Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Ocean City ... oculus

Ocean City: resort town, Worcester county, southeastern Maryland, U.S. Ocean City lies along a 10-mile (16-km) barrier beach between a chain of bays (Sinepuxent, Isle of Wight, and Assawoman) and the Atlantic Ocean, 29 miles (47 km) east of Salisbury. It is ...
Ocean City: resort, city, Cape May county, southeastern New Jersey, U.S., on a barrier island between Great Egg Harbor (bridged to Somers Point and Longport) and the Atlantic Ocean, 12 miles (19 km) southwest of Atlantic City. Laid out in 1879 by ...
ocean current: horizontal and vertical circulation system of ocean waters produced by gravity, wind friction, and water density variation in different parts of the ocean.
ocean liner: one of the two principal types of merchant ship as classified by operating method; the other is the tramp steamer. A liner operates on a regular schedule of designated ports, carrying whatever cargo and passengers are available on the date ...
ocean perch: economically important food fish of the family Scorpaenidae, also known as the redfish (q.v.).
ocean ranching: the rearing of fish and shellfish under artificially controlled conditions to restock the sea. See aquaculture.
Ocean Springs: resort city, Jackson county, southeastern Mississippi, U.S., on Biloxi Bay across from Biloxi. It developed around the site of Old Biloxi, where the explorer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville established Fort Maurepas in 1699 for France; it was the first permanent ...
oceanarium: saltwater aquarium for displaying marine animals and plants, particularly oceanic, or pelagic, fishes and mammals. It serves as a centre for public entertainment and education and scientific study. Most oceanariums are located in coastal areas. The world's first large oceanarium, ...
Oceania: collective name for the islands scattered throughout most of the Pacific Ocean. The term, in its widest sense, embraces the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas. A more common definition excludes the Ryukyu, Kuril, and Aleutian islands and ...
Oceanic languages: widespread, highly varied, and controversial language group of the Austronesian language family. Spoken on the islands of Oceania from New Guinea to Hawaii to Easter Island, certain of these languages share so little basic vocabulary that some scholars prefer to ...
Oceanic literature: the traditional oral and written literatures of the indigenous people of Oceania, in particular of Melanesia, Polynesia, Micronesia, and Australia. While this article addresses the influence of Western literary forms, it does not address the adoption of purely Western styles; ...
oceanic plateau: large submarine elevation rising sharply at least 200 m (660 feet) above the surrounding deep-sea floor and characterized principally by an extensive, relatively flat or gently tilted summit. Most oceanic plateaus were named early in the 20th century prior to ...
oceanic ridge: continuous submarine mountain chain extending approximately 80,000 km (50,000 miles) through all the world's oceans. Ridges separate the oceans into distinct basins and may or may not be seismically active.
oceanic trough: an elongate depression in the seafloor that is characteristically shallower, shorter, narrower, and topographically gentler than oceanic trenches. Maximal depths of oceanic troughs range between 2,300 m (7,500 feet) in the Papuan Trough and 7,440 m in the Banda Trough. ...
oceanography: scientific discipline concerned with all aspects of the world's oceans and seas, including their physical and chemical properties, their origin and geologic framework, and the life forms that inhabit the marine environment.
Oceanside: city, San Diego county, southern California, U.S. Situated about 35 miles (55 km) north of San Diego, Oceanside lies along the Pacific coast, at the mouth of the San Luis Rey River. The region was originally territory of the Luiseno ...
Oceanus: in Greek mythology, the river that flowed around the Earth (conceived as flat). Beyond it, to the west, were the sunless land of the Cimmerii, the country of dreams, and the entrance to the underworld. In Hesiod's Theogony, Oceanus was ...
ocelot: spotted cat of the New World, found in lowland areas from Texas southward to northern Argentina. The short, smooth fur is patterned with elongated, black-edged spots that are arranged in chainlike bands. The cat's upper parts vary in colour from ...
Ochino, Bernardino: Protestant convert from Roman Catholicism who became an itinerant Reformer and influenced other radical Reformers by his controversial anti-Catholic views.
Ochnaceae: the most primitive family of the tea order (Theales), comprising some 30 genera and 430 species of tropical trees and shrubs, with a few genera of herbs. Many species are native to Brazil. The largest genus is Ouratea, with about ...
Ochoa, Ellen: American engineer and the first Hispanic female astronaut.
Ochoa, Severo: biochemist and molecular biologist who received (with the American biochemist Arthur Kornberg) the 1959 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for discovery of an enzyme in bacteria that enabled him to synthesize ribonucleic acid (RNA), a substance of central importance ...
Ochoan Stage: post-Guadalupian time of deposition of the Upper Permian Series of rock strata in the United States, characterized by the development of extensive evaporite deposits (the Permian Period lasted from about 286 to 245 million years ago). During Ochoan time, tectonism ...
Ochs, Adolph Simon: American newspaper publisher under whose ownership (from 1896) The New York Times became one of the world's outstanding newspapers. Despising "yellow [sensational] journalism," he emphasized comprehensive and trustworthy news gathering.
Ochs, Peter: Swiss revolutionary who wrote most of the constitution of the unitary Helvetic Republic (1798).
Ochs, Phil: American folksinger and songwriter best remembered for the protest songs he wrote in the 1960s on topics ranging from the Vietnam War to civil rights.
