Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Palmdale ... Pampas, the

Palmdale: city, Los Angeles county, southwestern California, U.S. North of the city of Los Angeles, Palmdale lies at the southern end of Antelope Valley. The area was first settled in the 1880s, when the towns of Harold and Palmenthal were formed, ...
Palme, Olof: prime minister of Sweden (1969-76, 1982-86), prominent leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party (Sveriges Socialdemokratiska Arbetar Partiet), Sweden's oldest continuing party. He became Sweden's best-known international politician.
Palmela, Pedro de Sousa Holstein, Duke de: Portuguese liberal statesman and supporter of Queen Maria II.
Palmer: city, southern Alaska, U.S. Located near the mouth of the Matanuska River, it lies 42 miles (68 km) northeast of Anchorage. The area was long inhabited by Athabascan Indians. George Palmer established a trading post along the river about 1890, ...
Palmer Archipelago: island group off the northwestern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, from which it is separated by Gerlache and Bismarck straits. The archipelago, which includes the islands of Anvers (46 miles [74 km] long by 35 miles [56 km] wide), Liege, ...
Palmer Land: broad southern part of the Antarctic Peninsula, about 400 miles (640 km) east of Peter I Island (in the Bellingshausen Sea), claimed by Britain as part of the British Antarctic Territory. It is named after its discoverer, Nathaniel Palmer, captain ...
Palmer, A. Mitchell: American lawyer, legislator, and U.S. attorney general (1919-21) whose highly publicized campaigns against suspected radicals touched off the so-called Red Scare of 1919-20.
Palmer, Alice Elvira Freeman: American educator who exerted a strong and lasting influence on the academic and administrative character of Wellesley (Massachusetts) College during her brief tenure as its president.
Palmer, Arnold: professional American golfer, the first to win the Masters Tournament (Augusta, Ga.) four times and the first to earn $1 million in tournament prize money. During his professional career (1954-75) he won 92 tournaments, 60 of which were on the ...
Palmer, Bertha Honore: American socialite remembered especially for her active contributions to women's, artistic, and Chicago civic affairs.
Palmer, E H: English Orientalist, distinguished as a linguist and as a traveler, among whose many translations is a version of the Qur'an-the sacred scripture of Islam-that, despite some inaccuracies, captures the spirit and poetry of the original.
Palmer, Geoffrey: New Zealand Labour Party leader and prime minister of New Zealand for a year in 1989-90.
Palmer, Nathaniel B: American sea captain and explorer after whom Palmer Land, a stretch of western Antarctic coast and islands, is named.
Palmer, Phoebe Worrall: American evangelist and religious writer, an influential and active figure in the 19th-century Holiness movement in Christian fundamentalism.
Palmer, Potter: American merchant and real-estate promoter who was responsible for the development of much of the downtown district and the Lake Shore Drive area of Chicago after the city's great fire of 1871.
Palmer, Samuel: English painter and etcher of visionary landscapes who was a disciple of William Blake.
Palmer, Vance: Australian author of novels, short stories, and plays whose work is noted for disciplined diction and frequent understatement. He is considered one of the founders of Australian drama.
Palmerston North: city, Manawatu-Wanganui local government region, southern North Island, New Zealand, overlooking the Manawatu River. The settlement, named after Lord Palmerston, prime minister of England, was founded in 1866 and declared successively a town (1868), a borough (1877), and a city ...
Palmerston, Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount, Baron Temple Of Mount Temple: English Whig-Liberal statesman whose long career, including many years as British foreign secretary (1830-34, 1835-41, 1846-51) and prime minister (1855-58, 1859-65), made him a symbol of British nationalism.
Palmgren, Selim: Finnish pianist and composer who helped establish the nationalist movement in Finnish music.
Palmira: city, Valle del Cauca departamento ("department"), southwestern Colombia. It lies in the rich Cauca River valley. Founded in 1688, the city has long been an important agricultural and livestock-raising centre. Now the second largest city in its department, Palmira is ...
palmistry: reading of character and divination of the future by interpretation of lines and undulations on the palm of the hand. The origins of palmistry are uncertain. It may have begun in ancient India and spread from there. It was probably ...
Palmyra: ancient city in south-central Syria, 130 miles (210 km) northeast of Damascus. The name Palmyra, meaning "city of palm trees," was conferred upon the city by its Roman rulers in the 1st century AD; Tadmur, Tadmor, or Tudmur, the pre-Semitic ...
Palmyra: town (township), Wayne county, western New York, U.S., on the New York State Canal System, 20 miles (32 km) east-southeast of Rochester. Founded in 1789 as a frontier town and named for the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, the locale ...
Palmyra Atoll: coral atoll, unincorporated territory of the United States, in the Northern Line Islands in the west-central Pacific Ocean, 1,000 miles (1,600 km) southwest of Honolulu. It comprises 50 islets with a combined area of 4 square miles (10 square km) ...
Palmyrenian alphabet: Semitic script used in Palmyra, a city on the trade routes between Syria and Mesopotamia, from the 3rd to the 2nd century BC until shortly after the conquest of the city by the Romans in AD 272. Developed from the ...
Palni Hills: range of hills, an eastward extension of the Western Ghats, southwestern Tamil Nadu state, southern India. A continuation of the Anaimalai Hills in Kerala state, the Palnis are about 45 miles (70 km) wide and 15 miles (23 km) long. ...
Palo Alto: city, Santa Clara county, northern California, U.S. Located 35 miles (55 km) south of San Francisco and 14 miles (23 km) north of San Jose, it lies on the western shore of San Francisco Bay. Gaspar de Portola's 1769 expedition ...
