arm of the Arctic Ocean, Kitikmeot and Baffin regions, Northwest Territories, northern Canada. It is 250 miles (400 km) long and 100 miles (160 km) wide. The discovery of this ...
device consisting of two parallel jaws for holding a workpiece; one of the jaws is fixed and the other movable by a screw, a lever, or a cam. When used ...
distrito ("district") northern Portugal. Framed by the Caramulo, Arada, and Montemuro mountains in the west, the district is drained by the upper basin of the Mondego and Vouga rivers. It ...
town, capital, and concelho (township), Viseu distrito ("district"), northern Portugal, southeast of Porto. The town's notable landmarks include the Romanesque and Gothic cathedral (12th and 16th centuries) and the Grao-Vasco ...
city, northeastern Andhra Pradesh state, southern India. It lies on the Bay of Bengal, about 380 miles (612 km) northeast of Madras. Vishakhapatnam lies along a small bay, and its ...
one of the principal Hindu deities, worshiped as the protector and preserver of the world and restorer of dharma (moral order). Vishnu, like Siva (the other major god of Hinduism), ...
in economics, exchange of physically tangible goods between countries, involving the export, import, and re-export of goods at various stages of production. It is distinguished from invisible trade, which involves ...
member of a division of the Goths (see Goth). One of the most important of the Germanic peoples, the Visigoths separated from the Ostrogoths in the 4th century AD, raided ...
artistic style produced in southern France and Spain under the Visigoths, who ruled the region between the 5th and the 8th century AD. The style is largely the result of ...
physiological process of distinguishing, usually by means of an organ such as the eye, the shapes and colours of objects. See eye; photoreception; sense.
among the American Indian hunters of the eastern woodlands and the Great Plains, an essential part of a young boy's (or, more rarely, a girl's) initiation into adulthood. The youth ...
(Sanskrit: Nonduality of the Qualified), one of the principal schools of Vedanta, an orthodox philosophy of India. This school grew out of the Vaisnava (worship of the god Vishnu [Visnu]) ...
procedure adopted by a belligerent warship to ascertain whether a merchant vessel is liable to seizure. If an inspection of the papers shows the ship to be an enemy vessel ...
royally appointed official sent periodically in the late Middle Ages to investigate the administration of justice in the towns of the Spanish Kingdom of Castile. In the late 15th century, ...
a Roman Catholic order of nuns founded by St. Francis de Sales and St. Jane Frances de Chantal at Annecy, Fr., in 1610. The order was originally destined for charitable ...
the visit, described in the Gospel According to Luke (1:39-56), made by the Virgin Mary, pregnant with the infant Jesus, to her cousin Elizabeth. At the sound of Mary's greeting, ...
Dutch poet and daughter of the Renaissance man of letters Roemer Visscher. She was admired and praised in verse by such poets as Constantijn Huygens and Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft.
poet and moralist of the early Dutch Renaissance who was at the centre of the cultural circle that included the young poets Pieter C. Hooft, Joost van den Vondel, and ...
shallow, marsh-fringed lagoon on the Baltic coast, bisected by the Polish-Russian border and considered part of the Gulf of Gdansk. Covering 330 square miles (855 square km), it is 56 ...
largest river of Poland and of the drainage basin of the Baltic Sea. With a length of 651 miles (1,047 kilometres) and a drainage basin of some 75,100 square miles ...
a blind spot (scotoma) or blind area within the normal bounds of vision. In most cases the blind spots or areas are persistent, but in some instances they may be ...
(Sanskrit: "All Accomplishing"), in Hindu mythology, the architect of the gods. The name was originally used as an epithet of any powerful god but later came to personify creative power. ...
the grape family of flowering plants, in the buckthorn order (Rhamnales), comprising 12 genera of woody plants, most of them tendril-bearing vines. The largest genus, which is pantropic in distribution, ...
relative frequencies of vital occurrences that affect changes in the size and composition of a population. When calculated per 1,000 inhabitants-as is conventional in vital-statistics publications-they are referred to as ...
school of scientific thought-the germ of which dates from Aristotle-that attempts (in opposition to mechanism and organicism) to explain the nature of life as resulting from a vital force peculiar ...
any of several organic substances that are necessary in small quantities for normal health and growth in higher forms of animal life. Vitamins are distinct in several ways from other ...
a fat-soluble alcohol, most abundant in fatty fish and especially in fish-liver oils. Vitamin A is also found in milk fat, eggs, and liver; synthetic vitamin A is added to ...
several vitamins that traditionally have been grouped together because of loose similarities in their properties, their distribution in natural sources, and their physiological functions, which overlap considerably. All the B ...
a complex water-soluble organic compound that is essential to a number of microorganisms and animals, including humans. Vitamin B12 aids in the development of red blood cells in higher animals. ...
water-soluble organic compound that is an essential micronutrient for microorganisms and animals. It occurs in three forms: pyridoxine (or pyridoxol), pyridoxal, and pyridoxamine. Pyridoxine was first isolated in 1938 and ...
