Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Elgon, Mount ... Elko

Elgon, Mount: extinct volcano on the Kenya-Uganda boundary. Its crater, about 5 miles (8 km) in diameter, contains several peaks, of which Wagagai (14,178 feet [4,321 m]) is the highest. Its extrusions cover about 1,250 square miles (3,200 square km) and consist ...
Elhuyar, Fausto: Spanish chemist and mineralogist who in partnership with his brother Juan Jose was the first to isolate tungsten, or wolfram (1783), though not the first to recognize its elemental nature. After teaching at Vergara, in Spain (1781-85), Fausto accompanied his ...
Eliade, Mircea: historian of religions and man of letters, distinguished for his researches in the symbolic language used by various religious traditions and for his attempt to reduce their meaning to underlying primordial myths that provide the basis for mystical phenomena.
Elias Of Cortona: disciple of St. Francis of Assisi and a leading figure in the early history of the Franciscan Order, which he twice governed.
Elias, Norbert: sociologist who described the growth of civilization in western Europe as a complex evolutionary process, most notably in his principal work, Uber den Prozess der Zivilisation (1939; The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners).
Elijah: Hebrew prophet who ranks with Moses in saving the religion of Yahweh from being corrupted by the nature worship of Baal. Elijah's name means "Yahweh is my God" and is spelled Elias in some versions of the Bible. The story ...
Elijah ben Solomon: in full Elijah Ben Solomon Zalman, also called by the acronym Ha-gra, from Ha-gaon Rabbi Eliya-hu, also called Elijah Gaon the gaon ("excellency") of Vilna, and the outstanding authority in Jewish religious and cultural life in 18th-century Lithuania.
Elijah's cup: in Judaism, the fifth ceremonial cup of wine poured during the family Seder dinner on Passover (Pesah). It is left untouched in honour of Elijah, who, according to tradition, will arrive one day as an unknown guest to herald the ...
Elimelech Of Lizhensk: Jewish teacher and author, one of the founders of Hasidism (a Jewish pietistic movement) in Galicia.
elimination reaction: any of a class of organic chemical reactions in which a pair of atoms or groups of atoms are removed from a molecule, usually through the action of acids, bases, or metals and, in some cases, by heating to a ...
Elion, Gertrude B.: American pharmacologist who, along with George H. Hitchings and Sir James W. Black, received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1988 for their development of drugs used to treat several major diseases.
Eliot, Charles William: American educator, leader in public affairs, president of Harvard University for 40 years, and editor of the 50-volume Harvard Classics (1909-10).
Eliot, George: English Victorian novelist who developed the method of psychological analysis characteristic of modern fiction. Her major works include Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861),
Eliot, Jared: American colonial clergyman, physician, and agronomist.
Eliot, John: Puritan missionary to the Native Americans of Massachusetts Bay Colony whose translation of the Bible in the Algonquian language was the first Bible printed in North America.
Eliot, Sir Charles: diplomat and colonial administrator who initiated the policy of white supremacy in the British East Africa Protectorate (now Kenya).
Eliot, Sir John: English Puritan and Parliamentarian who, with his brilliant oratory, played a leading role in the early conflicts between King Charles I and Parliament. His death during his imprisonment for opposing the crown made him a martyr to the Parliamentary cause.
Eliot, T.S.: American-English poet, playwright, literary critic, and editor, a leader of the modernist movement in poetry in such works as The Waste Land (1922) and Four Quartets (1943). Eliot exercised a strong influence on Anglo-American ...
Eliphaz The Temanite: in the Old Testament Book of Job (chapters 4, 5, 15, 22), one of three friends who sought to console Job, who is a biblical archetype of unmerited suffering. The word Temanite probably indicates that he was an Edomite, or ...
Elis: ancient Greek region and city-state in the northwestern corner of the Peloponnese, well known for its horse breeding and for the Olympic Games, which were allegedly founded there in 776 BC.
Elisha: in the Old Testament, Israelite prophet, the pupil of Elijah, and also his successor (c. 851 BC). He instigated and directed Jehu's revolt against the house of Omri, which was marked by a bloodbath at Jezreel in which King Ahab ...
Elisha ben Abuyah: Jewish scholar who renounced his faith and who came to be regarded in later ages as a prototype of the heretic whose intellectual pride leads him to infidelity to Jewish laws and morals. In the Talmud, Elisha is not mentioned ...
elision: (Latin: "striking out"), in prosody, the slurring or omission of a final unstressed vowel that precedes either another vowel or a weak consonant sound, as in the word heav'n. It may also be the dropping of a consonant between vowels, ...
Elista: city and capital of Kalmykia republic, southwestern Russia. It was founded in 1865 and became a city in 1930. In 1944, when the Kalmyks were exiled by Joseph Stalin for their alleged collaboration with the Germans, the republic was dissolved ...
elixir: in alchemy, substance thought to be capable of changing base metals into gold. The same term, more fully elixir vitae, "elixir of life," was given to the substance that would indefinitely prolong life-a liquid that was believed to be allied ...
Elizabeth: city, seat (1857) of Union county, northeastern New Jersey, U.S. It lies on Newark Bay and Arthur Kill (channel; connected by the Goethals Bridge to Staten Island, New York City) and is adjacent to Newark, New Jersey, to the north. ...
