Wells, Henry

Wells gained experience as an agent for Harnden's Express at Albany, N.Y., and then as a founder of Livingston, Wells, and Pomeroy's Express, operating between Albany and Buffalo. In 1844, together with William Fargo (q.v.) and Daniel Dunning,

Kirkwall

Royal burgh (town), seaport, and chief town of the Orkney Islands, Scotland, off the northern tip of the Scottish mainland. It was designated a royal burgh in 1486. Early Norse influence persisted as late as the building of the 12th-century red sandstone St. Magnus Cathedral, a dominant feature of the present town. The ruins of the Earl's Palace and 17th-century houses standing gable-end

Indiana

Borough (town), seat of Indiana county, west-central Pennsylvania, U.S., in the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, 46 miles (74 km) northeast of Pittsburgh. Settled about 1764, it was laid out in 1805 on land donated for a county seat by George Clymer of Philadelphia, a signer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. It was incorporated in 1816. Prior to the American Civil War, Indiana was a station

Orwell, George

Born Eric Arthur Blair, Orwell never entirely abandoned his original name, but his first book (Down and Out in Paris and London) appeared as the work

Mahalapye

Village, eastern Botswana. It lies midway along the Mafikeng-Bulawayo railway and is 125 miles (200 km) northeast of Gaborone, the national capital. The name Mahalapye refers to an impala. The village is situated on a plateau with good pasturage, and its economy is based on cattle raising and extensive mixed farming of sorghum, corn (maize), and beans. Mahalapye has one of the country's

Myanmar, Traditional regions

Speakers of Burmese and Mon historically have lived in the plains, while speakers of a dialect of Burmese retaining archaic features occupied the Arakan and Tenasserim coastal plains. The hills were inhabited by those speaking Shan, Kachin, Chin, and numerous other languages. In the plains the division between northern and southern Myanmar (Upper and Lower Burma,

Murger, Henri

The son of a concierge and a tailor, Murger left school at 13. Later he became secretary to Count Aleksey Tolstoy and was able to improve his education. He began writing poems and became part of the bohemian life in Paris, but he was often destitute and his health deteriorated. Both

Human Disease, Diseases of genetic origin

Certain human diseases result from mutations in the genetic complement (genome) contained in the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of chromosomes. A gene is a discrete linear sequence of nucleotide bases (molecular units) of the DNA that codes for, or directs, the synthesis of a protein, and there may be as many as 100,000 genes in the human genome. Proteins, many of which are enzymes

Trinidad And Tobago, Plant and animal life

Vegetation zones are well defined on both islands. In general, the highest areas coincide with the most luxuriant tropical rain forest vegetation. Cultivated estates or small settlements are established in clearings on the hills. In the dry season the hills are dotted with the orange flowers of the mountain immortelle, a large flowering tree that grows to a height

Wolfenb�

City, Lower Saxony Land (state), northwestern Germany. The city lies along the Oker River, just south of Brunswick. First mentioned in 1118, it grew around the castle that became a favourite Welf residence about 1283. Chartered in 1540, it was captured by the Protestant Schmalkaldic League in 1542 and was transferred to Brunswick in 1753 - 54. The old town has many Renaissance and Baroque half-timbered

Zapolska, Gabriela

Having tried unsuccessfully to pursue an acting career in Paris, Zapolska started writing cheap, sensationalist novels full of bitterness toward middle-class values, morality, and hypocrisy. Of her several novels written

Chachalaca

Any of several small birds of the curassow family. See curassow.

Sea Anemone

Any member of the invertebrate order Actiniaria (class Anthozoa, phylum Cnidaria), primarily sedentary marine animals resembling flowers. They are found from the tidal zone of all oceans to depths of more than 10,000 m (about 33,000 feet). Some live in brackish water. They are largest, most numerous, and most colourful in warmer seas. The colourful Tealia

Polish Literature, The literature of Socialist Realism

During 1949 - 55, the only officially acceptable literature conformed to the Soviet version of Socialist Realism, and those who wrote it followed the dictates of the Communist Party. A new type of hero was created - the ordinary man or woman actively engaged in �productive� work. Those elements in the social scene that served to present an idea of revolutionary progress were