water-soluble, carbohydrate-like substance that is involved in certain metabolic processes of animals. Although most animals can synthesize vitamin C, it is necessary in the diet of some, including humans and ...
any of a group of fat-soluble alcohols important in calcium metabolism in animals. It is formed by ultraviolet radiation (sunlight) of sterols present in the skin.
a fat-soluble compound found principally in certain plant oils and the leaves of green vegetables. Wheat-germ oil is a particularly rich source of the vitamin. Vitamin E, first recognized in ...
any of several fat-soluble naphthoquinone compounds present in the leaves of plants. Vitamin K (from the Danish word koagulation) is required for the synthesis of several blood ...
motion-picture projector patented by Thomas Armat in 1895; its principal features are retained in the modern projector: sprocketed film operated with a mechanism (the "Maltese cross") to stop each frame ...
oblast (province), northeastern Belarus. It has an area of 15,500 square miles (40,100 square km) and lies mostly in the broad, shallow basin of the Western Dvina River. To the ...
city and administrative centre of Vitebsk oblast (province), northeastern Belarus. It lies along the Western Dvina River at the latter's confluence with the Luchesa River. Vitebsk, first ...
city, capital of Viterbo province, Lazio (Latium) region, central Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Cimini Mountains, northwest of Rome. Of Etruscan origin, the town was taken ...
largest island (4,011 square miles [10,388 square km]) of Fiji, west of the Koro Sea in the South Pacific. Its name means "great Fiji." Sighted (1789) by Captain William Bligh ...
hereditary patchy loss of melanin pigment from the skin. Though the pigment-making cells of the skin, or melanocytes, are structurally intact, they have lost the ability to synthesize the pigment. ...
gently rolling plateau area of eastern Siberia, in Buryatiya and in Chita oblast (province), eastern Russia. The plateau is drained by the Vitim River and varies in height between 4,000 ...
river and tributary of the Lena River in eastern Siberia, Russia. It rises on the eastern slopes of the Ikat Mountains near the town of Bagdarin in Buryatiya and flows ...
(June 21, 1813), decisive battle of the Peninsular War that finally broke Napoleon's power in Spain. The battle was fought between a combined English, Spanish, and Portuguese army numbering 72,000 ...
Spanish theologian best remembered for his defense of the rights of the Indians of the New World against Spanish colonists and for his ideas of the limitations of justifiable warfare.
capital of Alava provincia (province), in Pais Vasco (Basque Country) comunidad autonoma (autonomous community), northeastern Spain. It is located north of the Vitoria ...
city, capital of Espirito Santo estado (state), eastern Brazil. It is situated on the western side of Vitoria Island, in Espirito Santo Bay. Founded in 1535 by ...
city, south-central Bahia estado (state), northeastern Brazil. It is situated in the Batalha Mountains at 3,040 feet (928 metres) above sea level. Elevated to city status in ...
any of certain hydrated sulfates or sulfuric acid. Most of the vitriols have important and varied industrial uses. Blue, or roman, vitriol is copper(II) sulfate pentahydrate; green vitriol-also called copperas, ...
city, Val-de-Marne departement, Paris region, France. Vitry-sur-Seine is a southeastern industrial and residential suburb of Paris and is separated from the city limits of the capital by the suburb of ...
one of the most original and creative of late Baroque church architects in all Europe and a primary figure in the brief flowering of Piedmontese architecture.
town, Ragusa provincia, southeastern Sicily, Italy. Vittoria is situated on a plain overlooking the Ippari River, west of Ragusa city. The town, which is gracefully laid out on a chessboard ...
novelist, translator, and literary critic, the author of outstanding novels of Italian Neorealism mirroring his country's experience of fascism and the social, political, and spiritual agonies of 20th-century man. With ...
town, Treviso provincia, Veneto regione, northeastern Italy, located north of Treviso. Formed in 1866 by the union of Serravalle, now the town's residential northern section, and Ceneda, the industrial southern ...
town, eastern Malta, one of the Three Cities (the others being Cospicua and Senglea). It is situated on a small peninsula, just south of Valletta across Grand Harbour. One of ...
ancient mountainous province of France, centred on the town of Viviers (Viviers-sur-Rhone) and corresponding approximately to the modern departement of Ardeche. The ancient Roman site, Vivarium, later became the episcopate ...
painter, one of the most important and prolific Venetian artists of the first half of the 15th century, founder of the studio of the influential Vivarini family of painters.
Hindu spiritual leader and reformer who attempted to combine Indian spirituality with Western material progress, maintaining that the two supplemented and complemented one another. His Absolute was man's own higher ...
any of 35 species of small Old World mammals including civets, genets, and linsangs. Viverrids are among the most poorly known carnivores. They are rarely encountered, being small and secretive ...
Spanish Humanist and student of Erasmus, eminent in education, philosophy, and psychology, who strongly opposed Scholasticism and emphasized induction as a method of inquiry.
