large bowl-shaped volcanic depression more than one kilometre in diameter and rimmed by infacing scarps. Calderas usually, if not always, form by the collapse of the top of a volcanic cone or group of cones because of removal of the suppor...

any system for dividing time over extended periods, such as days, months, or years, and arranging such divisions in a definite order. A calendar is convenient for regulating civil life and religious observances and for historical and scien...

Caliche and calcrete are obsolete terms for well-developed calcic horizons that are common to soils in arid and semi-arid areas, and which are now known to soil scientists and geomorphologists as Bk or K horizons. Caliche is also a colloqu...

Voted into law in 1994 by California voters Reprinted from Glenn Spencer's American Patrol Report (Web site) California voters approve a law designed to stop immigrants without visas from receiving public benefits from the state &#x...

Title given to those who succeeded the Prophet Muhammad as real or nominal ruler of the Muslim world, ostensibly with all his powers except that of prophecy. Controversy over the selection of the fourth caliph, &ayn;Alī, eventually s...

In Jack London's Call of the Wild Buck- a St. Bernard and Scotch Shepherd mix, is stolen from his civilized life in Santa Clara and suddenly has to adapt to a cold, harsh life in the Yukon Territory. Buck's lifestyle is going through many ...

c. 370-c. 310 B.C. Greek astronomer and mathematician who used mathematical astronomy for a number of purposes, including the creation of a 76-year cycle that aligned the solar and lunar years. Later astronomers used the 940-month calendar...

The nineteenth century witnessed a definitive resolution of questions regarding the nature of heat. The flow of heat was recognized as one way in which systems could exchange energy with their environment, and the equivalent of heat in me...

Device for measuring heat produced during a mechanical, electrical, or chemical reaction and for calculating the heat capacity of materials. A common design, known as a bomb calorimeter, consists of a reaction chamber surrounded by a liqui...

Imaginative, hilariously drawn, at times philosophical—all the while retaining a child's perspective—this daily and Sunday comic strip has been compared to the best of the classic comics. Written and drawn by Bill Watt...

John Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) was the thirtieth president of the United States. He has become symbolic of the smug and self-satisfied conservatism that helped bring on the Great Depression. Calvin Coolidge (he dropped the John after col...

Calvin Trillin is an important literary journalist whose most acclaimed work to date is Remembering Denny (1993), his rumination on the meaning of the life of a classmate at Yale who appeared destined for great things but whose life ended ...

country on the Indochinese mainland of Southeast Asia. Largely a land of plains and great rivers, Cambodia lies amid important overland and river trade routes linking China to India and Southeast Asia. The influences of many Asian cultures...

On 18 March 1970, while Cambodia's leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk (b. 1922), was on an official visit to the Soviet Union, he was deposed by his country's national assembly. Leading the coup against Sihanouk were his erstwhi...

Oldest time division of the Paleozoic Era. During the Cambrian, 542–488.3 million years ago, there were widespread seas and several scattered landmasses. The largest continent was Gondwana. The average climate was probably warmer tha...

Cambridge by Caryl Phillips Born in 1958 on the West Indian island of St. Kitts, Caryl Phillips was raised in Britain, where his family immigrated soon after his birth. While studying English literature at Oxford University, Phillips took a...

MYTH AND RITUAL SCHOOL. The term Myth and Ritual school refers to two movements, one in Great Britain in the second quarter of the twentieth century, connected with the name of S. H. Hooke of the University of London, and the other, less c...

Capturing an image from life was long ago the sole proprietorship of the skilled artist, whose brushstrokes precisely recreated portraits of man and landscape on canvas. That art is now shared by anyone who cares to peer through a camera&...

country lying at the junction of western and central Africa. Triangular in shape, it is bordered by Nigeria to the northwest, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, Congo (Brazzaville) to the southeast, Gabon and ...

Camille Jordan published papers in all branches of mathematics. In analysis he discovered the bounded function. In topology he investigated the relationship between a plane and a closed curve. However it is for algebra that Jordan is best ...

Golgi was born in Corteno, Italy, on July 7, 1843, the son of a physician. His home town was later renamed Corteno-Golgi in his honor. Golgi studied medicine at the University of Pavia, where he received his M.D. in 1865. After graduation,...

in military science, the art and practice of concealment and visual deception in war. It is the means of defeating enemy observation by concealing or disguising installations, personnel, equipment, and activities. Conventional camouflage i...

Campaign Finance Wherever one finds elections, one finds money. Add to this truism the fact that citizens always pay for parties and elections, whatever the particular financing scheme (private, public, or some mix). In spite of the appare...

Campbell, Norman Robert(1880 and George Schlesinger, Method in the Physical Sciences (London: Routledge and Paul, 1963), Ch. 3, Sec. 5....

Recreational activity in which participants live outdoors, often in the wilderness, usually using tents, trailers, or motor homes, but sometimes only a sleeping bag, for shelter. Modern camping originated near the end of the 19th century i...