Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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MacLiammoir, Micheal ... Madeira

MacLiammoir, Micheal: actor, scenic designer, and playwright whose nearly 300 productions in Gaelic and English at the Gate Theatre in Dublin enriched the Irish Renaissance by internationalizing the generally parochial Irish theatre.
Maclise, Daniel: Irish historical painter whose fame rests chiefly on a series of lithograph portraits of contemporary celebrities and on two vast frescoes that he painted in the Royal Gallery in the House of Lords.
Maclure, William: Scottish-born American geologist who is known for his geological map-the first true geological map of any part of North America and one of the earliest such maps compiled.
Maclurites: extinct genus of Ordovician gastropods (snails) found as fossils and useful for stratigraphic correlations (the Ordovician Period lasted from 505 to 438 million years ago). The shell is distinctively coiled and easily recognized. Maclurites also had an operculum, or second ...
Macmillan, Daniel; and Macmillan, Alexander: Scottish booksellers and publishers who, in 1843, founded Macmillan & Co., a bookshop that grew into one of the largest publishing firms in the world, producing textbooks, works of science and literature, and high-quality periodicals.
Macmillan, Harold: British politician who was prime minister from January 1957 to October 1963.
MacMillan, Sir Kenneth: British ballet choreographer who created more than 40 ballets during his career and helped revive the tradition of full-length ballets in Britain.
MacMurray, Fred: American film and television actor.
Macnaghten, Sir William Hay, Baronet: British interventionist agent in Afghanistan during the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-42). He was created a baronet in 1840.
MacNeice, Louis: British poet and playwright, a member, with W.H. Auden, C. Day-Lewis, and Stephen Spender, of a group whose low-keyed, unpoetic, socially committed, and topical verse was the "new poetry" of the 1930s.
Macocha Gorge: gorge in Jihomoravsky kraj (region), Czech Republic. It is the best-known and most frequently visited feature in the Moravian Karst region and contains a labyrinth of caves and galleries and a number of magnificent stalagmites and stalactites. The gorge reaches ...
Macomb: city, seat (1830) of McDonough county, western Illinois, U.S. It lies along the East Fork La Moine River, about 65 miles (105 km) southwest of Peoria. Settled in 1829 by John Baker, a Baptist minister, and originally called Washington, it ...
Macomber, Mary Lizzie: American artist remembered for her highly symbolic, dreamlike paintings.
Macon: city, seat (1823) of Bibb county, central Georgia, U.S., on the Ocmulgee River at the fall line. Its incorporated area extends into Jones county to the northeast. The original settlement, Newtown, developed around Fort Hawkins (1806). In 1822 a town ...
Macon: town, capital of Saone-et-Loire departement, Bourgogne region, east-central France, north of Lyon. On the right bank of the Saone River, it is a communications centre skirted by France's main motorway, the Autoroute du Sud, and traversed by the main road ...
Macon, Nathaniel: U.S. Congressional leader for 37 years, remembered chiefly for his negative views on almost every issue of the day, particularly those concerned with a central form of government. Yet his integrity and absence of selfish motives served to strengthen his ...
Macpherson, James: Scottish poet whose initiation of the Ossianic controversy has obscured his genuine contributions to Gaelic studies.
Macpherson, Jay: Canadian lyric poet, member of "the mythopoeic school of poetry," who expressed serious religious and philosophical themes in symbolic verse that was often lyrical or comic.
Macpherson, Sir David: Scottish-born politician and railway builder who served as Canadian minister of the interior from 1883 to 1885.
Macquarie Harbour: inlet of the Indian Ocean indenting western Tasmania, Australia. A fault valley modified by glaciation, it extends 20 miles (32 km) northwest-southeast and is about 5 miles (8 km) wide. It receives the King River from the northeast and the ...
Macquarie Island: island lying about 900 miles (1,450 km) southeast of Tasmania, Australia. It forms, with associated islets, a sub-Antarctic part of Tasmania. Macquarie, a volcanic mass with an area of 47 square miles (123 square km) and a general elevation of ...
Macquarie, Lachlan: early governor of New South Wales, Australia (1809-21), who expanded opportunities for Emancipists (freed convicts) and established a balance of power with the Exclusionists, large landowners and sheep farmers.
Macquarie, Lake: seaboard lagoon, New South Wales, Australia. It lies 60 miles (97 km) northeast of Sydney. Measuring 15 miles long and 5 miles wide (24 km long and 8 km wide), with 108 miles (174 km) of shoreline and an area ...
macrame: (from Turkish makrama, "napkin," or "towel"), coarse lace or fringe made by knotting cords or thick threads in a geometric pattern. Macrame was a specialty of Genoa, where, in the 19th century, towels decorated with knotted cord were popular. Its ...
Macready, William Charles: English actor, manager, and diarist, a leading figure in the development of acting and production techniques of the 19th century.
Macrinus: Roman emperor in 217 and 218, the first man to rule the empire without having achieved senatorial status.
Macro-Algonquian languages: major group (phylum or superstock) of North American Indian languages; it is composed of nine families and a total of 24 languages or dialect groups. The language families included in Macro-Algonquian are Algonquian, with 13 languages; Yurok, with 1 language; ...
