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White Horse, Vale of the

Vale of the White Horse, district (1991 pop. 109,200), Oxfordshire, S central England. The vale is the valley of the Ock River. Abingdon is the administrative seat. Surgical instruments and automobiles are produced in the vicinity. The region is rich in associations with Alfred the Great, who was born in Wantage, the central town of the vale. According to tradition, his victory at Ashdown in 871 was commemorated by the White Horse on White Horse Hill, but the horse is more ancient, roughly 3,000 years old. The figure of the horse, over 350 ft (107 m) long, is at Uffington, near Wantage; it is fully visible only from the air. It was formed by cutting away the turf to form a trench, which was backfilled with white chalk. An Iron Age fort, Uffington Castle, is on the hill top, and there are also burial mounds that date from the Neolithic period and Bronze Age. There are other "white horses" of various ages in Wiltshire, Berkshire, Yorkshire, and elsewhere, but the one at Uffington is the most famous.

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Copyright The Columbia University Press

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. The Columbia University Press

Whitehorse

Whitehorse, city (1991 pop. 17,925), S Yukon, Canada, on the Yukon River. Since 1952 it has been the territorial capital. Whitehorse is on the Alaska Highway and was the terminus of the White Pass and Yukon Railway from Skagway, Alaska, which suspended service in 1982. The city is the center of a copper-mining, hunting, and fur-trapping region that attracts growing numbers of tourists. After an economic lull in the mid-1980s, the discovery of the world's largest tungsten reserve at Mae Pass revitalized the city. It is headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for S Yukon and has an airport, a radio station, and a weather station. It was an important supply and stage center during the Klondike gold rush (1897–98). During World War II it was the center of the Canol oil project (closed in 1945).

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© Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes 2007, originally published by Oxford University Press 2007.

Oxford Dictionary of Rhymes Oxford University Press

Whitehorse

Whitehorsecoarse, corse, course, divorce, endorse (US indorse), enforce, force, gorse, hoarse, horse, morse, Norse, perforce, reinforce, sauce, source, torse •Wilberforce • workforce • packhorse •carthorse • racehorse • sea horse•hobby horse • Whitehorse •sawhorse, warhorse •clothes horse • shire horse •workhorse • racecourse • concourse •intercourse • watercourse •outsource

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Vale of the White Horse

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