Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) cotton, most important of the vegetable fibers, and the plant from which the fiber is harvested. Today the leading cotton states are Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Louisi...

(Encyclopedia) deafness, partial or total lack of hearing. It may be present at birth (congenital) or may be acquired at any age thereafter. A person who cannot detect sound at an amplitude of 20 decibels in a frequ...

(Encyclopedia) wind, flow of air relative to the earth's surface. A wind is named according to the point of the compass from which it blows, e.g., a wind blowing from the north is a north wind. The diurnal, or dai...

(Encyclopedia) gem, commonly, a mineral or organic substance, cut and polished and used as an ornament. Gems also are used as seals (items of assurance) and as talismans (good-luck charms). For birthstones, see mont...

(Encyclopedia) pottery, the baked-clay wares of the entire ceramics field. For a description of the nature of the material, see clay. American art pottery flourished in the first half of the 20th cent., with wor...

(Encyclopedia) birth control, practice of contraception for the purpose of limiting reproduction. Although contraceptive techniques had been known in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, the modern movement for birth ...

(Encyclopedia) architecture, the art of building in which human requirements and construction materials are related so as to furnish practical use as well as an aesthetic solution, thus differing from the pure utili...

(Encyclopedia) German art and architecture, artistic works produced within the region that became politically unified as Germany in 1871 generally followed the stylistic currents of Western Europe. The sentimental...

(Encyclopedia) printing, means of producing reproductions of written material or images in multiple copies. There are four traditional types of printing: relief printing (with which this article is mainly concerned)...

(Encyclopedia)  CE5 New Zealand zēˈlənd [key], island country (2015 est. pop. 4,615,000), 104,454 sq mi (270,534 sq km), in the S Pacific Ocean, over 1,000 mi (1,600 km) SE of Australia. The capital is Wellingt...