Tsuchiura

City, Ibaraki ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan, on the western shore of Lake Kasumi. A castle was constructed on the city site during the Muromachi period (1338 - 1573), and Tsuchiura grew to be a flourishing centre of land and sea transportation. Fishing was also highly developed. The Joban Line (railway) was opened through Tsuchiura in 1896, and in 1920 a Japanese naval base and related machinery

Bond

Bonding may be achieved by overlapping alternate courses (rows or layers) in brickwork, by using metal ties, and by inserting units vertically

John Day

City, Grant county, northeast-central Oregon, U.S., situated at the confluence of John Day River and Canyon Creek, near the Strawberry Mountain Wilderness Area. (The North Fork of the John Day is part of the U.S. Wild and Scenic Rivers system.) A stopover on the Pony Express trail from The Dalles (220 miles [354 km] northwest), it originated in the early 1860s, along with adjacent Canyon City,

1812, War Of

(June 18, 1812 - Dec. 24, 1814), inconclusive British - U.S. conflict arising chiefly out of U.S. grievances over oppressive maritime practices during the Napoleonic Wars. The long struggle between Great Britain and France, fought intermittently between 1793 and 1815, led both belligerents to infringe on the rights and impair the interests of neutrals. Napoleon averted hostilities

Duck Mountain

Plateau in southwestern Manitoba, Canada, forming the highest part of the Manitoba Escarpment. It extends southeastward from the Saskatchewan border for 50 miles (80 km), culminating in Baldy Mountain (2,730 feet [832 m]), 36 miles northwest of Dauphin. A large part of the plateau is embraced by Duck Mountain Provincial Park, established in 1962 to preserve the region's dense forests, numerous

Yobe

Yobe's terrain consists of plains that are drained by the seasonal Komadugu Yobe River and its tributaries in the north and by the Gongola

Ursa Minor

Also called �The Little Bear, � in astronomy, a constellation of the northern sky, seven of whose stars outline the Little Dipper. Polaris (Alpha Ursae Minoris), at the end of the Little Dipper's handle, marks (roughly) the position of the north celestial pole. The constellation lies at about 15 hours right ascension and 80� north declination.

Lowell, A(bbott) Lawrence

A member of a prominent Boston family, Lowell was the brother of the astronomer Percival Lowell and of the poet Amy Lowell. He graduated from Harvard (A.B. 1877, LL.B. 1880) and practiced law in Boston for 17 years before turning

Carnivore, Natural history

Hyenas form a relatively homogeneous family that includes two basic types: the true hyenas (two species of Hyaena and one of Crocuta) and the aardwolf (Proteles cristatus; see photograph). Hyenas are noted for their scavenger feeding and bone-crushing habits, although they do hunt live animals. Their food consists largely of the remains of artiodactyls,

South Africa, The arts

The many languages spoken by South Africa's people reflect the country's cultural diversity. The Africans have adopted a host of Western ways, but a core of African cultural traditions of language, music, and dance retains its vitality and has contributed to a distinctly South African fusion of cultural forms. Some of the better-known features of that fusion appear

Wolf, Friedrich August

Extremely precocious, Wolf learned Greek, Latin, and French as a child. He was largely self-taught when in 1777 he

Ear Disease, Otosclerosis

The commonest cause for progressive hearing loss in early and middle adult life is a disease of the hard shell of bone that surrounds the labyrinth of the inner ear. This disease of bone is known as otosclerosis, a name that is misleading, for in its early and actively expanding stage the nodule of diseased bone is softer than the ivory-hard bone that it replaces. The

Ibn Muqlah

One of the foremost calligraphers of the 'Abbasid Age (750 - 1258), reputed inventor of the first cursive style of Arabic lettering, the naskhi script, which replaced the angular Kufic as the standard of Islamic calligraphy. In the naskhi script Ibn Muqlah introduced the rounded forms and curved lines that in later styles were

