…the hard, solid, nonmetallic mineral matter of which rock is made, especially as a building material…
…(1902–78), US architect. His notable designs include the Museum of Modern Art in New York City 1937–39; the US embassy in New Delhi, India 1954–58; and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC 1964–69…
…(1872–1946), US chief justice 1941–46. He was the dean of the Columbia Law School 1910–24 and, briefly, US attorney general 1924 in President Coolidge’s cabinet before he was appointed to the US Supreme Court as an associate justice 1925–41. He was named chief justice by President Franklin D. Roosevelt…
…(1818–93), US feminist and abolitionist. The first woman from Massachusetts to earn a college degree (Oberlin College 1847), she traveled widely during the 1850s lecturing on women’s rights. In 1869, she founded the American Woman Suffrage Association, which merged with the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1890 to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association…
…(1946-), US movie director, screenwriter, and producer. He won Academy Awards for his adaptation of the novel Midnight Express (1978) and for his direction of Platoon (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989), both of which indict US involvement in the Vietnam War. Other notable movies: JFK (1991) and Natural Born Killers (1994)…
…a prehistoric period when weapons and tools were made of stone or of organic materials such as bone, wood, or horn…
…a type of oolitic limestone found especially near Bath in SW England, grey to yellowish in colour and used in building and sculpture…
…the sacred reddish-black stone built into the outside wall of the Kaaba and ritually touched by Muslim pilgrims…
…partly kaolinized granite containing plagioclase feldspar, ground and mixed with kaolin to make porcelain…
…an artificial stone claimed to have greater resistance to frost and heat than natural stone, formerly much used for statues, decorative work, etc.…
…a fruit with flesh or pulp enclosing a stone, such as a peach, plum, or cherry…
…an umbrella-shaped southern European pine tree with large needles, very large glossy brown cones, and edible seeds (“pine nuts”)…
…a large, polished, circular stone with an iron handle on top, used in the game of curling…
…a hard mass formed in the kidneys, typically consisting of insoluble calcium compounds; a renal calculus…
…a small succulent southern African plant that resembles a pebble in appearance. It consists of two fleshy cushionlike leaves divided by a slit through which a daisylike flower emerges…
…a monument erected by Mesha, king of Moab, in circa 850 bc which describes (in an early form of the Hebrew language) the campaign between Moab and ancient Israel (2 Kings 3), and bears an early example of an inscription in the Phoenician alphabet. It is now in the Louvre in Paris…
…an inscribed stone found near Rosetta on the western mouth of the Nile in 1799. Its text is written in three scripts: hieroglyphic, demotic, and Greek. The deciphering of the hieroglyphs by Jean-François Champollion in 1822 led to the interpretation of many other early records of Egyptian civilization…
…a megalithic monument of a type found mainly in western Europe, consisting of stones, typically standing stones, arranged more or less in a circle…
…limestone from the Isle of Portland in Dorset, highly prized as a building material…
…a highly attractive and valuable piece of mineral or rock, used especially in jewelry; a gemstone…
…used to emphasize that something is fixed and unchangeable…
…a granite mass east of Atlanta, Georgia, site of the Confederate Memorial Carving, the world’s largest bas-relief sculpture, which features the figures of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, all on horseback…
…a stone laid at a ceremony to celebrate the beginning of construction of a building…
…the stone on which medieval Scottish kings were crowned. It was brought to England by Edward I and preserved in the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey, and returned to Scotland in 1996. Also called Coronation stone, Stone of Destiny…
…a mythical substance supposed to change any metal into gold or silver and, according to some, to cure all diseases and prolong life indefinitely. Its discovery was the supreme object of alchemy…
