Nagano

Formerly �Zenkoji, � city, Nagano ken (prefecture), central Honshu, Japan. It is the capital of the prefecture and is situated in the Nagano Basin. The city dates from the 12th - 13th century and grew up around the Zenko Temple, which was founded in the 7th century. Nagano later developed as a market town and post station along the Hokkoku Road. It is now an important commercial centre with food-processing,

Xuanzang

Wade-Giles romanization �Hs�an-tsang�, original name �Chen Yi�, honorary epithet �San-tsang�, also called �Muchatipo�, Sanskrit �Mokshadeva�, or �Yuanzang� Buddhist monk and Chinese pilgrim to India who translated the sacred scriptures of Buddhism from Sanskrit into Chinese and founded in China the Buddhist Consciousness Only school. His fame rests mainly on the volume and diversity of his translations of the Buddhist sutras and on the record

Igor's Campaign, The Song Of

Also translated �Lay of Igor's Campaign�, Russian �Slovo o polku Igoreve� masterpiece of Old Russian literature, an account of the unsuccessful campaign in 1185 of Prince Igor of Novgorod-Seversky against the Polovtsy (Kipchak, or Cumans). As in the great French epic The Song of Roland, Igor's heroic pride draws him into a combat in which the odds are too great for him. Though defeated, Igor escapes his captors and returns to his people. The tale was

Ribbon Fall

Cataract on the west slope of the Sierra Nevada in Yosemite National Park, east-central California, U.S. With a drop of 1,612 feet (491 m), it is one of the world's highest waterfalls and one of the park's most scenic features. Reaching a peak volume during May and June, it is fed mainly by melting snow; hence, it is sometimes dry for part of the year.

Lynch, Charles Birchell

Canadian journalist and author (b. Dec. 3, 1919, Cambridge, Mass.--d. July 21, 1994, Ottawa, Ont.), was a gifted storyteller who attracted a wide and loyal readership as the longtime (1958-84) Ottawa syndicated columnist for Southam News Services. Lynch's folksy approach endeared him to English-speaking readers throughout much of the country. In his political commentaries, he boasted of "slipping

Plume Moth

Any of the approximately 600 species of the cosmopolitan insect family Pterophoridae (order Lepidoptera), named for the deep wing divisions that resemble plumes or lobes. It differs from the many-plumed moth, an Orneodidae-family member, in that its forewings and hindwings are not split down to their base into six plumes but are divided only to their middle, the forewings

Sukhoy

The Sukhoy design bureau has three

Hippocrates

Greek physician of antiquity who is traditionally regarded as the father of medicine. His name has long been associated with the so-called Hippocratic Oath - certainly not written by him - which in modified form is still often required to be taken by medical students on graduating.

Ardennes

Also spelled �Ardenne� wooded plateau covering part of the ancient Forest of Ardennes, occupying most of the Belgian provinces of Luxembourg, Namur, and Li�ge; part of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg; and the French d�partement of Ardennes. It is an old plateau comprising the western extension of the Middle Rhine Highlands, stretching in a northeast-southwest direction and covering more

Wind Instrument, Reedpipes

Egypt also made clarinets, instruments composed of two canes with three sides of a rectangle cut obliquely in the upper end of the two single reeds. The term idioglottic is used to describe a reed cut from the tube itself. From four to six equidistant finger holes are cut in each cane, and blowing with the entire reed engulfed in the mouth cavity produces a pungent, tremulous

Group F.64

Loose association of California photographers who promoted a style of sharply detailed, purist photography. The group, formed in 1932, constituted a revolt against the soft-focused, academic photography that was then prevalent among West Coast artists. The name of the group is taken from a setting of a camera diaphragm aperture that gives particularly good resolution

Oblate

(from Latin oblatus, �one offered up�), in Roman Catholicism, a lay person connected with a religious order or institution and living according to its regulations; a minor dedicated by his parents to become a monk according to the Benedictine Rule; or a member of either the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (O.M.I.) or the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales (O.S.F.S.).

