Palatka

City, seat (1849) of Putnam county, northeastern Florida, U.S., on the broad St. Johns River, about 50 miles (80 km) south of Jacksonville. Beginning in the 17th century the area was used for cattle ranching, and the city site was a crossing point of the river. James Marver established a trading post (c. 1821) on the site of a Seminole village. The city's name came from Pilatka, a Seminole term meaning

Shield Fern

Also called  wood fern  any member of the fern genus Dryopteris, in the family Aspleniaceae. The genus has about 150 species with worldwide distribution, and it is placed in the family Aspidiaceae in some classification systems. Shield ferns are medium-sized woodland plants with bright-green, leathery leaves that are several times divided. They have numerous round spore clusters (sori) attached

Chad Australopithecine

Specimen of early hominid, known from the frontal bone and part of the face of a single individual, found in sandstone by Yves Coppens in 1960, at Koro Toro, southeast Chad. The remains were associated with the teeth of an extinct elephant and have been given a provisional date of late Early Pleistocene or early Middle Pleistocene Epoch (500,000 to 200,000 years ago). The frontal bone is steep

Mordant Dye

Colorant that can be bound to a material for which it otherwise has little or no affinity by the addition of a mordant, a chemical that combines with the dye and the fibre. As the principal modern mordants are dichromates and chromium complexes, mordant dye usually means chrome dye. Most mordant dyes yield different colours with different mordants. Mordant dyes can

Latin Literature, History

Quintus Fabius Pictor wrote his pioneering history of Rome during the Second Punic War, using public and private records and writing in Greek. His immediate successors followed suit. Latin historical writing began with Cato's Origines. After him there were as many historiasters, or worthless historians, as the poetasters disdained by Cicero. The first great exception

Carnivore, Importance to humans

The scavenger habits of most of the members of the Hyaenidae make them of considerable benefit to the ecosystem as a whole and often directly to man. They perform the service of eliminating the remnants left by the large predators and thus fit into a niche unused by most mammals. In some parts of Africa, hyenas are allowed to roam the villages, cleaning up garbage. In

Abu Madi, Iliya

When he was 11 years old, Abu Madi moved with his family from their mountain village in Lebanon to Alexandria, Egypt. As a young man he earned money selling cigarettes. He published his first collection of poetry in Alexandria in 1911. The following year he migrated to the United

China, Livestock and fishing

China has a long tradition of ocean and freshwater fishing and of aquaculture.

Rocky Mountains, Plant life

The plant communities of the Rockies vary markedly according to elevation, latitude, and exposure. On the eastern slopes in Colorado and New Mexico, strong winter winds off the arid plains stunt and deform the scattered cedars and piñon pines. The lower elevations at this end of the system are predominantly treeless, except along watercourses, where cottonwoods

South America, Iberians

Until the end of the era of Iberian domination, only the Spanish and Portuguese were admitted to their South American colonies. The rigid exclusion of all other foreigners had but few exceptions, though a small number of non-Iberian Europeans settled as a result of illegal or tolerated immigration. Most of the Spaniards came from Castile and the southern regions.

Petah Tiqwa

City, west-central Israel, on the Plain of Sharon, east-northeast of Tel Aviv-Yafo and part of that city's metropolitan area. Situated in the valley of Achor near the Yarqon River, the city takes its name (meaning “Door of Hope”) from the biblical allusion in Hosea 2:15: “ . . . and make the valley of Achor a door of hope.” Petah Tiqwa was the first village (founded 1878) in the modern Jewish settlement

Kabul River

Ancient Greek  Cophes,   river in eastern Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, 435 miles (700 km) long, of which 350 miles are in Afghanistan. Rising in the Sanglakh Range 45 miles west of Kabul city, it flows east past Kabul and Jalalabad, north of the Khyber Pass into Pakistan, and past Peshawar; it joins the Indus River northwest of Islamabad. The river has four major tributaries, the Lowgar, the Panjsher, the Konar

Min Languages

Chinese spoken in Fukien sheng (province) and in parts of Kwangtung and Taiwan. The Min languages are divided into Northern Min, with its centre at Foochow, and Southern Min, with its centre at Amoy. Min speakers use a pronunciation (called T'ang Min) for the literary language that differs from the one used in other Chinese languages. The T'ang Min pronunciation of the standard