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Abu al-Fida

(Encyclopedia)Abu al-Fida äˌbo͞o äl-fēˈdä, –fĭdäˈ [key], 1273–1331, Arab historian, b. Damascus. He fought against the Christians in the last period of the Crusades and later became (1310) governor of...

Rennell, James

(Encyclopedia)Rennell, James, 1742–1830, English cartographer, geographer, and oceanographer. He was surveyor general (1764–77) of Bengal and published A Bengal Atlas (1779). He constructed the first approximat...

Ptolemy

(Encyclopedia)Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus), fl. 2d cent. a.d., celebrated Greco-Egyptian mathematician, astronomer, and geographer. He made his observations in Alexandria and was the last great astronomer of ancie...

Fair, James Graham

(Encyclopedia)Fair, James Graham, 1831–94, American financier, b. near Belfast, Ireland. He emigrated to America as a child, grew up on an Illinois farm, and went west in 1851 in search of gold. In partnership wi...

Cordilleras

(Encyclopedia)Cordilleras kôrdĭlˈərəz, Span. kōrdēyāˈräs [key] [Span., originally=little string], general name for the entire chain of mountain systems of W North America, extending from N Alaska to Nicar...

Münster, Sebastian

(Encyclopedia)Münster, Sebastian sābäsˈtyänˌ münˈstər [key], 1489–1552, German scholar and geographer. He was a Franciscan monk but after the Reformation became a Protestant and taught at Heidelberg and ...

Sauer, Carl Ortwin

(Encyclopedia)Sauer, Carl Ortwin, 1889–1975, American geographer, b. Warrenton, Mo., grad. Univ. of Chicago (Ph.D., 1915). Sauer was a professor for over 50 years at the Univ. of California at Berkeley, where he ...

Smith, Sir George Adam

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Sir George Adam, 1856–1942, Scottish biblical scholar and Hebraist, b. Calcutta (now Kolkata), India. He was professor of Old Testament language, literature, and theology in the United Free C...

Sigüenza y Góngora, Carlos de

(Encyclopedia)Sigüenza y Góngora, Carlos de kärˈlōs ᵺā sēgwānˈsä ē gōngˈgōrä [key], 1645–1700, Mexican writer and humanist. The foremost intellectual figure of colonial Mexico, he wrote on mathem...

Brigham, Albert Perry

(Encyclopedia)Brigham, Albert Perry, 1855–1932, American geographer, b. Perry, N.Y., grad. Colgate Univ., 1879, M. A. Harvard, 1892. After nine years in the Baptist ministry (1882–91) he became professor of geo...
 

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