Ochsenbein, Ulrich: Swiss politician and military leader who headed the confederation government during the Sonderbund War (1847) and presided over the constitutional reform committee of 1848.
Ockeghem, Jean d': composer of sacred and secular music, one of the great masters of the Franco-Flemish style that dominated European music of the Renaissance.
Ockham's razor: principle stated by William of Ockham (1285-1347/49), a scholastic, that Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate; "Plurality should not be posited without necessity." The principle gives precedence to simplicity; of two competing theories, the simplest explanation of an entity is ...
Ockham, William of: Franciscan philosopher, theologian, and political writer, a late scholastic thinker regarded as the founder of a form of nominalism-the school of thought that denies that universal concepts such as "father" have any reality apart from the individual things signified by ...
Ocoee River: river rising in the Blue Ridge Mountains, 9 mi (14 km) southeast of Blue Ridge city, Ga., U.S., and flowing northwest through Fannin County into Tennessee, past Copperhill, through Polk County, and north to the Hiwassee River, just north of ...
Oconee: county, extreme northwestern South Carolina, U.S. It is bordered by North Carolina to the north and Georgia to the west. Its most northerly portion lies within the rugged Blue Ridge Mountains of the Appalachian chain, and the remainder is in ...
Oconto: city, seat (1854) of Oconto county, northeastern Wisconsin, U.S. It lies on the western shore of Green Bay, at the mouth of the Oconto River, about 30 miles (50 km) north of the city of Green Bay. The earliest inhabitants ...
Ocotal: city, northwestern Nicaragua. It lies on a sandy plain near the Cordillera Entre Rios and the Coco River, at an elevation of 1,987 feet (606 m). Ocotal serves as a manufacturing and commercial centre. Shoes, furniture, and beverages are among ...
ocotillo: flowering spiny shrub characteristic of rocky deserts from western Texas to southern California and southward into Mexico. It is a member of the candlewood family (Fouquieriaceae), which belongs to the order Tamaricales. Near the plant's base the stem divides into ...
Ocotlan: city, east-central Jalisco estado ("state"), west-central Mexico. It lies near the northeastern shore of Lake Chapala, at the confluence of the Zula (or Atotonilco) and Santiago rivers, and is most important as a transportation hub. As the gateway to the ...
octahedrite: any iron meteorite containing between 6 and 11 percent nickel and having an eight-sided crystal structure. Etching a polished surface brings out an unusual design called the Widmanstatten pattern, which results from the presence of a system of lamellae parallel ...
octane number: measure of the ability of a fuel to resist knocking when ignited in a mixture with air in the cylinder of an internal-combustion engine. The octane number is determined by comparing, under standard conditions, the knock intensity of the fuel ...
octave: in music, an interval whose higher note has a sound-wave frequency of vibration double that of its lower note. Thus, the note a vibrates at 220 hertz [cycles per second], while its octave, a', vibrates at 440 hertz.
octave species: in early Greek music theory, any of the various arrangements of tones (T) and semitones (S) within an octave (series of eight consecutive notes) in the scale system. The basic Greek scale ranged two octaves and was called the Greater ...
octaves, law of: in chemistry, the generalization made by the English chemist J.A.R. Newlands in 1865 that, if the chemical elements are arranged according to increasing atomic weight, those with similar physical and chemical properties occur after each interval of seven elements. Newlands ...
Octavia: full sister of Octavian (later the emperor Augustus) and wife of Mark Antony.
octet: in chemistry, the eight-electron arrangement in the outer electron shell of the noble-gas atoms. This structure is held responsible for the relative inertness of the noble gases and the chemical behaviour of certain other elements. The chemical elements with atomic ...
October: 10th month of the Gregorian calendar. Its name is derived from octo, Latin for "eight," an indication of its position in the early Roman calendar. See month and the accompanying Table.
October Manifesto: (Oct. 30 [Oct. 17, Old Style], 1905), in Russian history, document issued by the emperor Nicholas II that in effect marked the end of unlimited autocracy in Russia and ushered in an era of constitutional monarchy. Threatened by the events ...
October Revolution: (Oct. 24-25 [Nov. 6-7, New Style], 1917), the second and last major phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917, in which the Bolshevik Party seized power in Russia, inaugurating the Soviet regime. See Russian Revolution of 1917.
Octobrist: 17, member of a conservative-liberal Russian political party whose program of moderate constitutionalism called for the fulfillment of the emperor Nicholas II's October Manifesto (q.v.). Founded in November 1905, the party was led by the industrialist Aleksandr Ivanovich Guchkov and ...
octopus: in general, any eight-armed cephalopod (octopod) mollusk of the order Octopoda; the true octopuses are members of the genus Octopus, a large group of widely distributed, shallow-water cephalopods. (See cephalopod.)
octroi: tax levied by a local political unit, normally the commune or municipal authority, on certain categories of goods as they enter the area. The tax was first instituted in Italy in Roman times, when it bore the title of vectigal, ...
Oculi, Okello: Ugandan novelist, poet, and chronicler of African rural village life. His writing is filled with authentic snatches of conversation, proverbs, and folk wisdom that confirm African values and denounce European imitations.
oculus: (Latin: "eye"), in architecture, any of several structural elements resembling an eye. A small window that is circular or oval in shape, such as an oeil-de-boeuf window (q.v.), is an oculus. The round opening at the top of some domes, ...