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Silphium perfoliatum (plant)
The base of each oval cup-plant (Silphium perfoliatum) leaf surrounds the square stem and may hold water. Compass plant, or pilotweed (S. laciniatum), is a prairie plant with large, deeply cut, lance-shaped leaves. It may grow to 3.5 metres (about 12 feet) and has a tall flower stalk with solitary large flowers....
Silsbee, J. L. (American architect)
Wright left Madison early in 1887 for Chicago, where he found employment with J.L. Silsbee, doing architectural detailing. Silsbee, a magnificent sketcher, inspired Wright to achieve a mastery of ductile line and telling accent. In time Wright found more rewarding work in the important architectural firm of Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan. Wright soon became chief assistant to Sullivan, and in......
silt (mineralogy)
sediment particles ranging from 0.004 to 0.06 mm (0.00016 to 0.0024 inch) in diameter irrespective of mineral type. Silt is easily transported by moving currents but settles in still water. It constitutes about 60 percent of the material in the Mississippi River delta. An unconsolidated aggregate of silt particles is also t...
siltstone (rock)
hardened sedimentary rock that is composed primarily of angular silt-sized particles (0.0039 to 0.063 mm [0.00015 to 0.0025 inch] in diameter) and is not laminated or easily split into thin layers. Siltstones, which are hard and durable, occur in thin layers rarely thick enough to be classified as formations....
Silun (Buddhist school)
...introduced the basic Yogacara teachings to China in the 6th century, and his translation of the Mahayana-samparigraha-shastra provided the foundation for the Silun school. Silun was succeeded as the major vehicle of Yogacara thought in China by the Faxiang school, which was founded by Xuanzang, the 7th-century Chinese pilgrim-translator, and his main......
Silures (people)
a powerful people of ancient Britain, occupying much of southeastern Wales. Incited by the king of the Trinovantes tribe, Caratacus, they fiercely resisted the Roman conquest from about ad 48. A Roman legionary fortress was established first at Glevum (Gloucester) and later at Isca (Caerleon), and by 78 the Silures were overcome by ...
Siluria (work by Murchison)
...director general of the Geological Survey of Great Britain and director of the Royal School of Mines and the Museum of Practical Geology, London. He prepared successive editions of his work Siluria (1854; 5th ed. 1872), which presented the main features of the original Silurian System together with information on new findings. In addition, he fought unsuccessfully against the......
Silurian Period (geochronology)
in geologic time, the third period of the Paleozoic Era. It began 443.7 million years ago and ended 416 million years ago, extending from the close of the Ordovician Period to the beginning of the Devonian Period....
Silurian System (geochronology)
in geologic time, the third period of the Paleozoic Era. It began 443.7 million years ago and ended 416 million years ago, extending from the close of the Ordovician Period to the beginning of the Devonian Period....
Silurian System, The (work by Murchison)
...Society, after serving as secretary for five years. In that same year he began his studies of the Early Paleozoic rocks in South Wales. His findings were embodied in the monumental work The Silurian System (1839). Following the establishment of the Silurian System, Murchison and Sedgwick founded the Devonian System, based on their research of the geology of southwestern England......
Siluridae (fish family)
...to Ictaluridae but with elongated adipose fin. Food, aquarium fishes. Size to 0.9 metres (about 3 feet). Asia and Africa. About 18 genera, 170 species.Family Siluridae (wels and glass catfishes)Body compressed; adipose fin lacking, anal fin very long; short dorsal fin (often lacking) without spine...
Siluriformes
any of the fishes of the order Siluriformes. Catfishes are related to the characins, carp, and minnows (order Cypriniformes) and may be placed with them in the superorder Ostariophysi. Some authorities, however, have regarded these groups as suborders, rather than a single order, and have classified them as the suborders Siluroidea (catfishes) and Cyprinoidea (characins, carp, and minnows) of the ...
Silurus glanis (fish)
large, voracious catfish of the family Siluridae, native to large rivers and lakes from central Europe to western Asia. One of the largest catfishes, as well as one of the largest of European freshwater fishes, the wels attains a length of about 4.5 m (15 feet) and a weight of 300 kg (660 pounds)....
