Earth Sciences, Water resources and seawater chemistry

Quantitative studies of the distribution of water have revealed that an astonishingly small part of the Earth's water is contained in lakes and rivers. Ninety-seven percent of all the water is in the oceans; and, of the fresh water constituting the remainder, three-fourths is locked up in glacial ice and most of the rest is in the ground. Approximate figures are also

Buzzard

Any of several birds of prey of the genus Buteo and, in North America, various New World vultures (family Cathartidae), especially the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura; see photograph). Similarly, in Australia a large hawk of the genus Hamirostra is called a black-breasted buzzard. In North America, Buteo species are called buteos, buzzard hawks, or simply

Ards

Irish  An Aird  district, Northern Ireland. Formerly within County Down, in 1973 Ards was established as a district with an area of 139 sq mi (361 sq km). It extends northward from just south of the village of Killinchy along the western shoreline of Strangford Lough (inlet of the sea) to the town of Newtownards and encompasses the peninsula of land east of Strangford Lough. Bordered by North Down

Amami Great Island

Japanese  Amami-o-shima,   largest island in the Amami chain of the northern Ryukyu Islands, in Kagoshima ken (prefecture), Japan. Most of the 274-square-mile (709-square-kilometre) island is mountainous and forested. A quasi-national park protects landscapes at the higher elevations. Mount Yuwan is the highest mountain at 2,276 feet (694 m). The lower, cultivated areas produce timber, sugarcane, and rice. A hydroelectric

China, Foreign relations

Whereas in Ming times the Chinese organized themselves along wholly bureaucratic and tightly centralized lines, the Ming emperors maintained China's traditional feudal-seeming relationships with foreign peoples. These included the aboriginal tribes of south and southwest China, who often rose in isolated rebellions but were gradually being assimilated.

China, Fiscal and legal system

Kao-tsu had inherited a bankrupt state, and most of his measures were aimed at simple and cheap administration. His bureaucracy was very small, at both the central and local levels. The expenses of government were largely met out of endowments of land attached to each office, the rents from which paid office expenses and salaries; by interest on funds of money allocated

Well-field System

According to Mencius,

Korea, North

Officially  Democratic People's Republic of Korea , Korean  Choson Minjujuui In'min Konghwaguk  country in East Asia. It occupies the northern portion of the Korean peninsula, which juts out from the Asian mainland between the Sea of Japan (East Sea) and the Yellow Sea. The country is bordered by China and Russia to the north and by the Republic of Korea (South Korea) to the south. North Korea has an area of 47,399 square miles (122,762 square kilometres), occupying about 55 percent of the

Literature, France.

In 2001 French literature's marked inclination towards gloom continued unabated as it had for over a decade, leaving no permutation of familial misery unabated. Death in the family was a favourite topic, and Laure Adler's À ce soir described the death of her son and the subsequent guilt that has consumed her for

Hydrogenation

Chemical reaction between molecular hydrogen and an element or compound, ordinarily in the presence of a catalyst. The reaction may be one in which hydrogen simply adds to a double or triple bond connecting two atoms in the structure of the molecule or one in which the addition of hydrogen results in dissociation (breaking up) of the molecule (called hydrogenolysis,

Space Exploration

Germany's ROSAT, carrying an X-ray telescope,

Diorite

Medium- to coarse-grained intrusive igneous rock that commonly is composed of about two-thirds plagioclase feldspar and one-third dark-coloured minerals, such as hornblende or biotite. The presence of sodium-rich feldspar, oligoclase or andesine, in contrast to calcium-rich plagioclase, labradorite or bytownite, is the main distinction between diorite and gabbro

Saale River

Left tributary of the Elbe River, 265 miles (426 km) long and draining 9,165 square miles (23,737 square km). It rises in the Fichtelgebirge, a Bavarian highland area in southern Germany, and flows north and northwest past Hof, Saalfeld, Rudolstadt, Jena, Naumburg, Weissenfels, Merseburg, Halle, Bernburg, and Niemberg to join the Elbe just above Barby. Initially passing through well-wooded hills,

