Jabiru

(species Jabiru mycteria), a typical stork of the New World, ranging from Mexico to Argentina. The jabiru belongs to the stork family, Ciconiidae (order Ciconiiformes). It is mostly white, with the naked skin of the head and upper neck black and red. The unusually heavy bill is slightly upturned. The jabiru is one of the largest American flying birds, reaching a length of 140 cm

Alloway

Southern suburb of the town of Ayr, South Ayrshire council area, historic county of Ayrshire, Scotland, famous as the birthplace of Scotland's national poet, Robert Burns. There is a museum alongside the thatched cottage where he was born in 1759 and a memorial built in 1820 in the form of a Grecian temple. The Brig o' Doon, immortalized in Burns's poem �Tam o' Shanter,� is nearby.

Taffeta

Fine, crisp plain-woven fabric with a faint weft, or filling-way, rib due to the greater number of warp threads than filling threads. It frequently has a lustrous surface. There are two distinct types of silk taffeta: yarn-dyed and piece-dyed. Yarn-dyed taffeta has a stiff handle and a rustle known as scroop, or froufrou. It is used for evening dresses and for underskirts for

Kwajalein Atoll

Also called �Kwajalong, � coral formation in the Ralik (western) chain of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, in the western Pacific Ocean. The string of some 90 islets has a total land area of 6 square miles (16 square km) and surrounds the world's largest lagoon (655 square miles [1,722 square km]). The islets of Kwajalein, Roi, and Namur were the first of the Marshall Islands captured by U.S. troops in World War II. The

Waterford

Town (township), New London county, southeastern Connecticut, U.S., on Long Island Sound just west of the city of New London. The area, settled about 1653, was separated from New London and incorporated as a town in 1801. Drained by the Thames and Niantic rivers, it has a name descriptive of local fordable shallows. Early industries included paper mills and a granite quarry, which was

Abancay

Capital of Apur�mac departamento, Inca regi�n, southern Peru. It is situated on the eastern bank of the Marino River at 7,798 feet (2,377 metres) above sea level, in a cool, dry intermontane basin. The exact date of the founding of Abancay (from the Quechua Indian amankay, the name of a wildflower resembling a white lily) is unknown, but it was a leading commercial centre during the Spanish

Gabon

Roland Pourtier, Le Gabon, 2 vol. (1989), provides an introduction. Institut P�dagogique National (Gabon), G�ographie et cartographie du Gabon (1983), is an illustrated atlas. Two studies of the Mpongwe are Henry Bucher, �The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Gabon Estuary: The Mpongwe to 1860,� in Paul E. Lovejoy (ed.), Africans in Bondage (1986), pp. 137 - 154, and �The Village of Glass and Western Intrusion: An Mpongwe Response to the American and French Presence in the Gabon Estuary: 1842 - 1845,� The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 6(3):363 - 400 (1973). James W. Fernandez, Bwiti: An Ethnography of the Religious Imagination in Africa (1982), examines the most important syncretic cult. Pierre-Claver Maganga-Moussavou, Economic Development - Does Aid Help? (1983; originally published in French, 1982), critiques French economic involvement in independent Gabon. Marc Aicardi de Saint-Paul, Gabon: The Development of a Nation (1989; originally published in French, 1987), discusses economic policies and conditions.

Amon

Amon may have been originally a local deity at Khmun (Hermopolis) in Middle Egypt; his cult reached Thebes, where he became the patron of the pharaohs by the reign of Mentuhotep I (2008 - 1957 BC). At that date he was already identified with the sun god Re of Heliopolis and, as Amon-Re, was received as a national god. Represented in human form,

Murom

City, Vladimir oblast (province), western Russia. Murom lies along the Oka River. It is one of the oldest Russian towns and was first mentioned in the chronicles of 862. Surviving historic buildings include the Trinity and Annunciation monasteries and the churches of the Resurrection and Transfiguration, all from the 17th century. The contemporary city has engineering,

Africanus, Sextus Julius

His life is not well documented, but evidence indicates that Africanus traveled considerably in Asia, Egypt, and Italy and later lived chiefly at Emmaus, in Palestine, where he served as prefect. He was named regional ambassador to Rome about 222, when he became a prot�g� of the emperor Severus

Brunel, Olivier

The first Flemish navigator of the Arctic Ocean, Brunel sailed beyond Lapland in 1565 in search of a northeast

'abbas Mirza

Although he was not the eldest son of Fath 'Ali Shah (1797 - 1834), 'Abbas Mirza was named crown prince and appointed governor of the province of Azerbaijan in 1798 or 1799. When war broke out between Russia and Iran in 1804, he was made commander of the Iranian expeditionary

Ansky, S.