Silva a la agricultura de la zona tórrida (work by Bello)
...South American landscape. These were published in London (1826–27) and were originally projected as part of a long, never-finished epic poem, América. The second of the two, Silva a la agricultura de la zona tórrida, is a poetic description of the products of tropical America, extolling the virtues of country life in a manner reminiscent of Virgil. It is one.....
Silva, Adhemar da (Brazilian athlete)
Brazilian athlete, winner of two Olympic gold medals and five world records in the triple jump. He was the first Brazilian to hold a world record in any event and was among the greatest South American athletes in his...
Silva, Adhemar Ferreira da (Brazilian athlete)
Brazilian athlete, winner of two Olympic gold medals and five world records in the triple jump. He was the first Brazilian to hold a world record in any event and was among the greatest South American athletes in his...
Silva, Antônio José da (Portuguese writer)
Portuguese writer whose comedies, farces, and operettas briefly revitalized the Portuguese theatre in a period of dramatic decadence....
Silva, Bartolomé Bueno da (Spanish explorer)
...part of Brazil was carried on by expeditions from São Paulo in the 17th century. Gold was discovered in the stream gravels of a tributary of the Araguaia River by the explorer Bartolomeu Bueno da Silva in 1682. The settlement he founded there, called Santa Anna, became the colonial town of Goiás, the former state capital. In 1744 the large inland area, much of it still......
Silva Costa, Heitor da (Brazilian engineer)
...day of Brazil’s independence from Portugal—although the monument’s final design had not yet been chosen. That same year a competition was held to find a designer, and the Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa was chosen on the basis of his sketches of a figure of Christ holding a cross in his right hand and the world in his left. In collaboration with Brazilian artist Ca...
Silva Guimarães, Bernardo Joaquim da (Brazilian author)
poet, dramatist, and regional novelist whose works marked a major transition toward greater realism in Brazilian literature and who was popular in his time as a minor Romantic novelist....
Silva Henríquez, Raúl Cardinal (Chilean cardinal)
Chilean Roman Catholic leader whose service as archbishop of Santiago from 1961 to 1983—cardinal from 1962—was marked by his unfailing courage in fighting for human rights during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte after he t...
Silva, José Asunción (Colombian poet)
Colombian poet whose metrical experimentation and romantic reminiscences introduced a melancholy lyricism new to Spanish-American poetry. His highly personal poetry was widely imitated and greatly influenced Modernist poetry in Spanish America....
Silva, Leônidas da (Brazilian athlete)
Brazilian association football (soccer) player (b. Sept. 6, 1913, Rio de Janeiro, Braz.—d. Jan. 24, 2004, São Paulo, Braz.), was Brazil’s first football hero and the high scorer at the 1938 World Cup finals with eight goals, including four against Poland in a round-of-16 match in which he played barefoot when his shoes came off in the mud. He was unexpectedly left out for the ...
Silva, Luiz Inácio da (president of Brazil)
Brazilian politician who served as president of Brazil from 2003 to 2011....
Silva, Marie-Hélène Vieira da (French artist)
Portuguese-born French painter of intricate, semiabstract compositions....
Silva Paranhos, José Maria da (Brazilian statesman)
...Brazil’s president, Rio de Janeiro was extensively rebuilt and aesthetically improved, and the city’s public health was drastically reformed, eliminating yellow fever. Through his foreign minister, José Maria da Silva Paranhos, border disputes were settled peacefully with Bolivia, Uruguay, British Guiana, and Suriname (Dutch Guiana). In 1918 Rodrigues Alves was reelected pr...
Silva Porto (Angola)
town (founded 1890), central Angola. It is the chief trade and market centre of the fertile Bié Plateau and processes rice and other grains, coffee, meat, and beeswax. The town suffered much damage in the civil war following Angola’s independence in 1975 and was almost totally destroyed in the fighting following multiparty elections in 1992 and again in 1998. The o...
Silva Porto, António Francisco Ferreira da (Portuguese explorer)
...task of rebuilding Kuito’s infrastructure began after the civil war ended in 2002. The Benguela Railway, crossing the country from east to west, passes just north of Kuito. The Portuguese explorer António Francisco Ferreira da Silva Porto, for whom the original settlement was named, had homesteaded and built a stockade nearby and in 1890 died there. The town is served by an airpor...
Silva Velázquez, Diego Rodríguez de (Spanish painter)
the most important Spanish painter of the 17th century, a giant of Western art....
