Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Gell, Sir William gĕl [key], 1777–1836, English archaeologist. He served as chamberlain to Caroline, consort of the prince of Wales (later George IV), and accompanied her to Italy in 1814. His orig...

(Encyclopedia) bay rum, aromatic liquid used chiefly as a cosmetic and a perfume. It originated in the West Indies, where it was prepared by distillation from rum and bay leaves. It is now commonly a mixture of oil ...

(Encyclopedia) Baffin, William, c.1584–1622, British arctic explorer. He was pilot on two expeditions (1615–16) sent out to search for the Northwest Passage under command of Robert Bylot, who was formerly with H...

(Encyclopedia) Merrill, Robert, 1917–2004, American baritone, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., as Moishe Miller. In 1945 he won the Metropolitan Opera's Auditions of the Air and in the same year made his debut as Germont in Ver...

(Encyclopedia) Henryson, Robert, c.1425–c.1506, Scottish poet. It is thought that he was a schoolmaster at Dunfermline Abbey. His principal poem is The Testament of Cresseid, which was written as a harshly moral e...

(Encyclopedia) Anderson, Robert, 1805–71, American army officer, defender of Fort Sumter, b. near Louisville, Ky., grad. West Point, 1825. He fought in the Black Hawk, Seminole, and Mexican wars and was promoted t...

(Encyclopedia) Geddes, Sir Patrick gĕdˈĭs [key], 1854–1932, Scottish biologist and sociologist, distinguished especially in town planning. He received his biological training in T. H. Huxley's laboratory; from ...

(Encyclopedia) Horvitz, H. Robert (Howard Robert Horivtz), 1947–, American geneticist, b. Chicago, Ill., Ph.D. Harvard, 1974. Horvitz has been a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1978. W...

(Encyclopedia) Wagner, Robert Ferdinand wăgˈnər [key], 1877–1953, American legislator, b. Germany. He arrived with his family in the United States in 1885 and grew up in poor surroundings in New York City. Afte...

(Encyclopedia) Mackenzie, Sir William, 1849–1923, Canadian railroad builder and financier, b. Ontario. In the early 1870s he became a railroad contractor. He constructed portions of the Canadian National and the C...