Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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barrel ... Barstow

barrel: unit of both liquid and dry measure in the British Imperial and United States Customary systems, ranging from 31.5 to 42 gallons for liquids and fixed at 7,056 cubic inches (105 dry quarts, or 115.63 litres) for most fruits, vegetables, ...
barrel: large, bulging cylindrical container of sturdy construction traditionally made from wooden staves and wooden or metal hoops. The term is also a unit of volume measure, specifically 31 gallons of a fermented or distilled beverage, or 42 gallons of a ...
barrel cactus: name for a group of more or less barrel-shaped cacti, family Cactaceae, native to North and South America. It is most often used for two large-stemmed North American genera, Ferocactus and Echinocactus. Small barrel cacti include the genera Sclerocactus, Neolloydia, ...
barrel organ: musical instrument in which a pinned barrel turned by a handle raises levers, admitting wind to one or more ranks of organ pipes; the handle simultaneously actuates the bellows. Ten or more tunes can be set on one barrel.
barrel piano: stringed musical instrument (chordophone) in which a simple pianoforte action is worked by a pinned barrel turned with a crank, rather than by a keyboard mechanism. It is associated primarily with street musicians and is believed to have been developed ...
barrel vault: ceiling or roof consisting of a series of semicylindrical arches. See vault.
Barrell, Joseph: geologist who proposed that sedimentary rocks were produced by the action of rivers, winds, and ice, as well as by marine sedimentation.
Barremian Stage: the fourth of six main divisions (in ascending order) in the Lower Cretaceous Series, representing all those rocks deposited worldwide during the Barremian Age (124 to 119 million years ago).
Barren Grounds: vast sub-Arctic prairie (tundra) region of northern mainland Canada lying principally in the territory of Nunavut but also including the eastern portion of the Northwest Territories. It extends westward from Hudson Bay to the Great Slave and Great Bear lakes, ...
Barres, Maurice: French writer and politician, influential through his individualism and fervent nationalism.
Barreto, Francisco: Portuguese soldier and explorer.
Barretos: city, north-central Sao Paulo estado ("state"), Brazil. It lies near the Pardo River at 1,713 feet (522 m) above sea level. Known at various times as Amaral dos Barretos, Espirito Santo de Barreto, and Espirito Santo dos Barretos, the settlement ...
Barrett, Janie Porter: American welfare worker and educator who developed a school to rehabilitate previously incarcerated African-American girls by improving their self-reliance and discipline.
Barrett, Kate Harwood Waller: American physician who directed the rescue-home movement for unwed mothers in the United States.
Barrett, Lawrence: one of the leading American actors of the 19th century, especially noted for his Shakespearean interpretations.
Barrie: city, seat (1837) of Simcoe county, southeastern Ontario, Canada. It lies along Kempenfelt Bay, an arm of Lake Simcoe, 55 miles (90 km) north-northwest of Toronto. In 1812 a storehouse was probably built on the site, which during the War ...
Barrie, Sir James, Baronet: dramatist and novelist who is best known as the creator of Peter Pan, the boy who refused to grow up.
barrier reef: a coral reef (q.v.) roughly parallel to a shore and separated from it by a lagoon or other body of water. A barrier reef is usually pierced by several channels that give access to the lagoon and the island or ...
Barrington: town (township), Bristol county, eastern Rhode Island, U.S. The town lies on the eastern shore of Narragansett Bay just southeast of East Providence and occupies two peninsulas separated by the Barrington River. As early as 1632, Plymouth settlers had established ...
Barrington, George: Irish adventurer notorious for his activities as a pickpocket in England in the 1770s and '80s; he was allegedly the author of several histories of Australia.
Barrio Obrero Industrial: community of San Martin de Porres distrito ("district"), in the Lima-Callao metropolitan area, Peru. It lies on the north bank of the Rimac River. Among the oldest and best developed of Lima's pueblos jovenes ("young towns"), Barrio Obrero Industrial is ...
Barrios, Eduardo: Chilean writer best known for his psychological novels.
Barrios, Justo Rufino: president of Guatemala from 1873, who carried out liberal domestic policies by dictatorial means and persistently advocated Central American unity, to be imposed by force if diplomacy proved inadequate.
barrister: one of the two types of practicing lawyers in England, the other being the solicitor. In general, barristers engage in advocacy (trial work) and solicitors in office work, but there is a considerable overlap in their functions. The solicitor, for ...
Barrois: ancient county, then duchy, on the western frontier of Lorraine, a territory of the Holy Roman Empire, of which Barrois was long a fiefdom or holding before being absorbed piecemeal by France. The centre and capital was the town that ...