Silva Xavier, Joaquim José da (Brazilian patriot)
Brazilian patriot and revolutionary who organized and led the first major outbreak against Portuguese rule in Brazil. Unsuccessful, he was tried and executed. The nobleness of Silva Xavier’s defense has made him a Brazilian national hero, and he is viewed as one of the precursors of independence in Latin America....
Silvae (work by Statius)
one of the principal Roman epic and lyric poets of the Silver Age of Latin literature (ad 18–133). His occasional poems, collected under the title Silvae (“Forests”), apart from their literary merit, are valuable for their description of the life style of a wealthy and fashionable class—the liberti—during the reign of the emperor Domit...
Silvanidae (insect)
any member of the insect family Silvanidae (order Coleoptera), closely related to and sometimes included in the flat bark beetle family Cucujidae. These beetles are usually less than 3 millimetres (0.1 inch) in length....
Silvanus (Roman general)
Postumus and another general, Silvanus, stayed behind in Colonia (Cologne) with Gallienus’ son Saloninus after the emperor had left the Rhine River for the Danube about 258. When Silvanus demanded that all booty be handed back to the treasury and its original owners, the reluctant troops proclaimed Postumus emperor, defeating and killing both Silvanus and Saloninus. Postumus successfully......
Silvanus (Roman god)
in Roman religion, the god of the countryside, similar in character to Faunus, the god of animals, with whom he is often identified; he is usually depicted in the guise of a countryman. Initially the spirit of the unreclaimed woodland fringing the settlement, he had some of the menace of the unknown. As clearings pushed bac...
Silvanus, Saint (Christian prophet)
early Christian prophet and missionary, companion of the Apostle St. Paul....
Silvaplana (Switzerland)
...where the Rhine connects with passes to the interior of the canton of Graubünden. In addition, settlements are found within the Alps, such as Amsteg on the Saint Gotthard Pass (Uri canton), Silvaplana, where the Julier Pass meets the Inn valley (the upper Engadin), and Gordola, at the junction of the Verzasca valley (Val Verzasca) and the Ticino River plain (near Locarno). In the......
Silvas americanas (work by Bello)
Bello’s position in literature is secured by his Silvas americanas, two poems, written during his residence in England, which convey the majestic impression of the South American landscape. These were published in London (1826–27) and were originally projected as part of a long, never-finished epic poem, América. The second of the two, Silva a la agricultura d...
Silvasa (India)
town, capital of Dadra and Nagar Haveli union territory, western India. The town is located about 13 miles (21 km) southeast of Daman on the Daman Ganga River, some 15 miles (25 km) inland from the Arabian Sea. It is the economic centre of the territory, which is prima...
Silvassa (India)
town, capital of Dadra and Nagar Haveli union territory, western India. The town is located about 13 miles (21 km) southeast of Daman on the Daman Ganga River, some 15 miles (25 km) inland from the Arabian Sea. It is the economic centre of the territory, which is prima...
Silvela, Francisco (Spanish politician)
Among the politicians themselves, the conservative leaders Francisco Silvela and Antonio Maura and the democratic liberal José Canalejas sought to regenerate the system by widening the degree of political participation through “sincere” elections. Opposed by the professional party members, Maura only succeeded in confusing the party structure by splitting the Conservative......
silver (chemical element)
chemical element, a white, lustrous metal valued for its decorative beauty and electrical conductivity. Silver is located in Group 11 (Ib) and Period 5 of the periodic table, between copper (Period...
Silver Age (Latin literature)
in Latin literature, the period from approximately ad 18 to 133, which was a time of marked literary achievement second only to the previous Golden Age (70 bc–ad 18). By the 1st century ad political patronage of the arts begun in the Augustan A...
