Kaffir

Also spelled �Kafir, �Arabic �Kafir � (�Infidel�), member of a group of southern African Bantu-speaking peoples (see Xhosa); also, member of a people of the Hindu Kush in northeastern Afghanistan (see Nuristani). Use of the term for either group reflects a negative opinion. Especially in South Africa, kaffir (not capitalized) is used in a generally pejorative way to mean any African black.

Amargosa Range

Group of mountains in eastern California and southern Nevada, U.S., separating Death Valley from the Amargosa Desert. Part of the Basin Ranges of eastern California, the Amargosa Range extends 110 miles (180 km) from Grapevine Peak (8,705 feet [2,653 m]), south-southeastward to the Amargosa River. It is composed of three distinct mountain groups: the Grapevine, Funeral, and Black. Dante's View,

Hyperventilation

Rapid shallow breathing that provides the body with an excess of oxygen and a deficit of carbon dioxide. It most commonly occurs as a manifestation of anxiety or hysteria. It also occurs among pilots in unpressurized planes at high altitudes, who take short, rapid breaths rather than the normal slow, deep ones, in order to compensate for the smaller amount of available

Regla

City, northern Ciudad de la Habana provincia, west-central Cuba. Situated on the southeastern shore of La Habana Bay, Regla was a centre for smuggling activities in the 19th century. It is now an industrial suburb of Havana, with which it is linked by ferry as well as by land. Its foundries, petroleum refineries, shipyards, docks, and warehouses suggest its importance as both

Furniture, 19th century and modern

E.D. and F. Andrews, Shaker Furniture: The Craftsmanship of an American Communal Sect (1937); R.V. Symonds and B.B. Whineray, Victorian Furniture (1962), with many illustrations; Serge Grandjean, Empire Furniture, 1800 to 1825 (1966); Mikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design from William Morris to Walter Gropius (1960); Jean Cassou, Emile Langue, and Nikolaus Pevsner, Les Sources du vingtieme siecle (1961); John F. Pile, Modern Furniture (1979); Jonathan L. Fairbanks and Elizabeth Bidwell Bates, American Furniture, 1620 to the Present (1981); David A. Hanks, Innovative Furniture in America from 1800 to the Present (1981).

Cherwell

District, administrative and historic county of Oxfordshire, south-central England, occupying an area of 228 square miles (590 square km). The River Cherwell and the Oxford Canal extend north from Oxford city and bisect the district. Predominantly rural, Cherwell is a lowland area bordering the limestone Cotswold Hills on the west and the North Oxfordshire Heights on the

Roving

In archery, form of practice or competition dating from at least the 16th century, when it was practiced by the Honourable Artillery Company at Finsbury Fields near London. Archers set up many marks on the field and shot from one to the next in sequence, the object being, as in golf, to use the fewest shots in completing the course. Roving is similar to modern field archery,

Turin Faience

Tin-glazed earthenware made in Turin, Italy, from the 16th century through the 18th. It is known that the Genoese G.G. Bianchi opened a pottery factory in Turin in 1646. In 1725 Giorgio Rossetti expanded Turin's faience industry, in which he was followed by his descendants. Another factory was that of G.A. Ardizzone (flourished 1765). These 18th-century potters produced such wares as faience plates

Dadu

Town, Sindh province, southern Pakistan. The town lies just west of the Indus River, about 100 miles (160 km) north-northwest of Hyderabad. A distribution centre, it is connected by road and rail with Hyderabad, Karachi, and Quetta. Dadu has men's and women's government colleges that are affiliated with the University of Sindh. The area in which Dadu is situated is a fertile alluvial

Gondomar, Diego Sarmiento De Acu�a, Count (conde) De

Gondomar's diplomatic fame rests largely on two missions to England (1613 - 18 and 1620 - 22). The chief objective of his first mission was to persuade James I to abandon his alliance with France and the Protestant countries on the Continent and to form an alliance

Allen, Richard

Soon after Allen was born, to slave parents, the family was sold to a Delaware farmer. At age 17 he became a Methodist convert and at 22 was permitted to preach. Two years later (1784), at the first general conference of the

Biblical Literature, Portuguese versions

The first Portuguese New Testament (Amsterdam), the work of Jo�o Ferreira d'Almeida, did not appear until 1681. The first complete Bible (2 vol., 1748 - 53) was printed in Batavia (in Holland). Not until late in the 18th century did the first locally published vernacular Scriptures appear in Portugal. A revision of d'Almeida was issued in Rio de Janeiro (in Brazil), the New Testament in 1910 and the complete

Mcmillan, Edwin Mattison

McMillan was educated at the California Institute of Technology and at Princeton University, where he

Bharuch

Bharuch was one of the most celebrated harbours in ancient India, being mentioned in the Periplus Maris Erythraei (c. AD 80) and by Ptolemy as Barygaza. It also occurs in the Hindu epic poem Mahabharata. Ruled in the 2nd century by the Ksatrapas and in the 7th

