Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Reformed Church in America, Protestant denomination founded in colonial times by settlers from the Netherlands and formerly known as the Dutch Reformed Church. The Reformed Church in Holland emerged i...

(Encyclopedia) bald cypress, common name for members of the Taxodiaceae, a small family of deciduous or evergreen conifers with needlelike or scalelike leaves and woody cones. Most species of the family are trees of...

(Encyclopedia) state flowers. Each state of the United States has designated, usually by legislative action, one flower as its floral emblem; the rose has been designated by Congress as the national flower of the Un...

(Encyclopedia) Teotihuacán tāōtēwäkänˈ [key], ancient commercial and religious center in the central valley of Mexico, c.30 mi (48 km) NE of Mexico City. Once thought to be the great religious center of the T...

(Encyclopedia) Mackenzie, Sir Alexander, 1764?–1820, Canadian fur trader and explorer, b. Scotland. His family took him to the colony of New York in 1774, and later he was sent to Canada. He entered (c.1779) a Mon...

(Encyclopedia) badger, name for several related members of the weasel family. Most badgers are large, nocturnal, burrowing animals, with broad, heavy bodies, long snouts, large, sharp claws, and long, grizzled fur. ...

(Encyclopedia) North Platte, river, c.680 mi (1,090 km) long, rising in the Park Range, N Colo., and flowing in a great bend N through SE Wyo., then east across the plains of W central Nebr. to join the South Platte...

(Encyclopedia) gar, member of the family Lepisosteidae, freshwater fishes found in the warmer rivers and lakes of the S United States, Central America, Mexico, and the West Indies. Gars are highly predacious and des...

(Encyclopedia) Ekholm, Gordon Frederick ĕkˈhōlm [key], 1909–87, American archaeologist, b. St. Paul, Minn., Ph.D. Harvard, 1941. Working with the American Museum of Natural History in New York City after 1937, ...

(Encyclopedia) sea lion, fin-footed marine mammal of the eared seal family (Otariidae). Like the other member of this family, the fur seal, the sea lion is distinguished from the true seal by its external ears, long...