Silver Age (philosopher)
...however; his original treatise De nominum analogia (1498; On the Analogy of Names), for example, can even pass as a prelude to modern linguistic philosophy. The so-called Silver Age of Scholastic thought, which occurred in the 16th century, is represented by two Spaniards: Francisco de Vitoria of the first half and Francisco Suárez of the last half of the......
silver azide (chemical compound)
A minor but still important segment of the explosives industry is the production of detonating agents, or such priming compositions as lead azide [Pb(N3)2], silver azide (AgN3), and mercury fulminate [Hg(ONC)2]. These are not nitrates or nitro compounds, although some other detonators are, but they all contain nitrogen, and nitric acid is involved in......
silver ball cactus (plant)
...Parodia, family Cactaceae, native in grasslands of South America. Small, globose to cylindroid, they are commonly cultivated as potted plants. P. scopa and P. leninghausii (silver ball and golden ball cacti, respectively) are most common and are valued for their woolly hair. These and other hairy species have small, often yellow to red flowers, sometimes only about 1 cm......
silver beard grass (plant)
...States. Broom sedge (A. virginicus) and bushy beard grass (A. glomeratus) are coarse grasses, unsuitable for forage, that grow in poor soils in eastern and southern North America. Silver beard grass (A. saccharoides), 0.6 to 1.3 m tall, has silvery white flower clusters 7 to 15 centimetres long; it is a forage grass in the southwestern United States....
silver beech (plant)
...(N. cunninghamii), a 60-m-tall Tasmanian tree important for its fine-textured wood; the slender, columnar red beech (N. fusca) of New Zealand, about 30 m tall; and the silver, or southland, beech (N. menziesii), a 30-m-tall New Zealand tree with doubly and bluntly toothed leaves bearing small, hairy pits beneath....
silver bells (plant)
(Halesia carolina), deciduous plant, of the storax family (Styracaceae), native to southeastern and southern United States and cultivat...
Silver Belt (region, Mexico)
...Mexico’s history. Mexico is the world’s leading producer of silver, which has long been the most valuable metal extracted there. The major mining area during the colonial period was the so-called Silver Belt, a region that extended from Guanajuato and Zacatecas in the Mesa Central to Chihuahua in the Mesa del Norte, with outposts such as San Luis Potosí farther east....
silver birch (tree)
(Betula alleghaniensis, or B. lutea), ornamental and timber tree of the family Betulaceae, native to the northeastern part of North America....
silver birch (tree)
Betula (birches), with about 60 species, is the largest genus in the family. B. pendula (silver birches) and B. nana (dwarf birches) are circumboreal (i.e., extending to the northern limit of the tree line); the two species very nearly coincide in their ranges, with the dwarf birches extending farther into the Arctic. They now occupy most areas that were glaciated until......
silver birch (plant)
ornamental, shade, and timber tree of the family Betulaceae, native to northern and central North America....
silver bromide (chemical compound)
...the development of barbiturates in the early 20th century, bromides of potassium, sodium, calcium, strontium, lithium, and ammonium were used widely in medicine because of their sedative action. Silver bromide (AgBr), an important component of photographic film, is, like silver chloride and iodide, light sensitive. Traces of potassium bromate (KBrO3) are added to wheat flour to......
“Silver Bullet, The” (play by O’Neill)
drama in eight scenes by Eugene O’Neill, produced in 1920 and published in 1921. The Emperor Jones was the playwright’s first foray into Expressionist writing....
silver carp (fish)
...competitor is the Asian carp. After having been taken to the United States in the 1970s to help control algae on catfish farms in the Deep South, bighead carp (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis) and silver carp (H. molitrix) escaped into the Mississippi River system during flooding episodes in the early 1990s. After establishing self-sustaining populations in the lower Mississippi River,...
silver chloride (chemical compound)
Magnesium dry cells, mostly used in military and rescue equipment, combine light weight, long storage life, and high energy content. The batteries consist of a magnesium anode and a cathode of silver chloride or cuprous chloride. When activated by water, they rapidly build up voltages of 1.3 to 1.8 volts and operate at a constant potential between -55° and 95° C (-67° and 200...
Silver City (New Mexico, United States)
town, seat (1874) of Grant county, southwestern New Mexico, U.S. It lies just east of the Continental Divide, at an altitude of 5,931 feet (1,808 metres) in the foothills of the Pinos Altos Range, on the edge of Gila National Forest (of which it is headquarters). It was established in 1870 as a Spanish settlement called San Vincente de la Ciénaga (Spani...
Silver City (ghost town, Idaho, United States)
ghost town, Owyhee county, southwestern Idaho, U.S., 37 miles (60 km) southwest of Boise. Founded March 10, 1863, it quickly displaced Ruby City as the centre of the Owyhee mines and was county seat from 1866 to 1935. Rich silver lodes in the nearby War Eagle and Florida mountains were the subject of great...
