Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Eskimo dog ... Essex, Arthur Capel, 1st earl of, Viscount Malden, Baron Capel Of Hadham

Eskimo dog: breed of sled and hunting dog found near the Arctic Circle. It is believed by some authorities to be representative of a pure breed 25,000 to 50,000 years old and by others to be descended from wolves. The Eskimo dog ...
Eskimo-Aleut languages: family of languages spoken in Greenland, Canada, Alaska (United States), and eastern Siberia (Russia), by the Eskimo and Aleut peoples. Aleut is a single language with two surviving dialects. Eskimo consists of two divisions: Yupik, spoken in Siberia and southwestern ...
Eskisehir: city, west-central Turkey. It lies along the Porsuk River, a tributary of the Sakarya River, at a point about 125 miles (200 km) west of Ankara. Lying near the site of the ancient Phrygian city of Dorylaeum, the present city ...
Esmarch, Friedrich von: German surgeon who is best known for his contributions to military surgery, including his introduction of the use of the first-aid bandage on the battlefield.
Esmeraldas: city, major seaport of northwestern Ecuador. It lies on the Pacific coast at the mouth of the Esmeraldas River. The city is the chief trading centre for the region's agricultural and lumbering resources but is only slightly developed industrially. It ...
Esnault-Pelterie, Robert: French aviation pioneer who made important contributions to the beginnings of heavier-than-air flight in Europe.
esophageal cancer: disease characterized by the abnormal growth of cells in the esophagus, the muscular tube connecting the oral cavity with the stomach. Most esophageal cancers develop from epithelial cells lining the esophagus. Approximately half are derived from flat surface cells (squamous ...
esophagus: relatively straight muscular tube through which food passes from the pharynx to the stomach. The esophagus can contract or expand to allow for the passage of food. Anatomically, it lies behind the trachea and heart and in front of the ...
Esox: fish genus that includes the popular game fishes known as pike, pickerel, and muskellunge (qq.v.).
espalier: tree or other plant that is trained to grow flat against a support (such as a trellis or wall). The term also denotes the trellis or other support on which such trees or plants are trained, as well as the ...
Espanola Island: southernmost of the major Galapagos Islands, in the eastern Pacific Ocean, about 600 miles (965 km) west of Ecuador. Large seal and albatross colonies live on the island, which has an area of 18 square miles (47 square km), but ...
Espartero, Baldomero, principe de Vergara: Spanish general and statesman, victor in the First Carlist War, and regent.
esparto: either of two species of gray-green needlegrasses (Stipa tenacissima and Lygeum spartum) that are indigenous to southern Spain and northern Africa; the term also denotes the fibre produced by esparto.
Esperanto: artificial language constructed in 1887 by L.L. Zamenhof, a Polish oculist, and intended for use as an international second language. Zamenhof's Fundamento de Esperanto, published in 1905, lays down the basic principles of the language's structure and formation.
Espinel, Vicente: Spanish writer and musician remembered chiefly for his picaresque novel La vida del Escudero Marcos de Obregon (1618; "Life of Squire Marcos of Obregon"), upon which the French novelist Alain-Rene Lesage based parts of his Histoire de Gil Blas de ...
Espinhaco Mountains: mountain range of Minas Gerais and Bahia states, eastern Brazil. Their peaks reach between 3,600 and 6,500 feet (1,100 and 2,000 m). With the Diamantina Upland of Bahia state; they form the divide between the tributaries of the Sao Francisco ...
Espino, Hector: professional baseball player with the Mexican League (an affiliate with U.S. Minor League Baseball). Although virtually unknown in the United States, Espino is considered by many in Mexico to be the greatest native-born hitter of all time and is a ...
Espinosa, Pedro de: Spanish poet and editor of the anthology Flores de poetas ilustres de Espana (1605; "Flowers from the Illustrious Poets of Spain"), in which most of the important poets of Spain's Siglo de Oro (Golden Age; c. 1500-1650) were published. The ...
espionage: process of obtaining military, political, commercial, or other secret information by means of spies, secret agents, or illegal monitoring devices. Espionage is sometimes distinguished from the broader category of intelligence gathering by its aggressive nature and its illegality. See intelligence.
Espiritu Santo: largest (1,420 sq mi [3,677 sq km]) and westernmost island of Vanuatu, in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. Volcanic in origin, it has a mountain range running along its west coast; Mt. Tabwemasana rises to 6,165 ft (1,879 m). It is ...
ESPN: cable television sports-broadcasting network based in Bristol, Conn., U.S. Founded in 1978, it became the country's largest cable network, carried to over 68 million homes by early 1996. Its success engendered additional ESPN networks, including an international sports network.
Espoo: town, Uudenmaan laani (Uusimaa province), southern Finland, just west of Helsinki, in a region of broad, flat valleys covered with low clay hills. It is located in an area that has been inhabited since 3500 BC. The town has railway ...
Esposito, Phil: Canadian-born U.S. professional ice hockey centre (1963-81) in the National Hockey League (NHL), who was a leading scorer in his day.
Espoz y Mina, Francisco: outstanding guerrilla leader during the Peninsular War, or Spanish War of Independence (1808-14), against the French; he later embraced the Liberal cause and played a role in various uprisings and in the First Carlist War (1833-39).