Indian Summer

Period of dry, unseasonably warm weather in late October or November in the central and eastern United States. The term originated in New England and probably arose from the Indians' practice of gathering winter stores at this time. This autumn warm period also occurs in Europe, where in Britain it is called All-hallown summer or Old Wives' summer. Indian summer may

Lustration

(from Latin lustratio, �purification by sacrifice�), any of various processes in ancient Greece and Rome whereby individuals or communities rid themselves of ceremonial impurity (e.g., bloodguilt, pollution incurred by contact with childbirth or with a corpse) or simply of the profane or ordinary state, which made it dangerous to come into contact with sacred rites

Ear Disease

Impaired hearing is, with rare exception, the result of disease or abnormality of the outer, middle, or inner ear. Serious impairment of hearing at birth almost always results from a dysfunction of the auditory nerve and cannot be improved by medical or surgical treatment. In early and late childhood

Duck Lake

Town, central Saskatchewan, Canada. It lies between the North and South Saskatchewan rivers, 33 miles (53 km) southwest of Prince Albert. Originally settled about 1870 on nearby Duck Lake, the town was the site of the first clash (March 26, 1885) of the Riel (North West) Rebellion between M�tis (people of mixed American Indian and French or Scottish ancestry) led by Gabriel Dumont and a detachment

Earth Sciences, Ore deposits and mineralogy

The German scientist Georgius Agricola has with much justification been called the father of mineralogy. Of his seven geologic books, De natura fossilium (1546; �On Natural

Arsenius Autorianus

Patriarch of Constantinople, whose deposition caused a serious schism in the Byzantine Church. He took the name Arsenius on being appointed patriarch of Nicaea in 1255 by the Byzantine emperor Theodore II Lascaris. In 1259 he crowned John IV, Theodore's son and legitimate heir, and Michael VIII Palaeologus as co-emperors. Arsenius retired

Confession

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the acknowledgment of sinfulness in public or private, regarded as necessary to obtain divine forgiveness. The need for confession is frequently stressed in the Bible. The mission of the Old Testament prophets was to awaken in the people a sense of sinfulness and an acknowledgment of their guilt, both personal and collective. Before

Preston, May Wilson

May Wilson displayed marked artistic ability from an early age. In 1889, when she was barely out of high school, she helped found the Women's Art

Alvarez, A.

Although Alvarez's family enjoyed economic and cultural advantages, both of his parents attempted suicide during his childhood. He entered Corpus Christi College at Oxford, where he founded the Critical

Estauni�, Edouard

A theme recurrent in the 12 novels of Estauni� is expressed by the title of one of them, La Vie Secr�te (1908; �The Secret Life�): each man's outward life masks another,

China

The lower stratum of the Pei-shou-ling culture is represented by finds along the Wei and Ching rivers; bowls, deep-bodied jugs, and three-footed vessels, mainly red in colour, were common. The lower stratum of the related Pan-p'o culture, also in the Wei River drainage area, was characterized by cord-marked red or red-brown ware, especially round and flat-bottomed bowls and

Wain, John (barrington)

Wain was educated at St. John's College, Oxford, of which he subsequently became a fellow. He was a lecturer in English literature at the University

Lycian Alphabet

Writing system of the Lycian people of southwest Asia Minor, dating from the 5th - 4th centuries BC. The Lycian alphabet is clearly related to the Greek, but the exact nature of the relationship is uncertain. Several letters appear to be related to symbols of the Cretan and Cyprian writing systems. The script has 29 letters (6 vowels), with several sounds not represented in Greek.

Lycian Alphabet

Writing system of the Lycian people of southwest Asia Minor, dating from the 5th - 4th centuries BC. The Lycian alphabet is clearly related to the Greek, but the exact nature of the relationship is uncertain. Several letters appear to be related to symbols of the Cretan and Cyprian writing systems. The script has 29 letters (6 vowels), with several sounds not represented in Greek.

Adams, John, Adams's writings

Other pieces of the massive Adams correspondence include: Charles Francis Adams (ed.), Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife, 2 vol. (1841, reissued 1965); Alexander Biddle et al., Old Family Letters, 2 vol. (1892); Worthington Chauncey Ford (ed.), Statesman and Friend: Correspondence of John Adams with Benjamin Waterhouse, 1784 - 1822 (1927); Lester J. Cappon (ed.), The Adams-Jefferson Letters, 2 vol. (1959, reprinted in 1 vol., 1988); John A. Schutz and Douglass Adair (eds.), The Spur of Fame: Dialogues of John Adams and Benjamin Rush, 1805 - 1813 (1966, reissued 1980).

Beamon, Bob

Beamon began jumping at Jamaica High School (Long Island, New York) and attended North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College (Greensboro), the University of Texas

Aelle

Also spelled �Aella, or Aelli � first king of Deira in northern England, whose people threw off the Bernician overlordship upon the death of Ida, king of Bernicia. Aelle became king in 559, while Ida's descendants continued to reign in the northern kingdom. On Aelle's death the Bernician king Aethelric again subdued Deira, but Aelle's son Edwin (q.v.) would return to rule as the most powerful English ruler