Silver Cord, The (work by Howard)
...story of an aging Italian immigrant in California and his mail-order bride that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1925 and was the basis of Frank Loesser’s musical The Most Happy Fella (1957); The Silver Cord (1926), a devastating portrait of a mother and the effects of her possessiveness on her sons’ lives; and Yellow Jack (1934, in collaboration with Paul de Kruif),...
silver dik-dik (mammal)
...that are adapted for life in the arid zones of eastern Africa. Three species inhabit the Horn of Africa: Guenther’s dik-dik (Madoqua guentheri), Salt’s dik-dik (M. saltiana), and the silver dik-dik (M. piacentinii). Kirk’s dik-dik (M. kirkii), the best-known dik-dik, is a common resident of acacia savannas in Kenya and Tanzania. Guenther’s...
Silver Disc machine (aircraft image by Cayley)
image of an aircraft engraved on a medallion by Sir George Cayley in 1799 with his initials to commemorate his conception of a powered aircraft....
Silver Dollar City (theme park, Missouri, United States)
...Tennessee, began building huge theatres along 5 miles (8 km) of road just west of downtown Branson. The popularity of these music shows has made Branson a family-entertainment and vacation centre. Silver Dollar City, a popular theme park with dozens of craftsmen demonstrating 1880s Ozark-style skills, is 9 miles (14 km) west. A commercial airport, the first in the country to have been financed....
Silver Dome (stadium, Pontiac, Michigan, United States)
...by a diagonally intersecting network of steel cables attached to a concrete compression ring at the perimeter. The Ōsaka pavilion system was later adapted for such large sports stadiums as the Silverdome (1975) in Pontiac, Mich., and the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (1982) in Minneapolis. Air-supported structures are perhaps the most cost-effective type of structure for very long spans....
silver eel (fish)
...the young fish gather by millions, forming a dense mass several miles long. In freshwater the eels grow to full size, becoming yellow eels. They live as such for 10 to 15 years before changing into silver eels, with enlarged eyes; they swim downstream to the sea, return to the spawning grounds (Sargasso Sea), and die....
Silver Fancy (Maryland, United States)
town, Frederick county, northern Maryland, U.S., near the Pennsylvania border, 23 miles (37 km) north-northeast of Frederick. Settled in the 1780s as Poplar Fields or Silver Fancy, it was renamed about 1786 for a local landowner named Emmit (sources disagree on his ...
silver fir (tree)
(Abies alba), tree growing to a height of 150 feet; abundant in the mountainous regions of central and southern Europe....
silver fox (red fox colour variation)
(Vulpes fulva), red fox of North America in that colour phase when the fur is black with interspersed silver-tipped hairs. See fox....
Silver Fox, the (American baseball player)
American professional baseball player who was best known for playing centre field on the famed “Boys of Summer” Brooklyn Dodgers teams of the 1950s....
silver gilt (metalwork)
gilded silver produced either by the fire-gilding method or by electrolysis. In the former, earlier method the object is covered with an amalgam of gold and mercury; the mercury evaporates when the piece is fired, leaving a gold deposit. In the latter method, the silver object is wired as the cathode and a bar of gold as the anode, and both are immersed in an electrolytic solution; when an ...
silver hake (fish)
...throughout the Atlantic, in the eastern Pacific, and along New Zealand. Species include the European and Mediterranean Merluccius merluccius, which grows to about 1.1 m (3.5 feet) long; the silver hake (M. bilinearis) of the American Atlantic; and the stockfish (M. capensis) of South Africa....
silver halide (chemical compound)
...and copper ions have one valence electron outside their closed shells. The outermost filled shell is a d-state and affects the bonding. Eight binary crystals are formed from the copper and silver halides. Three (AgF, AgCl, AgBr) have the sodium chloride structure with six neighbours. The other five (AgI, CuF, CuCl, CuBr, CuI) have the zinc blende structure with four neighbours. The......
silver hatchetfish (fish)
...cm in length, depending on the species. Though fragile, they are sometimes kept in home aquariums. Among those known to aquarists are the marbled hatchetfish (Carnegiella strigata), and the silver hatchetfish (Gasteropelecus sternicula), which is olive above and silver below....