Augustinian

Also called �Austin, � in the Roman Catholic Church, member of any of the religious orders and congregations of men and women whose constitutions are based on the Rule of St. Augustine, instructions on the religious life written by Augustine, the great Western theologian, and widely disseminated after his death, AD 430. More specifically, the name is used to designate members of two main branches

Armory Show

Formally �International Exhibition of Modern Art� an exhibition of painting and sculpture held from Feb. 17 to March 15, 1913, at the Sixty-ninth Regiment Armory in New York City. The show, a decisive event in the development of American art, was originally conceived by its organizers, the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, as a selection of representational works exclusively by American artists, members both of

Beiderbecke, Bix

As a boy Beiderbecke was expelled from Lake Forest Academy in suburban Chicago. In 1923 he joined the Wolverines, a youthful group with whom

Claudius, Matthias

After studying at Jena, Claudius held a series of editorial and minor official positions until in 1788 he acquired a sinecure in the Schleswig-Holstein bank. He edited the Wandsbecker Bote (1771 - 75), popular not only

Ekibastuz

City and major opencut coal-mining centre in northeastern Kazakstan, on the Ertis-Qaraghandy Canal. Coal was discovered in the region in 1876 and was mined on a small scale. Only after construction of a railway in 1953 did large-scale exploitation of Ekibastuz' rich but low-grade coal seams begin. In the 1970s Ekibastuz was the third largest coal-mining centre in the Soviet Union,

Karachi

City and capital of Sindh province, southern Pakistan. It is the country's largest city and principal seaport and is a major commercial and industrial centre. Karachi is located on the coast of the Arabian Sea immediately northwest of the Indus River Delta. The city proper covers an area of 228 square miles (591 square km), while the metropolitan area of Greater Karachi spreads

La Grande

City, seat (1905) of Union county, northeastern Oregon, U.S., between the Blue Mountains (west) and Wallowa Mountains (east), on the Grande Ronde River. The region was once roamed by Umatilla Indians. The city was founded in 1864 as a way station along the Oregon Trail. It developed as a shipping centre for ores, timber, and cattle; the cattle and lumber industries remain the economic mainstays

Schattschneider, Elmer Eric

Schattschneider earned an A.B. at the University of Wisconsin (1915), an M.A. at the University of Pittsburgh (1927), and a Ph.D. at Columbia University (1935). He taught at Columbia (1927 - 30); Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. (1929 - 30); and Wesleyan

Agustini, Delmira

Agustini was the first woman in Latin-American literature to deal boldly with the themes of sensuality and passion, and her poems have a force lacking from most Modernist poetry of the period. Her life ended tragically when she was murdered by her estranged husband. Her chief

Jordan, Relief and drainage

The desert is mostly within the Syrian (or North Arabian) Desert and occupies the eastern and southern parts of the country, comprising more than four-fifths of its territory.

Norfolk

Laid out as a town in 1682 following

Olaf I Tryggvason

Olaf, the great-grandson of the Norwegian king Harald I Fairhair and the son of Tryggvi Olafsson, a chieftain in southeastern Norway, was born soon after his father was killed by the Norwegian ruler Harald II Graycloak. According to legend,

Christchurch Mansion

In Ipswich, Suffolk, Eng., Tudor mansion built between 1548 and 1550 by Edmund Withipoll and now maintained as an art gallery and museum that is part of the Ipswich Museum of Art. The mansion houses a collection of local antiquities, including paintings and memorials of Edward Fitzgerald and Thomas Wollner. It has fine 16th-century paneling and part of a marble font from

Perfect Gas

Also called �ideal gas� a gas that conforms, in physical behaviour, to a particular, idealized relation between pressure, volume, and temperature called the general gas law. This law is a generalization containing both Boyle's law and Charles's law as special cases and states that for a specified quantity of gas, the product of the volume v and pressure p is proportional to the absolute temperature

Dengue

The carrier incriminated

Eugenius Iii, Blessed

Possibly a member of the family Paganelli di Montemagno, he was a disciple of St. Bernard of Clairvaux and a Cistercian abbot of the monastery of SS. Vincent and Anastasius when he was elected on February 15. Eugenius, like others of western Europe, was shocked by the fall of Edessa, the capital of the first