Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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bark beetle ... Barnes, Julian

bark beetle: any member of the insect family Scolytidae (Ipidae, with more than 2,000 species) of the order Coleoptera. They are cylindrical, usually under 6 mm (0.25 inch) long, brown or black in colour, and often very destructive. The male and female-sometimes ...
bark painting: nonwoven fabric decorated with figurative and abstract designs usually applied by scratching or by painting. The basic clothlike material, produced from the inner bark, or bast, of certain trees (see bast fibre), is made by stripping off the bast, soaking ...
bark-gnawing beetle: any member of the insect family Trogossitidae (Ostomidae), containing about 500 species, most of which are tropical. Bark-gnawing beetles range from 5 to 20 mm (0.2 to 0.8 inch) and are dark-coloured. Species Tenebrioides mauritanicus is found in granaries; its ...
barkentine: sailing ship of three or more masts having fore-and-aft sails on all but the front mast (foremast), which is square rigged. Because of the reduction of square sails, it required fewer crew members and was popular in the Pacific after ...
Barker, George: English poet mostly concerned with the elemental forces of life. His first verses were published in the 1930s, and he became popular in the '40s, about the same time as the poet Dylan Thomas, who voiced similar themes but whose ...
Barker, Lady Mary Anne: writer best known for her book Station Life in New Zealand (1870), a lively account of life in colonial New Zealand.
Barker, Ma: matriarch of an outlaw gang of brothers and allies engaged in kidnapping and in payroll, post-office, and bank robberies in the 1920s and '30s. The activities of the gang, which included her sons, the "Bloody Barkers"-Herman (1894-1927), Arthur, known as ...
Barkerville: restored ghost town, east-central British Columbia, Canada, in the western foothills of the Cariboo Mountains, just west of Bowron Lake Provincial Park and 55 miles (88 km) east of Quesnel. Once a boomtown of nearly 10,000 inhabitants, which sprang up ...
Barkhausen effect: series of sudden changes in the size and orientation of ferromagnetic domains, or microscopic clusters of aligned atomic magnets, that occurs during a continuous process of magnetization or demagnetization. The Barkhausen effect offered direct evidence for the existence of ferromagnetic ...
Barkhausen, Heinrich Georg: German physicist who discovered the Barkhausen effect, a principle concerning changes in the magnetic properties of metal.
Barking and Dagenham: outer borough of London, on the eastern perimeter of the metropolis. It is part of the historic county of Essex, on the north bank of the River Thames. The borough was formed in 1965 by the amalgamation of the greater ...
Barkla, Charles Glover: British physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1917 for his work on X-ray scattering, which occurs when X rays pass through a material and are deflected by the atomic electrons. This technique proved to be particularly ...
Barkley, Alben W: 35th vice president of the United States (1949-53) in the Democratic administration of President Harry S. Truman. He was one of the chief architects of the New Deal in the 1930s and a major symbol of Democratic Party continuity as ...
Barkly Tableland: region of Australia, south of the Gulf of Carpentaria and extending southeastward about 350 mi (560 km) from Newcastle Creek, Northern Territory, to Camooweal, Queen. A grassy, undulating upland (average altitude 1,000 ft [300 m]), nourished by subartesian water and ...
Barkly, Sir Henry: British colonial administrator who played a major role in the establishment of responsible governments in Victoria (Australia) and Cape Colony (South Africa).
Barlach, Ernst: outstanding sculptor of the Expressionist movement whose style has often been called "modern Gothic." Barlach also experimented with graphic art and playwriting, and his work in all media is notable for its preoccupation with the sufferings of humanity.
Barletta: city, Bari province, Puglia (Apulia) region, southeastern Italy, and port and resort on the Adriatic Sea, northwest of Bari. Originating as the ancient Barduli, it served as the port and bathing resort for Canusium (modern Canosa di Puglia; 14 miles ...
barley: cereal plant belonging to the genus Hordeum of the grass family Poaceae (Gramineae) and its edible grain. Hordeum comprises four sections, and all cultivated barleys belong to the section Cerealia. The three species within this section include Hordeum vulgare, a ...
Barlow, Joel: public official, poet, and author of the mock-heroic poem The Hasty Pudding.
Barlow, Peter: optician and mathematician who invented two varieties of achromatic (non-colour-distorting) telescope lenses known as Barlow lenses.
Barmakids: priestly family of Iranian origin, from the city of Balkh in Khorasan, who achieved prominence in the 8th century as scribes and viziers to the early 'Abbasid caliphs. Their ancestor was a barmak, a title borne by the high priest ...
Barmen, Synod of: meeting of German Protestant leaders at Barmen in the Ruhr, in May 1934, to organize Protestant opposition to the teachings of the so-called German Christians, who sought to reinterpret Christianity as an Aryan religion free from all Jewish influences. The ...