Silver, Horace (American musician)
American jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader, exemplary performer of what came to be called the hard bop style of the 1950s and ’60s. The style was an extension of bebop, with elements of rhythm and blues, gospel, and Latin-American music added. The style was marked by increase...
silver iodide (chemical compound)
...with cloud seeding were conducted in 1946; since then seeding has been performed from aircraft, rockets, cannons, and ground generators. Many substances have been used, but solid carbon dioxide and silver iodide have been the most effective; when used in supercooled clouds (composed of water droplets at temperatures below freezing), they form nuclei around which the water droplets evaporate.......
silver king (fish)
The Atlantic tarpon (Megalops atlanticus; alternate name Tarpon atlanticus) is found inshore in warm parts of the Atlantic, on the Pacific side of Central America, and sometimes in rivers. Also called silver king, grand écaille, and sabalo real, it habitually breaks water and gulps air. It regularly grows to 1.8 metres (6 feet) and 45.4 kg (100 pounds) or larger and is a......
silver linden (plant)
The Atlantic tarpon (Megalops atlanticus; alternate name Tarpon atlanticus) is found inshore in warm parts of the Atlantic, on the Pacific side of Central America, and sometimes in rivers. Also called silver king, grand écaille, and sabalo real, it habitually breaks water and gulps air. It regularly grows to 1.8 metres (6 feet) and 45.4 kg (100 pounds) or larger and is a.........
Silver Lion (motion-picture award)
...best artist for his eye-popping retro-chic black-and-white installation Cafeteria, which took shape in the old cafeteria of the Palazzo delle Esposizioni (the former Italian Pavilion). The Silver Lion, citing the promise of a young artist, honoured Swedish artist Nathalie Djuberg, whose Experiment was a multimedia installation of nature gone awry. John Baldessari and Yoko Ono......
Silver, Long John (fictional character)
fictional character, resourceful pirate, one of the main characters in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Treasure Island (1881)....
silver maple (plant)
(Acer saccharinum), large, spreading tree, of the soapberry family (Sapindaceae), popular as a rapid-growing shade tree. Native to eastern North America, it is widely cultivated elsewhere....
silver medal (award)
In individual Olympic events, the award for first place is a gold (silver-gilt, with six grams of fine gold) medal, for second place a silver medal, and for third place a bronze medal. Solid gold medals were last given in 1912. The obverse side of the medal awarded in 2004 at Athens was altered for the first time since 1928 to better reflect the Greek origins of both the ancient and modern......
silver nitrate (chemical compound)
caustic chemical reagent and compound, important as an antiseptic, in the industrial preparation of other silver salts, and as a reagent in analytical chemistry. Its chemical formula is AgNO3. Applied to the skin and mucous membranes, silver nitrate is used ei...
silver oxide (chemical compound)
Silver oxides (both Ag2O and AgO) serve as the cathodic materials in silver-zinc primary and secondary (i.e., rechargeable) batteries. The high energy density of the primary batteries (as measured by available electrical energy per unit weight) is responsible for their employment as miniature power cells for cameras and timepieces....
silver oxide-zinc cell (battery)
Another alkaline system, this battery features a silver oxide cathode and a powdered zinc anode. Because it will tolerate relatively heavy current load pulses and has a high, nearly constant 1.5-volt operating voltage, the zinc–silver oxide battery is commonly used in the form of a button cell in watches, cameras, and hearing aids. In spite of its high cost, the outstanding......
Silver Party (political party, United States)
...subsidized government officials, and there were accusations that rich men in the state had bought seats in the U.S. Senate. Monetary issues became of paramount importance in the 1890s, and the Silver Party grew out of the Free Silver Movement, taking members from both the Democratic and Republican parties, though mostly the latter. In the 1890s, candidates of the Nevada Silver Party won......
Silver Pavilion (building, Kyōto, Japan)
Though ineffective as shogun, Yoshimasa was a great patron of the arts. After his retirement he built the famous Silver Pavilion (Ginkaku-ji) in the Higashiyama, or Eastern Hills, area of Kyōto. There he practiced the Japanese tea ceremony, which he developed into a fine art, and sponsored many noted artists, potters, and nō (classical dance-drama) performers. Today the Higashiyama.....