Barron River: river in northeastern Queensland, Australia, rising near Herberton in the Hugh Nelson Range of the Eastern Highlands and flowing north across the Atherton Plateau past Mareeba and then east and south through the Barron Gorge to enter the Pacific Ocean ...
Barron, Clarence W: financial editor and publisher who founded Barron's Financial Weekly.
Barros Arana, Diego: Chilean historian, educator, and diplomat best known for his Historia general de Chile, 16 vol. (1884-1902; "General History of Chile").
Barros, Joao de: Portuguese historian and civil servant who wrote Decadas da Asia, 4 vol. (1552-1615), one of the first great accounts of European overseas exploration and colonization.
Barrot, Odilon: prominent liberal monarchist under the July Monarchy in France (1830-48) and a leader of the electoral reform movement of 1847.
barrow: in England, ancient burial place covered with a large mound of earth. In Scotland, Ireland, and Wales the equivalent term is cairn. Barrows were constructed in England from Neolithic (c. 4000 BC) until late pre-Christian (c. AD 600) times. Barrows ...
Barrow Island: Australian island in the Indian Ocean, 30 miles (50 km) off the northwest coast of Western Australia and 10 miles (16 km) southwest of the Monte Bello Islands. Measuring 12 by 5 miles (19 by 8 km), it has an ...
Barrow, Henry: lawyer and early Congregationalist martyr who challenged the established Anglican church by supporting the formation of separate and independent churches in England.
Barrow, Isaac: English classical scholar, theologian, and mathematician who was the teacher of Isaac Newton. He developed a method of determining tangents that closely approached the methods of calculus, and he first recognized that what became known as the processes of integration ...
Barrow, River: river rising in the Slieve Bloom mountain range in the centre of Ireland and flowing for about 120 miles (190 km) to Waterford harbour in the southeast, where it joins the Rivers Nore and Suir. From its upper mountain course ...
Barrow-in-Furness: port town and borough (district), administrative county of Cumbria, historic county of Lancashire, England. It lies on the seaward side of the Furness peninsula between the estuary of the River Duddon and Morecambe Bay. A narrow channel of the Irish ...
Barry: Bristol Channel port town, Vale of Glamorgan county, historic county of Glamorgan (Morgannwg), Wales. Barry has associations with Baruch, a 7th-century Celtic monk, and with the Normans, who built a castle there in the 11th century. But its growth from ...
Barry, James: Irish-born artist whose major work, "The Progress of Human Culture," is a series of six monumental paintings of historical and allegorical subjects done for the Great Room of the Royal Society of Arts, London.
Barry, Jeanne Becu, comtesse du: last of the mistresses of the French king Louis XV (reigned 1715-74). Although she exercised little political influence at the French court, her unpopularity contributed to the decline of the prestige of the crown in the early 1770s.
Barry, John: American naval officer who won significant maritime victories during the American Revolution (1775-83). Because he trained so many young officers who later became celebrated in the nation's history, he was often called the "Father of the Navy."
Barry, Marion: American civil rights activist and politician who served four terms as mayor of Washington, D.C. Barry received a bachelor's degree from LeMoyne College (1958) and a master's degree from Fisk University (1960). He was a founding member of the Student ...
Barry, Philip: U.S. dramatist best known for his comedies of life and manners among the socially privileged.
Barry, Sir Charles: one of the architects of the Gothic Revival in England and chief architect of the British Houses of Parliament.
Barrymore, Ethel: American stage and film actress whose distinctive style, voice, and wit made her the "first lady" of the American theatre.
Barrymore, Georgiana: actress and, with Maurice Barrymore, founder of the famous stage and screen family Barrymore, which occupied a preeminent position in American theatre in the first half of the 20th century.
Barrymore, John: American actor, called "The Great Profile," who is remembered both for his roles as a debonair leading man and for his interpretations of Shakespeare's Richard III and Hamlet. (See .)
Barrymore, Lionel: one of the most important character actors in the early 20th century.
Barrymore, Maurice: actor and sometime playwright, founder, with his wife, Georgiana Barrymore, of the renowned Barrymore theatrical family.
Barsisa: in Islamic legend, an ascetic who succumbed to the devil's temptations and denied God.
Barstovian stage: uppermost major division of the Miocene epoch (23.7 million to 5.3 million years ago) in North America. The Barstovian stage follows the Hemingfordian stage and precedes the Clarendonian stage of the Pliocene epoch. It was named for exposures studied near ...
Barstow: city, San Bernardino county, south-central California, U.S. Located in the Mojave Desert, the city lies at a junction of pioneer trails. It was founded in 1880 during a silver-mining rush and was first called Fishpond and then Waterman Junction. It ...