Dewberry

Any blackberry of the genus Rubus (family Rosaceae) so lacking woody fibre in the stems that it trails along the ground. In the eastern and southern United States, several trailing native species of Rubus, especially R. flagellaris, R. baileyanus, R. hispidus, R. enslenii, and R. trivialis, produce excellent fruits. Some varieties, especially Lucretia, are cultivated. See

Syria, Railways

Syria's railways are well developed. A northern line runs northeastward from Aleppo into Turkey and then east along the border to al-Qamishli, where it crosses the northeastern extremity of Syria en route to Baghdad (Iraq). The Hejaz Railway runs from Damascus to Amman (Jordan), and a third runs from Aleppo to Tripoli (Lebanon). Aleppo and Damascus are also linked by rail. Smaller

Djibouti

Officially  Republic of Djibouti,  French  République de Djibouti,  Arabic  Jumhuriyah Jibuti,  formerly (until 1977)  French Territory of the Afars and Issas,   strategically located nation on the northeast coast of the Horn of Africa. It is situated on the Strait of Mandeb, which lies to the east and separates the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden. Small in size (8,950 square miles [23,200 square kilometres]), Djibouti is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Ethiopia to the west and southwest, and Somalia to the south. The Gulf of Tadjoura, which opens

Celtic Literature, Prose

The early Irish epic was a prose narrative that usually contained non-narrative poetic passages, often in dialogue form. The resemblance between this and the type of epic found in early Sanskrit suggests that the tradition went back to Indo-European times. The oldest sagas probably were first written down in the 7th and 8th centuries, from an oral tradition. These were

Oak Harbor

Town, Island county, northwestern Washington, U.S., on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound. It was settled in 1849 by seafaring men, and its first industry was shipbuilding. Dutch immigrants arrived in 1890 and began developing the rich farmland; their presence on the island is celebrated in the town's annual Holland Happenings festival. The chief agricultural products are dairy foods,

Habsburg, House Of

Even before Frederick III's time the House of Habsburg had won much of its standing in Germany and in central Europe through marriages to heiresses. Frederick's son Maximilian carried this matrimonial policy to heights of unequalled brilliance. First he himself in 1477 married the heiress of Burgundy, Charles the Bold's daughter Mary, with the result that the House of

Tarsal

Any of several short, angular bones that in humans make up the ankle and that—in animals that walk on their toes (e.g., dogs, cats) or on hoofs—are contained in the hock, lifted off the ground. The tarsals correspond to the carpal bones of the upper limb. In humans the tarsals, in combination with the metatarsal bones, form a longitudinal arch in the foot—a shape well adapted for

Agricola, Rodolphus

Agricola

Holliday, Doc

Holliday was reared in Georgia in the genteel tradition of the Old South, graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1872, and, already consumptive, moved west for drier climes. He practiced dentistry briefly in Dallas but soon discovered