Shad

Any of several saltwater food fishes of the herring family (Clupeidae) that swim up rivers to spawn. Shad of the genus Alosa are rather deep bodied and have a notch in the upper jaw into which the tip of the lower fits. Young shad have small teeth, but the adults are toothless. The flesh of these fishes is considered very good to eat, though bony; the eggs,

Rosidae, The order Celastrales

The Celastrales consists of up to 12 families and a little more than 2,000 species, of which Celastraceae, Hippocrateaceae, Aquifoliaceae, and Icacinaceae comprise the bulk of the order. The members are generally woody plants with simple leaves and regular flowers with fused petals. There is usually a single set of stamens that normally alternate with the petals. The order

Port Davey

Inlet of the Indian Ocean, indenting southwestern Tasmania, Australia. It is a glacial fjord, its entrance flanked by Point St. Vincent (north) and Hillyard Island. The inlet comprises two main arms, the shorter extending north to form Payne Bay and the other stretching 20 miles (32 km) east along Bathurst Channel to Bathurst Harbour. Passed in 1798 by the British explorer Matthew

Middle West

Also called �Midwest, or North Central States, � region, northern and central United States, lying midway between the Appalachian and Rocky mountains and north of the Ohio River and the 37th parallel. The Middle West, as defined by the federal government, comprises the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Actually composed of

Atlas Mountains, Transportation

The massifs constitute an obstacle to traffic; roads and railroads traverse them by means of tunnels and viaducts, which are costly to build. Traffic between

Bonaparte, Louis

After attending military school at Ch�lons, France, Louis accompanied Napoleon on the Italian campaign of

Factoring

In finance, the selling of accounts receivable on a contract basis by the business holding them - in order to obtain cash payment of the accounts before their actual due date - to an agency known as a factor. The factor then assumes full responsibility for credit analysis of new accounts, payments collection, and credit losses. Factoring differs from borrowing in that

Bernard, Jean-jacques

French playwright and chief representative of what became known as l'�cole du silence (the �school of silence�) or, as some critics called it, the �art of the unexpressed,� in which the dialogue does not express the characters' real attitudes. As in Martine(1922), perhaps the best example of his work, emotions are implied in gestures, facial

Paraboloid

An open surface generated by rotating a parabola (q.v.) about its axis. If the axis of the surface is the z axis and the vertex is at the origin, the intersections of the surface with planes parallel to the xz and yz planes are parabolas (see Figure, top). The intersections of the surface with planes parallel to and above the xy plane are circles. The general equation for this

Stained Glass

In the arts, the coloured glass used for making decorative windows and other objects through which light passes. Strictly speaking, all coloured glass is �stained,� or coloured by the addition of various metallic oxides while it is in a molten state; nevertheless, the term stained glass has come to refer primarily to the glass employed in making ornamental or pictorial

Auger

Tool (or bit) used with a carpenter's brace for drilling holes in wood. It looks like a corkscrew and has six parts: screw, spurs, cutting edges, twist, shank, and tang. The screw looks like a tapered wood screw and is short and small in diameter; it centres the bit and draws it into the work. At the working end of the twist there are two sharp points called spurs, which score a circle

Sung-chiang

It first became an independent county in 751 under the name of Hua-t'ing, and in 1278 its name was changed to Sung-chiang. It was a superior prefecture under the Ming (1368 - 1644) and Ch'ing (1644 - 1911) dynasties and grew into

Sapru, Sir Tej Bahadur

Educated at Agra College, Allahabad, Sapru practiced law before the High Court at Allahabad from 1896. He was a member of

Ahmadiyah

A modern Islamic sect and the generic name for various Sufi (Muslim mystic) orders. The sect was founded in Qadian, the Punjab, India, in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (c. 1839 - 1908), who claimed to be the mahdi (a figure expected by some Muslims at the end of the world), the Christian Messiah, an incarnation of the Hindu god Krishna, and a reappearance (buruz) of Muhammad. The sect's doctrine, in some aspects, is unorthodox:

Bonald, Louis-gabriel-ambroise, Vicomte De (viscount Of)

Mayor of Millau from 1785 to 1789, Bonald became president of the district of