Palo Alto, Battle of: (May 8, 1846), first clash in the Mexican War, fought at a small site in southeastern Texas about 9 miles (14.5 km) northeast of Matamoros, Mex. Mexican troops had crossed the Rio Grande to besiege Fort Brown and to threaten ...
palo verde: (Spanish: "green wood"), any member of the genera Cercidium and Parkinsonia, of the pea family (Fabaceae), comprising a small group of trees and shrubs scattered through the arid regions of the southwestern United States, Mexico, Central America, and Venezuela. Three ...
palolo worm: any of various segmented marine worms of the families Eunicidae and Nereidae (class Polychaeta, phylum Annelida). The palolo worm exhibits unique breeding behaviour: during the breeding season, always at the same time of year, the worms break in half; the ...
Palomar Observatory: astronomical observatory located on Mount Palomar, about 40 miles (65 km) north-northeast of San Diego, California. The observatory is the site of the famous Hale telescope, a reflector with a 5-metre (200-inch) aperture that has proved instrumental in cosmological research. ...
Palomar, Mount: peak (6,126 feet [1,867 metres]) in Cleveland National Forest, southern California, U.S. It lies about 40 miles (65 km) north-northeast of San Diego. The nearly 2,000-acre (800-hectare) Palomar Mountain State Park extends up the mountain slope, and the Palomar Observatory ...
Palomino: colour type of horse distinguished by its cream, yellow, or gold coat and white or silver mane and tail. The colour does not breed true. Horses of proper colour, of proper saddle-horse type, and from at least one registered parent ...
Palomino De Castro Y Velasco: Spanish painter, scholar, and author, the last court painter to King Charles II of Spain.
Palta: Ecuadorian Indian ethnolinguistic group that lived in the Andean highlands at the time of the Spanish conquest (16th century). Although the Ecuadorian highlands are still inhabited by persons of Indian descent, the languages, cultures, and tribal affiliations existing at the ...
Palu: city, capital of Sulawesi Tengah (Central Celebes) provinsi (province), west-central Celebes, Indonesia. It is located at the mouth of a small estuary on the Makassar Strait and is surrounded by hills. Palu is connected by road with ...
Paludan, Jacob: Danish novelist and conservative critic whose work expressed a mistrust-based on the fear of Americanization of European culture-of Danish society and of the generation that followed World War I.
Paludan-Muller, Frederik: Danish poet who achieved early acclaim in the Danish late-Romantic movement (the so-called romantisme, which was marked by skepticism about Romanticism's idealistic philosophy) for his Byronic epic Danserinden (1833; "The Danseuse").
palygorskite: a fibrous magnesium aluminum silicate. The structure of palygorskite contains extended silicon-oxygen sheets, justifying the retention of the mineral in the layer silicate family, but the tetrahedral SiO₄ groups forming these sheets are oriented in such a manner as to ...
palynology: scientific discipline concerned with the study of plant pollen and spores and certain microscopic planktonic organisms, in both living and fossil form. The field is associated with the plant sciences as well as with the geologic sciences, notably those aspects ...
Pamirs: highland region of Central Asia. The Pamir mountain area centres on the nodal orogenic uplift known as the Pamir Knot, from which several south-central Asian mountain ranges radiate; these include the Hindu Kush, the Karakoram Range, the Kunlun Mountains, and ...
Pamlico: Algonquian-speaking Indians who lived along the Pamlico River in what is now Beaufort county, N.C., U.S., when first encountered by Europeans. These sedentary agriculturists were almost destroyed by smallpox in 1696, and in 1710 the 75 survivors lived in a ...
Pamlico Sound: shallow body of water along the eastern shore of North Carolina, U.S. The largest sound on the East Coast, it is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by narrow barrier islands (the Outer Banks), of which Cape Hatteras is the southeasternmost ...
Pampa: South Indian poet and literary figure, called adikavi ("first poet") in the Kannada language. He created a style that served as the model for all future works in the Kannada language.
Pampa: city, seat (1902) of Gray county, northern Texas, U.S., 55 miles (88 km) northeast of Amarillo. It was founded in 1888 on the Santa Fe Railroad; it was known first as Glasgow, then Sutton, and finally, in 1892 it was ...
Pampanga River: river on Luzon Island, Philippines, rising in several headstreams in the Caraballo Mountains and flowing south for about 120 miles (190 km) to empty into northern Manila Bay in a wide, swampy delta. The Candaba Swamp, covering more than 200 ...
Pampangan: cultural-linguistic group of the Philippines. The Pampangan, numbering about 1,970,000 in the late 20th century, live principally in the central plain of Luzon Island but also inhabit other portions of the island. Their region, extending north from Manila Bay, has ...
pampas cat: (Felis colocolo), small cat, family Felidae, native to South America. It is about 60 cm (24 inches) long, including the 30-centimetre tail. The coat is long-haired and grayish with brown markings which in some individuals may be indistinct. Little is ...
pampas grass: (Cortaderia selloana), one of more than 20 species of tall, reedlike Central and South American and New Zealand grasses comprising the genus Cortaderia (family Poaceae). Female plants bear silvery, plumelike flower clusters about 30 to 90 cm (1 to 3 ...
Pampas, the: vast plains extending westward across central Argentina from the Atlantic coast to the Andean foothills, bounded by the Gran Chaco (north) and Patagonia (south). The name comes from a Quechua Indian word meaning "flat surface." The Pampas have a gradual ...