Esprito Santo: estado (state) on the east coast of Brazil. It is bounded to the north by the state of Bahia, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the state of Rio de Janeiro, and ...
Espronceda y Delgado, Jose de: Romantic poet and revolutionary, often called the Spanish Lord Byron.
Espy, James Pollard: American meteorologist who apparently gave the first essentially correct explanation of the thermodynamics of cloud formation and growth. He was also one of the first to use the telegraph for collecting meteorological observations.
Esquimalt: district municipality and western suburb of metropolitan Victoria, southwestern British Columbia, Canada, at the southeastern end of Vancouver Island, on Juan de Fuca Strait. The name means "place of gradually shoaling waters" in the local Indian language. Its harbour was ...
Esquipulas: town, southeastern Guatemala, in the central highlands near the borders of Honduras and El Salvador at an elevation of 3,018 feet (920 m). The town itself is not large; it derives its great importance from its magnificent colonial church, now ...
esquire: originally, a knight's shield bearer, who would probably himself in due course be dubbed a knight; the word is derived from the Old French esquier and earlier from the Latin scutarius.
Esquire: American monthly magazine, founded in 1933 by Arnold Gingrich. It began production as an oversized magazine for men that featured a slick, sophisticated style and drawings of scantily clad young women. It later abandoned its titillating role but continued to ...
Esquirol, Jean-Etienne-Dominique: early French psychiatrist who was the first to combine precise clinical descriptions with the statistical analysis of mental illnesses.
Esref Dynasty: Turkmen dynasty (c. 1290-c. 1326) that ruled in Beysehir, west of Konya in central Anatolia.
Essad Pasa: political leader who played a prominent but often disruptive role in Albania's affairs during the early years of the 20th century.
Essaouira: Atlantic port city, western Morocco, midway between Safi and Agadir. The site was occupied by Phoenicians and then Carthaginians and was mentioned in the chronicles of the Carthaginian explorer Hanno (5th century BC). Medieval charts show it as Mogador, a ...
essay: an analytic, interpretative, or critical literary composition usually much shorter and less systematic and formal than a dissertation or thesis and usually dealing with its subject from a limited and often personal point of view.
Essen: city, North Rhine-Westphalia Land (state), western Germany. It is situated between the Rhine-Herne Canal and the Ruhr River. Essen was originally the seat of an aristocratic convent (founded 852), still represented by the cathedral (Munsterkirche; now the ...
Essen, Louis: English physicist who invented the quartz crystal ring clock and the first practical atomic clock. These devices were capable of measuring time more accurately than any previous clocks.
Essene: member of a religious sect or brotherhood that flourished in Palestine from about the 2nd century BC to the end of the 1st century AD. The New Testament does not mention them and accounts given by Josephus, Philo of Alexandria, ...
essential oil: highly volatile substance isolated by a physical process from an odoriferous plant of a single botanical species. The oil bears the name of the plant from which it is derived; for example, rose oil or peppermint oil. Such oils were ...
Essequibo River: river in east central Guyana, the largest river between the Amazon and the Orinoco. It rises in the Acarai Mountains on the Brazilian border and flows northward for approximately 630 miles (1,010 km) through savannas and forests to the Atlantic ...
Essex: administrative, geographic, and historic county of eastern England, extending along the North Sea coastline between the Thames and Stour estuaries. The administrative county covers an area within the larger geographic county, which in turn covers a part of the original ...
Essex: county, northeastern New Jersey, U.S., bounded by Newark Bay to the southeast and the Passaic River to the east and west. The county's topography ranges from coastal lowland in the east to hilly piedmont in the west. Although timberland is ...
Essex: county, northeastern New York state, U.S. It comprises a mountainous region bounded by the Ausable River to the northeast, Vermont to the east (Lake Champlain constituting the border), Lake George to the southeast, and the Hudson River to the southwest. ...
Essex: one of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England; i.e., that of the East Saxons. An area of early settlement, it probably originally included the territory of the modern county of Middlesex; London was its chief town. Essex sometimes had joint kings, ...
Essex: county, northeastern Vermont, U.S., bordered to the north by Quebec, Can., and to the east by New Hampshire, the Connecticut River constituting that boundary. It is a mountainous region, with several peaks above 3,000 feet (915 metres). The Connecticut River ...
Essex: town (township), Chittenden county, northwestern Vermont, U.S., on the Winooski River just east of Burlington. Chartered in 1763 and settled in 1783, it consists of the villages of Essex Junction and Essex Center. Essex Junction is a busy industrial and ...
Essex: county, extreme northeastern Massachusetts, U.S., bordered by New Hampshire to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Its topography is largely hilly, with coastal lowlands in the east that include several islands in the Atlantic. The principal streams ...
Essex Decision: decision rendered by the British High Court of Admiralty in 1804 and confirmed the following year, which contributed to the bad feeling between the United States and Great Britain that eventually led to the War of 1812. Britain and France ...
Essex Junto: in early U.S. history, a group of Federalist political leaders in Massachusetts. John Hancock coined the name for his Essex County opponents at the state constitutional convention of 1778. The Junto (faction) later supported the policies of the Federalist Alexander ...
Essex, Arthur Capel, 1st earl of, Viscount Malden, Baron Capel Of Hadham: English statesman, a member of the "Triumvirate" that dominated policy at the time of the Popish Plot (1678).