Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Pentecost pĕnˈtəkôst [key] [Gr.,=fiftieth], important Jewish and Christian feast. The Jewish feast of Pentecost, in Hebrew Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, one of the three pilgrimage festivals, arose...

(Encyclopedia) horsetail, any plant of the genus Equisetum [Lat.,=horse bristle], the single surviving genus of a large group (Equisetophyta) of primitive vascular plants. Like the ferns and club mosses, relatives o...

(Encyclopedia) wind tunnel, apparatus for studying the interaction between a solid body and an airstream. A wind tunnel simulates the conditions of an aircraft in flight by causing a high-speed stream of air to flow...

(Encyclopedia) Madang mäˈdäng [key], town (1990 pop. 27,181), Papua New Guinea, on NE New Guinea island. A seaport on Astrolabe Bay, Madang exports copra and gold. It was an important Japanese air base during Wor...

(Encyclopedia) Lead lēd [key], city (1990 pop. 3,632), Lawrence co., W S.Dak., in the Black Hills; laid out 1876 after the discovery of gold there, inc. 1890. It is the site of the famous Homestake Mine, which was ...

(Encyclopedia) Marinduque märēndo͞oˈkā [key], province (1990 pop. 185,524), the Philippines, between Mindoro and S Luzon. It includes Marinduque Island and 24 other islands. Iron, gold, silver, and copper are m...

(Encyclopedia) retable rēˈtābəl [key], frame for decorative panels at the back of an altar in European churches. Retables, often sumptuously decorated in alabaster and gold, generally contained scenes from the B...

(Encyclopedia) Darien dârˈēĕnˌ [key], residential town (2020 pop. 21,499), Fairfield co., SW Conn., on ...

(Encyclopedia) Aldan əldänˈ [key], city (1989 pop. 27,000), Sakha Republic, E Siberian Russia, on the Aldan Plateau. Located on a major north-south highway of the region, it is also in the heart of an important g...

(Encyclopedia) Alice Springs, town, Northern Territory, Australia. It lies in a pastoral area surrounded by desert near the center of the continent and is a stop on the Adelaide Darwin Railway. The town ...