Dispensation

Economy is the term that is normally employed in the Eastern Orthodox churches for this type of action. The church strives for the salvation of souls, and, when this is more likely to be achieved by a relaxation

Dagupan

City and port, western Luzon Island, Philippines. It lies on the southern shore of Lingayen Gulf near the mouth of the Dagupan River. It was founded in 1590 by Augustinian missionaries. Dagupan is the port for a region that produces fish, solar-evaporated salt, rice, and fruit and is served by the Manila-North Railroad and a road network. The city has a university, a modern cathedral,

Apricot

(Prunus armeniaca), stone fruit of the family Rosaceae that is cultivated throughout the temperate regions of the world. Apricots are eaten fresh or cooked and are preserved by canning or drying. The fruit is also widely made into jam and is often used to flavour liqueurs. Apricot trees are large and spreading with broad, ovate leaves that have pointed

Fabales

Legumes occur in all terrestrial habitats occupied by plants, although the greatest number of species is in the tropics, where the group probably originated. But there are many legumes in the temperate plains, woodlands, and deserts. A few not only survive but succeed as weeds, in the human-made farming, industrial, and urban environment. They are less common in the northern

Cydones, Demetrius

Cydones was a student of the Greek classical scholar and philosopher Nilus Cabasilas. In 1354 he went to Italy, where he studied the writings of the leading medieval philosophical

Argentina, Agriculture

Argentina is one of the world's major exporters of soybeans and wheat, as well as meat. It is also one of the largest producers of wool and wine, but most of its wine is consumed domestically. Although agriculture is an important source of export earnings, it now accounts for a small percentage of the overall GDP, and it employs only a tiny portion of the nation's

A Priori Knowledge

In Western philosophy since the time of Immanuel Kant, knowledge that is independent of all particular experiences, as opposed to a posteriori knowledge, which derives from experience alone. The Latin phrases a priori (“from what is before”) and a posteriori (“from what is after”) were used in philosophy originally to distinguish between arguments from causes and arguments

Dinosaur, Pachycephalosauria

In important respects the pachycephalosaurs conformed to the basic ornithopod body plan, and there is some evidence that pachycephalosaurs actually evolved from (and are therefore members of) ornithopods, perhaps similar to hypsilophodontids. All of them appear to have been bipedal. They bore the typical ornithopod ossified tendons along the back, and they

Arosa

Alpine village, health resort, and winter sports centre, Graubünden canton, eastern Switzerland, on the Plessur River. The village, at an elevation of 5,689 feet (1,734 m), stretches along a wooded valley holding two small lakes, the Untersee and the Obersee, that are used for fishing, swimming, and boating in the summer. Arosa is noted as a fashionable winter-sports centre, particularly

Cinemascope

Film-making process in which a motion picture is projected on a screen, with the width of the image two and a half times its height. The French physicist Henri Chrétien (1879–1956) invented the technique in the late 1920s by which a camera, with the addition of a special lens, can “squeeze” a wide picture onto standard 35-millimetre film. Then, by the use of a special projection lens, the image

Lopes, Fernão

Nothing certain is known of Lopes' early

Stradella, Alessandro

Stradella apparently lived for periods in Modena, Venice, Rome, and Florence. In Turin in 1677 an attempt was made to murder him, for reasons that are not known, though it was believed to be at the instigation of a Venetian senator with whose fiancée Stradella had eloped. A document in Modena confirms

Khons

Also spelled  Khonsu, Khensu, or Chons,  in ancient Egyptian religion, moon god who was generally depicted as a youth. A deity with astronomical associations named Khenzu is known from the Pyramid Texts (c. 2350 BC) and is possibly the same as Khons. In Egyptian mythology, Khons was regarded as the son of the god Amon and the goddess Mut. In the period of the late New Kingdom (c. 1100 BC) a major temple was built for Khons in the Karnak

Lateral Line System

Network of sensory receptors located along the head and sides of fishes and amphibians. The system serves to detect movements and pressure changes in the surrounding water. The individual receptor, called a lateral line organ, or neuromast, consists of a cluster of innervated hairs surrounded by a jellylike projection (cupula) that bends in response to water movements.