Cinque Ports

Medieval confederation of English Channel ports in southeastern England, formed to furnish ships and men for the king's service. To the original five ports - Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, New Romney, and Hastings - were later added the �ancient towns� of Winchelsea and Rye with the privileges of �head ports.� More than 30 other towns in the counties of Kent and Sussex were also attached.

Papin, Denis

Papin assisted the Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens

China, Struggle for power

Shang Yang, a frustrated bureaucrat in the court of Wei, went westward seeking a chance to try out his ideas. In

Arabia, Dhofar (Zufar)

The Qara' Mountains in Dhofar, the southern province of the sultanate of Oman, are about 3,000 feet high, with one peak higher than 5,000 feet. The monsoon keeps the seaward (southern) side of the mountains, as well as the coastal plain, fertile. A gradual slope leads northward from the water divide to the Rub' al-Khali; valleys from the slope converge on Ramlat Al-Mughshin at the desert's

China, The Tarim Basin

North of the Plateau of Tibet and at the much lower level of about 3,000 feet lies the Tarim Basin. It is hemmed in by great mountain ranges: the Tien Shan (�Celestial Mountains�) on the north, the Pamirs on the west, and the Kunlun Mountains on the south. From these heights glacier-fed streams descend, only to lose themselves in the loose sands and gravels of the Takla Makan

Cork

Irish �Corcaigh� county in the province of Munster, Ireland. The largest county in Ireland, with an area of 2,880 sq mi (7,460 sq km), it is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean (south), by Counties Waterford and Tipperary (east), by County Limerick (north), and by County Kerry (west). Cork has long east - west ridges forming uplands and hills. Less than three-tenths of its area is rough pasture, and farmlands climb as high

Pacific Mountain System, Geology

In general, the movement of tectonic plates has been responsible for the development of the Pacific mountain system. The coastal mountains from the Queen Charlotte Islands southward to southern California have been folded, faulted, and intruded with molten rock as a result of this movement. The most significant activity has been the lateral, northerly movement

Buys Ballot's Law

Law of wind direction named for the Dutch meteorologist C.H.D. Buys Ballot, who first stated it in 1857. He derived the law empirically, unaware that it already had been deduced theoretically by the U.S. meteorologist William Ferrel, whose priority Buys Ballot later acknowledged. The law states that in the Northern Hemisphere a person who stands facing away from the wind

Kanye

Village, southern Botswana. It lies along a main road southwest of Gaborone, the national capital. It is one of the country's largest villages and the traditional headquarters of the Bangwaketse people. Kanye is equipped with a mission hospital, an airfield, banks, and schools. Pop. (1984 est.) 23,000.

Zamora

Town, southeastern Ecuador. It lies in the forested jungles east of the main Andean ranges and is situated at the southeastern foot of the Andean Cordillera (mountains) de Zamora, just south of the Zamora River. The Roman Catholic Church has established a Vicar Apostolic in Zamora, which is considered to be a missionary settlement; the population is almost entirely

Oyo

State, western Nigeria. Oyo was reduced in size when Osun state was created out of its eastern portion in 1991. Oyo is bounded by the states of Kwara on the north, Osun on the east, and Ogun on the south and by the Republic of Benin on the west. Oyo state is traversed by the Yoruba Hills in the north. The state has some tropical rain forest in the south around Ibadan, the state capital,

Brunel, Sir Marc Isambard

In 1793, after six years in the French navy, Brunel returned to France, which was then in the midst of revolution. Within a few months his royalist sympathies compelled him to leave. He fled to the United States, where he held the post of chief

Almond, Gabriel Abraham

Almond received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1938 and taught at Brooklyn College from 1939 to 1946, except during his service in the U.S. Office of War Information (1942 - 45). After

Iron Mask, The Man In The

He was first imprisoned at Pignerol (Pinerolo, in Piedmont) sometime before 1681, then at other prisons

China, Economy

Information on railway, air, and highway communication may be found in general works on the Chinese economy cited in the previous paragraph. For the role of transportation in the history of Western influence on China and on regional economics, see Shun-hsin Chou, �Railway Development and Economic Growth in Manchuria,� China Quarterly, no. 45, pp. 57 - 84 (1971). Articles on transportation appear intermittently in Beijing Review (weekly).