Macro-Siouan languages: major grouping (phylum or superstock) of North American Indian languages; it is made up of 26 languages, grouped into 5 families: Siouan, with 12 languages; Catawba, with 1 language (extinct); Iroquoian, with 8 languages; Caddoan, with 4 languages; and Yuchi, ...
Macrobius, Ambrosius Theodosius: Latin grammarian and philosopher whose most important work is the Saturnalia, the last known example of the long series of symposia headed by the Symposium of Plato.
Macrocystis: genus of brown algae commonly known as kelp (q.v.).
macroeconomics: study of national or regional economies in terms of the total amount of goods and services produced, the total income earned, the level of employment of productive resources, and the general behaviour of prices. Until the 1930s most economic analysis ...
macrofauna: in soil science, animals that are one centimetre or more long but smaller than an earthworm. Potworms, myriapods, centipedes, millipedes, slugs, snails, fly larvae, beetles, beetle larvae, and spiders are typical members of the macrofauna. Many of these animals burrow ...
macroglossia: enlargement of the tongue, due to overdevelopment of the muscle or the accumulation of material within the tongue. Muscular hypertrophy may be congenital, as in Down syndrome, or may develop later in life, as in acromegaly. Inadequate lymph drainage caused ...
macromolecule: any very large molecule, usually with a diameter ranging from about 100 to 10,000 angstroms (10^-⁵ to 10^-³ millimetre). The molecule is the smallest unit of the substance that retains its characteristic properties; the macromolecule is such a unit but ...
macronucleus: relatively large nucleus believed to influence many cell activities. It occurs in suctorian and ciliate protozoans (e.g., Paramecium). The macronucleus is associated with one or more smaller micronuclei, which are necessary for conjugation and autogamy (reproduction by exchange between the ...
Macrozamia: genus of 12 or more species of palmlike cycads (plants of the family Cycadaceae), native to Australia and grown elsewhere as ornamental and conservatory specimens. The genus includes tuberous, fernlike plants and palmlike, columnar trees that grow as high as ...
Mactan Island: coral island, central Philippines, located in the Bohol Strait off the eastern shore of the island of Cebu. Rectangular in shape, the low-lying island has extensive mangrove swamps. It protects the harbour of Cebu City.
macula lutea: in anatomy, small yellow area on the retina of the eye. When the gaze is fixed on any object, the centre of the macula, the centre of the lens, and the object are in a straight line. In the centre ...
Macumba: Afro-Brazilian religion that is characterized by a marked syncretism of traditional African religions, European culture, Brazilian Spiritualism, and Roman Catholicism. Of the several Macumba sects, the most important are Candomble and Umbanda.
Macy and Company, Inc.: ., major American department store chain. Its principal outlet, the 11-story department store that occupies a city block at New York City's Herald Square (34th Street and Broadway), was for many years physically the largest single store in the country. ...
Macy, Anne Sullivan: American teacher of Helen Keller, widely recognized for her achievement in educating to a high level a person without sight, hearing, or normal speech.
Madach, Imre: Hungarian poet whose reputation rests on his ambitious poetic drama Az ember tragediaja (1861; The Tragedy of Man). He is often considered to be Hungary's greatest philosophical poet.
Madagascar: country lying off the southeastern coast of Africa. It occupies the fourth largest island in the world-after Greenland, New Guinea, and Borneo-with a surface area of 226,658 square miles (587,041 square kilometres). Located in the southwestern Indian Ocean, it is ...
Madang: port on the northeastern coast of the island of New Guinea, Papua New Guinea. It lies along Astrolabe Bay of the Bismarck Sea, near the mouth of the Gogol River. Madang is the centre for a large timber industry based ...
Madanin: town, southern Tunisia. The town lies in the semiarid plain of al-Jifarah (Jeffara). It was the capital of the Ouerghemma League of three Berber groups and was the chief town of the Southern Military Territories during the French Protectorate (1881-1955). ...
Madariaga y Rojo, Salvador de: Spanish writer, diplomat, and historian, noted for his service at the League of Nations and for his prolific writing in English, German, and French, as well as Spanish.
Maddalena Island: island, Sassari provincia, Italy. It lies in the Tyrrhenian Sea (of the Mediterranean) off the northeast coast of Sardinia. It has an area of 8 square miles (20 square km) and is the principal island of the Maddalena Archipelago, which ...
Maddalena Pass: gap between the Cottian Alps (north) and the Maritime Alps (south). The pass lies at 6,548 feet (1,996 m) on the French-Italian border, 12 miles (19 km) east-northeast of Barcelonnette, Fr. A road (1870) across the pass connects Cuneo, Italy, ...
madder: any of several species of plants belonging to the genus Rubia of the madder family, Rubiaceae. Rubia tinctorum and R. peregrina are native European plants, and R. cordifolia is native to the hilly districts of India and Java. Rubia is ...
Madderakka: Sami goddess of childbirth. She is assisted by three of her daughters-Sarakka, the cleaving woman; Uksakka, the door woman; and Juksakka, the bow woman-who watch over the development of the child from conception through early childhood. Madderakka was believed to ...
Madeira: fortified wine from the Portuguese island of Madeira in the Atlantic. Because the island was a customary port-of-call on the trade routes between Europe and the New World, this durable wine was very popular in colonial America.