Ansky was educated in a Hasidic environment and as a young man was attracted to the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala) and to the populist doctrines of the Narodniki, a group of socialist revolutionaries. For a time he worked among the peasants and contributed

General Association Of Regular Baptist Churches

Association of independent, conservative Baptist churches in the United States, organized in 1932 after 22 Baptist churches withdrew from the Northern (later American) Baptist Convention. These churches withdrew because they felt that the Northern Baptists were accepting the teachings of the modernists, or liberals, who accepted biblical criticism and attempted

Earth, The figure of the Earth

Recent standard works include G. Bomford, Geodesy, 4th ed. (1980, reprinted 1983); Weikko A. Heiskanen and Helmut Moritz, Physical Geodesy (1967); Wolfgang Torge, Geodesy, an Introduction (1980; originally published in German, 1975), a classical treatment; and Petr Van�cek and Edward J. Krakiwsky, Geodesy, the Concepts, rev. ed. (1986). See also International Association Of Geodesy, Systeme geodesique de reference 1967: Geodetic Reference System 1967 (1971).

Kircher, Athanasius

Kircher learned Greek and Hebrew at the Jesuit school in Fulda, pursued scientific and humanistic studies at Paderborn, Cologne, and Koblenz, and in 1628 was ordained at Mainz. He fled the

Agunah

Hebrew �'aguna (�deserted woman�)�, plural �agunahs, �'agunot�, or �agunoth� in Orthodox and Conservative Judaism, a woman who is presumed to be widowed but who cannot remarry because evidence of her husband's death does not satisfy legal requirements. The plight of the agunah has generated voluminous and complex treatment in Halakhic literature. Although religious courts are not empowered to grant remarriage without indisputable

Biblical Literature, Prophetic themes and actions

The first section of the book (chapters 1 - 24) contains prophecies against Judah and Jerusalem. Ezekiel's call is recorded in chapter 1 to chapter 3, verse 15. It came in a vision of four heavenly cherubim, who appeared in a wind from the north, a cloud, and flashing fire (lightning?) - traditional symbolic elements of a theophany (manifestation of a god) in ancient Near Eastern religions.

Prickly Heat

A noncontagious skin eruption of red pimples with intense itching and tingling caused by inflammation around the sweat glands. It is a form of miliaria (q.v.).

Jhunjhunu

City, northeastern Rajasthan state, northwestern India. It is a local trade centre for wool, cattle, hides, and gram (chick-pea). The city's major industries include a dye factory and woolen mills. Jhunjhunu houses the mausoleum of Qamar-ud-Din Shah, patron saint of the Kamkhani sect, as well as a 10th-century Jaina temple. The city also contains a hospital and a college affiliated

Muscovy Company

Also called �Russia Company, � body of English merchants trading with Russia. The company was formed in 1555 by the navigator and explorer Sebastian Cabot and various London merchants and was granted a monopoly of Anglo-Russian trade. It was the first English joint-stock company in which the capital remained regularly in use instead of being repaid after every voyage. In 1553 Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard

Overbeck, Johann Friedrich

In 1806 Overbeck entered the Academy of Vienna, where, disappointed in the academic approach to teaching, he and Franz Pforr in 1809 founded the Lucas Brotherhood. They sought to revive

Kayal

The kayal is related to the longer melodic form known as the dhrupad but has fewer restrictions. It is usually accompanied

Arabian Desert

Great desert region occupying almost the entire Arabian Peninsula. Covering an area of about 900,000 square miles (2,300,000 square km), it is bordered on the north by the Syrian Desert, on the northeast and east by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, on the southeast and south by the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and on the west by the Red Sea. A large part of the Arabian Desert lies within

Sacasa, Juan Bautista

Sacasa studied in the United States from 1889 to 1901, earning an M.D. from Columbia University. In 1924 he was elected vice president of Nicaragua as leader of the Liberal Party in a coalition government. The following year a coup d'�tat installed General Emiliano Chamorro

Karamzin, Nikolay Mikhaylovich

From an early age, Karamzin was interested in Enlightenment philosophy and western European literature. After extensive travel in western Europe,

United States, The Jeffersonian Republicans in power

By the start of Jefferson's second term in office, Europe was engulfed in the Napoleonic Wars. The United States remained neutral, but both Britain and France imposed various orders and decrees severely restricting American trade with Europe and confiscated American ships for violating the new rules. Britain also conducted impressment raids in which U.S. citizens were sometimes seized. Unable to agree to treaty terms with Britain, Jefferson tried to coerce both Britain and France into ceasing to violate �neutral rights� with a total embargo on American exports, enacted by Congress in 1807. The results were catastrophic for American commerce and produced bitter alienation in New England, where the embargo (written backward as �O grab me�) was held to be a Southern plot to destroy New England's wealth. In 1809, shortly after Madison was elected president, the embargo act was repealed.

Iberian Peninsula

Peninsula in southwestern Europe, occupied by Spain and Portugal. Its name derives from its ancient inhabitants whom the Greeks called Iberians, probably after the Ebro (Iberus), the peninsula's second longest river (after the Tagus). The Pyrenees form an effective land barrier in the northeast from the rest of Europe, and in the south at Gibraltar the peninsula is separated

Human Embryology, Amnion

A cleft separates the outermost cells of the inner cell mass of the blastocyst from the remainder, which then becomes the embryonic disk (Figure 1G). The split-off, thin upper layer is the amnion, which remains attached to the periphery of the embryonic disk. As the disk folds into a cylindrical embryo, the amniotic margin follows the underfolding,

Br�cke, Ernst Wilhelm Von

Br�cke was a member of a school of physiologists (including