Melville Island

Island in the Timor Sea, 16 miles (26 km) off the coast of Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia. It is separated from the Australian mainland by Clarence Strait. Measuring about 80 by 55 miles (130 by 88 km), it has an area of 2,240 square miles (5,800 square km) and rises from sandy beaches and shoreline mangrove swamps to low wooded hills. It is divided from Bathurst Island (west) by the narrow Apsley

Loxonema

Genus of extinct gastropods (snails) found as fossils in rocks of Ordovician to Early Carboniferous age (505 to 320 million years ago). Loxonema has a distinctive high-spired, slender shell with fine axial ornamentational lines. A distinct lip is present at the base of the aperture of the main whorl.

Insectivore, Habitats

Insectivores utilize diverse habitats. Shrews occupy the ground surface in forests and grasslands but are less common in deserts, although Notiosorex and Diplomesodon occupy New and Old World deserts, respectively. Moles are largely confined to North Temperate Zone forests and meadows, especially in areas of deciduous forests and adjacent prairies. Hedgehogs

Music, Western, Monophonic secular song

Secular music undoubtedly flourished during the early Middle Ages, but, aside from sporadic references, the earliest accounts of such music in the Western world described the music of the goliards; these people were itinerant minor clerics and students who, from the 7th century on, roamed the land singing and playing topical songs dealing with love, war, famine, and

Scandinavian Literature, The literary Renaissance in Denmark

The literary Renaissance reached Denmark in the 1600s, giving rise to a strict adherence to classical patterns and blind belief in authority in political, religious, and literary matters. In religious literature Latin dogmatics and pamphlets reflecting the superstitions of the century were dominant. It was, however, a great era of scholarship. Ole Worm is famous for

Black Knot

Disease of wild and cultivated plums, cherries, and apricots in North America caused by the fungus Dibotryon morbosum. Infected twigs, branches, and fruit show light brown swellings that turn velvety olive-green in late spring. By autumn, hard, rough, coal-black knots girdle and kill affected parts. Older knots, often riddled by insects, stunt and kill the tree. Black knot

Indigirka River

River, Sakha republic (Yakutia), far eastern Russia. It is one of the major rivers of northeastern Siberia. The Indigirka rises in the Verkhoyansk Mountains and flows 1,072 miles (1,726 km) north through the Chersky Range into the broad Indigirka lowland, most of which is in tundra vegetation, to enter the East Siberian Sea through an extensive delta. Its two main tributaries are

Rach Gia

Port city, northern Ca Mau Peninsula, southern Vietnam. It lies at the head of Rach Gia Bay on the Gulf of Thailand, at the north bank of the Cai Lon estuary, 120 miles (195 km) southwest of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). Formerly Cambodian territory, in 1715 the flat, forest-covered swamp was placed under the protection of the Nguyen lords of Hue; its Cambodian name is Kramuon-Sa. It became

More, Sir Thomas

Also called  Saint Thomas More   humanist and statesman, chancellor of England (1529–32), who was beheaded for refusing to accept King Henry VIII as head of the Church of England. He is recognized as a saint by the Roman Catholic church.

Aesthetics, Symbolism in art

Later philosophers have been content merely to distinguish representation and expression as different modes of artistic meaning, characterized perhaps by different formal or semantic properties. Nelson Goodman of the United States is one such philosopher. His Languages of Art (1968) was the first work of analytical philosophy to produce a distinct and systematic

Mauritshuis

In full  Koninklijk Kabinet van Schilderijen (Mauritshuis), (Dutch: Royal Gallery of Paintings [Mauritshuis])  picture gallery in The Hague housed in a palace (1633–44) designed by Jacob van Campen and built by Pieter Post for Prince John Maurice of Nassau. The collection, opened to the public in 1820, is especially noted for its Flemish and Dutch paintings from the 15th to the 17th century.

Crocodile

The

Arfvedsonite

Amphibole mineral, an iron-rich sodium silicate. Lithium and magnesium replace iron in the structure to form eckermannite. Both minerals characteristically occur as dark-green crystals in alkali igneous rocks and their associated pegmatites. For chemical formula and detailed physical properties, see amphibole (table).