project, in Kariba Gorge of the Zambezi River, on the Zambia-Zimbabwe border, S central Africa; built 1955–59. One of the world's largest dams, it is 420 ...

(Encyclopedia) Baker, Sir Samuel White, 1821–93, English explorer in Africa. He explored the Nile tributaries in Ethiopia in 1861–62. Going up the Nile from Cairo, he reached Gondokoro in 1863. He continued his ...

(Encyclopedia) bayou bīˈō, bīˈo͞o [key] [Louisiana Fr.; from Choctaw bayuk=small stream], term used mainly in U.S. Gulf states, especially Louisiana and Mississippi, to describe a stationary or sluggishly movi...

(Encyclopedia) Thun to͞on [key], city (1990 est. pop. 37,700), Bern canton, central Switzerland, on the Aare River, where it flows out of the Lake of Thun. Machinery, watches, pottery, and cheese are made there. Of...