Word: umbilicus
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Canada's barren backlots is a small area where the compass needle, properly suspended, points directly downward. This phenomenon does not usually terrify observers: they know that they are standing on the north magnetic pole, the umbilicus of the earth's magnetic field. When the magnetic pole changes its location, as it does, the needles of all the world's compasses shift a little...
...Baltimore Polytechnic. The Polytechnic taught him 1) that philanthropy was "a purely imaginary quantity, like demi-virginity or one glass of beer," and 2) that the eager curiosity of growing boys was not to be satisfied by anatomy classes in which "all the abdomen south of the umbilicus was represented by a smooth and quite uneventful surface...
...Caucasus, bounded by the Caspian and Black Seas, forms a rough umbilicus betweenAsia and Europe. Its broad steppes in the north and lush valleys in the south have offered a natural highway for migrating hordes. Its mountains, higher than any in Europe, run from northwest to southeast and form natural bastions for defenders. Successive waves of Persians, Khazars, Arabs, Huns, Turko-Mongols and Russians have died in defense of narrow Caucasian mountain passes, or in trying to storm them...