Barmer: town, western Rajasthan state, extreme western India. Standing on a rocky hill crowned by a fort, the town is said to have been founded in the 13th century, when it was named Bahadamer ("The Hill Fort of Bahada"), after a ...
barn: unit of area used to measure the absorption cross section of atomic nuclei in the study of interactions between the nuclei and other particles. It is equal to 10^-24 square centimetre. The name, coined by U.S. scientists, is derived from ...
barn: in agriculture, farm building for sheltering animals, their feed and other supplies, farm machinery, and farm products. Barns are named according to their purpose, as hog barns, dairy barns, tobacco barns, and tractor barns. The principal type in the United ...
barn owl: any of several species of nocturnal birds of prey of the genus Tyto (family Tytonidae). Barn owls are sometimes called monkey-faced owls because of their heart-shaped facial disks and absence of ear tufts. They are about 30 to 40 centimetres ...
Barnabas, Letter of: an early Christian work written in Greek by one of the so-called Apostolic Fathers, Greek Christian writers of the late 1st and early 2nd centuries. Ascribed by tradition to St. Barnabas, the Apostle, the writing dates possibly from as late ...
Barnabas, Saint: Apostolic Father, an important early Christian missionary.
Barnack, Oskar: designer of the first precision miniature camera to become available commercially, the Leica I, which was introduced in 1924 by the Ernst Leitz optical firm at Wetzlar, Ger.
barnacle: any of a majority of the 1,000 species of marine crustaceans of the subclass Cirripedia. Adults of cirripedes other than barnacles are internal parasites of crabs, jellyfish, starfish, and some other marine invertebrates. They have no popular name.
barnacle goose: (Branta leucopsis), water bird of the family Anatidae (order Anseriformes) that resembles a small Canada goose, with dark back, white face, and black neck and bib. It winters in the northern British Isles and on the coasts of Denmark, Germany, ...
Barnard Castle: town, Teesdale district, administrative and historic county of Durham, England, on the north bank of the River Tees (there crossed by a medieval bridge). It developed around a Norman castle built by Bernard de Balliol, who gave the town its ...
Barnard's star: second nearest star to the Sun, at a distance of about 6 light-years. It is named for Edward Emerson Barnard, the American astronomer who discovered it in 1916. Barnard's star has the largest proper motion of any known star-10".25 arc ...
Barnard, Chester Irving: American business executive, public administrator, and sociological theorist who specialized in the nature of corporate organization. Although he was not himself an academician, his first book, Functions of the Executive (1938), was widely influential in the teaching of sociology and ...
Barnard, Christiaan: South African surgeon who performed the first human heart transplant operation.
Barnard, Edward Emerson: astronomer who pioneered in celestial photography and who was the leading observational astronomer of his time.
Barnard, Frederick: scientist, educator, and for nearly 25 years president of Columbia College in New York City, during which time Columbia was transformed from a small undergraduate institution for men into a major university.
Barnard, George Grey: sculptor whose works were characterized by a vitality and individuality that brought him early fame.
Barnard, Henry: educator, jurist, and the first U.S. commissioner of education (1867-70). With Horace Mann he shared early leadership in improving the U.S. educational system.
Barnard, Kate: Oklahoma welfare leader and the first woman to hold statewide elective office in the United States.
Barnard, Lady Anne: author of the popular ballad "Auld Robin Gray" (1771).
Barnardo, Thomas John: pioneer in social work who founded more than 90 homes for destitute children. Under his direction, the children were given care and instruction of high quality despite the then unusual policy of unlimited admittance.
Barnato, Barney: financier and diamond magnate who rivaled Cecil Rhodes in struggling for control in the development of the South African mining industry.
Barnaul: city and administrative centre, Altay kray (region), south-central Russia, on the left bank of the Ob River at its confluence with the Barnaulka. In 1738 a silver-refining works was established and the settlement became the hub of ...
Barnave, Antoine: prominent political figure of the early French Revolutionary period whose oratorical skill and political incisiveness made him one of the most highly respected members of the National Assembly.
Barnes, Albert C.: American inventor of the antiseptic Argyrol (a mild silver protein) and noted art collector, whose collection resides in the Barnes Foundation Galleries in Merion, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia.
Barnes, Barnabe: Elizabethan poet, one of the Elizabethan sonneteers and the author of Parthenophil and Parthenophe.
Barnes, Djuna: avant-garde American writer who was a well-known figure in the Parisian literary scene of the 1920s and '30s.
Barnes, Ernest William: controversial Anglican bishop of Birmingham, a leader in the Church of England modernist movement.
Barnes, George Nicoll: trade-union leader, socialist, a founder (1900) and chairman (1910) of the British Labour Party, and member of David Lloyd George's coalition ministry during World War I.
Barnes, Julian: British television critic and author of inventive and intellectual novels about obsessed characters curious about the past.