Aftasid Dynasty

Muslim Berber dynasty that ruled one of the party kingdoms (ta'ifahs) at Badajoz in western Spain (1022 - 94) in the period of disunity after the demise of the Umayyad caliphate of C�rdoba. The Lower Frontier (modern central Portugal) had enjoyed a measure of autonomy after the death of the Umayyad caliph al-Hakam II (976), when it was ruled by his freed slave, Sabur (976 - 1022). In 1022, at Sabur's death, his minister

Biblical Literature, Redemption and revelation

Significant in the early chapters is God's special concern for the Hebrew slaves, his reference to them as �my people,� and his revelation to Moses, the rebel courtier whom he has picked to be their leader, that he is YHWH, the God of their fathers, an abiding presence that will rescue them from their misery and bring them into Canaan, the land of promise. This assurance is repeated

Actinium

(Ac), radioactive chemical element, in Group IIIb of the periodic table, atomic number 89. Actinium was discovered (1899) by Andr�-Louis Debierne in pitchblende residues left after Pierre and Marie Curie had extracted radium and was also discovered (1902) independently by Friedrich Otto Giesel. A ton of pitchblende ore contains about 0.15 mg of actinium. The rare, silvery-white metal

Liturgical Music

Also called �Church Music, � music written for performance in a religious rite of worship; the term is most commonly associated with the Christian tradition. Developing from the musical practices of the Jewish synagogues, which allowed the cantor an improvised charismatic song, early Christian services contained a simple refrain, or responsorial, sung by the congregation. This evolved

Oakley, Kenneth (page)

Oakley received a B.S. in geology with first-class honours from University College, London, in 1933, and a Ph.D. from the same institution in 1938. He was long associated with the British

Augustine, Saint

None of Augustine's other works has the currency or readership of his two masterpieces. Of greatest interest are the following:

Butler, R(ichard) A(usten), Baron Butler Of Saffron Walden

Educated at Cambridge (1921 - 25), Butler lectured at that university on French history until 1929, when he was elected to Parliament as a Conservative. During the 1930s he worked successively in the ministries governing Indian, labour,

Foyt, A. J.

A racer from the age of 17 and - unlike many drivers - an expert auto mechanic, Foyt participated in his first Indy Car race in 1957. The following year he made his debut at the Indianapolis 500, avoiding a near crash to finish 16th. In 1960 he won

Thang-ka

Thang-kas are essentially aids for meditation, though they may be hung in temples or at family altars, carried in religious processions, or used to illustrate sermons. Thang-kas are not free

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

Tabes Dorsalis

, also called �Progressive Locomotor Ataxia,� rare neurologic form of tertiary syphilis, involving sensory deficits, loss of neuromuscular coordination, and diminished reflexes. Symptoms of this form of neurosyphilis chiefly affect the legs and may not appear for more than 25 years after the initial infection. Untreated, tabes dorsalis usually makes unassisted walking impossible and severely debilitates

Permafrost, Study of permafrost

Although the existence of permafrost had been known to the inhabitants of Siberia for centuries, scientists of the Western world did not take seriously the isolated reports of a great thickness of frozen ground existing under northern forest and grasslands until 1836. Then, Alexander Theodor von Middendorff measured temperatures to depths of approximately 100 metres

Ca River

Vietnamese� Song Ca,� also called� Lam Giang,� river rising in the Loi Mountains of Laos and flowing southeastward through northern Vietnam to enter the Gulf of Tonkin near the city of Vinh after a course of 380 miles (612 km). The coastal riverine lowlands have relief features similar to those of the Red River; wide, level stretches of alluvium predominate with small undulation. There is a high population density in the