Elizabeth: empress consort of Austria from April 24, 1854, when she married the emperor Francis Joseph I. She was also queen of Hungary (crowned June 8, 1867) after the Austro-Hungarian Ausgleich, or Compromise. Her assassination brought her rather unsettled life to ...
Elizabeth: queen consort of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (1936-52), wife of King George VI. She was credited with sustaining the monarchy through numerous crises, including the abdication of Edward VIII and the death of Princess Diana.
Elizabeth: empress of Russia from 1741 to 1761 (1762, New Style).
Elizabeth City: city, seat (1799) of Pasquotank county, northeastern North Carolina, U.S. It lies on the Pasquotank River (an embayment of Albemarle Sound) at the southern end of Dismal Swamp Canal on the Intracoastal Waterway. Settlers had established a presence on the ...
Elizabeth I: queen of England (1558-1603) during a period, often called the Elizabethan Age, when England asserted itself vigorously as a major European power in politics, commerce, and the arts.
Elizabeth II: queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from February 6, 1952.
Elizabeth Islands: chain of small islands in southeastern Massachusetts, U.S. They extend southwestward for 16 miles (26 km) from the southwestern tip of Cape Cod, between Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound. Administratively a part of Dukes county, the islands constitute Gosnold town ...
Elizabeth Of France: French princess, sister of King Louis XVI, noted for her courage and fidelity during the French Revolution, which sacrificed her to the guillotine.
Elizabeth of Hungary, Saint: princess of Hungary whose devotion to the poor (for whom she relinquished her wealth) made her an enduring symbol of Christian charity.
Elizabeth of Portugal, Saint: daughter of Peter III of Aragon, wife of King Dinis (Denis) of Portugal.
Elizabeth Stuart: British princess who from 1619 was titular queen of Bohemia.
Elizabethan literature: body of works written during the reign of Elizabeth I of England (1558-1603), probably the most splendid age in the history of English literature, during which such writers as Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Roger Ascham, Richard Hooker, Christopher Marlowe, ...
Elizabethton: city, seat (1796) of Carter county, northeastern Tennessee, U.S. It lies at the confluence of the Doe and Watauga rivers, in the southern Appalachian Mountains, about 105 miles (170 km) northeast of Knoxville and just east of Johnson City. Situated ...
Elizabethtown: city, seat of Hardin county, central Kentucky, U.S., 44 miles (71 km) south of Louisville. Settled as Severns Valley Station (1779-80), it was laid out in 1793 by Colonel Andrew Hynes and named for his wife when it was officially ...
Elk: county, north-central Pennsylvania, U.S. It consists of a mountainous region on the Allegheny Plateau that is drained by the west and east branches of the Clarion River. Parklands include Elk and Bendigo state parks and part of Allegheny National Forest.
elk: in Europe, a member of Alces alces, large-hoofed mammals known in North America as the moose (q.v.). The name is also used for several large deer of the genus Cervus, notably the red deer of Europe, the Kashmir stag and ...
Elk City: city, Beckham county, western Oklahoma, U.S., on Elk Creek. Laid out in 1901, the town was first called Busch after the St. Louis brewing family. It is now the service centre for an agricultural, oil, and livestock area and has ...
Elk Island National Park: park in central Alberta, Canada, 20 miles (32 km) east of Edmonton. Established in 1906 as a game preserve, it is one of Canada's smaller national parks, with an area of 75 square miles (194 square km). The park is ...
Elk Mountains: segment of the southern Rocky Mountains, extending for 50 miles (80 km) through Pitkin and Gunnison counties, west-central Colorado, U.S. Several peaks surpass 14,000 feet (4,300 metres), including Pyramid, Snowmass, Capitol, and Maroon peaks, with Mount Carbon (14,259 feet [4,346 ...
Elk River: river rising as Bradley Creek in the Cumberland Mountains, Grundy county, southern Tennessee, U.S. The river meanders approximately 200 miles (320 km) southwestward through Franklin and Lincoln counties, past Fayetteville, across the southeastern corner of Giles county, and into Alabama. ...
Elkesaite: member of a Jewish sect that arose in the vicinity of Trans-Jordanic Palestine around 100 AD. The sect was most noted for its practice of ritual baptism. Named after either a visionary leader named Elkesai or the book of revelation ...
Elkhart: city, Elkhart county, northern Indiana, U.S. It lies at the confluence of the St. Joseph and Elkhart rivers, 15 miles (24 km) west of South Bend. Elkhart was laid out in 1832 at the junction of Indian trails and derives ...
Elkin, Stanley: American writer known for his extraordinary flights of language and imaginative tragicomic explorations of contemporary life.
Elkins: city, seat (1899) of Randolph county, eastern West Virginia, U.S. It lies along the Tygart Valley River, about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of Clarksburg. A rural settlement originally known as Leadsville, the town was laid out after the arrival ...
Elko: city, seat (1869) of Elko county, northeastern Nevada, U.S., in the Humboldt River valley. It originated in 1868 as a construction camp along the Central Pacific Railroad. Fancifully named by railroad construction superintendent Charles Crocker for the high desert's abundant ...