Giancana, Sam

Born and reared in Chicago's �Little Italy� on the near southwest side, Giancana began working for Al Capone in the 1920s and, by 1966, had been arrested some 70 times and served five years

Sohlman, August

As a journalist, Sohlman wrote for a number of the leading newspapers of Sweden and was editor of the influential Stockholm daily

Graz

City, capital of Bundesland (federal state) Steiermark, southeastern Austria. The country's second largest city, it lies on the Mur River between the Styrian Alps and a wide, fertile valley, the Grazerfeld. In the 9th century there was probably a fortress on the Schlossberg, a rocky cone (1,552 feet [473 m]) that dominates the city. The name Graz is derived from gradec, a Slavic word meaning

Cereal Processing, Semolina

Semolina, not flour, is the form of cereal used, and various plain macaroni products are made by combining the correct form of semolina, from durum wheat, with water. Richer alimentary pastes are made with the addition of eggs in fresh, dried, or frozen form, and egg noodles are popular. In low-income families, alimentary pastes often provide the bulk of the calories in the

Durham

The historic core of the city is located on a peninsula in a bend of the River Wear. This natural defensive site, chosen by William the Conqueror (reigned 1066 - 87) as a fortress and bulwark against the Scots to the north, soon became a seat of the feudal prince-bishops of Durham, entrusted

Steele, Sir Richard

Pseudonym �Isaac Bickerstaff � English essayist, dramatist, journalist, and politician, best known as principal author (with Joseph Addison) of the periodicals The Tatler and The Spectator.

Poison, Drugs of abuse

Mind-altering drugs commonly abused include amphetamines, cocaine, phencyclidine, heroin, and methaqualone. These drugs are primarily toxic to the central nervous system; amphetamine and cocaine cause stimulation of the system (hallucinations and delirium), and heroin causes the depression of the system (depressed respiration and coma). In contrast, phencyclidine

Tocqueville, Alexis De

The Revolution of 1848 brought about a new political situation for France and for Tocqueville. Having decried apathy as the chief danger for France, Tocqueville recognized even before the revolution that France was faced with a politically awakened working class that might well propel French politics into socialist and revolutionary channels. Tocqueville considered

Tiger Beetle

Any member of the approximately 2,000 species of the insect family Cicindelidae (order Coleoptera). The name derives from their voracious eating habits. The larva lives in a vertical burrow, which is sometimes as much as 0.67 m (2 feet) deep. It waits at the top of the burrow for prey (insects), which it grasps with sicklelike mandibles (jaws). A pair of hooks on the abdomen anchor the larva,

Basavan

An outstanding Mughal painter, renowned as a superb colourist and as a sensitive observer of human nature. His name indicates that he may have been a member of the Ahir, or cowherders' caste, in the region of modern Uttar Pradesh. He was most active between about 1580 and 1600, and his name appears on the margins of more than 100 paintings, most often as the designer, in

Madison

Borough (town), Morris county, northeastern New Jersey, U.S. It lies 18 miles (29 km) west of Newark. The borough of Madison includes the communities of Montville, Wood Ridge, and Hopewell Valley. The centre of a greenhouse industry and nicknamed the �Rose City,� it is the site of Drew University (chartered 1868) and the Florham-Madison Campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University. The College

John Bar Qursos,

A soldier before becoming a monk, John was made bishop in 519 and undertook the spread of a doctrine of Christ's person and work common to Syrian and Egyptian monasticism, a belief derived from a beatifying inner experience of

Process Philosophy

A 20th-century school of Western philosophy that emphasizes the elements of becoming, change, and novelty in experienced reality; it opposes the traditional Western philosophical stress on being, permanence, and uniformity. Reality - including both the natural world and the human sphere - is essentially historical in this view, emerging from (and bearing) a past and

Progressive Party

(1924), in the United States, a short-lived independent political party assembled for the 1924 presidential election by forces dissatisfied with the conservative attitudes and programs of the Democrats and Republicans. The Progressive Party included liberals, agrarians, Republican progressives, socialists, and labour representatives. It chose as its presidential candidate Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin, who in 1911 had organized what became an independent party formally called the Progressive but generally known as the Bull Moose Party (q.v.). The 1924 Progressives pledged a �housecleaning� of executive departments, public control of natural resources, public ownership of railways, and tax reduction. The party polled only some 17 percent of the popular vote and did not influence the election, in which President Calvin Coolidge and the Republicans won a majority. The Progressive Party dissolved when La Follette died the following year.

Sea Pen

The central stalk of the animal consists of a lower part, the peduncle, which anchors the colony in mud or sand, and

Ring-necked Duck

(species Aythya collaris), diving duck (family Anatidae), a popular game bird that is considered excellent table fare. The ring-necked duck is about 43 cm (17 inches) long. The male has a purplish black, iridescent head, a black back, and gray sides with a vertical wedge-shaped white patch in front of the wing. The female is brown with a white eye ring. Both sexes have an inconspicuous