Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) popular music: see country and western music; folk song; gospel music; jazz; rap music; rock music. ...

(Encyclopedia) Elephanta ĕlĭfănˈtə [key], island, c.2 sq mi (5.2 sq km), in Mumbai harbor, Maharashtra state, W India. It is noted for six Brahmanic caves, carved (8th cent.) from solid rock some 250 ft (76 m) ...

(Encyclopedia) reservoir rĕzˈəvôr, –vwär [key], storage tank or wholly or partly artificial lake for storing water. Building an embankment or dam to preserve a supply of water for irrigation is an ancient pra...

(Encyclopedia) King, B. B., 1925–2015, African-American blues singer and guitarist, b. near Indianola, Miss., as Riley B. King. He grew up poor in the Mississippi Delta region, began playing the guitar at 12, was ...

(Encyclopedia) quartz, one of the commonest of all rock-forming minerals and one of the most important constituents of the earth's crust. Chemically, it is silicon dioxide, SiO2. It occurs in crystals of the hexagon...

(Encyclopedia) Eocene epoch ēˈəsēnˌ [key], second epoch of the Tertiary period in the Cenozoic era of geologic time, from approximately 54.9 to 38 million years ago. The Eocene in North America was marked by th...

(Encyclopedia) Blue Island, city (2020 pop. 22,549), Cook co., NE Ill., a residential and industrial suburb of Chicago, on the Little Calumet River; inc. 1843. It has ...

(Encyclopedia) Spokane, river, c.100 mi (160 km) long, rising in Coeur d'Alene Lake, N Idaho, and flowing through NE Washington to the Columbia River. Dams on the river include Nine Mile, Long Lake, and Little Falls...

(Encyclopedia) Gibraltar jĭbrôlˈtər [key], British overseas territory (2015 est. pop. 34,000), 2.5 sq mi (6.5 sq km), on a narrow, rocky peninsula extending into the Mediterranean Sea from SW Spain. Most of the ...

(Encyclopedia) Leucippus lo͞osĭpˈəs [key], 5th cent. b.c., Greek philosopher. Aristotle believed that Leucippus inspired the atomistic theory with which Democritus is identified. Little is known about Leucippus....