Silver Pit (trench, North Sea)
...feet (700 metres) in the Skagerrak. There also are some deep trenches in the western part of the North Sea, including Devils Hole off Edinburgh, where depths exceed 1,500 feet (450 metres), and Silver Pit, nearly 320 feet (95 metres) deep, off the bay of The Wash in England. These trenches may have been formed at the time of the last glaciation, when parts of the North Sea were free of ice,......
silver plating (metallurgy)
Copperplating is used extensively to prevent case hardening of steel on specified parts. The entire article may be copperplated and the plate ground off on the areas to be hardened. Silver plating is used on tableware and electrical contacts; it has also been used on engine bearings. The most extensive use of gold plating is on jewelry and watch cases. Zinc coatings prevent the corrosion of......
silver poplar (tree)
Two well-known poplar species of Eurasia are the white and the black poplar. The white poplar (P. alba)—also known as silver poplar for its leaves, which have white felted undersides, and as maple leaf poplar for the leaves’ lobed margins—is widely spreading in form, reaching 30 metres (100 feet) in height. Bolle’s poplar (P. alba variety bolleana) ...
silver processing
preparation of the ore for use in various products....
Silver, Ron (American actor and activist)
July 2, 1946New York, N.Y.March 15, 2009New York CityAmerican actor and activist who won a Tony Award for his role as a despicable Hollywood film producer in David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow (1988) and compi...
Silver, Ronald Arthur (American actor and activist)
July 2, 1946New York, N.Y.March 15, 2009New York CityAmerican actor and activist who won a Tony Award for his role as a despicable Hollywood film producer in David Mamet’s Speed-the-Plow (1988) and compi...
silver salmon (fish)
(Oncorhynchus kisutch), species of salmon, family Salmonidae, prized for food and sport. The coho may weigh up to 16 kg (35 pounds) and is recognized by the small spots on the back and upper tail-fin lobe. Young coho stay in fresh water for about one year before entering North Pacific waters; they mature in about three ye...
Silver Shield (ancient Greek soldier)
...of Alexander the Great, the Greek Eumenes of Cardia, was in effect traded by his troops to a rival for gain. Already under Alexander the elite troops known as “Silver Shields,” or argyraspides, had taken their name from the conquered Persian treasure of precious metal....
Silver Shirts (American organization)
...France by the Cagoulards (French: “Hooded Men”), in Hungary by the Arrow Cross, in England by the British Union of Fascists, and in the United States by the German-American Bund and the Silver Shirts....
Silver Spring (Maryland, United States)
unincorporated community, Montgomery county, central Maryland, U.S., a northern residential suburb of Washington, D.C. It was once the site of the estate of journalist and politician Francis Preston Blair (1791–1876), whose son, Montgomery, served as postmaster general in Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet. It derived its name from a lo...
Silver Springs (springs, Florida, United States)
series of artesian springs, in Marion county, north-central Florida, U.S., about 5 miles (8 km) east of Ocala. The springs, which discharge an average of more than 73,500,000 cubic feet (2,080,000 cubic metres) per day, have the world’s largest flow. The water maintains a constant temperature of 74 °F (23 °C). The source...
silver standard (economics)
monetary standard under which the basic unit of currency is defined as a stated quantity of silver and which is usually characterized by the coinage and circulation of silver, unrestricted convertibility of other money into silver, and the free import and export of silver for the settlement of international obligations....
Silver Sword, The (work by Serraillier)
...and in the publication of books, whether fiction or nonfiction, dealing responsibly and unsentimentally with the sufferings of a war-wounded world. One example among many was Serraillier’s Silver Sword (1958), recounting the trans-European adventures that befell four Polish children after the German occupation. The Silver Sword was a specialized instance of a general trend....
Silver Tassie, The (work by O’Casey)
...in 1926, met the Irish actress Eileen Carey Reynolds, married her, and henceforth made England his home. His decision to live outside Ireland was motivated in part by the Abbey’s rejection of The Silver Tassie, a partly Expressionist antiwar drama produced in England in 1929. Another Expressionist play, Within the Gates (1934), followed, in which the modern world is symboli...
silver tetra (fish)
The silver tetra (Ctenobrycon spilurus) is a deep-bodied fish that is flattened sidewise; it grows to 9 cm and is silvery in colour....