Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Washington Monument, obelisk-shaped tower, 555 ft 51⁄9 in. (169.3 m) high, located on a 106-acre (43-hectare) site at the west end of the Mall, Washington, D.C.; dedicated 1885. The world's tallest ...

(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) Tiahuanaco tyäwänäˈkō [key], ancient native ruin, W Bolivia, 34 mi (55 km) S of Lake Titicaca on the Tiahuanaco R. in the S central Andes, near the Peruvian border; also called Tiwanaku or Tiahua...

(Encyclopedia) Uttar Pradesh o͝oˈtär präˈdĭsh [key], state (2001 provisional pop. 166,052,859), 92,804 sq mi (240,363 sq km), N central India. The capital is Lucknow. Other important cities are Prayagraj (form...

(Encyclopedia) Van Doren, Mark 1894–1973, American poet and critic, b. Hope, Vermilion co., Ill., Ph.D. Columbia, 1920; brother of Carl Van Doren. He taught English at Columbia (1920–59), where he was a renowned...

(Encyclopedia) Tasaday, alleged band of 25 hunter-gatherers living in the Philippine rain forest, purportedly contacted by Westerners for the first time in 1971 in southern Mindanao (Cotabato Province). They reporte...

(Encyclopedia) Esdras ĕzˈdrəs [key] [Gr. from Heb. Ezra], name of several books found in the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. The New Revised Standard Version (following the Authorized Version) maintai...

(Encyclopedia) Indian art and architecture, works of art and architecture produced on the Indian subcontinent, which is now divided among India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. In the Western world, notable collections of...

(Encyclopedia) human evolution, theory of the origins of the human species, Homo sapiens. Modern understanding of human origins is derived largely from the findings of paleontology, anthropology, and genetics, and i...

(Encyclopedia) Machu Picchu mäˈcho͞o pēkˈcho͞o [key], Inca site in Peru, about 50 mi (80 km) NW of Cuzco. It is perched high upon a rock in a narrow saddle between two sharp mountain peaks and overlooks the Ur...