Word: archipelago
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...Cocos Islands, a glistening coral archipelago, lie midway between Australia and Ceylon in the Indian Ocean. The main island, with a population of 500, has been ruled more or less benevolently like a feudal fiefdom for the past 145 years by descendants of a Scottish sea captain named John Clunies-Ross. He settled in the coconut-growing islands in 1827, imported Malay workers from Java to harvest the copra for export, and in 1886 his grandson obtained a grant in perpetuity to the islands from Queen Victoria...
...nickel and timber. But intense nationalism and chronic political upheaval kept foreigners out until volatile President Sukarno was overthrown in 1965. Since the new government began encouraging outside investment two years later, hundreds of companies from Japan, the U.S., Europe and the Philippines have poured $250 million into the archipelago, mostly for mining and logging, and have pledged to spend another $1.15 billion. On top of that, they are spending $150 million annually exploring offshore...
...months the sign of the banyan tree has been sprouting all over Indonesia. Planes dropped leaflets and kites that displayed the spreading tree. Be-tjak (three-wheeled ricksha) drivers wore polo shirts imprinted with it. Practically every civil servant in the sprawling archipelago nation sported a button emblazoned with the symbol. Radio and television stations frequently played a song extolling the tree, traditional symbol of security, as the place "to hail while expecting the blessings...
...less is more. Photographer Wolberg offers a short history of microscopes, then dazzles the reader's retina with 220 amazing photographic enlargements of everything from the female sex organs of moss (blown up 300 times), to a virus (160,000 times its actual size) that greatly resembles an archipelago. The colors and textures are gorgeous, but at the price, they are a costly pleasure...
...crisscrossed the polar region by dog sled, snowmobile and airplane, and sailed into the ice aboard his sturdy schooner Bowdoin. All the while, he made vast contributions to the world's knowledge of Eskimos, glacial movements, polar flora and fauna, and the geography of the Canadian Arctic archipelago. He was 80 before he finally retired, and even then he lost none of his zest for adventure into the unknown. Three years ago, Astronaut Alan Shepard Jr. asked the admiral whether he might be available for a moon trip: "Damn right," replied MacMillan...